She shifted, turning to face me, eyes serious for once. “Win, I’m never gonna be the example of healthy romantic attachment. I panic when a man leaves his toothbrush at my place.” She snorted. “But I know good when I see it. And what you two have? It’s messy and horny and complicated, sure. But it’s not casual.”
I let that settle in my chest, warm and terrifying.
“Also,” she added, ruining the moment in pure Cassie fashion, “if hedoeshurt you, I get to kick him in the balls. I’ve been doing squats. I can end a bloodline.”
I barked out a laugh. “Deal. Ball-kicking rights secured.”
“Good.” She flopped onto her back again. “And for the record, just because I flame out at date three doesn’t mean you have to. You can want the icky long-term shit. A man who knows your coffee order and your cycle and your emergency ‘I need to be railed in a barn’ face. I’ll stilllove you if you become Disgustingly In Love Girl. I’ll just bully you occasionally so you don’t get boring.”
“You could always… try it sometime,” I said quietly. “Let someone in past date three.”
“Maybe,” she said, voice noncommittal, eyes a little too bright. “If I ever find someone who makes me look at them the way you look at Beau when you think no one’s watching.”
We drifted off talking about everything and nothing—old disasters, new dreams, the time in high school Cassie made out with a guy behind the bleachers then ghosted him because he called her “ma’am.”
For one night, it didn’t matter what Beau’s last name was, or who was watching the ranch, or what the internet thought of me. It was just me and my best friend, eating junk, butchering karaoke, and laughing until our sides hurt.
And yeah, underneath all that, every time I closed my eyes, I saw the way Beau had looked at me in the barn. Felt the way his hand had pressed between my legs, the way his voice had dropped when he said he wanted to hear me scream.
He was going to get that wish. I just hoped, when I finally wrapped my mouth around his dick or let him all the way in, I still had enough sense left not to fall completely in love with him.
Knowing me, and that man, I wasn’t betting on it.
BEAU
Stone Cold
Pawhuska, Oklahoma
9:15 AM
"Funny how a melody sounds like a memory / Like a soundtrack to a July Saturday night" - Eric Church
***
I woke up to a cold bed.
It was a stark contrast to the fire that had been running through my veins for the last three days. The house was quiet—too quiet. Pops was already out in the south pasture, his truck nothing but a speck on the horizon from the kitchen window. And Winnie? Winnie was still at Cassie’s.
She’d texted me ten minutes ago:Be back soon, but I’ll be training Bandit. Miss me? ;)
Attached was a photo of her and Cassie mid-karaoke, holding microphones like weapons, faces flushed with laughter and alcohol. I stared at the picture, zooming in on Winnie’s smile, then lower to the curve of her neck where I desperately wanted to put my mouth.
Miss her? My dick was so hard it hurt just looking at pixels on a screen.
I forced myself to move, pouring a cup of the motor oil Pops called coffee. I leaned against the counter, the silence of the house pressing in on me. No boots on the stairs. No off-key humming. No stolen glances that made the air in the room thin.
Then, my phone buzzed again. Not Winnie.
Dad.
The text sat there like a ticking bomb on the screen.
You have one month to reconsider. After that, the offer expires. Accounts will be frozen. Choose wisely.
One month.
Four weeks to decide if I was willing to trade the man I was becoming for the safety net of Sterling Corp. Four weeks before he cut the cord completely. When I’d told him I needed time on Friday, he’d agreed with a suspicious amount of grace. Now I knew why. Richard Sterling III didn’t give extensions out of kindness. He gave them because he wanted me to sweat. He wanted me to feel the fear of the unknown and come crawling back.
