by Cat Johnson
Obviously the term Buckle Bunny was familiar to even the younger riders and her interest in his pending buckle had gotten Chase’s hopes up even further. Jenna laughed again at the ridiculousness of the entire situation but still didn’t have it in her to totally crush his hopes.
“I’m interested in lots of things. It’s one of the side-effects of being a writer.”
Selfish as it felt, she was really enjoying the attention. It made her disappointment about Slade and Mustang’s absence, and her worries over where they were and who they were with, fade a bit. The song ended and Jenna took the opportunity to disengage herself from the arms of the kid young enough to be her biological child in certain third world countries. “Thanks for the dance, Chase. I enjoyed it, but I better get back to my friends now.”
Chase glanced back at the table and grinned. “Okay, but I think they’re doing just fine without you.”
Jenna followed his gaze and couldn’t believe what she saw.
What was going on?
Their table was totally swamped with bull riders, and by the looks on the faces of her friends, they loved it. “How did that happen?”
Chase laughed. “What can I say? We’re a welcoming group. Come on, I’ll walk you back to the table.”
They hadn’t even gotten all the way back to the corner yet when one of the bull riders spotted them. “Hey, Chase! Did you know these women all write romance novels?”
True to the cowboy gentleman stereotype, the cowboy who’d spoken abandoned the chair he occupied and swung it behind Jenna so she could sit. Jenna couldn’t remember the last time a man had given her his seat back in New York.
“That’s my friend, Garret.” Chase informed her, then raised a brow. “Romances, huh? You said you were a writer but you didn’t say romance.”
Jenna found herself not only seated, but also with a cup of beer. It mysteriously appeared and was shoved in her hand. Taking a gulp for lack of anything else to drink, she let the cold foam slide down her suddenly dry throat.
She looked up at Chase above her and shrugged. “Eh, you know, I like to remain mysterious.”
Chase squatted down next to the chair and tipped his hat back so he could look up at her.
He laughed. “You are that, Jenna. You definitely are that. Mysterious and beautiful.”
Jenna shook her head at him. “And you, Chase, are a flatterer and a flirt.”
She watched another smile curve his lips and sighed while trying to ignore how good the attention felt. She wrote it off to her thirty-five-year-old psyche enjoying the attentions of a younger, okay, much younger man. But a little innocent flattery couldn’t hurt anyone, could it?
Around her, the other three authors had never looked happier, each flanked by at least one cowboy. The one next to Barb, Garret, Chase had called him, grabbed the now empty pitcher and as he left to go refill it at the bar, Barb leaned over close to Jenna. “Oh, my God! These are real cowboys!”
Jenna laughed and whispered back, “Yeah, I know.”
“I mean real, not just guys who like to wear boots and hats,” Barb amended.
Yeah, she’d noticed that distinction herself. Still laughing, Jenna raised her voice. “Barbara, this is Chase. He’s competing in the bull riding finals and he’s up for Rookie of the Year.”
Chase stood and tipped his hat to Barb. “Ma’am.”
Jenna couldn’t help but smile at Barb’s raised brow as she looked from Jenna to Chase and back to Jenna again. If that look didn’t insinuate that Jenna should go for it, she didn’t know what it did say.
If only Barb knew Jenna had already gotten herself a cowboy, two in fact. That thought had Jenna glancing around the bar once more, looking for the two missing men.
Chase got pushed further back behind her when the other cowboy returned with another two full pitchers of beer and put them on the table. Barb took that opportunity to lean in again. “Chase is adorable.”
“Yeah, adorable, just like a puppy.” Jenna rolled her eyes.
Barb shrugged. “So he’s young. Big deal. It’s not like you’re going to marry him. I think you’d get more out of one night with him than that conference session you took about writing hotter sex.”
“Oh my God, Barb! You are so bad!” Jenna hissed and felt her face heat. She dared a glance in Chase’s direction and saw him watching her and smiling. Yeah, odds were good he knew he was the subject of the conversation, which had Jenna’s cheeks reddening even further, she was sure.
