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A man cannot be good unless he possesses the capacity to be evil. Decency is a choice.
Rearrange my entire existence until we buckle together beneath the intensity. I want what Jake had with Conor. I fucking crave it.
We don’t just love. We love hard, with every bone, sinew, and breath in our bodies.
Good God Almighty. Cowboys do nothing for me, but the two men who just strolled in redefine my preconceived notions of rugged ranchers.
Sculpted biceps and pectorals, flat stomachs, and powerful thighs—they’re built the same, as if carved from a single hunk of testosterone-infused stone.
There’s an air about them, a confidence, an authoritative intensity that grabs a woman by the ovaries and reduces her to her most primitive core. It’s the same instinct that drives females of any species to mate with the strongest male, to birth the fittest, most viable offspring.
I have the credentials to write and sell their dirty laundry. If they’re as corrupt as I’m led to believe, I’ll sell them out in a heartbeat.
It stings. It shouldn’t, but I’m hypersensitive to being cast away by men. It’s like I’m wearing a sign on my forehead that reads, Not worth the effort.
I have to finish this. If I don’t, the mystery surrounding my total ruin will forever haunt me. I need an explanation. I need closure.
When he reaches the headboard, he loops the belt around her wrists and restrains her to the metal frame. Of course, he does. Why wouldn’t he play out all my fantasies while I stand outside the window like a creepy pervert?
While she’s the right size to scoop up and haul around however I please, she’s also sturdy enough to sustain a hard, savage fuck against a barn door.
It’s as if I’m enthralling her, as if we’re ensnaring each other.
Maybe that explains my infatuation. She’s the forbidden fruit. An enemy to my family and everything I’m trying to rebuild.
“We want different things, and we’re going into this on opposite sides. I’m willing to argue with you, make disrespectful claims, and offend you in the pursuit of truth.” Her pursuit of truth is what scares me. But that’s not the only thing. Everything she said is self-evident, but I never thought about it in such a succinct and intelligent way. She’s smarter than me, and that scares me the most.
“This is bullshit.” “What you’re smelling is horse shit. The bulls are in the west pasture.”
I don’t negotiate. I’ll take what I want and give her what she needs, not what she thinks she needs. Then I’ll send her stubborn ass back to Chicago.
“Geez. Now you’re just making me feel like a crazy person.” “You’re a vegetarian. ‘Nough said.”
Maybe Jarret and Jake aren’t the bad guys. Or maybe Conor is involved in the corruption.
“Here’s what I want to know.” Jake swallows his last bite and looks at Jarret. “If you start eating her out on the regular, does that mean you’re on a vegetarian diet?”
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“No one here cares what you eat.” He folds his arms on the table. “They were just feeling you out. Seeing what you’re made of.” “That’s fucked up.” My eyebrows pull in as my mind spins with curiosity. “What do you think I’m made of?” “Backbone.” He reaches out and yanks on one of my braids. “And now they know it, too.”
“We were raised to eat efficiently. It’s a way of life here. Meals are fuel and nothing more. After a couple of days, you’ll get used to it.”
That's how my grandpa, coal miner ate.
No man should have a body like that. It’s criminal.
More than anything, I want to capture the flame inside her and keep it burning between us.
“She’s not one of your buckle bunnies.”
“There’s some good breeding on Julep Ranch, and I’m not referring to the horses.”
When the night ends, there will be no distinctions between her cravings and my needs. She said we want different things, but she’s wrong.
She isn’t some gold-digging, narcissistic, faceless woman seducing her way into my bed. She’s everything I’ve been waiting for and nothing like I expected. I made a deal with her that I have no intention of honoring. Because I can’t fathom going back to a life without her. The notion is so bleak and horrifying it fills me with desperate rage.
The man has the power to reduce my body to ravenous starvation and rebuild me into whatever he desires—all while operating a vehicle at high speeds. It’s terrifying. I’ve never felt so desperate, vulnerable, reckless, and alive.
Instead of running for my life, I’m compelled to stay, to seize the attraction between us with both hands and hold it close.
I want this man at a level that disregards logic, self-preservation, and mental health.
Desires are dangerous, and I’ve suppressed so many in my life, never permitting myself to act on submissive tendencies. I feared my cravings would make me needy and weak and turn me into a doormat.
“I fell for you the first night.” There goes my heart. He might as well reach into my chest and yank out the miserable thing. It’s his now, and I don’t know how to proceed. I can’t breathe, can’t string together words, can’t make my legs work.
He’s going to capture me, restrain me, force me to bend, and blow my fucking mind.
My damn heart forgot that love sucks, that it scars the soul, tramples trust, and hollows out the body.
I’ve fallen in love three times. Had sex with three men. Failed three relationships. I swore there wouldn’t be a fourth, and here I am, sucking at life.
About the secrets we’re hiding from each other. About the trust we’ve built on lies.
He shackled my heart with his, and I wish he would lose the key to that lock. The steady beat of his love against mine empowers me, strengthens me, makes me believe that as long as we’re together, it’s enough. We’re enough.
“I love you, too.” Her gaze slips over my face and returns to my eyes. “So much it hurts.”
He paved the trails of sin through Julep Ranch.
But she makes me want to be the right man. Selfless. Vulnerable. Buckled on my knees beneath the trust in her huge blue eyes. She makes me want to be the man deserving of that precious trust.
I’ve been searching for so long and feel like I’m everywhere and nowhere at all.” “You’re where you’re supposed to be, where you belong.” “I own nothing.” “You own me.”
He’s the man I will never know as deeply as I want even as he forever owns my heart.
“I’ll wait.” He stands taller, shoulders back, and adopts the confident stance so intrinsic to who he is. “Take your space, your time, whatever you need. But I won’t let you take forever. That belongs to me. Your forever is mine.”
In that moment, I’ve never felt so alone. I wish I’d never met him. I resent the unwavering love I feel for him. I silently will him to leave.
Six inches shorter and a fraction of the muscle mass, Keegan must be suffering from Napoleon syndrome. Or stupidity.
“By storming in there and ruining my meeting, you basically told me you think I’m weak and incapable of surviving without your manly interference. You think so little of me you have to save me from a job interview, because my judgment’s so poor and my willpower’s so pathetic I don’t know how to walk away from a bad situation.”
Love is as invisible as the wounds it inflicts and as lethal as a knife. When it’s taken away, all that remains is pain. Unlearning that pain is impossible. It’s a road with no exit ramps or turnoffs. Once it carves its way through the soul, there’s no choice but to hold on and ride it to the dark, bitter, lonely end.
Love is meant to buckle the strongest and fiercest person. It’s the very thing the soul cries for. To recoil from that is to reject the most powerful medicine, the greatest cure for loneliness.
