by Elle Thorpe
“Can I stay here tonight?” she asked, as I handed her the makeshift icepack. “The hotel is booked out.” She threw me a smile. “I can take an exorbitantly long shower if you want to finish your ‘movie.’”
“Of course you can stay. I’ll take the couch.”
But she shook her head hard. “No, this is your room, and I’m half your size. The couch is fine.”
I studied her. “You seem to be taking this remarkably well.”
She shrugged. “It is what it is.”
I frowned. “It was a long-term relationship. And it just ended very abruptly.” I realized as I said the words that she hadn’t actually said it was over between the two of them. Maybe that’s why she wasn’t upset. Fuck. I hated the idea that this might not have been a deal breaker when she deserved so much better. “It did end, right?”
Her eyes widened. “What? Of course! There’s no way I’d stay with him after that.”
“Good.”
We lapsed into silence, both of us just sitting beside each other on the couch, staring at the muted porn.
She elbowed me. “You think I’m beautiful, huh?”
I glanced over at her, and the corner of her mouth was lifted. I elbowed her back. “You’re all right, I suppose.”
She smiled, but then there was another knock on the door, and I got up again to take my dinner from the hotel attendant. I took it to the kitchen countertop, since there was no table, and motioned for Summer to join me. “Did you eat?”
She shook her head. “Was too busy breaking up.”
“Come on then, this is huge, and I can’t eat it all myself.” It was a total lie, I could have easily demolished the entire burger and fries, but I wanted her to eat more than I cared to feed the rumble in my belly.
Summer wandered over and plucked a fry from my plate, nibbling on the end of it. We finished the food quickly, and then she disappeared into the bathroom. I turned off the porn and went back to shark documentaries while I waited for her.
After a while, the door opened, and she stuck her head out, steam billowing behind her. “Hey, Dom?” Her cheeks were pink, and judging from the awkward way she bit her lip, it was from embarrassment and not the warm water. “I just realized I have no pajamas.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You sleep naked?” I had to pinch myself hard on the arm in order to not think about her slender body, bare and wrapped in silky sheets. That would be the complete undoing of me.
“I wasn’t really planning on sleeping much tonight.”
I stifled a groan. That was what I got for thinking about her naked. A firm slap in the face with a reminder she wasn’t mine. “You want to borrow a shirt?”
“If you don’t mind.”
I reached across the bed and rifled through my bag, pulling out the old Wyoming Knights T-shirt that I slept in, and tossed it at her. She darted one hand out from behind the partially closed door and caught it, but not before I realized she was wrapped only in a thick white hotel towel. Her arms were bare and brown and still dotted with water droplets. The swell of her breasts dipped below the fabric, and her toned legs peeked out from below.
It was the sexiest I’d ever seen her, her hair wet, skin gleaming. I had to drag my gaze away by its ear and give it a stern talking to.
She wasn’t with Austin anymore. That thought kept running through my head, and though it filled me with impatient excitement, I was smart enough to not let it give me hope. Tonight was not the night to make a move, and we were pretty firmly in the friend zone. I wasn’t entirely sure we’d ever be able to make it out, even if she wanted to.
But I wanted to. Not tonight. Probably not even next week. But at some point soon, I was going to tell Summer Hunt exactly how I felt about her, and I was going to hope like hell that she felt the same way back.
“Thanks.” She closed the door.
When she reappeared in my shirt, I knew it was time for me to go to bed before I made a fool of myself. The fabric skimmed the tops of her bare thighs, and there was no controlling my gaze as it rolled up her legs, settling on the hem. How easy it would be to lift it straight off her and see everything she had beneath.
Instead, I tossed her a blanket and a pillow and switched off the lights. It was still pretty early for a weekend, but I didn’t miss the weary way she moved, and the yawn she’d stifled during dinner. Plus, I needed the darkness to cover the fact that Summer in close quarters, and wearing my clothes, was doing things to me. Things that were decidedly unfriend-like.
I slid beneath the blankets of the bed and undid my jeans, tugging them off, pulling them out, and throwing them to the floor.
Summer watched. “Didn’t pick you for the modest type.”
“I’m not, really. But I didn’t think you’d particularly want to see me in my underwear either.”
There was a momentary pause.
And hell if I didn’t feel something change in the air between us. I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
Her gaze burned through me like she was seeing me for the first time. “You might be surprised at what I want.”
My breath stuttered in my chest, while my damn dick kicked to attention. “Summer…” Fuck, what was she saying? I was suddenly flashing back to the morning at the diner, and the brief moment of insanity when I’d taken the chance to shoot my shot.
She’d turned it down. And rightly so since she had a boyfriend.
She didn’t have a boyfriend anymore.
Her eyes darkened in the already dimly lit room. “I hate him. I tried to wash the thought of him away, but the shower didn’t work. You’re here. I’m here. We’re both adults.” She shrugged.
