She was melting against him, her arms looped around his neck so she could hold on, and he knew her now. He knew the way her cute little body worked. Last night he’d had her in his truck, but that had only been the start. When they’d finished, he’d kept on driving them out into the darkness until they’d reached his Airstream, and they’d both been laughing as if they’d shared a whole bottle of whiskey on the way as they made their way inside.
That was what this woman did to him. She made him feel drunk when he wasn’t.
He’d learned a whole lot about Skylar in his narrow little shower. He’d learned that she was stubborn. Determined. That when she got something in her head, she kept right on until she did it.
And what she’d wanted to do was wash every part of him. First with soap and water. Then with her mouth.
“What are you doing?” he’d asked when she inched down his front, making noises he couldn’t quite interpret in the back of her throat as she first cleaned him off, then trailed fire over him with every lick of her tongue or touch of her lips.
“I’m tracking all the scars and bruises,” she’d said. “I want to make sure I get each one.”
But she didn’t say it the way a few women had in the past, in a weird little baby voice as if they were playing nurse.
Skylar said it softly. With great certainty. As if she thought they were beautiful.
As if she thought he was.
She washed every part of him, thoroughly, and then she knelt down before him in what little space there was and proceeded to show him exactly how beautiful she thought he was. She took him in deep. She used her mouth and her hands, bringing him to a loud, shouting finish—so intense he’d almost punched his fist through the wall of his own trailer.
And then it had been his turn. He’d soaped her up and he’d washed her down, reveling in the slippery feel of all her tight little curves in his hands. Then he’d carried her out to his bed, laying her out and settling over her so he could take his time with her.
Again. And again.
But it didn’t seem to matter how often he glutted himself on her. He still wanted more.
“I think there’s some kind of party,” she whispered now.
She brought him back to the stadium. Billings. The money he’d just won and what that meant for his half-sisters. And him. And the fact that he hadn’t really thought too much about either.
“I’m not a big partier,” he told her. He moved his hands up and down her back, reminding himself how well she fit him. How much he craved her, again, as if he hadn’t helped himself to all this goodness earlier today, up against the door in that office. “You want me to take you out, Skylar? You want to go on a date?”
Cody realized once he said it that he expected it to piss her off. And more, that he was surprised he hadn’t done it already. He wasn’t a nice man. He didn’t pretend to be. And he usually made sure to disabuse a woman of any notion that there was something more between them than his dick—usually halfway through getting laid in the first place.
He’d already neglected to make it clear where things lay with Skylar. Maybe that was why he couldn’t figure it out himself, which was unacceptable.
But she didn’t get pissed. She moved her hands so she could prop them against his pectoral muscles, and then she gazed at him solemnly.
“Is that a euphemism?”
He considered. “I don’t think so.”
“Maybe we should skip the date part and go straight to the end of the night part. Because between you and me, I think I like that part better than sitting around in nice clothes pretending to be well behaved.”
“I am shocked and appalled,” he drawled. “I think you might be getting the wrong idea about me. I’m not just a pretty face, Skylar. I have a brain too.”
She let out a sound that it took him a minute to realize was a full-on giggle. A little high-pitched and entirely too cute.
If she’d taken out a dagger and stabbed him, he doubted he would have felt it any less. Like a shot straight between his ribs.
“That sounds like something a buckle bunny would say,” she said when she stopped giggling. “Are you a buckle bunny, Cody?”
“Buckle bunnies don’t talk that much, darlin’. I think you’re missing the entire point of buckle bunnies.”
“You’re the one who wants to go on a date. You know that it’s generally a public activity, right? You have to keep all your clothes on your body and your hands more or less to yourself. Pretty much the exact opposite of anything we’ve ever done together.”
“I’m getting the distinct impression you’re only in this for my body,” Cody said, sorrowfully.
“More what you can do with it.”
“You’re a shallow woman.”
But he kissed her then. Deep. Hot. As if they were already naked. As if he was already so deep inside her, she’d started making that little keening sound in the back of her throat that told him she was close to coming.
Just thinking about it made his cock ache.
He picked her up and put her in the truck on the driver’s side, mostly so he could keep his hands on her a while longer. And when he swung in beside her, she hadn’t moved over all that far on the bench seat, so he hooked his hand over the curve of her thigh and held it there a minute.
Held them both there until he heard that little sigh she made when she was totally relaxed.
And this was the time to end things. Cody knew that.
He didn’t spend consecutive nights with women because he’d always worried that it would get to exactly this place. He knew her too well. They were joking around instead of getting straight to the good stuff. It already felt a hell of a lot more intimate than anything he’d ever wanted.
He’d always thought that he didn’t want to get here because he would find it boring. He liked sex, not conversation. It had never occurred to him that it would be just the opposite. That the more he knew about Skylar, the more he wanted to know. But that surprising fact didn’t change anything.
