A genuine, ego-free smile curled his lips. “Yeah? You are?”
Her fingers linked behind his neck. “Yeah. I am.”
“So not too bad for a stupid freaking cowboy then?” He leaned his head down until his forehead bumped hers.
Georgia fought valiantly the heat creeping up her neck. “I’m sorry, Wy. I never meant it. Not like that. I think you’re a lot of things, but I’ve never really thought that you were stupid.” She swallowed, closing her eyes briefly before meeting his stare. “I promise I’ll never say that again.”
The corner of his mouth kicked up. “Actually, I think it’s pretty damn accurate, and I hope you say it a lot more often.”
Her hands reached up to his face, her thumbs stroking down in front of his ears and her fingers curled around his head. “You aren’t stupid. You’re smart and determined and focused and passionate. You definitely aren’t stupid.”
“But I am, Gigi.” His lips brushed against hers. “I’m stupid crazy about you. I’m stupid excited to spend time with you. And I am stupid in love with you.”
Their mouths met again in a soft kiss, saving Georgia from answering. Not that finding words was a possibility for her at all. That cowboy left her speechless.
He set her back slightly and pulled away. “You know the best part about getting released from the Carlisle Penitentiary?”
She twisted her mouth to side and quirked a brow. “That you get back to training before they add some new, big, bad bull you’ve just been dying to have hand your ass to you?”
“Yes, that too.” He stroked a hand over her hair, cupping the back of her head and tugging her close again. “But the best part is getting to take my girlfriend on a real date again.”
***
Wyatt
Wyatt laced his fingers through Gigi’s and rested their joined hands on her abdomen. She wiggled a little on the thin blanket covering the rocky ground, pressing her spine into his stomach. He fought back a groan and willed his mind to imagine any number of disgusting things to stop the Gigi-induced blaze of fire from shooting below his belt buckle. His cowboy hat-clad head hit the trunk of the tree he was reclining against.
Her thumb stroked the length of his in soft lines. A completely innocent gesture that was completely driving him insane. For weeks she had been dropping not-so-subtle hints that she was ready to have sex. Wyatt had done his best to avoid the topic every time it was broached. But that was getting harder and harder with each passing day.
Literally and metaphorically.
“Is it because of the makeup?”
Her soft question pulled him from the angst he’d been drowning in. “Is what because of the makeup, Angel?”
She sat upright and turned in between the space of his legs. “Do I wear too much makeup? Like, is it too dark and distracting and unattractive? Is that why you don’t want to…do…anything? With me?”
The icy heat of desire that had been coursing through his veins died out as the impact of her words hit him with more force that a throw from Lightning. “Gigi, I must have fallen asleep and missed a large part of this conversation, because I swear I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She tucked her feet under her ebony leggings and fidgeted with the frayed cuff of her slate-colored hoodie. “I’m ready, Wyatt. I keep telling you that. I want to be with you, but every time I try to talk to you, you change the subject or have to go and promise me we will talk about it later.” With a huff, she rolled her eyes to the clear, blue winter sky before dropping her head. “I love you and I want to show you that in every way, but I don’t think you do. So I just wondered if maybe…maybe you didn’t like my makeup. Or my hair. Or my clothes. Or anything and maybe that was why.”
Wyatt turned his legs and lifted onto his knees. He gripped her chin between his thumb and forefinger. “There is not one part of that statement that is true, Angel.” His lids shuttered closed, and he inhaled deeply, searching his adolescent brain for the right words. “Dammit, Gigi, I want you. I want every part of you. I want to find all of your ticklish spots and discover every place that makes you sigh.”
As he was speaking, her hands slowly crept up his arms and locked behind his neck. Her pupils dilated, a flare of desire sparking in their depths. She put pressure on the back of his head and rotated her hips as she lay back on the thin material covering the ground, pulling him with her. “You do?”
He rolled his pelvis forward, grinding into the apex of her thighs. “What do you think, Angel?”
