The True Cowboy of Sunset Ridge (Gold Valley #14)(47)

“I am.”

“You were about to say something?”

“Yes,” she said, loading her plate up with chicken, steak, peppers and onions.

“Well, say it.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way.”

“You know, anytime someone prefaces something with ‘don’t take this the wrong way,’ it makes someone awfully curious. Because that means there’s a wrong way that I could take it.”

“Yes,” she said. “When you date a woman, is this the kind of thing you do? And I don’t want you to take it the wrong way because I understand you aren’t dating me by getting dinner...”

“I don’t date.”

“Oh.”

“I’m serious. I mean, I guess I had a couple of girlfriends in high school. But... I was fifteen when my parents died, and it... Pretty much blew everything to hell.”

“And so you don’t have relationships?”

“No.”

“Well—so this is just how you treat people then?”

“People need to be fed. And they ought to have the things they like. It’s not that difficult to listen when someone tells you exactly what they want. The odds were kind of stacked in my favor, here. You actually have to be pretty damn obtuse to fail at something like this. You told me exactly what you wanted for your coffee, and I got it for you.”

“You know, I used to think that I had to have it all together because I was in a long-term relationship. Like it mattered just because it existed.”

She sat down at the bar right next to the kitchen island. And she started to assemble her first fajita. She put on extra sour cream, because this conversation required it. “I just... I thought it made me special. Or proved that I had arrived at some kind of emotional milestone. And even six months ago, if we would have met and you would’ve told me that you never dated anybody, I would’ve thought there was something wrong with you. But, I’m not really sure that’s true. Or at least... There might be the same kind of wrong with us. I don’t know.”

He chuckled. “Oh, there’s definitely something wrong with me. Do you want a beer?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Coming right up.” And he went toward the fridge, opened it and produced a cold one for her, handing it to her after popping the top.

“I feel like I’ve woken up in an alternate reality. I am so used to being taken for granted. That just you handing me a drink feels like a big deal.” It was funny that she just... Said things to him. But there was something about this relationship, the supposed temporary nature of it, and the deep intimacy that had come with it that just made her feel like... Why hold back what she thought?

Why hold anything back at all?

She’d been holding too much in for too long.

“I knew that guy was a dick,” Colt said. “I really did. Because I remember when I walked into that bar and I saw you.”

His eyes went intense, and she couldn’t look away. “I wanted you. Then. We were sitting there with him. And I thought... I could probably seduce you away from him.”

“You probably could have.”

She felt her cheeks getting hot.

“Now I wish I would’ve tried.”

“Oh, he would have been incensed.”

“Well, all the better reason to do it.”

“He’s... The only man that I...”

“Yeah, I get that. You know, from the whole timeline of the relationship and everything.”

She nodded slowly. “I figured it was probably pretty obvious.”

“There’s nothing obvious about you, Mallory. That’s the thing that gets me. What I don’t understand. What I really don’t understand is why you—And don’t take this the wrong way, it’s just that you’re not my usual type at all. But damn, woman, I saw you... I couldn’t forget you.”

She took a bite of her fajita and started to chew. She took an extra long time with it, because she was going to say the next words that were on her mind, it was just that she was a little embarrassed about it in advance. But they were having a real conversation, and maybe this conversation was the first step to dealing with things. Because obviously, they were in whatever situation they were in. So maybe they needed to be a little bit more honest with each other. Maybe they needed to have a conversation.

“I was having sex dreams about you,” she said in a rush. “When I was still with him. After I saw you the first time. We made eye contact for thirty seconds in a bar. And I started having... The dirtiest dreams about you. I couldn’t forget it. I had an orgasm during one of them.”

“Damn,” he said, his expression going completely stoic. She shifted in her seat, regretting it now, because she was getting turned on. Because it would be so easy... It would be so easy to cross the space and kiss him again. Except Lily was right there asleep. Except she was renting from him. Except so many things.

But the biggest thing was that the cream seemed like a big deal.

And she had to figure that out on her own. She had to get her head on straight. Because right now she was ready to leap into bed with a man just because he had brought her takeout and handed her a beer. Because he had remembered what she wanted in her coffee. And maybe she needed those things to feel a little bit more commonplace before she went and... Yeah. Maybe.