Page 88 of Last Chance Cowboy
“But it’s such a terrible idea, and I also figured you were pretty smart, so I guess I was hoping that you weren’t.”
“You were hoping that I wasn’t attracted to you?”
“I was hoping that you were smart. Smarter than me. And I suppose I was kind of hoping that you being smarter than me would protect us both.”
“Sorry. I guess I wasn’t any smarter than you. But… I came out here to try new things.”
“I’m not really sure how I feel about that. Being a new thing.”
“Well, it wasn’t really specific to you, I guess. It was more that I hadn’t… You know, I hadn’t had sex.”
“Yeah. We have been over that.” He cleared his throat as he turned onto her street. “You thought that you would get some easier sex than you were going to get from me.”
“It seemed smart. I was trying to be smart. The problem is,I don’t think logic comes into the equation here. Just…” He could feel her looking at him. “Chemistry.”
Chemistry. He supposed that was what it was. He never experienced it, not specifically.
But she had been something he couldn’t leave alone from the moment he’d first laid eyes on her.
“Do you know how pissed off I was the first time I saw you?” He pulled up to the front of her house and turned the engine off.
He stared straight ahead and didn’t look at her, even though he could feel her looking at the side of his head with shock. He didn’t know why he could even feel her emotion, but he could.
“You were mad?” she asked.
“Yes. Because there you were, so soft and feminine and pretty, and I wanted you. I knew that I couldn’t have you. Because you were all those things. And I am… I am so fucked up, Cara. I know that you know what happened to me. But I don’t know if you understand… I don’t know how to… I don’t know how to not be alone. I don’t know how to be soft. If I were a better man, then I would have looked away from you and never gone near you again. But I didn’t. I attempted it. Every day. I put myself in the path of temptation because I knew that eventually I would give in. If I’m honest, that’s what Iwanted. From the beginning.”
Silence bloomed between them like flowers, delicate and new, and not bad at all. Neither of them moved or spoke. But he wanted to move. Wanted to touch her. Take her right there in her driveway.
“Why don’t you come inside?” she asked.
She slipped out of the truck, and he took a deep breath and let it out slowly to see if it eased any of the tension in his chest. It didn’t.
He was filled with a particular feeling that was likehalf-dread, half-hope. He knew dread. It lived in his chest, a lead weight that kept his heart from beating too fast. Kept his body from anticipating anything too good.
But that hope was new. Something almost buoyant, in a fight with that dreaded weight.
He didn’t know if he liked it or hated it.
He got out of the truck slowly, weighed down and buoyed up, and followed behind her on the very well-groomed path into her adorable little house.
Stopping by was different than knowing he was going to stay for the night.
Perversely, it turned him on.
Being in this place that was all hers. Delicate and pretty, something so sweet and soft and nothing he’d ever have for himself.
Maybe it was just the glory of giving in.
Because he was. They were both diving headfirst into this now. There was no more resistance.
No more second-guessing. He knew he shouldn’t do it. He knew it was a mistake. But he was doing it.
He’d been living in that resistance for months.
Hell, he’d been living in the state of resistance for a long time. Holding himself back from everything.
Giving in for just moments at a time, getting to immerse in her was something new altogether.
