Page 69 of Slow Hands Cowboy

She was lost in that thought. About hating half of herself. She wondered if part of the reason that she had been so quick to distrust her attraction, to repress her sex drive, was because of how she had been made to feel about her mother.

And now she felt this hole inside of herself. This unexplored place.

And Walker was right there.

Yeah, because using him as an object of sexual self-discovery is less shitty than ghosting him before prom?

Well, that was about the most unflattering way to think about it.

Of course, it wasn’t like she and Walker would ever have a relationship.

She realized that she was having these thoughts while naked in the bath, and her nipples became unbearably sensitive. There was a throbbing pulse between her thighs that was becoming harder and harder to ignore, and she was fighting, with all of herself, not to run her fingertips over those sensitized buds, or let herself push her fingers between her legs.

No. She wasn’t doing that. Not in Walker’s house. She was not fantasizing about that man while staying under his roof.

Of course, who he was, and how she felt about him had been given so much new context, changed a lot in the last couple of weeks.

And so had what she thought about herself.

She took a deep breath, and submerged herself in the tub, blowing out a bunch of bubbles before resurfacing, throwing her head back and laughing. She was being ridiculous. But maybe this was the time for ridiculous.

She got dressed, and instead of blow-drying her hair, she put it up in a wet knot, on top of her head, before walking back downstairs. She didn’t see Walker anywhere in the house, until she turned and saw him standing on that vast porch that overlooked the river, standing in front of a grill.

She walked outside, the wood warm beneath her bare feet. He was grilling salmon, and two ears of corn.

“Thought you might be hungry.”

Her stomach growled. “Yeah. I guess so. I hadn’t really realized that I was.”

“I had an intuition about it.”

She wondered what else he had an intuition about. Because the truth was, he seemed to have her number pretty well locked down.

“Have a seat,” he said.

“You don’t have to cook me dinner on top of everything else.”

“Seemed like the thing to do.”

She felt a little bit awkward sitting there, her nipples still tight, even if they were shielded by her bra. And the dress that she was wearing. He wouldn’t know that she had been fantasizing about him while she was in the tub, but she felt exposed.

“So when is the election exactly?”

“November. When elections are.”

“Sorry. I didn’t know if local elections adhered to larger electoral patterns.”

“Surely you’ve voted here before.”

“I have. But I can’t say that I’ve ever cared that much about the outcome of anything related to town.”

“Why is that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because I’ve never felt like anyone here had my best interest at heart, never felt like they were dying to serve me. Just maybe.”

“Well, I do. What do you want to see change in town?”

This made her feel more like herself.