Page 33 of The Rancher’s One and Only

“My brain. My teeth.”

“Are you ever going to let that go?”

She considered that. “No. Probably not. I think I’m going to go ahead and continue to be annoyed about it.”

“Well, that is your prerogative.”

“Also, I sort of like that you feel bad about it, if I’m honest, because usually when people pointed things out about me, they didn’t feel bad.”

“You know, I’m used to women finding me really charming.”

“I do find you charming,” she said.

“You do?” He looked surprised. And even…flattered, maybe? It had never occurred to her that she had the power to make a man feel flattered. Particularly not one as handsome as him.

“Well, I was trying to do a charming thing by teasing you.”

“Ah. I think the problem is you’re used to teasing women who are a lot prettier than me.”

He looked over the horse, straight at her, a stern look in his eyes. “Ernestine, you are pretty.”

She blinked. “I… Don’t say that. You don’t have to flatter me.”

“I’m not. You’re very pretty.”

“Well… I don’t… I’m not exactly sucking secrets out of a man through his penis like Haley.”

And then she regretted saying that, because it was graphic, and it made her face feel hot.

“You don’t have to do that to be desirable.”

“Well, then, I don’t think men make sense.”

“We’re tragically uncomplicated.”

“I don’t think so. It seems incredibly complicated to me, the math equation that you have to do to sacrifice your professional integrity on the altar of sexual pleasure.”

“You’re overthinking it. The sexual pleasure comes before all the other things. So there is no renegotiation. There is no change. And actually it doesn’t matter how pretty Haley is. She could be very pretty, she could be average. Genuinely, it doesn’t matter that much. Men are going to take what she’s offering, and they’re going to make sacrifices to get it.”

“So…are you saying that you thinking I’m pretty isn’t actually flattering, because you think everyone’s pretty?”

He looked genuinely confused by that. “No. That’s not what I’m saying.”

“Oh. Well, then I don’t really understand.”

“That’s okay,” he said. “Just take the compliment.”

She decided to do just that, because actually she had never been told she was pretty before. The only other time a man had ever shown any sort of interest in her—not that Jax was showing interest—he hadn’t been complimentary. He’d been cruel and insistent, and he’d talked her down. She could ask Jax about that. She didn’t have to ask him to teach about sex, but he seemed to enjoy explaining things to her, so he could explain why men did that.

“Let’s get you on the horse,” he said.

Oh. That was a good idea. She did have a tendency to talk forever and ever about the things in the forefront of her mind and forget what they were supposed to be doing.

“Okay,” he said. “Put your hand up on the saddle, left foot in the stirrup. Now you pull up and put your other leg over the side.”

She bit her lip, but followed the instructions, and found herself mounted on top of the black horse. “Oh,” she said.

“See? Not bad. Not difficult.”