The Wicked Horse Boxed Set (The Wicked Horse Series)

by Sawyer Bennett

  But to each his own.

  I take another sip of my beer and casually move my gaze over to the blonde woman’s table. I see it’s empty but for their purses and drinks, but then immediately see her and her three friends dancing just a few feet away. Her back is to me and I have to say, it’s not a chore watching her dance. Tonight, she’s wearing a green floral pattern skirt that comes to mid-thigh and hugs her curves, and damn… she’s got a delicious-looking ass too. She’s wearing a blue, denim shirt that she has tied near her hips, baring the tiniest sliver of the skin on her stomach. It’s unbuttoned to reveal a shadow of her cleavage, and she finishes the ensemble off with a pair of brown cowgirl boots. It’s a sweet and sexy look, adding to the dual nature of this woman who is already sweet and sexy by leaps and bounds.

  I’ve watched her dance before, many times. She’s damn good, but she’s also particular. There’s not been a man yet who has caught her eye as she’s declined every offer. I hope to God she’s not waiting on me to come ask her, because even though I’ve been told on more than one occasion I have incredible hip action, I do not swing them around on the dance floor.

  She doesn’t look my way, and in fact, keeps her back to me. Perhaps playing a little hard to get?

  Makes me want to spank her ass, if so.

  I go to take a sip of my beer as I pin my eyes to her rotating hips, wondering how long she could keep that motion up if she was riding me, when I see a guy move into position behind her on the dance floor. She has no clue he’s there, but he’s openly leering at her ass, bending his knees and thrusting his pelvis suggestively behind her. Must be drunk, because no woman would ever find that sexy.

  Oddly, my first instinct is to stand from my stool and march across the room, right onto the dance floor, where I’ll put him in a headlock and drag him off before he touches her, but that would just be silly. What I should do is motion to one of my guys on duty and point out the potential problem, but when I look over at Gary, who’s one of two guys in charge of the dance floor, I see he’s already well aware and watching.

  I ease my posture and try to relax. He’ll handle it if necessary.

  And necessary apparently comes sooner than later, because the drunken, dancing fool moves right in behind the blonde and puts his hands on her hips. He does a weird, epileptic kind of move and pushes his pelvis into her ass.

  I start to stand from my stool again.

  Gary moves a step closer.

  We both watch to see if the guy backs off, but then I’m sure Gary is as shocked as I am when the diminutive blonde turns around, pulls her arm back, and slaps the shit out of the guy so hard, I can hear the crack of it over the blaring music. I’m momentarily stunned to inaction by this, but then the guy reels around, fury all over his face as he holds a palm to his cheek. He winds his other arm across his chest, indicating a clear intention to backhand the blonde, and I’m flying off the stool toward the dance floor.

  I see Gary make the same move, but we are both too far away.

  However, I’m brought to a dead halt, right in my tracks, again stunned to inaction, when the blonde pulls her right leg back and, before the guy can even swing his arm, she kicks him square in the nuts.

  Holy fuck!

  When the guy doubles over, she’s not done with him. She balls her little hand into a fist, really so tiny it could never do damage, and lands a right hook to his face. The guy falls over onto the floor, one hand clutching his balls and the other his mouth, which is now bleeding.

  Gary is now on scene. Because apparently, the man on the floor needs protecting, he grabs the blonde from behind in a bear hold and pulls her back a few feet. She glares down at him and yells something, which prompts me to move.

  The dancing crowd has all halted, pressing in a tight circle around the combatants.

  Blonde girl—1.

  Douchey drunk—0.

  Won’t be a second round.

  The minute my foot hits the dance floor, the blonde’s eyes raise to meet mine. She stares at me with challenge, her face flushed red with fury.

  “Let her go,” I tell Gary, who immediately releases her.

  To my surprise, she bends over the dude, who is now cursing through bloody teeth, and says, “Bet you’ll think twice before rubbing your dick on a girl’s ass, won’t you?”

  The guy starts to push up from the floor, glaring daggers at the blonde. “You fucking cunt,” he sputters with blood spraying. “You could have just said no.”