“When else can you be bad, Jenna? Come on. What happens at the romance writers’ convention in Tulsa, stays at the romance writers’ convention in Tulsa.”
Jenna seriously doubted that was true, considering the notorious gossips attending the conference.
Barb’s cowboy finally finished pouring beer for the table, including Jenna, she noted as she glanced at her almost overflowing cup. Jenna was happy when he then went back to focusing on Barb, which meant that Barb didn’t have the time to focus on Jenna’s sex life any further.
She felt a hand on her shoulder right before she felt a warm breath of air tickle her ear. “You sure are cute when you blush.”
Jenna felt the heat deepen and spread across her already blazing cheeks at that comment. Chase grinned wider because of it. She raised the big plastic cup and took another huge swallow and tried to ignore that Chase’s attention was starting to make other parts of her anatomy heat up as well.
As the noise level increased and the beer started to go to her head, Jenna saw close to a dozen shot glasses suddenly appear on the table and she was swallowing something that burned her throat and made her cough. She grabbed her cup of beer and downed it gladly to sooth the fire of the shot. Before she knew it, she was having difficulty walking a straight line to the bar’s bathroom.
In the ladies’ room, Jenna wasn’t so drunk she didn’t think to check out how she looked in the mirror as she washed her hands. Nor did she forget to reapply her lipstick, though staying in the lines seemed to take more concentration than it should have. Running her fingers through her hair, she consulted her flushed reflection one last time and grabbed the door handle, cringing when she overestimated the weight of the door and sent it crashing into the wall.
Pretending she hadn’t caused the racket, she slipped into the hallway that contained the doors to the men’s and ladies’ rooms as well as an ancient looking payphone, and found Chase waiting for her.
“Hey, there.” He put one hand on her shoulder and smiled at her, but it wasn’t in a aw shucks, ma’am way like when he’d first approached her that night. It was in a sultry and very adult I’m a man, and you’re a woman, so how about it? way that twisted her stomach and parts lower.
“Hey.” Her voice sounded husky in her own ears.
Chase made a point to consult the digital readout on his cell phone before he held it up for her to see. “I still have a few hours left of my birthday. There’s time for you to give me that birthday kiss you promised.”
Had she promised that? Between Chase’s temptingly sexy lips and the alcohol, she honestly couldn’t remember. When he leaned his head down so his mouth was barely a breath from hers, Jenna stopped trying to remember and instead let him close the small distance to meet her.
Things quickly became a blur as Chase’s hands came up to first cup her face, then tangle in her hair. He kissed her deeper and she let him, opening her mouth when his tongue slid between her lips.
Heart-pounding, she found herself pressed up against the wall by Chase’s lean, hard body. She wrapped her arms around his waist as he tipped his head and kissed her harder. That slight shift of his position pressed his thigh more closely in between hers and she realized just how good that pressure felt. Too good. She wanted more. She didn’t want to want more.
Jenna pulled away and broke the kiss. Chase let her, leaning his forehead against hers for just long enough to let out a satisfied moan.
“Thank you, Jenna. That was the best birthday present I’ve gott
en in a very long time.” Then he straightened up, grabbed her hand, adjusted the cocked brim of his hat, and led her back to the table, where too many pairs of eyes widened and more than a few sets of eyebrows raised.
Jenna glanced at Chase and saw he was smeared in her lipstick. She shot him a quick signal to wipe his mouth as his fellow bull riders chuckled. She quickly took a moment to wipe at her own most likely horrendously lipstick-smeared mouth.
Horrified, she glanced at her friends and found them grinning wide and looking about as drunk as she felt. Barb raised a shot to her in salute and smiled, right before Barb’s cowboy grabbed her hand, pulled her from the chair and led Barb back toward the same hallway.
Halfway across the floor, Barb turned. “What happens in Tulsa…”
“Stays in Tulsa,” Megan echoed, as she was pulled, giggling, into the lap of a cowboy. Ann didn’t answer since her mouth was suddenly occupied by the fourth cowboy.
Jenna raised a brow and glanced up at Chase, who shrugged, then started to massage her neck and shoulders gently. “I told you we were a welcoming bunch.”
