WRECKER: A Bad Boy Cowboy Romance (A steamy billionaire romance story) (3 page)

I
never expected
the moments watching Kanen would be so grueling. My stomach was in knots as he rode that giant animal. But there was something else too. He seemed in control, unlike the other riders, who were hanging on for dear life, flying around desperately clinging to the animal, every second filled with fear. Kanen was almost majestic, like he was meant to be on that bull.

As the seconds counted down he was low on the bull, his strong arms and shoulders cut in the bright lights of the arena, his tattoos black against his tan skin. His dark hair was flying around in the wind. I’ve never seen someone look so handsome. And when the bull threw him, finally, the crowd erupted in a singular roar, some screaming his name, others with wordless cries of excitement. He lay there for just a little too long, and I was afraid that he was paralyzed, and would be trampled by the bull. But then he turned his head a little, and before long he was up and swaggering over to the side of the stands before jumping to safety.

Did he smile at me, wink at me? I couldn’t tell, but he seemed to, and the tension in my heart melted with the warmth and heat that he somehow brought up in me. There was something inside me that wanted to rush down and go hug him, and tell him that I was glad that he was all right, but I didn’t. It would be absurd, wouldn’t it? I mean I’ve met him once, and we barely know each other, so to do so would be crazy. But still, my heart was telling me to go.

“Hey,” Lacey says. “You okay over there? You haven’t taken your eyes off of Kanen this whole time. He’s all right you know.”

“Yeah, I know,” I say quickly, tearing my eyes from his lithe frame to look at her. “This is all new to me, Lacey, you know that,” I say. “How do these guys do it without killing themselves?”

“Some people do, I guess,” she smiles. “You want a beer?”

“Sure.”

“Okay, you stay here, I’ll go get us some drinks.”

“Sounds good,” I say. I try not to look back immediately at Kanen, but when I can’t resist anymore, I look up and our eyes meet. He’s wearing a black cowboy hat now, and he tips it at me. My heart flutters. Then he jumps over the railing and gracefully takes the stairs two at a time and slips into the seat next to me, the one that was occupied by Lacey, and says, “Howdy, there, Canada, and how are you this fine evening?”

“I’m okay, but the question is, how are you?”

He laughs and says, “Mighty fine, thank you. What brings you to the rodeo this evening? I hadn’t pegged you for an animal lover.” He looks around. “Or whatever you’d call the people here.”

“It’s my first time, actually,” I admit.

It’s a bit hard to get the words out, and I look down at my hands. He knows exactly what brought me here. His eyes, though dark, are burning into mine, and I can barely breathe. When I do, my lungs fill with the sweet, manly smell of him, and all I want to do is to lean against him and have him put his strong arm around me and pull me close. But the people around are craning their necks to get a better look at him, and whispering excitedly to each other.

“Well here’s the million-dollar question,” he grins. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know actually!” I smile back nervously. “I’m not sure what I think. I mean, is that bull okay?”

“He’ll be just fine,” says Kanen. “Just the momentary discomfort of someone riding him and then he spends his time chewing his cud in the pasture. Pretty peaceful life for the most part.”

“And you?” I manage to say. “Are you actually okay?”

“Honestly? Nothing a little whiskey won’t fix,” he says. “Just a few bumps and bruises.” His smile is intoxicating, and I find the corners of my lips rising too. I’m sure I look like a fool, completely silly and puppy-dog eyed, but I’ve never met a man like him and I don’t know how to react. Suddenly he looks to his side, and down the aisle is Lacey, standing with two beers in her hands. “I see you have a drink coming already. Thanks for coming, Canada,” he says and jumps up. He tips his hat at Lacey and she comes to sit down as well.

“Oh-em-gee,” she says. “Kanen came to sit with you?” Her face is astonished. “I could tell he thought you were pretty and was interested and all, but I never guessed he’d come sit with you.” She looks not just impressed, but awestruck.

“Really, is that weird? You know I’ve never gone to something like this,” I say. “I don’t know what people do!”