  This infuriates the blonde, who steps toward him menacingly, and the guy isn’t a fool. He leans warily backward, holding a hand out to stave off her approach. I have to suppress a laugh as I reach out and take her by the upper arm. Looking at Gary, I jerk my head to the guy. “Get him out of here safely.”

  “Sure thing, boss,” Gary says before grabbing the guy by the back of his collar and pulling him off the dance floor.

  “I’m leaving,” the blonde says as she tries to shrug out of my hold. “You don’t need to throw me out too.”

  Throw her out? After that glorious display to all drunk men everywhere that they should heed hitting on the wrong woman? No way. I’m not throwing her out, but I am taking her out of here.

  “Let’s get you cleaned up,” I tell her as I start pulling her along. “Your hand’s bleeding.”

  Because I noticed that too. She must have scraped it on his teeth with that punch.

  She follows along easily behind me. As we walk past the table, she picks up her purse and calls out to the girls over her shoulder, “I’ll be back.”

  Yeah, that’s not going to happen either.

  I lead the woman through the bar and toward the main doors. We step out into a mild, mid-July evening, right on the heels of Gary escorting the guy whose ass she just kicked over to a waiting cab. There’s usually one or two lurking about waiting to take tourists back into Jackson. I turn in the opposite direction, heading across the wooden, covered porch of the club toward where I parked my truck.

  She pulls against me, and I turn to look at her in question.

  “Wait,” she says in confusion. “You said we were going to get my hand cleaned up.”

  “We are,” I tell her as I turn back around and start walking toward my truck. “I’m taking you to your place, and I’ll clean it up there. I’m thinking in your shower would be nice.”

  Even though you’d never know it by the easy sway of my shoulders or my confident walk, I hold my breath wondering what she’ll do. It was a bold statement on my part, but I don’t feel like dicking around.

  Besides, I just don’t flirt well.

  I’m immediately relieved when she says, “Sounds good to me.”

  And I already start to get hard thinking about how easily she just capitulated.

  Chapter 4

  Sloane

  Cain has a beat-up, late 90’s model Chevy truck. There’s a dent in the front quarter panel, and it’s covered in dirt. I’m surprised with his gallantry when he opens the passenger door for me and holds my non-punching hand in his while I navigate the running board.

  We pull out and head south on Highway 191 after I tell Cain I live in Jackson. He turns the radio on and adjusts the volume low. An unbidden smile comes to my face when I hear the sweet sounds of Soundgarden coming out versus a country song.

  “So,” I say into the gloom of the interior. “We’re taking a shower together, huh?”

  “To clean your hand, of course,” he says in a matter-of-fact tone.

  “Of course,” I murmur, turning in the cab to face him with the little play allowed in the seatbelt. “I’m Sloane, by the way. Sloane Meyers.”

  I’m proud of myself that I don’t even stumble over my fake last name.

  “Cain Bonham,” he offers, and then says, “But I think I might just call you Right Hook.”

  I laugh and turn back in my seat, giving my hand a tiny shake. I can’t see what it looks like due to the lack of light, but it throbs like a bitch. However, I’m not about to let
that interfere with my plans tonight. When I decided I needed something to get Cain’s attention outside of flirty looks or a direct come-on, which wouldn’t distinguish me at all, it’s like God sent that drunken leech to hit on me. I didn’t even really have a plan, just knew a spectacle would get Cain’s attention, and I struck hard and fast.

  I figured it would get me thrown out of the bar, which I hoped would lead to some conversation with him, but never in my wildest dreams did I think he’d take me home.

  And tell me he was going to take a shower with me.

  I press my legs together as a different sort of throb starts to beat a bit further south than my hand. I have no clue if this half-baked plan to get in good with Cain will do anything for my story that I’m not even sure is a story, but I know one thing… tonight will be damn good regardless.

  “You didn’t seem surprised by my offer of a shower together,” Cain says in an off-handed manner.

