by Kali Hart
“Yes, that’s right.”
“How would you like a private tour?”
“She’d love that,” the friend pipes up. “It’ll help her with her next book, won’t it?” She nudges Jane with her elbow.
“Um, yes. Yes it will.”
I extend my arms to both ladies, wishing it were only Jane. “Shall we get started?”
“You know, I actually need to run back to the hotel,” says the friend. “But you two knock yourselves out.”
“Jill—Mandi!”
I quirk an eyebrow at that, but if they’re writers they may not want their real names revealed. Especially with the stranger they just met. Also could be some weird rule Darla created for the convention. Maybe the writers aren’t allowed to go by real names this weekend.
“I write vampire romance.” Her friend frees herself from Jane’s hold. “Bears and werewolves and stuff. Not a cowboy in sight. This tour won’t really do me a lot of good.”
“But—”
“I’ll come back for the rodeo. Save me a seat?”
“I’ll get you both tickets for the VIP section,” I offer. “Both nights.”
“Both?” Jane repeats, her eyes widening.
“Rodeos are usually two-night events. Surely Darla mentioned that?”
“She did,” Mandi says, “remember, Jane?”
“Yes, I think I forgot. Too tied up in the next book and all.” Her eyes dance everywhere around me, but they avoid meeting my own. Something is off. Maybe I should call it quits while I’m still ahead. I don’t pursue women. I’m not Mr. Womanizer like my brother, Hudson.
How could this ever work between Jane and me? My life is the rodeo. I’m on the road a lot—more than I’m home sometimes. I don’t even know where she’s from. But writers can travel, a voice whispers in my head.
“Ready to start the tour?” I ask before I can talk myself out of it.
“I’ll see you two later,” Mandi scurries away toward the gate I just locked. Luckily Darla is nowhere to be seen now.
Jane tilts her head up, her dazzling green eyes meeting my gaze. “Lead the way.”
3
SONYA
I try my best not to panic when I see Jillian disappear. She’s too far away now to call back, and I’m all alone with a cowboy I just met. Alarm bells should be ringing obnoxiously in my head, warning me to chase after my bestie before she leaves with the only working vehicle between the two of us. But instead, I feel…safe.
“What’s your book about?” Colt asks me, extending his arm for me to loop my own through. I hope he can’t tell how shaky my entire body is when I do.
“A rodeo cowboy.” Thinking on the fly is not my forte. If Jillian’s scheme hadn’t landed me this private tour with a cowboy who is panty-melting hot, I would really hate her right now. But he’s definitely the distraction I need to turn this day around.
“Sounds…interesting.”
He leads me away from the stands, opening a gate. I follow him to the area behind the VIP seating on the opposite side of the arena.
I don’t dare meet that smoldering, assessing gaze. Not when I’m positive my guilty expression tells all. “He wants to be the best in the world. Doesn’t have time for love,” I continue. I’m shooting from the hip, but so far it all sounds good. I may not be much of a writer outside of dabbling in some short stories in college, but I do read.
“Sounds like a guy I know,” I hear him mumble under his breath. I’m not sure what it means, considering he seems pretty interested in me. But interest and love are definitely two different things.
“He meets her by chance, or so he thinks.”
“Fate?” Colt suggests.
“You know it.”
We’re behind the stands now, in the area off limits to fans. There are cowboys everywhere, pens with bulls and some with horses, and tents with food. Off in the distance I see several RVs. I wonder if Colt has one of those or if he’s staying in the same hotel I’m supposed to be staying in.
I really should feel guilty about this facade. But at the end of the weekend, he’ll be gone. I’ll be stuck in this town forced to figure out my life. The last thing I want to think about tonight is updating my resume.
“Let me show you around,” he says. For the next hour, I listen with piqued interest as he leads me from one place to another. I meet his three brothers and his uncle. They all seem quite surprised to see him showing me around.
