Betting on Wolves (Shifter Country Wolves Book 2) (4 page)

“That was almost ridiculous enough to be true,” she said.

“You can’t blame me for trying, right?” said Jack. He sipped on the Manhattan that Kirsten hadn’t selected.

She considered them, cocking her head to the right a little.

“Want to come dance?” she asked, deciding that she didn’t care if her friends saw her dancing with two tall, hot men, who
might
be shifters of some sort.

“Is there line dancing?” asked Houston.

“There is if you line dance,” Kirsten responded, as seriously as she could.

“I dance a mean electric slide,” said Jack. “Let’s do this.”

Chapter Three

Jack

I’d go out there and do some ballet moves if she wanted
, thought Jack. It didn’t matter that he knew nothing at all about ballet. If Kirsten had asked, he’d have tried in a
heartbeat
.

She grabbed him by the hand, her gin fizz in the other, and he followed her to the dance floor, Houston right behind. Whatever was playing — something electronic and beat-heavy — wasn’t something that he ever listened to, but it was easy enough to move his body in time with it.
 

Before Jack knew what was happening, they were on the dance floor, Kirsten in front of him, her wide-set eyes smiling up at him, Houston behind her.

Jack wasn’t sure he’d ever seen his mate happier, and his heart clenched.

I think this is it, but what if it isn’t?
he wondered.
What if all the other women confused everything so much that I just won’t know, even if I think I know?

Below him, Kirsten moved her hips against his, biting her lip and looking up at him. As a dancer, he could tell she was a little awkward, not totally sure what she was doing, but he couldn’t have cared less. He put a hand on her shoulder and she put one on his hip, gyrating against him.

Her drink spilled a little over her hand, but she just laughed and sipped it, licking the droplets from the underside of her wrist, her brown eyes sparkling.

Behind Houston, another girl came up, a tall, leggy brunette with a tight gold dress cut almost down to her navel, and she put one hand over Houston’s shoulder, rubbing herself against his back. He stopped dancing and half-turned toward her, frowning. The girl smiled and said something flirty to him, and for half a moment, Jack recognized the perfect opportunity for the two of them. The kind of thing he’d normally jump on instantly.

Objectively, she was
hot
.

Then he looked down at Kirsten’s face as she turned, and that other girl didn’t matter at
all.
Houston said something to her, the other girl looked pissed, and he put his hand on Kirsten’s hip, drawing her closer.

She blushed a little, looking faintly pleased.

Jack let himself get lost in the music. He was pleasantly tipsy after a couple of drinks — they’d been there for a while already, looking for Kirsten —
 
and he just let his body move in time to the music, not caring at all what he looked like.

After a while, Kirsten finished her drink, the ice clinking in the bottom of the glass.

“Want another one?” Jack shouted into her ear.

She shook her head, pointing at the side of the dance floor, where things were less crazy, and then they all moved over there.

“Want to get out of here?” Houston shouted, handing their empty glasses to a server passing by with a tray.

Kirsten’s eyes widened, and Jack could sense her stiffen.

She’s not like the rest
, he reminded herself.

“There’s a karaoke bar in the Hard Rock casino that does 80’s night on Saturdays,” he suggested.

I don’t even care if we get to have sex with her
, he realized, the thought sending a shock through him.
I just want to hang out with her
.

He glanced up at Houston, and could practically see the exact same thought process in his mate.

Kirsten looked up at them skeptically.

“Just karaoke, right?” she said, casting a glance around the crowd. Jack could see the veins in her neck pumping hard, and he had to fight the urge to put his mouth there, hear her sigh as he felt her pulse with his lips.

Not now
, he admonished himself.
Now is just karaoke.

“Cross my heart and hope to die,” Houston said, making an X somewhere over his stomach.

She looked relieved.

“Okay,” she said. “Sounds good.”

Fifteen minutes later, the three of them were standing in the cool Vegas night air, third in line for a cab.

“I might never hear right again,” said Houston.

“My ears are going to ring for a week,” said Kirsten, laughing. “That’s probably a good sign that I’m too old for clubs, anyway.”

Jack grinned. He made fun of Houston for being an old man sometimes, and it made him nearly giddy to watch
her
join in the fun.

