Ride: A Bad Boy Romance (30 page)

“You’re gonna have to come down here,” he says. “I’m an invalid.”

Then he pulls my ankle and slides me halfway down the bed until I’m nearly level with him.

Invalid my ass.

He rolls over onto his side and kisses me. I can taste myself on him, almost like I’ve marked him as mine, and it’s sexy as hell. I take his shaft in my hand, still kissing him deeply, and he pinches one nipple between his fingers, just hard enough to make me moan softly.

He chuckles and bites my shoulder.

“You’re a bottomless pit,” he says.

“That’s not true,” I say.

“You said it, not me,” he murmurs, his lips against my skin as I stroke his cock with one hand. “Don’t blame me, I make you come as much as I can.”

He kisses my shoulder.

“A man can only do so much, Lula-Mae,” he teases.

“It’s just
you
I can’t get enough of,” I murmur.

“So you’re
my
bottomless pit,” he says, tracing his fingers down to my hip.

“Right,” I say. “This is all your fault, Jackson.”

He pushes me onto my left side and then pulls me to him. I let go of his cock and feel it press against my lower back.

“I’m not sorry,” he murmurs in my ear.

I put my hand on his hip behind me, my palm over the new scar.

“I don’t want you to be sorry,” I say.

He moves his erection until it’s right at my entrance, and I can feel myself
throbbing
again.

I twist around and put one arm behind his neck.

“I just want you inside me already,” I whisper.

He enters me up to the hilt in one stroke, and I moan.

“I’ll never get tired of hearing you say that,” he growls in my ear. “I fucking love it when you’re dirty, Lula-Mae.”

I just push back against him, like I’m trying to get him as deep as I can, and he grabs my hips and pulls me back so hard I just
grunt
.

“You like it when I hit that spot?” he says in my ear. “The one that makes you make that
noise
?”

“Yes,” I whisper, and rock my hips forward, sliding him out a little, and he pulls me back into him again, hard, and I make
the noise
again.

“I fucking missed that noise,” he says, and he keeps going, fucking me hard and deep. “I missed how
right
everything feels when I’m inside you.”

I reach behind myself, arching my back, and I grab his shoulder just because I want to hold onto him.

“I need you,” I murmur. “Jackson, I need
this
, and I need
you
, and I thought I was going to lose my mind.”

He pulls me back against him again, hard, and my toes curl as it feels like my whole body lights up.

“Please,” I murmur.

He does it again, and again. He growls in my ear and I gasp as he hits
that
spot.

“Think you can come one more time?” he asks.

“If you keep doing that,” I say.

My vision is starting to blur around the edges and I feel like a slow reaction is taking place, something slowly expanding that’s going to burst soon and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

“If I keep doing that you’re gonna make me come,” he says.

I arch and thrust backwards, driving him deep inside again, and he groans.

“Good,” I say, breathless. “It’s fucking sexy when you come inside me.”

He goes faster and harder, and I can feel myself tilting toward the edge.

“Don’t stop,” I say, nearly shouting. “God, please, don’t stop.”

“I’m gonna come,” he growls against my ear. “Fuck, Lula-Mae, I can’t help myself.”

Just as he groans, I suddenly feel myself go over the edge and fall.

“Fuck, Jackson,” I gasp. I dig my nails into his thigh without meaning to, and I can just hear myself whispering his name over and over again.

I come so hard I barely even realize he’s pulled me against him as hard as he can, his cock throbbing. I just moan wordlessly and Jackson bites my shoulder. I feel almost knocked senseless, even as my orgasm fades and he slides his arm around me and holds me tight against his chest as I’m still panting for breath.

“I missed you,” he whispers. “I know I said that but I missed you.”

I turn and kiss his shoulder. There’s a million uncertainties right now, about him, about us, about how the hell this is ever going to work out, but in this moment, I’m totally certain that everything will be okay.

“I missed you too,” I whisper.

W
e’re just lying there
, in my bed in my trailer. Through the window above the bed I can see a rectangle full of stars, and I’ve got my face against Mae’s head. I can smell her hair, and I’ve got one hand over her chest and I can feel her heartbeat, too.

After a minute I point at the window.

“I think those are the Pleiades,” I say.

She just laughs.

“There, we stargazed,” I say.

Mae wiggles and then turns around in my arms, and I roll onto my back, her head on my chest.

“Should we go back to the house and pretend like that’s all we were doing?” she asks.

“Nah,” I say. I run one finger up and down her spine. The bedroom is almost tropically warm because that’s what happens when you run two space heaters on full blast in here, and it feels like Mae is melting into me.

“Are we just going to stay in the jizz trailer the whole time I’m here?” she teases.

“Lula-Mae, I swear to God—” I start, but she laughs again.

