Honky-Tonk Hookup
LAINEY
Hell. Yes.
That’s my one and only thought as I follow Colton into the stale-beer-and-cigarette-scented bar.
It’s a classic small-town dive, with loud country music pumping through the speakers, neon signs on the walls, and a—holy shit, is that a—
“Mechanical bull!” Colton laughs. “Tallulah, how the hell did I not know about this?”
The woman behind the bar with pink hair and a lip piercing smiles as she pops the tops off a pair of longneck beers. “Because I never get to see you! How the hell have you been, Colt?”
Poking at the computer screen beside the liquor, she hands the beers to a waiting patron. Then she heads our way and holds up her arms.
“Hey, handsome.” She wraps Colton in a hug. “We’ve missed you.”
He hugs her back. “I always miss y’all. We’ve been good. Dean’s growing like a weed.”
“I bet! I saw him at the barn raising earlier this year. He looks so much like you.”
“You never answered my question about the bull.”
“Oh. That. I figured why the fuck not give it a try? If it’s a bust, it’s a bust. But I think y’all are gonna get a kick out of it.”
Thinking about Colton riding that thing—dominating it, in all likelihood—has my pulse skipping several beats.
Colton releases Tallulah, then turns a little so he can curl an arm around my waist. “Tallulah, allow me to introduce Lainey Brown. She’s on the ranch helping out for a bit.”
Tallulah turns her smile on me. “It’s so nice to meet you, Lainey.”
“Tallulah here is the owner of my favorite bar in the world.” Colton lifts his chin, gesturing at the raucous scene around us. “She and her wife, Goody, have been mainstays here in town for about as long as I can remember.”
The bartender just waves him away. “I just like to party. What can I get y’all to drink? Will it be the usual for you, Colt?”
“How do you remember what my usual is? It’s been forever—”
“I remember everything. Kinda my job. So Shiner with a tequila back for you. Lainey?”
I’m smiling and I’m hot and I’m quite possibly too happy right now, because I can’t seem to formulate words.
I love the feel of Colton’s arm wrapped around me.
Love the feel of being claimed, as fucked-up as that sounds. Maybe because it’s never happened to me before. I like how Colton just goes for it. No hesitation. No second guesses.
In the back of my mind, I do worry a little what people might think if they saw us like this. Really, I worry the Wallaces or their employees might see us and make some not-so-great assumptions.
Then again, I’m not sticking around. Once I wrap up this job, I’ll probably never come back to Hartsville. What reason would I have to visit?
I’m also not going to be taking on more projects like this going forward. I don’t have to worry about my professional reputation getting tarnished because I’ll (hopefully) be starting over in a brand-new field at a brand-new company.
I can have a little fun. Because that’s all this can be—fun. Even if Colton gets it and is shockingly easy to talk to and makes me feel like I’m the only woman in the room.
Someday, I’ll find someone like him who wants the same life as I do. Because as much as Colton and I connect on some things, on others, we’re complete opposites.
So I put my hand on his back and manage to say, “A Shiner Bock sounds great, thanks.”
“I’ll skip the tequila tonight.” Colton’s hand slips to my ass and he looks down at me, eyes dark. “I’m driving.”
Driving me up the fucking wall. You’re so good at it, Colton.
So good at everything you do.
I cannot wait for him to finally do me.
We grab our beers at the bar. Sally is there, and she introduces us to the rest of the band. I about die when she introduces her mother, Patsy, as the band’s lead singer.
“This is the coolest thing ever! How long have y’all been in a band together?” I ask.
Sally and Patsy look at each other and shrug. “Since Sally turned twenty-one and was able to walk through those doors,” Patsy says, nodding at the bar’s entrance. “Haven’t looked back since.”
Sally smiles, resting her head on her mom’s shoulder. “Mom’s a legend. I’m just trying to keep up.”
“You’re the legend, honey. Operating on thoroughbreds by day, fiddling like a pro by night.” Patsy’s eyes shine. “I’m so proud of you.”
Seeing them interact so easily—one doesn’t seem to be babysitting the other—my heart turns over. I wouldn’t say I’m jealous, because I know jealousy isn’t going to get me anywhere.
I just wish my mom were lit up like that.
I wish she’d do something fun, something that got her outside the damn house, like that.
People are pouring into the honky-tonk, greeting each other with hugs, kisses, high fives.
I’ve never seen so many cowboy hats—or backward baseball hats—in my life.
