Untamed

by Shey Stahl

  Honestly, I want to hear him talk again. Or whisper. Either would be fine.

  He blinks as he takes me in. “I’m Grayer Easton,” he says, shaking my hand. His thumb moves softly over mine once, and then back again as if he doesn’t want to let go right away. His eyes search my face slowly, lingering on my lips.

  I bet he remembers them wrapped around his cock last night. I do!

  With his touch, pieces of the night flash in my head and I know they’re doing the same to him. A small grin curls his lips, and I see those beautiful baby blue eyes for the first time up close and not shadowed by his hat that’s being held in his left hand against his side. “Nice to meet you.”

  My dad clears his throat and Grayer lets go of my hand and drags it through his dark hair.

  Haylee shoves her hand at Grayer. “I’m Haylee. Maesyn’s best friend.”

  “Nice to meet you too, Haylee,” Grayer says, giving her a smile too, but nothing like the one I got. I look over at her and see he has the same effect on her. She looks a tad disappointed by that.

  “Are you a bull rider?” Morgan asks, gawking at him with wide eyes as she points to his belt buckle with the bull on it. I take a closer look at it. Sure enough, it’s a champion belt buckle like Haylee had said.

  Grayer nods, the corners of his mouth twisting into a smirk. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

  Uncaring, Morgan tugs on the wedgie from her bathing suit bottoms and says, “So you’re like famous then, huh?”

  “Not really,” Grayer notes, trying to play it off. “The bulls I ride get all the glory these days.”

  It’s a joke, but Morgan doesn’t quite understand it.

  She looks at Haylee. “Why are bulls famous? They’re so mean.”

  I want to laugh, but I don’t. I’m worried about what my dad is going to say next. The glare I’m getting tells me he’s about to say something I don’t want him to. I’m a bundle of nerves waiting for what comes next.

  And then as if he’s trying to ruin my life, my dad turns to Grayer. “She’s seventeen so don’t even think about it.” And then he walks into the kitchen expecting Grayer to follow.

  Life ruined.

  A built-up sigh I didn’t know I had been suppressing releases, long and full of pent-up nerves.

  Grayer doesn’t follow him, his eyes scan my face, shocked, and then those blue diamond eyes turn cold, bitter, resentful even, and disappear with a heavy sigh. He clenches his jaw and nods, staring straight ahead. He stiffens as he glances briefly at my dad.

  Sucks to be me.

  He remembers me all right, but now he also knows I lied to him last night. Walking away with stiffness to his posture, it takes everything in me not to reach out and grab onto him, beg him to let me explain. But I can’t, not with my dad in the room, or within earshot.

  “Shit!” Haylee mouths, eyes as wide as mine.

  My lashes flutter and I can’t bring myself to look at him walking away. I just can’t. When they’re out of sight, I glare at my dad and flip him off behind his back—because that’s what teenage girls do. I grab Haylee by the hand heading out the door.

  Morgan laughs at my hand gesture, following us. “He’s cute.”

  I’m the unluckiest person alive.

  I pat her head and adjust my bag on my shoulder, giving the house a fleeting glance. “I know.”

  “I can’t believe you gave that guy head last night.” Haylee’s tripping down the steps as I rush toward the truck. “I’m totally jealous of your mouth.”

  “Why?” Morgan asks, trudging toward Haylee’s truck with us and trying to keep her too big flip-flops from falling off. “What’s head? Did you kiss his head?”

  “Um, no. She’s talking about . . .” I pause, trying to think of a way out of this conversation. “Nothing.”

  Haylee redirects and opens the door of her truck, nodding to Morgan. “Hey, Morgy Moo, how about you grab us some Cokes for the road?”

  “Okay!” My sister may not get up with me and do chores every morning, but she loves to wait on people. Her life goal is to be a waitress. It’s a good thing she’s eight and still has time to think of what she really wants to do with her life. No offense to waitresses.

  Haylee snorts when Morgan’s out of sight. “Think he’ll talk to you again? Because by that look he gave you, I’m guessing you left out the part about you being seventeen last night, didn’t you?”

