Wanting Nash was easy. Ignoring him was so damn hard.
Everything inside of Megan urged her to look left at Nash, the man watching her intently. That had been an added piece of hell since they’d been together at Chase and Harper’s wedding. She knew whenever he was near by the hair rising on the back of her neck.
She sighed and set the beer down in front of the guy with the black cowboy hat whose cologne was too strong. Her stomach turned a little. Any strong scents lately sent her tummy tumbling. The man sat atop a metal stool at the shiny, reclaimed-wood slab bar in Kinky Spurs, the western-themed bar she owned in the heart of River Rock, Colorado. Her cowboy boots crunched against the peanut shells littering the ground. Her red T-shirt with KINKY SPURS written across her chest rested low over jean shorts that barely covered her butt. She had put the uniform into place back when she bought the rectangular space bookended by two stages two years ago. She had loved every minute during those years, but she began to regret her decision about the uniform when her shorts rode up in places they shouldn’t. The uniform lately seemed . . . tight.
Still, the rest she loved.
Rows of liquor bottles lined the back wall to keep the customers ready for a party. Above those, a bright-pink neon KINKY SPURS sign rested below large deer antlers. The greasy aroma wafting out of the kitchen was perfection, especially when nursing a hangover. Over the past few weeks, Megan had developed an addiction to burgers. All kinds. Who was she kidding. Every kind.
The bar was rough, not classy. From the wood-paneled walls, the mechanical bull on one stage and the live band on the other, to the testosterone oozing off the cowboys, Kinky Spurs was all hers. Well, minus the mortgage she had on the property. Which was lowered with the inheritance her grandmother had left her when she passed a few years back.
Only, tonight there was something she could do without. Cowboys. Scratch that, one cowboy in particular.
It didn’t matter that Nash was on the other side of the bar sitting with his two brothers, Shep, the oldest, and Chase, the middle Blackshaw brother. The weight of his stare felt like a thousand pounds pressing down on her. There was a giant elephant in the room. She knew it. He knew it. Hell, everyone knew it.
Every second his gaze followed her. Every minute that he stared intently only made her heart beat faster. She began to imagine plucking out his eyeballs just to stop feeling the way his gaze caressed over her, making her want things she should not want.
“What can I get ya?” she asked the woman next to her last customer, raising her voice over the Chris Stapleton song the live band belted out.
“A cosmopolitan,” the woman yelled back.
Megan turned to fetch the woman’s drink when her gaze connected with Nash. Dammit. Those eyes locked on her, making her belly flip and flop. She quickly glanced away, her hands shaking when she reached for the vodka and triple sec.
When the hell did she become this pining woman?
Megan Harrison had her stuff together, buying her own bar at only twenty-five, working long, hard hours without ever complaining. She’d been the girl with a good head on her shoulders. The woman who knew better than to get with men like Nash Blackshaw. She had seen men at their worst, drunk, belligerent, and broken. Those men never shook her, but Nash rattled her right down to her bones.
She sighed . . . again, grabbed the martini glass, and began pouring the vodka first. It wasn’t like she hadn’t been able to handle Nash before. All through high school when he laid on the charm, she turned him down. Every single time. Even into her twenties, before he left to join the professional bull-riding circuit, she cleverly thwarted his attention. Until her twenty-seventh year. Apparently, this was the year that would change everything.
Most of all, her and her life.
There was no refusing the way her body and heart craved him anymore.
Which was entirely the problem. She never should have let that night happen. And yet, she didn’t regret it either. Good things came from that night.
The first few weeks of ignoring Nash had been easy. She’d whipped up some snappy lines and kept him at a safe distance. Life returned to what it had been before she’d had a lapse in judgment and let Nash win for a night.
Things were good. They were back to normal. Until she was into the fourth week after their night together. Everything changed then. And ensuring Nash got nowhere near her heart had proved harder. He seemed to invade cracks in her walls. More and more, she forgot all the reasons they shouldn’t be together.
Wide awake, he was there. In her dreams, he was there. He would not go away. Ever.
