Unridden: A Studs in Spurs novel (3 page)

Damn.
Mustang had done his homework. That made Slade feel even shittier since he’d had no inclination to know anything more about the girl besides that she had what he needed for the few minutes he was inside her. Somehow, that seemed wrong.

“Hmm. I didn’t notice her coming,” Slade commented absently.

“That’s because I took care of her quick before you got here.”

“Oh. Good.” He felt a little better knowing that.

Where the hell was this pall coming from?

Slade was usually happy to just fuck and relax. This self-analysis and introspection wasn’t like him at all. “I’m glad you got to know her a bit, anyway.”

“I didn’t ask questions and listen to her answers because of some sudden sexual guilt like you seem to be suffering from.” Mustang dismissed Slade’s comment with a snort and a wave of his hand. “You know damn well I like flirting with the pretty girls. When I noticed her watching us from the stands, I knew all it would take was a little bit of buttering her up to get her into bed. You should be damned grateful I do like the buttering up part since by the end of the competition she was offering herself up to both of us like a cowgirl sandwich on a silver platter, pretty red panties and all.”

Mustang grinned at his own description, while Slade pressed his lips together and drew in a deep breath through his nose. “I guess I haven’t been pulling my weight in the buttering up department. Sorry.”

Mustang looked disgusted, further raising Slade’s level of annoyance as he defended himself. “What? Damn it, Mustang. I said I’m sorry. Next woman, I’ll reel in. Okay?”

“That’s not the problem. The hunt is the fun part for me, well, second to fucking. But you won the competition tonight and got laid, and you didn’t even have to talk to the girl to do it. So why do you seem so damned depressed? You’re starting to make me worry about you.”

Slade sighed and considered the question carefully. “Hell. I don’t know, Mustang. I guess I’m bored.”

“Bored? Well, okay then.
That
at least I can understand. Next time we’ll get us a couple of girls. Two, or three, even. Maybe we should stop at the next sex shop we see and pick up some toys. One of those vibrating ones. Girls like those. We’re running low on lube anyway.”

“Okay. Sounds good.” Even in his crappy mood, Slade had to smile at Mustang’s newest ideas for their extracurricular activities.

Visions of the girl they’d had last week and vivid memories of what they’d done to her, the reason they were almost out of lube, flitted through his head. That had been one woman they, or rather Mustang, didn’t have to persuade. She hadn’t even batted an eye at the size of Mustang’s dick, or his suggestions as to where inside her it would fit nicely. It took half a tube of lube, but Slade was a witness that it had indeed fit nicely.

Mustang grinned and rose from the bed, slapping Slade on the shoulder. “This too shall pass, my friend. You’re looking happier already. I’m heading for a shower.”

Slade nodded. A shower, a solid night’s sleep, and then the open road and it would all be good. By the next city he’d have shaken this mood and be back in action.

“Mustang,” he called loud enough for his friend to hear over the sound of the running water.

“Yeah?”

“Keep your eye out in the audience for twins. I’ve always wanted to have me some twins.”

Slade heard Mustang’s loud laugh through the door of the bathroom and grinned. He felt lighter already.

Chapter Two

Jenna’s best friend, Astrid, squinted at one of the two dozen or so television screens adorning the neon-covered walls in the sports bar. “Does that horse have horns?”

“What?” Jenna had a few better questions than that. First and foremost, why the hell had Astrid insisted the two of them come to the male equivalent of Disneyland for girl’s night out? And, just as important, why didn’t Astrid give in and get glasses or contact lenses so she could actually see? Jenna hated to think how the woman was able to drive and read street signs with her obviously horrendous vision.

With a sigh of resolution, Jenna twisted in her seat to see what Astrid was talking about. “That’s not a horse, silly. It’s a bull.”

Born and raised a suburbanite, Jenna had never actually met a bull in person, but she’d seen them on that television commercial…the one for cheese featuring the boy and girl talking cows.

“A bull? That’s crazy. Who would get on top of a bull and try to ride it? Besides, I thought cowboys rode horses.” Astrid shook her head, sending her short black hair swinging around her face. The blue highlights she’d recently added picked up the light of the beer sign behind her. One day Astrid would realize that a woman over thirty shouldn’t have blue hair.

Jenna paid more attention now that she knew a rodeo was on television. Where there was a rodeo, there must be cowboys, right? At the moment, Jenna needed a good cowboy or two.