He was a man who lived on the road. A new city every weekend, and he’d seen what a toll that took on all the riders around him. He’d seen broken marriages, pissed-off kids, and how exhausted the men were when they tried to race home for a couple of days every week only to head back out for a new show every weekend. He’d seen the cheating, the divorces, and the toll all that took on each cowboy’s performance. Cody had never wanted any part of that. He took himself from city to city, and the only baggage he brought with him was what he could fit in his Airstream.
He needed to cut this off. Because tomorrow he needed to get on the road and start heading west toward Missoula, where next week’s show took place.
“Skylar,” he began.
And she didn’t tense up at the serious note in his voice. There was no sudden spike of anxiety in the cab of the truck. He had his hand on her leg and he could feel that she didn’t so much as breathe heavy.
Not Skylar. She shifted so she could look at him, that lopsided smile on her lips, and waited.
Just waited.
And he’d said some version of this a million times. Don’t get too attached. I don’t want to lead you on. It’s not you, darlin’, it’s me. All that same old cowboy shit.
All of it was true. And necessary to get out there, so there were no expectations or recriminations later when he drove away the way he always did. Without a single regret or glance in the rearview mirror.
So he didn’t know why he was having such trouble opening up his mouth and saying it now.
Maybe it was because if she wanted anything from him, she sure didn’t show it. He hadn’t called her. She hadn’t complained about it. He’d joked about getting her number, but she hadn’t written it down. Or snuck it into his jeans pocket. Or straight-up written it on his hand.
Every time they parted, she kissed him, smiled at him, and then walked away.
Cody had the sinking realization that Skylar might not actually require any letting
down easy. That she might be the first woman he’d ever met who didn’t want more from him than he could give.
It should have made him jubilant. So he had no idea why it just irritated the hell out of him instead.
“What are you doing next weekend?” he asked.
He actually asked her that and was so appalled by the fact it had come out of his mouth that he sat there, something like winded.
“Oh, you mean because the rodeo won’t be in town?” She laughed at that, apparently unaware that he was losing it beside her. “That’s a good question. What do buckle bunnies do when there are no buckles around?”
“This is Montana.” And maybe his tone was a little too dark. “There’s always another cowboy.”
When she was quiet beside him for a moment he thought he’d finally managed to get to her. And then wondered what the hell was wrong with him that pissing her off was something he even wanted. And worse, why he didn’t like doing it, when he’d never minded one way or the other before.
Because before it was never Skylar, a voice inside him piped up.
“If you want my number that badly, Cody, you can just ask for it.” Her voice was even. Her gaze was steady. And he felt like he was ripping apart from the inside out. “And if you don’t, that’s perfectly okay too. A whole lot of people seem to be under the impression that I don’t know what this is. But let me assure you, I do.”
If she was actively trying to piss him off, she couldn’t have picked a better way to do it. Because if he didn’t know what this was, how the hell could she?
“Do you?” He tried to take the crazy out of his voice. With limited success. “What is it?”
“I’ll assume that’s a little test. Don’t worry, I’ve always been really good at tests.” She shifted beside him, straightening up in her seat as if she was mimicking some kind of perfect pupil. “You don’t have to tell me that you’re a commitment phobic cowboy, Cody. That’s pretty obvious. It goes with the laconic thing. And all that swagger. And the good news is, a commitment phobic cowboy is pretty much exactly what the doctor ordered.”
“Perfect. Now I’m a prescription.”
“Better than Xanax,” she said brightly. And the craziest part was that she was smiling. Actually smiling. “You don’t have to worry about me. I’m not going to get the wrong idea. I’m not going to freak out. I don’t want more than you can give and there’s definitely no need for any emotional scenes. What you see with me is exactly what you get.”
“Bullshit.”
He didn’t know where that came from. But he didn’t take it back.
She only raised her eyebrows. “Okay. Don’t believe me. I can call a taxi right now, you know. We don’t even have to have this conversation.”
“Here’s the thing.” Cody shifted around on the seat so he could look at her a little more closely, and then he hooked a hand over the nape of her neck. Just so he could pull her in a little further. Because he wanted her so close it was almost a kiss. Because he wanted her to feel all the things that he felt. And maybe also because he was a dick. “I’ve scraped off so many women I don’t even know their names.”
“How charming.”
“I’m not bragging. It’s a fact. I’ve had this conversation a thousand times.”
“And there’s absolutely no need for this to be a thousand and one.”
“I’m tired,” he told her. Starkly and without any flourish. “In bull-riding terms I might as well be the crypt keeper. That’s how old I am. And I’m tired of everything. The tour. Living on the road. The hustle of it all. I’ve been over for it for a long time.”
“That’s no way to live.”
That was all she said, and then seemed content to sit there in the dark of the truck. And Cody didn’t know what it was about this woman. He didn’t understand why nothing seemed to get to her. Why all she did was gaze back at him, calm and easy.
Or why the fact she kept doing it made him…somebody he didn’t recognize.
Someone chatty.
