Feisty Red (Three Chicks Brewery #2) - Stacey Kennedy Page 0,65

to get herself together. For weeks, she’d been an emotional basket case, even crying at commercials. Before two months ago, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried. Now, she wept for no reason at all.

“Megan,” Nash said softly, dragging his knuckles across her cheek. “Talk to me.”

Oh, how she wanted to step closer. To slide into his strong, warm embrace. “I can’t do this,” she managed to choke out, stepping away. “Not here. Not now.”

“You can’t keep ignoring me,” he called after her. “We need to talk.”

She swallowed against the surge of wild emotions rushing through her. His use of her full name was a warning. Doing her best to forget the man behind her, she jumped onto the stage, and the band wrapped up their song.

Every night from Thursday to Saturday, Kinky Spurs held a game between the customers, one Megan had named Rope ’Em Up. Sure, it had been a marketing ploy to bring in the younger crowd instead of all the locals who drank at the Spurs when Gerald Kinky owned the bar. The marketing idea had worked, and Kinky Spurs had never been more successful than it had in this last year. Megan was making real money now, and even had the means to hire more staff. Visitors and the college crowd liked being roped by a real cowboy, especially by some of the homegrown River Rock cowboys.

She cleared her mind, and after a nod from Dalton, the lead singer in the Kinky Spurs band, she turned on the microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen: Let’s get to why you’re all here. Can I get three cowboys to join me on stage for Rope ’Em Up?”

The crowd went wild as two locals, Beckett and Hayes, both cowboys who worked at the Blackshaw Cattle Ranch, jumped onto the stage. Before she could even take in what was happening, Nash joined them and plucked the microphone out of her hand. “Don’t y’all wanna see me rope our Megan here?” he asked the crowd.

Thunderous applause followed. Especially from the ladies, though some of them looked disappointed that Nash wouldn’t be roping them. Of course they would. In River Rock, Nash was a local celebrity. Not only was the Blackshaw family well known for their meat shop only blocks away from the Spurs, their cattle farm, and now the newest Blackshaw venture, a working cattle guest ranch, but Nash was a professional bull-riding champion.

She snatched the microphone back and cupped it, putting on a smile for the crowd. “I hate you,” she said to Nash.

“No, you don’t, Freckles.” He waved out at the crowd, owning them like he always could before he slid his gaze to her. “And that’s the problem, isn’t it?”

Damn Nash and his confidence. She slowly narrowed her eyes as her response, then gestured at the newest Kinky Spurs bartender, Bethany, standing behind the bar. She was a young, pretty blonde, and most times made Megan realize how much thirty was creeping up on her.

When Bethany joined her on the stage, accepting the microphone from her hand, Megan turned to Nash and promised, “You’re going to lose.”

“We’ll see about that.” There was that damn grin again.

Regardless that she wanted to tape his mouth shut to avoid that smile, heat pooled directly between her thighs as if he had some miraculous on switch. She took a few steps back while Nash grabbed the bundle of rope from the ground. Bethany was calling out to the crowd, getting two more women up there for the game. Megan couldn’t look away from Nash’s grin as he began working the rope into a lasso. His playful nature was one of the sexiest things about him. And as much as she hated that nothing ever seemed to get to him, she liked it too.

Relationships were weird.

She had to constantly remind herself how he took nothing seriously. All of this was a game to him. She was a game.

Megan needed—no, deserved—to be more.

She told herself that again and again, while Nash settled next to the other cowboys, those gorgeous blue eyes studying her intently.

Off to the side of the men, Bethany lifted one arm high in the air. “Get ready to rope your ladies, cowboys.” A pause. Then she dropped her arm, yelling, “Go.”

Everything happened so fast, it was entirely impossible to take it all in. All Megan knew was one second she stood there, Nash highly amused, as always. The next, the rope came flying in her direction, and Megan took a full step sideways to ensure he lost. Because somehow, she knew if he won this game, he would win her too.

Though the moment her cowboy boot returned to the floor, the rope slid easily over her arms. “Fuck,” she breathed right as Nash yanked the rope tight. In the blink of an eye, she was pressed against him while he bound her wrists in front of her.

Heady amusement glistened in his eyes when he threw up his hands, declaring himself the winner.

She frowned. “There is no goddamn way you could have anticipated that I would move.”

The heat of his body pressed against her tight. “There is something you keep forgetting, Freckles.”

“Oh, yeah, what’s that?”

His fingers tightened around the bindings on her wrists, a statement all on its own. Slowly, gingerly, he dropped his head into her neck and planted a soft kiss there. “I know you.”

The world up and vanished.

Her eyes shut, and just like that, the bar faded away. It was him and her, and how right this felt between them. She couldn’t ignore the magic they shared, and she shivered, wanting things he could deliver on.

She stepped closer . . . needing him . . . wanting him.

He chuckled, his lips brushing against her pulse. “You were wrong.”

She blinked, breaking the spell he put her under. “What?” she breathed.

With the crowd roaring around her, he grinned. “I won a whole lot tonight.”