It was as good as an engraved invitation, as far as Skylar was concerned. She knew in that blistering instant exactly where she was going to be tonight. And maybe for the rest of the weekend.
And her father was mistaken. This wasn’t a game. Maybe it was a compulsion, but so what if it was? There were worse things.
She’d lived through one of them.
He jumped back down and walked out of the arena. Skylar stayed where she was, next to a father who thought she was a fool and more than a little loose besides, and she realized something she’d been shying away from all day because it didn’t slot in nicely with her own image of herself.
No one had been more invested in her perfect show of grief than Skylar had been herself. And that meant more than simply being everybody’s favorite shrine, it meant the endless patience and the widow’s smile and accepting so many platitudes she wanted to scream.
Yet she hadn’t. Until this morning.
Life wasn’t a decorous funeral service, she thought as the crowd cheered around her and another bull tried to dislodge its rider by any means necessary. Life wasn’t careful flower arrangements and the unctuous murmurings of funeral directors and distant uncles who barely knew the deceased. Life was ugly and messy and chaotic. It was complicated. It was too big to be squashed down into should haves.
Cody Galen was rough and hard and likely no good for her at all. And yet he made her feel after so many years frozen solid. He made her feel. Ugly and messy and chaotic and good.
So good she would do absolutely anything to keep right on feeling it as long as he was here and wanted her.
So good she didn’t care what anybody else thought about it, or even if they thought she was an idiot.
So good that Skylar forgot to feel guilty that she was the one who’d lived.
Chapter Eight
Cody liked to win.
He liked winning. He liked whiskey. He liked women.
Usually one led into the next, a celebratory slide into sin he greatly enjoyed partaking of along the endless road trip that was life on tour.
But for some reason, Skylar alone seemed to take the place of his usual variety pack, and he liked that too.
More than liked it.
Friday night, after he’d rode a sweet 89 like it was nothing and put himself in the lead, he’d seen her up there in the stands. And that was new. Not happening to recognize a woman he’d been with, but actually finding her and liking it when he did. Like she was some kind of touchstone.
The truth was, he’d never felt anything like that before.
His mother had certainly never wasted her time watching her only son try to kill himself riding bulls. Growing up, she’d acted like it was a phase he was going through. When he’d turned eighteen and joined the tour, she’d assured him that he’d end up crippled like all the bull riders she’d ever heard of—a friend of a friend’s cousin twice removed or any old cowboy telling lies in a dive bar—and more, that she’d wash her hands of him if he did because she already had enough on her plate with Todd and the girls.
Cody had taken that as a clear indication that he was not a man who needed to stock the stands with friendly faces. And these days he took it as a point of pride that he was so solitary. He didn’t cart family and friends around with him, much less girlfriends or pretty pieces of tail. And not only because he didn’t do girlfriends. He didn’t need it, he would have said. Better the stands were empty and he still won, because he was making his mark. He wanted to go down in history, not show off for a girl.
And anyway, friendly faces were lies. He knew what happened when friendly faces turned vicious, as soon as the door was closed and nobody else could see. More than one person had told him he had trust issues, of course. He preferred to think of it as straight-up practicality.
But there was no denying the fact that he liked looking up from the dirt in Billings to see Skylar’s blue eyes open wide and filled with something that looked a whole lot like pride as they slapped to his.
Cody would have said that the back of a bull was the only thing in the world that could silence the crowd and make him forget where he was. That sweet, brutal dance he’d been doing so well for all these years. He would have said that was the only possible way to shut off his head and make everything in him go still and right.
But it turned out that maybe Skylar had the same kind of magic in her.
“Maybe I should get your number,” he told her in a low, teasing kind of way, later that night.
She’d been waiting for him outside the arena. Out there by his truck, looking cuter than any woman should have the right to in jeans that were plastered all over her butt and pretty little cowboy boots as befitted a country girl. He been particularly taken by the little tank top she wore, as if she’d dressed to make him as hard as possible, with the delicate gold necklace around her neck and tiny little pearl nestled right there in her throat. Right where he most wanted to put his mouth.
All that and her crooked smile too.
If it wasn’t magic, he didn’t know what the hell it was.
He hadn’t said a word when he’d seen her waiting for him, leaning against his bumper with her head tipped back like she was counting stars again. Like she could stand there all night and whether or not he showed up was incidental. Maybe that was Skylar’s secret—she was the least needy female he’d ever encountered.
Which made him feel a little too close to needy for comfort.
It took one look at her for all the aches and pains that had swamped him in the locker room—the way they always did in the wake of all that adrenaline—to disappear. He kept coming, then picked her up, taking her mouth as she wrapped herself around him.
He kissed her until he thought he might get arrested, and then he tossed her in the cab of his truck.
And he barely made it to the city limits before he pulled the car over to some out-of-the-way park, and pulled her over him in the front seat. Because he couldn’t wait another minute, much less the rest of the drive out to his Airstream.
