Chapter 3
Roman
We’re on the stairs leading up to my brother and sister’s condo when I grab Emily’s wrist and jerk her around, pushing her up against the wall. She’s grinning, starting to squirm, but I ain’t playin’.
“Easy, Cowboy. You want me to spread my legs right here, you only have to ask.”
I growl. “I need to hear it.”
“This again?” Her eyes turn serious and sad. She knows the darkness I carry inside me, the fear that I’m not good enough for her. Her hand slides down my arm, her fingers twisting with mine. “What happened to your mom was tragic, but it wasn’t your fault. You’re a good man. She would be proud.”
I blink back rage tears, tears of hatred for myself, the size I am, the things I’ve done. Carrying me for nine months turned out to be more than my mother’s body could take, and that’s a darkness inside me I’ll never shake.
“I’ve waited for you, Emily, when every bone in my body was screaming to marry you, fuck you, breed you, fuck you some more. I need to hear it.”
“You’re the only one for me, Saint Roman.”
It’s the name she teases me with. I’m many things, not all of them good, but I am a man with superhuman control.
Because somehow, I’ve refrained from fucking her every time she offers herself to me like a barely-legal honey trap.
But the way she says Saint Roman right now sounds more like awe than playfulness.
“I need to hear it, lil Kicker,” I say again, and my blood pressure only starts to come down when she says the words, her eyes wide and honest without a trace of a lie.
“I’ve waited for you, too. I’m still a virgin. There’s no other man for me, Roman, and there never will be.”
I breathe a sigh of relief, and release her wrist.
I know she’s had other offers. I mean, look at her. That fucking wavy auburn hair, those ice-blue eyes that send chills through me every time she looks my way. She’s five feet tall if she stands on tiptoes, like some little doll I could carry around in my fucking pocket. Curves to fucking die for.
There’s only one guy that ever said anything about her when I was around, and I gave him a dentist’s bill that he’s probably still paying off.
She reaches up and cups the side of my face. “Silly cowboy. Why would I ever look anywhere else?”
I hold her hand where it is, and she smiles as I study her beautiful face.
The freckles across the bridge of her nose, the scar through one eyebrow, the chipped tooth from where she took a fall barrel riding last year.
I hate that she got injured, but I secretly love knowing that she’s hellfire and whiskey.
I want to ride that lightning until my last breath.
Her dad, Decker, saw the way I was with her that day, how I wouldn’t let anyone else near her. She hated me fussing, told me it was all fine, but I was beside myself, ready to haul her out of there to the hospital, ready to tell her she’s never getting back in a saddle again.
I guess Decker recognized in me the same fire he has for May, his wife. I can still remember his words.
If anyone ever hurt my daughter, I’d kill them. You know that, right? Doesn’t matter if they’re family. They’d pay with their life.
I couldn’t even come back with a smart-ass comment, because I could see from the look on his face, he was dead serious. And I was too. I still am, and I always will be. That fire for his daughter is something both Decker and I share.
Before you go down that road, you better make sure you’re the right man for her.
Violence has its place, but all this using your fists to solve every problem, you can’t bring that to her door.
You man up, you start using your brains as well, because I know you have them, Roman.
Try to make it a year, just see if you can, and if not, maybe it’s time to walk away because you and I both know, Emily deserves more and I’ll fight to make sure she gets it. Even if it’s against you.
He was right. And in a couple of days I’ll have made it a whole year without throwing a single punch.
“Come on, cowboy. I have no idea what this is about, but Carrie’s gonna have a panic attack if whatever schedule she’s planned for us gets derailed more than ten minutes.
” Emily’s plump, round ass makes me groan as she turns and climbs the stairs to Casey and Carrie’s off-campus condo in front of me.
They’re the same age as us, almost right down to the month, but they both graduated high school two years early, and have been running rings around their professors ever since.
I raise my hand and land it with a loud smack on Emily’s left cheek, making her yelp, her hair flying in an arc as she turns her head to glare at me.