  Nodding, I sigh, defeated. “Probably not. He doesn’t seem like the forgiving type.”

  I feel bad that I lied to Grayer and even worse at the look he gives me when he and my dad step outside. It’s an awful gnawing sensation in the pit of my stomach. Like a thousand angry bees swirling around. Damn it. I should have told him the truth. That’d I’d be eighteen in a few days and all this would be fine.

  In the distance, Grayer narrows his eyes, evaluating me. It’s like he’s trying to decide if he can ever trust me again. Look what a tiny white lie can do.

  Insert pouty face.

  A bull on the PBR tour.

  Haylee hands me a beer as Turnpike Turnadour’s “Long Hot Summer Day” blares through her phone. The afternoon sun heats up the day to a scorching blaze. Morgan’s in the only patch of shade, smothered from head to toe in SPF 50 and collecting worms and garter snakes. Let’s hope there are no rattlers near here.

  The dock steams as I dip my hand in the water to splash some on my burning face. My tight sun-kissed skin tingles with each passing minute, but I’m too lazy to get up and jump off the end of the dock. Haylee is too, and at one point, she rolls to her left and falls off the side of the dock into the water.

  My mind keeps going back to that look Grayer gave me. I’m such an asshole. I know why I lied to him, but he doesn’t.

  “I think I should break it off with Tucker,” Haylee says, resting her chin on her hands as she lies on her stomach. Water drips from the end of her nose.

  “You should have a long time ago.”

  “I know.”

  Looking over the top of my Ray Bans at her, I study her face, wondering what caused her to suddenly change her mind. “So why now?”

  “It feels wrong. And we’re leaving soon anyway. There’d be no point.”

  Haylee and I, we have no plan, no destination in mind, just that we’re leaving town the day I turn eighteen in hopes of adventure and unplanned freedom. I think the fact that we don’t know where we’re heading adds to the excitement of it.

  “Have you googled Grayer Easton yet?” Haylee wipes drops of water from her fair freckled skin.

  I hadn’t thought about it until now. Then I remember the naked photos that apparently existed in cyberspace. “No . . .” But damn if I won’t be doing that right now. “I got home at four in the morning.”

  I’m a little surprised that Haylee doesn’t remember driving me home last night. But then again, I’m not. Her short-term memory is crap.

  Intrigued by the thought of googling Grayer, I pull up an Internet browser on my phone and type his name in. I’m pleasantly rewarded when it loads. It’s tempting to click on the ones with Grayer naked, and I only know they do in fact exist when I see the title: PBR World Champion Ditches the Chaps.

  “Oh shit, click on that!” Haylee encourages, practically knocking my phone into the water.

  Morgan bounces over and sits next to us with her bucket of worms and one garter snake. “What are you doing?”

  Fearing Morgan’s innocence might be ruined if I click on the naked ones, I frown and click on the link that sends us to the PBR.com website. Big mistake because it only makes my obsession worse when I see pictures of him on a bull with chaps and that same cowboy hat he always wears. Ever seen a man in chaps? Sexiest image ever. For now. I’m sure when I look up those naked ones I’ll be thinking differently.

  The first link I click on is a YouTube video of a ride last year at the World Championship in Vegas.

  Grayer Easton rides Bruiser for 92.75 points

  Yep, watching that. It’s no
t the cowboy hat and chaps that get me, though they’re hot. It’s the confident nod right in the chute that sends a thrill through my heart. It’s because I recognize it. I saw it last night as I was getting out of the truck.

  After watching all of two seconds, Haylee gets up on her knees—because she’s inappropriate—and makes a motion with her hand in the air as if a guy’s doing someone doggie style. She throws her left arm up, mimicking Grayer’s ride. “Do you think he’d throw his hand up like this during—” She pauses, her eyes darting to Morgan. “—playtime?”

  Naturally, I imagine it as if my mind hadn’t already gone there. There’s a good part of me that wishes I wouldn’t have given him a blow job. I should have taken him for a ride because what if I never get the chance to now?

  And why am I so concerned about it? It’s not like me to care this much about a guy.

