by Roxie Noir
Mae laughs.
“In a romantic kinda way,” I say.
“So you jerked off into a bouquet of roses?” she asks.
I snort.
“Who’s disgusting now?” I ask. “For a nice girl, you’re real filthy.”
“You’d know,” she says, snaking one hand over my side and pulling me a little closer.
My dick stiffens, just a little. I take a deep breath, trying to control it, because I still haven’t said what I’m trying to say and I want to do it before Li’l Jackson takes over.
“Wait,” I say, and she pauses, her blue eyes flicking to my face.
“What is it?” she asks.
“There have been a whole lot of women,” I say. “I lost count after a while.”
She puts one hand on my chest and bites her lip for a moment, looking down. Then her eyes meet mine again.
“Jackson,” she says softly. “I know how to use the internet.”
“Okay,” I say, not really sure where this is going.
“So I looked you up,” she says. “You know you’ve got a four-point-seven rating on Rate a Rodeo Stud dot com with seventy one votes cast, right?”
I have no idea what the hell she’s talking about, and I just stare at her for a long moment.
“What is that, and a four-point-seven outta how many?” I finally hear myself ask.
“Are you serious?” she asks.
I just nod.
“It’s a website where women — buckle bunnies, I guess — rate the sexual performance of the cowboys they’ve slept with,” Mae says. “Last time I checked, you’d been rated seventy-one times, so I assume you’ve slept with way, way more girls than that.”
She watches my face, and I think she’s having a hard time not laughing.
“Some of them got pretty detailed,” she says. “The rating’s out of five, so four-point-seven isn’t bad.”
“You knew this whole time,” I say.
“I googled you when I got the assignment for Pioneer Days,” she says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
“And that came up?” I ask.
“Do you not google yourself?” she asks. “I know Wyoming’s got the internet.”
I have no idea what to do or what to say. I can’t believe that this whole time, Mae’s not just known numbers, but details.
“I’m sorry,” I finally say.
“I can’t believe you didn’t know about it,” she says. “Though it explains why you didn’t brag about your four-point-seven.”
She swallows.
“I only read a few of the reviews, to be honest,” she said. “It felt kind of weird to read that about someone I was gonna have to work with.”
“Were they detailed?”
Mae rolls onto her back, and now my head’s on her shoulder, my arm slung across her as I stroke her hip.
She’s still here, I remind myself. She knew all this and she’s still here.
“One was pretty detailed, but the writer didn’t use any punctuation or capital letters so it was basically impossible to read,” she says. “One just said ‘Cute guy, good sex, five stars,’ and one thought you did sloppy work because you were drunk.”
“Shit,” I say, her skin smooth under my hand. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she says slowly. “I’m not thrilled, but I’ll live.”
I’ve gotta get myself off that stupid site, I think.
“It’s just you now,” I say. “I promise.”
There are a million things on the tip of my tongue, like because you’re the only one I want or it’s only you forever or just I love you, but I don’t say any of them.
“You too,” she says, wrapping an arm around my back. “Promise.”
I lie there for another moment, just thinking all this over. There’s one very, very important question I still haven’t asked.
“How does a four-point-seven stack up overall?” I ask. “Is that good, or bad, or about average?”
“It’s pretty high,” Mae says. “You got good ratings on dick, charm, and technique, but your follow-up score was low.”
I can’t help but laugh.
“That’s pretty accurate,” I say.
“Of course you think that,” Mae teases.
“Okay, Miss Guthrie,” I say. “Let’s hear your review.”
Mae laughs and blushes.
“I should give you a terrible review so no one else wants to sleep with you,” she says. “‘Fell asleep before I achieved orgasm. Smelled bad. Snored. Zero stars.’ Think that would work?”
“So you’d tank my rating out of jealousy,” I say.
“Hell yes,” Mae says.
Then she looks past me and thinks for a minute, narrowing her eyes. “Or I’d give you a really good rating, since I’m not sure I want my boyfriend to be famously bad at sex.”
She’s never called me her boyfriend before. It sounds good.
“Well, I’m not sure a single rating would have much effect on your boyfriend’s score one way or the other,” I say.
I scoot closer to her, my face in the crook of her neck, so I nip at the soft skin there. I’m getting hard again, fast, and I know she can tell.
“Okay,” she finally says. “How about, ‘Charming, enthusiastic, and very good at sex. Sometimes talks too much during the act.’”
“I do not,” I say, and gently bite the shell of her ear.
Mae gasps.
“‘His cock might have an inexhaustible power source, but it’s pretty nice, so I don’t mind,’” she continues her review. “‘Drives me wild enough to do things like talk dirty by pretending to review his sexual performance.’”
Now I’m halfway under her, my chest against her back. She takes my cock in one hand and squeezes it. I groan into her ear, the pressure of her hand sending pleasure flooding through my body.
“Is that the whole review?” I ask.
I slide my hand up to her breasts and squeeze one, pinching her nipple between my fingers.
Mae moans and arches her back.
“I need a good ending,” she says, her voice getting ragged. “Something punchy, you know?”
