▍ AN ORIGINAL ╱ western romance
There's a kind of wild you can't outrun.
Lemon Odell knows this better than anyone-the kind that lives under your skin, that shapes the way you move, the way you fight, the way you break. Born into a bloodline stitch...
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Everything about it should've felt like too much.
The way his hand found my waist, deliberate and unhurried, his palm settling there like it had always known the shape of me. The way the guitar spilled slow fire into the air, coaxing bodies to sway like they'd been born in rhythm. The way my heart kicked harder when his fingers slid just a fraction lower, holding me like he was letting me go and daring me to fall into him all at once.
But nothing about it felt wrong.
And maybe that was the worst part—how easy it was to follow the motion of his body, to let my own fall into rhythm like it belonged there. I wasn't stumbling. I wasn't second-guessing. I was just... moving. With him.
Rhett moved like time had bent for him.
Like the world had slowed down just enough to watch.
He didn't press, didn't pull—just existed with that quiet kind of certainty that made everything else feel like noise. We slid into the rhythm like it had been waiting for us. Like the fire, the night, the hush of the crowd were all holding their breath to see what would happen next.
His hand didn't linger—it landed. Right against the small of my back. A single point of contact that said I see you. That said I could get closer, but I'm letting you choose.
And somehow that was worse.
Because I didn't want to choose.
I wanted to fall.
The space between us wasn't space at all—it was tension. It was breath. It was the heat of his body close enough to feel, but not close enough to touch unless I leaned in. And God, I wanted to. Everything in me tightened with it. Not from nerves. From knowing. From the awful, aching recognition that something was happening, and I wasn't ready, and I wasn't stopping it.
His voice came low, nearly lost beneath the guitar's slow hum.
"You ever danced with a stranger before?"
It wasn't flirtation. It was temptation, disguised as a question.
I didn't look at him. Couldn't. Just kept my eyes on some faraway flicker of flame and let the words fall out.
"Not like this."
Not like I'd forgotten how to breathe. Not like I'd forgotten every sharp-edged thing that had happened before this moment. Not like I wanted to forget it.
The air between us shifted. His hand drew me in, subtle but sure, closing the gap I hadn't admitted I'd left open. The press of his body met mine—not rough, not fast. Just certain. And my heart stuttered like it wasn't sure if it was supposed to race or stop.
