CHAPTER 2
COWBOY
The bathroom light illuminates the pink tinge on my cock from her innocence.
I want to thump my chest in victory. I’m going to be her first and her last. I wipe the blood off and throw the tissue away before starting the shower.
Looking in the mirror, I notice her nail marks on my sides and twist to find them on my back too.
Fucking perfect. My little nymph marked me just like I did her.
I bet she doesn’t realize that while I sniffed her neck and memorized the smell of her, I gave her a hickey.
When we got to my room, I planned to sit down and talk to her. To get to know her before ravaging her. But I couldn’t stop myself.
“What the fuck was I thinking?” I shake my head as I stare in the mirror.
Something out of the corner of my eye catches my attention.
I glance over my shoulder but see nothing.
The bathroom is starting to fill with steam.
It’s time to tell my little nymph what her new life is going to be like.
She allowed me into that sweet cunt, and I’m going to take over her life.
I need to show her she’s more important to me than just sex.
Stepping out of the small bathroom, I turn to the bedroom and see the empty bed. My head whips around. The room is too small for her to hide, but I don’t see her anywhere. That’s when I notice her clothes are gone. Nothing of her remains except her shredded thong under the edge of my bed.
“Fucking A.”
I grab my jeans and slip them on. My T-shirt is missing. I don’t bother looking for it. Instead, I rush out to the main room. I told her not to go anywhere without me because she wasn’t ready for my cut. I pray no brother grabbed her, or I’ll have to kill them.
“Hey, slow down,” Frost barks as I rush past him.
I reach the front door where Grim is still standing guard.
“Where did she go?”
“Who?” he asks.
I grab hold of the big guy and slam him into the wall, not caring that he could break me in half if he wanted to.
“Andi. The girl I came in with. Why did you let her leave?”
He breaks my hold on his shirt. “I didn’t fucking let her out this way.”
“Oh fuck, Cowboy, did you bring Andi back here?” Jumper walks up, shaking his head. “Dude, Striker is going to kill you.”
“Why would he care? Where did she go? Did someone else take her to their room?”
“No girl came through this way.”
“Shit! She went out the side door.” I slip my hand into my pocket for my phone, then realize I never got her number.
“Isn’t she Striker’s family?” Grim asks Jumper.
I turn to look at him as he nods. Shit. Striker said his wife’s cousin was a rodeo girl. I didn’t put two and two together. Fuck, I’m dead. He said if anyone touched her, he’d kill them.
“Oh shit, she isn’t,” I deny it. Then I remember Striker trying to talk to me at the Roadhouse earlier. “Oh fuck… she is.”
The guys laugh and slap me on the back.
“You’re fucked,” Frost says, overhearing our conversation.
“Would she go to their house? Is that where she’s staying? Or at the Roadhouse apartment?”
“No, she was offered that.” Frost saves me from my questions. “But Alessa moved in there instead. Something about she had to get out of where she was staying.”
Frost has had his eye on Amelia’s head chef, Alessa, for months now. But she won’t give him the time of day. She brushes him off and threatens to cut off his balls before letting him touch her.
Butcher walks up. “Are you all discussing Striker’s little cousin, Andrea?”
“Yeah. How do you know her?”
He better not have his eye on her. I took her bare. She’s mine. Just the thought of her possibly carrying my kid already makes my knees weak. I never thought I would have children after everything that went down with my family, but now I want that with her. I’ll do anything to make it come true.
“I know her.” Butcher’s lip tips up slightly in one corner.
He doesn’t smile. The fucker is a trained assassin with an organization called the Association. He doesn’t do soft and sweet. He’s the complete opposite of my Andi.
“She’s fucking mine,” I growl and make a move for him.
A gun is in my face before I can reach him. All the guys around us go from joking to serious in an instant.
“Back the fuck up, Cowboy. I will drop you. You know I will. Striker asked me to check out her place, see how secure it was. That’s it. I’m not interested in her. For fuck’s sake, what woman would want anything to do with a killer like me?”
“Why don’t you find her attractive? She’s perfect. Sexy, beautiful, and so sweet.” I defend her.
Butcher holsters his gun in the back of his cargo pants and tips his head. “You trying to convince me to go out with her or turn me off?”
I shake my head, trying to rattle my brain back into place. “Neither. Where is she staying?”
