by Penny Wylder
Or maybe just say the stallion he rides did it. Is his horse black, like his tattoo? I reach down, without thinking, and shift his plaid shirt aside to see the rest of the tattoo.
That’s when a calloused hand clamps tight around my wrist.
I startle and try to pull back, nearly spilling my coffee. But when I look up, Ruckus’s dark eyes are open and he’s grinning at me. That grin of his that I’ve seen plastered across countless tabloid articles and newspaper headlines. It’s about 10 million times more deadly in person. It’s the kind of devil-may-care, bad-boy grin that girls would die for.
Most girls, anyway. Not me. I’m used to his type.
I yank my wrist free.
That just makes his grin widen. “God must have messed up real bad this time,” he said. “Pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to let an asshole like me into heaven with the angels like you.”
My cheeks flush even as I force myself to roll my eyes and back away from the bed. “God didn’t mess up, Rudolph. That was all you.”
“I prefer Ruckus,” he corrects me.
“I know,” I say, and at least that knocks a slight amount of the cocky smirk from his face. “Mr. Ruckus, my name is Sheila Greyson. I’m your new manager.”
Now it’s his turn to turn bright red. He elbows himself upright to sit straight in bed, then winces and doubles back over, no doubt feeling the head-butt and blows he took to his ribcage all over again now. “What happened to Frank?”
“Frank quit. He couldn’t deal with your shit anymore. The higher-ups decided to call in the big guns.”
He groans, which might make me feel sympathetic if I didn’t know that I’m in for almost as much pain in the future as he’s currently feeling. It’s not going to be pleasant having to deal with his messes.
“Here,” I finally say, and pass over my cup of coffee. He grips it like a man grasping a lifeline and takes a long gulp before he speaks again.
“I don’t need a new manager. Hell, I didn’t need the old one.” He finishes the coffee in another gulp, then tosses the empty cup onto the bed and starts to rise.
I scramble to grab the cup before it spills onto the sheets, more out of habit than actual concern for this dingy motel room. “What do you think you’re doing?” I add sharply, because when I look back up, Ruckus is stripping off his shirt.
He laughs. “What, I wake up to you trying to strip me and now you’re getting all shy?” He drops the shirt onto the floor between us, as though daring me to look.
So I do. I maintain a straight face despite the flush that floods through my body at the sight of his bare torso. He’s got a long scar down his right ab line, cutting across his chiseled 6-pack in a straight line. A couple other little scars mar his sides and chest, but really, all those little imperfections only add to his appeal. He’s a man who’s been through the ringer. Really lived life.
He’s a man I need to stop from living life quite so recklessly.
I tear my gaze from him as he starts to shove his boxers down next. That, I can’t take. I whirl back toward the kitchen to fix myself another cup of coffee. “If you think this is the proper way to behave around a woman you’ve only just met, and who’s going to be in charge of your life for the next few months, then I have to disagree, Mr. Ruckus. You absolutely do need a manager. Someone to tighten your reins.”
“And that someone is you, I take it?” I can hear the grin in his voice without turning around. “We’ll see about that. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go take a shower. Unless,” his tone turns sly, “you’d like to come and manage that for me too?”
A surge of desire pulses through me at the mental image of his naked body. Running my hands over that chest of his, hot water gushing down between us. I swallow around a lump in my throat and force a scowl to my lips instead. “Take your shower. When you come out, I expect you to behave like a gentleman.”
“Don’t hold your breath on it,” he calls over his shoulder. I hear the door to the bathroom swing shut, and only then do I release the breath I’ve been holding and sink against the countertop, exhausted.
Fuck. What have I gotten myself into?
I studied Ruckus before I got here. His career. His escapades. The outstanding lawsuits against him and the complaints from the higher-ups who run the circuits that contract him for his shows. They’re concerned that he’s giving them a bad image. Branding all the cowboys in the rodeo with a reputation for unruliness and a foul temper. They don’t want their organization sponsoring the kind of rodeo performers who tear up every city they visit. Bad for business, they say.
