The Cowboy's Texas Heart (The Dixons of Legacy Ranch 3)

“I kind of worried you were avoiding me.” She chewed her plump, kissable lip. He sucked in to swallow his groan, because hell, in spite of yesterday’s revelation about Charlie, he still wanted her. “Did I do something?”

And just like that, he was a puppy begging for a treat and striding toward her, ready to wipe that vulnerable look right off her face.

*

Heart chewed herlip, worked her teeth across it as Tyler, glistening with water rolling in rivulets between his washboard abs and over the corded mounds of his muscular arms and chest sauntered toward her, eyes zeroed in on her mouth. Excitement thrilled through her like it seemed to do every time he stepped close to her, and his gait seemed as if something nipped at his heels, as if he wanted to get to her. Maybe she’d read it all wrong. Maybe he’d just had a lot of work to do today, and that’s why he didn’t come check on her. She had, after all, told him that she was used to roughing it and didn’t need him to worry about her phone or her lunch or carrying her packs for her.

Yet there was no doubt in her mind, something had shifted yesterday. She was baffled as to what. One moment he was devouring her breasts as if they were his last supper, and next, he was distant. Curt. He’d pulled back. She hadn’t read that wrong. Right as he was starting to open up, he’d suddenly thrown up a guard.

Was it possible for a man to look any more incredible? She’d pulled to a stop coming in from work, certain he’d notice her truck, yet he’d furiously tossed bundles of wire, face hard, brows furrowed in that perpetual look of deep thought. And she knew he’d seen her connect to him on social media. She’d watched him check his phone and then put it away on an irritated huff. My God, the way the sunlight had illuminated his entire muscled form, sun-bronzed skin, kissing his dark hair with glinting highlights as he flipped it like a slow-motion movie reel, as the water had poured over his face and muscles, coursing between the grooves of his muscles, was practically erotic. Screw Hercules, he’d been like Neptune emerging from the ocean. So perfectly sculpted.

“Ain’t avoiding you,” he said, tight-lipped.

“Liar.” She smirked at his blank face—

“I wanna be exclusive,” he bit out, his jaw tense, as if he’d surprised even himself. “Just…for the two weeks you’re in my bed.” He raked his hand through his hair, disheveling it, looking everywhere else except at her as he backpedaled by adding that last bit, rubbing the back of his neck, making his bicep twitch and it was such a GQ pose. He didn’t even seem to realize it.

Exclusive? She stilled. Who else was she sleeping with out here besides him? Why did he feel the need to establish a spoken agreement on the matter? And why was her blood roaring through her ears at his request? She’d been trying to dissect that unsettled feeling she felt at the distance that had sprung between them all day, and now this?

A sly smile pulled one corner of her mouth up. “You worried I’d chase after T. rex like some animal?”

A dark furrow pulled his brows together. “That ain’t funny.”

Her smile pulled up farther, his attempt to quell her teasing a silly waste of effort. No, it wasn’t funny, but it was…illuminating. Tyler Dixon liked her as more than a fling. “Newsflash. He’s totally into my friend.”

“Sorry, I just…don’t wanna be thinking about you doing this”—he pointed back and forth between them, voice so gruff he nearly gnashed the words to get them out—“with someone else. In Nacogdoches, you know, colleagues or somethin’. While we’re doing this whole, uh, no-attachment thing of our own.”

He was so damn cute when he was flustered. And right now? Tyler was grade A flustered. She could make a quip about attachments, like she had in the days before, but this time…she didn’t. Because the urgency sparkling in his eyes was dead serious and stirring a fluster of her own in her belly… Wait. With someone else? In Nacogdoches? A colleague…Charlie.

The confusion swirling around her mind since yesterday suddenly locked into place. He thinks Charlie is a guy. Oh no…

She sucked in hard. No wonder the ice vibes. She’d told him they hooked up. She’d meant they got together whenever they could. Tyler liked her. As in like-liked her, like she did him. And he disliked the idea of her sleeping with someone else. Kind of like she’d hated thinking about him with other women.

She shoved open the door and jumped down from the truck, leaving it idling as her music thumped quietly through the speakers. Reached up. She brushed a strand of dark, disheveled hair sticking to his forehead to the side, inspecting his chocolatey irises glowing warmly in the evening light with tones of chestnut and sable and sparkling flecks of gold.

“So you want to be exclusively unattached…for now. Is that what you’re asking?”

“Yes.” The word came out without hesitation. Direct. Quiet. Firm.

An excited grin lifted her lips. She slipped both hands around his neck, tugging his hot skin and wet head down to her as she breathed a kiss upon his earlobe, pressing her front to his, relishing how his muscles jumped and the soft, almost imperceptible hiss between his lips at the contact, the smell of sweat and salt and hints of cedar filling her nose, and whispered, “Don’t worry about Charlie.” He tensed so hard beneath her fingers at the name, she knew she was right, and felt a soft laugh well in her throat, stifling it. “As much as I love her, Charlize is not really my type.”

She placed a kiss to his lobe. “I wondered why you got all mad yesterday.”

He remained frozen in her grip. Muscles hard and hot and unrelenting, arms at his sides. He pulled up. Pinned her with a narrow gaze.

“Her?” Those impassive eyes bounced back and forth between Heart’s, as if he needed to hear her say it again to make sure and he worked that cheek between his molars. The gears in his brain were churning so hard she could practically see them spinning.

Heart laughed at how he’d managed to stammer that one word. “Tyler Dixon, were you jealous of my best friend?”

She swirled her finger upon his skin, between his pecs. A wave of relief seemed to roll off him, because suddenly his hands were spanning her lower back and a smile edged the corners of his mouth. That easy, boyish smile he’d deprived her of since yesterday.

“I don’t like sharing,” he murmured confidently, voice husky against her ear, and returned the favor of the kiss on the lobe, nipping it, soothing it with his tongue, his signature seduction she realized she couldn’t stop craving. She tipped her neck for him, ran her hands over his shoulders, let him press their heat together, and felt her heart crack open an inch. No one since her fiancé had asked her to be exclusive. Maybe she’d never stuck around to give anyone the chance. But no matter his reminder that it was just during her stay here, there was no denying now that he wanted what she’d always wanted but pretended like she didn’t.

An attachment.

Suddenly the hot sun was blazing. Suddenly, her cheeks felt as if they scalded and her body was thrumming with energy.

“I don’t either,” she whispered, as he braced her back against her truck fender, and closed her eyes as his lips fell to hers.