Page 51 of The Wildest Ride

AJ laughed. Her brand of deadpan rudeness was becoming as welcome to him as Diablo’s dry sarcasm. That she had a voice like a chain-smoking jazz singer from a different era, and delivered it all with a sweet country cadence and old-fashioned cowboy manners made it all the more intoxicating.

“Your manners are terrible,” AJ observed, proud of the ease in his tone.

“Odd. No one’s ever mentioned that before. You’d think in twenty-seven years...”

At the other side of the bar, the bartender picked up AJ’s empty glass and looked around the bar in alarm. He waved to her from his seat next to Lil and the relief on the woman’s face was almost comical. For a moment, he wondered if this was the kind of establishment that made the bartender pay when someone bailed on their tab.

Starting their way, hips swaying, the bartender sent him a slow smile and he couldn’t stop the corners of his own mouth from curling.

She wasn’t worried about the tab.

And although he didn’t plan to encourage her—she wasn’t his type, though he had nothing against her—he couldn’t help but smile at her obvious appreciation.

Like rodeo, here was a game older than mankind itself that never lost its edge. And the bartender was an appropriate, seasoned opponent, far more so than the salty cowgirl that sat at his side.

In fact, tall, curvaceous, and bright blond as she was, the bartender had a lot going for her.

It just wasn’t anything he was looking for. These days, his interest seemed to lean shorter, more athletic, and utterly fearless on the back of a beast—a list dangerously specific to the woman sitting by his side.

The bartender’s come-hither smile said she was most definitely drawn to him, despite his lack of encouragement. The looks she was serving weren’t the most sophisticated, but he gave her points for primal. He also, however, did the gentlemanly thing, angling his body and averting his gaze in a way that told her the only thing he was interested in was a beer.

She was around his age, and neither jerky nor marriage-bait. She gave the impression of competence without hardness and he knew, if he wanted, the evening could have ended happily. But his mind rejected the idea, instead choosing that moment to recall the fact that Lil’s bright red lips were as soft as her rear end was full, firm, and round.

He shook the image clear with a frown.

It was one thing to get carried away in the thrill of a moment—it was another thing entirely to actively fantasize about his colleagues. He needed to remember that that was what Lil was: a colleague, a resource, and a competitor for a prize that was far bigger than the way she felt in his arms.

The bartender took their order and he said: “Two IPAs for my friend and myself, please.”

“Coming right up.” She punctuated her sentence with a wink and sauntered away.

When the bartender left, Lil said, “Hope you’re planning on double fisting.”

There was a strange note of serenity woven through Lil’s gravelly rasp that set alarm bells off in AJ’s head.

Side-eyeing her, AJ shook his head. “No. I’m too old for that. One of them is for you.”

Lil shook her head. “Not for me. I’m not drinking tonight.”

AJ raised an eyebrow. “Now is that polite of you? The standard thing to do is to offer me a drink and toast in concession to the better man.”

Lil shook her head with a small smile. “You know how sensitive I am to your feelings, old-timer. I’m just racking my brains how to break it to you that that’s me—even without all the required equipment.”

Like the snap of a twig in the woods that gave away one’s location, AJ’s bark of laughter was loud enough to draw the attention of the full room, including the eyes of nearly thirty cowboys, and nearly every camera, to himself and the lone cowgirl in the room—and while she certainly wasn’t the only woman in the establishment, she was certainly the only woman who’d turned dancing circles around each and every cowboy in the place into a habit. And looked pretty doing it.

AJ felt the uncharacteristic urge to curse under his breath. He could weather anything this group might throw at him, but when it came to interacting with humans, Lil was as likely to spook and bolt as she was to go on the attack. Either could be disastrous.

That she was considering both was as clear as day on her face.

Amidst their new audience, Hank DeRoy’s gaze moved slowly toward them, scanning the bar until he met AJ’s with a smarmy glint. Seeing who sat beside AJ at the epicenter of the moment, Hank stood. He separated himself from his cronies to make his way toward the bar.

AJ made a small noise in the back of his throat, disgusted. Hank would come over and add fuel to the fire, throwing clumsy come-ons at Lil until she got up and left. It was as predictable as the sunrise.

Equally obvious was the fact that the other man had extended their field of competition to encompass Lil. That he was the kind of man who didn’t see the problem with that, regardless of the fact that he was way off base with respect to AJ’s intentions toward Lil, was enough to condemn him in AJ’s mind.

He hadn’t held Hank in the highest esteem before, but any man who was willing to pursue a woman for the sake of making a point wasn’t worth a damn, in his opinion.

“Is this man bothering you, miss?” Hank slid up to the stool on Lil’s other side, a corny smile plastered on his face.

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