Chapter 26
RILEY
P eering in the diamond shaped window of the black door, he found a full house inside the weathered tavern.
Pulling the antler handle, he crossed the threshold and scanned the scene.
The dance floor was at capacity with line dancers, the house band captivating its audience.
Moving past them, he headed towards the back corner of the place where a cluster of tables sat around a pool table. And at one of those tables sat Jules.
She straightened as he approached, that stunning blue flame of her gaze consuming all the oxygen in the room.
“Hi, Sundance.” Her voice was a sweet melody to his ears. Three days had been too long without hearing it.
“Hi, wild thing,” he rumbled, reaching her and taking her chin in his hand. She tilted up to face him, rolling her head into his embrace as his hand snaked up her jaw line and fingers tangled in her hair.
He leaned down, his other hand coming to rest on the table beside them. Slowly, unabashedly, his attention trailed over her. He took in those sinful red lips, the way her tight little tank top accentuated her chest, and the short, black denim skirt that hugged her hips.
“How was camp?” she murmured, her hand coming up to close around his forearm.
“I prefer having you in the bedroll with me.”
“I prefer that too.”
Tipping his lips closer to hers, he said, “I was thinking about things, and I wanted to run something by you.” He would start with the idea for the wild horse rehab center. Then maybe they could talk about what it meant for them if she agreed to stay.
Jules’s smile started to pull wider until her eyes flitted over his shoulder. She dropped her hand and veered back just a fraction. But it was enough. He got the message. Nothing changed after their romp in the tack room, after all.
He slid into the chair beside her just as Cooper and Maddie appeared. An amber bottle was deposited before him as they took seats as well.
“Started a tab for you with Waylon. This round was on you,” Cooper told him with a crooked grin.
The chuckle that escaped Riley helped ease some of the tension tugging at his chest. He could do this. He could hang out with their friends and keep his hands off her. Even if what he wanted was to throw her over his shoulder and take her home.
Riley always imagined himself to be a patient guy. Jules had him questioning that.
Across from him, Maddie and Jules were huddled together, conspiring. “We want to dance,” Maddie informed them as the girls rose from their seats.
He raised an eyebrow in the direction of Jules, unsure if that was an invitation. She threw her arm over the other girl. “We’ll be back,” she responded to his silent question.
Leaning back in his chair, he crossed his ankle over his knee and watched them jump into a watermelon crawl already in progress.
“ So , what did I walk in on with you two the other day?” Coop asked, settling in himself.
“Do I have to explain what happens when a man—” Riley started through a smirk as his friend’s scoff cut him off.
After another long drink, he shrugged and answered honestly. “I don’t know. There’s clearly something there. But she’s not sticking around and doesn’t want anyone to think she’s just in town to hook up.”
“Why would any of us give a shit about what she does with her free time ‘round here?”
“It’s her rule for traveling,” Riley answered, a knot twisting in his gut at the idea of her in this situation somewhere else. He knew it wasn’t the case. What was happening between them now was real. The question was—how could he convince Jules of that?
“From what I saw, you’re already breaking that rule.” Cooper tilted his head, as if taunting Riley to challenge him.
“Doesn’t matter.” He slammed his empty bottle down on the table harder than intended. “I don’t want what I can’t keep.”
“I call bullshit on that.” His friend laughed.
Riley watched the object of his affection swinging her hips in perfect time with the music. Her long, strawberry blonde hair dancing around her as she moved. “I don’t,” he replied, never taking his eyes off her. “Until she comes around. Then all my resolve goes right out the window.”
The song rolled into another. Then another. And Maddie and Jules remained on the dance floor. It was fine, he was happy to hang out with Coop while they had their time.
He watched the two women fall together with broad smiles. Jules laughed with her friend, her hand on her arm and their heads pressed together.
He watched as a guy he knew from the rodeo circuit walked up to her.
Knox. A guy he previously considered a friend.
His jaw felt as if it was going to snap as he saw Jules turn towards the bull rider. Knox leaned in close to whisper in her ear. It felt unnecessary, considering the band was between songs while the lead singer was at the bar.
Legs itching to rise and move to her side, Riley forced himself to remain rooted in place. He closed a tight fist around the empty beer bottle in front of him, desperate for something to do. Something other than watching another guy try to win his Jules over.
Rule be damned—she was his.
And it was high time he stopped sitting back while she tried to deny it. Riley had never been one to get sidelined by fear. And he was prepared to be hurt by her if that’s what it came to.
“Yeah, you seem fine with another guy hitting on her.” With a smirk that was fighting to be a full-blown grin, Cooper added, “But hey, what do I know? Nothing. Everyone will tell you that.”
Despite being a few years into his twenties now, he still acted like the kid on the team.
He managed to flit in and out of things on a whim, feigning youth when necessary.
But as a foster kid who ended up with Brett and Grey as surrogate brothers, Riley imagined it would have been hard for him to act any other way. Talk about impossible boots to fill.
He tore his gaze away from where Jules and Maddie were still talking with Knox to assess his friend. Cooper’s shoulders were stiff as he avoided eye contact.
Everyone will tell you that .
“Well, Coop. You’re right this time.” Riley shoved his chair back and stood as Jules and Maddie moved back towards the table—sans Knox. In only a few strides, he closed the distance between them.
“Jules, can I borrow you for a second?” he asked, trying his damndest to keep his voice relaxed. It seemed calm enough that Maddie continued on to sit with Cooper, undisturbed by his sudden request. Jules wasn’t as convinced. She raised her eyebrows at him, studying his expression.
“Of course,” she replied after a moment, curiosity flashing across her expression.
