The Rebel (Red's Tavern 2)

“Okay, cowboy,” I said. “Cowboy with a dark, dark past.”

Red laughed, pulling me into his arms and squeezing my ass hard. He looked down at me, a sly smile on his face. “Before you said that, I was going to tell you how glad I was that you came with me here,” he said. “But now I’m not so sure.”

“You were glad, huh?”

He nodded. “Okay, fine. I’m still kind of glad,” he said.

“Kind of?”

He dipped to press his lips to mine, squeezing me tighter as he kissed me.

Electricity coursed through my body and I breathed in deep. The truth was that I liked this too. Way too much.

He let me go just as quickly, letting his gaze linger on me for another few seconds.

“Very,” he said, before turning and walking away. He headed into the kitchen to help his mom with the rest of dinner.

We were sitting down to eat fifteen minutes later, and Rita asked me more questions about porn than I’d ever been asked before. She seemed more genuinely interested in the business side of things, thankfully. I only felt slightly awkward not having a drink to keep me company. And once Rita got talking, her personality shined through the whole room just like Red’s did. After a while, I had forgotten about any anxiety I felt earlier in the night, and Rita had both me and Red laughing like kids.

I offered to help clean up but she refused. I headed to the bathroom and when I came back, I couldn’t help but overhear a snippet of their conversation. I stayed in the living room, not wanting to intrude, but I still felt guilty hearing something I didn’t know I was meant to.

“Really? Still nothing?” Rita was saying.

“Don’t pressure me, Mom. I can’t stand it.”

“It’s not pressure. I just want to know if you’re ever going to settle. Rocky, too. He broke up with his girlfriend, did you hear?”

“Of course I heard,” Red said with a small sigh. “Rock doesn’t know what the hell he wants. But I.. I’ve been settled for years. I can be happy on my own, believe it or not.”

Rita sighed. “Well, I like your new friend.”

“Old friend,” Red corrected. “And I like him, too.”

Rita let out a chuckle. “The way you make eyes at him, I’d say you more than like him.”

I was shocked when I heard Red laugh, too. “Yeah,” he said softly. “I more than like him. He’s… he’s an amazing person.”

My cheeks were burning red. I wished I could disappear into the floor and pretend I’d never heard Red complimenting me like that.

It felt great, of course, on one level.

But it also felt like I was a lion looking at a juicy piece of food, just out of my reach. I could have sex with Red all I wanted, but the minute I let myself fall too deeply for him, I was going to be badly hurt.

“You rocked that dinner,” Red told me as we pulled up outside my house a few hours later.

The entire drive home, I’d been trying to contain a whirlwind of emotion and desire swirling inside me. I was too afraid to reach over and hold his hand again, so instead I kept rubbing my palms across my jeans, fiddling with the denim, and looking out the window.

Now the car was stopped, and I felt like very soon, Red was going to be able to tell I was fucking about to explode inside.

I cleared my throat. “Your mom is the one who rocked that dinner,” I said. “The roast chicken was incredible. And that chocolate cake is the stuff of dreams.”

“She knows how to make a good meal,” Red said.

I bit my lower lip, grinning a little. “I learned that you rock eyeliner so well,” I said.

He put the truck in park and cut the engine.

“We never need to speak of that again,” Red said, running a hand through his hair.

“It’s adorable, and you know it,” I said.

“The only adorable thing is how you blushed when you were talking about porn,” Red said.

“I did not.”

“A little bit. At first,” Red said, the corner of his mouth curling into a smile.

“I’ve been doing porn for over a decade, Red, I’m not shy about it,” I said.

“But now you’re not somewhere between tipsy and wasted at all times,” Red said.

My chest clenched a little. I bit my bottom lip, looking out the front windshield. The night was clear, and even from inside the truck I could see a few stars in the sky.

“Yeah,” I said. “Everything feels a little different now.”

He must have sensed that his words had hit me a little hard. He popped off his seatbelt and turned to face me, reaching out to squeeze my shoulder.

“I didn’t mean it in a bad way,” he said. “I’m… having more fun with you lately than I ever did when we were both in party mode.”