Cowboy Blues

by Jamie Craig

  She had no idea what to ask for. She already had more than she wanted. Nothing could make their time together better.

  Rebecca bent her leg, resting her foot on his thigh as she spread her legs. When it came time to print up these pictures, she would be blushing from here to kingdom come, but for now, she felt sultry and sexy in ways she never did with anyone else.

  "I'll think about it. Though knowing you, you're likely to charm them out of me anyway."

  Spencer swallowed audibly. “I'm certainly going to give it the old cowboy try.” He gently set the camera aside, as careful with it as she would have been. “Starting right now.” His shirt followed, and then he stretched out beside her, all warm flesh and firm sinew against her softer curves.

  Rolling onto her side, Rebecca caressed his carved chest, marveling at how someone so hard could be so tender with her. “You taking off first thing in the morning?” she asked softly.

  "Not first thing. But I really shouldn't leave any later than noon.” He leaned in to draw his mouth along her jaw. “I'm on the program in Grand Junction."

  She turned her head to brush her cheek along his, his slight stubble raking deliciously across her skin. Her tongue followed afterward, sampling the rain and sweat seeping from his pores, and they both groaned when her breath tickled across his ear.

  "At least it gives us all night.” Rebecca nipped at his lobe as her hand molded down his side. “Think you can make it that long? Or did that bull get the best of you, cowboy?"

  "I think I can make it. How about you climb up and find out?” Spencer rolled onto his back, pulling her with him.

  Rebecca straddled his hips, her hair a dark curtain where it fell around his head. She knew from experience last year where the condoms were, but though the hard length of his arousal rubbed along her pussy and clit, she wasn't ready to take him in just yet.

  They had all night.

  As she bent her head to kiss him, Rebecca vowed to make the most of it.

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  CHAPTER 7

  Spencer knew pain. He could live with pain. Tolerating pain defined his existence. He faced it head-on without blinking. But the agony centralized in his shoulder was unlike anything he understood. Rebecca had given him his dosage of painkillers after dinner, assuring him it would make his shoulder feel better and put him to sleep. But the pills had done neither, as Spencer expected. How could so much pain, a whole galaxy of pain rotating through his body, be touched by two little pills?

  Rebecca had put him in her bedroom, insisting he would be comfortable in the larger bed and it would be easier for both of them. Spencer might have argued, but it hardly made a difference to him. He wouldn't sleep anyway. All he could do was lay awake, miserable and aching.

  Focusing on his memories distracted him from his shoulder and the steady throb behind his eyes. Unfortunately, focusing on his memories didn't improve his mood. He tried to think about Becca lowering herself on his cock, her pussy gripping him until he'd go cross-eyed from the pleasure. He tried to think about the other girls he had known in other towns. How many of them would have opened their home to his worthless, crippled ass? None of them.

  But mostly, he thought about the bulls. His clearest childhood memory was watching Travis fly ten feet off the back of a furious red bull, nearly cracking his skull in the process. Spencer hadn't cared anything about the possibility of injury; he had been too enthralled with the animal itself. Travis had seemed like the bravest man on the planet. It had been the day after his tenth birthday, and the first time he met his Uncle Travis, his father's youngest brother. Maybe he had latched onto Travis because he had never known his father. Or maybe he just wanted to climb on the back of one of those heaving, bucking, vicious, frightening, beautiful animals.

  He had followed his uncle's career, begging the older man to teach him how to ride, worshipping him from afar, and doing everything he could to practice. He rode anything that stood still long enough to let him—mostly sheep at first, but then he had graduated to horses, first with saddles and then bareback, with his eyes always on one goal. He practiced daily until he turned fifteen, when he tracked Travis to Denver, a homeless orphan who still only had one dream in mind.

  Spencer never made it past his sophomore year in high school. He didn't have any skills, except riding bulls. He didn't have any life, except riding bulls.