Absently, she chewed on the straw in her vodka and cranberry. “Did I tell you I’m writing a cowboy romance now?”

Astrid nearly choked on her light beer. “Really? How are you going to do that? The closest you’ve come to a cowboy was the guy in the big hat that bumped into you in Grand Central Station last December. Remember, when we went to see the Christmas tree lighting at Rockefeller Center?”

Jenna shrugged as she watched the rider on the television get thrown off the bull, cowboy hat and all, and miss getting stepped on by the deadly looking animal by mere inches. “I just started the book, but I figure it can’t be that hard. I mean, really, how complicated can cowboys be? I’ll just have him ride around on a horse a lot.”

Astrid eyed her suspiciously. “You don’t even own a house pet. What in the world do you know about horses?”

“At least I know they don’t have horns.”

Astrid shot Jenna a nasty look.

Truth be told, Jenna couldn’t even keep her houseplants alive, much less an animal, but that wasn’t the point. “Besides, I’ll research,” Jenna continued.

“Research cowboys and horses? How?”

“The Internet. The library. And I watched some equestrian competition on ESPN the other day. Cute outfits, by the way. Very vintage Ralph Lauren with the slim pants, high boots, and velvet coats. I hope that style comes back in fashion. I really liked it the first time around.”

Astrid frowned. “That all doesn’t sound very western.”

“I was watching to learn about horses. I mean horses are horses. Right? It doesn’t matter whether you ride them while you’re wearing denim or velvet. It’s not the horse part I’m worried about. The problem is that I’m having trouble coming up with a good plot for the storyline. My hero keeps sounding too ‘Aw shucks, ma’am’ for me. If I don’t even like the hero, how can I expect my reader to?”

Eyes never straying from the action on the television, Astrid slowly traced the tip of one finger through the condensation on her bottle. “You should have your hero be a rodeo cowboy. These guys are sexy. Risking death by riding that big, nasty bull. And mmm mmm, look at those leather chaps. I bet they’d look good with no jeans underneath.”

Astrid’s bawdy observations aside, Jenna considered the suggestion.

“Hmm. A rodeo cowboy. You might be on to something. All that risk would add to the tension in the story.” Jenna searched for a pen in her cluttered purse and then grabbed a cocktail napkin from the stack on the bar to take notes. “Ooo! What about this? His name could be Buck Wild. Get it? Because he rides bucking bulls, and that could be the name of the book too. What do you think?”

Astrid laughed. “I think it sounds like a typical trashy romance novel. So yeah, it’s perfect.”

Ignoring the “trashy” comment, Jenna wrote the title idea down then glanced back at the television as another man hit the ground hard and still jumped up smiling. These guys were obviously all insane, but Astrid was right, they were also sexy as hell.

Behind the bar, the bartender’s smirk and the steady sway of his head drew Jenna’s attention away from the television screen. She frowned at him. “Something wrong?”

“No, ma’am. Not a thing.” His voice oozed out as slow and smooth as molasses. And his “ma’am”… The dialogue from her book was coming to life before her very eyes.

Eyes wide, Jenna leaned forward at the sound of his deep drawl and what it meant to her and the possible future of this book. She saw Astrid raise an interested brow as she also noted his accent.

“Where are you from?” It came out sounding more like an accusation than a question as Jenna took in his western style shirt, denim jeans and cowboy boots. Before she’d heard him talk, she had assumed it was some sort of costume required by the bar for the staff or something.

“Not from here.” He grabbed another dripping glass from the rack and dried it with a tattered, white towel.

Jenna wasn’t about to be dissuaded so easily by his vague, evasive answer. “Yeah, I gathered that. So where exactly are you from?”

He smirked but made no move to end Jenna’s suspense.

“Texas,” a cocktail waitress answered for him, to the cowboy’s obvious chagrin, before she added, “and I need another pitcher of beer with three cold mugs.”

The unhappy Texan went to fill the pitcher, and Jenna took the opportunity to question the waitress further. “He doesn’t happen to know anything about rodeos, does he?”

The waitress cackled. “Him? Nah. Don’t think so. The word is he used to work on the oil rigs.”

“Oh. Okay. Thanks.” Jenna’s heart fell. Oil rigs. She knew even less about them than horses, so giving her fictional cowboy that profession was out, particularly in light of the Texan bartender’s lack of helpfulness so far.