“Nope.” He smirks and turns away from me. I’m about to yank him back when he faces me again. “Check campus. I won’t tell you more. If she means that much, you’ll find her.” He walks away.
“Cowboy, you can’t be serious. You know the rules. She’s like a princess. Striker will kill you. She’s like Lia’s little sister,” Jumper adds.
“Too late. She’s mine now. I’ll go ask Striker where I can find her.”
Jumper looks at his watch. “Not at this hour. It’s almost two in the morning. He’ll shoot first and ask questions later.”
“Son of a bitch.”
I return to my room and slam the door. I jump in the shower, hating that I’m washing her off me, but I won’t get any sleep if I don’t.
I can’t believe I didn’t get her number, or that I let her escape me.
Didn’t I tell her she was mine now? I replay everything in my head and realize I didn’t do anything but grunt at her and demand shit.
I’m royally fucked.
Andi
The next morning, I’m so sore down there. Every time I move, I feel him.
I make it to the veterinary surgical nursing lab and slide into my seat beside Lennox. She eyes me and leans in close.
“You have a hickey on your neck.”
I slap a hand over the mark. I saw it last night when I got back to my dorm, but this morning it completely slipped my mind.
I was running late. I just jumped out of bed, threw on a T-shirt, jeans, and a denim jacket.
I barely turned on the bathroom light to brush my teeth, wash my face, and pile my hair into a messy bun before grabbing my stuff and bolting out the door.
“I know.”
“I want details after class.” She smirks.
I met Lennox in August when I moved here.
She was new to the area too and doesn’t talk much about her past. We both love animals, but she wants to get her veterinary medicine degree, while I’m focused on my veterinary nursing diploma.
I earned my associate’s in veterinary technology at Purdue and transferred my credits here to finish my bachelor’s degree.
Lennox has dark brown, almost black hair that falls to her mid-back, dark brown eyes, and a huge smile.
She’s twenty-one and has taken me under her wing.
We had talked about getting a room together this semester, but my mom and stepdad thought it would be better for me to keep my private dorm room in case we didn’t get along.
I couldn’t stay at home anymore. My mother and grandmother asked me every day if I was ready to practice.
They’d bug me about needing points or I wouldn’t be able to make it back to the championship.
I tried to tell them I couldn’t do it, but every time they just said I needed to get back on the horse and I’d feel better.
Lennox knows I don’t want to barrel race anymore, and she doesn’t judge me for it.
She doesn’t call me a quitter and say I’m being childish.
Every time I think about getting back on Raine or any horse, I see Raine’s hoof coming for my face.
I see her kicking me as her body went over the top of me.
Truth be told, I never even wanted to be a barrel racer.
I got into it because my mom was so heartbroken over my father’s death at the time, and I didn’t want to rock the boat.
By the time she got with Jon, it was too late to walk away.
Everyone was so proud of me. Aunt Hailey is the only person who listens.
I made her swear she wouldn’t tell Uncle Ethan, her husband, that I hated it.
Ethan barely left Forging Forbes Ranch with his sanity. I’m struggling myself. Being a Forbes means you either raise horses or race them. I don’t want to do either. I want to take care of them and other large animals.
Ty, my best friend since diapers, is studying animal therapy. He and his brother are working with Raine on their farm in Oklahoma.
When I was back in Indiana, I was seeing a psychologist, but I stopped when I moved here.
She treated me after my father died, but I didn’t feel like she could connect to me as an adult.
My mother and grandmother had insisted I go see her, though.
She only made things worse. I felt like she was on their side about riding and racing.
They thought she could make me get back on a horse.
I know I need to see someone soon here because my nightmares have returned, and I’m barely sleeping.
I was going to talk to Lia last night to see if she had any suggestions, but things didn’t go as planned.
I know she and Striker have been in therapy since her father attacked her months ago.
Maybe she’ll have some recommendations. I can talk to her at my hair appointment this afternoon.
Part of me wants to cancel going to the baby shower tomorrow because it’s at the clubhouse I ran from last night.
Ugh, my life is becoming way more complicated than I wanted it to be.
When I moved here, I just wanted to finish my degree and then decide where to live.
I don’t want to go back to the ranch. Hailey has offered to hire me, but that’s too close to my mother.
Ty wants me to move to Oklahoma and help on their ranch, but I’m not sure I want that either.