‘Sure thing,’ I grin, dropping my mouth to one of her breasts and sucking in a nipple, deep and hard, thinking I’ve never felt anything quite so perfect as this. When she arches her back, my cock presses between her legs, against the sheet that separates us, still trying to find her sex and tormenting her with how close I am.
She writhes beneath me, her rapid breaths showing me how close she is already. ‘Fuck.’ I pull up, just so I can stare at her, my own breathing as ragged as if I’ve just run three miles. ‘You are so damn hot.’
Heat flushes her neck, spreads into her cheeks. ‘Don’t stop,’ she responds.
I thrust my hips to show her I don’t intend to, and then she’s reaching across the bed to the bedside table and the condoms I stashed there. She grabs one and tears it open, eyes on the rubber as she pushes it over my length. It’s a torment to haveher touch me like this. I grind my teeth as she slowly stretches it down, pressing her hands over me as she fits it in place in such an exaggerated manner that I realise she knows what she’s doing and bite out a half laugh. Except it sounds deranged rather than amused, and is it any wonder?
I drop back to my knees, breath hissing from between my teeth as she wrests the sheet away and lifts her hips, wildness in her features. But a second later, she’s pushing up and kissing me, her mouth desperate on mine, her tongue lashing me, as one hand presses to my chest, pushing me away from her, onto the mattress. I tumble down beside her and a second later she straddles me, eyes still alight with that wildness, as she takes me deep in one swift movement, crying out as she buries me within her, tilts her head back and makes a sound of euphoria, her breasts peaking in a way that I ache to touch—and so I do. My hands lift of their own accord, holding her, feeling her, kneading her, before dropping to her hips. I stare, mesmerized, as she starts to shift, every movement an exercise in both control and exploration, in agency and release.
I buck my hips and she cries out, a manic, desperate sound, so I move again, and again, and then she’s tumbling into an abyss, her voice barely human. I grip her sides, keeping her pressed low against me, feeling the way her muscles throb and pulse as her body explodes. Power surges through me, an ancient, primeval, masculine surge of heat that makes me want to puff up my chest and go light a fire with my bare hands or some shit. I stare at her, wondering if there’s ever been a more beautiful sight than this, and then, as her breathing slows and she looks at me almost as though she’s waking from a dream, I start to move once more, harder this time, faster, showing her what she does to me, showing her that the same wildness that just overtook her is deep inside me too.
She’s riding that wave again, each frantic cry from her stoking my fires more and more until I’m exploding and she’s following after, our voices mingling, the room a shrine at which our passion is worshipping; it’s just about the best goddamn feeling I’ve ever known.
I got two rooms for us because it seemed like the right thing to do. Don’t get me wrong—I wanted to share a room with Bailey, but the truth is we barely know each other. And where I can be casual about sex and treat it like nothing, I have no idea how easy she’s gonna find that, so I thought having space would give her a chance to withdraw to her own corner, if she needed it.
Except it was Bailey who kept me with her all night, suggesting we get takeout from the diner rather than leaving her room, then putting on some soppy old romance movie she found on the motel’s streaming service, snuggling into me while we watched before falling asleep on my chest, so it would have been rude to leave her. Rude to risk waking her when she was so peaceful.
Rude to do anything but soak this up. This weekend, I’ve got an event, then a week later another back home, and after that Bailey will be gone out of my life. For good. The article written, her focus shifting to whatever she’s covering next, her eyes firmly planted on Washington. I don’t think she’ll forget me. At least not right away. Maybe not at all, given what this has been for her. After her ex, she’s been celibate and single, alone for years, choosing to play it safe rather than let herself go and risk getting hurt again—something I know a fair bit about. If nothing else, maybe our time together will teach her that she can have her cake and eat it too. It’s possible to enjoy flirtations and relationships, to fuck around a bit, without letting your heart mess it all up.
It’s my last thought as I fall asleep, one arm wrapped around Bailey, holding her close.
Chapter Sixteen
Bailey
Aweek after meeting Beau and I am intimately aware of him as a man, and a partner. I know his body, his beauty; I know what it’s like to be held by him, to be made love to by him. I know the way his voice sounds as he comes, when he laughs, the way he breathes when asleep. I can describe in intimate detail the way he dresses, which leg he puts in his jeans first, the way he slides up his zip without doing up the button until he’s pulled his shirt on—a weird thing that’s just uniquely Beau. I can describe his masculine fragrance, the way his hands sit when he’s driving, his favourite music. I can tell you almost everything about him, but none of that is what I want for my article.
