I’d just had the ride of my life, but all I could think about was how that curvy little spitfire with ice-blonde hair and stormy eyes might sound if she moaned instead of snarled.
What in the actual fuck was happening?
When she stalked off, boots kicking up little angry clouds of dust in her wake, I damn near followed. Had she looked back at me, she would have been over my shoulder and out of the arena before she could tell me to fuck off.
But she didn’t even spare me a backward glance, giving me no opening I could exploit to chase after her. Just left me drowning in the alley, her perfume turning my brain to jelly and my dick to steel.
I had to adjust myself right there in the shadows.
Fuck.
I duck to the wash station, desperate for air, for space, for anything that isn’t her scent curling through me.
Eyes on the prize. That’s what I keep telling myself. A clean end to my career. I’m the Saint, and I need to go out as a champion.
The Saint of the Circuit, that’s what they call me now. The cleaned-up cowboy. The PR redemption story. Twelve months of hands off the opposite sex, head down, smiling for the cameras. Twelve months without a single slip. No whiskey, no brawls, no buckle bunnies sneaking out of my room before sunrise. Pure as a fucking nun.
I press the pedal at the hand sink, bend low, and splash cold water over my face until it stings. Thirty seconds with her and my brain’s mush. My grip on the basin is white-knuckled, eyes squeezed shut.
Two months. I’ve got two months to win the whole goddamn thing.
And I don’t have time to waste on pussy.
No matter how good I know she’d taste.
No matter how perfect it would feel to sink my knot into her until neither of us remembers where we end and the other begins.
Nope, absolutely not. I will not be acting on that thought.
When I straighten up, shaking water from my hair, I catch movement in my peripheral vision. Through the gaps between the wash station and the holding pen fencing, I can see her—the spitfire Omega—near the stock pens, clipboard in hand, all business.
But she’s not alone.
Mark Felton stands too close to her, his body language all wrong. Predatory. His head tilted down toward her like he’s sharing a secret, but everything about her posture screams discomfort. Her shoulders are rigid, her stance defensive, like she’s bracing for a blow. And her face is a blank mask, devoid of… anything.
My Alpha perks up, hackles rising. I can feel her distress like a physical force.
I can’t hear what he’s saying, but I can see her face from here—and when Felton reaches out like he’s going to touch her arm, she jerks back so sharply she nearly drops her clipboard.
That’s when the growl starts building in my chest.
Felton laughs, and the sound carries across the fairgrounds, mean and satisfied. He says something else, gesturing toward the office trailers, and the little color left in her face drains completely.
Every instinct is screaming at me to get over there. To put myself between them. To make it crystal fucking clear that whatever game Felton’s playing ends now.
But before I can move, she’s walking away with the controlled pace of someone who refuses to show weakness. Felton watches her go, his gaze tracking her ass like a predator sizing up prey.
The sick fuck is enjoying her discomfort.
I’m halfway across the space between us before I even realize I’m moving, but by the time I reach the spot where they were standing, she’s gone. All that’s left is the lingering trace of her scent—fainter now, but still there, and the acrid notes of distress in it calling to every primitive part of my brain.
“McCrae.”
Felton’s bark snaps me out of it.
“Just who I was looking for.” His splotched face is twisted in contempt and rage. He's pissed, but honestly, that’s kind of his standard operating procedure. He’s built like a feed sack and just as charming, eyes narrowing as they flick toward where she disappeared.
“You want to tell me what all that was with the James girl?” His voice is pitched low, leaning in like he thinks throwing dominance around will work on me. My Alpha doesn’t even bother to rise. He’s second-tier at best. A boy playing at being a man.
