Whatever she decided...
It would be her choice.
And whatever happened as a result... She would deal with the consequences.
The resolve inside of her only strengthened.
Six
He was back at the bar. Because there was nothing else to do. As of today, he was officially a divorced man, and he’d been without sex for five years.
And earlier today he had been about a breath away from taking little Miss Prim and Proper down to the ground and fucking her senseless.
And he had already resolved that he wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’tbethat.
His postdivorce celebration would not be with Faith Grayson. With her wide eyes and easy blush. And uncommon boldness.
He couldn’t work out why she wasn’t afraid of him. He had thought... A little, soft thing like her... The evidence of a knife fight and talk of prison, jokes about orgies... It all should have had a cowering effect on her.
It hadn’t.
No, by the end of the interaction she’d only grown bolder. And he couldn’t for the life of him figure out how that worked.
She was fascinated by him. That much was clear. She might even think she wanted to have a little fun with some kind of bad-boy fantasy, but the little fool had no idea.
He was nobody’s fantasy.
He was a potential nightmare, but that was it.
He flashed back to the way it had felt to wrap his hand around her wrist. Her skin soft beneath his. To the way she’d looked up at him, her breath growing choppy and fast.
Those fingertips on his chest.
Shit, he needed to get laid.
He ordered up a shot of whiskey and pounded it down hard, scanning the room, looking for a woman who might wipe the image of Faith Grayson from his mind.
Maybe Mindy would be back. Maybe they could pick up where they left off.
But as he looked around, his eye landed on a petite brunette standing in line for the mechanical bull. She was wearing a tight pair of blue jeans and a fitted T-shirt, and when she turned, he felt like he’d been punched in the stomach.
Faith Grayson.
With that same mulish expression on her face she’d had when she’d left his house earlier.
The rider in front of her got thrown, and Faith rubbed her hands together, glaring at the mechanical beast with intensity. Then she marched up to it and took her position.
She thrust her hips forward, wrapping one hand around the handle and holding the other up high over her head. She looked more like a ballerina than a bull rider. But her expression...
That was all fire.
He should look away. He sure as hell shouldn’t watch as the mechanical bull began its forward motion, shouldn’t watch the way Faith’s eyes widened, and then the way her face turned determined as she gripped more tightly with one hand, and tensed her thighs around the beast, moving her hips in rhythm with it.
It didn’t last long.
On the creature’s second roll forward, Faith was unseated, her lips parting in an expression of shock as she flew forward and onto the mats below.
And before he could stop himself, he was on his feet, making his way across the space. She was on her back, her chin-length curls spread around her head like a halo on a church window. But her expression was anything but angelic.