Reaching out, she took his hand in hers and pulled him along as she weaved through the crowd. Where she was leading him, he didn’t care. He was just happy to be the one walking away with her.
Crossing in front of the bar, they ducked into the alcove that led to a set of staff only doors. Reaching her intended destination, she leaned back against the wall and blinked up at him innocently. “You needed something?”
“What made you think we needed a dark corner for this?” he challenged, stepping into her space and planting a palm on the wall beside her head. His other hand dropped to her waist, his thumb dragging along her hip bone.
“You have that look in your eyes, one you don’t get often,” she admitted. “But when you do, it usually leads to us needing privacy.”
Heat crept through him, like a spider web with each strand slowly igniting. He wasn’t sure what look she had come to recognize. Hunger for her touch, maybe.
Desire.
But mostly it was possessiveness grating on him tonight. After three days apart she easily put space between them then drifted off to flirt with another man. He wasn’t finding it easy to ignore like most things.
“I was under the impression that you weren’t planning on having any private moments with me tonight. Although, you did seem okay being seen cozied up to Knox.”
A wicked grin split across her face. It wasn’t at all the response he expected, and it was dangerously taunting. “Why, Sundance, are you telling me you’re jealous?” she purred, dancing her fingers up his abdomen before laying her hands to rest on his chest.
He pressed in closer, his hips pining her in place.
“Talk to me in a dark corner, say you need it to be a secret, that you need time—that’s fine.
Just don’t turn around and flirt with someone else out there.
” He jutted his chin back towards the lively dance floor.
“And if you leave this bar with a guy tonight, it’ll be me. ”
He would be lying if he said he wasn’t aroused by sneaking away like this. But he was tired of sneaking around in general. Tired of lying to their friends, but also tired of lying to themselves. This secret was simply an excuse to not admit what was happening between them.
“That didn’t answer my question,” she challenged.
She was always challenging him, bringing his spirit back from where it was stamped into the dirt under the hooves of a bronco.
“Yes, wild thing. I am jealous. And I didn’t come here tonight to watch you flirt with my friends and play games.
Maybe if you stopped looking for things to put between us, you’d see that you don’t need the games.
Because I know how good I make you feel.
No one here could make you feel better. No one anywhere could. ”
A soft oh escaped her lips. Her eyes were wide and brimming with desire. She couldn’t hide her true feelings from him, not even that first night.
She slid her hands higher until one grasped at the back of his neck and the other tangled in the chain that hung beneath his collar. “You’re that sure?” she whispered, her voice now lacking her familiar fire.
He dropped his mouth to her neck. His teeth grazing silken skin as he murmured, “There’s not a night that goes by where I don’t remember the way you moaned my name—over, and over, and over again in that hotel room.
The way you begged me for more until you were so thoroughly fucked you couldn’t form a coherent word. ”
As he recounted her enthusiastic responses, the memory persisted in his mind—Jules lying on her back, her fingers tangled in his hair as he feasted between her legs.
Jules riding him, her head thrown back in ecstasy.
Jules on her knees, hands clinging to the headboard as he thrusted into her from behind.
“Then why don’t you remind me?”
Just like that, he was back in the present. Her head was tipped back, extending the line of her neck for him, her eyes staring down to where his mouth moved over her. “If you’re that good, you could get the job done in a bathroom stall.”
At her suggestion, he nipped on the sensitive space below her ear, Jules shuttering as a whimper of desire escaped her.
He worked his mouth, sucking and biting in just the right spot—proving further that he knew her.
Pulling back, he replied, “You’re not the only one that had the best night of their life in that Texas hotel room. Not the only one feeling these things now. If we’re doing this, it’ll be because you’ve decided to stop the games and the secrets and retire your rule. Specifically, for me.”
Then he brushed a delicate kiss over the fresh bite mark already blossoming on her soft skin and released his hand from her waist. “I’m crazy about you, Juliette. I just want to make you happy.”
Without allowing himself to linger in her intoxicating presence, he turned and walked back out of the alcove. Heading straight for the bar. He’d need something stronger than beer tonight.
“Hey, how’s life?” Knox appeared at his side as Riley leaned his elbows onto the bar.
The rodeo cowboy was the last person he wanted to see right now.
The guy wasn’t to blame, not really. Riley couldn’t fault him for approaching an attractive woman that gave no appearance of being taken.
Yet he still couldn’t find himself to be overly sunny with his old friend.
“Can’t complain,” he answered neutrally, still working to settle himself after Jules’s tempting offer to get off in the bathroom stall.
“I was talking to your girl?—”
He straightened in surprise. “Talking to who?”
“Jules? At least, I assumed pretty quickly that she was with you. I tried to buy her a drink, but as soon as I introduced myself and mentioned I was passing through town while between rodeos, she got all excited to ask if I knew you.”
Well, fuck. He clearly just made a total ass of himself getting jealous like that. Riley glanced over to the alcove where he had left her.
It was fine. He meant what he said—about wanting to move forward together. Even if the thing that prompted his speech was a misunderstanding.
“Right,” he cleared his throat as he watched her appear around the corner and approach them. She slowed her stride down long enough to blow him a kiss but continued past the bar to rejoin Maddie and Cooper.
Did that kiss just mean something?
Keeping his sights on Jules, he asked his friend, “How is the season going?”
Knox began to reply enthusiastically, but all Riley could focus on was the sensuous way Jules licked the salt off her hand and threw back a shot while maintaining eye contact with him. She was either doubling down with the games, or he wasn’t the only one aroused by their little moment.
He hoped it was the latter.