Roped Tight (Ryker Ranch #4) - Kim Loraine Page 0,41

with your family about who you are. How could that work for us? Ten years hiding?”

“I told Mama. A few days ago.”

That brought me up short. My mouth ran dry. “You…you told her?”

He nodded and turned to face me. “I should have a long time ago. It wasn’t something I needed to hide.”

“What did she say?”

Letting out a low chuckle, he shook his head. “That she always knew.”

I grinned. “I would have been surprised if Mama didn’t know. She’s known each of your brothers were in love before they even realized it.”

He ran a hand over his nape and sighed. “Yeah. Seems silly to me now, everything I avoided when all I needed to do was talk to her.”

“What made you stay in the closet?”

“I wasn’t ever in the closet. I was like you…private. Who I was with wasn’t anyone’s business.”

I hated thinking about him with other guys. Him sharing those intimate moments that should have been my memories to make with him. Except it had been me who’d doused what was just starting to spark between us.

“And were you with anyone? Did you find anything that meant something out there?”

Please, God, I wanted him to say no.

“I had a string of relationships. No one I wanted to stick with long-term. I was on the road all the time. That wasn’t the right life to build anything real.”

A heavy weight lifted from my chest, and I could breathe again. Then those crystal blue eyes met mine.

“What about you, Tuck? Did you ever fall in love?”

I swallowed. This was it. The moment I could take a leap or chicken out. “Once.”

“What happened?” The disappointment in his eyes hit me hard.

“He left.”

“Where is he now?”

Why was my throat so dry? My fucking hands were clammy and shaking. I thought I might be sick as adrenaline twisted my belly.

“He’s standing in front of me.”

Sam

Did Tucker Weston just say what I thought he said?

“What the fuck did you just say to me?”

“You are a goddamn idiot if you don’t understand what I just said. You think I let you go because I was tired of you? That I didn’t love you with everything in me and let you leave because of that?”

The pain in my chest that had been there all this time grew into something bittersweet. He was trying to tell me he’d loved me. How could he do that here and now?

“Ten years later, and you’re finally admitting it? You’re a little too late.”

“Am I?” His hands balled into fists, the knuckles white. “Are you sure, Sam? Because the way you kiss me says otherwise.”

I shook my head. “I don’t kiss you like I love you. I kiss you like I wanna fuck you. There’s a big difference.”

“So that’s all you really want? To fuck?”

I swallowed past the lump in my throat. Was that what I wanted from him? It was what my dick wanted, that was for damn sure.

“Yeah.”

Tucker’s eyes turned icy. “Fine. Meet me at The Silver Spur tonight at seven.”

He strode away, anger tightening his posture. I gave him the space and time his reaction said he needed. It was all I could do not to chase after him, though.

Fuck, why was I such a stubborn ass? He had confessed to so much more than wanting me for sex. He’d fallen in love with me just like I had him back when we were young. But it was too little too late. I’d closed off my heart when I left, and I couldn’t open it to him again. Not so easily.

Hours later, I sat inside the cab of my truck listening to the tick of the cooling engine as I hesitated outside The Silver Spur. My palms were sweaty and my stomach churned, the sensation not much different from how I felt right before they’d open the chute and a bull would take me for a ride around the arena, intent on destroying me. Taking a deep breath, I tried to bring myself around, to convince myself this was simply two old friends getting together. But I’d laid my cards on the table, told him what I wanted. This was a precursor to a night together.

“Come on, Ryker, you can fucking do this. It’s not like you’ve never had sex with a guy.” I stared at myself in the rearview mirror, and the man who looked back was someone I didn’t recognize. He was scared. Of rejection. Of acceptance. Of a future.

I grabbed my hat and put it on