“Your job includes getting trampled by fifteen-hundred pounds of pissed-off beef?” I sit up on my elbows as she yanksher lanyard free and brings it up to my face. But the scorching words she was undoubtedly about to throw out at me die in her throat as recognition slides across her features.
She looks at me, eyes wide, her sweet pink lips slightly open, brushing a few errant blonde curls away from her flushed face. She’s still just as fucking gorgeous—even more so than she was all those years ago.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me.” Her ire is evident in the curl of her lip and the fucking adorable way her eyebrows still scrunch up the same way they used to. It sends a thrill through me, quickly followed by a stab of longing I thought I’d long gotten rid of.
“Hey, Wild Cat.”
“Don’t call me that.” The response is automatic, one born of history and familiarity.
Those storm-gray eyes that have haunted my dreams are wide with shock and emotion.
She reaches down to offer me a hand. I take it even though I’m nearly twice her size. The warm skin of her palm slides into mine, and flashes of the girl I used to know come roaring back to life. Sweet moments of cold feet and midnight texts. Somehow, in the one moment of contact, two years of shared existence live.
I’m lost in how her skin feels when her scent rises around us—sweet and sharp, distressed, but also laced with something that smells like slick and arousal. I can almost taste her on my tongue with how rich her scent is, even through the blockers I know she’s required to take.
Every cell in my body is screaming at me to flip her over, pin her beneath me, and grind against her until she remembers exactly who she belongs to. And exactly how perfectly my knot fits inside her.
Jesus Christ. I’m rock-hard already, and that’s just from her scent.
“Willa,” I sigh, and her name tastes like coming home and losing everything all at once. Her breath is coming faster, and I feel more than hear the tiny whimper that escapes her.
Like being electrocuted, the force that is Willa James rushes through me. And fuck, I remember how good it feels to slide into this woman. How tight her wet pussy squeezes me, and how sweetly her Omega will beg me to go harder.
I take a step closer to her, and suddenly it’s just her and me. Everything else disappears, and I hear her whine, the sound of it faint and precious. I would have missed it if I hadn’t been so keyed into her.
“Fuck, woman. Make another sound like that, and I won’t be able to stop myself from seeing if you’re as wet as I think you are.”
My words snap her out of whatever fuzzy soft space she was just in, and she seems to remember—well, everything.
Slap!
I didn’t even see her raise her hand, but she strikes me open-palmed across the side of my face, hard enough for me to pay attention. I should have seen it coming, really. Lord knows I deserve far worse from this woman.
She looks at me with a shocked expression on her face, like she can’t quite believe she just did that, and then looks over her shoulder at the crowd we seem to have gathered. Her head whips around, taking in the handlers and riders who’ve gathered around the pen to see what the chaos was all about.
She hates the attention. She was always a wild card, but never for the attention.
Fuck, some Alphas might get pissed at being slapped, but it just makes me fucking hard. God damn, I’ve always loved her fire.
Everything in me wants to pull her into the shelter of my arms, tuck her into my chest, and carry her away. But something tells me she wouldn’t like that.
“Shit,” she mutters. “This is—I can’t—Sorry.” She starts to turn away.
Miguel walks up looking concerned, and a couple of the bullfighters I was talking to before the commotion are grinning like this is the best entertainment they’ve had all week.
“Easy, woman,” I say, reaching for her automatically. “You’re still shaking. You need to sit down.”
“I’m fine.” She jerks away from my touch like I’ve burned her. “I was handling it just fine before you decided to play hero.”
“Play hero? That bull was about to turn you into ground beef.”
She rolls her eyes, and I watch as her open expression shutters.
“I know what I’m doing, Jake.” Her voice cracks slightly on my name, and something twists in my chest.“I’ve been around bulls my whole life without getting trampled, and I didn’t need you to save me.”
“Right,” I say, because what else can I say? That the idea of her being in danger makes me lose my fucking mind? That the thought of losing her again nearly brings me to my knees?
She turns to Miguel, who’s hovering nearby with his keys in hand. “Miguel, can you give me that ride home now?”
