She liked thinking of the ways they were similar, at any time but especially when he was sitting in her house for no particular reason on a Wednesday night in March.
“I appreciate you noticing,” was all he said, so there was no particular reason that Matilda should feel as if the air was charged all around the both of them.
But it was.
She could feel it lick all over her skin.And there was something about the way Tennessee was looking at her that made her feel as if her entire body was on fire, from the inside out.
He was so absurdly beautiful, was the thing.And the more time she spent with him, the more beautiful he became.Those blue eyes of his seemed to warm the longer she looked at him, and she’d been having extremely vivid dreams about his face, and his ever-stern mouth, and how he might taste if she leaned closer, and let herself—
She cautioned herself to slow down.To take a breath.
Because this was Tennessee Lisle.The one and only.
Matilda had always liked being spontaneous.Or really, if she was honest, it was more accurate to say that she’d always been spontaneous… like it or not.What usually happened was that she would act first, think later, and when it came to men, there was usually a mess to clean up afterward.
It was, regrettably, the one way she really was like her irresponsible, selfish mother.
But Tennessee Lisle was not a hookup.Tennessee Lisle had been a driving force in her life for years.He had just… always been there.Like a tentpole that kept her whole sky up, and she’d spent a long time convincing herself she had to find somebody like him.It was the only way to deal with the silly, giggly way she felt when she was near him.Somebody like him would do the trick, she’d been sure of it.
Except it turned out there really wasn’t anyone like Tennessee Lisle.
There was only the one.
And now he was on her couch.She had been in his house, and more than once.
Matilda was aware that many people were under the impression that she was incapable of parsing social interactions.This was false.She was perfectly aware of what was going on in any given social interaction, she just didn’t care.
The trouble with Tennessee was that she cared entirely too much.Aside from her family, she sometimes thought he was the only person around whose opinion mattered to her at all.She’d solicited it on a thousand different occasions.She lived for months on one of his abrupt nods, or quiet, vaguely positive replies.
The urge to simply do the sort of thing she always did and fling herself at him to see what happened was strong.Almost unbearably strong.She told herself to take a breath, count to ten, get a grip.
Because she had the very strong and overwhelming feeling that if she threw herself at Tennessee, there would be no pretending it didn’t happen.It would change things between them forever, no matter how he reacted.
Was she prepared for that?
“Are you going to tell me your deepest darkest secrets in return?”he asked her, and his voice was as low, and as dark, as his blue gaze was white-hot.“Like, for example, what made you decide to become the Pied Piper of Cowboy Point?”
“The Pied Piper,”she echoed, and laughed, even though she wasn’t sure that she could take a full breath.She was wound too tight.Her skin felt too flushed.And there was that deep, Tennessee-shaped longing twisting tighter and tighter down the center of her.
And this time, because it was him, she was very conscious of what she was doing.This time, she acknowledged that if there was a mess, it would linger there between them, possibly forever.Even if she chose to ignore it the way she ignored so many things she didn’t want to think about, he would remember.
Then again, this was Tennessee Lisle.All he would do was scowl.No one would know the difference but her.
Matilda decided that she could live with that.Probably.
“Lots of people like animals.A lot also help them.But what you do is on a different level.”Tennessee was looking at her so intently.“I think you know that.”
“I like to think of myself as a Pied Piper,” Matilda said, and she could tell that part of the giddiness inside her just then was because he was actuallyasking her.Not making up stories about her without bothering to speak to her, the way most people did.It was part of why she didn’t bother withmost people.“The truth is, I was raised by wolves.Jack took on a role he shouldn’t have had to and he did his best.I was grateful for him, don’t get me wrong, but what I learned from watching my parents behave badly, and then my mother make it even worse after my father died, was I prefer actual wolves to grown adults acting like wolves.Animals are better than people a lot of the time.They don’t lie.They don’t make promises they can’t keep.They are who and what they are, every moment of the day, the end.”
“And you admire that?”He was watching her, so closely.She could feel it on the inside of her skin.“That makes sense.You don’t seem to care too much about rules.Responsibilities.”
“Just because my responsibilities aren’t broadcast all over the state of Montana for others to behold, doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”But she smiled at him while she said that.
And the more she smiled at him, the more she could see that heat in his eyes grow.And better yet, the more he smiled back.
Matilda decided that she’d counted long enough.There was a high probability that the overly responsible Tennessee, forever concerned about honor and duty and all the rest of that nonsense that consumed him, would never make a move.So if she waited for him, she would never know.
It was one thing to not know when she’d been sure that the thing she felt about him was only in her head.
