Herd That ARC

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  Callum rolled his eyes at Colt. “Did you honestly expect him to?”

  Codie came up from her stretch and glanced at me. “You don’t stretch?”

  I grunted out a ‘negative’ sound.

  “I don’t see the point,” I admitted. “I came from riding bareback on a bronco. My muscles are loose as fuck.”

  Chapter 9

  You can have him.

  -Jolene

  Codie

  I told myself not to look at him. I also told myself that today I wouldn’t be as affected by him as I’d seemed to be in the past.

  I’d pumped myself up, told myself that he wasn’t as good looking as I was making him out to be.

  Then he walked in wearing those sweatpants.

  This time, they were a pair of Under Armour sweatpants.

  They had the big UA on the side of them, up near his thigh. The sweatpants were the usual gray color, and the UA logo was a bright red.

  Only, the bottom of the A came down to a point, right above where the head of his cock lay vividly behind his pants.

  Swear to God, there was no way in hell the man was wearing any underwear.

  If he was, I wouldn’t be able to see the shape of his cock so easily… right?

  I mean, his brother was standing right next to him in his sweatpants, and yes, I could see the faint outline of his cock as well—and damn, the Valentine men weren’t slouches in the cock department—but I couldn’t make out the ridge and veins like I could on Ace’s penis.

  Desi elbowed me, and I looked guiltily at her.

  “What?” I swallowed hard.

  “They’re asking if we’re ready to start,” she said softly.

  I swallowed hard.

  “Yeah,” I said, looking around at all the men who had once been surrounding us talking. Now they were dispersed around the room on various machines. Ace was loading large weight plates onto a bar that I assumed he was about to squat.

  Callum was testing out dumbbells.

  Then the man, Colt, who was teaching us for today, was staring at me like I was holding up his day.

  And inconveniencing it greatly.

  I nodded my head. “I’m ready,” I croaked.

  What I didn’t know was that I wasn’t ready.

  And that Colt was a crazy man.

  ***

  I stared up at the ceiling, wondering if my heart rate would ever return to normal.

  I was fairly sure that it wouldn’t.

  I was also fairly sure that come tomorrow, I wouldn’t be able to move, let alone walk.

  “See y’all later,” Colt barked.

  I looked over at my friend and shook my head.

  “I’m not going tomorrow,” I informed her. “I don’t love you enough to do this ever again.”

  “Not even to get a load of that?” she pointed.

  I grudgingly turned my head to see Ace squat down into such a perfect squat that an imaginary chair could’ve been sitting underneath his butt.

  Not to mention he had enough weight on the bar to triple me in size.

  “No,” I croaked. “Not even that is enough to get me to come back.”

  That was also a lie. I’d thoroughly enjoyed having Ace to look at throughout my workout.

  But I had my limits.

  Not to mention I also had every intention of going to the police department tomorrow to see what was up with my application, which I informed her of in the next few moments.

  “I have a meeting with the police department,” I told her. “I’m meeting with a few of the men who are the head of their crime division. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to get a job.”

  She looked at me sympathetically.

  “I know,” I muttered, not needing to hear her words. “But I’m going to try. I worked for the Dallas Police Department for three years, doing excellent work. There’s absolutely no reason that they can say no.”

  Desi snorted. “Didn’t you try to steal the assistant police chief’s car when you were fifteen?”

  I had tried to do that, sort of.

  But the assistant chief of police had also arrested me and taken my parents away from me, even though he hadn’t been trying to accomplish that at the time.

  Really, I knew that he was just trying to look out for me.

  But that day the chief had arrested me had been the day that my mother finally gave up on me. The day that they started looking for houses down in Florida and foisted me off on my grandfather.

  “I was a little bad,” I admitted. “But I’m sure that he’s over it.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m sure he’s not based on the way he glared at you yesterday at the deli.”

  That was true.

  I’d seen him as I’d gone in, offered him a small smile, and had winced inwardly when he’d taken one look at me and narrowed his eyes, waiting for me to kick up a ruckus.

  But I hadn’t.

  He also hadn’t stopped watching me the entire time he’d been at the counter waiting for his lunch.

  “What’s this?” Ace asked, sweat dripping down his face.

  His eyes went to the pinking sky outside as he watched the sun start to rise in the sky.

  I looked at my watch and saw that it was almost six-thirty and sighed, rolling over so that I could eventually get myself to my feet.

  When I was on my hands and my knees, I realized that the voices around me had gone quiet.

  “What?” I asked, looking over at them over one shoulder.

  My eyes automatically went to Ace, who was staring at my ass.

  “You have a perfect chalk print of a hand on your ass,” he said.

  I felt myself flush in embarrassment.

  I remembered wiping my hands on my shorts quite a few times over the last hour, there was no doubt in my mind that it was there just like he said.

  “I did that,” I admitted.

  He grinned. “Well, it’s too small to be any of ours. So I only assumed.”

  I felt myself flush all over again.

  What the hell was wrong with me?

  “You also have a vagina sweat stain,” Desi murmured. “But I think they’re being nice and not telling you that.”