I’m kind of embarrassed at the shock she’s displaying on her face. Makes sense though, considering the reaction of the people around me as he chatted so casually with me. They seemed like they were in the company of southern royalty, whispering to themselves excitedly as we chatted.

“Not weird,” she says. “Okay, yeah, it’s weird. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a rodeo star do anything like that before.” She hands me a beer. “But weird in a good way. Amazing weird.” We both sit and drink some down, staring at the field. I’m a bit in shock honestly. “But apart from that, the whole Kanen thing, you like this place? It’s fun, right?”

“Sure is,” I answer. “Sure is.” For me there’s no ‘apart-from-the-Kanen thing,’ it’s all him, but I don’t want to disappoint Lacey. This is part of her culture after all.

Down by the arena, my eyes meet with Kanen’s again and this time I feel his stare go straight down to my core. I squirm in my chair, mortified to realize that my panties are getting wet again. I can still almost smell him from when he was beside me. Spicy, clean sweat. Musk. He’s incredible, this man, and the attraction is off the charts, at least for me. But I need to remind myself over and over that I don’t want to get involved. My whole reason for coming to Texas was so that I could just have a new life, away from Jeffrey and everything that happened with him. Not to fall in love or lust with some cowboy. No matter how sexy he might be or what he might have in his pants. As enticing as that is.

That isn’t in the plans at all. No way.

He tips his hat again from the arena floor, and his dark eyes flash at me before he disappears into the back rooms.

“He looked at you!” Lacey elbows me in the side, almost spilling her drink on me. “Did you see?”

“Oh, I saw,” I assure her. I can see almost nothing else. I take a long slow sip of the amber liquid, trying to quash the rising flames in my cheeks.

* * *

T
hat night
, I’m too excited to sleep. All I can think of is Kanen, his body writhing on the bull, and how it would feel if he were writhing on top of me. Every cell in me is singing his praises, but especially the ones between my legs. I’m dripping, and I haven’t been able to calm myself down since he was close to me. Why is he tormenting me like this? I wonder. Why is he playing with me? He’s a cat, a beautiful, dark-eyed black cat, and I’m a little mouse. With nothing to protect myself. Except to hide. That’s all I have.

I have to avoid him, I think, as my hand sneaks down between my legs. I have to keep away. Because if I let him in, he’s gonna eat me alive. There’s no doubt about it. My fingers touch my soft folds, plunging into the wetness there, and I imagine his fingers instead of mine, the bulge in his jeans pushing against me as he smiles that special way. His strong arms around me, lifting me up as I wrap my legs around him, and his tongue in my mouth. No, in my folds, sucking and licking as I buck gently against him.

“Kanen,” I whisper. It’s the first time I’ve done so with another man. I haven’t even gotten to the point where I imagine anything with another man since Jeffrey. It’s like my pussy went out of business for a while. After Jeffrey I didn’t want to; didn’t see the point.

Our lovemaking wasn’t anything that special, I think… but it’s hard to say because I never had anyone else. He didn’t seem all that crazy about going down on me either. He was more into just sticking it in and getting the job done, and going back to our regular routine of Netflix and popcorn. But now I’m too excited, and my body won’t let me forget Kanen. My insides are coiling tighter and tighter, and then I feel it, his name on my lips, I burst into orgasm, coming harder than I have in a long while. Maybe ever.

Alone in the dark, the room seems a lot emptier than it did before. I stare into the blackness, still panting, filled with the thought of him.

Could he be thinking of me?

Ugh. My brain goes back to Jeffrey. The darkness lets my defenses down and I look at things more head-on. Our “perfect relationship.” Ha. Everything we had together was so predictable. We got together in high school, and at the time it seemed we would be together forever. Not necessarily because I felt it, but because everyone expected it to.

Everyone looked at us like we were meant to be, and I never guessed that our love wouldn’t truly last. I was sixteen when we got together. Of course, I didn’t realize how everything would change. Like everyone, I guess, I thought I knew everything at that age, and that everything would turn out like the fairy tales I read. We were in love and that was that. We were together, right? We had to be in love. Simple. And I think he felt the same way.

