Chapter 8
STEVIE
Stevie knew from Yolly’s death that twenty minutes could feel like seven hours, that it could tick on endlessly. Interminably. But she would never have thought just sitting next to a man – smooshed against him really – could feel similar.
In a heart-stopping, breathless kind of way.
She was hyperaware of him. Every inhalation, every shift in his seat, every bob of his throat.
Of his long, tanned fingers wrapped around the wheel, the heat of his bicep as it brushed against her and the torturously delicious rub of rough blue denim against her bare thigh, making her wish she’d worn something longer, thicker.
Layers. She should have worn layers.
A country station was playing music turned down low and Mags had filled the time from the bar to the ranch with inane chatter that Stevie wasn’t really following.
Not when her body tingled with every bump and rut of the dirt road they’d turned onto from the highway a few minutes ago, jostling her body against his, creating a delicious kind of friction that tightened her nipples and burrowed right between her legs.
Stevie clamped her thighs together to ease the torment as they drove through the wrought-iron arch of the ranch gates and wished she could palm her breasts to relieve the ache from her tightly puckered nipples.
A twisted kind of frustration simmered beneath her skin.
Skin that was not used to this kind of proximity with any man, let alone one who made her dizzy from just one look.
Lordy, was it possible to orgasm from the corrugations of a dirt road?
‘We should do that again,’ Mags mused to no one in particular as they crested a rise in the road and the twinkle of lights up ahead in the moonless landscape signalled the start of the ranch buildings.
Clay snorted at his sister’s bravado, his voice a low rumble grating like fine sandpaper against all her erogenous zones.
Zones she was only just discovering could be erogenous.
Like the outsides of her thighs, her kneecaps, the tips of her shoulders, the centre of her spine and the delicate, blue-veined skin of her inner wrist.
Zones she somehow inherently knew could only be appeased by the firm, knowing caresses of the man responsible for said torment.
‘Why don’t you wait and see how you’re feeling tomorrow before you line up your next night out.’
‘Oh, here he is,’ she said, rolling her eyes. ‘The fun police.’
Stevie smiled at the affectionate banter between the siblings temporarily short-circuiting the sexual uproar of her body. Their relationship reminded her of the one she and Yolly had enjoyed. Actually… Mags reminded her a lot of Yolly. Confident, sassy, spoke her own mind and knew her own worth.
And didn’t take anyone’s crap.
She’d been an excellent teacher this past week, too.
Sure, she wasn’t Clay but that was the whole point.
And while Mags – short for Magnolia, apparently – could hold her own in sparring with the cowboys on the ranch and refusing to be dismissed in a very male-orientated world, it was clear she took the business side of the ranch and teaching Stevie how to ride, very seriously.
Stevie had lost count of the number of times Mags had pulled her up on her posture and her seat as they’d ridden endlessly around the ring. But she’d promised Stevie that she’d have her looking like she was born in a saddle, and Stevie believed her 100 per cent.
It took another minute for the pickup to reach the main ranch house where Clay stopped the car but kept the engine running. ‘This is your stop, Mags.’
Unbuckling, Mags thanked her brother and jumped to the ground. Stevie barely waited for Mags to vacate the vehicle before she swooshed herself across the bench seat to follow her out.
Mags turned to face Stevie, unwittingly blocking her exit. ‘See you tomorrow morning? Maybe we make it a little later though given it’s the weekend.’
‘Sure.’ She nodded as she prepared to step out of the vehicle. ‘I’ll just get out here and walk, it’s only about five minutes.’
Mags frowned and shook her head, but it was Clay who spoke.
‘I’m sure it is in the day but it’s dark out and the moon isn’t up yet, and I have to pass your cabin to get to mine.
The last thing we want is Miss Stephanie Everhart tripping over a rock and landing on her face or getting bit by a snake or attacked by a bear. ’
Stevie blinked. She figured there were probably snakes out there somewhere, but bears? ‘You have bears?’
‘Yup.’ Mags nodded.
She peered out the windscreen into the vast expanse of inky blackness.
The only light beyond the ring of farm buildings was the diamante sparkle of stars.
Who knew what hid in the camouflage of night.
Still, Stevie seriously weighed up her risks between a bear and this man because they were both dangerous in their own ways.
No, Clay couldn’t slash her to death with his claws, but he could lacerate her already bruised heart if she wasn’t careful. It wouldn’t be fatal but it might feel like it for a while.
