Page 60 of Slow Hands Cowboy

“Yes,” she said, but she felt like she was somewhere outside her body, felt like she didn’t know if that was true or not.

She looked at Walker, and her heart began to beat faster.

There was one thing she did know. One thing that she had fought so hard against for her entire life, one thing that she had worked so hard to hide, to the point where she had let it make her cruel.

Walker.

Her attraction to Walker.

He was her biggest fear in so many ways, and here she was, standing alone with him in a hotel room.

And she was burning.

Even with all the disquieting, unsettling truths rioting through her body, she was burning.

When she looked into his blue eyes, she saw a mirrored flame. A twin desire, and it should terrify her. But right now, it didn’t. Her reputation was hanging on by a thread. Her sense of self was even more precarious and⁠—

You are running for mayor. Get it together. That’s who you are, that’s what you’re doing.

She took a deep breath, like she had just been submerged under the ocean, floating and drowning and unable to breathe.

“Do you want me to just go without you? I don’t know what things you have, but...”

“No,” she said.

She needed to face Alan. Even if she didn’t want to.

She really didn’t want to. But it was something that she couldn’t avoid. Not anymore. She needed to answer some questions that were rolling around inside of her, and she had a feeling that those questions wouldn’t be answered until... she saw Alan.

Just like you have all the answers to what your body is doing when you see Walker.

Okay. She really didn’t need to deal with that. Surely her attraction to Walker wasn’t essential to knowing herself. Again, of all the hidden things, over all the years, it was the one thing that she knew with the most certainty.

And the one thing she could never let herself explore.

“I’ll be by to get you around checkout time. Make sure you have your things packed.”

She nodded. And she knew that by allowing Walker to go with her, she was intentionally stepping into a firestorm.

But Alan had taken a Molotov cocktail and thrown it at her entire life. Had sent her into a whole existential spiral.

Judging by the texts that he was sending her, he was having his own existential spiral.

And the vindictive part of her was glad. And was looking forward to making it worse.

Chapter Twelve

Walker didn’t think he was a coward. But then, he hadn’t told Addison that he was planning on taking her back to his place.

He had plenty of room. She could have three bedrooms to herself if she wanted, spread out however she liked. His house was massive and he lived there by himself. There were rooms that were practically still turnkey even though he’d been living there for the last two years.

It wasn’t the same as shacking up, that was for sure. And yet. His body hadn’t seemed to get the memo. His body seemed to be preoccupied with the sparks that had gone off between them last night. It was something that he ought to be used to. Something he was used to, in actual fact, but it was harder to ignore when they were shut in a hotel room together. Harder to ignore when he just fucking wanted her and the less she irritated him the harder it was to deny that.

Yeah, there had been something particularly sweet about wanting her while wanting to strangle her. Sure.

But even though he wouldn’t say he had gotten underneath the top layer of Addison, he now had a sense that there were more layers to her, and that, in and of itself, felt somewhat problematic.

Especially because he didn’t need anybody getting down to the layers underneath his surface layers.