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  I glance around to see if I can spot Ransom. He’s nowhere to be seen.

  “Looking for your boyfriend?” Stone asks.

  Laughing, I pull my gaze back to his. “Are you and Ransom related?” Crap, did I really just blurt that out? It’s been foremost in my thoughts every time I’ve seen him, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.

  He tenses up immediately, and almost releases me, before he recovers his misstep. “What makes you think that?”

  “Are you kidding?” I barely refrain from snorting. “You look so much like him.”

  He looks away as if to see if anyone else has noticed, before turning back, clearing his throat, and raising a single brow. “No one else seems to have picked up on that.”

  “Well, Ransom and I are close, so it makes sense that I’d pick up on things others might not. Not to mention, I have no problem taking the bull by the horn, so to speak.” I barely give him a second to digest all that before blurting out, “So are you going to talk to him?”

  Stone flinches, and the color in his cheeks blooms brightly. “What makes you think I haven’t?” he challenges.

  “Intuition.”

  “Pretty good intuition,” he compliments, but tries to freeze me with a look.

  Taking a stab in the dark, I answer his look and state, “You have your father’s last name as your first. That’s pretty interesting.”

  “Holy shit,” he breathes, glancing around guiltily. His forehead has a light sheen of sweat, even in the cool night air.

  I pat his shoulder, but refrain from verbally reassuring him that I won’t tell. That’s not a secret I can keep. Instead, I try to lighten the moment by joking … sort of. “Are your intentions with my boyfriend pure? Or are you here to hurt him?” My lips flatten into a tight line, hoping he understands that I won’t let that happen. “And before you answer that, you should know I spoke with our professor.” His eyebrows shoot up, and mine lower. “He didn’t tell you to seek me out.”

  His hand on my shoulder flutters, while his gaze darts away from me again. Shit, I should take up poker. Apparently I’m an ace at the bluff. Deciding our dance is over, I pull him toward the edge of the dancing crowd. Releasing a deep sigh, Stone finally looks back at me. “Damn, I didn’t know any other way to approach the situation. I was hoping I could make friends with you, and by extension, Ransom. I’m not trying to cause any trouble, but I was nervous about it all. He, uh, kinda has a reputation, you know? Like unapproachable.”

  I can’t hide my surprise. Other than our few weeks of frustrating encounters because of lies and hardheadedness, Ransom had always seemed completely approachable to me. “Really? I find him quite approachable. I’m not even exaggerating when I tell you that he’s one of the best people I’ve ever known. As long as you’re not out to deceive him or demand anything from him, I don’t think you’ll have any problems.”

  “Yeah?” He looks like he’s torn between relief and disbelief.

  “Yep,” I promise. “But if you are dishonest or try to manipulate him, I can tell you straight up, that he’ll see right through it and won’t hesitate to call you out. And, once he’s formed an opinion like that, it’s hell getting him to change his mind. If you handle it right, though, you couldn’t ask for a better brother.”

  His eyes look up, as he quietly exhales. “That’s a load off. Honestly, I just don’t know how to go about all this. I only found out about him a couple of years back, but was too young to do anything about it.”

  From the few conversations I’ve had with Stone, I’ve gotten a good vibe from him. Now that I know he’s Ransom’s brother, I’m dying to know everything. Not wanting to overwhelm him, I start with the simple stuff. “How old are you?”

  “Seventeen. And he’s the whole reason I transferred. I want to know my brother.”

  I don’t want to give him false hope, but I really believe that they can work this out. “I think your brother will want to know you.” Ransom has a lot of love to give. Even if he’s shocked, and maybe even angry for being kept in the dark, I know he’ll come around and love his brother.

  “I don’t think you should waste any more time, but this isn’t the time and place either. Does he have any idea about you?” Now for the hard part—how in the world do you change everything someone thinks he knows? In the end, it’s a positive change, but that doesn’t mean it’s not going to hurt. Suddenly, I’m cursing my curious nature and inability to contain my impulsivity. Fuck, I’d really like to un-know this and let Stone tell Ransom in his own way. I have no idea the best way to minimize the impact.

