“Says the man who is all fake charm?” Hunter pressed.
“It’s different,” Brody said. “I can identify a guy who’s an operator when I see one. The kind that only cares that he has a good time. He doesn’t give a shit about the woman he’s with. And I worry. That he’s not going to care if she’s drunk and her ability to say yes is impacted by that. That it’s going to be all about him. I don’t want Elsie in a situation like that, do you?”
The picture his brother painted made him see red, instantly.
“Hell no,” Hunter said.
“Well, just keep an eye out.”
Except, Hunter knew that Elsie wanted him.
She was still flirting with Travis, but Hunter was the man she wanted. Down there at the riverbank they’d both admitted it, in between all the things they’d said to each other.
She was choosing Travis because they’d stood there and felt the futility of it stretch between them.
Not because she wanted the ranch hand.
That didn’t make Hunter feel better.
Then Elsie finished her drink, and she was laughing, and Travis grabbed her hand and led her to the dance floor. Pulled her up close to his body and held her the way that Hunter had just days ago.
Rage burned in his gut.
Mine.
Mine.
The word pounded in his head, in his blood.
He kept on watching as Travis’s hands skimmed dangerously close to Elsie’s ass.
“You okay?”
That man was touching what belonged to him.
He looked across at his brother. “Fine,” he said.
Except he was not fucking fine. He couldn’t stand it. Couldn’t stand to see that little wet-behind-the-ears bandicoot pawing at Elsie.
Elsie, who was a particular kind of beautiful that was honestly too good for this guy. This guy who liked to go out and hook up, and who didn’t care if the girl was drunk. Because he was going to go with Brody’s impression of him.
This guy who didn’t care about a woman’s pleasure. Only his own.
This guy that Hunter currently wanted to punch in his damned face.
And then he stood up, and he didn’t know what the hell he thought he was doing.
Except he stopped thinking at all as Travis’s hand moved down to Elsie’s ass.
But she was looking up at him with a smile on her face.
Maybe she did want Travis.
And Hunter walked straight out the door.
Straight out the damned door, because what Elsie wanted mattered.
And then he turned around and punched the side of the bar. Punched it. He heard a crack, and he hoped to hell that he had broken a knuckle. But it sure as hell felt like he had. His skin was bleeding, profusely, dripping down his arm.
“Fuck,” he shouted.
He had just punched a wall because of Elsie Garrett.
He had punched a damned wall.
Because of the twenty-four-year-old virgin he’d known forever. Who didn’t know how to flirt or kiss or anything.
Because she was dancing with a man who wasn’t him. And what the hell had he planned to do about it? What the hell had he planned to do about any of this? There was nothing to do. Nothing at all.
Elsie wanted Travis.
But he could still see her standing on the banks of the river. Wet with white cotton stuck to her gorgeous figure, her eyes filled with the kind of vulnerability he knew she hated.
She’d made it clear she felt something...
Yeah, well. He wasn’t listening to himself. He was an unreliable narrator. And he couldn’t be trusted.
That was just how it was.
And he decided then and there he was going to leave the tab for his brother.
Because if he went in there...
He couldn’t do that. He had to leave. He had to leave right now.
But then he was headed back into the bar. He was going back into the damned bar. Even though he had just decided that he was leaving.
And he was walking right over to the dance floor with blood dripping down his forearm. “I’ll cut in,” he said.
Travis looked at him, and so did Elsie, who then looked down at his hand. “What the hell did you do?” she asked.
“It’s nothing,” he said.
“It’s not nothing.”
“I’m fine, and I’m cutting in.”
And he grabbed hold of her hand and pulled her up against his body, and started to move in time to the music, with Shania singing about her lover’s boots being under the wrong bed.
And wasn’t that quite the soundtrack for the evening.
“What are you doing?” she asked as he pulled her up against his chest.
And Travis receded back to the bar. Pansy.
A real man would stay and fist fight him. He’d have a fistfight with Travis.
Happily.
“Checking your progress,” Hunter said.
“You’re interrupting my progress,” she said. “And what did you do to your hand?”
“I punched a wall,” he said casually.
Because why lie? Why lie to Elsie when...
This was absurd. The entire thing was absurd.
Her eyes met his and he felt it, down in his gut. “Why did you punch a wall, Hunter?” she whispered.
“Because I can’t stand that fucking guy,” Hunter ground out. “And I can’t stand him having his hands on you.”
Elsie’s eyes darted back to Travis, her cheeks turning pink. “But...”
“Oh, there’s nothing to say to that,” he said. “Nothing at all. Because you’re right. Hell, we agreed already it didn’t matter. You’re Elsie. I’m Hunter. It’s absurd. I have no right to have any feelings about it whatsoever. And you were angry the other night. Weren’t you? Pissed as hell at me. Madder than anything. And you have every right to be. And here I am, and I can’t deal with it.”
“Why?”
“Good question.”
“No.” She shook her head. “Don’t deflect. You’re the only one that can answer the question, Hunter. So answer the question. Why? Why does it bother you to see me dance with him?”
She was daring him to admit it.
“Because he put his hands on you.”
She looked at his knuckles, at the blood there. “Does that mean...you want to put your hands on me instead?”