Jesus Christ. I planted my fingers into the sheets, bunching them up until the veins in my forearms popped. I forced myself to remain still, but my heart thumped at the thought of what she was offering. Every part of my body wanted it. It would have been so easy to throw caution to the wind, to get caught up in the moment, and to do what came naturally. I squeezed my eyes tight, my dick throbbing behind my underwear. Then I drew up every ounce of willpower in my body and forced out the words I knew deep in my heart were right. “I think we should probably go to sleep.”
I immediately wanted to punch myself in the balls. Going to sleep was the last thing I wanted when she was looking at me with eyes that begged me to fuck her. But dammit. She was angry, and she just wanted a revenge screw. I couldn’t do that. Not with her.
I wanted more than that. So much more.
I respected her too much to take advantage of her tonight, no matter how much my body begged to cave in.
She nodded and sank down on the couch, the fire going out in her eyes. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s not that I don’t want to…”
Summer groaned and pulled the blanket over her head. “This is embarrassing. Please don’t try to explain. Let’s just pretend it never happened.”
I frowned, but she wasn’t coming out from underneath the blanket so there wasn’t much else I could do but agree. “Goodnight, Summer.”
“Night.”
We lapsed into silence, but I couldn’t sleep. I lay there, watching the dark lump on the couch twist and flail around.
The minutes became hours, and eventually Summer settled down.
Only then did I let myself relax.
I was verging on sleep when she let out a tiny sob. It was quickly followed by more, until they turned into heaving cries that racked her entire body, while she shoved the end of the blanket in her mouth, trying to muffle them.
I squeezed my eyes tight and hated Austin, with every inch of my body, for making her cry like that. Her tears were so filled with pain, each cry was a needle stabbing through my heart until I couldn’t take for it a moment longer.
I pushed off the bed and stormed to the couch, crouching so I was eye height with her.
She didn’t try to talk. The agony in her eyes was too overwhelming.
So I did the only thing I could think
of.
I scooped her into my arms and held her to my chest.
Her head immediately fell to my shoulder, her good arm wrapping around me while she cried into my neck. All the anger from earlier had disappeared, leaving her a sad, broken shell of the woman I knew.
Before this, fragile was not a word I would have ever used to describe Summer. But in that moment, she was as breakable as glass.
But she’d let me in. She held me close as I took her to my bed, placing her gently down on the starched white sheets.
She stared up at me with big brown eyes, still filled with tears. “Did you change your mind?” she whispered desperately.
The question ripped through me. She wanted me to take the pain away, if only for a few minutes. But I couldn’t. Not the way she wanted me to. It would end me. It would end us, before we’d even gotten a chance to start.
“No,” I whispered. But I laid down and pulled her tight, wrapping my arms around her. “Sleep.” I lowered my lips to press a gentle kiss on her forehead and breathed in her scent. I knew it would drive me insane all night. I already had my hips well away from her, because my damn dick couldn’t be trusted. “Just sleep, Summer.”
Her muscles relaxed one by one, until her erratic breathing slowed, becoming deep and even.
Safe in my arms, she fell asleep in minutes.
While I was just beginning the longest night of my life, in a hell of my own making. I had no idea how I was going to get through the next few hours without losing my mind completely.
Because my heart had already fled my body and was beating for her.
13
DOMINIC
In the middle of a new group of young cowboys, Summer was the shortest by more than a head. Those boys towered over her, but they may as well have been ant-sized, judging by the way they stared at her in a mixture of shock, awe, and more than a touch of fear.
She eyed each one of them, staring them straight in the eye as if she were taming a wild horse, letting each of them know exactly who was boss. “There are rules here,” she yelled. “Me and the other trainers expect that you will follow them. Do not waste our time. If we say to be in the ring by 6 a.m., you’re here at five to. Got it?”
Frost cleared his throat softly, and I glanced over at him. His eyebrows were drawn together, giving off a fierce vibe that was almost as scary as his daughter. If I’d been one of those brand-new cowboys, huddled in a group, I would be terrified of the two of them.
But I knew Frost better now. I’d been here almost a month, and I knew the face he wore in this moment had nothing to do with his new charges. And everything to do with his daughter.
Summer had been in a funk ever since we’d come back from the city. Her breakup with Austin had sent her spiraling, and as yet, none of us had dared approach her about it. It was the elephant in the room that we all tiptoed around.
“Right, so now that you know the rules, get your asses over to the seats, and listen, because I’m not going to say this twice.”
Frost strode by me and muttered, “She’s getting worse.”
He didn’t have to tell me. I could see it, too. She was sinking further and further into the anger that had bloomed around her that night in the city, and instead of it dissipating with time, as I’d assumed it would if we just left her alone, it only seemed to be getting worse.
My phone rang, and Summer shot me a dirty look for interrupting her class.
Thank God her facial expressions couldn’t kill because if they could, my head would have been rolling on the ground, covered in dirt. “Lesson twelve,” I joked to the group of cowboys, trying to lighten the situation a little. It was their first day, and I really felt sorry for how hard Summer was coming down on them. Half of them were ready to piss their pants. “Don’t leave your phone on during class or Summer will have your head.”
There was a titter of laughter.
Summer didn’t even crack a smile.
“I’ll go somewhere else to answer this then.”
She glared. “You think?”