  “I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure our father has satellite families all over the place.” Oh my God! How many years would Ransom and I be running into wayward siblings? Years? I cringe. There I go again. The man gives me one fabulous orgasm, and I’m giving him forever. Yeah, OK. He’s given me things more valuable than an orgasm. That just happens to be forefront in my mind.

  “Well, here’s what my gut tells me. He’s going to be happy, even though he may be shocked at first, and this may dredge up bad feelings that surround your father. But, he would kill for his friends and family, and I can totally see you falling into that role with him.” I feel a tremble work through him. “You’re shaking.”

  “It’s a lot to take in. I didn’t mean to be found out so soon. I don’t want him thinking I’ve got any ulterior motives, but I also don’t know how to go about this without it seeming that way.”

  “How about when you’re ready, you let me know? I don’t know that this is something you want to spring on someone.” He half nods, non-committal.

  “Do you want me to help you two meet up? Maybe I could tell him?” I hedge, not knowing the right way to handle this.

  “I think that would be good,” he says, breathing a deep sigh of relief. “We can blame it on how annoyingly perceptive you are.”

  “And suddenly, you sound like your brother, too,” I kid.

  “Really?” It’s so freaking sweet how much hope hangs in that one word. If Ransom fucks this up, I’m gonna kick his ass.

  “How about you come over to his place tomorrow? I’ll tell him I invited you over, and you can visit a bit before confiding in him. With Ransom, it’s best to handle things head on, you know? Don’t beat around the bush.”

  He glances over my shoulder and nods. “You still have my number?”

  “Yep, in my history notebook, I’ll text you. ‘K?”

  “Thanks, Denver,” he mumbles, and slips away.

  Leaving the dance floor behind me, my heart is heavier than ever. Ransom has his back to me, and it’s a ridiculously fine view. His arms are crossed over his chest, as he talks to a couple of bull riders. One leg is cocked in a lazy fashion, and my eyes cruise north until I reach his jean-clad butt. Wranglers were made with his ass in mind. They have to be. They cling in all the right places and showcase his assets so beautifully that, before I think it through, I ease behind him and slip my arms around his waist. Old insecurities have me tensing and almost withdrawing, but he keeps talking and fits his hands over mine, angling back against me and holding me in place. I take a deep breath and calm my erratic heartbeat over an uncharacteristic public display of affection. Burying my head between his shoulders so that I don’t have to meet any judgmental stares, is the best I can do.

  “No one’s looking at you,” Ransom says in a low voice just for me. “And I like that you couldn’t help but claim me in public.” If his goal was to make me laugh, he’s succeeded. He twists in my arms, his hands brushing over the sides of my head and down my braid. “Did you have fun?”

  “Are you jealous I danced with another guy?”

  “I told you I don’t do jealous. I wasn’t joking around. I trust you, but more than that, I trust me.”

  “Trust yourself?”

  He grins and kisses me on the forehead. “I have good taste, and I’m confident in us. And you’ve already told me you’re going home with me. Did that change?”

&nbs
p; “Nope,” I say with a pop.

  “Why be jealous if I know you’re with me—in all aspects?” The question must be rhetorical since he just plows on. “Now, did you have fun?”

  “I did. I made a new friend too. Well, I already knew him from class, but we danced, and I invited him over to hang out and meet you tomorrow. Is that OK?”

  “Uh … yeah, sure. Are we doing anything special?”

  I swallow hard before I tell the little lie, “Nah, he’s new here and not into rodeo, so he doesn’t have built-in friends like we do. Oh! I can make my Pepper-Jack Mac, if you like?”

  “Sounds good. I’m ready to get out of here.” He dips his head, nudging his black Stetson back as he does. “I want to do unspeakable things to this hot little body.”

  Grabbing his hand, I lead him away from the crowd without a backward glance.

