Page 50 of Wild Rivals

“Would you ever consider stopping them?” I ask, genuinely curious.

She shakes her head, readjusting her grip on her reins as we amble along. “No, I don’t think so. It would be a complete overhaul of everything we have going on now and with no guarantee that it would work. Besides, that would put us in direct competition with you.” She winks at me.

I aim my best panty-melting smile at her and lean in before saying, “Hardly competition, darlin’.”

Her nostrils flare when she sucks in a breath, like maybe she’s not as unaffected by me as she used to be. Fuck, if I don’t want to kiss her. If we weren’t on these damn horses, I might just do it.

Maddie pulls herself together first, moving her horse away and further into the field. I straighten in my saddle, cursing myself for wanting her. She’s as off-limits as I can get.

Even if I forget about what happened with Autumn—how that tourist broke her—there’s too much history between me and Deacon. Too much shit that’s never been put to bed for Maddie and me to ever be more than those two “mistakes.” Sure, I’ve painted her with the same brush as her brother, and I’m starting to see that I was wrong to do that, but it doesn’t change our history. And yet, as I watch her, I can’t help but wonder if it would be so bad if we went on a date or became friends.

“It looks like it’s going to rain,” Maddie calls, her head tipped back and one hand on her Stetson as she stares up at the sky and the dark clouds that are forming.

I follow her gaze and the first big fat raindrop hits me on the forehead.

There’s no way we’re going to make it back without getting soaked. Still, we both kick our horses into a gallop and take off across the open fields we’d just trotted through. As if they’re up for trying to outrun the rain, the horses’ feet pound the dirt beneath us.

Adrenaline courses through my body, and I move as one with the animal beneath me. I catch a glimpse of Maddie beside me, a smile on her face that transforms her features. She’s enjoying the thrill of the race as much as I am.

My breath gets lodged in my throat, and for a second, I wish I had a way to capture the way she looks right now. She’s fucking beautiful.

The heavens open above us and the torrential downpour forces me to refocus my attention on the path in front of me or risk having an accident. The ghost of her image, of the carefree smile lighting up her features, chases me all the way back to the ranch.

31

MADDIE

Our clothes are soaked through when we stumble into my house through the back door. We cover the hardwood floor in water droplets and muddy footprints as we enter the mud room.

Inevitably, Wyatt and I got caught in the rain on the ride home from pasture thirty-six. Even though it would have been impossible to make it back given how far away from any buildings we were, we still tried. I haven’t felt that kind of exhilaration in a long time and I can’t help but feel that maybe Wyatt has something to do with that.

I kick off my boots and bend to pull off my socks before dropping them to the floor next to my shoes. Thank God for heated flooring. I wouldn’t normally have it on in the middle of summer, but I switched it on via my phone when we reached the barn with the horses.

Without checking to see if Wyatt is following me, I head for the laundry room on the opposite side of the kitchen. There is a pile of clean towels in there that haven’t quite made it upstairs yet, so we can get dried off and maybe throw our clothes in the dryer while we’re at it. I don’t know about Wyatt, but everything I’m wearing is soaked through.

He’s going to be naked in my house.

I push the thought away, focusing on the physical motions I need to go through because if I focus too hard on that I might ask him for more.

Pulling two towels out of the laundry basket, I shove them into the dryer before turning to hand another one to Wyatt. He throws the towel over his head, drying his hair as I run mine over my face and down my neck.

An involuntary shiver runs down my spine when I catch sight of him. If I thought his white T-shirt was molded to his body earlier, it’s now plastered, leaving nothing to my imagination.

When he pulls the towel off his head, I swallow thickly as I stare at his now messy hair, remembering what the strands felt like between my fingers. The air is sucked out of the room, and the sound of the dryer becomes muted as I watch him and he watches me. I dare not move, let alone speak, in case the tension swirling between us snaps. We can’t do this again, and yet I find myself unable to come up with a reason as to why.

Wyatt throws his towel on the counter; it lands with a soft thud, and I flinch, my body on high alert and in desperate need of his touch. He pauses, his gaze assessing as he reaches for the hem of his T-shirt, like he’s not sure if he should.

In hindsight, we should have stayed in the barn—in a building full of people—until the rain stopped, but no, silly old me wanted to get changed and offered Wyatt to come back to my place where we’d be all alone. I was only thinking of how I needed to get us somewhere that Deacon wouldn’t find him; it didn’t cross my mind that I’d be isolating us. Now we’re here and there’s nothing to stop us from colliding. Not even my own sanity.

Wyatt drags the soaked material up his body at an excruciatingly slow pace, and I suck in a sharp breath as he slowly reveals his torso to me, inch by glorious inch. I want to lick him; he looks so delectable. It doesn’t escape my attention that this is the first time neither of us has been consumed by our emotions—there’s no anger or jealousy—and we can actually revel in the moment.

Wyatt throws the wet T-shirt onto the counter, and it lands with a sharp slap next to his towel. A shiver runs down my spine, but I can’t tell if it’s because I’m cold in the air-conditioned room or from the anticipation of what I know is to come. There’s no denying that our years of friction have created the most combustible tension between us.

He reaches out, taking the towel from my hands. I don’t put up a fight. Hell, I don’t want to put up a fight. I don’t want to stop whatever is happening; I just want to have him again. I’ll deal with the fallout later.

With nothing to hold on to, my arms drop to my side, and I search his face for answers to questions I don’t dare voice as he closes the gap between us.

Pinching the sodden material of my T-shirt, he pulls it from the waistband of my jeans before gripping the hem and pulling it up my body without a single protest from me.