She moaned and brought his mouth to hers. His arms tightened around her as she used her tongue, her lips, and her teeth to torture him further. When he rocked forward again, she groaned and hooked her legs around his. The whimper in her throat was both his reward and punishment as his jeans constricted even more, the denim creating a painful barrier.
Always one to give as good as she got, she rubbed her core against him and they sucked in their breaths in unison at the delicious friction. His fingers crept under her fleece top, gliding up her smooth stomach to cup one of the firm, satin-covered globes.
A rock dug into the back of his hand and brought him crashing back to earth from the heady sensations that had consumed his mind and eradicated all logical thought. Dammit, that was not how this was supposed to go. He broke the kiss and called himself every kind of ass for her crestfallen expression.
He cupped her cheek. “Angel, look at me.” Time stretched out interminably, each nanosecond carrying the weight of an hour, before she opened her stricken eyes to meet his. “I mean it. I mean every word.” His hips rolled forward again to prove his desire. “Nearly every part of me screams when I have to put the brakes on because I don’t just want you, Angel. I need you so freaking bad.”
“Then why, Wyatt?” A stray drop leaked from the hazel eyes sparkling from the sheen of its unshed companions. His thumb swiped it away, his heart fracturing at the sight.
“Because there is one part that thinks you deserve better. That wants to give you perfect.” His hand found hers and held it over the left side of his chest. “It’s the part of me that says your name with every beat, Angel. I love you too much to let your first time—our first time—be some hurried, bumbling mess. We weren’t meant to be like everyone else. We were meant to be different.”
Gigi nodded, and Wyatt rolled onto his back, holding her tight against his side. He recited the statistics of every rider from last week’s competition in his head, willing the mundane to drown out his need. When Gigi’s hand went slack in his and the cutest damn snore puffed out of her nose, he smiled and slid his hat over his face.
Chapter
Twenty-Three
Wyatt
Present Day
“Hell, son, this sounds like it’s more of a gift for me than it is for you.”
Wyatt couldn’t help but smile at the older man on the other side of the massive mahogany desk as he rose and extended a hand across the smooth surface to offer a shake. “I’m not sure that’s exactly true, sir, but I appreciate it.”
Elias stood and pumped his arm. “I would. A rodeo in this area reminds me of home and just so happens to be damn good for my business.”
“Where is home, sir?” He fought against the urge to run down the hall, make a left, and grab Gigi to show her just how well her brilliant plan worked out. Elias Joseph had jumped at the idea of partnering with RA Ranch and hadn’t even blinked when Wyatt quoted a six-digit figure.
He hated selling a part of his dream off. When the first nugget of the idea came to him, the same night he got the tattoo and was missing his Angel so hard he could barely remember to breathe, he swore he would do this on his own. Although the pain of having someone else as part of his dream wasn’t insignificant, he’d willingly endure it to avoid the complete failure glaring him in the face.
A hearty chuckle was the response. “Why isn’t it obvious from this,” he pointed toward his mouth, “damn accent that hasn’t faded in the thirty years I’ve lived here? I’m
from Texas, son. Small town just outside of Austin.” He dipped his chin, his smile dropping slightly. “It was a great place. I’d always planned on raising my kids there.”
Wyatt’s brows pulled together, and he shoved his hands in his pockets. “Why didn’t you? What made you move to North Carolina?”
The nostalgic expression was wiped from the older man’s face, and a twinkle lit his cornflower eyes. “Love, son. I fell in love with a beautiful girl with long blonde hair and legs that went on for days…who refused to live in Texas any longer than she needed to graduate from Texas A & M. So I packed up, left my family, and moved eleven hundred miles away for her.” He threw Wyatt a broad grin. “And I don’t regret one moment of it. The love of a good woman is worth jumpin’ through almost any hoop.”
Wyatt’s mouth opened and closed a few times before he squinted up at the other man. “You gave up everything?”
