“Your job is back in the riders’ pen, not breathing down my neck.”
“I’m off the clock.” His voice drops a shade, rolling low, and my knees almost buckle. “You look like you could use a break.”
I can practically hear how often that line has worked for him—and the suddenly depraved Omega in me snarls at the thought of any other woman taking him up on that offer.
“I look like I could use five minutes where a cowboy doesn’t think he has the right to get in my way. Now, can you be a gentleman and move the fuck out of it?”
“Ma’am,” he drawls, smile going crooked, “I’d never claim to be anything as boring as a gentleman. And something tells me a gentleman isn’t exactly what you want.”
The words send my nerves fluttering like a lick of flame, curling with his scent, and suddenly all I can think about are all the ways he wouldn’t be a gentleman—and how he’d make me thank him for it.
“Come on, pretty girl,” he says softly, teasingly. “Take a break with me.”
He’s a showman. A headline. The kind of trouble that ruins careers and mothers’ hearts.
And I can practically feel Felton’s warning circling overhead like a hawk.
I clear my throat, plant my boots, and tip my chin. “Here’s your break, McCrae. Hard Pass.”
The words land. Something hungry flashes in his eyes before he smooths it over with easy charm, like a lake calming after a stone skips across it. “Yes, ma’am.” His voice, deep and warm, caresses my skin.
He steps back slowly, keenly aware of the slow drag of his hand across my arm before he finally lets go. I don’t give him the satisfaction of turning to watch him leave, even though every nerve in my body is begging to check if that grin is still cutting a line through my night.
My radio hisses, mercifully. “James, you copy?”
“Copy,” I answer, grateful for the interruption—and annoyed that I’m grateful.
“Gate Four needs eyes on a hoof snag before the next draw. And there’s an assessment in the south barn, stall seventeen.”
“On my way.”
TWO
beau
Riding Ghost Peppershould’ve been the hardest thing I did tonight. The bull was rank, mean, and has thrown nearly every rider that has ridden him this year. Give him another year, and he’ll be crushing Bushwhacker’s record—and still, I nailed it. Rode him clean. Scored the best ride of the year.
Adrenaline still pounds through me, and usually I fucking love this high. A good ride is better than sex. Well, maybe. But all of it got washed out the second her scent toyed with me.
I’d been catching it all night—just a ghost of it, a whiff here and there. I thought I was imagining things. But when I saw her as I slid onto Ghost Pepper, I nearly lost all my focus. I knew the scent I’d been getting all night was her as soon as our eyes met. Even over the several yards that separated us.
Sweet buttercups and vanilla laced with a creamy note—a mix so warm and sharp it cut clean through her blockers. All Omegas have to have them to be staff on the Arena grounds.
It felt like summer sunshine, sugar-sweet and decadent, heady and consuming. At complete odds with the stern, no-nonsense professional glaring up at me from the alley.
I had less than a moment to wonder why she leveled that glare at me before she spun on a dime and bolted, clearly trying to disappear.
When she turned to leave, my Alpha went crazy. I’ve had years of practice managing my nature, but the little Omega turned me upside down. It took everything I had not to race after her, like predator and prey.
Chase. Chase. Claim.
The need to have what was so clearly meant for me eclipsed everything else, so intense I nearly stumbled. I jumped down, prowling after her, my body buzzing, the desire racing straight to my cock so goodI almost groaned.
And then, when I got close enough to see those storm gray eyes, every last shred of common sense I owned disappeared.
I’ve never been much of a gentleman. Never seen the point in worrying about what people think of me. Never gave two fucks about social norms. But her scent was too damn good—too tempting not to want to lean in and take a bite. I had to shake my head, hard, just to keep the fog of her scent from pulling me deeper.
But when she touched me… It felt like a branding iron, burning straight through cotton and into skin. One palm and my body was gone—sensation and need shooting straight to my cock, bypassing my brain altogether. Every part of me was going haywire.