A week and a half after meeting Beau, I’m sitting in the press section of another arena, soaking in the experience of a rodeo. This time it feels old hat. And yet, it doesn’t. There’s a different thrill that runs through my veins this time around. An energy that floods me when I stand and sing the anthemand when I watch the pre-event entertainment, and when the commentator’s voice fills the stadium, hyping the crowd, something else charges my veins, lifting the hairs on my body.
It lands differently, seeing these younger guys climb the chute rails then ease down onto their bulls. Beau talked a lot about them on the drive across to Albuquerque. He talked about the way he feels like his duty, as one of the more experienced riders, is to keep them safe. To show them that you can ride a bull, take the risks, but not lose your head. When he talks, there’s something in his voice I doubt he even acknowledges to himself: fear. Fear of what can go wrong, of the very fine line they walk between sport and injury. The cost of doing what he loves, what they all love, and the risks inherent to that.
I scratch a line to that effect in my notepad then cap my pen. Beau almost always rides after the break. As one of the big names on the circuit, they use him to amp up the crowd. It’s not just that he’s good, it’s his charisma and charm. His easy smile, rugged good looks, commanding height. He’s like a poster boy for bull riding; no wonder the organisers capitalise on it.
By the time he’s called up to ride, my nerves are stretched almost to breaking point. He climbs the chute rails, then moves down on the bull. I’ve watched him do this so many times online and at the rodeos in Fort Worth, I can see it with my eyes shut, yet I don’t look away. I’m compelled to keep looking as he pulls on his gloves, tugs at the rope, tests his balance, focuses his gaze straight ahead, his body lithe and poised to react, his determination unyielding. My heart shoots into my throat, my stomach knots. The gate bursts open with a clang, and I lean forward. His control is magnificent—each buck of the bull has him shifting, moving like he’s riding a wave, anticipating and staying balanced, his shoulders squared in a small outward signof the depth of his concentration. My pulse fires harder, so loud in my ears it’s like the ocean is raging through the stadium, a tidal wave of tension that’s pulling me under. It’s only eight seconds but I don’t breathe, and my lungs start to burn. The bull bucks and then Beau’s off, jumping down and landing hard on his feet, taking a few quick steps back as the bull rounds on him. I life a hand to cover my gasp, seeing Beau as he is now and as he was back then, on the night of his accident, when his body was thrown clear through the air by a bull that looked just like this.
I make a strangled sound, aware of the reporter beside me—from some local paper—who glances in my direction. Aware, but not caring.
Beau’s name pounds through my brain; I barely see the bullfighters, but a second later they’re there, ropes moving, the bull furious but tamed, Beau’s body still tight, wary. But in trademark Beau style, despite the tension, he’s lifting his hands and air punching, then waving to the stadium. The audience erupts—their crowd pleaser has done his job. They’re ecstatic.
I feel like I’ve been through the wringer and barely escaped with my life.
Beau wins the event that weekend, but after watching him ride three more bulls over the course of two days, each of them meaner than the last, I am contemplating never going to another rodeo. I’ve seen enough. I get the point. I don’t need to keep watching him do this for the sake of my article. I can write about the atmosphere, the fans, the thrill of it all, without needing to witness it a single other time.
Beau, though, is on cloud nine. The prize pool for the event was decent, but he never talks about that. Like money’s not afactor for him at all. After the Sunday ride, we go to a bar with a heap of the other guys. There are other media here too, and some Instagram- and TikTok-type people, filming content. So I watch Beau from afar, rather than risk doing anything that might show what’s going on between us. I watch as he chats and laughs with just about everyone, the quintessential cowboy: easygoing, likeable, tough, rugged and unbreakable. It knots my stomach though, because every time I blink, just about, I have this image of him being tossed from the bull, flying across the arena, landing with a sickening, heavy thud and not moving. It’s a part of his past, but every time he gets on a bull, I know it’s a possibility all over again.
One of the journalists who’s covering the tour for a paper out of Nashville comes up to me with a beer. I hesitate before taking it. We met a couple of days ago; his name is Nicholas.
‘It doesn’t bite,’ he says with a wink.
My smile is tight as I reach for the ice-cold drink.
‘This isn’t your usual beat, right?’
I shake my head. ‘What gives it away?’
He glances down at my suit.
‘I left my chaps at home,’ I joke, earning a wink from him.