  I looked down, and sure enough, I did have a vagina sweat stain. Or, at least, there was a large sweat stain right around where my underwear lay. It was a perfect triangle that followed the seams.

  Awesome.

  “Thanks for that, Des,” I muttered, feeling myself flush all over again. “You ready to go?”

  She frowned. “Actually, I was going to stay a bit and work out my arms with ol’ Hulk over here.” She pointed at Callum. “If you want, you can take my car. I can walk home afterward.”

  I stared at her pointedly. “I don’t know how to drive a standard.”

  Desi winced. “Shit. I forgot about that. You can walk to my house and get your car.”

  I looked down at my nearly dead legs and knew that I wouldn’t be walking anywhere.

  “I’ll wait,” I suggested.

  Ace jumped up and caught the pull-up bar he was standing under, did four pull-ups, and made my mouth go dry.

  When he dropped back down, he stared me dead in the eyes and said, “I’ll take you home.”

  I swallowed as he jumped back up there, and I swear to God, the man made things in my belly start to flutter that hadn’t fluttered for anyone ever.

  I watched as he started doing more pull-ups. Seventeen before he stopped. I also watched as his abs contracted, and the bottom of his t-shirt rode up showing off an impressive set of abs.

  Oh, God.

  I couldn’t go anywhere with him. Not when he affected me the way he did.

  “I’ll walk.” I scrunched up my nose.

  “You’ll ride with Ace,” Desi said. “And maybe we can meet up for lunch again? This time at that new…”

  “Ramen noodle place!” I called out excitedly, clapping my han
ds.

  Desi stared at me. “I highly doubt that they have anything wheat-free there.”

  I shrugged. “You told me we’d go when they opened, and I’m holding you to that.”

  Desi made a pained face. “Codie…”

  I glared at her.

  “I like Ramen noodles,” Ace said.

  Callum snorted.

  “Actually, Ace likes everything that has to do with the Asian culture.” He eyed me. “Maybe that’s why he likes you so much.”

  I flushed bright red again, cursing my mother’s Irish roots.

  My Asian father, who was from Japan originally but moved here when he was twelve, had taught me everything he knew when it came to his culture. I was a Japanese culture extraordinaire. I watched anime, ate everything that I could with chopsticks, and ultimately wished that one day I could go to Japan and visit all the places that only I found interesting.

  Knowing Ace liked the Asian culture like I did made me flush with happiness.

  “How did you know I was half Japanese?” I asked him.

  Callum gave me an ‘are you kidding me’ look. “I grew up in this town right along with you, darlin’.”

  Oh yeah. I forgot that part.

  I also felt ashamed.

  He knew exactly who I was, and what I did when I was a kid.

  Desi gave me an ‘oh shit’ look, knowing exactly what I was thinking after having been my best friend for my entire adult life.

  “Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “I’ll talk to you guys later.”

  Then I ran out the door and didn’t look back.

  Chapter 10

  Shhhh the fuck up.

  -Coffee Cup

  Codie

  I wasn’t even the least bit surprised when Ace caught up to me.

  I’d moved fairly fast out of the gym. However, the moment that I’d gotten outside and the wind had hit me, I’d remembered why I hadn’t wanted to walk home.

  Not only were my legs refusing to cooperate with me, but the wind was biting and so cold that it instantly chilled me to the bone.

  Granted, it didn’t help that I had sweat over every inch of my body, soaking through my clothes.

  But due to the wind paired with the near freezing temperatures, I knew it wouldn’t matter whether I was wet from sweat or not. I wouldn’t have wanted to walk home in it regardless.

  “Hey, wait up!” Ace called. “My truck’s right there.”

  I looked over at said truck and frowned. “I’m all right.”

  It would’ve sounded more confident had my lips not been numb and if my teeth had not been chattering.

  But oh well.

  Ace rolled his eyes at me and I narrowed mine at him, and when he arrived at my side with his truck, I stubbornly refused to get inside.

  Instead I kept walking, trying to ignore him and my chattering teeth.

  It didn’t work.

  Especially when the first raindrop hit me smack in the forehead.

  I sighed and reached for the door handle.

  “I liked you better when you didn’t talk to me,” I muttered. “When you thought that I was just some stupid girl that couldn’t back up a horse trailer.”

  His lips twitched.

  “I still think that,” he admitted. “We need to obviously teach you how to back up a trailer… and drive a five-speed, apparently.”

  I didn’t say anything to that.

  “Why’d you run out of the gym?” he asked bluntly.

  I looked out the side window just as the bottom fell out of the sky, and rain started pouring down in torrential sheets.

  “I don’t know,” I lied.

  “I don’t know my ass,” he muttered. “Darlin’.” He tilted his head all cute like, allowing him to see out from underneath his hat better. “High school was a long time ago.”

  I didn’t say anything to that.

  One, because he was right. High school was a long time ago.

  Two, because that stare, paired with those eyes of his? I had no saliva left in my mouth.

  “And if anybody is going to remember anything, it’s going to be them thinking about how fucked up my dad was, and wondering if the apple didn’t fall far from the tree,” he said.

