Chapter 2
Mouth-to-Mouth
BILLIE
I wake up on a throbbing wave of pain.
My left elbow has its own heartbeat. Hell, the whole left side of my body is lit up with a screaming burn I can only describe as, well, hell on earth. I’m vaguely aware of the sounds of the crowd around me, but inside my head, it’s eerily silent.
Also, someone is kissing me.
The warmth of his lips—their softness, the gentle way they’re pressed against mine—is unfamiliar and really fucking lovely. I can tell it’s a him because of the way his scruff brushes against my skin. Is that popcorn I taste?
Also, why is he holding my nose shut?
Whoever’s kissing me, it’s not Xander. The bull rider is a good enough kisser, but his lips are always weirdly lukewarm.
He’s also never, ever gentle. Which I usually like. But this…
It’s new, and I don’t hate it. Maybe because I’m in so much freaking pain? The kiss makes the throb in my body fade away a bit. Just enough so that I can breathe without being in total and complete agony.
Wait, someone else is breathing for me.
The way the air is being pushed into my lungs—it’s different. I don’t have to work for it. Oxygen floods my body, the relief so intense I could cry.
This is exactly what I needed.
Air. Simple as that.
I flutter my eyes open, my heart lurching when I see the slant of a cowboy hat over the shell of a familiar ear.
“Ryder?” I blurt, my mouth moving against his in a way that sends a bolt of heat through my middle despite the very real terror that grips me. “What the—”
“Billie.” He says the word on a pained exhale. His cobalt eyes meet mine, and I can suddenly breathe through my nose again. “Oh. Oh my God. Thank God.”
My stomach takes a tumble at the naked emotion in his eyes.
He’s the guy who never shows his cards—never lets his feelings show.
Sure, he’s always ready with a smile or a smart-ass comment, but I know it’s all an act.
A deflection. Because behind that mask lies a deep, deep well of pain.
I glimpsed it for the first time at his parents’ funeral thirteen years ago, and every so often he’ll let his control slip and I’ll see it again.
The grief. The hurt. The longing.
Ryder turns his head, lifting it a little so that he’s no longer kissing me. Touching me. Doing whatever he was doing.
I’m hit by a crushing sense of disappointment.
“Ryder?” I repeat, and my voice shakes. “What—how am I—why are you—”
“You took a nasty spill, Billie. I just—” He puts a hand on his chest. “I’m so relieved you’re conscious. Tell me what hurts.”
Ryder gets right to the heart of the matter. No preamble. No niceties.
I like that.
“Everything hurts when you fall from heaven,” I deadpan. It’s my way of dealing with the wash of embarrassment that moves through me. My first race and I fall off the damn horse? I’m better than that.
Apparently, though, I’m not.
He lets out a bark of laughter, and my chest lifts. “Aw, Billie Wallace, you’re many things, but an angel ain’t one of ’em. Now tell me what hurts.”
Is it wrong that I like it when he says my full name? When we were younger, he’d always make me feel like a whole person. A real human being, and not the perfect, well-behaved Barbie doll my parents wanted me to be.
He’s making me feel that way now.
He’s making me wish he would put his mouth on me again even though I can see my family hovering just a few feet away.
Never in a million years would Ryder ever date me. But that didn’t stop me from falling in love with him that night in the barn fourteen years ago, when he learned how to play my favorite song. My nightmares were so bad back then.
They still are, if I’m being honest.
Sometimes I wondered if ten-year-olds can even fall in love. But over the years, I’ve come to realize with deep certainty that you’re never too young to notice a kindred spirit.
Even if Colt wouldn’t murder us both if we ever got together, though, Ryder’s definitely not interested in me.
He’s always so…aloof when I’m around. Polite, yes.
But not at all the open-minded, curious boy I sat next to that night in the barn.
He changed after his parents died. Which I understand—who wouldn’t be traumatized by losing their parents so suddenly, so young?
—but I still miss who he was before the accident.
We’re friends now. But really, we’re more like acquaintances, which sucks. I see him around, but we never really hang out.
He runs with a…different crowd. Like his brothers, Ryder can get any girl he wants. And he does. No surprise there; he’s six-two, hot as fuck, smart, and super charming when he wants to be.
He’s a lady-killer, no two ways about it. I’m just one of his many victims.
I often fantasize about breaking through his carefully guarded walls, the ones he put up after his parents died. Walls that got even taller when Garrett Luck passed too.
When we were kids, he was more of a free spirit like me. But as we got older, that side of him went the way of his guitar: gone for good.
