“I need to make sure you’ve thought this through,” I told her, quieter now. No more playing. Shelly meant too much for me to play with her emotions.
She held my gaze without flinching, and her lips curved into something that was barely a smile.
Then she stuttered out the words, “Why don’t you try to find out?”
The air between us ignited.
And for one brief second, I wondered if this was a mistake we wouldn’t be able to undo.
But that was the last coherent thought I had before my cock took total control of the driver’s seat.
I didn’t think. I stepped forward, slid one hand around the curve of her waist and pulled her flush against me.
Then I kissed her right there in the middle of the Bear Den, surrounded by half the town.
This wasn’t a soft, teasing kiss. This was arealone.
For a split second, I stilled, her mouth still under mine, her fingers fisted in my shirt, because this kiss wasn’t like the others.
This was my Shelly Bear.
Then she made a soft, needy sound, and whatever restraint I had snapped clean in half.
I cupped the back of her head and tilted her face up to mine. Then I kissed her like I’d been waiting years to do it, because some part of me had been.
She made a small sound against my mouth that unraveled me completely, while I drifted one hand up to softly cup the curve of her breast.
Shelly gasped and tilted her head higher, deepening our kiss while she fisted the front of my shirt. From the way she was acting, I was an oasis after a long, parched walk through the desert.
I kissed her until her legs wobbled underneath her, and I knew she was absolutely, positively mine… at least for the night.
I think it’s fair to say we forgot we were in a public place because I walked her back a step until she sat down on the barstool behind her. Then I parted her legs and stepped in to close the distance between us, the front of my jeans colliding against her.
We stayed like that, testing each other out until the song changed and a new one came on. She’d gone soft and warm against my chest, and tiny, hitched breaths escaped out of her.
When I finally pulled back, we were both breathing hard.
I looked down at her kiss-swollen lips and the dazed look in her eyes, and felt that familiar satisfaction.
I liked making a woman go weak in the knees.
But to make that happen to Shelly? It was the hottest thing I’d ever experienced in my life.
“So,” I rumbled quietly, so only she could hear. “You think you’re up for a ride on my bronco tonight, darlin’?”
A few people nearby had gone quiet, watching us like they’d just caught the start of something they shouldn’t be seeing.
Her eyes went wide, and a little laugh escaped her mouth even as her face went scarlet.
“The question is, can you handle me?” she said, with a conviction that was only slightly undermined by the way she was still gripping my shirt like a lifeline. Those wrinkles might never come out.
Without thinking it through, I turned to the bar, pulled a fold of cash from my back pocket, and tossed enough bills down to cover our drinks and then some.
Then I put my arm around Shelly, tucking her firmly against my side, as I walked her toward the door with a serious swagger in my step.
A whoop went up from the direction of the pool tables. Brady hollered something I didn’t quite catch. I grinned and lifted my free hand in a lazy wave without slowing down.
The stranger who’d been eyeing me earlier, the one in the hot pink shirt, scowled as I walked by with Shelly on my arm.