  Chapter Eleven

  Denver

  OUR DRIVE TO campus isn’t a long one, but the whole time, I’m mentally kicking my own ass. I’m at such a loss. I think about how I would want news like this delivered to me, and all I can come up with is that I’d rather hear it from someone I know and trust rather than a virtual stranger, and that’s what Stone is to Ransom. I debate telling Pete, and letting him have the dubious honor of informing Ransom, but somehow that seems wrong too. Am I close enough to Ransom to be the one to break this news? Will he bite the messenger, since he doesn’t have a lot to lose with me?

  Suddenly, I feel like our whole relationship hangs in the balance. Lying to Ransom is the ultimate betrayal, and the longer I hold on to this information, the more it feels like a lie of omission. Confiding in someone else, before I tell Ransom, feels like lying too, even if hearing it from Pete might be the better scenario. Shit! Damn my curious nature. If I’d just held my tongue and let Stone work this out on his own timetable, I wouldn’t be holding the proverbial smoking gun and feeling like I had set all this into motion. I almost laugh as I recall how I’d taken control of my conversation with Ransom about his lifestyle and how I fit into it. That seems like forever ago.

  Just like then, instead of allowing things to unfold naturally, I pushed and gave him no choice but to put everything out there. Yeah, this is definitely a pattern for me, and while being straightforward is an admirable trait, being a bulldozer is decidedly not. It gets me in trouble more often than not.

  Ransom’s hand soothes my thigh before it eases down to caress the back of my knee. I shiver at the delicate movement. “You’ve been quiet since we left. Everything all right?”

  “Yeah, just tired.” Tired of being a control freak who doesn’t know when to keep her big mouth shut. I rest my head against his shoulder, and he twists his lips to brush them across my forehead.

  “We’re almost to the apartment.”

  I mumble something. I don’t even know what came out of my mouth, I’m so distracted. By the time he cuts off his engine, I’ve come to a decision—I’m going to sleep on it. Coward!

  Ransom unbuckles the seatbelt, wraps his arms around my frame, and pulls me onto his lap. I slant my hip to keep it from digging into the steering wheel. “How tired are you?” he hums against my throat.

  My body goes nuclear, but I tremble from the goose bumps his words and his kisses have ignited. I lift his head and look into those translucent eyes. I should tell him. I should tell him now. I open my mouth, but instead of saying what I know I should, “Not that tired,” flies from my lips.

  “Good,” he blurts out. “We need to have a chat.” His eyes glitter with undisguised mirth.

  “Shit. I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”

  “More like ran into, with arms open wide,” he quips.

  After changing into my pajamas, I head back in the living room to meet Ransom, except he’s not there. I do see a couple of beers waiting for us. This has become our routine. We talk, and then we fool around. Sometimes I get lucky, and we play. But the talking always comes first. Maybe tonight I should turn the tables on him and tell him about Stone. The rush of guilt nearly fells me. I would risk blowing Ransom’s world apart just to avoid talking about myself? That’s really shitty of me. I shake it off after thinking about it for a few seconds. There is no malice on my part, and I know I need to sit on this overnight so that I handle it with tact, instead of my usual bull-in-a-china-shop manner. Ransom’s advice, know when to rein it in, plays in my head. Damn, too bad I didn’t remember that a couple of hours ago.

  I’m kind of lost in my own head, so when I feel his hands on my hips, I jump and let out a little squeal. He spins me around, searching my eyes. “Something’s up,” he states. “Why are you so jumpy?”

  “Just thinking,” I mumble against his shoulder. I get my bearings and focus on our breathing. The quiet strains of music finally register, as does the fact that Ransom’s swaying me back and forth gently.

  We don’t usually get nights alone, so with Pete and Maggie away at his parent’s house, I decide to shake my funk. The situation will not be resolved by my brooding, and I need to live in this moment. Who knows how many more of them are in my future?

  “Now, he dances with me,” I joke. His knee slides between mine as he moves against my hips.