Yikes. The mood this morning was as bad as I’d seen her yet. I knew she wouldn’t need me for a little bit, she still had some basics to run through with the group. I slunk away to the other side of the ring, so I could still watch and make sure she didn’t try to dropkick a student, but I was far enough away that my conversation wouldn’t upset her any further.
“Hello?”
“Hey, man, it’s me.”
Julian. I swallowed hard. “You got something for me? It’s been weeks.”
“Yeah, I know. Turns out it was a little harder than I expected, but I had a breakthrough last night. You sitting down?”
“No.”
“Maybe you should.”
“Just tell me.”
“Fine. You do have a brother named Felix Kaur. He’s older than you by—”
“Wait, what? He’s older? I thought you said he was twelve?”
“I was getting to that. You have two younger siblings. Micah is eleven. I think he’s the one I saw at your birth mom’s house that morning. And you have a younger sister named Lila, too. She’s nine. Their father is Maria Kaur’s current live-in partner.”
“So who the fuck is Felix?”
“It seems she had another son she gave up for adoption before you. He’s about twelve months older.”
“How does he know about me, though?”
“No idea, bro. All I could find was his name and date of birth.”
I fell silent as Summer picked up a big inflatable exercise ball.
“Right, the first thing you ride is this.” She pulled one of the guys out of the crowd and tossed it at him.
He caught it with both hands and put it down on the ground, then peered at her in confusion.
Her huff of irritation made it back to me across the other side of the ring.
Shit. This was getting out of hand. “Listen, man, I gotta go. Thanks for doing that for me. We’ll catch up soon, okay?”
“You got it.”
We hung up, and I broke into a jog, heading back to the group.
“Sit,” Summer commanded. “Use your knees to grip the ball. Now get your feet off the ground and balance.”
The guy did as he was told, managing to balance for a second or two before he put his feet back down.
He looked up at Summer.
“What, are you expecting a pat on the back? That wasn’t even close to eight seconds! Awful!”
The guy’s cheeks went red beneath his cowboy hat. A few others in the crowd laughed.
“What are you all laughing at?” Frost asked. “You think you can do any better?” He threw a few more exercise balls into the group. “Let’s see it.” But his concerned gaze immediately strayed back to his daughter.
Hallie watched quietly from where she was tying ropes at the top of the bucking chute, and when I glanced up at her, her teeth were sunk into her bottom lip, a worried frown creasing her forehead as she watched her best friend.
“Hey.” I nudged Summer.
“You done with your phone call, Mr. Have A Chat?”
I ignored the jab. I knew it wasn’t her, and there was so much more going on behind this bad mood. “Do you want to take the day off?” I asked carefully. “Your dad and I have this covered. You haven’t had a break in weeks.”
“I’m fine,” she snapped.
One of the guys fell off his ball, landing on his back in the dirt.
“Fucking hell,” she muttered none too softly. “What a waste of time this is.”
“Okay, that’s enough,” Frost barked.
The guys all stopped and stared at him.
“Not you lot! Keep practicing! Staff meeting in the middle of the ring.”
“Dad—”
“Now, Summer.”
There was no arguing with Frost when he spoke like that. Summer and I ducked between fence railings, following Frost to the middle of the ring, and Hallie abandoned the bucking chute to join us. The four of us sto
od in a huddle.
I already had a good idea what Frost was going to say. Judging from the way Hallie stared at Summer, rather than her boss, I think she knew, too.
Summer glanced around at each of us, her frown deepening with each look. “What? Why are you all staring at me?”
“Because you’re kinda being a bitch to the new guys,” Hallie said. “Actually, not kinda. You are being a total cow. You’re practically mooing.”
“I’m not! I can’t help it if they’re terrible! What do you want me to do? Pat them on the head and tell them they’re pretty?”
“Actually, yes,” Frost spoke up. “You’re supposed to be teaching them, Summer. Encouraging them. Not making them feel like shit because they don’t know what they’re doing.”
She folded her arms across her chest. “Oh, that’s rich, coming from you. How many green riders have you yelled at over the years?”
“Not on their first day!”
Summer threw her hands up in frustration. “So what is this then? An intervention?” She glared at me. “Was this your idea?” She didn’t even give me a chance to answer. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. You all seem to think I’m doing such a bad job, then fine. You do it.”
She stormed off toward the barn, while Frost, Hallie, and I watched her go.
Hallie’s eyes shined with unshed tears. “I hate this. And I hate Austin for what he did to her.”
Frost swallowed hard. “You and me both, kid. She hasn’t been herself since.” He sighed. “I’ll go talk to her.”
On autopilot, I grabbed his arm. “Let me.”
To my surprise, he didn’t fight me on it. Just studied me curiously, then nodded. “Go on, then.”
Hallie smiled at me encouragingly, like I was going off to fight a lion.
Summer did look a little like a lioness by the time I found her in the barn. She ran her hand down her horse’s neck, muttering something as she stroked him, her eyes wild with anger still.
“Patting an animal is supposed to help relieve stress, you know. Not make it worse. I think you’re scaring him.”