The Bad Boy of Redemption Ranch - Maisey Yates Page 0,103
light reflecting in his blue eyes, setting sparks of fire off the color there. “I have to stop hiding myself away. Because the truth is I was in prison a long time before I went there physically.”
His words scraped uncomfortably close to her bones. And she didn’t quite know what to say in return. So they just sat. She ate her sandwich in silence, and looked out at the view.
“How are you feeling about your interview?” he asked, shifting his body, shifting the conversation.
“Oh,” she said. “Good.”
Except she didn’t know what she felt about anything. She didn’t feel particularly confident. In herself, yes, but in what was going to happen? No.
“Do you think that you’re the best person for the job?”
“Well, yes. If I didn’t I wouldn’t be going out for it.”
“I think plenty of people would, whether they thought they were best or not.”
“Well. I wouldn’t.”
“Which is exactly why you are best for the job. I’ve never known anyone quite like you,” he said. “So sure in yourself. I mean, I’ve met a lot of people who had confidence in themselves. Who had an inflated idea of who they were. But you... You’re strong. You’re steady. I know that you want the best for the community. I admire how much you care. In spite of everything that life has taken from you.”
Pansy didn’t know quite how to respond to that. She felt like she had always been fighting to be good. And he just seemed to think that it was something she was already. That she was worthy of praise for some reason.
“I...”
She started to argue with him. But then, she didn’t want to. Because the man had literally ridden to her door on a white horse.
Because he was the epitome of a hero.
And she would have never thought that she would look at an ex-convict, a man like him, and see that. She had spent her entire life with a very rigid idea of what it meant to be a hero.
Of what it meant to be good.
But West made her see layers. Depth and richness that she hadn’t before.
She looked at him and saw a hero. And for just a while she wanted him to be hers.
Because she had lost the only other hero she ever had far too soon.
And now she had this man only a foot away from her. Strong and solid and real.
Arms that could hold her.
She leaned in, and she pressed her palm against his chest. Felt his heart beating.
Strong and certain.
This man was so incredible. So solid and alive.
He kissed her. He kissed her, and she surrendered to it. Surrendered to him. And she shivered when his hand skimmed over her curves. When he pulled her shirt up over her head, and the cooling air drew breath against her skin. She should be embarrassed. She supposed.
But in the arms of her hero, she couldn’t be anything but his.
Cherished.
Cared for.
So many things that she had decided she didn’t need to be.
He stripped her bare underneath a blue sky that was fading to purple. And then he stripped himself down, and it felt like the most honest thing she had ever experienced in all of her life.
West. Pansy.
Naked and in the open.
She had spent so much time fighting against her nature. Fighting against her name.
As if she had to prove she wasn’t her namesake. Wasn’t weak or wilting.
But out here on this blanket of flowers she didn’t think of those blooms as weak.
Bright and striking and resilient.
Because they came back every spring, didn’t they? No matter how cold the winter got.
West had talked about growing roots into this land, but as he laid her down and settled between her legs, she thought it wasn’t the land that had become a part of her. It was West.
He didn’t feel like a rebellion. He felt like reality. He felt like part of her.
Maybe even the largest part.
Like his heart was making hers beat in return.
Like his touch was fueling her breath. Her vision. Her pleasure.
He drove her to the edge, over and over again. He made her feel unbreakable. He made her feel unashamed.
And when it was over, she drifted to sleep in that tall grass, until he bundled her back up on the horse and rode them both back home.
Until they slipped beneath the covers together and found heaven one last time there in the secluded darkness of