Quickdraw Slow Burn (Battle of the Bulls #3) - T. S. Joyce Page 0,19

you, Annabelle.”

She liked the way he said her name. It rolled so easy off his lips and sounded so good in that deep baritone voice of his with his cowboy drawl.

“Thank you for being patient with”—she waved her hand in the direction of the ho—“that.”

“With you being protective of me? Why would that bother me? I fuckin’ loved it. Get territorial. I already told you my proposition. Go on, get addicted, and let your wolf claim me. It’ll be harder for you to up and leave me later.”

She got lost in his dark, dancing eyes. He wasn’t kidding. Quickdraw searched her face in earnest, and only a hint of his teasing smile remained.

She wanted to kiss him. Yep, she did. He was so close, all dominant and warm and strong, his arms pinning her against the bar top, his churning eyes only on her. He was completely consuming.

But…he didn’t want a relationship, or kids, so she needed to keep this casual. Casual. No big deal. People did this all the time—casually dated.

So, she remained right where she was and didn’t press her lips to his.

No marriage, no kids. That was his choice, and she wasn’t a trapper of men. She was perfectly capable of doing everything on her own. Lone-wolf style.

They didn’t match in the most important ways, so there could be no falling in love. He wasn’t the right man to catch her.

“You’re overthinking something,” he murmured low.

“I overthink everything. It’s my greatest skill.”

Quickdraw snorted and straightened his spine, set his drink down on the bar behind her and took hers from her hand, too. And then he gripped her waist and dragged her to him, kissed her his damn self.

It was an easy one. Smooth, slow, just lips on lips, and then a soft smack of disengaging.

It was just a simple kiss, but it didn’t feel simple to her. Annabelle’s entire system was going haywire. The wolf was scratching at her skin, her chest was full of that fluttering sensation, and her stomach was clenched. Her fists clutching onto his shirt were seemingly glued there because she tried to let him go but failed.

He handed her drink back to her, picked up his, grabbed her by the hand, and led her toward the table, not around the dance floor but right through it. He stopped in the middle, turned, and pulled her in.

No, no, no, no! “I don’t know how to do this dance!”

“We’ll work on a two-step later when you aren’t all flustered by me kissing you.”

She scoffed and lied, “I’m not flustered. I’m perfectly…in control…of my facilities.”

“Woman, you stumbled three times from the bar to here, and you’re wearing the mushiest smile I’ve ever witnessed on a woman. It’s okay to admit I flustered you. You fluster me, too.”

Irritated, she looked around at the couples dancing around them and then leaned in and said low, “You seem just fine to me.”

“I have a half-mast boner and my heart is pounding out of my chest.”

Don’t look, don’t look! Annabelle glanced down at the zipper of his jeans and, yep, it looked tighter than it had before.

When she forced her attention back to his face, he was smiling again.

“You know, you never smile in any of your pictures on social media, but it’s all you’ve done tonight. I feel like you’re making fun of me.”

He held out his hand for the dance. “Most women would be flattered that they can make a somber man smile.”

“Well, I’m not most women.”

“Thank God. I wouldn’t be chasing you if you were.”

“You’re chasing me?” she blurted out.

He grabbed her hand and spun her slowly out, then guided her back in. “You don’t pay attention very well. You probably made all C’s in school.”

She giggled and sucked down half her glass of water before she started swaying with him. “That’s true. Well, you should know what you’re chasing then so you can have low self-esteem about your taste in women.”

With a chuckle, he started swaying them back and forth and said, “Okay, lay it on me.”

“I hate mornings and can’t cook. I’ve never lived outside of a five-mile radius of my parents’ house, I made really bad grades in school, as you already guessed, because I had a big imagination and was daydreaming about ninety-five percent of my waking hours. I currently don’t have a job. I talk to myself a lot and spend way too much money online shopping. I’ve researched pet tortoises for the last three years but haven’t got one