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He looked down at me and laughed. “I bite back,” he said in a low, growling voice that almost had me abandoning my principles and dragging him out the back. As if he knew the direction of my thoughts, his eyes got hot. They were a pretty shade of blue, dark like violets. “I’ll take my chances, I think. Let me buy you another beer?”
I shook my head. “Nah, I have to drive. But I’ll take a bottle of water if you’re feeling chivalrous.”
He strode to the bar and I got a good look at him. Yeah, he had that lean muscle thing going on that made me weak in the knees. Short dark hair hidden under his hat. Wide shoulders that rippled with muscle.
Down girl. Down. I’d made it a rule not to date within the circuit. Don’t shit where you eat. Words to live by. Mostly, if I needed to scratch an itch, there was always a local boy at one of the stops who wouldn’t mind getting into the back of my truck with me. I never took them back to my hotel room, and Frankie never took his conquests back there either. We respected each other.
But this guy, he was real pretty and I was really happy and it was making it super hard to remember why I didn’t date on the circuit.
“So, you a rider? Did you ride at today's rodeo?” I asked, and he tilted his head.
“I ride bulls, but I was down for some sponsorship thing today. Didn’t ride. I’m in the WBRP.”
Living the dream then. I tried to pick his face better, but still, I had nothing.
“Congrats,” I said, clinking my nearly empty bottle to his.
“How ‘bout you? Go to see the bull rides today?” I grinned into my drink and nodded. “Yeah, I was there. Some good rides today.” I left it at that. I had nothing to prove. “Where are you from?”
I settled in to listen to the cowboy, whose name was Dylan. He was from Montana. His family owned a horse ranch that bred stock horses up there. He was basically a walking cliche. But he was funny and attentive, and was kind but dismissive to the girls who came up to get his autograph and his attention.
When a loud voice boomed through the room, I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Again. Junior was in the house, and there went the neighborhood. I turned back to Dylan, who was telling me about the time a bull stepped on his head and pushed his helmet into his eye socket. I winced, but we all had stories like that. You didn’t become a bull rider expecting to walk away unscathed. Hell, if you could walk away at all you were lucky.
“Montaigne. Nice to see you, bro.” Suddenly, Junior was there, getting in Dylan’s face worse than the buckle bunnies. I worried that if I looked down, I’d see Junior had a raging hard on. “Stan Wilfred Junior,” he reintroduced himself, even though he was pretending like they were best friends.
Dylan pasted a smile on his face. “Sure, Stan, nice to see you. How’s your Dad?”
I scoffed when Dylan called him Stan, because Junior hated that name. I’d personally hate being called anything as infantile as Junior but hey, the guy wasn’t exactly winning in the IQ department.
Junior’s eyes slid to me and narrowed into slits. “Dad’s fine. Keeping interesting company here. Better conquests around than the Piranha.”
Dylan continued to smile, though there was a hard glint in his eyes. “So she said, but I’m happy enough.”
I raised my lip in Junior’s direction. “See, he’s happy enough. Run along,Stan.” I looked around for Frankie, but he seemed to have disappeared with his own conquest for the night. Fuck, no one to run interference.
“You can do better than some little rodeo whor-” he didn’t get any further because my fist shot out and rammed right into his nose. No one spoke to me like that, especially not this fucking asshole. Junior went down like the sack of shit he was, and his buddies crowded closer. Luckily, Dylan stepped up to my back and they were cowards. They didn’t give a shit about Junior, just his connections. And apparently, Dylan had connections too. Rock meet Hard Place.
Junior climbed to his feet, blood pouring from his nose. “Bitch, say goodbye to your place on the circuit, you fucking cu-” my hands had a mind of their own tonight as I stepped in close and gave him an uppercut to the jaw that sent him down for the count.
Daddy wanted me to be a lady, but he sure as heck taught me how to fight first.
When Junior didn’t get back up, I knew I was in trouble. He was out cold. Dylan eyed his friends. “If someone asks about this, I am going to tell them that you three attacked Tessa here and she was defending herself. We’ll see who's word holds more value, do you get me?”
Junior’s lackeys nodded once and slunk back through the crowd. Dammit, I needed to get out of here.
“I gotta go,” I said quickly over my shoulder, stepping over Junior’s still unconscious body and walking out the side door of the bar. This is why I had Frankie. He kept my rage in check so I didn’t drop legacy dickheads.
The crunch of stones in the parking lot had me looking over my shoulder. Dylan followed along behind me, his brow creased.
“Are you okay?” he asked softly. I looked down at my split knuckles, little rivulets of blood coating the back of my hand.
I wiped it on the back of my jeans, hissing as the broken skin brushed against the denim. I’d soak these in the sink back in the hotel room. “I’m fine. I’ve wanted to hit that fucker for years.” My grin looked a little manic. “Sorry about the drama though. I was enjoying my night up until then.”
Dylan stepped closer, taking my hand into his rough one as he examined my split knuckle. “You might have to wrap them. You got stuff for it?”
I nodded toward my truck. “Yeah, I have a full first aid kit in there.”
Dylan gave me a megawatt smile. “Well that's good, because I just so happen to be an expert at bandaging people up. Let’s go.”
