The Cowboy

by Vonna Harper, P. J. Mellor, Nelissa Donovan

  T he finals were playing out exactly as he wanted. Grant made it to the top three with little effort, and he felt like he could stay in the ring all day, taking ride after glorious ride, the sun catching on little motes of dust and making rainbows. He was getting solid nines, and the crowd in the arena was going wild, chanting his name. But the horn sounded; it was down to just two of them, and time for intermission.

  His eye scanned the crowded bleachers, the judges’ stand, the sponsor booths draped with flags and banners, until he found Anna there in the front row right above his chute.

  She waved, smiling radiantly. She was so sleek and beautiful and didn’t much know it, didn’t know the power she had over him, didn’t know how much he reveled in claiming her, making every inch of her his. He loved fucking her, he loved doing things to her, stuff nobody else he’d met would ever dream of doing, and he loved just being with her, too; holding hands, riding in his truck, watching late-night TV—even doing their laundry this morning was a blast. He was probably falling in love with her.

  One of the wranglers socked him on the arm. “You’re kicking ass out there.”

  Grant grinned; he knew he was.

  “It gives me a thrill, watching you, Grant.” This was the dulcet voice of a pretty nineteen-year-old cowgirl in a white-sequined miniskirt, one of the sponsor flag bearers, just mounting up to circle the arena. She brushed her lips against his cheek.

  One of the guys he had known on the circuit years ago used to joke that Grant always had a blonde on his arm. And when he didn’t, he was looking around for one, like a guy who misplaced his car keys. This girl would’ve fit the bill, if he’d still been looking.

  But the truth was he’d always been more of a quality-not-quantity kinda guy, even in his younger days, and Anna—she was definitely quality. She was what he’d been waiting for. She was all bottled-up passion, all explosive desire, all he could ever imagine wanting, and here she was wanting him, too.

  He clattered up the metal steps into the bleachers and took her in his arms. She felt as good as he imagined she would feel, maybe even better.

  “How’m I doing from your perspective?” he asked.

  She teased him. “Maybe a little too good. I saw that girl put her hands all over you….”

  “You know what I’m talking about,” he said, while he put his hands all over her.

  “Nobody has anything on you,” Anna murmured.

  He kissed her and lifted her soft hair, nibbling on her neck. She gave a little shiver as he pressed his lips against her skin. He liked that. He wanted to make her shiver some more.

  But she pushed him away, playful. “Come on, Grant. There’s something like three thousand people out here.”

  “That doesn’t turn you on?” It did him. He fiddled with the strap of her dress. It was another little dress like the yellow one she’d worn over nothing but her skin yesterday. He realized with disappointment that she was wearing a bra and underwear today.

  He rubbed his hand along her back, found her bra hooks, and started disconnecting them.

  “Right now I better turn you off.” She laughed, pulling away.

  “S’not what you said last night. You said, ‘Don’t stop. Don’t ever, ever stop.’ Said it like you meant it.” He turned serious for a minute. “Did you mean it?” he asked her.

  Before she could say anything, there was applause from the bleachers, and the announcer boomed over the loudspeakers. “Rick Ryan’s the man of the moment—narrowly edging up to our hometown favorite, Grant Olson, overall nine-two to nine-one. That makes it a tight two-way contest for first place!”

  “Better get saddled up,” Grant said. “I gotta ace this.” He knew he would; didn’t matter how close the score.

  “You will,” Anna said confidently.

  He felt himself swell like a rooster strutting across a barnyard. “After I collect my winnings, we’re gonna have to do something about this excessive amount of clothing you’re wearing,” he teased her.

  Two top riders left, two rides each. A hush fell over the crowd as Rick Ryan took his first ride, and a pretty damn nice one it was, Anna had to admit. Still, he was lacking something—Grant’s grace, his firm self-assurance.

  “And now, the hottest cowboy in town tonight!” the announcer crowed.

  As Grant bolted out of the gate, Anna’s cheeks flamed. The hottest cowboy any night; she would bet on it.

