24 - Sophie
24
Sophie
The thing about mechanical bulls was that they were usually much easier than the real thing. Even when turned up to the highest setting, your average mechanical bull couldn’t come close to replicating the randomness of a living, breathing bull who was trying its damnedest to knock you off its back.
But the two bulls at Billy Bob’s, Whistling Willie and Bully Ray Cyrus, were professional-grade. Their difficulty setting could be cranked up to levels that were downright dangerous for most people.
Johnny, Eli, and Sawyer weren’t most people, though.
There was a dedicated attendant monitoring the bull riding area. He spent most of his evenings convincing customers that no, they couldn’t handle the bull at the highest setting. Sometimes when a particularly cocky man got in the ring, he had to lie to them and pretend like he was turning the difficulty setting way up.
But when he saw Johnny approach the gate, he gave him a once-over and nodded. “How high?”
Eli came up behind him and wrapped an arm around Johnny’s shoulder. “Crank her up as high as high goes, partner. We’re measurin’ dicks tonight.”
I rolled my eyes, but I was enjoying the competition. I normally hated it when men vied for my attention, but these guys? I didn’t mind it one bit.
“You coming?” I asked Sawyer, who was still leaning up against the wall.
“Pass,” he replied. “Children’s games are for children.”
Eli rolled his eyes and leaned close to me to whisper: “Guess he’s afraid of having his dick measured.” He winked, then smacked Johnny on the back. “You first. Show us how it’s done, Johnny boy.”
The crowd in the room could sense that something exciting was about to happen, and had begun to crowd around the chest-high fence that separated the bull riding area from the rest of the room. The bachelorette party was returning from the bar, each of them holding an espresso martini while they gathered near the ring.
“Are you real cowboys?” one of them asked Eli in a nauseatingly sweet voice.
“I’m as real as grade-A leather,” Eli said smoothly. “Johnny here is just playin’ pretend, though.”
“You’ll be pretending to have an injury after I outlast you,” Johnny called back.
That drew some laughs and jeers from the crowd, which was pressing closer to the action.
Johnny threw a leg over Willie and settled into the saddle like he was born there, casually resting a hand on the pommel. I had to admit: his demeanor turned me on more than I expected. He was an expert at this, and didn’t need to boast or flaunt. This was a man surrounded by boys.
“Rider up!” the attendant shouted over the crowd noise.
Most mechanical bulls had a difficult level that went up to ten, a number which was displayed on the neon sign above the ring. As the attendant twisted a dial on the control panel, that number rapidly ticked up. Five, six, seven, eight…
The crowd let out a flurry of oohs and aahs as the number hit double digits… and stopped at eleven. That was the highest setting possible, significantly more difficult than ten.
“I didn’t realize it went that high,” one customer said.
“This ought to be good,” another guy said. “Ten bucks he breaks his neck.”
“I don’t think so. He looks like he knows what he’s about.”
Johnny did look the part sitting astride Whiplash Willie. He pulled his cowboy hat a little lower over his face, gave me a smile, then nodded to the attendant.
A loud buzzer sounded as the bull came to life, eyes glowing with red LEDs. It immediately began bucking violently forward with the aid of unseen machinery, twisting and kicking backward in the blink of an eye.
Johnny moved along with the bull with effortless confidence, settling into the saddle like this was… well, like it was his job . His faded jeans hugged strong legs that shifted instinctively with each buck and spin of the robotic beast. He kept one hand on the pommel, while raising the other into the air—more for style than balance.
Willie jerked, twisted, and kicked, but Johnny intuitively rolled with the machine, his body fluid and controlled. But his face was twisted with concentration beneath his tan wide-brimmed Stetson. The overhead lights caught the sharp cut of his jawline, clenched with effort, before the bull spun him away again.
The crowd whooped and hollered, but Johnny barely acknowledged them—until, with a final powerful buck, Willie finally made a dent in the blond cowboy’s balance. He leaned back, muscles in his arm flexing as he tried to rebalance himself, but now he was over-correcting. The bull spun and jerked forward, sending Johnny flying over the front.
He hit the mat and used the momentum to roll forward once, coming to a stop on his ass.
The timer froze the moment he left the saddle: fourteen seconds.
“That’s a new 2025 record!” the attendant announced over the loudspeaker.
Johnny climbed to his feet while everyone in the bar cheered. He tipped his cap to the crowd, but he looked annoyed that he hadn’t done better.
“Well done,” I said as he exited the ring.
“I was going for the all-time record,” he said, clenching his jaw in annoyance. “Seventeen seconds.”
“Seventeen and a half ,” Eli clarified. “A record which is about to be mine. Watch and learn, Johnny boy.”
“He’s nothing if not confident,” Johnny muttered to me.
“I’ll say.” I glanced over my shoulder. Sawyer was still leaning against the wall, looking bored by the whole thing.
Johnny leaned closer to me. “I’m looking forward to our next date, by the way.”
“Oh? I wasn’t aware there was going to be a second date.”
“There damn-well better be,” he growled with a smirk. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the other night.”
His hand slid around my waist easily. I liked the way it felt being in his arms again, and wished we were somewhere alone. And naked.
“It’s been on my mind a few times,” I said.
Johnny grinned, fingers tightening on the side of my hip. “Only a few times?”
I turned to look at him, my lips mere inches from him. “Only a few. But one of those times was last night in bed. When I was trying to fall asleep.”
“Is that so?” he practically purred at me.