  Darkness seeped around the curtains at Rebecca's window, somehow thinner than that within the room. Becca had put up blackout blinds to keep the sun out, but when she'd shown him the room earlier, he'd asked for them to come down. He didn't want to hide away from the sun. The sun was one of the few things he understood. Without it, it would be too much like being locked away in a crypt, moldering away, and his thoughts were already bleak enough.

  She had complied. Without an argument. He wished he'd asked her to take the curtains down, too.

  A floorboard creaked in the hall, proof he wasn't alone. When the door pushed open, the light from the living room behind her outlined Becca's plush curves, turning her soft blouse transparent. She didn't come in. One hand stayed on the door, while the other gripped the jamb.

  "You need anything before I go to bed?” she half-whispered.

  "Do you have any more drugs?"

  "Yeah, but I can't give you any more for at least another hour. I'm sorry."

  "Why? What difference does it make?"

  "Because that's what the doc said. Your system can only take so much. Does it really hurt so bad?"

  "What are we saving my system for? Because I've got such a great future ahead of me?” Spencer sighed and looked away from her. “Never mind. I'm fine. I'll see you in the morning."

  The light slashing across the room didn't go away. Neither did her shadow. Spencer closed his eyes to block it out, but the click of the door closing never came.

  "I have a heating pad,” Rebecca said. “Maybe that might tide you over for awhile."

  "Yeah, a heating pad. That should solve all my problems."

  "Well, no, but it might do something about this one, at least."

  The darkness on the other side of his eyelids brightened, and he heard her footsteps move down the hall. A minute later, she returned, and he looked over in time to see her crouch down at the side of the bed.

  "I'll stay up for another hour,” she said when she sat back on her heels. She held a small, square item, and she leaned forward to mold it over his aching shoulder. “So you can get another dosage before I go to bed."

  The heat did help, almost immediately. The pain subsided long enough for his head to clear, and he felt a prick of guilt. “Sorry for snapping at you."

  "That's okay.” She took her time rising to her feet, and even more retreating to the door. “Just call me if you need anything else."

  "Becca...” Spencer wanted to add more, but he was momentarily too overwhelmed to speak. He hadn't been kind to her, despite her infinite patience. Seeing his buckles and those photos had created a different sort of agony. And he had been intent on taking it out on her, so it didn't seem fair to ask her to stay now.

  Rebecca paused, waiting for him to continue. The light gilded her profile, and her blue eyes shone. When he didn't speak, she smiled softly and said, “Try and sleep, Spence. I'll see you in an hour."

  Closing the door cast him in darkness yet again.

  He couldn't sleep. When he closed his eyes, he saw the first bull he ever tried. Uglier than sin, its face had been cut and marked from dozens of fights, its hide splotchy, the hair clumped and filthy. It had a look in its eye—something entirely unnatural. Like the damned thing knew Spencer. He had been sixteen and shaking with more emotions than he had ever felt up to that point. The bull had been called Red Tequila Sunrise—a name far too pretty for such a beast.

  Spencer had clung to it for three seconds before the bull flung him across the yard. The time he spent riding broncs hadn't prepared him for the power between his legs, and he didn't even react fast enough
to put a hand down to break his fall.

  So he tried again.

  And again.

  Dr. Allan had said he'd never ride again. A part of Spencer hadn't believed the good doctor. But now, in the darkness, with the throbbing pain in his shoulder, he believed it. The fear he had experienced when facing down Red Tequila Sunrise couldn't touch the terror clutching his heart now. They told him he was lucky to survive the blow to his head—lucky his skull wasn't shattered, lucky he didn't have a bone shard lodged in his brain, lucky his neck hadn't snapped in two. Spencer couldn't say he agreed with that assessment. He wouldn't characterize his life, his condition, as lucky.

  He didn't even hear the floorboard this time. One moment, it was dark. The next, Rebecca was back, and the bottle of pills rattled in her hand.

  She didn't say a word as she took the heating pad away. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she set the glass of water she'd brought on the nightstand and popped the drugs open, rolling two out in her palm and holding them out to him. Spencer took them and swallowed them dry, forcing them down his tight throat even when it tried to rebel.