  She was getting the hang of the rodeo now; she knew before the time was called that Grant had claimed his bronc not just longer, but with better form than Ryan had his.

  When he was thrown he rolled away in a catlike curl as though the blow was meaningless. She was up on her feet with the rest of the crowd, cheering—when the horse came charging back at him and kicked him twice, hard in the chest, even as three other strong-looking cowboys were pulling it away.

  The cheer she was about to let loose died in her throat.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we have an injury situation here. This cowboy is down. Our rodeo doctor is riding out into the ring this minute to look him over.”

  A chunky older man careened into the arena on a dappled horse, dismounted fast, and bent over Grant. Grant wasn’t moving. The handlers and the other cowboys—his rival, Rick Ryan, too—closed ranks around Grant, shielding him from the eyes of the crowd, from Anna.

  “Let’s everybody say a little prayer for this fella,” the announcer said, and there was a long silent spell in the stadium, and then some fiddle music started up on the speakers and Grant was being ferried out of the arena on a stretcher.

  “We’ll be taking our boy Grant backstage for some medical attention, and hopefully he’ll be able to participate in the last round of riding. Be a shame for forfeit, when Grant had, according to our judges, a solid nine to Rick’s eight-nine in this round, making it still a close contest. Keep your fingers crossed for him, ladies and gentlemen, and turn your attention now to Clarence our rodeo clown in his barrel-roping debut.”

  Shaking, Anna ran down to the tack room.

  The cowboys wouldn’t let her in at first. They wouldn’t let her in when she brought out her press pass. She had to explain she was Grant’s “girlfriend,” and even then she got incredulous looks.

  “Yeah,” one of the wranglers spoke up, finally, the one who’d socked Grant on the arm, “I seen him up in the stands with her just before.”

  So they let her in. Grant was propped against a hay bale, pale beneath his tan, his brows furrowed.

  She swiped tears away with the back of her hand so he wouldn’t see how upset she was. “Jesus, Grant. I—I’m so sorry,” she stammered.

  “Just a little bit of bad luck, baby.” He managed to flash her a small but amiable smile. “Got a couple of broke ribs, nothing worse.”

  “Lift your left arm,” the rodeo doctor ordered.

  She saw Grant wince as the doctor wound thick adhesive around his chest.

  “Are you in a lot of pain?” she asked anxiously.

  “Nah. Doc just gave me a shot for that. Don’t feel a thing hardly.”

  “Shouldn’t he go to the hospital or something?” she demanded of the doctor.

  The doctor cocked one eyebrow at her. “Not if he wants to ride in the last round.”

  “How could he do that—” she began, but Grant interrupted her.

  “I got a nine, baby. I’m not letting this one get away from me.” He was already struggling to his feet.

  “Hang on there, partner. Not finished yet,” the doctor barked.

  “Rodeo riders don’t give up easy.” Rick Ryan had Anna’s elbow and was leading her away.

  “This one’s gonna hurt,” the doctor said, and it must have, because Grant let out a cry that was like a distorted version of the shouts he sometimes made making love to her.

  Anna felt sick and pressed her fist to her mouth.

  “You just go get yourself a soda or something,” Ryan said, propelling her toward the door. “Much as I hate to admit it, he’s proba
bly gonna take first. Less he dies trying.”

  These were not the most reassuring words she’d ever heard, but when she turned around to protest, she found the door locked against her.

  So she went back to her seat, digging her nails into her palms.

  “That cowboy’s gonna be just fine, sweetie.” An elderly woman leaned in from behind and patted her shoulder. “They’re used to hard knocks. This is what they live for.”

  The intermission seemed endless, interminable, and looking at her watch, Anna saw that twenty minutes had indeed stretched to thirty-five. She wondered if the delay was getting Grant ready to ride, or trying to convince him not to.

  The rodeo clown came out and made everybody in the arena but Anna laugh, and then Rick Ryan took his final run at the championship and drew a solid nine.

  “Now, let’s give a fine round of applause to Cody’s own Grant Olson—he’s coming back for more.”