  My brows shot up in surprise, and I looked at him in horror.

  “Nobody is going to be thinking that!” I cursed. “Are you nuts?”

  He shrugged. “It’s true, though. I have a reputation, and what if that’s what you’re so afraid of? What if it’s me you don’t want to be associated with, and you’re just trying to be nice?”

  I had… nothing to say to that.

  How could he think that?

  He was delusional.

  “Fine,” I said, knowing he’d immediately say no to my unreasonable request. “You can take me out on a date. I want to go to breakfast with Santa at Smokes.”

  I’d actually looked into it myself and found the whole damn thing sold out. I was sorely disappointed.

  Smokes was a restaurant/smokehouse that you could buy smoked ham, turkeys, bacon, and even gifts since they’d opened their new store right next to their old one. Not to mention they had the best damn fudge this side of Texas.

  Ace blinked.

  “You want to what?” he asked, his eyebrows raised to his hairline. “That’s for kids!”

  I started grinning. “Maybe. But I heard you get to feed turkeys and longhorns.”

  He shook his head. “You’re literally the weirdest girl I’ve ever met.”

  My brows rose. “Really? I don’t feel like I’m weird.”

  He snorted.

  “I’m not saying that you’re weird, per se, but you do weird things. I mean, what adult woman would want to go to a breakfast with Santa just because the place she’s going to has longhorns and turkeys you can feed?” he asked.

  He did have a point.

  “And I’ve literally begged to go out on a date with you. To the movies. To a wine tasting. To dueling pianos.” He shook his head. “You’ve turned me down every which way.”

  I had done that.

  He’d asked me multiple times, even suggested places he thought would be great to hang out at, going as far as to find places that were even out of town.

  Except, those ‘out of town’ places were owned by people that lived in town. People that knew me, and didn’t like me.

  I smiled fondly at the man. “I’m not interested in wine. I’m more of a beer girl. And dueling pianos sounds like lots of fun, but I don’t want to go to the vineyard. They’re all stuck up, pretentious assholes.”

  He frowned. “They’re not that bad.”

  My brows lowered.

  “I know you’re not going to believe this, but when I went there after I got home with Desi, I’ve never felt so unwanted. A lot of those people think I’m trash. I do have a reputation, after all.”

  His hands tightened on the wheel as he watched me. “Then I would’ve left the moment that I knew. Desi should’ve done that, too. I’ll never go back there.”

  I waved the offer away with a sweep of my hand at the empty air.

  “One of your friends owns it. I’m not going to ask you to stop going to a friend’s place just because they all looked at me and whispered insults,” I countered.

  His hands clenched around the steering wheel.

  “They whisper insults?” he asked in an eerily calm voice.

  I looked away from him and studied the sky.

  He was pissed and pushing his truck likely past what it could handle.

  I didn’t point that out, though.

  Ace didn’t strike me as not being fully and completely aware of what was going on around him.

  I looked away and shrugged. “It’s really nothing new. I did some pretty stupid shit when I was a kid. I deserved half the stuff that was said to me when I was younger. Even some of the stuff that they say to me now.”

  He scoffed.

&
nbsp; “From what I’ve heard, you weren’t that stupid. You were just being a kid and got caught doing the stupid stuff that most kids get away with. So, you drank underage? What kid didn’t?”

  The way he said that so matter of fact had my heart stalling in my chest. He was being serious. He didn’t think I was truly all that bad.

  “I put my parents through the wringer,” I admitted. “I was the kid they thought wasn’t going to graduate from high school. When I graduated college, I swear they cried tears of joy at my graduation.”

  “I don’t remember your parents much,” he admitted. “Other than the random tidbit about them not belonging here. Or at least your dad anyway.”

  I snickered. “Dad hated how they talked about him… which I think played a part in how I acted, too. I disliked how they always looked at him like he was crazy. I mean, a Japanese guy is allowed to be a rancher, too. Sure, he might’ve been awful at almost everything he did, but they didn’t have to talk so poorly about him.”

  Ace sighed. “Small towns are worse than big towns,” he admitted. “That’s partially why it took us so long to come back. And when we did come back, why it took us so long to get back into the game again, so to speak.”

  “You mean, why you hide out and let your ranch hands go into town for you and do whatever you needed done?” I asked teasingly.

  He grinned, then suddenly cursed and turned off onto a dirt road.

  “Where are you going?” I questioned.

  Not alarmed, so to speak, but definitely curious. I was always curious, and Ace made me realize curious and curious were two separate things.

  I mean, where normal men would’ve piqued my interest, Ace Valentine made my engine race.

  “To show you some longhorns,” he answered.

  I blinked slowly at him.

  “You know someone with longhorns?” I asked.

  He nodded his head.

  “Yeah,” he confirmed. “Me.”

  My mouth fell open.

  “Really?” I breathed. “When did you get those?”

  “When we moved back,” he answered as he stopped in front of a locked gate. “Scoot over here and drive my truck in. I have to close it back after we get through otherwise the curious little shitheads will get out. It’s like they have a sixth sense for when the damn gate is left open. And they’re a bitch to get back inside the fence.”