  Holding the phone closer, trying to block out the glare from the sun, I replay the video from the beginning and pay attention to every detail of the ride. He’s in the chute when the video begins, mounting a bull that’s raging pissed, and messing with the rope that’s around the bull. Two guys are beside him helping him get on the bull and making sure he’s adjusted. Once situated, he keeps his eyes down and his left hand behind his body. That’s when he gives a nod—a sexy fucking nod—and the chute opens and out come two wild animals. One with four legs that’s so out of control that a mere mortal isn’t going to tame him . . . and another wild animal with two legs that’s hell-bent on taming the beast between his legs.

  My mind scrambles. Or maybe it doesn’t scramble, but it floods with thoughts and I’m left with an assessment. He’s the sexiest, most confident man I’ve ever seen and this just might be the most intense thing I’ve ever seen. Why had I never paid much attention to bull riding? I’ve known a few bull riders. Jamie and Joel both rode in the Ellensburg Rodeo every year, but it’s nothing like this. They never had the talent Grayer has, or the confidence.

  The bull he’s on would scare the shit out of normal people, but not Grayer. He’s confident and focused right up until the buzzer sounds. An eight-second ride flashes on the screen.

  I didn’t know a damn thing about bull riding other than they have to stay on for eight seconds. The more I check out the website, the more informed I become. Both the bull and the rider are scored on the ride, but the goal is to stay on the bull for eight seconds, with only one hand, without touching the bull with the other. All the while that bull is bucking, rearing, kicking, and spinning underneath them in an attempt to throw the rider off. Sounds easy enough.

  Yeah, right. I wonder if he gets nervous? He certainly doesn’t look like he is in the videos.

  “Oh look, terms that bull riders use!” Haylee points to the link at the top of the page.

  Haylee’s impressed with the terms and points to the screen. “Oh God, I’d love to be covered by a bull rider for sure!” And then laughs, reading on. “Flank strap? That sounds fun. Think he keeps one in his truck? Oh . . . and what about seeded.”

  She looks at me and we both burst out laughing, my body shaking. I point to the screen. “And spinner.”

  We’re having way too much fun with this and poor Morgan has no clue what we’re talking about. To be fair, she’s lost interest in us and is focusing on the snake trying desperately to get away from her.

  After watching the video, I want to know everything about the sport and Grayer, but really that translates into me wanting to know everything there is to know about him.

  We find the biography on him next. The picture beside it is one of him in his cowboy hat and damn if his eyes aren’t so determined you know his sureness never wavers.

  GRAYER EASTON

  DECATUR, TX USA

  World Rank: 1

  Age: 21

  Height: 5-11

  Weight: 175

  Years Pro: 3

  Riding Hand: Right

  GRAYER EASTON is an Ellensburg, Washington, native following in his older brother, Reid Easton’s, footsteps. Grayer entered bull riding at the age of fourteen. Since he went pro at eighteen, he’s won over twenty events in his three-year professional career and had sixty-one rides so far. In 2014, he became the first rider in history to stay on all six bulls he rode for the required eight seconds and won his first World Championship.

  Haylee points to a video below the biography. “Let’s watch that one next.”

  We click on the video of his last ride at the World Finals and it’s much like the first one we watched—focused on what he’s doing, riding a beast. It’s like he knows he’s a force to be reckoned with. It’s in his posture, the grip he maintains on the rope and the fluidity of his muscle movement as he tames the untamable. He walks away with the championship, cocky and self-assured almost taunting those he was up against. That swagger—that smirk—and damn hat.

  “I need a cigarette,” Haylee says, her cheeks flushed.

  Laughing, I hand her another beer from the cooler and drop a few ice cubes on her to cool her down. “Who knew bull riding could be that hot.”

  She sighs. “You’re not kidding.”

  Located behind the arena's bucking chutes are the back pens, a maze of steel panels that serve as a holding and loading area for the bulls that await competition.

  Haylee and I don’t stay at the river long. There’s a party out at Joel’s house tonight we’re heading to later and I want to shower again and wash the smell of suntan lotion and river from my skin. I don’t wanna go, but there’s nothing better to do in this town and after my dad ratting me out, I don’t want to stay home in fear I might tell my dad exactly what I think of him.