  The roar from the crowd was deafening.

  Anna watched Grant mount his horse down in the chute. He was stiff-legged and his face was drawn, the pallor under his tan still clearly visible. She wanted to call out to him, to stop him, to at least whisper a little prayer for him, but all she could do was sit there frozen, with the announcer’s words, the cheers of the crowd, the clatter of the chute gate opening—all of it softened by a rushing in her ears.

  Then he was out there in the arena, and he was riding his heart out, and his form was perfect, and you would never have known he was hurt, at least until the moment he was thrown and he grew paler still, and one of the wranglers had to help him off the ground. Grant leaned on the kid like a crutch, hobbling back to the sidelines.

  He slouched against the arena wall, face barred from her under the slant of his hat. But when the announcer read the judge’s score as nine-one, he straightened. He turned then and looked up at Anna, a triumphant smile creasing his face ear to ear.

  She screamed for him; she jumped up and down and clapped and yelled. Ecstatically happy for him, she ran into the arena and kissed him, and then she stood off to the side and watched him mug for ESPN2, pose for photographs, and finally accept a trophy—larger and shinier than the one he had earned in the semifinals—and that coveted prize money.

  “You doing all right?” she asked him softly.

  He gave her a dazzling smile. “All right? I’m great, baby. Why wouldn’t I be? I had a great ride, and that’s everything. Everything.”

  And she knew then, no matter how good she made him feel, no matter how good he made her feel, no matter how much either one of them cared, what this man lived for would never be her. For the moment, she didn’t even really mind. But she knew unequivocally that for Grant his life was now and would always be the ride.

  5

  “Y ou’re gonna have to come to me tonight, Anna, honey.” Grant was lying on the bed in her motel room, pillows propped behind his back, a bag of ice tucked against his throbbing right side.

  He had a beautiful woman hovering over him, a twenty-five-thousand-dollar check in a white envelope on the night table, and ten round orange pain pills in a tiny manila envelope next to that. He hadn’t touched the medication, and no matter what the doctor said, he didn’t plan to. He preferred the flask of whiskey he’d picked up, along with the ice and whatever ministrations and distractions he was sure Anna would offer.

  Nothing was gonna stop him from wanting Anna every which way he could have her tonight, too. Still, he would be a liar if he didn’t admit he wasn’t exactly at the top of his form.

  She lay down on the bed beside him, stroking his fingers and laying soft kisses across his forehead and against his cheeks and lips. Not the top of his form, but still he felt himself grow tumescent inside his jeans.

  He passed her the flask of whiskey he was working on, and she took a long swallow. He could taste it on her lips when she kissed him ever so gently.

  “You don’t have to treat me so delicate.” He laughed, pulling her face against his. “This wasn’t, well, my first rodeo.”

  They kissed long enough and deep enough that he started thinking about other things they’d be doing soon, and he felt his cock stiffen and swell like it was going to burst right through his jeans. He lifted her hand from his hand and placed it over his crotch so she could feel him.

  “If I’d checked your vital signs like this before, I wouldn’t have worried about you at all,” she said.

  She unzipped him and drew his sex out between her hands. She bent over him and licked him like a lollipop until he was hard as a fucking rock.

  “You gonna nurse me real good tonight?”

  “I’m your own personal Florence Nightingale,” she told him.

  “Then undress for me,” he said. “Do me a real, you know, dance.”

  She got up off the bed and stripped off her dress, trying not to laugh. She left on her high-heeled sandals and her bra and panties. He passed her the whiskey again, and she took another drink, and then she unsnapped her bra and slipped it off slowly, one arm at a time, and tossed it to him. He made a one-handed grab for it and missed, and the garment impaled itself on his dick.

  They both laughed then. She plucked it off him and tossed it across the bed and peeled off her panties, twirled them around her hand, and threw them, too. They landed on a lamp shade.

  “I’m not that good at this,” she said.

