Brokedown Cowboy. Maisey Yates

with a roommate.

      He opened the door and took a deep breath, banishing all the weirdness that lingered inside him. There was no time to worry about any of that. He had a ranch to work on.

      * * *

      SHE’D HAD FANTASIES about Connor before. Here, in the darkness of her room, she was woman enough to admit that. And yes, she had seen him without his shirt on. They spent a lot of time on the lake, down by the river and on the beach. Copper Ridge was surrounded by water and they, like most of the other residents, made the most of it.

      But somehow, seeing him in his underwear was different. Because it wasn’t just his perfectly muscular chest, with a very perfect amount of chest hair sprinkled over it. Or his washboard flat abs and the tattoo that was starting to drive her crazy. No, it was combined with the full scope of his very muscular thighs, compliments of years in the saddle, and, it just...well, and...the very prominent bulge at the apex of said muscular thighs. There. She’d admitted it.

      It was burned into her brain now. The image of him standing in his kitchen nearly naked, looking as if he’d just been slapped upside the head with a two-by-four.

      She rolled over onto her stomach and buried her head beneath her pillow. She had to be adult about this.

      She snorted and rolled back over, uncovering her face. That was the problem. She was being adult about this. Very adult. With lots of adult thoughts and desires and needs.

      What were you supposed to do when your adult needs were for your best friend and roommate? Where was her handbook?

      “Ignore it,” she said out loud, “like always.”

      It was the only thing to do. They would have to go on as though undiegate had never happened. She was just having a little Connor relapse due to the close proximity. Probably not aided at all by the recent amount of time she’d been spending taking care of him. And definitely not helped by her extremely long bout of celibacy and singledom. When things settled down she would have to focus on getting a date. Yes, that would help. A little bit of normalcy, a man who wasn’t Connor filling her time.

      Yes, that would help. And if in the meantime, she spent just a little bit of time thinking about how Connor had looked in his underwear, well, she was only human. It didn’t mean anything. Just a little healthy female-to-male appreciation.

      That was her story, and she was sticking to it.