It’s not my place, though, to bring that side of him back, right? Ryder seems content enough. He has fun. He loves his family.
Yeah, it kills me to think he’ll never play another song again. Hard to forget how happy he looked with a guitar in his hands. Sometimes I worry he’s sleepwalking through life, surviving but not really enjoying much.
But we’re not kids anymore. And Ryder was never meant to be mine.
Two medics, a man and a woman, arrive. Ryder leans back just the tiniest bit to give them room, but he stays close enough that I can smell the aftershave on his skin.
Ironic, considering the guy definitely doesn’t shave.
But he always smells delicious, a combo of citrus and pine that’s somehow sexy and soothing at the same time.
“My elbow.” I bite back a howl when I try to lift my arm. “And my ribs. Mostly my pride, though. I was fast, right?”
The female medic is opening a package. “We’re going to perform a quick exam, so we can assess your injuries.”
Ryder’s eyes crinkle at the edges when he smiles. “Like a bat out of hell.”
Oh my God, oh my God, he’s being playful. Cute, even.
“More my speed. Pun intended.” I bite my lip when the medic touches my elbow.
“You’re funny,” Ryder says.
“You’re here.”
He blinks. “Well, yeah, I’m here. We all are.” He turns his head, and I see my brothers, plus Cash and Ava, standing nearby with tense expressions. “I couldn’t wait to watch you fall on your ass in front of five thousand people.”
I laugh, wincing when my ribcage lights up with pain. The man is making me hurt in every sense of the word tonight.
“That ain’t very gentlemanly of you.” Xander is standing over us, hands on his hips. There’s not a speck of dirt on his pristine chaps, and his expression…It’s blank.
Then again, his expression is always kind of blank. He’s not the most, ahem, charismatic guy. It’s why Xander’s not great boyfriend material.
He is, however, a sexy-ass bull riding star. He’s also really good in bed. Of course I’d love to meet “the one” and fall in love. But a girl has needs, and I figure there’s no harm in enjoying some hot sex while I wait for Prince Charming to show up.
Ryder’s brows snap together as he looks up at Xander. “Who are you?”
“A…friend.”
Ryder’s face is still inches from mine, like he’s worried I’ll pass out again and wants to be close enough to administer CPR a second time.
Not gonna lie, I wouldn’t hate it if that happened. Asphyxiation, even death, seems worth the risk if it means getting to kinda-sorta kiss Ryder again.
I’d die happy at the very least.
But seriously, I hope I don’t die. It hurts so much to breathe right now. I hear the faint sound of a siren that gets louder and louder with each passing heartbeat.
An ambulance.
Shit, this really is serious. As if being knocked unconscious from the force of a fall didn’t hammer that point home already.
Xander looms over us, but Ryder is down in the dirt with me. Not a care in the world for his clothes, and I know he’s wearing his nice clothes. All the cowboys wear their Sunday best when they come to the rodeo. It’s one of the few places they can meet new people.
By people, I mean girls.
The medic asks me if I can move my arm. I shout when I make the attempt, pain radiating up my forearm and into my fingers. They listen to my lungs with a stethoscope, and I watch the medics exchange a meaningful glance.
An icy wash of panic moves through me. Is something really wrong? What if I need surgery? Surgery requires needles, and I don’t like those.
A searing burn presses on the backs of my eyes.
Aw, shit, I’m gonna cry, aren’t I? Because I haven’t embarrassed myself enough tonight.
“I’m terrified of needles, y’all,” I manage. “Last time I got a flu shot, I legit passed out. Makes me a wimp, I know—”
“Not a wimp.” One of the medics, the man, smiles at me as a stretcher appears. “It’s much more common than you think.”
Despite the medics’ attempts to carefully load me onto the stretcher, I still whimper at the punch of pain I feel when my elbow meets with the hard plastic.
A warm, calloused hand slips around mine just as the first tear trails down my temple. My heart—my stomach—everything inside me flips when I see that it’s Ryder’s hand.
The panic I felt dissipates in the wake of a comforting warmth that floods my limbs despite the way my body jolts when the medics begin to push me toward the approaching ambulance.
“She’s gonna be okay,” Ryder says to the medics. It’s not a question. Not a guess. He says the words like he means them, like he’s just as sure they’re true as he is of the sun rising tomorrow morning and the morning after that.
The woman nods. “Yessir, she’ll be just fine. Ma’am, did you hear that? We’re going to do our best to make sure you’re comfortable, okay? The ambulance is here.”
“Okay.” I am okay as long as Ryder keeps holding my hand. I look at him. “Please stay. Can he come with me in the ambulance?” I ask the medics.