I am in heaven. Especially when a guy passing by blatantly checks me out and Colton yanks me closer, draping his arm over my shoulder so that I’m tucked snugly into his side.
He’s clearly staking his claim. It’s inappropriate.
It’s wildly sexy.
My head barely comes up to his collarbone. He feels solid and warm against me. Safe. Even though he’s anything but.
A little while later, Sally, Patsy, and the rest of Frisky Whiskey take the stage. The growing crowd erupts in hoots and hollers. Because I’m a little buzzed, I join in, stomping my feet on the sticky floor.
I half expect Colton to recoil. Or stay silent at the very least.
I guess I need to stop assuming so much, because suddenly he’s letting out the loudest whistle I think I’ve ever heard.
“Holy shit!” I yell, laughing.
He shrugs, looking so adorably delicious that I have to resist the very strong urge to go up on my toes and kiss him.
I’m not gonna be the girl who breaks all her rules for a cowboy she’ll never see again. So instead, I lean in and bite his neck.
Naturally.
His hand finds my nape. “You’re playin’ dirty.”
“We never set any rules”—I gasp when he digs his thumb into the tender spot where my neck slopes into my shoulder—“other than to detest each other.”
The band breaks out in the first notes of a song I immediately recognize—“Boot Scootin’ Boogie.”
“Wanna go detest each other on the dance floor?” he asks.
I grab his hand. “Sure. But only because I love Brooks & Dunn.”
“Aw, now that ain’t fair. No one can hold a candle to Kix and Ronnie.” He twines our fingers.
He’s always doing that—always making me feel breathless. “You’re a fan too, huh?”
“What kinda cowboy would I be if I weren’t?”
“Not one I’d dance with.” I give his hand a tug, and this time he’s the one following me.
I start to move my hips as we walk, adjusting my grip on Colton’s hand so I can hold his arm over my shoulder. We step onto the floor.
I’m about to pull him closer when he’s suddenly pressing his front to my back. He’s moving his hips too, and then he drops my hand to reach around so he can flatten his own hand against my belly to pull me even closer.
My body pounds at his nearness. At the confident, easy way he moves with me, touches me. The way he takes the lead, ducking his head so he can scrape his lips against my neck. At the same time, he rolls his shoulder, using his bulk to get me to roll mine too in time to the beat.
“Fuck.”
I don’t realize I’ve said the word out loud until Colton chuckles in my ear. “What, Dallas?” He has to shout over the sound of the band.
I turn my head to find his face half an inch from mine. My eyes immediately flick to his mouth, which looks very full and very inviting from this angle.
Just do it. But I can’t.
I won’t. I learned the hard way how kissing is the most dangerous game of all.
“You’re not supposed to be a good dancer.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re—you were—a block of freaking stone.”
“I can make a joke about being hard if that’d make you feel better.”
You make me feel better just by being you.
I’m laughing and so is he, and then he’s spinning me around in his arms. He’s curling his arm around my waist, his beer pressing into my side as he grabs my free hand.
Then he’s somehow moving us around the packed dance floor without bumping into a single person. People watch as we pass. Some stare. Several women—and a few men—check out Colton.
I get it.
I can’t stop smiling. He holds up our joined arms, encouraging me to twirl, and I go for it. Because why not?
Because this man seems to find anything and everything I do a serious turn-on.
I take my time turning, shaking my ass to a Kane Brown cover. Someone hoots. Someone else hollers.
Glancing over my shoulder, I realize it’s Colton who’s hollering. His eyes are downright feral. Dark and laser-focused on me.
“Damn.” He yanks me against him, melting his hips into mine. “Damn you, honey.”
I glide a hand up his chest and hook a finger in the V of his shirt, marveling at the fact that I can touch him like this. That he’s mine. For tonight at least.
I work a button through its hole, biting my lip when I’m able to glimpse a whorl of his dark chest hair. I cannot wait to see this man naked.
In reply, he slips his leg between my own. I hang on to his nape for dear life as I press my center against him. The friction is deliciously unbearable.
I want more.
“Humping in public isn’t very polite!” someone shouts at us.
Turning my head, I see a cute couple dancing beside us.
Colton looks up and grins. “You would know, Sawyer.”
“Hell yeah, I do.”
The bar goes apeshit when the band plays a countrified version of “Wobble.”
“Do you know how to do this dance?” I ask Colton.