‘Fine.’ She huffed out a breath as she reached for her seat belt and clicked it in.
Mags shut the door with a grin and said, ‘Y’all be good now,’ before heading to the ranch house.
Clay didn’t say anything, just took his foot off the brake and set the pickup in motion.
They drove in silence for a minute, which crackled ominously, like the charge in the atmosphere before a storm broke.
When Stevie could take the tension no longer she glanced across at him, noting the gleaming white of his knuckles in the dark of the cab as his fingers wrapped and unwrapped from the wheel.
Imagined those fingers cuffing her throat like she’d read in a book once, the hero kissing the heroine hard and deep as his fingers lightly squeezed.
Stevie blinked at the XXX-rated image – what on earth was wrong with her?
Banishing it from her head, she cleared her throat. ‘Are there really bears?’
‘Yes.’ He nodded but didn’t look at her, concentrating on the track ahead, his headlights punching into the night, illuminating their path.
He was going slowly, taking the bumpy track at a relaxed pace, causing the cab to rock a little.
‘We’ve never had an attack or even a close encounter. But you want to take that risk?’
‘No, I guess not.’
He didn’t respond, just kept his eyes trained firmly on the terrain outside the windscreen, but now it was broken, Stevie couldn’t countenance more silence.
‘Those pictures on the wall. At The Corral. They were you?’
Yeah, she’d googled him. Even watched a few videos of him on the backs of wild, bucking broncos, hand in the air, steady and composed like he’d been with Electra. Watching him being tossed on his ass, her heart in her mouth.
She’d scrolled through a plethora of photographs, both official – on his Insta account – and very unofficial from appreciative women (mostly) who’d snapped a sneaky candid shot when he hadn’t been looking.
She’d also found out all his vital career stats, going down internet rabbit holes about scoring and judging, sponsorship deals and trophies, buckles and prize money as well as his injury count.
From minor things through to his career-ending back fractures. There was a video of that, too, but she hadn’t wanted to watch.
‘Yes.’
‘They’re… amazing.’ It was such an insipid word to use for photographs that had captured the essence of Clay the rodeo star, Clay the cowboy.
Everything from the sweat spraying from his forehead to the muscular cording of his forearms, to the fringes on his chaps flying out horizontally, to the horse as its hind legs kicked out two foot off the ground.
‘You’re amazing,’ she corrected. ‘All those buckles and trophies and sponsorships.’
His jaw tightened. ‘Mags’s too chatty for her own good.’
‘Oh no, it wasn’t… I… googled you.’
That got his attention, his head snapping to the right, his eyes meeting hers, lightning in whisky flaring out at her across the bench seat.
‘Do you miss it?’
He didn’t say anything for several beats as he returned his attention to the track and when he did it was a low mutter. ‘Only every damn day.’
The regret, the yearning, the thwarted ambition in his voice ruffled the fine hairs on her nape and Stevie didn’t know what to say to make it better for him, surprised by how much she wanted to.
But, as if he’d already said too much, he changed the subject. ‘Did you enjoy tonight?’
It was a perfectly appropriate question to ask someone at the end of an evening of fun and frivolity, but also innocuous. A nothing kind of question. A time waster. Like he wasn’t particularly interested in the answer, and she wanted him to be interested.
In it – in her.
‘Sure.’
He chuckled and Stevie startled at the low, rich sound pouring liquid heat over her skin. ‘Doesn’t sound like it.’
‘Oh, no… sorry. I didn’t mean…’ She’d merely given him the inane disinterested reply she’d figured he was expecting, but she didn’t want him to think that she hadn’t had a good time because she had – despite her hyperawareness of him preventing her from being able to fully sink into the conversations.
‘It’s the first time in a few years I’ve hung out with people who haven’t quizzed me about my music career.
It was nice not to have to be on my guard the whole time. ’
Up ahead, the headlights flashed across the side of the cabin Stevie and her mom were occupying. There were no lights on inside, which wasn’t surprising. Her mother was rarely awake after nine.
‘We tend to mind our own business out here.’
It was Stevie’s turn to laugh. ‘And I thank you for it.’
‘You don’t like to talk about your music?’
‘Not with people I don’t really know. Even talking to journalists feels like… I don’t know.’ She shrugged. ‘An invasion of my privacy.’
‘Yeah, that can be pretty intense.’