  I could play this a hundred different ways. Most women in my position would want to solidify their status with a man such as this—do something that would stick in his memory for a long time. The best way to accomplish that at this given moment would be to take off my seat belt, crawl across the expanse of the cab, and undo his jeans. A hand job or blow job would be memorable, no doubt.

  But I have a feeling it wouldn’t surprise Cain Bonham, nor would it be out of the ordinary to a man such as this. The guy who did Jasmine an apparently amazing favor by fucking her in the parking lot between beers. A man who is potentially embroiled deep within a fantasy sex club has probably seen and done it all.

  It’s at this moment that, even as adventurous as I am in bed, I realize I might be out of my sexual element. There’s probably not anything I can do to cause this man’s eyebrows to raise and say, “Hey… this girl right here… she’s special.”

  So I simply answer, “Well, there’s an attraction there for sure. I’m personally glad we aren’t wasting time on lame come-ons and you buying me cheap beers to get me drunk. I’d like to remember this night, personally.”

  Cain gives a husky laugh of appreciation and promises, “Oh, you’ll remember tonight. I promise you that.”

  The throb between my legs gets insistently stronger, and I press them tighter together.

  *

  The minute I pull my key from the lock and step into my tiny apartment, I’m immediately filled with broiling tension. Do I just strip out of my clothes and head to the shower? Or will he pounce on me?

  “Got anything to drink?” Cain says from behind me as he shuts the door.

  When I turn to face him, I find he’s turning the deadbolt and closing the short set of blinds over the glass panes in the door. Locking us in and away from prying eyes.

  A tiny shudder runs through me.

  “Maybe some whiskey?” he asks, and I blink at him. When he notices confusion on my face, he gives a chuckle and steps toward me, tapping his index finger on my nose. “Did you think I was going to fuck you the minute we walked in?”

  “The thought had crossed my mind,” I mutter as I turn away and head to a cabinet above the sink. I pull down a fifth of Jack Daniels, because I’m a Tennessee girl after all.

  “Need your first aid supplies too,” Cain says. “Might as well get that taken care of sooner rather than later. That dude you punched looked like he could have rabies or something.”

  “That’s all in the bathroom,” I tell him by way of explanation as I set the bottle and two shot glasses on the kitchen table and turn toward my short hallway. I hear the scrape of a chair indicating Cain must be pulling it out to sit in and I imagine he’s twisting the bottle open as I step into the bathroom.

  After I turn on the light, I immediately look down at my hand. I must have projected my middle knuckle in the punch because it’s slightly swollen. There’s also a tear in the skin. It’s the only open wound and didn’t bleed that much; just a welled-up, large drop of blood that ran in between my middle and index finger before it started to clot.

  As I reach toward the mirrored medicine cabinet above the sink, I catch my own gaze in the mirror. I study myself for a moment, noting the hint of determination in my eyes and the tiny flush to my cheeks that is indicative of my excitement.

  Am I really going to do this? Am I really going to sleep with a man to try to gain a foothold on a story?

  My blue eyes blink back at me without a clear-cut answer.

  I mean, it’s clear that I am going to sleep with him. I was attracted to him in that way long before I ever considered him a pathway to my end goal. But am I really going to use that intimacy to further my own agenda? Do I care if he gets hurt in the process?

  I stare back at myself, and I know I don’t have any answers to those questions. Shaking my head, I open the cabinet. After grabbing some peroxide and Band-Aids, I head back out to the kitchen.

  I find Cain leaning back in the chair with his hands folded and lying right over his belt buckle. It’s not a country-western type belt, but a plain, thick black one with an unadorned and unremarkable buckle. He does indeed wear black biker boots. On the table is a roll of paper towels he took from the holder over the sink, presumably to clean my hand. I can’t imagine anything kinky we could do with that.

  My eyes flick to the bottle, which remains unopened. “Thought you wanted a drink?”

  “Lot of things I want.” His voice is rich, low… rumbling. I feel it in my gut. “But there’s a proper order to things.”

  “Let me guess,” I say with a smirk as I pull the chair out adjacent to his, turn it to face him, and sit. “Fix my hand first?”