“Stop that. Your brother and sister do not want to see?—”
“Or experience in any way your familial sexual shenanigans.” My sister, Carrie, is standing at the top of the stairs, arms crossed, her blonde hair pulled back in a slick ponytail, looking down her perfectly-formed nose at us.
She looks so much like Mom, it’s uncanny.
She could be a model, but she’s more interested in the law.
“We accept that you two are soulmates and that you grind your genitals together ten times a day, yadda, yadda, but we, as your brother and sister,” she jabs her index finger at me with a disgusted pinching of her face then turns her attention on Emily, “and your cousins, do not want to bear witness to any of it. Got it?”
She winks at Emily, as I, as any self-respecting big brother would do, ignore her and slap Emily again on her butt, eliciting a frustrated grunt from Carrie and an open-mouthed chuckle from Casey, who has appeared in the doorway of the condo, all dark hair and thick muscle under a crisp white t-shirt.
We always tease them that he took up three-quarters of Leah’s womb, leaving Carrie squeezed over into one tiny corner for nine months. But when it comes to being open about our secret, they are our one safe place, and I’m thankful, even if we do all drive each other crazy.
But that’s what siblings…cousins…family does.
Inside there’s the usual shit talk from me and my brother, but there’s a new, excited tense energy humming.
His text gave me some of the details on a deal he has brewing, and if it comes together, I’ll have money of my own.
May and Leah, our moms, inherited a fortune from their dad’s somewhat shady business dealings back in the day, and Emily has a trust fund that would make your eyes water, but that’s their money.
Allister and Leah have said they’ll set up the same for me, as they have done for Casey and Carrie. But I won’t allow it. To me, a man provides for his family. That’s just the way it is. I won’t live off Emily’s fortune or rely on some inheritance I didn’t earn.
But this deal? It could put me square in the same bank account ball park and set us up for the life Emily is accustomed to and deserves.
The other obstacle, this be a stand-up citizen for a year deal with Decker, is also in its last days. And once I get beyond that… I’ll be making Emily Mrs. Roman Marshall, and my dick will finally be home. My woman will be officially mine, and it will be baby making time.
I envision how beautiful her pussy will look all cream-pied, with my seed dripping out of that soft, wet, pink hole… And, fuck... I nearly nut right there.
And that’s just the beginning.
Some truly sick thoughts plague me constantly about what I want to do to my sweet girl. How I want to ruin her and make her know what it means to be mine. But, God, I love her, and somehow in my head, that makes me want to do ten kinds of depraved things to her body.
My very first memory in this life is of her.
It’s vague and dreamlike, as memories from that far back are I suppose. She’s crawling on the grass outside the big red barn at the house my parents bought in Montana after we all left the city.
Both families left together, because Aunt May and Leah could never imagine being more than a few yards apart. They bought a thousand-acre ranch and split it between them.
I must have been a little over three years old because that was when Leah and Allister adopted me. I remember Emily’s cherub face and her arms wide, toddling my way. It’s a flash, a moment, but the look on her face is etched in my mind for all time.
Those pale blue eyes, that mouth in a perfect chubby-cheeked smile, working herself my way as if to say… I’m yours. You just don’t know it yet.
And she is. Always has been.
“Okay, assholes.” Casey smacks his hands together in front of him. “Carrie has the next ten hours scheduled out minute by minute, so keep quiet and I’ll explain everything…”
“Dude, I know all about it,” I deadpan, and Casey chuckles while Carrie rolls her eyes.
“It’s a surprise for her.” He points at Emily. “And I like making speeches, so...”
He shrugs as Emily wriggles into the brown leather couch beside me, tucking her legs up underneath her as she gives Casey all her attention. This is why he likes her so much, she’s always the perfect audience.
“Drum roll, if you please, Miss Marshall.” He bobs his eyebrows at his twin sister.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” she replies. “They’ve made an app, Emily. There. Can I tell them about the contract now?”