If he doesn’t clean up his act, his former manager Frank told me, they plan to blackball Ruckus. Stop him from competing in any of the rodeos from now on. He’ll lose everything. His career, his status, his source of income. All he’ll have left is the bottle, which from all accounts, I hear he loves a little too much already.
I’ve seen a lot of men like him in my career working for the rodeo circuit. A lot of guys who slide off the rails headfirst and never catch their feet again. I don’t want to see him go that route. Not if I can help it.
But in order to do that, I’m going to need to be as wild as he is. A force in opposition to him. A solid wall he can’t break through.
Not the kind of girl he catches trying to strip his shirt off while he’s passed out in bed, ogling his chest. I only wanted a glimpse of his tattoo, I tell myself. But deep down, I know better. My stupid goddamn hormones are threatening to get the better of me.
I finish pouring myself a fresh cup of coffee to replace the one Ruckus downed. I’m only halfway through savoring it when the bathroom door creaks open partway.
“Sheila darlin’?”
My fist tightens around the handle of the mug. “That’s Ms. Greyson to you, Ruckus,” I call back.
“Well, Ms. Greyson. You’re gonna need to find me a change of clothes. Unless you think walking out of this motel naked will help my public image.”
I roll my eyes, but stride toward the closet. I actually do have a spare trunk with me—Frank warned me that Ruckus had a tendency to dirty up most of his outfits before the night is out, even when it’s not a show night, so I came prepared. As I cross back to the bathroom, fresh flannel shirt in hand, along with his jeans from last night, I catch a fleeting glimpse of tan skin through the crack in the door. I shut my eyes to avoid temptation and hand the clothes through.
Ruckus’s hand grazes mine as he accepts them. For a brief, fleeting moment, I realize that I’m disappointed. Part of me expected him to grab my wrist and yank me in there with him, stark naked body and all.
Get a hold of yourself, I scold, even though through the steam wafting from the bathroom, I catch the scent of his piney body wash, mixed with the heady scent of him underneath it.
I stride back to the kitchen and finish my coffee, then set about rinsing out the cups. I’m just finishing that when he emerges from the bathroom in a cloud of steam. It’s hard not to look at his hair, still damp from the shower, tousled across his forehead and skating across his eyes. Combined with the two-day stubble on his cheeks and his dark eyes, piercing above his chiseled jawline, I can’t help but stare for a second, before I yank my gaze away.
“More coffee?” I offer.
“How about something stiffer than that?” He shoulders past me, and I catch my breath as his arm brushes along mine. He’s solid muscle. I should’ve known that when I saw how many men it took to carry him from the bar. But knowing it and feeling it are two very different things.
A coil of desire snakes through my belly. Tightens between my thighs.
“Oh, I don’t think so.” I lean back against the counter and cross my arms. “You’re off the booze, Ruckus. At least until the finals are done.”
That certainly gets his attention. He whips around from where he’d been peering over the sink, no doubt searching for wherever I hide the alcohol bottles. “You’ve got to be kidding me. What did the association hire you for, to be
my manager or my babysitter?”
I lift my eyebrows, unfazed and unimpressed. “That ain’t the only rule we’re gonna be following from now on. No drinking, no more fighting, in bars or on the streets or anywhere else it may take your fancy to throw a punch.”
He rolls his eyes and groans, but I notice something else flash across his expression briefly. A hint of something else. Regret, perhaps?
Surely I’m imagining that.
“Anything else?” he asks, raising an eyebrow, torn between amusement and annoyance.
“And no sex.” I shrug one shoulder. “That’s about it.”
He bursts into laughter. When I don’t join him, his expression sobers. “Okay, you got me. The other two I can understand, though I think no drinking at all is a bit of a stretch…” He cocks his head to one side. “But why no sex?”