When the fifth week came along, she had a softness for him that was utterly dangerous for the power it gave him. Without a doubt, the moment he spotted that weakness, he’d exploit it to his advantage. Her heart had never been at a greater risk. For one thing, he had a terrible track record with women. For another, he was a man who didn’t fight for a damn thing but himself. A man who took and took and took, until all that was left was the crumpled-up women he left behind.
No, thanks.
And yet . . . and yet, she pined for him like a cat pined for a cardboard box.
Because of that, she had done what any normal woman would do. She avoided all eye contact, hoping to hell he would leave her alone. Cowardly, maybe. But when all else failed, what was a woman to do?
She finished off the cosmo, delivering the drink to the customer, then accepted payment and tossed the cash into the register. A slow heat sizzled down her spine, no doubt Nash stripping the clothes right off her body with his gaze. She huffed and grabbed the microphone from below the bar, ready to get her mind on something else. She ducked under the bar’s gate, then lost her breath completely when she hit a hard wall that was Nash’s chest.
Against her better judgment, she slowly looked up into his captivating blue eyes. And then came his panty-melting grin. “Miss me?” he asked, rich with arrogance.
Her lips parted to unleash a sassy retort. Dammit, it never came. “Can I help you with something?” she asked instead.
His low chuckle smacked a tsunami-sized wave of heat into her. The scent of beer and man and pine brushed across her face when he dropped his chin and arched an eyebrow. “I can think of a couple things you could help me with, Freckles.”
She planted her hand against his rock-hard chest and pushed. Damn him. He didn’t even budge. “There’s a thing called personal space. You should learn what that is.”
He wasn’t looking at her. Oh, hell no, he stared at her hand on his chest. She quickly drew herself away, fully aware of the electricity between them. She swallowed deep when he looked at her again. The heat flaring in his expression, matched with his low voice, made her so damn weak she nearly tugged him into her office.
At that, his grin turned devilish. “Not that long ago, you liked when I got this close.”
Her breath hitched and goose bumps tickled over her flesh. Her mind traveled to places she’d sworn her thoughts would never go again. God, she vividly remembered those lips sliding across her skin. How the playfulness in his gaze morphed into intensity that had been the sexiest thing she had ever seen. Even now, she drew in his scent and he smelled so damn good. Like the fresh, open Colorado country air after being in the city. “That was two months ago,” she reminded him weakly, “and I really wish you would stop talking about that . . . mistake.”
“We weren’t a mistake,” he said smoothly.
“Okay, lapse in judgment, then.”
He chuckled so easily, like nothing ever got to him. “Not that either, Freckles.”
“Oh, yeah, then what was it?”
No matter how many people watched this conversation, he said dead serious, “The best night of both our lives.”
She parted her lips to say something brilliant. Something that would smack him back down to where he belonged. Again, her mind failed to react. Instead, emotion rose up, tightening her throat until she could barely breathe.
Nash’s head cocked, brows drawing together tight. “Now that’s a look I’ve never seen on your face.” She shut her eyes, trying to get herself together. For weeks, she’d been an emotional basket case, even crying at commercials. Before two months ago, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried. Now, she wept for no reason at all.
“Megan,” Nash said softly, dragging his knuckles across her cheek. “Talk to me.”
Oh, how she wanted to step closer. To slide into his strong, warm embrace. “I can’t do this,” she managed to choke out, stepping away. “Not here. Not now.”
“You can’t keep ignoring me,” he called after her. “We need to talk.”
She swallowed against the surge of wild emotions rushing through her. His use of her full name was a warning. Doing her best to forget the man behind her, she jumped onto the stage, and the band behind her wrapped up their song.
Every night from Thursday to Saturday, Kinky Spurs held a game between the customers, one Megan had named Rope ’Em Up. Sure, it had been a marketing ploy to bring in the younger crowd instead of all the locals who drank at the Spurs when Gerald Kinky owned the bar. The marketing idea had worked, and Kinky Spurs had never been more successful than it had in this last year. Megan was making real money now, and even had the means to hire more staff. Visitors and the college crowd liked being roped by a real cowboy, especially by some of the homegrown River Rock cowboys.