Elias nodded, the smile not fading. “I did, and I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat.” His arm swept wide, encompassing his office. “My business was barely makin’ it in Texas, but here I’ve built a thriving corporation. I visited my family twice a year in the beginning, more now, but here I have three kids, two grandkids, and another on the way. Sometimes you gotta pick what your definition of important is.”
The words melted a fraction of Wyatt’s frustration. Working to win her back was something he’d banked on doing. Something he knew she deserved. But the waiting…that was killing him.
Gigi, though, she was worth it. She was his definition of important.
He shook the older man’s hand and let his heart lead him into the office of the woman who occupied damn near every thought he had. Her eyes snapped up from the papers spread across her desk. The immediate flash of desire was exactly what he needed to see.
“So?” Her brows lifted nearly to her hairline.
Wyatt clicked the door closed behind him, dropped his head, and fought to control the grin struggling to surface. He shuffled his boots against the low pile gray carpeting. “Well…”
Gigi jumped from her chair, rounded the desk, and grabbed his face. “Wyatt, it’s okay, I don’t know how—”
His sullen expression dissolved into laughter. “He said yes, Angel.”
Hazel eyes widened into saucers. “Yes? He said yes? To the entire amount?”
“Yes to the entire amount,” he confirmed with a confident nod, far less troubled by the fact he was letting someone else have a say and a portion of his ranch than he expected. The dazzling excitement reflected back at him silenced every doubt.
Until her lips pursed together tightly and her lids narrowed. Her hands moved from his face to his bicep, where she swatted him once. Twice. And then a third time when his chuckles renewed and amplified into deep guffaws. “You are such an asshole.”
He caught her wrist before she could land another blow and pulled her tight against him. “Don’t damage the merchandise there, Angel. I might need to grab a few modeling gigs to keep a roof over our heads.”
She stared at him silently for a moment but didn’t disagree. Instead she swiped her lips across his and stole his ability to think or breathe. “Until then, you might want to get out of here. I don’t have the luxury of working for myself or getting paid to show off my body.”
Wyatt took a step back and gave her a long, sweeping appraisal, index finger tapping his chin. “That could be arranged. As long as you’re only showing off for me, that is.”
Gigi smacked his arm again and waved him toward the door. “Go. Now. Before you dig yourself into another hole somehow.”
“Don’t forget, Angel, we have a date tonight.”
She took her seat behind her desk with a heavy sigh. “How could I possibly forget? You’ve been texting me gloating reminders for three days.”
He winked, one hand resting on the doorknob. “Just makin’ sure you’re payin’ attention there, Gigi.”
Her eyes rolled toward the ceiling at his intentionally embellished accent, and he laughed as he shut the door behind him.
The damn near permanent grin was still in place thirty minutes later as he sat across from his brother, making faces while Tanner spewed numbers to someone on the other end. Sitting in this many offices in one day was about to make his skin itchy. He missed the fresh air, even if it was hot and sticky in the summer sun.
“What the hell do you want?” Tanner grumbled as he replaced the phone in its cradle.
Wyatt slapped a hand over his heart and plastered an exaggeratedly pained expression on his face. “Is this really the kind of reception you give your favorite brother?”
The older man snorted. “I don’t know, let’s invite Dean down here and find out.” Tanner folded his hands together on the flat calendar covering his desk and leaned forward. “Really, what do you want, Wyatt? Belle has some sort of couple’s yoga thing she wants to try out with me before she offers it as a class and…I am definitely not missing my wife going all ultra-bendy on me for your sorry ass.”
A sly grin spread across Wyatt’s face. “Your hot, bendy wife is exactly why I’m here.” Too easy. His brother made it too damn easy, and Wyatt chuckled at Tanner’s mottled expression and flared nostrils. “What I mean by that is…I need some more advice. Gigi agreed to a date. A real one. If you could manage to get Izzy to forgive you for being a complete asshole, maybe I could use an idea or two for Gigi and she’d forget that I was half of one.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, brother. You are the full deal yourself.” Tanner leaned back in his chair, resting his elbows on the arms, and steepled his fingers in front of his chin. “Where were you planning on taking her?”
