“It was some new guy who I didn’t know, and even if I had, he probably wouldn’t have recognized me. I was wearing a baseball cap and big sunglasses. The publicity was in full swing for Demon High, and I was already starting to hide out from the paparazzi. I hadn’t wanted any of them following me out to see you.”
“But you didn’t see me,” he quickly pointed out. “Why? What the heck was I doing that turned you off so much that you’d leave without saying a word?”
Here was more of that long painful story, but this part wasn’t going to be nearly as easy to explain. “You were just riding, cutting through some cattle. I think you were checking on them, maybe even counting them.” And it had most certainly not been a turnoff. Just the opposite. She’d wanted to go to him and pull him into her arms. “You looked...content.”
That was the word that had come to mind then, and it came again. Normally, that was a good word, but it hadn’t been eighteen and a half years ago.
“Content,” he spit out. “Yeah, I could see why that would send you running.” And yes, it was doused with plenty of sarcasm.
“It did send me running. Or rather, slinking away. Because in that moment I realized the ranch was the center of your universe. Your happy place. You definitely weren’t crying buckets of tears over me.” She could douse with some sarcasm, too, but it was short-lived because this particular old memory still carried a lot of pain.
“And you thought you’d...what? Map out my future for me? A future that didn’t involve Tessie or you?”
“Something like that,” Eve admitted, though it was going to earn her a huff. It did. “I knew you wouldn’t be happy in California. And I also knew you hadn’t forgiven me for Brett. Or for leaving. Plus, there was that little detail about you being a teenager and not wanting children. I was more or less locked into a future, but I didn’t want to lock you in there with me.”
He gave her one of those angry, flat looks, but Lawson must have remembered how things were then. Emotions had been high. Like now. The anger had been thick and hot. Also like now. But the old attraction would have been there, too.
Like now.
“You would have resented it,” Eve added before he could argue. “Maybe not right then, but eventually you would have. If I’d told you that day in the pasture that I was pregnant, you would have been shocked. But you would have done the right thing. You would have asked me to marry you. I would have said yes because I was crying buckets and was lonely, and our marriage would have failed because we had too many strikes against us.”
Of course, she’d just proved him right about her mapping out his future. Apparently, she’d mapped out a predicted outcome, too, which meant she’d said too much. She should have stopped after the first thank you and headed to bed. And that was what she turned to do. But Lawson stopped her in her tracks.
“You’re right,” he said.
At first, she thought this might be part of his continuing sarcasm, but there didn’t appear to be any of it in his expression. Or his next grunt. In fact, his grunt seemed to be one of frustration. Not with her but with himself. Then again, that might be wishful thinking on her part.
“You cried buckets over me,” he said. “I’m guessing that’s a higher amount than usual for a teenage girl with a broken heart?”
She nodded. “I made everyone around me miserable.”
He nodded, too, paused and blew out a heavy breath. “Yeah, I did the same. No tear-filled buckets, but there were lots of fights, skipping school and generally making a nuisance of myself. Roman threatened to drown me in the creek. My mom came home and made me see a counselor. That’s when I started saying fuck this and shit on a daily basis.”
The relief came, and it felt as if a heavy weight lifted off her shoulders. Not because she was glad that Lawson had gone through the same hell she had but because it finally felt as if they’d cleared some old, stenchy air between them.
“But it got better.” Eve made sure that didn’t sound like a question. Made sure she didn’t mention Darby, either.
“Eventually. But during those dark days, my dad flew in just to tell me to suck it up and take it like a man. Dylan set me up with his girlfriends’ and former girlfriends’ sisters. And Lucian hired me a hooker.”
That didn’t stench up the air again. At least it probably didn’t, but it was a surprise. “A hooker?”
He lifted his shoulder. “I’m pretty sure she was one, anyway. Lucian’s not very good at solving teenager angst. He just wanted me to shut up and quit causing problems since he was the one who was having to deal with the aftermath of most of those problems. I guess he figured if I kept busy having sex, I’d stay out of trouble.”
And just like that, the air changed between them.
Eve was very familiar with that specific type of air change, especially when coupled with the mention of sex.
She fluttered her fingers toward the bedroom. “I should take that shower and get some sleep.”
Eve got her feet working, and she even managed a few steps, but just as quickly, she found herself turning around to tell Lawson that they should keep their hands off each other. In the split second she did the turn around, she also came up with some reasons.
Fatigue, bad timing, spent adrenaline from worry. Oh, she couldn’t forget the part about this complicating the heck out of their lives.
Eve might have actually managed to voice some of those reasons if she hadn’t landed right in Lawson’s arms. He didn’t kiss her. Didn’t really touch her except for the loose grip he had on her. She could have easily slipped away from him at any time.
She didn’t.
She stayed put and made matters worse by looking up at him. They were too close and she took in his scent. She wasn’t sure how he could smell both cowboy and expensive at the same time, but he managed it.
Eve’s gaze went from his eyes. To his mouth. And that’s when she realized he was doing the same thing. He was looking at her as if trying to decide just how much to mess this up. She went for the mess-up first though by attempting to keep this light. Like a joke.
“Touch, lick or kiss?” she asked, and Eve made sure she added a wink to it.
Lawson didn’t wink.
“All of them,” he drawled, and this time when he pulled her to him, there was indeed some touching going on.
*
APPARENTLY, AIR CLEARINGS could turn into some mighty serious foreplay. Of course, breathing could be foreplay, too, when it came to Eve.
Touching took the foreplay up a whole bunch of notches when their bodies landed against each other. It wasn’t really a surprise that his most prominent male feature thought this was a stellar idea. His dick was stupid. So was he. Because he immediately added yet another component to this.
Kissing.
His mouth located hers. Not that he had to search long for it. Eve was already moving in on him, and their lips met a little harder than he’d planned. There might have been some pain involved, but the pleasure had a way of overriding that. Overriding any tiny shred of common sense, too. That’s because the kiss was an ultimate pleasure generator. Third only to touching and sex.