Now she shifted completely, trying to get up,but I wasn’t having it. I pulled her on top of me so we were face to face. Her long hair tickled my shoulders. One of my hands was on her lower back, the other cupping her ass. “What? Paid to keep me–he took your sister, not me.”
This was what I wanted to avoid. The hint of fear in her gaze.
“You two look a lot alike. Same hair, same size. He’s an idiot and took the wrong woman. It just so happened you came along when you did.”
Her eyes widened further and further as I spoke. She licked her lips, which made my dick twitch. Even though we were talking about a fucker who’d manhandled my woman, she turned me on. I had a feeling the only way I wouldn’t be turned on by Lainey Wilder was if I were dead.
“You’re right, but why would someone want me to miss the event? That’s crazy! It’s not the Olympics. It’s the county fair.”
Reaching up, I stroked a hand over her hair. “No idea. Someone obviously didn’t want you to compete.”
She stilled at that possibility. It wasn’t something she’d considered before. “Someone doesn’t like me.”
She cut to the crux of the issue. Someone didn’t like Lainey and was messing with her.
Her gaze dropped to my chest.
“Hey.” I tipped her face back so her eyes met mine again. “I’m not letting anything happen to you. Remember those eight bossy brothers you yelled about earlier being overprotective?”
She gave the slightest of head nods.
“They’re gonna watch out for you, too. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”
“And us?”
I frowned. “What about us?”
“When this is figured out and the rodeo’s over…”
She didn’t finish the sentence. I flipped her onto her back so I loomed over her. She shifted her legs so I settled between them.
“You think I’m gonna leave with the rodeo?”
She looked to the side, gave a slight shrug. “You don’t live in Devil’s Ditch. In fact, I don’t even knowwhereyou live.”
“Look at me, love,” I said softly. It took a moment, but she did. “Where’s this coming from? After what we just did–” I rocked my hips, sliding my now-hard dick through her slick folds. I knewthat was her arousal, but also my cum. “–you’d know.”
“My last boyfr–”
“Don’t say anything about him while you’re naked beneath me, your pussy sore from my dick.”
She swallowed hard. “He ghosted me. Just… left. Never heard from him.”
I knew the reason for that, but I wasn’t gonna share. I knew why her brothers kept it a secret, but now I saw that situation from Lainey’s perspective. She’d been abandoned, even if she didn’t know it was for the best. She wouldn’t want a cheating man and would have kneed him in the balls or throat punched him, for sure. Her brothers hadn’t given her a chance to learn that she hadn’t been in the wrong. In fact, their overprotectiveness left her doubting herself. They’d rocked her self-confidence and I didn’t like that shit.
“I’m not that guy,” I told her. “Or any other. I’m sticking, love, and it’ll take words, time, and a hell of a lot of orgasms to prove that I’m not going anywhere.”
She bit her lip and smiled. “I like the orgasms part.”
I smiled, too. “I thought you might.” Slowly, I slid down her body, kissing my way from eachnipple and toward heaven below. “How about you come on my face one more time before we go get Junior and head to the arena?”
With my mouth on her pussy, tasting our combined flavors, she didn’t respond, only moaned my name.
10
LAINEY
I wasn’tnervous before competing. Not usually. I loved riding. I loved going fast. So did Junior. Pops had me in front of him in a saddle when I was old enough to walk. Hell, maybe before. With several older brothers, I tried to keep up, even atop a horse. None of us were reckless with our animals, for their safety and ours. Cam was a vet and Trig a rodeo champ, but I was the one who took to the horses. I competed for the first time at five in the leadline class, with Pops holding a lead as we went around the barrel racing course.