Wyatt held his hands up, helplessly. “That’s why I’m groveling at the feet of the master for some advice.”
“Well, hell,” Tanner muttered. “Okay, here’s what you do.”
***
Georgia
“You didn’t answer me, Cowboy.” Georgia folded her arms across the navy and yellow sundress she wore, hoping it would fit in with whatever plan Wyatt had formulated for their date. “Where are we going?”
He grinned, his eyes leaving the road long enough to give her a wink before returning to pay attention to the traffic in front of them. “Can’t you ever just go along with what I say?”
Georgia tilted her head from side to side, squinting. “I could, but what would be the fun in that? Face it, Wy, I didn’t make life easy for you when we were younger. Why would I want to start now?”
Wyatt’s hand slid across the console separating them and teased her arms free, lacing his fingers through hers. “I know you don’t trust me yet but…just trust me?”
Her heart leapt in her chest and applauded the idea. In a turn of events that shocked her, he owned his actions. He’d apologized repeatedly and profusely. The cocky rhinestone cowboy let his guard down and was humble. Only for her.
He wasn’t Bruce. He wouldn’t lead her on, promise her a future complete with a diamond ring, and then surprise her with the revelation that he had a wife and kids. An admission that came only when she called him in tears, devastated over her grandmother’s diagnosis and rapid decline. At the moment when she needed him most, when she needed him for more than a rendezvous at her place or as a plus one to an event, he bailed and left her on her own.
But Wyatt also wasn’t Wyatt anymore. That realization had been harder to swallow, but he was trying, and she had to give him some credit. He agreed to the impossible “sex only” edict she made even though she knew he wanted to fight for more. When she confessed to missing dinner because she’d slipped straight out of her marketing director skin and into her caregiver role, he’d shown up on her doorstep with a shredded chicken burrito with extra cheese, light on the lettuce, and guacamole on the side. Exactly how she liked it. But he’d simply dropped it off, given her a kiss on the cheek and walked away.
He was acting much more like the boy she fell in love with than the one who left. Half of her heart still hid behind the
betrayal-induced barrier she’d created while the other begged her to give him the second chance he was working for. The conflicting ache that had been present since she’d first stepped into the conference room and saw him sitting there intensified.
He was the best parts of Wyatt from before but improved. The childish decisions were replaced with a quiet maturity that both surprised and tempted her. Wyatt as a teen had been driven and focused, but this version of him was…responsible. And harder to resist than she ever imagined.
The welling of emotions at the realization made her hand squeeze his and her heart follow suit when he cut a sideways grin over to her. This Wyatt might be able to not just be everything he had been before, but also help carry some of the heavy weight she shouldered.
And she might be ready to give him that chance.
The might in the equation disappeared when the truck pulled to a stop. All the breath in her lungs vanished, and her jaw dropped to the floorboard. When her mouth finally was able to move, no words came out, and her eyes darted between the scene in front of her and the man sitting at her side.
A very not cocky, not Rhinestone Cowboy smile spread across his face. “I’m gonna guess that means you like it?”
She scrambled out of the truck and stood in front of the bench—their bench—that was completely covered in Christmas decorations. Twinkling lights were snaked around the oak trees on either side, and glittering ornaments hung from the branch with a long length of fishing line.
None of it was exactly the same as it had been before, but it was all incredibly similar. Just like the single tear that managed to escape from her eye. Just like them. Footsteps stopped just behind her, and she turned, brows raised in silent question.
He lifted a shoulder. “Ever heard of Christmas in July?”
She nodded wordlessly as he led her to the bench. And then promptly dissolved into laughter as he produced their dinner: greasy cheeseburgers with a side of bacon and cheese fries. The exact same meal from the exact same diner that they’d gone to when she accompanied him on his first training session.
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