It was possible he’d expected it to be a little less wild after the previous night. After all, he’d pretty much glutted himself on her.
But it had been more of the same.
Hot. Frenzied. Insane.
He figured it would be worth whatever fine he’d have to pay if they got caught.
“I don’t give out my number,” she breathed when that first storm passed, and they’d steamed up all his windows. She’d grinned at him, as if he wasn’t still inside of her. As if he was some douchebag in a bar trying to buy a pretty girl a drink. “But I’ll take yours.”
Cody couldn’t get enough of her.
Saturday had been the usual nonsense on a tour weekend. Because he was involved in local sponsorship, he had to show up and play the smiling, genial buffoon at the Grey Sports flagship store in downtown. He sat at the table with a couple of the other riders, and did his best to look approachable while dressed in the clothes they’d laid out for him.
“We’re so happy to have a legend like you here today,” the manager gushed at him as she led him to the table where he was expected to sit and sign autographs for a few hours.
But Cody noticed Skylar’s father wasn’t around to share that sentiment. He couldn’t blame the man.
All he really wanted to do was stand up and stop pretending to be the gentleman cowboy he’d never been. He’d wanted to stop all the fake grinning into cameras with every kid and giggly woman who approached him. He wanted to stop shaking hands with men who were all belly and listening to them tell him lies about how they’d almost done a little bull riding themselves and maybe would again, if they could find a spare weekend.
He’d never liked the glad-handing and ass-kissing, but it seemed worse this time. Or maybe it was because he knew that Skylar was in the same store, if out of sight. And it was the same thing that kept happening to him. If he knew she was around, he had to have her.
“I’m working,” she told him wi
th mock severity when he found her, after his meet and greet was done. She was back in the offices, hunched over a pile of invoices, but he’d seen the way her eyes lit up when he walked in. “I’m very busy handling an inventory situation.”
“I’m good at handling things,” he told her. “Like locked doors.”
And he’d showed her what he meant, right there against the door with the bolt thrown.
“I really should get your number,” he murmured against the side of her face when they were done, and Skylar was flushed with that bright red that made him hard all over again.
She busied herself with her clothes, stepping away from him to right her blouse and button up her jeans, then run her palms over her smooth hair.
“Why do you need my number?” she asked. She snuck a bright look his way. “You seem to find me without it.”
“Maybe I don’t want to feel like a detective all the time.”
That crooked smile made his chest feel tight, and the craziest part was, he was starting to get used to it.
“Detective looks good on you,” she said. “You should keep it up.”
“It’s like you want me insecure, darlin’.”
She laughed at that. At him, when no one ever did. And he liked that, too.
“I’m pretty sure you can handle it,” she said.
Saturday was the big night, and Cody never let anything mess with his concentration. Not even the most fascinating woman he’d ever encountered. He shoved it aside and focused on his job.
His only job: riding the best bull he could to the most spectacular finish possible.
Cody drafted a particularly rank bull and then had to wait for his turn. He watched some of the other riders score a little too high for his liking, because he wanted that top slot. He could taste it. By the time his bull was herded into the chutes, he was floating along in that strange, tight little bubble between anticipation and excitement that always heralded a big night.
He knew from experience that he couldn’t let himself go too far one way or the other. And the only way to handle it was to concentrate on the tiny little details that made each ride work. Stepping up to the chute. Positioning himself right as he went in, and working on getting his rope nice and sticky and exactly where he wanted it. It was all about the rope, and every time he wanted to kick himself for a ride that hadn’t come off the way he wanted it was because he hadn’t paid enough attention to the rope when he’d had the opportunity.
He didn’t make that mistake tonight. He took his time. The bull beneath him was feisty, jumping and rolling and having a little tantrum, just to show Cody what was in store. But that was what he wanted. Spirit and grit. And that wildness that nothing and no one could tame.
It was what made a bull a legend.
And it was what made a woman like Skylar magic.
Cody was more than ready for both. When the rope was right and he felt that little kick inside him, telling him it was time to get it done, he nodded—and that was it.
The gate opened and the flight began.
No thought.
No worry.
Just the dance.
All the training, all the strategy, the stress and the hope and the worry; all his years of practice and preparation, sacrifice and will, down to these few seconds.
One man, one beast.
One test of will.
It was amazing how the time slowed. Sometimes Cody worried it wouldn’t, that it was over and this would be the ride that felt like a sick and terrifying blur, because that would be the end. That would be his last ride.
But it wasn’t tonight.
Eight seconds were still a lifetime.
Time flattened out and ran sweet. What seemed like nothing but wild jolting and bucking, too wild to ever be conquered in any way, felt different here. Inside the bubble where it was him and the bull and the way they reacted to each other, feeding off one another, anticipating each other’s game.
He felt how the bull moved and rolled with it. Away from his right hand that gripped on tight. He could feel when his left arm strayed too close to the bull’s back and adjusted in that split second.
He had all the time in the world when he was in the zone. No crowd. No noise. No clock. No problem.