“It’s distracting,” I say, setting my coffee mug aside. I push off the counter to stand at my full height in front of him. I only come up to about his shoulder line, but when I thrust my chest out and hold my head high, I can almost convince myself he’s scared of me. “Sex outside of marriage leads to other bad behaviors. Like the aforementioned fighting and drinking.”
He steps closer too, and I realize my mistake. Now I’m beneath him, gazing straight up into those dark eyes of his, which aren’t black like I thought. They catch the kitchen light, shine honey brown in the center, like two little suns beaming down on me. I swallow, hard enough that I’m sure he can hear it.
Fuck. Why is it so difficult to breathe, this close to him? My palms go damp, and it’s all I can do to lock my knees in place and hold myself steady.
“Do those rules apply to you too?” he asks, his voice low and husky sweet. For a moment, my insides catch fire. Is he asking what I think he’s asking?
Is he thinking about fucking me? The same way I’m thinking about running my hands over his sculpted body…
“Do you also have to refrain from drinking, fighting and fucking?”
“Of course,” I lie smoothly. “But I find them easy to follow. I rarely drink, and I’ve never fought or fucked in my life, so.” I clamp my mouth shut the moment the words leave my lips.
Shit.
His eyebrows shoot sky-high, and I realize I’ve fucked up. I said too much. “You’ve never had sex?” he asks, a different tone in his voice now. Softer, gentler.
I don’t want his disdain or his pity. I shove him back, just far enough so that I have space to move past him. I yank open the fridge and reach into it for an apple, mostly for the distraction. “It’s not that wild,” I mutter.
“I don’t mean to judge,” he says quickly. “Just, a gorgeous woman like you, it’s…”
I whip my head around to narrow my eyes at him over my shoulder. His gaze catches me off-guard all over again, but I use my annoyance to cut through the tension in the air between us. I’ve never let a man seduce me yet. I’ll be damned if I start with him. “I’m waiting for the right man.”
“For marriage?” he asks. For once, though, I don’t hear derision or sarcasm in his voice. Just an honest question.
I nod my head, turning away from him again to rinse off the apple in the sink. Mostly so I have an excuse to catch my breath again. Breathe steady.
“Well, then, the answer to both our pains is obvious,” he says.
I take a bite out of the apple and then spin back around, an eyebrow raised. “Oh, is it?”
“Sure.” His gaze sweeps down, taking in my body inch by inch, and I tense against the unwanted yet undeniably delighted thrill that sizzles through my veins. He’s into me.
As into me as I am into him, maybe.
Who cares, Sheila? You have a job to do, I remind myself.
“I put a ring on your finger, Sheila Greyson, and then you and I can both do what we’re obviously itching to.”
I burst out laughing. Force myself to roll my eyes, if for no other reason than to dispel the sudden thick tension in the air. “Keep dreaming, Ruckus. Now.” My gaze darts past him to the clock on the far wall of the motel. “Rules are settled. My next job is to get you to your next gig on time. Which means, unless my calculations are mistaken, we needed to be on the road about an hour ago. So let’s move.”
I brush past him once more, to start packing my bag. But it’s only once he opens the door to step outside and carry my luggage down to the car that I’m actually able to catch even a single breath of air unimpeded.
Christ. I knew I was in for a difficult mission when I agreed to take on the notorious Rudolph Ruckus. But I had no idea just how difficult this would be…
3
Ruckus
As we drive to the next town for my performance, I spend the entire trip staring at Sheila’s legs.
It’s not my fault. Way we’re positioned in the van that the higher-ups rent for this purpose, with half our possessions in the world jammed in around us, and some new driver kid I don’t recognize steering up front, I’m stuck directly across from Sheila.
Not that I’d want to be sitting anywhere else.
She shifts in her seat, uncrosses her legs and flips them one over the other. Her eyelids flutter in her sleep, and I tense, ready to rip my gaze from her if she notices me looking. The last two times she caught me staring, I earned a solid whack on the thigh with the magazine she’d been reading at the time.