“Well, you already used ‘very good at sex,’” I tease.
She strokes my cock again, her chest rising and falling under my hand.
“You just want me to talk dirty to you,” she says. Her voice is getting breathy like it does when she’s starting to lose control.
“Guilty as charged,” I say.
“How’s this, then,” Mae says, and swallows. “‘Jackson Cody turns me on so much it should be illegal. I spent weeks watching him jerk off on camera, and I thought it was one of the sexiest things I’d ever seen, but sometimes he talks too much when I just want him inside me already.’”
“Impatient,” I say into her ear.
“Four-point-six stars,” Mae finishes.
“Point six?” I say.
“I’m willing to revise for a good performance,” she says.
Now we’re both on our sides, and she arches her back so the tip of my cock is resting against her entrance. My dick throbs, somehow going even harder, and I try to savor this tiny moment just before all my senses get obliterated by the sheer overwhelming pleasure of Mae.
Then I give up and sink myself inside her tight channel and both of us groan together. She’s beyond wet and so turned on that she feels swollen, her pussy clenched around me like a fist as I’m all the way inside her.
Mae pushes back and moans, and I grab her hip and move myself inside her.
“God that feels good,” she whispers.
“I’m always afraid I’m gonna come the second I’m inside you,” I whisper into her ear. “I swear to god you fit me perfect, Lula-Mae.”
I pull back and then slide inside her again, listening to her moan. It might be the sexiest sound I’ve ever heard, at least aside from all the other noises she makes.
I want to go slow this time. I want to savor this, because it feels so
good that I don’t want it to be over right away.
We move together in a rhythm that’s almost lazy, her body against mine. I feel almost lost as her muscles start to tighten around my cock. Mae starts pushing back into me, trying to move faster and faster.
I put my hand on her hip and squeeze, holding her still. She turns her head and looks back at me, panting for breath, so I thrust inside her slow but hard and watch her eyes slide shut, her hips moving back as if she can take more of me in.
“Come on,” she whispers, trying to move faster.
“No,” I growl. “Let me fuck you slow for once.”
She sighs. I lock my fingers around her hip and hold her still for a minute, buried to the hilt. I can feel her throb around me, and it’s perfect and delicious.
“Lula-Mae, I’m not gonna give you what you want,” I murmur.
I pull out and slide into her again. Her toes curl and an explosive, breathy moan comes out of her mouth.
“I’m gonna give you what you need,” I whisper.
She just nods. I wrap my arm around her waist and keep moving as slow as I can make myself, filling her with every stroke until she moans. It’s driving me wild and I feel like I’m hanging on by a thread, about to swing over the edge and into the abyss, but I keep going.
“Jackson,” Mae murmurs.
I fuck her deep and she moves her hips again. Her pussy is pulsing around me, almost throbbing, and I can tell she’s gonna come soon.
“I’ll never get enough of you saying my name,” I say. “Especially like that.”
“Like you’re about to make me come?” she asks, her voice low and breathy.
“Exactly,” I say.
I keep going, slow and deep and hard, and it’s almost torture, but Mae is moaning and gasping for breath, coming undone before my eyes. I can’t get enough. The most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen is here, and she’s mine, and I’m doing this to her.
“Don’t stop,” she gasps. “Please don’t stop, Jackson, please.”
“Not for the world, Lula-Mae,” I growl in her ear.
“I love that you’re bare inside me,” she whispers. “I — oh, fuck, Jackson — ”
I can’t hold out any longer. I slide my hand between her legs and circle her clit.
Almost instantly, her muscles clench around me and she throws her head back. I think she’s gonna shout but she hardly makes any noise at all, just a quiet, barely-there moan, but I can feel how hard she’s coming as her pussy tightens around me like a vise.
“Oh fuck, Jackson,” she whispers. “Jesus fucking Christ, Jackson.”
I go over. I can’t feel her come and hear her whisper my name and do anything but come so hard I just about forget my own name. I murmur her name into her hair over and over again as we move in perfect rhythm, both totally lost to ecstasy.
After a long time, we both go still but I’ve still got my arm around her, holding her as close against me as I can. She puts her hand over mine and laces our fingers together, then kisses my knuckles softly.
I don’t say anything, because I can’t think of a single thing to say that encapsulates this sensation, this perfect feeling that for once I’m exactly where I want to be. I’m not thinking about bull riding or championships or Mae getting on a plane. I’m not thinking anything, because my brain is just a happiness fog.
It’s a long time before I realize my arm has pins and needles in it, and slowly, we both roll onto our backs. Mae puts her arm over me and her head on my chest and kisses the left side of the horseshoe.
“You were right,” she says, her voice low and lazy.
“About what?”
“I did need that.”
“Any interest in revising your review?” I ask.
Mae laughs.
“That four-point-six really got to you, huh?” she teases.
“Well, you keep coming back for more,” I say. “I can’t be that bad.”
“If it’s a five-point scale, then two-point-five is average,” she says. “And four-point-six is pretty good.”
“You like this better than pretty good, though,” I say.