I know what I should be doing; asking questions, doing research for my “next book”, but the first question is stiff. The second completely obvious. I’m about to give up, but something happens with the third question. I feel the red fade from my cheeks. I’m listening, absorbing every word. Colt’s life intrigues me. It sounds like a fantasy. No desk job. No worries about layoffs. Though when he tells me he broken a collarbone a few years back, I cringe. There’s certainly more risk in what he does than any desk job would offer.
“That’s about it,” he says, stopping at the edge of the private parking lot filled with RVs.
“Do you have one of these?”
“Nah. My uncle Raine does. But the rest of us travel together in a truck or two. We hate flying.”
Somewhere during our tour, I went from looping my arm in his to holding his hand. I don’t even recall when it happened. Being around Colt feels…natural. Like it’s always been. When his gaze lands on me, I shiver. I can’t keep my eyes from his lips.
“This one here belongs to my Uncle Raine. Sometimes Aunt Sally travels with him. But this weekend she stayed home.” He squeezes my hand. “You want to see inside?”
I should say no. I definitely should say no. But Jane Harper doesn’t want to play by the rules. “Yes.”
COLT
On our quick tour earlier, I ran into Uncle Raine and all my brothers. One of the food tents has a pile of ribs as tall as a mountain, so we should be safe. I shouldn’t invite Jane inside the empty RV—I know I won’t be able to keep my hands to myself—but I do anyway.
I follow her up the few steps, admiring her curvy ass in those jeans. Yeah, this is definitely a bad idea.
“I have to draw for my bull in half an hour,” I tell her, mostly to keep talking. If I stop, I don’t know what will happen. But it’s likely her lipstick will get smeared, and that’s about the calmest possibility.
“Is there a certain bull you want to get?” she asks, taking leisurely steps toward the living area. Uncle Raine loves his RV, and he’s upgraded everything in here to include the extra cushy couch cushions.
“Hurricane would be my preference.” We’re stopped in the middle of the living area, standing between two couches. The safest thing to do would be to sit on opposite ones. Instead, I take a step closer, eliminating most of the distance left between us.
“That sounds like a dangerous bull with a name like Hurricane.”
A curl of hair dangles along her cheek, and I’d be a fool to pass up the opportunity to tuck it behind her ear. She bites down on her bottom lip as my fingers graze her cheek, which only makes my heart pound faster.
“I bet there’s not a scene inside an RV in your novel.” I hope she can’t hear the shakiness in my voice. Jane—or whatever her real name is—makes me feel things I’ve never felt before.
“Nothing quite like this,” she says scanning the RV. I wonder if it’s her way of gathering ideas. Will this be in a future book someday?
I’ve spent my whole life focusing on my career, focusing on being the best bull rider in the world, that I never left time for love. The word shocks me, and I stumble a step backward. It’s not possible to be in love with her. Not yet.
“How many books have you published?”
“None yet. Still…rewriting.”
I’m surprised by this, but I don’t read too far into it.
“I’m in need of some inspiration.”
Any man with a heartbeat would recognize the invitation, and he’d be a fool to turn it down. There’s something so magnetic not j
ust about Jane, but about the pull between us. I don’t think I could leave this RV right now if I tried.
Reaching for her cheek, I tilt her chin up. Our gazes lock together. I give her one solitary moment to tell me to stop. Because once I descend on those lips, it’ll be impossible.
“Kiss me,” Jane says.
Longing has been swirling between us since the moment I spotted her in the stands, and every pent-up desire flows into the passionate kiss. It’s hungry, sensual, possessive. My body ignites with feelings I’ve never experienced. I know hardly anything about this woman, except that she’s supposed to be in my life.
I have to have her.
“Wow,” she pants in a breathless whisper when our lips break apart. Her tits are heaving and my dick is half hard. The sight of her swollen lips about does me in.
“Wow is right.” Her chest is pressed against mine, and my eyes can’t seem to help themselves as they travel south right down the opening in her sleeveless blouse. I get a peak of a blue lace bra.
