At six, enough light seeped around the curtains that he could watch her while she slept. He’d been so lost in lust last night that he hadn’t properly appreciated Chloe Lawrence without her fake eyelashes or over-the-top makeup. She was simply gorgeous.
At seven, he had to get up. Moving as carefully as he could, he shifted her off his arm and went to the bathroom.
Was it possible they could pretend nothing had happened? Could he look at her ready to ride out into the arena without seeing the way she’d ridden him? If he caught some local yokel hitting on her—which happened far more than he’d thought possible—would he let Chloe deal with it without punching someone?
Could he work under her? No, that still wasn’t the right question.
Could he take the All-Stars away?
He could. It wasn’t a matter of possibility. The plan would still work. Easily.
But if he pushed her and the Lawrences out of the rodeo business, would he ever have another chance to count the number of times he brought her to orgasm? Another chance to save the day? Hell, would he ever get to lounge around laughing at the wackiness of classic TV sitcoms with her?
He knew the answer to those questions. No.
If he locked Chloe out of the All-Stars, he’d never get another shot at her. It was either Chloe or the All-Stars. There was no possible and.
Was that an answer he was willing to live with?
And why the hell was he trying to have this conversation with himself before he’d had his coffee? Dumbass.
He opened the bathroom door and immediately noticed the room was brighter. Although Chloe was curled up in bed, she’d clearly gotten up to open the blinds. “Morning, hon,” he said, filling the single-serve pod coffeemaker.
“Hmm,” she murmured. “Come back to bed.” Then, after a brief pause, “Please.”
He really needed that coffee but...yeah, Chloe was his priority. He slid back between the sheets and pulled her into his arms and something in his chest loosened as she curled into him.
“So polite.” He kissed her forehead. “Morning,” he said again.
“Are you coming back here tonight?” she asked around a yawn.
That was not the deal. Yeah, this room was technically his but when they went their separate ways this morning, that was the end of whatever. It had to be.
Didn’t it?
“The room is yours. I can find another place to crash. One night, that’s what we agreed on.”
She yawned again. He began to think that Chloe Lawrence was not a morning person. “One night and one morning,” she corrected.
That was what she’d said last night when he’d stupidly asked for more. He wasn’t going to be stupid again.
She flung her leg over his. He could feel the warmth of her sex against his hip, closer now. “Come back to me tonight,” she whispered, her hand stroking over his chest.
Aw hell. “Riders will be coming in,” he said, grasping for something reasonable even as his body started to respond to her touch, her voice. “We might be seen.”
That got her attention. Her leg slid off his and she stopped petting him, instead rolling over onto her back. He tried not to shiver at the loss of her heat and, when she flung her hand over her head, he contented himself to admire this particular view of her breasts. And to trace their outline with his fingers. And maybe his tongue.
“I need to tell you something,” she sighed. But at least she went back to stroking him—his hair this time.
“That doesn’t sound good,” he murmured against her skin before shifting so he could pay attention to her other very lovely breast. He loved how easily the tips hardened to little points at the slightest touch.
She sighed dramatically. “It’s not. But...there’s a slight chance that one or more Lawrence men might show up at the rodeo this weekend.”
That got Pete’s attention. He sat back. “Is there a particular reason for that?”
He could see her trying to put on a brave face and he didn’t like it. He didn’t want her to have to hide. Not from him. “The meeting yesterday did not go as planned.”
“The one that upset you?”
She nodded. Pete took comfort in the fact that she hadn’t turned on her vapid charm. Right now, Chloe was still very much the woman who held his feet to the fire. “It was with my family. I mean, I had a not-great meeting about the Princess clothing line, which was bad enough—distribution problems—but then Oliver called me into his office. He was waiting with Dad and Flash.”
Hell. Had they found out about him and Chloe? But how? No one had so much as breathed a whisper about what had happened in Missouri last month and the whole part about them being naked in bed together hadn’t happened until afterward.
She took his hand. It was both comforting and alarming, frankly, and he didn’t enjoy that feeling one damned bit. “I hadn’t exactly informed Oliver or my father that I had hired you to help me run the rodeo.”
It didn’t take a genius to figure this one out. “Flash told them.” He’d had it up to here with that twerp. It was one thing for him to threaten Pete, another to beat up a fellow rider. But a man should protect his loved ones, not throw them to the wolves.
She gave him a look that was full of regret. “I might have failed to mention that Flash was attempting to use the small detail of your employment to persuade me to let him back onto the circuit early.”
That did it. He wasn’t doing another single thing without coffee. He gave her hand a squeeze and then went to get the first cup.
Which, of course, he immediately handed over to her. They were silent while he got the second cup going. While it perked, he sat down on the edge of the bed and fought the urge to bury his head in his hands. “I take it that revelation didn’t go over real well.”
“No,” she said quietly. “Not particularly.”
He gave up and let his head drop. “Just so I understand what you’re saying, your jackass brother—the younger jackass—was attempting to use me to blackmail you?”
