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I nodded.
“I’m so sorry I hurt you like that. As an adult, there were so many times I wanted to reach out to you and tell you what a complete asshole I was. When you left without saying goodbye and never returned any of my calls or texts, I let anger dictate my feelings for you.”
“We were both young. I do know that if we hadn’t been caught, I would have easily given myself to you, Blayze. I wanted you to be my first, even though I said those hurtful words to you.”
He ran his finger down my cheek. “I wish I could go back in time and have you be my first.”
I laughed under my breath. “My first time wasn’t how I pictured it would be either.”
“Was he not gentle?” Blayze asked as he tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. I reached up and took out the hair tie that had been holding part of my hair up. Blayze ran his fingers through my curls, then kissed the tip of my nose.
“He was inexperienced like me. We fumbled a lot, and it wasn’t anything I was going to go home and write in my journal about. It was prom night, my junior year. His name was Scott, and I liked him. Didn’t love him, and he didn’t love me. We never promised each other anything. I trusted him, and he trusted me. It hurt like a son of a gun, and he came way too soon. I think he might have pumped three times and then bam. He was done. He was sweet about it, though, and made sure I at least had an orgasm. He used his hand, and I had to show him what felt good.”
“I hate him.”
Laughing, I asked, “Why?”
“I hate every man who’s ever touched you or made love to you.”
I shook my head. “There haven’t been that many. Three to be exact. And what we just did felt like making love. The other times felt like sex. I wasn’t in love with any of them. We dated, it felt like something we should do, and that was that. I didn’t date Mitch or Pete for long. I never felt connection with them. I cared for them, but…”
My voice trailed off. When I looked at him, he had a pained expression on his face.
“That night with Lindsay, the moment it was over, I knew I had made the biggest mistake of my life.”
Propping my head up on my hand, I asked, “Why?”
He cleared his throat and rolled over onto his back to stare up at the ceiling.
“I started riding bulls more after that summer. My father said something was fueling me to push myself to ride more and more. To be better. I’m not sure if he was right or not. I remember being really angry with myself. With you, my dad, my mom. But when I climbed up on the back of a bull, I was lost to it all. It was just me and the bull, and I had something to prove to myself more than anything. I already knew my dad was proud of me. But I wanted to see how good I was.”
“Did the anger wear off? Is that why you stopped riding?”
Blayze shook his head. “No. During college, when I could come home and help on the ranch, I found myself longing to be here more and more. I love this place, and it had always been my plan to run it alongside my dad and uncles. Bull riding became second in my life, and the ranch moved to number one. I decided to stop riding and focus on finishing up school so I could get back to the ranch.”
“So you quit bull riding to ranch? That’s the only reason?”
His eyes met mine. “I still did some riding every now and then. It was kind of hard to get rid of the itch to ride. I did some benefit rides, and a few times I did some local stuff. There was a lot of pressure for me to get back on the circuit, and I’ll admit I was thinking about it. Then it all changed one night.”
“What happened?”
“I was at a party and Lindsay was there. She’d been dating this bull rider named Lane West.”
“Lane West?”
He nodded. “Yeah, he was on the Unleash the Beast Tour for a bit, but got bumped back down to the Velocity Tour. Anyway, he and Lindsay came up with this grand plan to get me off the tour.”
I lifted my head. “What?”
“Lane had no idea I was walking away from the PBR. He considered me a threat. Anyway, I was at this party, pretty fucked up, and drinking my sorrows away.”
“Why were you upset?”
Turning his head to look at me, he exhaled. “I saw you in Dallas at a benefit my father was attending. You were with your parents and some guy. He had his arm around you, and at one point he leaned down and kissed you.”
