Page 12 of Claimed By the Cowboys

Her breath catches. “You want to take me somewhere after this? After the yelling and the craziness. And the boring excuses.”

“Yeah.” I hold her gaze. “Pretty girl. Let me loosen all that tension. Let me feel that fire again.”

She looks away with the same contemplative expression that she had that night two months ago. She came to the right decision then. Maybe she will now.

I touch her arm gently. “Come inside. Let me buy you a drink. Come and meet Jensen. He’s a good guy when he’s not grinning like a loon. And you can decide what you want.”

“What I want?”

“Yeah,” I say. “You have options, sweetheart. I can drop you off at home, no harm, no foul. I can take you back to the motel and relive all the best parts of that first night, and maybe introduce some more…”

Her lips quirk into a half smile. “Or?”

“Or… The third option will be revealed later.”

“The third option?” She frowns, then shrugs. “I didn’t see you as a man of mystery, Bo,” she says, then bites her bottom lip.

I wonder if her lipstick tastes like strawberries. I wonder what it would look like smeared all over my dick.

“Come on,” I say, taking her hand. “Let’s get you back inside before your friends send out a search party.”

We step back into the noisy warmth of the Dusty Boot. Jensen is exactly where I left him, holding court at the bar. When he spots me walking over, with Brandy’s hand still in mine, his grin turns positively wicked.

“Well, damn,” Jensen drawls, loud enough for half the bar to hear. “Look who decided not to murder me. Brandy, right? I gotta say, you throw one hell of a welcome party. Most women buy me a drink. You went straight for the throat. Kind of made me feel important on Bo’s behalf.”

Brandy makes a strangled noise, but I catch the twitch at the corner of her mouth.

Jensen leans forward on the bar, all easy charm and mischief. “For the record, I’m the better-looking twin. Bo’s the grumpy one who only knows three phrases: ‘come here,’ ‘good girl,’ and ‘breathe.’ I’m the one who’ll actually talk to you after.”

“Shut the fuck up, Jen,” I mutter, but there’s no heat in it. He already has option three on his mind, and I don’t blame him. Brandy is glittering and glamorous tonight, like curvy dynamite.

Brandy laughs despite herself, the sound bright and real. “Your brother does just fine with the after talk.” She glances between us, curiosity winning over embarrassment. “You two do this often? Confuse women with your uncanny similarity.”

Jensen’s eyes light up like Christmas. “Only the special ones. And from the way Bo’s been mooning over you for two months straight, you’re definitely special. He wouldn’t shut up about your laugh. Your thighs. How you looked when you finally let go.” He leans in and whispers the last part, then winks. “I’m invested. Purely for scientific curiosity, of course.”

“Of course.” Brandy’s cheeks flush deeper, but she doesn’t look away. She’s tipsy and intrigued, studying Jensen with the same mix of wariness and heat she once gave me. I like it more than I expected. Sharing isn’t new to me and my brother, and the idea of us both working to release Brandy from her daily confines appeals a whole damned lot.

I want to watch him unravel her. I want to see that moment when she realizes she can have both of us taking care of her. The thought of her caught between us, soft and needy and finally resting, settles deep in my chest. The primal urge to protect and cherish surges in a way it never has with another woman. Brandy might be fire on the outside, but underneath she’s sweet as cotton candy and as caring and loyal as our sister.

Brandy shakes her head, fighting a smile. “You’re trouble, Jensen. I can already tell you’re the tricky twin.”

“Best kind of trouble,” Jensen agrees cheerfully. He flags the bartender. “Another drink for the lady who cussed me out in public. Margarita, is it?”

“You really have been talking about me,” she says, fixing me with her curious gaze.

“Darlin’, I’ve been hearing about you for weeks. Bo came back from that night looking like a man who’d found religion. Now, I get to meet the woman who wrecked him and mended his soul. This is the highlight of my year.”

I watch her watching him, trying to pick up on any subtle hints that she might want option three. Proposing it could offend her, and I don’t want to lose another chance to feel her silken heat and surrender, her laugh and her stories.

As the conversation progresses, with Jensen sharing amusing anecdotes from his day, and Brandy laughing along, her shoulders loosen, and her gaze lingers on his easier smile. She throws her head back when she laughs at ridiculous jokes about twin telepathy and bad decisions, and it’s obvious she likes how he teases and soothes at the same time.

Good.

Jensen catches my eye and raises an eyebrow. I give him the slightest nod and he grins wider.

We spend the next hour at the bar with Jensen charming Brandy like it’s going out of fashion, and me staying close to her with a hand on her lower back. She relaxes by degrees, the tension bleeding out of her the longer she’s caught in our orbit.

Eventually, she glances at her group of friends and then back at us. “I should probably get back to Annie’s birthday before she starts making toasts about my nonexistent love life and terrible birthday participation.”