Page 65 of Buck ’Em Cowgirl

Didn’t so much as glance my way.

He was too busy listening to Dalton and Roger go on about the damn bull, nodding along like he hadn’t just sent a slow, deliberate press against the top of my foot.

I swallowed, gripping my fork tighter.

I must’ve made it up in my head.

Maybe it was nothing.

Why could I still feel it?

The room buzzed with conversation, but I wasn’t hearing a damn word of it. My focus was entirely on the solid, deliberate weight of Beau’s boot still resting against my foot. He hadn’t moved, hadn’t acknowledged what he was doing, but I felt it—felt him.

I swallowed hard, pushing at my mashed potatoes with my fork as I tried to act unaffected, like my body wasn’t wound so tight I thought I might snap. Gatlin sat beside me, absorbed in his meal, completely oblivious to the way my pulse pounded in my ears.

I ignored it and tried to move my foot away, but the pressure shifted. His boot slowly slid up the length of my calf. My breath stuttered. He kept going, moving past my knee, brushing the tip of the boot against my inner thigh. My skirt did nothing to stop the rough press of leather against my bare skin.

I nearly jolted, but I bit my cheek, forcing myself to keep still.

I pressed my lips together as his boot lingered. My body heated, thighs instinctively clenching, but that only made it worse. My senses narrowed to the damn leather, the slow, subtle movement as he dragged it up and down in the smallest, laziest motion, like he had all the time in the world to play with me.

I finally dared to look up.

He still wasn’t watching me. He was eating, nodding at something Roger said, like he wasn’t absolutely wrecking me under this damn table.

I should’ve known better.

Because just as I thought it was over, he moved again. This time, he hooked both of his feet around the front legs of my chair and yanked.

The sharp scrape of wood against the floor echoed through the room as I slid closer to him, the sudden movement stealing the air from my lungs.

The sound was loud. Obnoxiously loud.

Everyone stopped talking.

In my panic, I exhaled at the wrong time—sending a bite of mashed potatoes spilling out of my mouth and onto my plate.

Silence.

I blinked, horrified, as all eyes turned to me. My face went up in flames.

“I, uh, I-I’m going to use the bathroom.” I shoved my chair back so fast it nearly toppled over.

I bolted, heart hammering, thighs clenched, heat coiling low in my belly as I swore under my breath.

What the hell just happened?

21

Fable

Happy Birthday to you . . .

“Cowgirl?”

There was a knock at the bathroom door, and I turned off the sink, wiping my hands and then running them through my hair.

It wasn’t just embarrassment—it was the deep, sinking kind, the kind that made my skin feel like I needed to claw my way out of my own body just to escape it.