The cowboy returned with the waitress’ order, grinning. “Sorry, darlin’, but not all cowboys ride bulls, or even horses for that matter.”

With a long look that took the man in from the top of his dark head to the tips of his booted toes, Astrid jumped into the conversation. “You must know something about the rodeo. I mean, there are lots of bulls and horses in Texas, right?”

He laughed, a low, rumbling sound, and Jenna, stifling a groan, watched her friend melt a little bit more over him. The reason Astrid had planned girl’s night out in this testosterone pit was becoming quite apparent. She was on the prowl tonight.

“I’m sure I know more than the two of you ladies, but no, I don’t know enough to have her quoting me on her little white napkin there.” He hooked a thumb in the direction of Jenna and her pen, which was poised and ready for action above the aforementioned cocktail napkin.

Criticism of her research style aside, Jenna decided if he knew anything about rodeo, it would be better than what she knew, which was nothing. “What was your name again?”

“Tex.”

She raised a brow. “Seriously?”

“Yup.” Somehow that one syllable became more like three as he drew it out, long and slow.

“Okay, Tex, I’d be happy to leave you a very generous tip if you’d be willing to give me just a few rodeo details I can use in my book.”

As Astrid leaned further over the bar like a magnet drawn to a big, tall, sexy hunk of metal, Jenna considered throwing her friend into the bargain along with the tip in exchange for some rodeo facts. She was fairly certain Astrid, looking starry-eyed and practically drooling, wouldn’t mind.

Tex.
Jenna would have to consider naming a side character that. Perhaps Buck Wild could have a best friend.

The man in question pulled a pen from behind his ear, grabbed another cocktail napkin, and scribbled something. He shoved it across the bar and went to help a customer.

Astrid slapped one hand down hard onto the bar top and spun to face Jenna. “Oh my God! If he gave you his phone number, I’m going to scream. How come the cute ones always like you best?”

If that were true, then how come Jenna was alone? Very, very alone. Oh yeah, because all men sucked, that’s why. Even the tall, dark and Texan ones, she was sure.

Jenna glanced at the napkin in her hand and shook her head. Astrid’s hissy fit was for nothing, because all she’d gotten from Tex was one word.

Google.

Hmm, who knew cowboys knew about Internet search engines, even a behemoth like Google? Maybe cowboys weren’t as backwoods or backwards as she had thought.

Jenna shoved the napkin at her friend, shot a less than friendly glance in Tex’s direction and mumbled, “Smart ass.”

Already eyeball-deep into a huge crush, Astrid grinned. “Yeah, he is and I think I like it. Damn, I wish all these people would leave him alone so he’d come back.”

So did Jenna, because she still wasn’t convinced he hadn’t ridden a bull or two himself and if so, she’d get it out of him even if she had to sacrifice Astrid’s dubious virtue to do it.

With a sigh, Astrid gave up firing dirty looks at the patrons who were keeping Tex from her and turned back to Jenna. “So what do you want to do for your birthday next week?”

Jenna groaned. “Ignore it.”

“Oh, come on. It’s a milestone. We have to do something.”

“Thirty-five is not a milestone.” Thirty, yeah, that had been a big one. Forty, God help her, would be even worse. But thirty-five she was willing to ignore. “I’ll be away, anyway. Remember?”

Astrid wrinkled her nose, but Jenna wasn’t sure if it was related to Tex’s persistent absence from their end of the bar, or over Jenna’s impending trip during her birthday. “Oh, yeah. I’d forgotten. Where are you going again?”

“A romance writer’s conference in Tulsa, Oklahoma, of all places. What the hell could there possibly be to do in Tulsa when we have a break from the convention stuff? It’s going to be such a bore.” Jenna rolled her eyes.

Aside from the movie
Oklahoma
, which she was pretty sure had also been a musical, she knew nothing about the state except that it was in the middle of the country somewhere and she’d have to suffer through the airport security lines to get there.

“Oh my God! Jenna!” Astrid’s hand clamped down on Jenna’s forearm as she squinted at something over Jenna’s shoulder.

“What?”

Astrid was ready to bubble over. “Take a look at the television behind you.”

Jenna spun around just in time before the station cut to a commercial to see a graphic on the screen advertising—
oh my God
was right—next week’s bull riding competition in
Tulsa
. “Holy crap.”