“You’re not even the one wearing cowboy boots on the dance floor,” he said. “You can just call me gramps next time we try to dance.”

The line moved forward a little.

“What’s your deal, anyway?” Kirsten asked, glancing over both men. Jack could tell that she was more than a little tipsy, though he wasn’t exactly sober himself. “What’s with your whole cowboy thing?”

Houston grinned.
 

“We’re cowboys,” he said.

Kirsten rolled her eyes.

“You are not,” she said. “What’s your deal? Do you pick up girls at casino bars and then follow them to nightclubs and then take them to eighties karaoke just because you know this particular girl has kind of a
thing
for cowboys?”

Jack’s heart wriggled in his chest.
She has a thing for cowboys?

“We’re here for the Western States Rodeo Championships,” he said.

The line moved forward again.

She narrowed her eyes.

“You do rodeo?” she asked, incredulously.

“Are you trying to tell me I’m too old?” Houston teased. “I’m offended.”

She blushed, then scrunched up her face, then laughed.

“Come on,” she said. “That’s not real. Be serious.”

Jack simply pointed at a group of forty-something men crossing into the casino, wearing cowboy hats, jeans, and boots, essentially the same thing that they wore.

“Oh,” said Kirsten.

Then they were next in line. A cab pulled up, and Houston looked at her apologetically.

“Mind sitting in the middle?” he asked.

Kirsten laughed.

“I think I can handle it,” she said.

He opened the door, letting her in first, then crossed to the other side of the cab, both he and Jack waiting until she was settled before sliding in. It was a tight squeeze, and the length of Kirsten’s thigh pressed against Jack’s, her body heat lighting a fire deep inside him that felt brand new.

Don’t you touch her
, he thought to himself.
She’s made herself pretty clear
.

If she were anyone else, literally
anyone
else, he knew that they’d have given up and moved onto someone more receptive hours ago. But even though it was Las Vegas and attractive, scantily clad women were everywhere, she was the only one Jack had noticed since he’d seen her.

He had no idea what was going on, but he didn’t think he minded. Not yet, at least; tomorrow, when they all went back home, might be a different story.

“The rodeo championships are really in Vegas?” she asked, once the taxi started rolling. The driver had the partition closed, and Houston slid a credit card through the reader in the back. Jack couldn’t blame the driver for keeping it closed; he probably saw more than enough drunk idiots every night.

“They really are,” confirmed Jack. “Think about it, is there a more rodeo town than Las Vegas? The place is practically made of over-the-top bragging and rhinestones.”

She laughed again. The sound made Jack feel like jello.

“Why do you come out for them?” she asked. “Aren’t most rodeo riders, like, twenty-two?”

“Are you saying I don’t look twenty-two?” Houston asked gravely.

Houston was thirty-five.

“He’s just fucking with you,” Jack whispered conspiratorially into her ear. “He’s way too old for rodeo. His sideburns are almost completely gray.”

“You mean they’re almost completely
dignified,
” Houston corrected Jack, perfectly able to hear his mate’s whisper in the cramped back seat.

Kirsten reached out one finger and ran it along Houston’s graying sideburn, even though it was dark in the back of the taxi. Just watching her touch his mate sent an electric thrill down Jack’s spine, and he felt like he was ready to burst at the seams, explode, do
something
.

I have no idea what to do now
, he thought, his brain spinning.
I’ve got no road map for this. None at all.

“Very dignified,” she agreed. “But you still haven’t told me why you’re at rodeo championships.”

“I used to ride,” Jack said. “A long time ago.”

“Were you good?” Kirsten asked.

Jack just nodded.

“I’ve got a closet full of trophies back at the ranch,” he said. “I almost won Western States once, thirteen years ago.”

Her eyes went wide. “Wow,” she said.

Jack wanted her to look at him that way forever.

“Is rodeo a career you can have?” she asked. “I mean, long-term?”

Jack laughed.

“Not at all,” he said. “Most people age out by the time they’re twenty-four, maybe twenty-five. I don’t know anyone who got out with less than five broken bones and a couple of concussions. Hell, by comparison, I got lucky.”

“You had less than five?” Kirsten asked.

