Page 67 of Truth or Dare

Angel winced.

“Wasn’t the upcoming seven-year itch, either. Found out later that she cheated a lot. She tried to get me to forgive her. Wasn’t happening. I also found out a few months after we split that she’d had an abortion. Don’t know if it was mine or not. Maybe she didn’t know either. Guess I’ll never know.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s done. I haven’t laid eyes on her in almost three years, since a few weeks after we split. I have no desire to talk to her, so I got us outta there. Let’s go feed some ducks.”

I grabbed the doggie bag and got out of the car and rounded it in time to catch her hand as she closed her door.

She had childlike wonder on her face as she fed the ducks and then I realized it wasn’t just the ducks she was looking at, it was the horses on the other side of the fence along the park’s border. I leaned back on an elbow in the grass and lit a smoke and watched her as she talked to the ducks she fed, telling one it was being too greedy and telling another to hurry up and “get in there”. Then seagulls came and chased the ducks away and she seemed to get off on feeding them, too.

It didn’t take long for her to run out of pancakes and when she sat beside me on the grass I stubbed the cigarette out and put my arm around her and we stared out at the pond in silence for a bit.

I was lost in thought but then noticed she was again watching the stables next door to the park. A girl was riding a horse and it was at full gallop going around a track.

“Like horses?” I asked her.

She nodded and got a little mischievous smile on her face. I felt a pang as that expression made me think of her driver’s license photo. I watched her for a second, hoping she’d reveal something.

“We had horses,” she finally said.

“We?”

“My dad and I. We had two.”

“So you can ride?”

“Oh, I can ride.”

My pants tightened. “You sure can…” I whispered in her ear.

She flushed but her eyes heated. Then she threw me for a loop. She said, “I…uh…won a few riding awards. For riding horses and uh, riding…um…mechanical bulls.”

I just about tripped over my tongue. “You’re shitting me.”

She got pinker in the cheeks, chewed her lower lip as if pondering something, and then gave her head a shake and said, “Can I see your phone? I don’t know if it’s still there but…can I?”

I passed her my phone and she opened the YouTube app and typed in “Juneau Ace Roadhouse bikini mechanical bull winner.”

She certainly had my attention.

She scrolled through a few recent videos and then tapped the screen on one from a couple years ago. I moved closer to her and cupped my hand above the phone to block the sun and get a better view.

It was a loud and crowded bar and the camera zoomed in on the bull and a girl got on. It was her. The filming quality wasn’t great, but I knew it was her instantly. She was in cut-off jean shorts so short they were practically bikini bottoms and a red bikini top and had bare feet and her hair in ringlets. She had heavy make-up on and a red and white checked bandana around her throat with a tan cowboy hat on. The music started and she threw the hat and then it was like a choreographed number the way she moved on that thing. She gyrated, rode the waves, she whipped her hair around in time to the music, and the attitude on her face? It wasn’t super close-up but I could see it and fuck. Holy fuck. I watched the 3-and-a-half-minute video fucking mesmerized.

That girl, the girl on the mechanical bull with the sass, with the hot body, the wild red hair, she could seriously be my fucking dream girl. Add that girl to the girl I knew here, and I’d be golden. No settling. The video started with the bull moving rhythmically to the music, her putting on a sexy show, but in the last minute it really gave her a run for her money the way it spun and jerked but she held on and she fucking owned that thing.

When it ended the crowd roared with applause and started chanting. She stood up on the bull and did a fancy backflip coming off it and the crowd went wilder. I couldn’t make out what they were chanting and leaned in to hear better but she exited out of the screen and then handed me my phone. Our eyes met.

I felt more than a little embarrassed. I couldn’t believe I’d shown him that. Maybe I was trying to give him something, since I’d been so closed off about my past and he’d been open with me about his ex-fiancée. I turned it off as the crowd started to chant my name and passed him the phone. When our eyes met, I just about passed out because the look on his face, oh my gosh, he was looking at me like he was going to fuck me right there on the grass in front of the ducks, seagulls, and horses and whoever else happened on by. I felt a hot little whoosh in my panties. He got to his feet and reached for my hand, his eyes holding mine captive.

I started to slowly get up, reaching for his outstretched hand hesitantly, but he grabbed it and squeezed, heaving me upwards to my feet. “We need privacy. Now.”

Holy shit.

I guess my Master liked my bull-riding skills.

Dare rushed me to his SUV. I had to jog to keep up with his purposeful strides. He got me to the passenger door and then I was pinned against it and his mouth was on mine and his fingers were forcefully in my hair. I moaned into his mouth. He dragged himself away and his eyes were heated. Holy moly, were they ever.

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