I sigh.

“Is that just what it’s called now?” I ask.

“Sorry,” she says.

“Liar,” I say. “You’re not sorry at all.”

We’re quiet for a moment.

“They’re not gonna think that we got eaten by wolves and come after us, right?” she finally asks.

“This is a don’t ask, don’t tell situation,” I say. “They don’t
ask
why we’re really going on a walk in the direction of a secluded trailer after dark when it’s twenty degrees outside, and I don’t
tell
them that I’m crawling out of my skin to jump your bones already.”

“Jump my bones?” Mae asks.

“It means—”

“I know what it
means
,” she teases me. “That’s how my Aunt Bertha refers to sex, too.”

“Aunt Bertha sounds like a fun gal,” I say.

“Depends on how much you like gin rummy.”

Mae’s fingers are tracing a new scar, the one where I had a tube in my chest after I punctured a lung.

Tell her
, I think.

I almost don’t want to end this perfect, quiet moment, but I hate not telling things to Mae. There were only thirty-six hours between getting out of the wheelchair and her seeing me and finding out, and I just about bit my tongue off.

“The Vice President of programming at ESPN called me last week,” I say.

She raises her head and looks up at me.

“They’re adding rodeo to their main programming lineup next year, and they’re looking for a charming, good-looking, knowledgeable commentator who’s currently unfit to ride,” I say.

“And what did they want with you?” she teases.

“They want me to audition in Cheyenne in a couple of weeks at a pre-season exhibition,” I say.

Mae grins, her blue eyes sparkling.

“Then what?” she asks.

“If they like me, I do it for the rest of the season,” I say. “And if I’m charming enough, I assume Hollywood comes calling and I star in a bunch of commercials for pickup trucks.”

“I’d buy a truck from you,” Mae says.

“You wouldn’t buy a truck from anyone,” I say.

She laughs.

“You’re right,” she says. “I’m never gonna own a pickup truck, I hate driving those things.”

“You’re the least country Texas girl I’ve ever met,” I say.

“Thank you,” she says.

I swallow, and we both go quiet for a moment.

“I’d have to move if this ESPN thing goes through,” I say.

“Where to?” she asks, her voice quiet.

“I’d probably need to stay out west,” I say, and suddenly my heart is thumping. “But I’d need to be a lot closer to a major airport, at least. So a real city.”

I look down at her, but she’s looking at her hand, tapping her fingers on my chest one by one.

“But which one might be flexible,” I say.

Mae rolls off of me and props herself on her elbows, not quite touching me anymore.

“I talked to my agent about moving away from New York,” she says quietly.

“Is that a good idea?” I ask.

“I don’t really like it there,” she says. “I want to, but I don’t. People keep telling me that it’s the center of the photography world, but...”

She trails off and spreads her hands, staring past my head at the wall.

“Janice thought I could make it work,” she says.

“Mae, I already almost tanked your career once,” I say. “I’m not trying to do it again. I don’t even know if I’ll get this ESPN thing.”

“What are you gonna do if you don’t?” she asks.

“Well, I’ve gotta finish digitizing the books for my parents’ ranch into Quicken, and that might take another five years,” I say. “There’s six months in nineteen seventy eight where I swear everything is written on napkins from a diner.”

I pull her back against me and she puts her head back on my chest, her hand flat over my old scar.

“But after this year,” she asks, slowly. “Are you going back?”

I stroke the back of her neck with my fingers.

“I’m not asking you to quit,” she says. “I know you love it, and I would never ask that, Jackson, and I’m here either way, but...”

She trails off.

“I just want to know what I’m in for,” she says quietly.

I’ve studiously avoided thinking about it. I mean, I think about it a lot, but I dance around the question, tell myself things like
not this year
and then try not to think beyond that. Even if I
can
ride again, which isn’t certain, who knows if I’ll be competitive.

“Right after Crash ran me over and they were taking me out, I heard you when I was on the stretcher,” I say.

“You were conscious?”

“Barely,” I say. “I was in and out, and all I remember hearing is you shouting
I know Jackson, fucking let me in!
And I thought,
she just told everyone about us, she’s gonna get fired, and it’s my fault.
And I felt terrible.”

“That’s oversimplifying it,” she says.

“You were in most of my morphine dreams,” I say. “You know how I knew I wasn’t dreaming when you showed up that morning?”

“You mom called me a stray?”

“You looked like hell,” I say. “Like you’d been up all night crying.”

She swallows.

“Only most of it,” she finally says. “No one would tell me anything for the longest time. I had no idea if you’d made it off the operating table or not, or if you were paralyzed forever, or...”

She trails off again, and I decide. All at once, I decide.

“I was really scared that I’d lost you,” Mae whispers.