Laughing, he shakes his head. “Not a fuckin’ clue.”
“Great. Me neither.”
We try to get the hang of it by watching the people around us. But we just end up with our arms and legs tangled, laughing so hard that tears leak out of my eyes.
I’m out of breath. A little sweaty and just the right amount of buzzed. The band is good. The man I’m with is quite possibly the sexiest being to ever exist.
Best. Night. Ever.
We dance to one song after the next after the next. In the back of my mind, I know I’m dying to get laid, but this is too fun to quit now. When was the last time I danced this way?
Colton sings along to an excellent cover of “I Like It, I Love It” by Tim McGraw. Eyes closed, hand on his chest, he belts it out like he’s the one onstage.
You’re the knockout when you let loose like this.
In between songs, Patsy makes an announcement about the bull being open for riders.
Colton looks at me.
I look back.
“Yeah,” we both say at once, and then he’s grabbing my hand and leading me toward the back of the bar.
“The last time I got on a fake animal, it did not end well.” It’s not as loud back here, so I don’t have to shout to be heard. “I’d give me, oh, half a second before I’m falling off again.”
Colton sets his empty beer bottle on a nearby table and shakes his head. “Not if you’re riding me. With me, sorry.”
I hook my finger through his belt loop. “Two can ride?”
“You can go it alone, but it’s always better with someone else.”
I’m smiling so hard my face hurts. Everything hurts, in all the best ways. My feet from dancing. My sides from laughing. My center from wanting.
A growing certainty is taking root that I’m never going to recover from tonight. No first date is ever going to be this good. I don’t know how I’ll reconcile that sobering fact with the hope I’m supposed to have for meeting my future soulmate.
That’s a tomorrow problem, though. Tonight, I’m gonna let myself enjoy the hell out of everything.
I’m not nearly drunk enough to climb onto a mechanical bull with a professional cowboy, but I do. Colton stands beside me as I, ahem, mount the saddle. Grabbing my hands, he curls them around the leather pommel.
“Give that a nice squeeze,” he instructs, lips twitching. “I know how strong your grip is. That’s the key to staying on, yeah?”
I’m so turned on at this point that I can probably wring out my underwear.
So when Colton climbs onto the bull and settles his big body behind mine, putting his hands on my hips to lift me so that I’m tucked tightly against him, it’s all I can do not to rub myself against the saddle in an effort to ease the ache between my legs.
The bull lurches, and I lurch with it, letting out a yelp.
Colton just chuckles, wrapping an arm around my middle to keep me steady. “I got you, love. Just follow my lead, yeah? You gotta move with the bull. Roll your hips, like this.”
He rocks his pelvis in time to the bull’s movements, and I have no choice but to move with him. We roll our hips as the bull crests upward, and then Colton pulls me against him as the bull plunges down.
It’s quite possibly the most erotic, most ridiculous moment of my life.
The bull moves faster. I’m shouting and laughing and praying that I don’t break a bone if—when—I fall off.
Colton, though, lets out a rip-roaring yeeeeehawwww!
Just when I think we’re going to fall off, Colton somehow manages to save the day. He keeps a firm grip on me, the movements of his body assured and rhythmic in a way that has me biting the inside of my cheek to keep from coming right here, right now.
The bull bucks. Colton’s laughter is a loud, booming sound.
“I’m gonna fall!” I yell. “I’m falling—”
“Okay.”
“What? Colt—”
But then he’s tugging me to the right, curling his body around mine as he pulls me off the horse. Bull. Whatever.
My stomach launches into the back of my throat as I fall, squeezing my eyes shut.
And fall.
Laughter tickles my sides. I can’t breathe. I can’t—
We land on the mats with a soft thud. I open my eyes.
No, wait. Colton landed on the mats, his hat a few feet behind him.
I landed on him.
My immediate impulse is to scramble off him. I’m too heavy. This is too…weird. I’m too close now that his hat is gone, his labored breaths moving over my skin in warm gusts.
But then his eyes meet mine, and I recognize the look in them.
Want.
Admiration.
“You stayed on,” he says.
I’m having trouble remembering how to use my tongue and lips to form words. “Only because you helped.”
“Who cares how it happened?” He puts his hands on my hips. “It happened, and that’s what counts.”
“Get a room!” someone shouts.
Colton’s lips curl upward. “Should we?”
“Yeah.” The entire front side of my body pulses at the extreme amount of contact between us. “Yes. Please.”