“How much time do we have?” she asks.
“Not long.” I take a step back so there’s enough room for my fingers to work the top button on her blouse. “But long enough to give you a little inspiration.” A soft moan escapes as I undo a second button. It’s enough for me to slip a hand inside and cup her tit. I wish there was time to lose the bra. “Aren’t these a thing of beauty.”
“You like them?” She’s biting that lip again.
I dig my fingers into the top of her bra, exposing her hard nipple. My dick twitches in my jeans, growing harder by the second. We’ll have to stop soon or I’ll have to face the ridicule of drawing a bull with a hard on. But I can’t resist taking that precious nipple into my mouth and suckling it. Her soft, sensual moans alone are worth the risk.
I give the other tit the same attention, wishing we had time to take this further.
“Where are you staying?” I ask.
“Ho—hotel,” she pants.
“Good.” Reluctantly I cover her nipples with her bra and fix the buttons on her blouse. Her eyes are drenched with desire, and it’s nearly impossible to stop things where they are now. “Tonight, I want to finish what we started.”
4
SONYA
“Your lips are swollen,” Jillian accuses two seconds after we find our VIP seats.
Playing dumb won’t do anything but stall the inevitable, but I try anyway. “Are they?”
“Just what kind of tour did you get?”
Hiding my guilty smile is impossible, so I don’t even attempt it. “It was just a little innocent make out session.” But of course, that’s not the truth. Innocent and a hot-as-sin cowboy suckling on my nipples don’t really belong in the same sentence.
“Is that all?”
I hope not. But I don’t say so out loud. Jillian and I have been friends a long time, and she knows I’m not the type to sleep with a man I just met. Much less a man who will be leaving town when the weekend is over. But dammit I can’t stop thinking about it. I want to know what it would feel like to have Colt buried deep inside me. I’m crossing my legs so tightly right now it’s a wonder I don’t cut off circulation.
“Sonya!”
“Jane,” I correct her. “It’s still Jane. Remember?” Besides the fact that several of the romance writers from earlier—including their leader Darla—are seated at the opposite end of the VIP stand, I’ve grown a fondness for my alter-ego. Jane Harper isn’t afraid of anything. The idea of trying to write a romance novel has even bounced around in my mind today.
“Okay, Jane. What aren’t you telling me?”
“He wants to finish what we started,” I blurt. Trying to keep anything from my best friend is a lost cause. I tell Jillian everything, and if I don’t, she finds a way to get the truth out of me sooner or later. It’s easier to have it all out in the open. Besides, I was bursting to tell someone.
“Does he know your secret?”
“No.” I thought about telling Colt the truth when we were hiding out in the RV, but I couldn’t get the words to form. Pretending to be a confident romance writer who’s got it all together is way easier than admitting I’m some pitiful girl who got laid off from a job she didn’t even really like that much. Considering I’ll never see him when the rodeo leaves town, I wanted him to remember the better version.
“Well, we know what he wants. What do you want?”
I bite down on my bottom lip so hard it almost bleeds. “I want to, too.”
Jillian squeals as she claps her hands together. “I’m so proud of you right now!” She suffocates me in a side hug.
“You are?”
“Yes! Jane Harper looks good on you, my dear.”
The announcer gets the crowd suddenly roaring at the start of the show, and it’s impossible to hold any semblance of a conversation now. Instead, we enjoy the show. One cowboy after another—first the bronc riders, then the bull riders.
When it’s finally Colt’s turn, my heart hammers in my chest. I’m thrilled to see him do what he does best and also nervous he’ll get hurt. A broken collarbone was not the only injury he’s ever suffered in his career. I try to imagine worrying about him weekend after weekend, year after year. I know he’s older than me, but I don’t know how old a bull rider has to be to retire.
What would that life be like?
Jillian lets me squeeze her hand when the clock starts. Colt rocks with the bull, countering each buck with a movement that keeps him on the beast until the buzzer sounds. He hops off and runs toward the fence.
