I laughed. “You wanna tell them?”
“It’s not so much that I want to tell them. It’s how long do you think we could feasibly keep this from them?”
“Seconds, probably.”
He laughed. “Well, if you’re okay with it, I prefer to just take the bull by the horns. Tell them, let them tease us, and then I can spend the rest of my time shamelessly dreaming about that mouth of yours.”
I flushed. “You’re just saying that.”
“There’s one thing I can promise you,” he said, looking straight into my soul. “I don’t give false flattery. You are trusting me with something very important, but I want you to know that you can trust me with all things, including the truth. And you have the fucking softest lips and silkiest mouth on the planet. Like, I didn’t even get a whisper of teeth from you.”
I sent him a sharp grin. “You can thank Skylar for that.”
Kess covered his face with his hands. “I willnotbe thanking Skylar for that.”
“Speaking of, he knows how I feel about you, too. The second I tell him, we’re gonna be able to hear his squeals from downtown Austin.”
“I’m okay with that,” he said with complete confidence.
We finished up our breakfast, holding hands and kissing on the way out. We had just pulled away from our final kiss when we heard hooves pounding up the drive between our houses.
“That’ll be Woody,” I said, then gave Kess another kiss.
Woody and Bandit entered the clearing just as Kess started on the path between our properties, clearly coming from my cabin. Smooth as you please, he sent Woody a salute, then let himself onto his property and moseyed back to his house like he didn’t have a care in the world.
Woody rode right up to me and slid off his horse. Pointing at Kess’s retreating form, he said, “You gonna tell me what that’s all about?”
Bandit circled our ankles, barking at the rare tension between us. I reached down to rub his head, avoiding Woody’s dark expression.
“Oh, I think you can guess.”
22
KESS
Ten minutesafter I got home from Rowdy’s, there was a knock at the door.
“You here?” Emery asked, letting himself in.
I smiled, knowing what was coming. “In the kitchen.”
He startled. “Oh, didn’t see you there.” He joined me at the sink, a weird expression on his face. “How’s it going?”
“Great. You?”
Em stood there hemming and hawing while I made a fresh pot of coffee. Not sure why I was torturing my friend, but the second he walked in with that face, I decided I wasn’t going to make this easy on him. If he wanted to talk about me and Rowdy, he was going to have to bring up the topic.
“You want some?” I asked as I poured myself a cup.
“Uh... sure.”
“Cream and sugar?” I asked, damn well knowing his coffee preferences.
“Kessler.”
I couldn’t help the smile. “Emery.”
He rubbed the back of his neck, clearly frustrated. I raised my brows.
