The Front Runner (Gold Rush Ranch, #3)

by Elsie Silver

The world is a cruel place sometimes.

I promised my mother on her deathbed I would take her dashed dreams and make them a reality. So here I am, trying my best and not all that concerned about making friends along the way.

Mira Thorne is alluring, and I’m not immune to it.

Her friends call me Dalca the Dick, but right now is the first time I’ve actually felt like one.

I’m well aware I’m not a comforting person. I’m not a hold-your-hair-back-while-you-barf kind of friend. I didn’t get the nursing gene.

“Whatever you say,” he replies smoothly. “I just can’t fall in love with you, right?” I chuckle as I twist the doorknob to leave. “Oh, Stefan. I think you already are.”

“I’ll be better company than a dildo. I promise.” She shakes her head again and swipes her kit off the ground. “Doubtful,” is her reply as she walks away. I can’t help but appreciate the way her cargo pants hug the round globes of her ass. The things I’d do to that ass. “Bet I can make you come harder too.” She laughs, a girlish laugh. Not her usual throaty husk. “I’d like to see you try.” Challenge accepted.

“Good. Because I want to make myself abundantly clear.” We’re so close. I can feel the entire length of his body covering mine. He teases me with the lightest brush of his lips against my ear as he drops his voice and holds me captive. “You are not the pawn, Mira. You are the prize.”

“Challenge accepted. But I’m not going to fuck you until you’re begging for it.” And then he saunters away to work the room, like he didn’t just knock me into a complete tailspin.

How I went from wanting to get as far away from him as possible to now standing here, soaked, in a field, weighing the merits of grabbing the town bad guy’s ass, I’ll never know.

It sounds almost unreal. Like one of the daytime soap operas I would curl up and watch with my mom when I got home from high school. Stefan was hiding in a stall alone, and I was watching trash TV and laughing with my mom.

I don’t want to tame her; I just want a front-row seat to watch her win the race.

“Absolutely nothing about the way I feel for you is a joke. And I’ll keep telling you that until you believe me.”

Nothing about this feels fake. Our bodies. Our minds. Our hearts. Absolutely everything about being with Mira feels like one of the most real things I’ve ever had in my life. And I won’t let her slip between my fingers now. I’m going to make her come on them instead. I pull away to nip at the lobe of her ear, and she whimpers in protest. “Do you remember what I said I was going to do to you if I had you up against a wall, Dr. Thorne?” “What?” Her voice is pure lust, almost slurred. “I told you that you’d be the meal.”

“You have beautiful hands. Almost as beautiful as your mind and heart. Sometimes I find myself staring at them while you work, so elegant and strong all at once. Hands that heal. Hands that save lives.” His voice drops. “Hands that belong in mine.”