There was only the roll. The ride.
And just about when he thought that he could keep on doing it forever, the buzzer rang.
Another eight seconds down.
And time sped up again.
Cody worked his hand free, then took his jump from the bull’s broad back to the ground, letting gravity take him into another roll in the dirt. His senses were so heightened that he swore he could feel where the bull fighters were without having to see them, as they raced in to distract the snorting bull while Cody found his feet.
This was the part Cody liked best. The rush. The sheer joy of having done it one more time, eight seconds and no pain.
It was this moment where it was all his. No score, no money won or lost, no reaction from the fans. It was just his, that ride he could feel in his bones like a wicked drug and the sheer thrill of it that all these years later he still hadn’t gotten over.
It was this moment where he thought that maybe he never would.
But this time when he stood up, he was looking for a face in the crowd.
He wanted to hate himself for that kind of weakness, the exact sort of weakness he’d spent his life avoiding, but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t. Because there she was, just where he’d expected her a few rows up from the dirt, and he couldn’t deny the jolt that went through him at the sight.
Not only couldn’t he deny it, he liked it.
He felt Skylar all over. His head. His throat. His chest and gut. His cock. Even his damned feet.
Head to toe and back again, and for another wild second that flattened out a little bit and sat heavy on him, the only thing he could see was the punch of her blue eyes from twenty feet away.
There was something about her that could ruin a man, he thought. Not only that, make him like it.
But then the announcer was belting out his score, another 89, which meant Cody was holding on to his lead. The crowd went wild. Cody doffed his hat the way he always did, and took his moment to bask in the applause.
Even if, when he made his way out of the arena to do the usual interviews, the only thing he really remembered was Skylar. Watching him as if there was no one in the arena but the two of them.
His second ride of the night was wilder. A newer bull out to prove he was a badass, and Cody equally determined to show him who was the real boss, to the tune of an even higher 89, just shy of a legendary 90.
Which meant Cody won the weekend.
He stood in the center of the ring and he waved as everyone cheered and he didn’t think about the money, for a change. He didn’t think about how to allocate it and where he should send it or count up how much time he had left in this.
For the first time in years, he relaxed and enjoyed the moment. The cheers. The rush.
The knowledge that she was out there.
And instead of his usual form of celebration, which generally ranked high in the debauchery stakes and involved enough whiskey to regret it all the next morning, it turned out all he wanted was the woman waiting for him out at his truck again. As if they planned it.
As if she’d read his mind.
“I guess I don’t need your number after all,” he drawled as he walked toward her. “Since you seem to be stalking me.”
“Oh, I might actually give it to you now,” she told him, her blue eyes dancing with that laughter he couldn’t seem to stop craving, half in and half out of the shadows. “I like a winner. Isn’t that the buckle bunny way?”
“It’s less of a philosophy and more of an act. Or a series of actions, to be more precise.”
“By all means. Let’s make sure we’re precise. About the groupies.”
“Precision is my life, darlin’.”
He drew closer. He eyed her t
here on his bumper but kept going. He beeped open the truck, threw his gear inside. But he kept his eyes on Skylar while he did it.
“But if you think about it, there’s got to be some kind of hierarchy,” she was saying, in a musing sort of voice as if she really had given the matter a lot of thought.
She didn’t stop talking when he roamed back over in her direction and planted himself directly in front of her. Maybe a little too close, come to that. He saw her pulse go a little crazy in her neck, but she didn’t otherwise react.
“Hierarchical bunnies?” he asked.
Well. It was more of a drawl, more smoke than laughter.
She shivered slightly, but kept on. “You know. Which bunnies think they deserve the higher ranked riders versus which bunnies will take any old cowboy just to say they’re in the game.”
“You know a lot about the inner workings of buckle bunnies, do you?”
“Not as such.” She let out a little laugh, breathy and sweet, when he reached over and hooked two fingers in the waistband of her jeans to haul her toward him. Better yet, she went to him like butter. “But I do know about groups of girls. Not sure it’s ever really all that different. Where to sit in the cafeteria during the worst part of seventh grade or the adventures of the American Extreme Bull Riders Tour buckle bunny crew. I think there’s probably some overlap.”
“Next time I see a bunny hopping around I’ll have to ask about seventh grade,” Cody murmured, his face near hers, so he could feel it when she let out one of those jagged breaths.
He didn’t kiss her.
He reveled in the crispness of the way she felt, out here in another endless Montana night. How soft her skin was against the backs of his fingers, there where they brushed against her belly. That scent she wore that drove him crazy, cedar and summer and Skylar.
And whatever the hell it was that drew him to her this way, filling up his head and making him hard. Flattening out time like he was on a different kind of ride, making him look for her blue gaze in a stadium filled with people chanting his name.
He’d only seen her.
“The truth is,” he told her, as if he was whispering the kind of sweet poetry he’d never uttered in his life, “I’ve never known a bunny to overlook an opportunity to talk about herself.”