Need Me, Cowboy. Maisey Yates

curiosity. She didn’t seem angry or jealous, just watching to see how her night was going to go, he imagined.

      And that was exactly the kind of woman he should be talking to.

      He was still rooted to the spot, though. And he didn’t make a move back toward her.

      “Are you going to be too hungover after tonight to come over to my place and discuss your plans?”

      She looked behind him, directly at Mindy. “I figure I should ask you the same question.”

      “I’m betting I have a lot more hard-drinking years behind me than you do.”

      “I’m twenty-five,” she said. Like that meant something.

      “Oh, nothing to worry about, then.”

      “Four whole years of drinking,” she said.

      “Did you actually wait to drink until you were twenty-one?”

      She blinked. “Yes.”

      “You know most people don’t.”

      “That can’t be true.”

      He didn’t bother to hold in his laugh. “It is.”

      “I’m sure the...” She frowned. “I was about to say that I’m sure my brothers did. But... I bet they didn’t.”

      She looked comically shocked by that. Who was this girl? This girl who had been lauded as a genius in a hundred articles, and designed the most amazing homes and buildings he’d ever seen. And seemed to know nothing about people.

      “You know the deal about the Easter Bunny, too, right?” he asked.

      She twisted her lips to the side. “That he has a very fluffy tail?”

      He chuckled. “Yeah. That one.”

      He didn’t know why it was difficult to pull himself away. It shouldn’t be.

      Dammit all, it shouldn’t be.

      “How about we meet up after lunch?” he asked, pushing the subject back to the house.

      “That sounds good to me,” she said, her tone a little bit breathless.

      “You have the address where I’m staying?”

      “Text it to me.”

      “I will.”

      He stood and walked away from her then, headed back toward the woman who would have been his conquest. He had another drink with Mindy, continuing to talk to her while she patted his arm, her movements flirtatious, her body language making it clear she was more than ready to have a good time. And for some reason, his body, which had been game a few moments earlier, wasn’t all that interested anymore. He looked back over to where Faith and her friend had been sitting, and saw that the table was empty now.

      He didn’t know when she had left, and she hadn’t bothered to say goodbye to him.

      “You know what?” he said to Mindy. “I actually have work tomorrow.”

      She frowned. “Then why did you come out?”

      “That’s a good damn question.” He tipped back his drink the rest of the way, committed now to getting a cab, because he was getting close to tipsy. “I’ll make it up to you some other time.”

      She shrugged. “Well, I’m not going home. Tonight might not be a loss for me. Enjoy your right hand, honey.”

      If only she knew that even his right hand was a luxury. In shared living quarters with all the stuff that went down in prison, he’d never had the spare moment or the desire to beat off.

      There was shame, and then there was the humiliation of finding a quiet corner in the dirty cell you shared with one or two other men.

      No, thank you.

      He would rather cut off his right hand than use it to add to all that BS.

      It was better to just close off that part of himself. And he’d done it. Pretty damn effectively. He’d also managed to keep himself safe from all manner of prison violence that went on by building himself a rather ruthless reputation.

      He had become a man who felt nothing. Certainly not pleasure or desire. A man who had learned to lash out before anyone could come at him.

      The truly astonishing thing was how easy that had been.

      How easy it had been to find that piece of his father that had probably lived inside of him all along.

      “Maybe I will,” he responded.

      “So, are you really working early?” Mindy asked. “Or are you intent on joining that little brunette you were talking to earlier?”

      Fire ignited in his gut.

      “It’ll be whatever I decide,” he said, tipping his hat. “Have a good evening.”

      He walked out of the bar with his own words ringing in his head.

      It would be what he would decide.

      No one else had control over his life. Not now. Not ever.

      Not anymore.