As her head lolled to the side in ecstasy, Jenna said, “You can say that again.”
Chapter Fourteen
Mustang leaned back in his chair and rubbed his stomach. “Ooo wee. That was good. I was so hungry my stomach was eating my backbone.”
Slade mirrored Mustang’s stance and leaned back in the chair of the pizza parlor. “Yeah, but I’m thinking we probably shouldn’t have eaten the whole thing.”
Probably not, since a full belly could get uncomfortable. Especially for the next activity that Mustang had a hankering for. “So, you wanna hit the bar and see who’s there?”
“I’m sure every bull rider in the competition will be there, since we had the day off.”
“Most likely, but I wasn’t talking about bull riders.” Grinning suggestively, Mustang balled up his napkin, threw it onto his grease-stained paper plate and pushed the whole mess further away from him as Slade mulled that over.
When Mustang looked up again, he saw a strange expression on Slade’s face. “Nah, you go over if you want. I’ll probably just go back to the trailer and catch up on some sleep.”
“After we both slept all damn day?” Mustang sputtered.
Slade didn’t answer, he just shrugged and looked anywhere except at Mustang.
Wasn’t that interesting?
Deciding to test out his newest theory, that Slade was interested in Jenna for more than just a one-night stand, Mustang casually let the bar idea go. “You’re right though. Every cowboy and his brother will be at the place across the street from the arena tonight. Hey. I know what we can do.”
Slade looked up. “What?”
Mustang couldn’t control the wide grin he felt spreading across his face. “Maybe we can check out the bar in Jenna’s hotel.”
Slade’s face clearly spoke his feelings about that idea. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because she didn’t invite us to go snooping around her hotel.”
“We wouldn’t be snooping. We promised we would help her with the book. She has to fix all those facts she messed up. All that stuff you corrected. We really haven’t discussed her book with her that much.” Because we were all too busy having sex to work on any book. “So, you see, we’d be doing her a favor.”
“Yeah, and I am sure that is the only reason you want to go to her hotel. To work on her book.” Slade scowled. “Besides, if she wanted us there in her hotel, she wouldn’t have asked us to drop her off a block away this morning so no one would see her getting out of my car.”
“Oh, come on. You can’t judge by that. No woman wants to get caught doing the walk of shame the morning after the night she never made it home. Being seen getting out of a car with two cowboys in it would have made it all worse.” Slade’s scowl told Mustang he didn’t like the walk of shame reference in regards to Jenna. Again, very interesting. “So, anyway, I’m going over to the hotel. If you want to go back to the trailer, that’s fine. I’ll give her your best.”
That got the desired reaction from Slade. “I didn’t say I wasn’t coming, just that I don’t think it’s a good idea. I doubt she wants us there.”
Mustang grinned. Oh, she wanted them all right, and the feeling was mutual. He pushed his chair back from the table with a loud scrape. “Come on. Let’s go.”
Slade drew in a deep breath and then finally followed Mustang out the door.
They parked Slade’s car in the lot of the hotel for the first time, having always basically pulled up and let Jenna out before. And for the first time they walked into the lobby. The two looked around.
Mustang let out a long, low whistle. “Damn, this place is nice.”
It was also packed full to bursting with women of all colors, shapes, and sizes, and Mustang once again felt keenly what they were missing by staying in his trailer most of the time and not in a nice hotel.
Slade’s mouth twisted. “I guess it’s all right. Come on. Let’s just find the bar.”
Mustang frowned. “Wait. Don’t you want to try and find Jenna first?”
“How the hell do you propose we do that?”
“Well, first we could ask and find out if there is something happening for her conference. You know, like a dinner or something.”
Slade glanced around them. “I’m thinking, judging by the thousand or so women wearing nametags and roaming the hotel lobby, that there isn’t something happening or they’d all be there.”
Mustang took note of the identical nametags hanging from each and every neck. He hadn’t noticed those before. He must have been looking elsewhere, like at all the exposed cleavage. “Okay, then we find a house phone and ask the front desk to call up to her room. We’ll see if she’s there. If not, good chance she’s roaming around herself. And look, there is a bar right there in the middle of the lobby.”