So what if the kisses didn’t shake me to my core? He was sweet and kind and that should be enough. I prided myself on the fact that I wasn’t superficial. I knew Jeffrey as a person, as a best friend, and they always say you should marry your best friend. So I figured we were set.

So why did my heart fall into my feet when he presented the ring? He was down on his knees; it should have been a slamdunk as far as he was concerned. And I was so young, only twenty-one years old. My brain was telling me that my dreams had come true, but my body was telling me to run. Run as fast as I could to get away from Jeffrey. Instead, I did what a good girl does, and held out my left hand, fingers spread, as the tears rolled down my face. Of course Jeffrey figured I was just overwhelmed by the feelings of being proposed to, but deep in my core I knew I was crying because I was betraying my deepest self.

I pull the blankets tighter around me even though it’s not cold at all in the room. The truth is that I’m scared. I don’t know how to handle the feelings I have for Kanen. The interest he has in me. I don’t know how to handle anything anymore.

“
Y
eeeee haw
!” yells one of the cowboys, and another jumps up and sprays beer on his head. A red-haired girl with breasts like watermelons jumps in between them, rubbing her tits against the guy’s shoulders and laughing up a storm.

I’m sitting in the corner, the roomful of good old boys all whooping it up. To be honest, I’m not really into this huge party right now. At one point in my life, not so long ago, I’d be the first one leading the charge, a girl on each knee, just teasing myself with the thought of having sex with them, before I let them take me off so they could have their way with me. Or even just do it right there in front of everyone. What did I care? It’s part of being a star.

I can’t count how many times the girls who show up at the door of the after-party made a beeline toward me, and whisper something filthy in my ear. There was always one grabbing my biceps, another sliding her hand underneath my belt buckle, one in the front and one in the back, just ready to give me anything I wanted. And up until recently that’s been just fine by me.

“Hey handsome,” says a blonde sitting down beside me. Speak of the devil, I guess.

“Hey there.” I don’t even look at her; in fact, I couldn’t give less of a damn about this girl. And after seeing Canada’s shiny dark hair, I’m not even sure I even like blondes anymore. Canada’s got a natural beauty where this girl is all artificial. Her fake boobs are pushed up to her neck, as exposed as they could be in a plaid shirt tied underneath her bra line. It’s like she’s on the young Dolly Parton-lookalike committee. Nothing against Dolly; she’s a great woman, but there’s only one of her.

“And how are you tonight?” she tries, and on cue her hand slips underneath my bicep and she rubs her face against my shoulder, before leaning into it chest-first. “You had a great night on that bull.”

“Uh-huh,” I mutter, looking anywhere but in her direction.

“You know what? You’re special. The way you ride that thing, I’d like to see how you’d ride me.”

I guess it isn’t her fault. But the anger is starting to rise. “Bulls aren’t things,” I say flatly. “They’re noble animals.” A lot more noble than this skank right here.

She looks taken aback. “Of course not,” she hastens to say. “Very noble. But still,” oh no, I think she’s going to try again, “it was really sexy to see you control him like that.”

“Well that’s where you’re wrong,” I say, and take a long swig of beer. I finish the bottle and slam it down on the table. Everyone is looking now, but I don’t care. “I don’t control him, and he doesn’t control me. We ride together. We’re part of the same team, me and him. I got a lot more in common with him than I do with you.”

“I guess I just thought you and I could really get along,” she says, trying to mollify me. It’s not working.

“Hey, Kanen,” says Joe, one of the other cowboys. “Take it easy, she’s not trying to do you no harm.”

I stand up. My body is telling me to punch him, but I can’t afford any trouble with the cops. There’s been too much of that in the past and I’m trying to go in another direction.

“My apologies ma’am,” I say through gritted teeth. I tip my hat to her and I walk out of the room, straight out the door, and into the balmy black Texas sky that holds me together. It’s the only thing that I can do right now. I don’t even know Canada’s real name, where she lives, who her daddy is, nothing. But I want to get to know all that. I just gotta figure out how.