The height difference put me level with his chest. His broad, tanned, hard chest that was currently on display. He might have been wearing one of his signature flannels, but he hadn’t bothered to button it. Same with his jeans. He’d only zipped them partway up, leaving those lickable, defined V muscles that pointed like a freaking arrow to what lay beneath. He’d left just enough skin exposed to turn the dial up on the heat in my blood. I’d had more orgasms the night before than I’d had in the entire month prior, you would have thought my tank would be topped off. But one glance and I was practically rendered stupid in the same way guys got penis dumb when it came to women.
My mouth was so dry all of a sudden it felt like I’d stuffed it full of cotton, making it hard to swallow. I managed, but could have lived without the obnoxiously loud gulping sound it made. I knew what I’d find by the time I finally dragged my eyes to his face, and sure enough, he was grinning like a cat that got the canary.
I huffed out a chuckle and rolled my eyes at his arrogance. “There. I’m looking at you. Happy now?”
“Oh, downright giddy. And don’t sweat it. I stood out there, checkin’ out your legs for about five minutes before making myself known.”
I smacked him in the arm with the back of my hand and turned to face Corona once more. Her head had come up at somepoint, her curiosity officially piqued. As soon as she spotted Raylan, she abandoned her food and made her way to us.
“That’s so not fair,” I grumbled when my horse butted against Raylan’s arm with her nose, demanding a bit of loving.
“What’s not?” he asked as he ran his hand up her snout and scratched between her eyes where she loved it most.
“That she likes you. The traitor,” I muttered under my breath.
Raylan’s laugh was full and rich, and I became entranced by his Adam’s apple when he threw his head back. “Youdon’twant your horse to like me? That’s what you’re sayin’?”
“I mean, yeah.” I twisted to face him, resting my coffee cup on the ledge of the stall door so I could fold my arms across my chest and pop my hip out, all attitude. “It’s only fair, seeing how Zephyr hates my guts.”
He took a step closer, making personal space non-existent. My heart began beating faster when he tucked a lock of hair behind my ear, his fingertips tracing down the side of my neck to my collarbone. “Don’t take it personally.”
“How do I not take it personally?” I yelped. “Animalsloveme. I’m like freaking Dr. Doolittle around here.”
“Baby, Zephyr’s a surly bastard with everyone.”
The first wordwashed through me, creating a pleasant hum throughout my body. I’d always loved when he called me Chaos... at least I had before our friendship had gone down the toilet, but it was nothing compared tobaby. Despite being an unoriginal endearment, I couldn’t help but swoon every time he used it on me.
I ignored the hum and arched a single brow, teasing, “So what you’re saying is: like father, like son.”
He hit me with that damn lopsided smile that made his dimple pop. God, I wanted to dip my tongue into that damndimple, and I was suddenly mad as hell at myself for not doing it the night before.
I had no clue what we were doing. Or what wewere, for that matter. For all I knew, last night had been a one-time thing, a way to work each other out of our systems. I couldn’t speak for him, but for me at least, it didn’t work. That was the main thought spinning through my head that had pulled me out of bed at such an ungodly hour.
“Hey.” His gentle voice pulled me out of my tailspin. His rough fingers tilted my chin up so we were eye to eye. “Where’d you go?”
“Huh?”
“In your head. You went somewhere else for a second.” His brows pulled together, those lines that had been gone in his sleep carving back into place. “Somewhere good, I hope?” He formed that as a question, his tone dripping with uncertainty.
“I—” I paused to pull in a steadying breath. There was no comfortable way to do this, so I decided to rip the Band-Aid right off. “What are we?”Damn it.I’d hoped to be a little more eloquent. I closed my eyes and shook my head before trying again. “What I meant was, what are we doing? Last night was?—”
“Out of this fuckin’ world? I couldn’t agree more.”
I chuckled, my lips tipping into a small grin. My muscles slowly unclenched at his attempt to lighten the tension suddenly filling the air and making Corona paw at the ground. That was another thing I’d forgotten about Raylan. Those months when we weren’t friends were some of the hardest of my life, and one of the only things that made it a little easier was to keep the bad at the forefront of my mind. Remembering all the good—and there was alotof good—would have made it hurt even worse.
“That’s not what I meant.”
He pointed at me, his face brightening like a dimmer bulb turned on high. “Ah, but you aren’t disagreeing with me.”
I fought the smile pulling at my lips but lost. “I’m not disagreeing,” I agreed, because anything else would have been a bald-faced lie.
He closed the very last inch between us and kept coming, forcing me to move with him, swiveling so my back was to the rugged surface of the wall beside Corona’s stall. My insides heated to molten lava as he caged me in, his hands braced beside my head on either side. His voice was low and rumbly as he demanded, “Say it, Lenni.” He lowered his face to the crook of my neck, arousal dampening my panties when I felt the tip of his nose trace up my neck to the shell of my ear. “Say it was out of thisfuckingworld for you too,” he whispered, eliciting a full body quiver that made me weak in the knees.
I relented with no hesitation. “It was out of this fucking world. But Raylan?—”
His head came up at the seriousness in my tone at those last two words, and he sighed out, “I know, baby.” He was back to speaking gently and using that damn word that rendered me completely stupid.
A wash of cold came over me when he took a step back and raked a hand through his disheveled hair while he heaved a heavy sigh. That one step might as well have been the Grand Canyon between us. I kept myself pressed against the wall to stay grounded. The roughness of the wood abraded my palms as I pushed them harder against the surface while I waited for the other shoe to drop.