“It sounds bad when you put it like that.” He spun and stared at her. Hard. “Yes,” she admitted, taking a long drink of the coffee. “I didn’t give in, though.”
“How mad were they? Oliver and Milt?” Because Pete had been on the receiving end of their anger on more than one occasion and if the Lawrence men were well and truly pissed, they could make Chloe’s life a living hell. Just like they’d done to Pete.
“Well,” she said weakly, “my father managed not to give himself a heart attack, so that counts for a lot, right?”
“Jesus.” In other words, he’d probably been throwing things. “And?”
She shrugged, staring at her coffee. “And...that was all.”
“Chloe,” he said, the warning in his voice. Because they both knew there was no way in hell that was all.
“Dad made it clear he thought I was stupid to let you use me like this. Oliver wanted to know why I’d told him I could manage the rodeo if I so obviously couldn’t and Flash gloated.”
“Of course he did.” Man, he wished Flash had just punched him. Pete would take a black eye over the almost detached way Chloe was relating this story of family “bonding.” He could just see it, her being called on the carpet while Milt raged, Oliver glowered and Flash made everything worse. Three against one was never fair.
“Then they informed me they wanted you gone before you destroyed the All-Stars for good.”
He processed that statement. In his personal experience, telling Chloe she had to do anything was never a good idea. “And?”
If she was going to fire him, that seemed like the sort of thing she might have mentioned before he went down on her.
She looked at him and the raw vulnerability he saw in her eyes almost knocked him right off the bed. “And I told them they were wrong about you. Because they are.” She swallowe
d hard, her eyes taking on a suspicious shimmer. “Aren’t they?”
She wasn’t going to kick him out of the All-Stars. She’d defied her family for him. For the man who’d treated her like total crap for years. For the one person who hated anything and anyone associated with the Lawrence name.
And that was before he’d slept with her. Before everything had changed.
There was no possible and. It was either the All-Stars or Chloe. He could destroy her faith in him and take back his rodeo or he could stay wrapped around her and wait for her family to destroy him. Because they would.
No and.
No happy endings. Not for them.
He cupped her cheek, stroking his thumb over her soft skin and a few creases from where she’d slept on the pillowcase funny. “Chloe Lawrence—were you protecting me?”
It felt so right to touch her, to pull her into his arms and marvel at how perfect she fit there. It sure as hell made it easier to ignore things like long-simmering family feuds. “Don’t let it go to your head.” She sniffed and the sound of her trying not to cry—because of him!—almost destroyed him. “I was protecting myself, too.”
“Did they say they’re coming to check on you?” Because if there was a chance that one or more Lawrence men were about to barge in at any moment, he at least wanted to have on a pair of pants before the brawl broke out.
She shook her head. “But I wouldn’t put it past them. Dad’s pissed because I’ll never be anything more the Princess of the Rodeo to him. And Oliver’s pissed at me because even though he hates the damned rodeo, he took a chance on me, and because I brought you in, I’ve proven that I can’t do the job—which makes him look bad. Funny,” she said, leaning away from his touch and taking another drink of her coffee, “that no one seems pissed at Flash.”
“Except you.” And him. Because he was livid at that hotheaded jerk.
“Oh, yeah,” she agreed and he was unreasonably relieved to see that fighting spirit light up her eyes. “He doesn’t see it. He picks all these fights with anyone who dares even think that he’s only ranked because his daddy owns the rodeo, but the moment I treat him like just another rider, he goes crying to Dad that the rules shouldn’t apply to him.”
“How old is he?”
“Twenty-four.”
“That explains everything.” Pete smiled and then he began to chuckle when she looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “God, I was such a jerk to you at that age.”
“Don’t start,” she said, but he didn’t miss the way her cheeks colored.
Did she remember the way he’d refused to shake her hand? Oh, hell, who was he kidding? This was Chloe Lawrence. Of course she remembered. “The odds of Flash apologizing to you are a thousand to one—”
“If that,” she snorted.
“So you’re going to let me apologize to you on behalf of dipshit young rodeo riders everywhere, okay?” He didn’t know why he was pushing this, only that he had to get this out. “You deserve better, Chloe. You shouldn’t have to take this much crap from anyone, much less your family or—” he paused, remembering how the stock contractors had talked down to her in Missouri “—or any of the riders or contractors or anyone, dammit. Not even me.” She didn’t exactly roll her eyes at this, but he could tell she wasn’t buying it. “We don’t have to be friends for me to regret how I treated you in the past. We don’t have to be anything for me to do better by you in the future. So I’m sorry. I never should’ve used you as an emotional punching bag when we were younger. You weren’t the problem. I was. And I’m trying to do better. I will do better by you.”
It felt good, saying those words. It felt better meaning them. But underneath all those warm, possibly even fuzzy, feelings was a slithering sense of guilt because it was all 100 percent true. Except for the part where he was going to do better in the future.