She cleared her mind, and after a nod from Dalton, the lead singer in the Kinky Spurs band, she turned on the microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen: Let’s get to why you’re all here. Can I get three cowboys to join me on stage for Rope ’Em Up?”
The crowd went wild as two locals, Beckett and Hayes, both cowboys who worked at the Blackshaw Cattle Ranch, jumped onto the stage. Before she could even take in what was happening, Nash joined them and plucked the microphone out of her hand. “Don’t y’all wanna see me rope our Megan here?” he asked the crowd.
Thunderous applause followed. Especially from the ladies, though some of them looked disappointed that Nash wouldn’t be roping them. Of course they would. In River Rock, Nash was a local celebrity. Not only was the Blackshaw family well known for their meat shop only blocks away from the Spurs, their cattle farm, and now the newest Blackshaw venture, a working cattle guest ranch, but Nash was a professional bull-riding champion.
She snatched the microphone back and cupped it, putting on a smile for the crowd. “I hate you,” she said to Nash.
“No, you don’t, Freckles.” He waved out at the crowd, owning them like he always could before he slid his gaze to her. “And that’s the problem, isn’t it?”
Damn Nash and his confidence. She slowly narrowed her eyes as her response, then gestured at the newest Kinky Spurs bartender, Bethany, standing behind the bar. She was a young, pretty blonde, and most times made Megan realize how much thirty was creeping up on her.
When Bethany joined her on the stage, accepting the microphone from her hand, Megan turned to Nash and promised, “You’re going to lose.”
“We’ll see about that.” There was that damn grin again.
Regardless that she wanted to tape his mouth shut to avoid that smile, heat pooled directly between her thighs as if he had some miraculous on switch. She took a few steps back, while Nash grabbed the bundle of rope from the ground. Bethany was calling out to the crowd, getting two more women up there for the game. Megan couldn’t look away from Nash’s grin as he began working the rope into a lasso. His playful nature was one of the sexiest things about him. And as much as she hated that nothing ever seemed to get to him, she liked it too.
Relationships were weird.
She had to constantly remind herself how he took nothing seriously. All of this was a game to him. She was a game.
Megan needed—no, deserved—to be more.
She told herself that again and again, while Nash settled next to the other cowboys, those gorgeous blue eyes studying her intently.
Off to the side of the men, Bethany lifted one arm high in the air. “Get ready to rope your ladies, cowboys.” A pause. Then she dropped her arm, yelling, “Go.”
Everything happened so fast, it was entirely impossible to take it all in. All Megan knew was one second she stood there, Nash highly amused, as always. The next, the rope came flying in her direction, and Megan took a full step sideways to ensure he lost. Because somehow, she knew if he won this game, he would win her too.
Though the moment her cowboy boot returned to the floor, the rope slid easily over her arms. “Fuck,” she breathed, right as Nash yanked the rope tight. In the blink of an eye, she was pressed against him while he bound her wrists in front of her.
Heady amusement glistened in his eyes when he threw up his hands, declaring himself the winner.
She frowned. “There is no goddamn way you could have anticipated that I would move.”
The heat of his body pressed against her tight. “There is something you keep forgetting, Freckles.”
“Oh, yeah, what’s that?”
His fingers tightened around the bindings on her wrists, a statement all on its own. Slowly, gingerly, he dropped his head into her neck and planted a soft kiss there. “I know you.”
The world up and vanished.
Her eyes shut, and just like that, the bar faded away. It was him and her, and how right this felt between them. She couldn’t ignore the magic they shared, and she shivered wanting things he could deliver on.
She stepped closer . . . needing him . . . wanting him.
He chuckled, his lips brushing against her pulse. “You were wrong.”
She blinked, breaking the spell he put her under. “What?” she breathed.
With the crowd roaring around her, he grinned. “I won a whole lot tonight.”