Slade sighed, glancing to where a group of conference attendees congregated waiting for drinks. “Okay. You go find the phone. I doubt we’ll find a seat but I’ll go get us a couple a beers.”
“Good deal.” Mustang grinned. Anytime Slade sprung for the drinks was fine with him.
Four beers each and a few hours later, and Mustang was starting to doubt his plan. The crowds of women had thinned and dispersed, probably to their bedrooms and to sleep, but not before he and Slade had gotten quite a few interested glances. However, there was still no Jenna. “I’m gonna go try to call her room again.”
“Let’s just go.” Slade scowled, planting his empty beer bottle on the bar with a clunk.
“One more call. If she doesn’t answer, we go. Okay?”
“All right. I gotta piss anyway.” Slade slid off the stool they’d finally procured when the crowd left.
“Fine, there’s a house phone right next to the bathroom.”
They crossed the expansive lobby, Slade disappeared into the lush marble men’s room and Mustang, once again, dialed the operator.
“Jenna Block’s room, please.” Tapping the toe of his boot impatiently, Mustang listened as Jenna’s phone rang and rang, but she didn’t answer.
Slade emerged from the bathroom and saw him still on the phone. “Come on. Let’s go. She’s not there.”
With a sigh, Mustang was about to give up when he turned and saw a sight that made him break out into a huge smile. “No, you’re right. She’s not in her room because she’s right there.”
Slade followed Mustang’s gaze. “Holy crap. She looks like she’s trashed.”
“Yeah, she does.” Mustang grinned and weighed the possibilities of that.
“Mustang...” Slade’s voice came out as a low growl. “We’re not going to take advantage of her while she’s drunk.”
Jenna still had yet to notice them even though she was heading straight for them, or rather for the bank of elevators just to their left.
“Slade, if we hadn’t both already fu—slept with her, I might agree with you. But as it stands,
we have, and I for one intend to do it again.” He watched as she pushed the button for the elevator and then looked around.
He saw the moment Jenna spotted them. Mustang was done arguing with Slade as he watched her face light up.
“You two are here!” Her voice held that high pitch that came with drinking a few too many.
Mustang smiled. “Yes we are, darlin’. Waiting on you.”
He watched her melt at that. “You were waiting for me? You are both so sweet.”
Next to him, Slade scowled. “Yeah, that’s us. Just a couple of sweethearts.”
The elevator door opened. Thankfully it was empty so Jenna wouldn’t run into anyone she knew going upstairs with two cowboys. Before there could be any discussion or negotiation about who was going upstairs, Mustang took a step forward and steered Jenna inside by the elbow. He shot Slade a look. Slade finally stepped in after them and the doors glided closed.
“I can’t believe you are here!” Jenna announced again. That was another sign of a few too many, repeatedly noting the obvious and showing great amazement at it. Jenna continued, “I thought…I was afraid you were out with another woman.”
Jenna was jealous. That was all Mustang needed to step into her and lay claim to her mouth with a hot, wet kiss, which she returned willingly.
An amused smile curved Mustang’s lips. “Is that beer I taste, darlin’?”
Jenna looked embarrassed. “I guess. Either that or the shots.”
“You were doing shots?” Slade sputtered from his place behind Jenna where he leaned unhappily against the elevator’s brass railing.
Jenna turned to him. “Yeah, the boys kept buying them for us.”
“The boys?” Slade lifted one shocked eyebrow so high it caused Mustang to laugh.
“What boys were those, darlin’?” Mustang asked, as interested as he was amused.
Mustang watched Jenna blush prettily. “Chase and a few of the other bull riders.”
“Chase? Chase Reese? The kid up for Rookie of the Year?” Slade frowned.
“Yeah! That’s him.” She glanced over her shoulder at Slade, then spun back to Mustang. “He’s probably gonna get Rookie of the Year if he makes both rides tomorrow night. You get a buckle for that, you know.”