  Grayer’s truck is still in the driveway when we get back. Haylee grins. “I’ll pick you up at eight. Meet me by the road. I’m washing my truck and I don’t wanna get it dirty.”

  Haylee eyes the barn and my rusted Lincoln Continental painted—and I say that loosely—primer black parked next to it. It’s covered with a thick layer of dirt and grass growing up over the wheels. It’s been untouched by anyone in the last four years. The car was given to me as a gift, from Jamie when he died, but I don’t want it and will probably never want it. Why would I want the car he died in? His mom gave it to me and I think it was some kind of sick joke if you ask me. His fucking blood is still on the dashboard.

  Who knows if it even runs anymore. I never plan on finding out. Someday I might even burn it to the ground.

  When we’re out of Haylee’s truck, Morgan darts inside where Mom and Dad are. I sneak through the cornfield and into the barn hoping Grayer’s in there.

  He is.

  Barefoot and nervous, my heart thuds loudly in my ears, visions of last night come to mind. All pleasant ones.

  His back is to me, no shirt, shoveling hay. The sun filtering through the cracks in the wood illuminates every muscle on his body. And guess what, he has tattoos. I hadn’t noticed them last night. There’s a couple on his arms and one across his chest, although I’m not entirely sure what they say just yet. I fully intend to explore them.

  He notices me, his body visibly tenses.

  “What are you doing in here?” He’s not looking up, and I think he’s trying really hard not to. “And where the fuck are your shoes? There’s shit all over here you could cut your feet on.”

  I’m touched he’s concerned, but I need to get this off my chest. “I’m looking for you,” I say, strutting toward him. Still wearing my halter dress and bikini under it, I’m pretty tempted to strip to get his attention.

  I’ve resorted to less before.

  He turns away from me. “You shouldn’t be in here.” He’s sweating, muscles rigid and defined in every aspect, that hat, those jeans hanging low . . . damn. I’m immediately reminded of the way he rode that bull in the video and that nod . . . God!

  “I came to see you and apologize,” I admit, my heart skipping into a steady fast rhythm.

  He digs the fork into the hay. “Telling the truth would have been easier.”
<
br />   Apparently more confident than ever before, I step forward and wrap my arms around his shoulders. “I know,” I whisper into his neck, my hands on his bare skin. He smells like sweat and man and so delicious. I want to lick the sweat beads from his neck, as gross as that sounds. “But last night was worth it.”

  He isn’t having it and pushes himself away from me, creating distance between us, my hands falling away. “You lied to me.”

  “Is it really that big a deal?” I cross my arms, arching an eyebrow at him. “I turn eighteen in a few days.”

  His eyes rake over my body, and then land on mine again. “I’m twenty-one. You’re seventeen. So yeah, it’s a big deal . . . and illegal.”

  I read his biography in detail on the PBR website. He turned twenty-one a month ago. “You’re barely twenty-one,” I point out, thinking it’ll make a difference. My heart splutters and takes a nose dive when I realize I’m probably pissing him off even more. But I can’t stop myself. “And I’ll be eighteen in a few days. Our age shouldn’t matter.” I’m trying to justify my reasoning last night, though something in his eyes tells me it doesn’t matter.

  Oh shit, there’s that glare again.

  “You fuckin’ lied to me,” Grayer repeats, lifting his chin, his eyebrows knitting together, scowling at me. A small grin curls his lips and I’m reminded of the arrogant side of him. “And, yes, it should and it does in the eyes of the law. It matters a lot.” I can hear the edge of anger in his voice as he arches his eyebrow, waiting to see what I’ll say next.

  “So would it have really mattered if I told you my age last night?” I taunt. Oh Jesus, Maesyn, shut up. Don’t ruin what little chance you have here.

  He laughs. It’s a hollow derisive sound that reminds me of Joel. “I wouldn’t have let you come within twenty feet of me, and we certainly wouldn’t have done that.” His eyes drift south.

  “You’re lying.” He knows he is. He was drunk last night, maybe not drunk enough to allow me to do that, but I think maybe just enough that he’d make an exception.