But there must have been something even bigger than lust at play that night.
Once he’d gotten her into her suite, she’d continued trying to coerce him into going back to the bar. I just want to have fun. A few more minutes? Come on, Nick, don’t be a party pooper. Let’s go have fun together. Her speech had slurred, and she could barely walk without stumbling. She’d had her fun. More fun than he’d approved of, but while he watched out for her, Trixie was her own woman, and she liked to be told what to do about as much as he did. But there was no way he’d let her go back to the bar and do something she might regret. Instead, he’d put her to bed, took off her heels, and since she’d continued in her sleepy, drunken state to try to get up and leave the room, he’d stayed in the chair beside her bed until morning, slipping out the door before she’d woken up.
But the damage had already been done.
Seeing his take-charge friend, who took life by the horns and was always in control, let her guard down had changed him. He’d protected family and friends for as long as he could remember. But as he’d watched over her that night, the feelings that had settled into him like fog following summer rain were unlike anything he’d ever felt. He could no longer think of Trixie Jericho without remembering the feel of her hanging on him, the eagerness of her touch, the sweetness of her breath, and the perfectness of her in his arms, or those adorable murmurs and smiles she’d made in her sleep. He’d craved the sight of her ever since, wanting to take care of her, and worse, to feel her legs wrapped around his neck as he devoured her and around his waist as he buried himself eight inches deep.
Trixie Jericho was the worst kind of trouble, and she didn’t even know it.
The morning after the banquet, he realized that she hadn’t known he’d stayed with her that night. She’d apologized for getting drunk and had thanked him for walking her back to her room. When she’d said, For all your bullheaded arrogance, it’s that big ol’ heart that’s going to get you in trouble one day, she’d had no idea how true those words were.
But he knew better than to play with dynamite. Because underneath all her sass and snark were dreams of a white wedding. Nick wasn’t in the market for a wife. Even if he was, while Trixie liked getting away from her hometown to gain a little breathing room, she was, and would always be, a daddy’s girl, a Jericho rancher born and bred, and a forever Oak Falls, Virginia, resident—and Nick was never going to move away from Pleasant Hill, Maryland.
If only he could shake the need to be near her.
TRIXIE WONDERED WHAT her ridiculously hot and too bullheaded for his own good friend Nick Braden and her brothers were talking about now. She loved her brothers, but while they supported her dreams, that support came with a side of amusement, and she was sick of not being taken seriously. Had they told Nick her plans to open a miniature therapy horse business? At least she knew he wasn’t laughing at it. Nick always took Trixie—and everything about ranching—seriously, and he wasn’t a laugher. He was gruff, smart, and honest to a fault. He also loved his family as much as she loved hers, all of which was why she believed he was her perfect match. But since he didn’t see her the way she saw him, he’d become the man she compared every other guy to.
Her friend Lindsay shimmied closer, her blond hair swinging over her shoulders. “Girl, you’re going to burn a hole in that big-muscled cowboy’s back.”
She and Lindsay had grown up together, along with every other person around their age in Oak Falls. Their hometown was about as big as a fist. If she tripped on the sidewalk, the whole town knew it by nightfall. But Trixie had a handful of close friends she trusted to keep her secrets, like her forever crush on Nick Braden, and Lindsay was at the top of that list.
Trixie stole a glance at Nick. “I’d need laser vision to get through his armor.”
“Don’t pretend you don’t want to straddle his hog,” Lindsay teased.
“That doesn’t mean he’s offering.” Nick wasn’t just a truck-driving cowboy. He also drove an elite Silver-Stone motorcycle, which gave him an even sexier edge.
“Maybe he sucks in bed.”
Trixie laughed. “There’s no way that man sucks in bed. I swear he bathes in testosterone.”
“Then maybe he’s little-sister-zoned you,” Lindsay said, and twirled around.
“He has definitely not little-sister-zoned me.” She and Nick often tossed flirty comments around, but they were always in jest. At least on his end.
Trixie was bold when it came to almost everything, except her crush on Nick. She’d never been as comfortable with a man as she was with Nick. They got along in all situations, and when she was at his place, she fit in like she belonged there. They worked great together around his ranch, and his animals loved her. She didn’t want to screw up their friendship, especially since the one time she’d tried to get him to take notice of her as a woman instead of just a skilled rancher he respected and liked to hang out with, it had totally backfired. It had happened in Colorado after a race Trixie had competed in. Nick had shown up in support of his brother and cousin, and she’d had too much to drink at the awards banquet. She’d thrown caution to the wind and had gotten a little handsy and flirty with him. But as in sync as Nick was with his animals—she swore he could read their minds—he was oblivious to her womanly wiles. He’d acted like the same old teeth-grinding, protective Nick. He’d carried her to bed, taken off her heels, and left her to sleep it off like a perfect gentleman. When her head had cleared the next morning, she’d been relieved that he hadn’t noticed her flirting because things could have gotten weird between them. They’d had a good laugh about her tipsy night, and he’d started a running joke about hiding alcohol from her.
She’d stayed with him a few times since then, and he’d taken to showing up wherever she and Jillian were hanging out and watching them like hawks, as if that one tipsy night had erased all the years he’d known her to be a minimal drinker and had proven she needed a babysitter.
Seeing him in the clubs had underscored what she’d already known. Nick wasn’t always a teeth-grinding gentleman. He had a freaking harem in those clubs, and they paid homage to him as if he were a celebrity. He also had dance moves that put every other man to shame, and he knew how to use them. Just not with me.
“I still don’t know why you bother thinking about him that way when you can have any guy in here.” Lindsay eyed the other guys who were watching them. “Braden had his chance. Don’t you think it’s time you got over him and gave a few other guys a chance? It’s not like you’re on the hunt for a husband, for Pete’s sake, and thank God for that.”
While Trixie believed in love and happily ever after, Lindsay, a wedding planner and photographer, only believed in those things for others. She had no interest in long-term relationships and had no problem steering her friends away from them, too. But while Trixie might not be looking for a ring on her finger right now, because she had a business to build, one day she wanted everything her parents had. She wanted the fairy tale—a man who couldn’t imagine a life without her, down on one knee, promising her the world she knew he’d stop at nothing to give her, just as she’d stop at nothing to give him everything he wanted. She was pretty sure Nick wouldn’t be that man. He’d never hidden the fact that he wasn’t the marrying kind, but she felt so connected to him, she’d let herself get wrapped up in the idea of them as a couple.