Page 47 of Rough Stock
“Yeah, it absolutely was.” He gripped her around the waist and pulled her to him until her head dawdled back and fell onto his shoulder, her eyes wide and staring at the truck’s headliner. He wrapped both arms around her, crossed them, and pinched her nipples between his fingers and thumbs. “You are so fucking sexy, little cowgirl,” he whispered into her shoulder blade.
“You’re hung like a Clydesdale stallion, babe,” she whispered back. “Oh my god, I don’t think I’ve had this much fun in my whole life,” she told him between groans as he twisted her nipples.
“Let’s take this back to the house, whaddya say?” he asked.
“Absolutely.” She scurried off him, slipped up her jeans, and waited while he pulled his own back up. “Hurry up! Let’s go! I want you again,” she told him and leaned over to nip his earlobe.
“Yes, ma’am!” Jensen answered enthusiastically. He started up the truck and headed out the drive with Shyanna’s hand on his crotch, making every effort to harden him up again. And he did something he hadn’t done since he was in high school.
He rolled down his window and threw the spent condom out onto the road, all the while grinning from ear to ear.
“Have you made any headway?”
Jimmy sighed. “No. He flatly refuses to sign it. I guess I could forge his signature?”
“And have that come back on you? No way. And that’s a lot of money, Jim,” Max reminded him. “We could attract some major talent with it.”
“I think we need to… Hell, I don’t know what to do. How do we make him get on board?”
“We’re going to have to be a bit more… persuasive. Just leave it up to me. I’ll figure it out,” Max told him. “Talk to you later.” As soon as he hung up, he rose from his chair and crossed the hotel room to the big boxes.
Pills. All kinds of pills. And all made by Zesser Pharmaceuticals. WallaceBergman had been right to approach him because if anybody could get it done, it would be Max. Andhe was already formulating a plan. When they implemented it, it would be better than just getting that money.
It would literally kill two birds with one stone.
Monday and Tuesday,Shyanna rode bareback broncs again. On Wednesday, she started on the saddle broncs, and she knew within a few minutes that she was going to have a hard time. They were nothing at all like any kind of bareback riding. There was so much more to take into consideration, primarily the fact that she was holding onto a rope attached to the horse’s halter rather than a handle on the rigging, and there were stirrups that had to be taken into account and dealt with while riding the animal. She wanted to do it, but there was one thing about it that really bothered her. She felt disconnected from the horse in a way she didn’t riding bareback. That warm connection between her ass and the back of that animal seemed to her to impart some kind of knowledge of the animal’s thoughts and plans, and the saddle disrupted that. But that didn’t matter?she’d figure out a way to work around that, because she wanted to do it.
She’d intended to work more on Thursday, but a discussion between her and Jensen told her they’d better spend the day packing up to leave that afternoon instead of that evening as they’d planned earlier. After they’d gotten their personal things together, she wandered out the back door of the house and down to the creek where she and Jensen had sat just days before. The big, smooth rock located, Shyanna sat down and stared at the water.
What the hell was she doing there? His parents had been nicer since that Saturday morning breakfast, but she knew theystill weren’t crazy about her. Leo was cool. But as she looked around, she knew she didn’t belong there. They all had beautiful, warm family memories there. She had none of that, and she never would. The rushing sound of the creek still made her smile, though, and she sat there with her eyes closed, breathing in the fresh air and listening to the rustle of wind in the trees.
“You okay?” a voice asked, and she smiled. It only took a couple of seconds for him to sit down on the rock behind her and wrap an arm around her waist. “You look like you’re a thousand miles away.”
“I was. Trying to figure out where I belong,” she said, knowing her voice sounded weird and strained.
“You belong with me,” he whispered and kissed the back of her neck, and Shyanna melted. The guy was so much sweetness wrapped in a sexy package that it was hard to keep her wits about her when he was around. “Don’t you somehow get that, at least on some level?”
“I’m trying, babe. I really am. But look at this place,” she said, sweeping a hand around.
“What about it?”
“It holds all these memories for you. I have nothing like that?nothing.”
“Shy,” he said and, taking her shoulders, turned her to face him. “If you don’t have memories, you make your own. That’s how it works. I have some terrible memories from childhood. They weren’t all happy.”
“Yes they were,” she said with a snort.
“No. They weren’t. When I was twelve, I was tall and skinny and geeky. I had acne, and my hair stuck up funny,” Jensen said, and she could hear the pain in his voice after all those years. “I liked this girl, Amy, and she wouldn’t give me the time of day. I tried to ask her to a dance, but she just laughed at me and said, ‘I wouldn’t go with you if you were the last boy on earth.’ We werestanding in the hallway at school and everyone heard what she said. I was humiliated.”
“And you came home and talked to your mom and dad and they made it all better,” Shyanna said with a hint of sarcasm in her voice.
“Nope. I came home and tried to talk to them, but my dad said, ‘You’ve got chores to do. Nothing will get your mind off your problems like hard work.’ That was it. And he didn’t say another word about it.”
“Yeah, but your mama?”
“I said nothing to her. She was a female and because of what had just happened, I didn’t want to talk to anybody who wasn’t a guy. It was awkward and hard. And that wasn’t the only time something like that happened. So, no. My childhood and growing-up years weren’t perfect.”
She grinned. “I can’t imagine anybody saying you’re geeky. You’re about the most rugged and ruggedly handsome guy I’ve ever met.”
