Total pages in book: 16
Estimated words: 14860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 74(@200wpm)___ 59(@250wpm)___ 50(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 14860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 74(@200wpm)___ 59(@250wpm)___ 50(@300wpm)
If you could go back in time and make one different choice, what would that be?
It was the question that started it all. It was the question that brought two strangers together in the most unlikely of ways.
Especially since they weren’t strangers at all. As the head of a cattle empire, Hudson Warner is finally ready to settle down. Easier said than done for a man whose been living in the closet his entire life and would be risking everything he has once he steps out of it. Having already been burned before, Hudson’s taking no chances. An online dating app with no picture and limited details about who he is means no filtering through a bunch of guys only looking for sex or money or both.
And the question.
That one seemingly simple question that will speak volumes from any potential responders. One question and one answer and Hudson knows he’s found his other half. Endless hours of online conversation leads to the infamous first date… the date that turns everything on its head when the man turns out to be one of his very own employees.
And not just any employee.
Nope, fate has handed him his quiet, shy ranch hand Mouse; the one man he’s been lusting after for months but isn’t allowed to lay a finger on.
Will Hudson find the courage to choose the man he’s already fallen half in love with through a computer screen or will he play it safe and risk letting Mouse become his new answer to the very question that could have given him everything?
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
CHAPTER ONE
HUDSON
I was in the midst of downing my second shot of whiskey when I saw him. Thankfully, I managed not to spew the obscenely expensive liquid all over the bar and myself but, unfortunately, I missed out on the sweet and spicy burn of the alcohol as it made its way down my throat. And the warmth that should have burned away the lingering tension of what I was about to do was completely nonexistent as my eyes raked over the young man nervously talking to the hostess who was presumably asking him if he had a reservation.
My eyes drank in the sight of his slim frame, honey-blond hair, and pale skin. Despite all the time he spent working in the hot Wyoming sun, the kid never seemed to get tan. Of course, the fact that he always wore long sleeves no matter how hot out it was probably had a lot to do with that. And he always kept his cowboy hat so low on his forehead that it kind of did make sense why he looked like a ghost compared to the other ranch hands.
My ranch hands.
Yep, the kid worked for me. He’d been hired by my foreman to do all the other shit that the ranch hands did but since the kid was probably only a hundred pounds soaking wet, he’d proven to be a pretty shitty ranch hand when it had come time to actually handle the large animals, especially when it came to branding and castration. When I’d seen the kid in action myself as he’d tried to wrangle a relatively small calf to the ground, I’d ignored the laughter of the other ranch hands and had simply told my foreman to fire the kid’s ass.
Three weeks later and the guy was still here, and I was still signing his paychecks. Well, actually I was doling out cash for his paychecks instead of signing paper ones. Hank, my sometimes too soft-hearted foreman, had not only convinced me to give the kid a second chance because he was apparently some kind of natural horse whisperer or something, but I’d also been finagled into paying the kid’s wages out in cash because Hank didn’t know his real name.
Mouse.
That was it.
That was his name.
Mouse. Just Mouse.
Well, the kid—Mouse—must have been saving up all that cash if he was in a place like The River’s Edge Supper Club. Not only was the intimate bar and restaurant on the high-end scale price-wise—at least in the small city of Cody, Wyoming—it was a hell of a long way from home. It was exactly the reason I’d picked the place for my little meet and greet that I’d been regretting from the moment I’d hit the enter button on my computer.
A blind date, Hudson? Really?
I told my inner voice to shove it and motioned to the bartender for another drink. It wasn’t even a blind date—it was a fucking dating app date.
A dating app.
And not the hookup kind either. I’d used my fair share of those for anonymous sex in out-of-the-way cheap-ass motels since I’d been in my late teens. My clueless folks had caught me sneaking out on more than one occasion but rather than consider the real reason their kid was leaving the ranch in the middle of the night for clandestine meetings under the cover of darkness, they’d believed my lies about late-night dates with Krissy Sheridan, the daughter of one of Eden’s most reputable families, who spent her evenings volunteering at a children’s hospital in the city.
The supposed good girl had actually been doing the same thing as me, only she liked the big, Harley-riding type of guys whereas I liked my guys a little softer and a whole lot more submissive. It was only by pure chance that Krissy and I had run into each other at the same rent-by-the-hour type of motel when we’d been seventeen and had learned about each other’s secret… and ended up striking a bargain that had served us well for many years… up until she’d left for college and my parents had died just weeks later in a car accident. She’d been my beard and I’d been her… well, beard, I supposed.
As the bartender slid my drink in front of me, my eyes continued to memorize every detail they could about Mouse. The way he rubbed one wrist with the opposite thumb as he spoke to the hostess, the way his eyes darted around the room like he was looking for something but was also afraid of actually finding it, and the way his too large blazer hung on his thin body. There were suede patches on the elbows and even from where I was sitting, I could see that the hem of the jacket was frayed and worn.
He should have been wearing a suit that was tailor-made for him… or better yet, just his birthday suit. The mere thought of Mouse standing naked beside my bed had my already hard dick thickening even more behind the zipper of my jeans. I was forced to take my eyes off Mouse for a moment to shift my ass on the barstool a bit so things wouldn’t be quite so uncomfortable. By the time I found a position that left my balls aching with need but not screaming out in pain, Mouse had left the hostesses’ little podium and it took me several long seconds to locate him again. When I finally did, I saw that he was heading for the bar, but his attention was on something in his pocket.