  “Exactly,” he says with a wink and takes my hand, pulling it toward him to inspect. He turns my hand before prodding at the swollen middle knuckle. “Hurt?”

  “A little,” I tell him with a shrug.

  “Can you move it?” He holds his hand, palm up, and spread wide under me to cradle my hand.

  I give him an answer by curling and stretching my fingers. “All good.”

  He nods and then silently cleans my hand. Peroxide, a good wiping and drying, and then a Band-Aid over the middle knuckle. I’m silent as I watch him and when the wrist on his right hand turns, I see all four of his knuckles are scraped open.

  “What happened to your hand?” I grab it just as he finishes pressing the Band-Aid onto my skin. I turn his hand palm down, lightly running my index finger over his knuckles, which are already scabbed over with tiny cuts.

  “I might have a right hook of my own that got used today,” he says with a mischievous grin as he takes his hand away. He reaches over, grabs the bottle of Jack, and twists the cap. I watch as he pours two shots, and then he slides one my way. “Now, let’s have a drink.”

  “What are we drinking to?” I ask curiously as I pick up the glass and hold it out.

  “How about right hooks?” he says with a laugh as he taps his glass to mine.

  “To right hooks,” I agree and shoot the whiskey back. As expected, it burns and then settles into a nice, warm glow inside my belly. It also helps to settle my nerves a little.

  “You know,” Cain says as he sits his glass down and picks the bottle back up. He pours another shot for himself. I hold my glass out, and he refills it. “You’re a conundrum.”

  Tilting my head to the side, I ask, “How so?”

  Setting the bottle down, he picks his shot up, waving it in a circle toward me. “You’ve got this whole innocently shy and sweet-looking package going on. Like you should be sitting at an afternoon tea dreaming of white picket fences and discussing some romance novel with like-minded friends. But now I’m not so sure… you turn around and beat the shit out of some guy for humping up against you.”

  “And that bothers you, I’m guessing.” I slug back the second shot as I await his reaction, setting the glass on the table.

  His brow furrows, and he scratches at his chin thoughtfully with his free hand. “I’m just not normally attracted to your type.”

  I narrow my
eyes at him. “Your chances of getting laid are dwindling.”

  Cain gives a bark of a laugh before shooting down his second whiskey. He sets the glass down on the table, and I’m startled when his hands jet out to latch onto my wrists. With a sharp tug, I’m pulled from my seat and straight toward him. Sitting forward in his own chair, he releases my wrists only to bring his hands to the backs of my legs, just underneath my ass, and he’s hauling me up onto his lap. My green, flowered skirt is made with mostly spandex and just a touch of cotton so it expands to capacity before sliding up my legs.

  Cain flicks a glance down. I know from that angle and how high my skirt has pulled upward that he can see my panties. Of course, I knew this was my potential goal, so I dressed appropriately in a sexy, black G-string, thankful I had my Brazilian wax done just last week.

  He readjusts my weight, slides his hands up to my bare ass under my skirt, and presses his fingers into the muscles. My hands come to his shoulders for balance, and I look down at him.

  When his gaze rises back up to meet mine, his eyes are glittering with challenge. “I didn’t say I wasn’t attracted to you. Just that I’m not normally attracted to your type.”

  “You don’t even know what my type is,” I assert, leveling my stare back at him with defiance.

  “Only one way to find out,” he says, and my pulse skitters out of control.

  Leaning forward, my fingers digging into his shoulders for balance, I place my lips near his ear. Throwing down the gauntlet, I whisper, “Bring it.”

  He lets out a gust of air that I can feel brush my face as I pull back to look down at him. I expect to see lust, because I certainly started feeling him get hard underneath me as I sat on his lap. And that’s there, for sure, but I also see something that sets me on edge… in a sexy way. His eyes are calculating… as if he’s going to test me.

  “Let’s see,” he ruminates as his fingers stroke the skin of my butt. “Shy or bold?”

  “I’m bold,” I say automatically, because I know it was a direct question. And I’m prepared to prove it by pulling his jeans down, climbing aboard, and hopefully rocking his world.