“Maybe that’s your charm.”
“Pssh.”
Alexis chewed. “You know you’re funny and smart and beautiful, right? You’re like a force of nature when you’re after something. A total catch. And I’m not just saying that because I’m high.”
I hefted the bag of rosé to my hip and walked to the refrigerator. “Trust me, I don’t need the confidence boost. This is your weekend.”
“I’m just saying, the way Ben looked at you at dinner was not the look of a man who was over it. You guys reminded me of two little magnets straining not to leap together.”
I patted her head. “Sweet little Alexis. Now Iknowyou’re high.”
“He left you presents on your doorstep.”
“He leftyoupresents on my doorstep.”
Again, Alexis waved dismissively. “Everyone knows the way to your heart is through the people you love.”
That stopped me short. “They do?”
When Alexis smiled next, her eyes softening with tenderness, it was almost as good as being hugged. “Yes. Inside you’re still a romantic, like when you were young. You’ve just buried it, and redirected all those emotions onto other people. From the outside, it’s easy to see.”
I tossed and turned that night before falling into an uneasy sleep. Immediately, my mind cast me into some no-man’s-land, halfway between a dream and a memory.
I was lying on my stomach in bed, back in my grad school apartment. I could tell, even though the details of my old bedroom were hazy around me. All my senses had dulled except for my sense of touch, which was vivid. I could feel the sheets bunched under my legs; the pressure of the cotton pillow creased into my cheek. I wore a spaghetti-strap top and cotton shorts. The air was cool, icing my exposed shoulder blades.
From behind, Ben slid over me. He braced his hands against the bed, caging my shoulders, but his weight was a delicious pressure. I felt him hard between my legs and squeezed my knees together.
He leaned down until his chin was at the back of my neck, his mouth at my ear. I squeezed my eyes shut into the pillow.
“Everyone knows the way to your heart,” he murmured, and slid his palms down the backs of my thighs, pulling my shorts down, spreading my legs apart. My world narrowed until it was nothing but anticipation. Slowly, he pushed inside me.
I gasped, breath hot against the pillow, and clutched at his arm, pulling him closer. He gripped my hip bones and drove into me deeper, until I bit the pillow and clenched it between my teeth. He found my hands and stretched them above my head, lacing our fingers, and I pushed back against him, feeling his rhythm quicken, until the muscles inside me clenched and started to pulse—
—and I woke, shuddering, covered in a sheen of sweat. I lay in my bed, trying to catch my breath and blank my mind. And then it came to me—the most improbable thing.
I knew how to reach Senator Wayne and steal a yes from under Ben’s nose.
10
A Regular 4-H Queen
There were no two ways about it: Ben made a better cowboy than me. His tight jeans hugged his muscular thighs, and his pearl-snap shirt stretched across his chest, sleeves bunching around his biceps. As we walked through the dusty tent of the Corsicare County Rodeo, smack in the heart of Senator Wayne’s district, I tried not to remember what Ben used to look like coming back from the gym or a run, his tank top and shorts plastered to his slick body, earbuds still in as he moved seamlessly through the apartment to wherever I was. Finding me and kissing me, sweaty and hot-skinned, despite my protests.
Seeing Ben in person, it was impossible not to recall the dream I’d had, the weight of his body pressed on top of mine. My skin retained the feeling like an imprint, a muscle memory, calling it up every time I glanced his way. It looked like he hadn’t shaved for days—his square jaw was shadowed in stubble. I knew what that stubble felt like under my fingers, wet in the shower, or dry and soft when he just woke up. Knew what it felt like scraping down my stomach, against my thighs—
“It’s this one,” Ben said, stopping short and pointing to a large open pen with a crowd gathered around it.
I accidentally stepped into him, catching his chest with my own, and had to force myself to step back from his warm, hard body. It was criminal for anyone to smell as good as Ben smelled. I was going to have to find out what cologne he’d switched to and buy it, just to calm these demons. Maybe spritz it over my bedsheets...
“Uh, Lee?” Ben was staring at me like he was concerned I’d fallen off the deep end. Which I completely had. One sex dream and some tight jeans and now I could barely focus on work. I felt like a live wire, electric and dangerous, ready to connect if he so much as brushed me.
It was a very inconvenient way to feel about a work rival.
I shook myself, forcing my gaze from Ben to the task at hand. “Are you sure this is us? That’s an awful lot of people.”
Ben nodded at the sign on the pen: “Calf roping contest, sponsored by Lise Motors. Judges Henry Cricketty, Beau Simoneaux, and special guest judges Ben Laderman and Lee Stone.” That was us, all right.
He swallowed as he surveyed the crowd. “Did you read the Wiki pages I sent you on calf roping?”