  She sighed softly. “Have you slept at all?"

  "No. I can't."

  "'Cause of the pain?"

  "No. The pain isn't so bad now."

  "Is it the bed?” She looked down its length. “I know it's bigger than you're used to. Do you need more pillows or anything?"

  "No, it's not the bed. It's...I just want to ride again."

  Her “Oh, Spence” was more of a breath than anything else, but it weighed on his skin, his bones, his very marrow. She rose to her feet, but did not leave him alone again to brood in solitude, moving around the end to the other side of the bed. The mattress bowed slightly as she lay down next to him, and she curled her arm beneath the pillow to watch him.

  "Is this okay? Because I can't sleep if you don't sleep, so maybe if we're both not sleeping, we can talk or something."

  "Yeah,” he said softly, relieved he didn't have to feel like he was further imposing on her. “What would you do? If you couldn't take pictures anymore?"

  "I don't know. I've never thought about it. I guess it depends on why. Did I lose my hands in a freak baking accident, or did I go blind, walking in on Lonnie and Sharelle doing it on the chest freezer?"

  Spencer snorted. “The latter. I think that's more detrimental to your profession."

  "So I can't see anymore...” Her eyes took on a faraway glaze, her small teeth worrying the corner of her mouth as she contemplated the possibilities. “I'd probably try working out at the vet's office. I don't think I'm smart enough to get any kind of degree, but I'm good with my laptop, and I love working with the animals. I could probably find something there to make me happy."

  "I don't have any sort of idea or backup plan. I know that's stupid. I knew I couldn't ride bulls forever. But these accidents...they happen to other people. Not me."

  "Just because you didn't have one, doesn't mean we can't figure out one for you now. What did you do when you weren't riding?"

  "What do you mean? Between rodeos, or before I started on the circuit?"

  "Between events.” Her small smile was genuine. “You told me you started traveling with your Uncle Travis when you were fifteen. I figure anything that might have interested you before then doesn't count too much."

  "Well, I drive a lot between gigs, since I don't like to fly, and most guys do. If I'm not driving or at a rodeo, I usually read or research bulls."

  "What about for fun?"

  "I ride...rode...bulls for a living. That was all the fun I needed. Plus, I thought it was fun to trace the bloodlines of bulls. Are you saying you don't think that's a good time?"

  "Well...” Rebecca brushed her knuckles along his forearm, back and forth in soothing strokes. “I should probably say, to each his own. I get a strange thrill locking myself in a dark room with funny chemicals and glowing paper to get pictures the old-fashioned way when digital is a million times faster, so I'm probably not one to talk."

  The pills were starting to take hold of him, dulling the pain into a manageable roar. “I'm an idiot. I'm probably just getting what I deserve now."

  "Nobody deserves this. We'll just find a way to help you deal with it, is all."

  "Yeah, right. I can't help but think if I used my brain for something other than holding up my hat, I wouldn't be in this situation and imposing on your life."

  She flicked her nails at his bare skin, just the tiniest of stings to catch his attention. “You're not imposing."

  "I'm sleeping in your bed, aren't I? Eating your food? Snapping at you for no reason?"

  "I'm not doing anything for you I wouldn't do for any other friend."

  "I guess if nothing else, I've got you and Jake. Things could be much worse."

  Her soft touch returned. “Much worse,” Becca agreed. She fell silent for long seconds, seconds he felt with each throb of his shoulder, every sweep of her fingers. Then... “You think you might be able to sleep now?"

  Spencer knew he should be strong and tell her absolutely, all the dark thoughts were banished, and the gray despair didn't creep over him. He would need all of his strength just to get through every day, and if he gave in to hopelessness, he'd be too weak to do anything. But his hopelessness lingered.

  "I don't know.” He studied her face for a moment, catching the shape of her nose and lips in the line of light from the open door. “Have I been here before?"

  She swallowed before she answered, but the hesitation said far more than her words. “Yes. Two years ago. We came here instead of staying in the trailer."

  "Oh. We weren't ever really friends, were we?"