“I’m not going back,” I say.

She looks up at me again.

“I swear to God I’m not asking you to quit,” she says, her voice low.

I just laugh.

“I just broke every bone in one leg, and now there’s so much metal in it that I’m barely human,” I say. “I fractured four vertebrae, and it’s a miracle I’m not paralyzed. My ribcage is pretty much made out of bendy straws by now because I’ve broken ribs hard enough to puncture lungs twice now. I can tell when it’s gonna rain because my left arm tells me, both my ankles hurt when it’s cold, my right shoulder freezes sometimes because I tore the cartilage once, and I’ve chipped five teeth.”

When I say it all out loud, it’s pretty compelling.

“I didn’t even know about half those,” Mae says.

“This way I get to go out on top,” I say. “Blaze of glory and all that.”

That’s all true, but it’s not the real reason.

The truth is, after Daffodil broke my ribcage, I started just assuming I’d die in the arena, and I realized I didn’t mind. Better to burn out than fade away. Half the rodeo guys I know who make it to sixty are in bad shape, so I started figuring I just wouldn’t make it that long.

Then I met Mae, and when they put me on a stretcher and loaded me into an ambulance, I realized that if I were dead I’d never see her again.

It’s pretty simple, really.

“We should head back,” Mae says.

“Stay here,” I say. “I like pretending we’re a normal couple who don’t have to sneak around.”

Mae laughs.

“That’s your own fault for living with your parents when you’re twenty-five,” she says.

“I got special circumstances,” I say, and kiss the top of her head. “And I only got to wake up next to you once, and you weren’t at your best.”

“I was such a bitch,” Mae says. “I’m sorry. I’m not a morning person. I’m not.”

“Stay here and I’ll pretend to know more constellations,” I say.

She rolls over onto her back and looks out the window.

“Okay,” she says. “What’s that one?”

“Orion,” I say.

It’s not Orion. I don’t know what it is, but Mae’s in my arms again and neither of us really care what the constellations are. After an hour we shut down the space heaters and get ready for bed, then crawl under the covers and curl up together. I try not to kick her with my cast.

In the morning, it’s freezing, so we have sex under the blankets before we go back to the house.

* * *

E
SPN hires me
. When I tell Mae, she yelps with delight and then shouts, “I knew they would!” Later that month, she goes to Carnivale in Brazil for a week and shoots colorful samba dancers. I get my cast off while she’s there and start physical therapy.

In March, I finally visit New York. We see the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building and a whole lot of the inside of Mae’s bedroom.

In April, ESPN sends me to San Antonio for a while and she joins me there. We visit the Alamo, tire each other out in the hotel room, and afterwards, still in bed, Mae grabs her laptop and we start looking at apartments in other cities.

* * *

I
’m sitting
in a folding chair in front of a box, eating cereal, when my phone buzzes. It’s a selfie of Mae, in front of the “Welcome to Colorful Colorado!” sign.

M
e
: Stop taking selfies and drive faster.

Mae: Just for that, I’m stopping for more coffee.

Me: You were stopping for more coffee anyway.

Mae: Busted.

I
pace around the house
. I feel like I should be cleaning and decorating and getting something ready, but there’s nothing. There’s a small pile of boxes in the living room, but the biggest one is the wardrobe box full of new suits for my job.

For years, everything I needed I pretty much fit into my truck, but now that it’s in an actual building, it looks tiny.

I’m still staring at it when the moving truck pulls up outside. It’s been almost a month since I saw Mae, and just like always, I start grinning like an idiot the second I see her.

She hops out of the cab of the truck, blond hair flying, and I wrap her in my arms before she even gets the door closed.

“I made it,” she says, and she’s already laughing.

“Welcome home,” I say, and kiss her. She wraps both her hands around my neck and presses herself against me, her tongue licking my bottom lick, and I’m hard in no time at all. My hand’s under her shirt and on the skin of her lower back and she bites my bottom lip when I pull away from her.

Already, we’re
those
neighbors.

I reach out and shut the truck door.

“Want to see the inside?” I ask.

“Of course,” she says.

I open the door for her and watch her face as she steps through. Mae hasn’t seen the place in person yet, and it turns out that I can ride a one-ton animal for eight seconds, but choosing an apartment for the two of us to live in is nerve-wracking as all hell.

She walks through the kitchen, then the living room, checks out both bathrooms. When she comes back to where I’m standing, she looks relieved.

“You were worried?” I tease her.

“Jackson, the last place you lived was called
the jizz trailer
,” she says.

“Only because you named it that,” I say.

She grins and shrugs, then slides her arms around me.

“One more question,” she says.

I bend down and pick her up. She yelps and throws her arms around my neck.

“Bedroom’s this way,” I say.