Jack could see the Hard Rock casino coming up.

“Lucky is relative,” Houston said, his brow furrowing at Jack. “He’s got less permanent injuries because he came close to dying all at once.”

The cab pulled up in front of the sliding glass doors, and Jack got out, turned, and offered his hand to Kirsten.

After considering for a moment, she took it, and his heart swelled.

“I got gored pretty good,” Jack admitted.
 

Houston snorted.

“He was in an induced coma for a week, so he got the better of it,” he said. “He didn’t have to watch himself lying in bed, half-dead.”

“Broke nearly all my ribs and punctured a lung,” Jack said, reluctantly. He hated talking about the injury, mostly because Houston was right — between the morphine and the coma, he didn’t remember much. Really, it was Houston who’d been through hell that week, having to wake up every morning to see if Jack had made it through the night.
 

“The doctors told me that if I’d taken it half an inch up, I’d have been dead instantly.”

“Oh god, I’m sorry,” Kirsten said. “A... cow? Gored you? With its horn?”

“A
steer
, actually, and yes,” said Jack. “Went all the way through and out my back. I’ve still got a hell of a scar.”

He tapped the left side of his ribcage, right in the spot that still hurt sometimes when the weather turned or he lifted something heavy wrong.

“Can I see it?” Kirsten asked, her eyes still wide.

“How about you buy me a drink first?” Jack teased, winking. “I don’t just take my shirt off on the first date.”

She blushed again, then laughed.

“Touché,” she told him, and then they stepped through the automatic sliding doors and onto another casino floor.

The karaoke bar was pretty different from the nightclub. It was dimly lit, lined with booths, and had elaborate goth-looking electric candelabras all over the place, but the clientele was decidedly less cool. Mostly it seemed to be older people in leather jackets, drinking Jack Daniels and having themselves a great time.

The three of them headed for the bar, where Houston got out his wallet and leaned over.

“No,” said Kirsten. “Let me get this round.”

Houston made a face at her.

“What if I say no?” he said.

“Please?”

Jack recognized something in her face. She was still nervous about them, he could tell. Kirsten obviously wasn’t the kind of girl who went out a lot, or had a lot of people buying drinks for her, judging by her reaction to the other guy who’d tried to buy her one at the club.

“How about this,” Jack said. “We buy you drinks, but pinkie-swear that you don’t owe us anything.”

“That isn’t what I meant,” she said, blushing even harder.

“Buy your own drinks again tomorrow,” Jack said. “Just for tonight. We promise.”

She made a face.

“My scar hurts every time you don’t let us buy you a drink,” he said, trying to look serious.

“Okay, okay,
fine
,” Kirsten said, half smiling and half rolling her eyes. “I don’t even think you
have
a scar, since you won’t let me see it.”

“Is that why you want to buy me a drink? To get me naked?”

Now the bright red flush extended all the way down her neck and into her hairline, even as she laughed.

“Go grab a songbook and a table,” he told Houston and Kirsten. “I’ll get these and then we’ll get to work figuring out what to sing. You like whiskey sours?”

“It’s like you read my mind,” Kirsten said.

Chapter Four

Kirsten

Kirsten wanted to sing Meatloaf, Houston wanted Garth Brooks, and Jack tried to talk the both of them into singing Bon Jovi. When Kirsten finally got her way and roped the two of them into singing with her, there was an hour-long wait for karaoke already.

Jack and Houston both just shrugged, one sitting on either side of her in the booth.

“What else are we gonna do tonight?” Jack asked. “There’s no line dancing in Vegas.”

“Do you really line dance?” Kirsten asked.

She sipped her whiskey sour through the narrow cocktail straw, since it slowed her down a little. She was three sheets to the wind already, and even though she was having the time of her life, she didn’t want to ruin it by getting
too
drunk.

In the pocket of her dress, her phone vibrated again. This time she pulled it out, rolled her eyes at the line of texts, and turned it off, letting Jack and Houston pore over the songbook again. When she’d left the club, she’d texted her friends that she was heading out. She hadn’t mentioned that she was heading out in the company of two tall, hot,
very
good looking men who were definitely cowboys and might be shifters, but her friends had put it together in near-record time anyway.