The crowd—Jillian and me included—go wild with cheering.
“You better congratulate that cowboy properly tonight,” Jillian says to me.
Tingles dance between my thighs, imaging doing just that. “I plan on it.”
COLT
“Do you trust me?” I say to Jane when we’re outside the bar next door the hotel.
“Yes.”
“Then c’mon.” On the two thousand pound bull, I was calm and collected. But now that I’m back in Jane’s presence, I’m nervous.
“I thought we—”
“Oh, we are.” I take her hand and lead her toward the parking garage instead of the hotel entrance. Jane Harper—or whoever she really is—has rattled me to the core. I’ve always thought the thrill and terror of mounting a raging beast with the ability to end my life in seconds would make me feel the most alive. But I was wrong.
This woman, blindly trusting me as I lead her to my truck, makes me feel things I’ve never experienced before. It’s like part of me was dormant before I met her, and I don’t want our first time to be in some cliché hotel room.
“Where are we going?” she asks.
I open the passenger door and help her inside the truck, unable to keep my hands from grazing the sides of her tits. “Have you ever laid out under the stars in the back of a pickup?”
A twinkles dances in her eyes. “No.”
“Well, that’s where we’re going.” Away from the fans, away from the after party, away from the city. I want to show her what makes my heart happy. I don’t want this weekend to be the last time I see Jane. I want it to be the first. But I have to know she can be happy living on a quiet ranch.
Holding her hand, I drive us a couple of miles outside of town until I find a dark, private country road.
“Where did you get the blankets?” she asks as I spread a couple of comforters in the bed of the truck.
“Not important.” The hotel might send me a bill for them, but I don’t care. Every dollar this costs me will be worth it. “Climb on up.” I help her onto the tailgate of the truck. She dangles her feet. The moonlight reveals her biting that damn lip again. Fuck, it makes me crazy.
I step between her legs and draw her in for the kiss I’ve been thinking of nonstop since I had to say goodbye to her before the show. Our tongues mingle hungrily. I find her tits again and squeeze them through the blouse.
The urgency between us grows quickly. I no
longer have the patience to undo individual buttons. “It’s a cheap shirt,” she tells me. So I rip it open instead. Her lace bra is on full display. I admire the way her tits fill it out only moments before I undo the clasp.
She moans as I take one nipple into my mouth, then the other. “Fuck, these are beautiful.”
“You like them?”
I growl against her nipple. “You know I do.”
She tugs at my belt, undoing all my plans. “I’ve been thinking about this all day, Colt.” Once my zipper is undone, she shimmies back onto the pile of blankets sans shirt and bra in invitation. The moonlight illuminates her naked top, calling me like a siren. I shed my shirt and crawl onto the bed.
“Let’s get you out of the jeans.”
“Please!”
I slide her jeans over her hips, exposing a pair of panties that matches her bra. I tease her pussy through the lace fabric with my fingers. “You’re so wet, babe.”
“It’s what you do to me, cowboy.”
My dick hardens the rest of the way at that declaration. The desire in her eyes begs me to pleasure her in every way possible. “Just wait until you see what else I’m going to do to you.”
5
SONYA
Colt hovers his mouth above my panty-covered pussy and teases me with his hot breath. My nipples ache with want, and I’m unable to fight the urge to rock my hips into his face. His lips collide with the lace.
“These need to go,” he says.
Time is an illusion, because it feels like only a second passes from having panties on to not having them. His tongue strokes my swollen bud in slow circles. “That feels so good, Colt.” I’m not completely inexperienced, but I’ve never let a man go down on me before.
I’ve never been brave enough. But Jane Harper is brave. I like her. I like her a lot.
“You taste so delicious.” His mouth works magic on my drenched pussy. I’m feeling dizzy when one fingers enters me, then two. He strokes his fingers in and out as his mouth covers my clit. The mixture of sensations is an overwhelming wave of pleasure, and I hope I never come down.