  “Oh, yes, you are,” he replied, licking his lips. She looked so good he could almost taste her. She twirled around, naked, humming a little. She lifted up her breasts and thrust them near his face, but not quite near enough to touch. She rubbed her hands over her hips and thighs and mound and bent over and waggled her buttocks in his face.

  He applauded. She kicked those high heels off last and knelt down on the bed beside him.

  “Your wish is my command,” she said, a little breathless.

  Grant finished off the whiskey, felt it burning his throat and the desire he had for her eclipsing that, burning some place deeper and a lot stronger.

  “Never quite understood that expression,” Grant told her. “But I think it means if I wish you to do something, you’ll just do it.”

  She gave him a mock salute, and her breasts bounced. “Aye-aye, cowboy. You better believe it.”

  “Wouldn’t that be ‘aye-aye, captain’?” Grant asked, but she made no reply because she was licking at his cock again. Just licking, not sucking.

  “Can you help me get my clothes off, darlin’?” he asked after a while.

  He was already barefoot. She unbuckled his belt and tugged down his jeans, pulling them off one leg at a time. Then she worked off the boxers, licking at his balls now, rubbing his cock between her palms.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said. He wanted to tell her how great she felt, how great she made him feel, but sometimes words were just pointless. She had to know already.

  She moved between his legs and took him full in her mouth now, bobbing her head up and down so her tits brushed up against his balls and thighs. He clamped his legs around her, holding her fast.

  “Touch yourself,” he whispered. “Do me another little show.”

  She put two fingers in her pussy. He could hear the soft wetness lapping against them. She shuddered when she came and swallowed his cock deeper in her throat.

  “Fuck my leg,” he said, and she mounted herself over his thigh and humped him. He could feel her wetness on his skin. He flicked a finger in and out of her; he could smell the tang when she came. Man, he just wanted to nail her right that second.

  Still, tonight he had to take it slow. And besides, it was the long ride that hooked her, wasn’t it, and how many times he got back in the saddle.

  He laughed at himself for thinking in those terms, but he just couldn’t shake the rodeo tonight. You could take the cowboy out of the arena, but you couldn’t take the arena out of the cowboy. Somebody said something like that to him once.

  Anna rolled off his leg, and, carefully, her touch featherlight, she set the bag of i
ce on the night table and peeled back his shirt.

  He had two cracked ribs, and he was bound up in adhesive like a mummy, from his breastbone almost to his naval. A map of blue bruises were swelling along his right side. Still, with the shot the doc had given him, he wasn’t doing too badly. He had no internal injuries the doctor could detect, and he’d been through this kind of thing enough in the past to know he could skip the emergency room. It was all about the healing now. And Anna was sure gonna help with that.

  She made little murmurs of commiseration and kissed his pectorals, ran her tongue over his nipples, brushed her hands softly across his belly.

  “Lemme tell you, if you have to get messed up, this is the kind of nursing care a man likes. You’re doing me more good than twenty doctors,” he told her.

  “I can see that.” She smiled. His cock was sticking straight up in the air.

  “So climb on.”

  She straddled him, crouching, keeping her weight off him, just moving him in and out of her. He appreciated her gentleness, but he wasn’t going to slip up on satisfying her.

  “Come again,” he said. “Will you? I love watchin’.”

  And she touched herself, and she did come, her pussy sinking deep, swallowing his shaft to the root.

  “How about you roll over on your side?” he suggested.

  She slipped off him. Moving carefully, he turned, too, so that they were pubic bone to pubic bone. He stuck his dick back inside her slippery pussy and thrust one and then two fingers in her anus. He could feel that tight little hole contract around him when she came again.

  She was just getting warmed up now. Her eyes were closed, and a line of perspiration trickled down between her breasts. He pulled out of her again, and she moaned. He inched his face between her breasts and licked off the sweat, and then he spilled the last little drops of whiskey from that flask where the sweat had been, and he lapped that up, too.

  “Bartender. Give me another round,” he joked.

  “I’ll give you something better,” she said, sliding down in the bed. She pressed her breasts around his cock, confining him. She rubbed her nipples up and down against him.