  His grip on me intensifies while he stares into my eyes. “I wanted to dance with you,” he confesses uneasily. “I don’t know why, but I didn’t want to share that with anyone else. I told myself I was being an idiot,” he continues with a shrug, “but that’s what I felt.”

  Running my hands up his chest and over his shoulders, I cup his neck and link my fingers together, the pads of my thumbs rubbing the soft hair there. He pulls me tighter, and we dance quietly for a moment, as he sings the lyrics to “Try a Little Tenderness” in my ear. Even though his body tries to distract my wayward thoughts, I focus on the words and the meaning behind them. This song is all about how to handle your woman, and I revel in the fact that Ransom has always known what I needed—when I needed tenderness; when I needed tough love; when I needed to be held and coddled. He’s pretty amazing like that.

  When the song ends, he pulls me over to the couch and down onto his lap. I move in for a kiss, but he only gives me a peck before pulling back.

  “You’ve told me a few things about what you like, but I need to know more. The more we get into this, the more worried I am about pushing buttons that will throw you for a loop. I need you to feel safe, and the only way that can happen is if I know for a fact whether or not you have any triggers.”

  I think about it for a minute, running through things Greer and I had done or not done. There is decidedly more on the not-done list. Pretty much, we had only gone at it hard and fast. The only two things that I can think of that would be considered out of the norm were the faked “forcing” of him on me, and the semi-public sex. I don’t even really know how to say that out loud. Compared to what Ransom and I have done, and how he feels about others knowing the details of his sex life, my previous acts seem deviant and undesirable.

  “Denver?” he whispers. Throwing on a little smile, I meet his eyes with mine. “I’m not going to get upset, but after what you’ve been through, I need you to be as honest with me as possible so that I don’t hurt you. I want all the memories we make to be happy ones.”

  Clearing my throat and steeling my spine, I toss my braid over a shoulder and buck up. “Well, I told you that I liked it rough … but I don’t know that encompasses how things really went down between us.” I have to force myself not to fidget. Of course, he notices and runs his thumb over my wrist. “We had this thing where I pretended like I didn’t want it. Um, like I would fight against him, and he would force me, but he really wasn’t. It was a game. I think that worked against me that night, you know. So I don’t want to play like that again.” A shiver that I can’t beat back works its way over me. “That’s not something that should be played around with. I realize now how dangerous that was.”

  I’m fascinated by all that I see working in his eyes—the main thing, though, is that
I see no judgment, and that makes me feel better already. “Good, so no forced role-play. That doesn’t do anything for me anyway.”

  “I don’t think it did anything for Greer either at first. That was all me. As fucked-up as it seems, I think I was trying to work through the near miss with my stepfather.”

  “That actually makes sense. In your mind, you had control over Greer while pretending you didn’t. The only thing is, you two didn’t work out the details, so when you really didn’t want it, he ignored all that.” I stiffen, because that’s what I’d come up with on my own, and when I did, it put the blame of what happened squarely at my feet. “Nuh, uh, Denver. You’re not going there again with the blame thing. Yes, you had some responsibility by not playing in a safe way before that night, but remember when y’all started that, you were both young. Also, if you remember, you told him things you never had before. You told him you hated him, and you screamed and cried. There’s a line there, even in play, and he crossed it.”

  He’s right. Our playing around had never gotten close to that level. Greer should’ve realized I wasn’t playing a game that night, but he didn’t, because we had blurred the lines. This is where things get complicated for me.

  “Is there anything else that you’re dead set against?”

  “I don’t think so. I mean, I haven’t really done much, so it’s hard to say. I’ve had semi-public sex before, and it always turned me on.”

  He raises an intrigued brow. “What’s semi-public?”

  “You know, like where others are around, but we were safely tucked away. Closet during prom; open, but deserted, areas on the ranch; the tack room in the barn—places where we could get caught together, but not necessarily in public view.”

  “Ah … the rush of possible discovery,” he murmurs. “I get it. And that doesn’t turn you off now?” I shake my head. “And neither does the rough sex?”