Rough and Ready (More Than A Cowboy #2) - Vanessa Vale Page 0,26

me, to fuck me, they hadn’t seen me. I didn’t bare my body or my soul to any of them. They knew nothing about me, saw nothing past their own arousal and desires. To get off. And I wanted it that way. I didn’t want anyone to see my flaws, everything dirty in my past. In my life.

With Reed, when I’d been on his lap, I’d been completely covered, he’d touched me over my panties, and I’d never been so exposed. Vulnerable. He hadn’t gotten off. He hadn’t even gotten a kiss.

Still, he saw me. Saw into me, into the deep places I kept hidden, that I traveled five thousand miles to escape. In his texts, he’d asked me if I was running from him, and I’d answered him honestly. Distance helped with telling the truth. I was running from everything, and it had been the first time I’d admitted it, even to myself.

I was running from my life, and just like on the treadmill at the gym, I wasn’t going anywhere. I was stuck. Trapped. Not just by Cam but by my own doing.

I did the math. Bit my lip. Two-thirty here, seven-thirty in Colorado. Reed had left the conversation open, asking me out, which meant he wanted to know more about me. I wanted that, I did, but then he might see the cracks in my facade. He might see the truth, and then he’d be gone. Who would want to stay with someone like me?

I got up, got a drink of water from the sink in the bathroom. Stared at myself in the old mirror over the narrow sink. Was I going to live like this? Meet Giles after the morning presentation for a quick fuck just so I felt better? Would I feel better? It used to work, but I didn’t think it would now. Thinking of dropping to my knees before Giles made me nauseated. Ashamed.

What was wrong with me? I closed my eyes, sighed. God, I had been letting a stranger stick his dick in me for some twisted validation.

No. Reed was right. No more. I looked down at my cell, resting on the lip of the sink. I just had to push his name on my screen.

Engage. Connect. Then I wouldn’t be alone.

I picked up the phone, pressed the little phone icon next to his name.

“Harper.”

Just his voice had my heart beating frantically.

“Reed,” I said. My voice was breathless. “I, um… sorry, did I catch you at the gym?”

“It’s the middle of the night there. Are you okay?”

I exhaled, relaxed, at least a little bit. “Jet lag.”

“I didn’t know you were going away.” No, I hadn’t told him although we hadn’t done much talking. “Work?”

I turned off the light in the bathroom and climbed onto the bed, stacking the pillows against the mahogany headboard with my free hand, so I could sit up.

“I’m a guest lecturer at the university here, which has me doing joint research, leading seminars. This trip, there’s a group presentation on the latest dig at the cathedral ruins at—” I sighed, realizing I sounded like an idiot. “Never mind. It’s about a pile of really old rocks.”

I heard him huff out a little laugh. “I don’t need to know the complicated details. I just like hearing the excitement in your voice.”

For a second, I had no idea how to respond.

“You like what you do,” he continued.

“Yes,” I replied, tucking my bare legs under the thick blankets. I was only in an old t-shirt and panties, and it was chilly, the space heated by an old radiator beneath the window. The cozy bedding and flannel sheets made up the difference.

“I can hear it when you talk about it. I thought you had finals here.”

“I did, but they finished the other day. My TA closed out the grades.”

“Aren’t classes done for the holiday there, too?”

“Their term finished today.”

“You’ll be coming back to spend Christmas with your family?”

“Soon.”

I wasn’t going to offer him more, that I would spend the holiday alone. Telling him about why I would be by myself wasn’t something I wanted to do, and I didn’t want his pity. Byzantine art and a dysfunctional family were not topics any woman should share with a guy unless she wanted to drive him away.

He was quiet for a minute, but I didn’t mind. “So, you did run away.”

I leaned back, slid lower into the pillows. “Yes.”

“From me?” he asked, and I remembered his text earlier.

“You? No.” I bit my lip. Took

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