Again, not that I’m complaining. I’d let this woman throw anything she wanted my way.
There’s something about her. Maybe it’s the fire in her baby blue eyes, or the way she clenches her jaw when she tells me what to do. Or maybe it’s just those miles-long legs, wrapped in jeans so tight I bet I could see her credit card numbers through her back pocket. It makes me want to peel those jeans off her body. Flip her over the backseat and spread those perfectly sculpted, curving thighs of hers, and fuck her until she screams my name.
I’m getting hard just thinking about it.
That’s been my whole afternoon so far. Fighting the desire that rages hot in my veins.
I think back to this morning. To her bleary, sleep-tousled expression as she glared at me over the rim of her coffee. The sharp tenor in her voice when she issued her commands.
No drinking.
No fighting.
No fucking.
But I could see it even then, behind her stern demeanor. The moment I stepped close to her, something flared in her eyes. Something tense, something she wants to repress.
Something I’m going to tease out of her no matter what it takes. Because deep down, I know Sheila wants me just as badly as I want her. I could see it written all over her face when I taunted her. I put a ring on your finger, Sheila Greyson, and then you and I can both do what we’re obviously itching to.
I was kidding, of course. But it would be a way around her damned rules. And not gonna lie—I could get used to waking up beside a woman like her every morning.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, my father’s near-to-last words still echo. The same way they did in the bar, when I was gazing up at her and fading out of consciousness, when the creep who’d been all over her punched me. Find a good woman, Dad told me. It’s all he ever wanted for me.
Could that be Sheila?
She shifts again, flutters her eyes a few times this time. I glance away just in time. She sits up and stretches with a yawn, before bending down to peer through the front window. “Almost there, Hank?”
“About another five minutes, Ms. Greyson,” the driver calls back.
“Perfect.” She stretches again, and it takes every ounce of self control I possess not to stare at the way her breasts pop under her tight little tank top, or trace my eyes along her curves to the gentle arch of her hips. Hips that I want to wrap my big hands around and yank onto my lap. God, I can just imagine the way her mouth would drop open in a moan as she straddled my lap, riding me hard and fast until—
“Ruckus.”
I get the feeling it’s not the first time she’s said my name. I yank my
attention back to reality and grin. “Sheila darlin’?”
“Ugh.” She rolls her eyes. “If you’re insisting on first names, then at least stick to just Sheila. Now, I want to go over your schedule for the night.”
“Rodeo starts at 8. I’ll clean up the field by about 9:30. Winner’s ceremony at 10, then I’m done for the night,” I recite. Same as every night. The organizers run a pretty tight ship with these events—except for the odd Sunday routine that lasts longer, it’s not a bad gig. Short and simple and sweet, whenever I win. Which is most of the time.
But Sheila’s shaking her head. “I’m not talking about the event itself, Ruckus. I want to know where you plan to be after it.”
I wiggle my eyebrows at her. “If you’re angling for me to take you back to my place, believe me, I would be more than happy to.”
She kicks my shin. “Your place is just a crappy a motel room like the one I’ll be staying in.”
“Your place it is, then,” I reply smoothly.
She speaks over me. “Where you won’t be going, is a bar.”
“Then I guess you’d better accompany me to ensure I behave.” I smirk.
She smirks right back, a dare flashing in her eyes. “Believe me, Ruckus. If I have to follow you home every night and chain you up in bed to ensure you behave, I will.”
“Promises, promises, sweetheart.” I lean closer, eyes locked on hers. I savor the way her breath hitches, the way, just for an instant, her gaze drops to my mouth, lips parted. Oh yeah. She’s definitely thinking about this as much as I am.
But a moment later she jerks backward, jaw set once more. “That’s settled then. You head straight home after the rodeo.”
“And you come with. Right.”
She ignores me. Flips open a clipboard and runs down a checklist. “And before the show begins, I’ve got you scheduled to attend a local AA meeting to talk about your recovery—”
“You what?” I sputter.