  "I guess...that depends on your definition of friend.” Her hand stilled, though she didn't pull it away. “I mean, we only ever saw each other the one time a year, but...we always got on good, even outside of the physical part. I wouldn't have done this if I didn't think of you as a friend, Spence."

  "I know. I just meant...” Spencer dropped his head back to the pillow and stared up at the ceiling. “Christ, I feel like half the things I say are incomplete. I meant, I wasn't...I was a shitty friend to you.” His eyes felt heavy, like if he closed them, he might not open them again. “Should have called once in awhile. Wrote you."

  "I never expected you to. I liked what we had. I still like what we have.” Carefully, Rebecca edged a little closer, her breasts soft where they pressed against him, and her arm moved gently over his waist. “Is this okay? I'm not hurting you, am I?"

  "It's more than okay. It's actually really good. You feel really good. And you smell really good, too."

  Her warm breath wafted across his shoulder, and he felt something tickle along the skin there. “I can stay here until you fall asleep, if you want,” she whispered. “I don't mind."

  "Thank you.” His lashes fell. “I'll try to be better tomorrow."

  "I know.” Another tickle, this one lingering a little bit longer. “Good night, Spence."

  "Night, Becca.” He didn't want to drift away from the security of her body against his, or the sweet smell of her hair, or the assurance in every soft word. But now he couldn't keep his eyes open, even if he wanted to. He just hoped all of those small details followed him into his dreams.

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  CHAPTER 8

  Two Years Earlier

  Spencer's hands were clammy and his stomach unsettled. A re-ride had fucked with his head, and he had damned near broken his wrist the second time on the bull. He had gotten his eight seconds, but his nerves hadn't quieted. He knew the source of anxiety—Rebecca Rankin. Their previous two meetings had been amazing, beyond amazing, but this time would be slightly different. For one thing, they had a pre-determined meeting place, to save them both the time and energy of searching the arena, and for another thing, he had a gift for her.

  It was not the greatest gift ever. It might not have even been appropriate. What did he know about buying presents for girls? The women he met
usually only wanted one thing from him, and it wasn't material goods. But Becca had sent him two sets of amazing photographs, and he appreciated both sets. Very much. Especially the second one that had included every frame he had taken of her. He thought, at the least, a gift would be polite.

  As soon as he finished his paperwork with the rodeo officials, he went directly to his truck. He had unhitched it from the trailer when he parked, in eager anticipation of taking Becca away from the rodeo stands. He wanted to drive her some place dark and private, and he wanted to get her there as soon as possible. Fortunately, Rebecca's eagerness always matched his, so he suspected he wouldn't have to wait long for her arrival.

  He didn't know who saw who first. There he was, sweeping the darkness for any sign of her, and when his head swiveled back, looking off to his left, there she was, striding toward him with that beautiful smile on her face.

  Spencer had consumed more hours than he wanted to admit studying her pictures, memorizing the details, remembering how soft she'd been above him, next to him, below. But seeing her in the flesh, with those legs that went on for miles, the plush curves that made his fingers itch to sink into her, put those images to shame. She wore a simple white top and jeans, and her camera hung around her neck as proof of her official capacity. He matched her smile, straightening against the side of the truck as she approached.

  "The faster we get out of here, the happier both of us are going to be.” She didn't stop until she stood right in front of him, and his hands went automatically to her hips as she tilted her head up. “Lonnie's trying to be clever. He told my dad you and I should go out with him and Sharelle after, to celebrate. So we have about two minutes before he shows up and tries to drag us back to civilization."

  Spencer always enjoyed spending time with Rebecca, without exception, but he never understood why she gave a fuck about what her dad said or what Lonnie wanted. When he traveled with Travis, he'd tell the older man to fuck off anytime he started getting in Spencer's business. And he'd do it without blinking. Why would he care that Lonnie wanted them to go out to dinner? Why did Rebecca think he cared? He never asked, though, or invited her to explain her family to him. How Becca's father treated her wasn't any of his business, especially since she was an adult in every sense of the word.