Page 14 of Buck This
“You’re not wearing a bra, are you?” he asked.
“No, but I’m wearing pasties.”
“You’re wearing pastries?”
She giggled. “No, pasties. They’re little stickers you put over your…you know…”
“Nipples?”
“Yeah.”
“You have stickers on your nipples, and that’s all?”
“Yeah. They are star shaped and silver. They have sparkles. Look, if I turn in the light, you can see the sparkles through the fabric sometimes.”
Buck This wasn’t even blinking anymore. Just staring as she turned this way and that.
He cleared his throat and dropped his gaze, his dark eyebrows drawn down, then put his cowboy hat on. “We should go inside. Where there’s other people.”
He grabbed his duffle bag and this big, thick rope with a strip of leather on it.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Flank strap. It makes the bull buck harder.” Buck threw the rope over his shoulder and lead her toward the autograph room.
His muscles looked really good in the T-shirt. He had a bicep vein, and she was totally a vein-girl. He wore a buckle on his belt and scuffed cowboy boots. His chest and shoulders were broad, but his waist was tapered, and from what she’d seen in the dim lighting, he was rocking a perfect eight pack.
This was hands-down the finest man she had ever walked beside.
“Hey, remember when you grabbed me by the back of the neck earlier?” she asked.
“Oh, sorry about that. I don’t know how to touch humans. You seemed so stupid and fragile.”
She looked up at him to be offended, but he was grinning.
“Jerk.”
“Oh, I’m way worse than a jerk. Ask anyone here. You shouldn’t even be hanging out with me. You’ll figure it out though, City Slicker.”
“I won’t figure out shit,” she said. “I’m dense, ignore all red flags, and I’ll never see you again after tonight.”
“You’re done with the competition?”
“I mean, if there was a guarantee that Cobalt Blue would draw you every time and I could watch him go airborne, maybe.”
He laughed a deep, booming sound. “You do realize I nearly jumped the fence right near you, don’t you?”
“Oh yeah, I saw you do that. Some famous guy named Quickdraw Slow Burn saved my life. No one at work is going to believe any of my stories on Monday.”
“At the bank?”
“Don’t judge me. I have a 401K and health insurance. Do you?”
“Well…no.”
“Hmm.” She took another drink of beer. “Five sips.”
“You’re a menace.”
