Chapter 3 #2
He stepped out in front of the arena where the Wild West Show was held. And he waited for her truck to round that last bend.
The parking lot was massive, empty today, since no one would be showing up to rehearsal until much later. There were fifteen to twenty performers in the show at any given time. Most of them lived full-time on the property, a few trickling in and out seasonally.
The whole place created a feeling of spectacle. The fences surrounding the arena were painted with sensationalized scenes: gunslingers, women tied to railroad tracks …
Maybe some of them needed to be modernized.
He hadn’t thought about it, really. Those scenes were a staple of his youth and hadn’t changed since then.
But for some reason, right as Cassidy got out of the truck, he wondered what it looked like to somebody who hadn’t come from their world.
And then, he had no more thoughts left at all.
Because there she was, looking scrubbed and fresh faced, bright-eyed and raring to go, in a pair of tight jeans and a tight, long-sleeved top that showed off the perfection of her athletic figure.
West didn’t do moderation.
He was a full-throttle kind of guy. He liked to take risks, and he acted on impulse. That was why his gut was the most powerful tool in his arsenal. His initial take on things was rarely wrong, and thank God, or he might be dead by now.
But the thing that got him fired up more than just about anything else was a hookup.
Not just the sex. The whole thing. He was experienced sexually.
Because the high that came from a night out was almost unmatched.
The question of whether or not he would find a woman, how it would come together, how they would click.
The novelty of it. He got off on that in ways he would never be able to articulate.
He would never talk about it anyway, because he didn’t need to share about something so intimate with … anyone.
He’d gotten damned good at identifying the women he’d have chemistry with.
He’d heard tell that intimacy made for better sex.
He wouldn’t know. But some people seemed to think that knowing one’s partner made it better.
Because you could learn what each other wanted.
In his experience, though, it was all chemistry. You either had it, or you didn’t.
Attraction was easier to find. He could conjure up an attraction to pretty much any beautiful woman—and his definition of beautiful was a broad one.
But chemistry? That was something else entirely.
On those rare occasions he’d found someone who kindled that extra bit of fire, it was the ultimate adrenaline rush.
Cassidy had sparked that adrenaline rush in him. That extra spark you couldn’t manufacture. And he was certain intimacy couldn’t hold a candle to it.
He knew, he just knew, exactly what it would be like to set the sheets on fire with Cassidy Wilder. That moment when he’d seen her in the bar, it had been like looking into a crystal ball. He could see it. The two of them, how they would fit together, how hot it would be.
It was so incendiary that when he’d taken off his boots at the end of the night, he’d been shocked to find that the soles weren’t scorched.
For her part, Cassidy hadn’t seemed to notice a thing.
If she had seen him at all, she hadn’t indicated it.
He’d moved on, because he valued his life.
He’d hooked up with some random woman he’d met later in the bar.
The whole time he’d been thinking about how much better it would have been if it was Cassidy.
That was shitty, he had to admit. Not something he had experienced before.
Generally speaking, he went home with the woman he wanted.
West loved to learn new things. And when he learned those things, he became an expert at them. He was currently finishing up his own custom kitchen cabinets. That sort of determination and ingenuity meant he knew exactly how to keep a woman screaming his name all night long.
Emotionally, though, he wasn’t what anyone wanted, and that was why he had no plan to start a romantic relationship.
Fucking was one thing, love was another.
He knew better than to get involved with someone only to let them down because he couldn’t maintain a relationship.
It would all bore him after a while, or he would just be bad at it.
He’d made the mistake of dragging someone into his mess once, but he’d learned from his mistakes. He would never do it again.
Another thing about West was that he learned hard lessons well. So not only did he avoid romantic intimacy, he avoided any kind of intimacy. That meant the women he got physical with couldn’t be too closely involved in his life.
Cassidy Wilder was too involved. Too tangled up.
No matter how hot Cassidy was, no matter how good he knew the sex would be, he wasn’t starting anything with her.
The attraction would pass. It was nothing more than a fleeting interest. He was curious—that was the problem. God knew his curiosity could kill a cat, metaphorically.
But it was just curiosity, wondering how it would be.
The way his imagination spun out the story of a one-night stand, it turned into a prophecy instead of just garden-variety lust. He was good at that.
But once the question was answered, he was never tempted to ask it again.
It would be the same with Cassidy. Only he would still have to deal with her being around.
With her being related by marriage to his sister.
And he would definitely get punched in the face. One night of good sex wasn’t worth a bar fight.
All those thoughts ran through his mind as Cassidy approached him, her dark eyes taking stock of the arena before they met his in what felt like a collision.
If she felt it, she didn’t betray a thing.
“Good morning,” she said, her voice brightly confident. He couldn’t tell if it was put on or not.
“Yeah,” he said, gesturing toward the arena. “I’ve got a horse for you.”
“Well, good, I didn’t bring my own.”
“Obviously.”
“So … what do you want to see exactly?”
“I want to see what tricks you think you can do. Jessie’s horse is very well trained, not reactionary, and pretty used to people flailing around on her back. So if you make a mistake, the problem is just going to be the ground, not the animal.”
“Right. Well, I’ve practiced a couple of things. I can do the move where she drops off the horse’s back and pulls herself back up, and I can stand up while I ride. There are some other things I’m not really sure about.”
“It sounds like you have a pretty good foundation.”
“I’m not formally trained.”
He laughed. “Formally trained? Do you think we went to carnival school? Because that’s basically what this is, sweetheart. A carnival. We do the best we can, and nobody has died yet. But there’s not exactly formal training available for this nonsense.”
“Right.”
“If you’re nervous,” he said, “you don’t have to do it.”
“I’m not nervous,” she said, immediately defensive. “I just … I don’t want you to expect me to be amazing.”
The images that flashed in his mind were erotic. And he was annoyed.
“I don’t expect anything from you. Get on the fucking horse, show me what you’ve got, and stop wasting my time.”
She drew back, looking as if he had spit at her boots. “That was mean.”
“It wasn’t mean. Maybe just not particularly nice, and you’re used to everybody being sweet to you.”
He had watched the way her family treated her. They were nicer to her than they were to just about anybody. She was the baby of the family—that much was evident.
She was probably used to being coddled. Well, he wasn’t going to coddle her.
He needed her to do the act, keep her distance, and be done. The end.
“Follow me,” he said.
They began to walk across the arena, and she had to take two steps to his one to keep up.
He didn’t slow down. He ignored her, in fact, because his muscles were tense, and his mind was in the gutter.
This was when he really despised the lack of control he had over his thoughts.
Because he didn’t want to think of her that way, but he definitely had …
an overactive imagination. It jumped from one thing to another without asking his permission, and once it hit on an obsession, there it stayed.