I nodded. “I couldn’t sleep, so I let my imagination drift. Then my fingers started to drift…” I slid my hand down my belly suggestively, pulling his eyes down to watch. Then I took hold of his hand and removed it from my hip. “I’ll tell you all about it if your time ends up holding.”
As I placed his hand back by his side, I allowed my fingers to brush across the front of his jeans, just beneath his silver belt buckle. His cock was impossible to miss, practically radiating heat through the denim.
He sucked in a breath, then sighed. “Fourteen is a good time. I don’t know if Eli can beat it.”
The attendant called out, “Rider up!” and dialed up the difficulty again to eleven. An excited murmur passed over the crowd, then dimmed to silence as they waited for the bull to lurch into motion.
Eli glanced down at me and winked.
The buzzer blared. Willie shot backwards violently, nearly throwing Eli from the saddle in the first second and sending his brown cowboy hat sailing away, but he somehow regained his balance. The bull twisted and bucked, seemingly far more violent than a bull made of flesh and fur. The brunette cowboy predicted every motion perfectly, taming it like he could see the future. And every time it spun Eli back in my direction, he met my gaze for a fraction of a second, smiling like he had already won.
I grinned up at him. It pissed me off how sexy that was.
Johnny let out a curse next to me as Eli surpassed his time. I held my breath. The record, seventeen and a half seconds, had lasted for over a decade. If he beat it tonight…
But the bull seemed to know the record was nearing, and intended to protect it. It shuddered like it was going to buck in one direction before chaotically moving the opposite way, and the move took Eli by surprise. The last thing I saw was a look of shock on his handsome face as he flew sideways through the air and landed on the padded mat.
“Sixteen-point-one seconds!” the attended declared. “ That is the new 2025 record!”
The crowd reacted with a mixture of excited cheers for the impressive time, and groans of disappointment that he hadn’t broken the all-time record. Eli hopped to his feet with a massive smile on his face, though, eyes locked onto me and Johnny as he returned to the gate.
“Are we still measurin’ dicks?” he teased. “Because I think we’re gonna need a bigger ruler.”
“Well done,” Johnny admitted, sticking out his hand. Eli slapped his palm against it, and the two shook. “You’ve improved a lot since last year.”
“Been practicin’!” Eli said, still grinning. “Can’t wait for the real thing at the end of the rodeo. Gonna kick Chrissy Appleshit’s ass.” He turned to me. “When do I get my prize?”
“I’m a woman of my word,” I said. “We can go out next Tuesday, when I get off early, or if you want to take me out for lunch…”
“Hold up,” Johnny interrupted. “Looks like this competition isn’t over.”
Sawyer was standing next to me. “Hold this,” he demanded, shoving his black cowboy hat at me.
Then he brushed past us into the ring and climbed onto Whiplash Willie’s back. He seemed bored, like the whole thing was beneath him. But he was still up there, ready to compete.
“I thought you didn’t play children’s games!” I shouted at him.
He ignored me and turned to the attendant. “What are you waiting for?” he demanded in a voice that would make a lesser man cower.
“Rider up!” the attendant announced. The difficulty level cranked back up to eleven. A hush came over the crowd.
I held my breath, unable to take my eyes off the rugged cowboy.
The buzzer screamed.
Willie came to life.
Unseen machinery made the bull buck, twist, and jerk.
And Sawyer maintained the saddle with shocking ease.
“The fuck?” Eli whispered next to me.
I was entranced by the way Sawyer rode the mechanical bull. Rather than fighting the machine, it looked like he was locked in a dance with it, the two of them moving together to a music only they could hear.
I clutched his hat to my chest, inhaling his scent. The timer ticked upward: twelve seconds. Thirteen. Sawyer hadn’t even come close to falling. It was like the bull was on a lower difficulty, although the neon sign showed eleven, and Willie was thrashing around with every bit as much violence as it had for the first two cowboys.
He was good. Very good.
As the timer hit fifteen, I realized Sawyer was going to win easily. That shocked me… and also excited me. Not only was he willing to play what he called a children’s game to win a date with me, he was doing so with an ease that made Johnny and Eli look like amateurs by comparison.
“I think he’s LeBron,” Johnny said next to me.
Sawyer had appeared bored up to this point, but now his eyes found me in the crowd. His lips curled in a vicious smile, one without humor.
And then he let go.
Sawyer smoothly rolled off the back of Whiplash Willie, landing on his feet on the mat with the grace and control of Simone Biles.
“Fifteen-point-nine seconds!” the attendant boomed over the loudspeaker. “Just shy of the previous time!”
The crowd sounded disappointed, and began dispersing from around the ring. Next to me, Eli pumped his fist in victory. But I couldn’t stop staring at Sawyer as he slowly walked our way.
“Thanks,” he said, taking his cowboy hat from my hand and placing it on his head before walking away.
“So,” Eli asked. “What are the options for our date, again?”
“One second,” I said, pushing through the crowd to follow Sawyer. I caught up to him halfway across the room, grabbing his arm and trying to slow him down. “What the hell was that?”
He glanced back at me, but kept walking. “A taste of what you’ll see at Dickies Arena in two weeks.”
“You were going to win easily!” I insisted. “You fell on purpose.”
Sawyer turned back to me so fast I ran into him. It was like bumping into a brick wall. He stared down at me, leaning closer until his eyes were just inches away. They were bloodshot, and he smelled like whiskey and fine oiled leather.
“Make the prize something worth my while,” he said with the sexiest little smirk, “and I’ll try harder. Enjoy your date with Elijah.”
He walked away, leaving me standing there with my jaw open.