“No! Ugh, it’s my speech, sis.” Casey looks genuinely put out that she’s stolen his thunder. He doesn’t let it slow him down, though. “Okay, so as you all know, our little brother has been soft banned from bull riding. Nothing official, which is total bullshit, but nobody wants to listen.”
I nod, but don’t elaborate.
He’s right that the whole thing is bullshit. No criminal charges were ever filed, because the “evidence” was fucking thin: they found a syringe of Xylazine in my locker, and some lying piece of shit said they saw me near the bull pen before the contest.
It wouldn’t have even gone anywhere, except I’d already had a run-in that same day with Colt Ryder, the son of some shit-hot rodeo star from back in the day.
I overheard Colt after Emily’s barrel run, laughing about how he wouldn’t mind riding her, and I just saw red.
Ended up, I knocked out his teeth and scratched him from the draw for the next month.
I can’t prove it, but I swear to God either Colt, or his dad, Buck, planted that dope in my locker.
Doesn’t make a blind bit of difference. Sponsors don’t want to know you once there’s even a hint of cheating. Contractors refuse to work with you. Rodeo committees stop inviting you. My career ended that day, and I don’t even get a right to defend myself.
I needed a new direction, because I had to get money from somewhere.
Casey and I have been making apps long before vibe coding. And we put together something I knew and people can’t resist.
Rodeo and gambling.
It’s been out a little over eighteen months and it’s blown up like a sex doll at a bachelor party.
We kept it under the radar since neither of us were eighteen when we launched it but as soon as we became legal, we started replying to emails and vetting investors and we nailed down an offer that is sweet as baby back ribs.
“Okay, so what do you get when you think of rodeo and casinos…” Casey pauses for dramatic effect. “BuckTrack! That’s what.”
“BuckTrack?” Emily is leaning forward now. She loves when Casey starts getting animated about his ideas. “What does it do?”
“I’m glad you asked, little cousin! Until BuckTrack, rodeo betting has largely been based on reputation and gut feeling. But not anymore! Our app crunches huge amounts of data to generate probability models and predictive ratings.”
“Like people betting on me winning a barrel race?”
“Yeah, I mean, they can’t actually place bets on our app at the moment, obviously. We’re charging a couple of bucks for the download, and it just gives you the numbers. Your ranking on BuckTrack is pretty good, by the way, even though you’re not pro yet.”
Emily grins. “So it works then.”
“Sure does. It works well enough that we’ve got a deal. A new investor from some big gambling conglomerate, which is fucking awesome. They have the gambling licenses, and if you can actually place bets?—”
“Then BuckTrack is a money printing machine.”
“And that’s where my schedule comes in,” Carrie says, checking her phone. “And we’re already running behind. Argh. Look, we had a call. Well, Casey did. This is real, people. The investor wants to meet with his representative. Today! We gotta go.”
I’m shaking my head already. “We can’t. We need a contract, we need to know the value of what we’re selling. Carrie?—”
“All taken care of, courtesy of your favorite sister.” She points at herself. “I’ve done the math, I’ve reviewed the preliminary contract they emailed Casey and I’ve arranged for the whole deal to go down in Wyoming, where our investor, Mr. Emmett Smith, is based.”
“I have a race in Wyoming, day after tomorrow,” Emily says.
Carrie nods. “Exactly. I thought we could all head there tonight. I’ve already spoken to Mom and Dad, and they’re cool with it so long as we’re all together.
They don’t know why we’re going there, but your barrel race is the perfect excuse.
Nobody’s questioning us wanting a bit of a road trip and a night with just the four of us. ”
“Wait… Wyoming.” The wheels are turning inside my head.
I’m piecing things together and wondering about stars aligning and fate intervening. Not for the first time. Because how can this be a coincidence?
Everyone’s looking at me, wondering what I’m thinking. And so I just blurt it out. “Wyoming has same-day marriage licenses.”