Page 6 of Texas Kissing

I’d pretty much ignored the gaggle of girls over on that side of the bar because they seemed to be the loudest, most irritating bunch in the place. But now that I craned my neck, I could just see, amongst all the bare shoulders and perfectly-coiffed hair, a blackcowboy hat. He was sitting down, hidden by his crowd of admirers.Well, of course he was.

I edged closer to the crowd. The girls had formed a solid wall of perfect, slender shoulders and trim little waists. Most of them were taller than me and even the ones who weren’t were lifted by towering heels.

He wasn’t even going to be able to see me.

Maybe that’s for the best.This whole thing had been crazy anyway. I knewI couldn’t start anything with him, so what the hell was I doing there?I’m fulfilling an obligation. Hedidsave my life.

That’s what I told myself.

I edged my way through the crowd. A few of the girls turned and eyed me with disgust. They didn’t have to call me names: the disbelieving snorts were enough.

I’d been a hermit so long, I’d sort of forgotten what bitches women could be. I kept going, my face heating up. Then, as I broke through to the front of the crowd, I stopped and stared.

Bull’s chair was tilted back on two legs so that he could lean against the wall. He wasn’t topless now, of course, but the white shirt couldn’t hide the breadth of his chest or the thickness of his forearms. His long, denim-clad legs were stretched out, his boots resting on another chair, and two girls had perched their dainty behinds there, one on his calves and one just above his knees, as they giggled away at him. A third was just arriving with a fresh beer for him. A fourth was beside him, massaging his shoulders.

Now I began to see where all his arrogance came from. God, they just threw themselves at him! And why? Just because he was muscley and confident and had an enormous—

He looked up, saw me and grinned as if he was genuinely pleased to see me. And my idiot body reacted. My lungs point-blank refused to move any air and, as his eyes flicked down over my breasts and thighs, a wave of heat rolled down in their wake like thunder following lightning.

“Lily,” he said in that slow Texas drawl. He tipped his hat back just a little. “Come sit down.”

And he glanced down at the one remaining space—his groin.

Ego.That’s what I’d been about to think. He had an enormous ego.

“Careful,” one girl muttered. “You might crush him.”

I hadn’t had any intention of sitting in his goddamn lap anyway, but that did it. I turned and pushed my way back through the crowd, head down. I’d done my part. I’d showed up. Fuck him and the horse-sized ego he rode in on, if he thought I was going to join his fan group and—

A hand grabbed my arm just as I reached the door. Abighand. The heat of it soaked through my thin blouse and throbbed into my skin.

Bull hauled me around to face him. I didn’t resist. “Now, that ain’t very sporting,” he told me. “You just got here.”

I glanced towards the crowd, confused. Why had he come after me? “Seems like you’ve got all the attention you need.”

He glanced over at the girls who were now staring at us, frowning. “I don’t care about them,” he said with an easy shrug. He squeezed my arm and I went squidgy inside. It was something to do with the strength of those fingers and the heat of his hand,soaking right into me.

I took another look at the girls. They were frowning and pouting, now. Atme.

“I didn’t come here to get between you and your groupies,” I said.

He laughed—a big bass laugh that made heads turn. The sort of laugh you can only do when you’re completely unconcerned what anyone thinks—the sort it’d be impossible for me to do. He glanced over at the girls again and gave them a wave. They started to glare at him, too. I think I actually saw one stamp her foot.

He really didn’t give a shit what they thought, I realized. Whatanyonethought. He’d had fun with them and then—for some reason—he’d wanted to toy with me and so he’d dumped the whole lot of them.

And then, no doubt, the next girl would come along and he’d walk off withher.

“I’m outta here,” I told him, and turned to go.

He still had his hand on my arm. He didn’t grip me tight and pull me back, he just used his hand to guide me in an arc back towards him. “Hey, hey,hey,”he said, his tone changing. When I reluctantly looked him in the eye, he was frowning. “What’s the matter?”

The funny thing was, if I hadn’t already pegged him as a cocky, womanizing bastard, I would have believed he actually cared.

“Nothing,” I said. “This was a bad idea.” And I took a step back.

And he took a step forward.

I looked up into those big blue eyes again. They really were like the Texas sky—when I looked into them, there was this impression ofsize,like I was in the middle of a desert, turning slowly to see theblueness that was all around me. It felt as if he was seeing me from every angle, even the bits of me I tried to hide.