Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 63763 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63763 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
“No.” I kept my voice low because she didn’t deserve to be embarrassed in front of anyone.
Bex lowered her hand, but her expression remained curious rather than hurt. “You don’t dance?”
“Not the issue.” My gaze moved to her mouth again, and she caught the lapse before I forced my attention back where it belonged. “You and I can’t do this.”
“Dance?” she asked, though the flicker in her eyes said she knew I meant considerably more.
“Anything that starts with one.” I tightened my grip around the glass when she stepped closer, bringing her soft scent and the warmth of her body into the narrow space I’d been trying to preserve. “Wouldn’t stay a dance.”
Her breath caught, and for one dangerous second the heat moving through her expression nearly ended the argument. “Who said I wanted it to?”
Every filthy image I’d spent the reception suppressing came back harder. I wanted to wrap one hand around her nape, keep her eyes locked to mine, and make sure the only man she ever looked at with that invitation in her eyes was me.
“Bex.” The warning came out rougher than I intended, but the sound of her name still carried too much possession for a man turning her away.
“Cipher,” she returned sweetly, matching my tone badly enough that her attempt almost made my mouth move. “That still isn’t an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting.” I forced the words through a jaw tight enough to ache, hating the small shadow they put into her expression even while I knew allowing myself one taste would end with me claiming everything. “Find somebody else to dance with.”
The brightness in Bex’s face dimmed by a fraction before she covered it, lifting her chin while her hand dropped from the bar. Her voice acquired an edge that made my cock pulse despite the anger beneath it when she replied, “Fine.”
She walked toward the dance floor without glancing back. I remained beside the bar, my expression blank to anyone who didn’t know me, but my hand closed around the untouched glass hard enough to whiten my knuckles. Letting her leave had been the correct decision, yet every instinct I possessed tracked her through the crowd as though distance from me had turned her into the only vulnerability on the ranch.
One of Raines’s younger deputies intercepted Bex before she reached the tables. He held out his hand, and she accepted his invitation with a smile before letting him guide her onto the dance floor. The guy was close to her age, clean-cut, and attractive, which made the immediate urge to snap his wrist particularly inconvenient.
The instinct to break him increased as I tracked the gradual slide of his palm until his fingers rested below any point I was willing to call respectable. The pressure in my chest whipped into cold rage. Before it even registered in my mind, I’d set down my glass and crossed the lawn, ignoring Stryker’s low groan from somewhere near the dance floor because this no longer had anything to do with anyone except Bex and me.
She might not belong to me—my mouth twisted at the sour taste of the thought—but the deputy didn’t get to put his hand on her ass while she laughed up at him like he’d earned something I had spent the night refusing.
The deputy saw me coming and straightened before I reached them, so the kid at least possessed a few instincts worth keeping. I stopped close enough to force him back half a step and looked pointedly at the hand resting low on Bex’s waist. “You’re fucking done.”
Bex’s smile vanished. “Excuse me?”
“I was talking to him.”
“I know exactly who you were talking to.” She stepped away from the deputy and faced me with anger brightening her eyes. “You don’t get a say in what I do or with who!”
A muscle shifted once along my jaw. “His hand was too fucking low.”
“It was on my waist.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
The deputy cleared his throat, muttered that he needed another drink, and escaped. Bex watched him leave before turning back to me, her cheeks flushed for reasons that had nothing to do with shyness now. “I don’t belong to you.”
My jaw hardened. “I know.”
Bex poked me hard in the chest. “Then stop acting like I do!”
My gaze dropped to those pink lips, then back to her eyes. Before I could lock it down, I heard her breath catch and knew it had revealed too much.
“You should. That’s the problem.”
I walked away before I did something stupid. The last thing Stryker needed was for Sheriff Raines to notice a club enforcer and his daughter arguing in the middle of his wedding reception.
As I stalked toward the garage, every muscle in my body fought the desire to turn around, throw her over my shoulder, and take her somewhere no deputy could touch her again. Or any other man for that matter.