I nodded. “I’m not gonna live in fear. I’m not some weak little girl. I can hold my own.”
Jae smiled softly. “We know.” He pulled me into a side hug. “Still…it’s late. And I think we all need some sleep before we keel over.”
He gave me that pitying glance reserved for when he thought I needed a hug or a shoulder to cry on. “Wanna crash in my bed tonight?”
I shook my head. “I’m okay. Thanks though.”
We all peeled ourselves up from the futon and shuffled toward our respective bedrooms. My limbs were heavy. Everything ached. I slipped into my room and shut the door behind me.
The bed looked like heaven. I climbed in, pulled the covers up to my nose, and closed my eyes, but my brain had other plans.
I tried not to think about the club…about the incident.
So I focused instead onhim—the man in black. My stalker. Mr. Rage-and-Russian-Accent.
Every time he looked at me, it seemed like he hated me. He acted as though I were a liability he hadn’t decided whether to silence or sell.
But if he hated me that much…why was he following me?
He was terrifying. Tall, dark, ripped. He had the face of a fallen angel who had torched his halo for fun. Dangerous. Controlled. Deadly.
The kind of man who didn’t even need to speak to own a room.
God, why were the hottest men always the worst humans?
I’d been polite. Just tried to serve him a damn coffee. And he’d glowered at me like I’d handed him a live grenade.
My tired brain shifted, like it always did when men were involved, to Sage Lockwood. He was my personal measuring stick that no other guy had ever lived up to.
I’d met him right after turning sixteen—when I’d finally been old enough to drive myself to my job at the Dixie Stampede. That summer, I’d lived for helping with the horses and learning the routines, hanging off every word the older girls said.
And then came Sage.
He was a two-time PBR champion. Twenty-four years old. Pure muscle and swagger. Onyx eyes that didn’t miss a thing. He’d been hired to show off during the main event by riding one-ton monsters and walking away like it was nothing. They’d built a special pen for him in the arena where he’d given live bull-handling demos, even climbing onto a chute-ready bull and showing the audience exactly how a real ride started.
He would narrate as he worked—explaining what made a ride score high, how a rider kept his balance while the bull tried to launch him into the dirt, why every second counted. And when the bull charged out of the chute, the crowd would lose their minds, even if the bull only spun and bucked a few times.
Every girl had drooled. I’d barely breathed.
We’d met by accident. I’d slipped during a solo practice and landed flat on my back, getting the wind knocked clean out of me.
He’d been there in a flash. Concerned. Kind. Handsome enough to short-circuit my teenage brain.
He had picked me up, walked me to the stables, and set me on a bale of hay. I will never forget how he brushed red clay off my cheek like I was precious, letting his hand linger.
Tilting my chin up, he’d brushed a soft kiss over my lips and told me I was beautiful.
My heart had never recovered.
He’d never touched me like that again. But I worshipped him from a distance. Hung on his stories. Stared when I thought he wouldn’t notice.
Then, one morning, he’d awakened something wild within me. He had just gotten bucked off hard and disappeared into the men’s locker room, limping.
I followed.
Told myself I was just checking on him.
He was already in the showers. Naked. Glorious.