Because, assuming her family didn’t descend upon the All-Stars in the next forty-eight hours and destroy everything, he wasn’t going to do better by her.
Even so, a small voice, one that sounded a little like Chloe, whispered inside his head—why couldn’t there be an and? Why couldn’t he have both? Did he have to sacrifice whatever this was with her for the rodeo?
Or did he just have to make sure she was on his side when he made his move? Her against her family? Could he do that?
“Pete,” she said, her voice soft. Because she was still nude and so was he and this bed was plenty big enough for both of them and she was staring at him like she’d never seen him before. “You really mean that?”
“Yeah, hon,” he said gruffly, cupping her chin and lifting her mouth to his. He could make this work. He could keep Chloe and the rodeo. He just had to be on her side. Them against the world. Because he needed her in his bed, in his life.
He needed her.
Go, team.
He tasted the coffee on her lips and that woke him up but quick. They tangled together, legs and arms and mouths all touching and moving and it was even better by the light of day than it was in the deep shadows of the night.
Chloe was even better and, heaven help him, Pete thought he might be a better man, too. Because what if he could keep the rodeo and hold Chloe tight? What if loving on her like this wasn’t a one-time thing?
What if he could love her forever?
“Come back to me tonight,” Chloe moaned in his ear as he thrust into her again and again.
“Yeah,” he agreed, because this—she—was what he wanted.
It could work. He’d make it work.
Failure was not an option.
Twelve
How much longer until she and Pete could slip back into the hotel, like they had the last few nights? Not that Chloe was counting the hours—or minutes. Not at all.
Okay, she was. And the answer was a long time because the show at the Pendleton Round-Up didn’t even start for an hour and a half. The rodeo would take a few hours, then there was the concert with Johnny Jones, a new up-and-comer that Chloe would have to put in an appearance for and...
Seven hours, give or take. Surely she could make it seven measly hours. Then maybe she and Pete could order a pizza and more wine and kick back. Because she wanted to jump his bones again but she also just wanted to hang out with him.
She liked him, dammit. Maybe too much.
She smiled and posed and told people that their Princess of the Rodeo shirts looked great on them and tried not to watch the clock. She was in the middle of posing with a group of little girls with pink cowboy hats when an icy chill ran down Chloe’s back at the same moment the hairs on the back of her neck stood straight up. Everything about her body went into fight-or-flight mode, which could only mean one thing.
The Lawrence men were here. Of course they were.
She didn’t let her big smile falter as she signed autographs and told everyone that, next year, there was going to be a brand-new competition to crown the next Princess of the Rodeo which, in general, was getting her one of two responses—excitement and sadness that it wouldn’t be her. Sometimes in the same sentence.
“I’ll still be here,” she promised another young mother who said she’d been watching Chloe since she was a kid. As she talked and posed, she kept scanning the crowd.
Where were they? Or had she gotten lucky and only one relative had showed up? Please, let it be Oliver. He was disappointed in her for bringing in Pete, yes. But Oliver was far and away the most rational of her relatives. If she could make her case that Pete was helping the bottom line and also ensuring that Chloe didn’t need to bother Oliver about the rodeo at all, she might be able to make him see reason.
That was a pretty freaking huge might, though.
A lull in the crowd showed her how far-fetched the idea of making anyone see reason was because that was when she heard it—shouting. And not just the normal yelling that went on before a rodeo. No,
it was clear this was the kind of shouting that went with a fight.
Nope. Not just Oliver, then.
She did not want to deal with this, dammit, but what choice did she have? “If you all will excuse me for a moment,” she said, making sure her smile stayed so bright that her face began to hurt. Then she took off toward the commotion at a fast walk. Not a run. Running would draw attention.
A huge crash reverberated throughout the rodeo grounds, followed by more shouting. Lots of it. The kind of noise that practically guaranteed all three Lawrence men were in attendance and potentially brawling in the dirt with Pete.
People turned toward the noise and she heard them asking what was going on as she hurried past. So much for not drawing more attention.
This was going to be a mess. The kind of mess that made Flash getting arrested and pleading no contest to assault look like a cake walk. The kind of mess that couldn’t be easily smoothed over with some pretty words and a well-placed distraction.
The temptation to walk away was huge. She could turn her boots around and hide until the dust had settled. Ignore the fact that her family was ruining everything she’d worked for. Because why else were they here? Why didn’t they have just a little faith in her and give her a season to make it work or fail on her own? Why did they seem hell-bent on destroying the rodeo and blaming her for it?
Why couldn’t they see that Pete had changed? That he cared about the rodeo and the riders and...
And her.
Because he did. She knew he did. What else could explain sharing his room and the best sex she’d ever had?
No, she couldn’t walk away. This was her rodeo and her family, regrettably. But she could give them a piece of her mind because dammit, she was freaking furious. It was Friday night. How dare they pitch this fit right before showtime?
Another loud crash. It sounded like some of the metal fence panels used to pen up the animals were toppling. Goddammit. She started running, which wasn’t easy in these chaps.
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