She rolls onto me a little more and rests her chin on my chest, her eyes dancing.
“Okay, fine,” she says. “Four-point-seven.”
I lean my head against my pillow and sigh dramatically, and she rests her cheek on my chest again, laughing. She traces one finger over the scar over my breastbone, then slowly, her fingers drift to other scars: one down my arm from the time I climbed over a barbed wire fence and fell off, one on my stomach from the time I fell off a bull funny and my belt buckle broke and cut into me.
I have the urge to tell her the story behind each one, or at least the stories I can remember. I want Mae to be able to read me like a book, to be totally laid open for her.
After a long time, she sighs.
“I should go,” she says. “It’s late and I barely got any sleep last night.”
“You could stay,” I say.
“I wish,” she says softly. “I can’t get caught, Jackson.”
After another moment she sits up and swings her feet off the bed. She looks out the window for a moment and I look at her profile, and then she stands and walks to the other room.
I get up too, and together we hunt down our clothes. She gets dressed and I put my boxers on.
“There,” she says. “Do I look decent?”
“You look better than decent,” I say, and kiss her on the forehead. “You sure you can’t stay?”
I know I should stop asking, but the thought of getting back into that bed without her is almost physically painful. I want to wake up with her next to me, just once.
“Come on, Jackson,” she says.
I kiss her, and it’s slow and lazy and full of longing.
“Good luck tomorrow,” she says.
“And no eye-fucking?” I ask, sliding an arm around her waist.
“Maybe a little,” she concedes. “I think I won’t be quite as wound up after tonight.”
“I don’t know if that’s good or bad,” I say.
She bites her lip, then looks up at me.
“I know it’s useless to tell you to be careful out there,” she says. “But...”
She trails off, touching the scar in the middle of my chest.
“Try not to get another one of these, okay?” she says.
“You worry too much,” I say, grinning at her. “I know my business, Miss Guthrie.”
Mae makes a face, but I kiss her again.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say, hating this moment. “Try to act normal, okay?”
She just laughs.
23
Mae
I ride the elevator down, leaning my head back against the cool metal. I can still feel his arms around me, his lips on mine. I can still see his face in the dark, lit only by the Vegas strip glowing outside the window, and it’s making me crazy.
I just breathe. I’d rather be in Jackson’s bed, snuggled under the covers and laughing, but instead the elevator doors open onto the casino floor. It seems even brighter and louder at nearly one in the morning than it did earlier, like I’ve walked into some special, clanging hell.
At least it’s safe to go home this late in Vegas, I think.
In the cab, I start driving myself crazy. I’ve never been great with uncertainty, and I have no idea what we’re doing.
He said there was no one else, but does that just mean now? For the future? Are we exclusive? Are we dating?
What does he even do in the off-season? I wonder. Am I just his girlfriend when I’m around, but when he goes to other rodeos there’s other girls?
I think this is real, but does he? Or are we just having fun?
Is this a friends with benefits scenario?
I know I’m being an idiot. I know all signs point to this is a real thing, and they also point to just talk to him about it already, but sometimes once I get going on this train of thought it can be hard to hit the brake
s.
I pinch the bridge of my nose and look out the window at the scorchingly bright strip as it rolls by, and make myself take a deep breath.
You worry too much, I tell myself. Way too much.
It doesn’t help that I’m dead tired and worried about us getting found out. Not to mention worried about Jackson doing an insanely dangerous thing every day.
Everything is combining into one giant puddle of anxiety, each little thing tumbling into the next and the next. It’s not like I’ve ever been particularly chill in the first place.
The taxi drops me off one casino away from the Wynn. I pay the driver and start walking, the sidewalk still jammed with people. I force myself to count my steps and not think about anything else.
On the upside, I’m so busy at work that I barely have time to think about any of this. I’m at the arena, which is way off the strip at the University of Las Vegas, by seven in the morning. Bruce interviews a whole batch of rodeo front-runners and I take their pictures as they pose with their belt buckles and chaps and hats.
I’ve got fifteen minutes for lunch before steer roping starts, so I run through the arena building and toward a sandwich shop in the student union, because I’m starving.
I walk in, out of breath, and the door chimes. The guy ordering at the counter looks over his shoulder.
It’s Jackson. Of course it is. The one person I shouldn’t be speaking to in public.
He nods. I nod back and try to read the menu, but I have no idea what I wind up ordering. The guy behind the counter gives me a number, and I wander out of line to go wait.
Jackson’s also waiting. The sandwich shop isn’t that big, but it’s pretty full of rodeo people. Mostly I think they’re spectators, but I recognize a couple of cowboys.
“It’s Mae, right?” Jackson asks as I stand near him and pretend like I haven’t noticed him there.
“Right,” I say, trying to smile politely. “Hi again.”
“What kind of sandwich did you get?” he asks. His arms are crossed and he’s standing a few feet away, but I can feel him looking at me like I’m naked.
I swallow and look at my receipt.
“Roast beef and horseradish,” I say. “You?”
“Chicken salad,” he says.