The fire is behind me now and the shadows are long.
I'm walking toward the fence where Spur is standing with his water bottle, his locked jaw, and his body that hasn't moved a single inch since I stood up.
I stop in front of him.
Three feet. The same distance as before.
Except this time the whole club is watching and the fire is at my back and I can feel every pair of eyes at that table on the space between us.
His face.
God, his face.
He knows something is coming.
He can see it the way he sees a horse shift its weight before it bolts—the read, the assessment, the rapid calculation of a man who is very,verygood at predicting what an animal is going to do next and is now realizing that I am not a horse and his predictions don't work on me.
"If I break that mustang by end of September—" I hold his gaze. Hold it the way he held mine this morning on the bunkhouse porch. For a few moments too long. Deliberately so. "—you take me to nationals."
Nothing on his face moves. But something behind his eyes does.
"Not as my protection. Not as my father's man."
I take one step closer.
Two feet now.
Close enough to see the pulse in his throat.
Close enough to see his hand tighten around the water bottle until the plastic crackles.
"Asmine."
The word lands like a match on dry grass.
Mine.
"You walk me through the gates. You stand at the fence. And everyone in that arena knows who I belong to."
His jaw is locked so tight I can see the muscle jumping under his skin.
His eyes haven't left mine. His chest is rising and falling just slightly faster than it was ten seconds ago, and I want to put my hand on it.
I want to feel his heartbeat under my palm. I want to press my mouth to the hollow of his throat where the pulse is hammering and find out if he tastes the way I think he does—salt and leather and the quiet, condensed fury of a man who has been keeping himself on a leash for eight goddamn years.
I don't touch him. Not yet. Not in front of the club. Not until he says yes.
"And when I ride," I say, quieter now, just for him, just for the two feet of air between us, "I ride for you."
Silence.
The fire crackles behind me. Someone's beer bottle clinks on the table. The mustang in the round pen snorts—I hear it from here, the intense exhale of an animal who doesn't trust anyone, and I almost laugh because same, buddy. Same.
I take a step back and raise my voice so the table hears. "Witnessed?"
A moment of silence. Then Thunder speaks up, because Thunder can't resist stirring shit up. "Witnessed."
Longhorn, quieter, with something complicated in his voice, "Witnessed."