“All I have are eight seconds on a bull,” he told her, because apparently this was who he was now. A guy who never shut his mouth. “Eight seconds where none of the rest of this crap matters. Whether I’m old, whether I’m young, whether the next fall will cripple me—it doesn’t matter. I get eight seconds of glory, that’s all.”
“That’s more than some people ever get,” she said quietly, as if she knew.
And he was still a total stranger to himself, because he kept going.
“There’s only one thing that feels anything like those eight seconds, Skylar. One thing, and I’ve tried a thousand.” He pulled her face another inch closer. “You.”
He couldn’t really believe he’d said that out loud. And from the stunned look on her face, neither could she.
But the craziest part was that it was true. He didn’t know why he hadn’t realized it the first time he’d seen her, standing at her father’s front door with ghosts in those blue eyes of hers.
“I’m not making any declarations,” he told her gruffly, ignoring the fact he already had, whether he wanted to admit that or not. “I’m not that guy. I’m never going to be that guy. But I’m not ready to be done with you.”
Her lips moved into that lopsided little tilt that wedged its way deep into him. Again.
“Be still my heart.”
Cody wanted to be inside of her. He should have waited until he was to have this conversation he hadn’t known he planned to have. He needed to be deep inside her because that was where everything made sense. More than made sense, it was right.
But even the thought of it soothed him a little bit. It took the edge off. It made him imagine that he hadn’t just said the most insane thing he could possibly have said. Out loud.
To her.
“You got something to do next weekend?” he asked her.
This time with a little more intensity.
“As a matter of fact, my schedule is wide open.”
And her voice wasn’t calm anymore. There was that hitch in it. Just like the ghosts in her eyes that told him she wasn’t nearly as calm or controlled as she pretended she was. Somehow that soothed him too.
Cody shifted his hand from the back of her neck to the sweet little V of her T-shirt. And he played with the hem, tracing it up one side and then down the other until he got that shiver he was after.
“I’m going to be in Missoula,” he told her, as if it was the kind of sweet shit he didn’t know how to say. “Tomorrow I’m going to hitch up the Airstream and head west. I’ll probably take my time. I like to see a little bit of the country while I’m out here on tour. Or the years disappear without my really noticing it.”
“That sounds like an excellent plan.”
“That’s not a plan, that’s my routine. Same old, same old.” He traced that V again. Up, then down. Then once more. “Skylar. Come with me.”
And everything in him froze. He was intent and still and poised there on a knife’s edge as she stared back at him.
She made him wish he was the kind of man who could pull out a poem and make it work. But the only poetry he’d ever known was the hard work of a sweet ride, and he’d asked her to come with him. He didn’t have anything but that.
“Cody,” she said, using his name the same way he’d used hers. Serious. Somber.
He thought she was going to say no, and that was another moment that went on for a lifetime, telling him things about himself he didn’t really want to know.
But then she smiled. And leaned in close.
And whispered her number in his ear.
Chapter Nine
Every day there was a parade of deep concern into every inbox Skylar had.
Family and friends alike felt the need to weigh in about her decision to hit the road with Cody, in varying degrees of ALL CAPS astonishment. Every person Skylar knew thought she’d lost her mind, which didn’t have the result they all clearly wanted.
She didn’t take the next flight ho
me. She settled in a little more with Cody instead.
I’m sure the man is hot, Scottie texted. And hot is great. But are you really the person who runs away with the rodeo? That doesn’t sound like you.
Skylar got that particular text from her sister a day or so after she’d packed a bag and left Billings. There had been no further scenes with her father or Angelique. They’d been out with the kids when she’d swung by that Sunday morning, so she’d had the great pleasure of writing them a note and avoiding the drama altogether.
If that was cowardly, she was at peace with it.
“Did you really leave me a note?” Billy demanded on her voicemail that same night, all the usual bluster and that darker current underneath that she thought might be hurt feelings. It made her feel something like small inside—but not enough to return his call. “A note, Skylar? You really made Angelique feel bad. I hope you’re proud.”
And it was the irony of that Skylar found she savored most as Cody had driven them west across Montana’s eastern plains, then up over the brash jut of Rockies. Because her father seemed to have forgotten his own long history of leaving notes to handle situations he didn’t want to deal with, like the fact he’d wanted a divorce from Skylar’s mother. Carolyn had left that particular note on the refrigerator, held fast by a magnet they’d gotten on a bitter family trip to Kansas, until Scottie had ripped it up and thrown it in the fire during one of the unpleasant mid-divorce winters.
But if Billy didn’t know how ridiculous his outrage sounded, Skylar wasn’t about to clue him in. Because that would require calling him back and opening herself up for all manner of commentary she didn’t want. She opted for a quick text instead.
Will be in touch soon. Love to all.
Scottie’s text had come late the next day, suggesting to Skylar that there had been a lot of unusual family discussion about her.
Apparently I’m exactly that person, she’d texted Scottie. I’m as surprised as you are.