5. Lily

5

Lily

I’d never been to Lucky Pete’s, but that didn’t mean I went in cold. I’ve met with Colombian drug lords in old train yards and Japanese mafia in theme parks. I never go in cold. I’d pieced together the interior of the place from photos on the web and knew all my exits in case of disaster. I debated whether to take my gun but eventually decided it was inappropriate for a date. So I took a Taser instead.

Imagine every cheesy Wild West saloon bar you’ve seen in a movie, recreated on a low budget and then filled with too many people who’ve had too much beer. The highlight of the place was the mechanical bull and the animatronic prospector (complete with pickaxe and long white beard) who stuck his head out of a barrel every few minutes and asked if anyone had seen his mule. That line probably got pretty tired, after you’d heard it four hundred times. I’d only been there ten minutes and I was ready to bury the pickaxe in the puppet’s head .

Where the hell was Bull? It was five past eight. Was this normal? Were guys always late for dates?

I was uncomfortably aware that I didn’t have a whole lot of experience to go on. My teenage years hadn’t been exactly normal.

I hadn’t known what to wear, so I’d put on a fresh blouse along with my jeans, added a little make-up and left it at that. Now, looking around at the other girls, I realized that maybe I should have spent less time checking the exits and more time looking at what people were wearing. Everyone else was in little skirts or shorts and strappy tops, with either towering heels or some quirky take on cowboy boots. I was showing about ten percent of the skin all the other girls were, and theirs was beautifully sun-kissed and smoothly tan.

I still couldn’t see him anywhere. I stalked over to the bar and asked for a beer. At least I could enjoy the one benefit of being out on the town. I don’t drink in the bus. I figure that if I start drinking out there on my own, things could get out of control very fast. And I’m kind of obsessive about staying in control.

When my beer came, I tipped the barmaid and said, in a low, slightly embarrassed voice, “I’m looking for Bull.”

She rolled her eyes.

“Not like that,” I said quickly, feeling my cheeks flush. “I’m just having a drink with him.”

She nodded towards a corner. “Join the line.”

I’d pretty much ignored the gaggle of girls over on that side of the bar because they seemed to be the loudest, most irritating bunch in the place. But now that I craned my neck, I could just see, amongst all the bare shoulders and perfectly-coiffed hair, a black cowboy hat. He was sitting down, hidden by his crowd of admirers. Well, of course he was.

I edged closer to the crowd. The girls had formed a solid wall of perfect, slender shoulders and trim little waists. Most of them were taller than me and even the ones who weren’t were lifted by towering heels.

He wasn’t even going to be able to see me.

Maybe that’s for the best. This whole thing had been crazy anyway. I knew I couldn’t start anything with him, so what the hell was I doing there? I’m fulfilling an obligation. He did save my life.

That’s what I told myself.

I edged my way through the crowd. A few of the girls turned and eyed me with disgust. They didn’t have to call me names: the disbelieving snorts were enough.

I’d been a hermit so long, I’d sort of forgotten what bitches women could be. I kept going, my face heating up. Then, as I broke through to the front of the crowd, I stopped and stared.

Bull’s chair was tilted back on two legs so that he could lean against the wall. He wasn’t topless now, of course, but the white shirt couldn’t hide the breadth of his chest or the thickness of his forearms. His long, denim-clad legs were stretched out, his boots resting on another chair, and two girls had perched their dainty behinds there, one on his calves and one just above his knees, as they giggled away at him. A third was just arriving with a fresh beer for him. A fourth was beside him, massaging his shoulders.

Now I began to see where all his arrogance came from. God, they just threw themselves at him! And why? Just because he was muscley and confident and had an enormous —

He looked up, saw me and grinned as if he was genuinely pleased to see me. And my idiot body reacted. My lungs point-blank refused to move any air and, as his eyes flicked down over my breasts and thighs, a wave of heat rolled down in their wake like thunder following lightning.

“Lily,” he said in that slow Texas drawl. He tipped his hat back just a little. “Come sit down.”

And he glanced down at the one remaining space—his groin.

Ego. That’s what I’d been about to think. He had an enormous ego.

“Careful,” one girl muttered. “You might crush him.”

I hadn’t had any intention of sitting in his goddamn lap anyway, but that did it. I turned and pushed my way back through the crowd, head down. I’d done my part. I’d showed up. Fuck him and the horse-sized ego he rode in on, if he thought I was going to join his fan group and—

A hand grabbed my arm just as I reached the door. A big hand. The heat of it soaked through my thin blouse and throbbed into my skin.

Bull hauled me around to face him. I didn’t resist. “Now, that ain’t very sporting,” he told me. “You just got here.”

I glanced towards the crowd, confused. Why had he come after me? “Seems like you’ve got all the attention you need.”

He glanced over at the girls who were now staring at us, frowning. “I don’t care about them,” he said with an easy shrug. He squeezed my arm and I went squidgy inside. It was something to do with the strength of those fingers and the heat of his hand, soaking right into me.

I took another look at the girls. They were frowning and pouting, now. At me .

“I didn’t come here to get between you and your groupies,” I said.

He laughed—a big bass laugh that made heads turn. The sort of laugh you can only do when you’re completely unconcerned what anyone thinks—the sort it’d be impossible for me to do. He glanced over at the girls again and gave them a wave. They started to glare at him, too. I think I actually saw one stamp her foot.

He really didn’t give a shit what they thought, I realized. What anyone thought. He’d had fun with them and then—for some reason—he’d wanted to toy with me and so he’d dumped the whole lot of them.

And then, no doubt, the next girl would come along and he’d walk off with her.

“I’m outta here,” I told him, and turned to go.

He still had his hand on my arm. He didn’t grip me tight and pull me back, he just used his hand to guide me in an arc back towards him. “Hey, hey, hey,” he said, his tone changing. When I reluctantly looked him in the eye, he was frowning. “What’s the matter?”

The funny thing was, if I hadn’t already pegged him as a cocky, womanizing bastard, I would have believed he actually cared.

“Nothing,” I said. “This was a bad idea.” And I took a step back.

And he took a step forward.

I looked up into those big blue eyes again. They really were like the Texas sky—when I looked into them, there was this impression of size, like I was in the middle of a desert, turning slowly to see the blueness that was all around me. It felt as if he was seeing me from every angle, even the bits of me I tried to hide.

It didn’t feel like he saw me as just another girl, when he did that.

“Stop it,” I muttered. I only realized afterwards that I’d said it out loud.

He let go of my arm, but didn’t move away. “Stop what?” he asked. He wasn’t smiling anymore but he didn’t look angry, either. He looked almost concerned. “Why are you so damn keen on running out on me?”

I swallowed and forced myself to lift my chin. I wasn’t going to look like I was scared of this. I mean, I wasn’t scared of this. Goddamnit!

I grabbed the back of a chair, pulled it out from under the table and sat down.

Immediately, he relaxed. That lazy smile came back. He dropped into the chair opposite me, leaning back with his arm resting on the back. For just a second there he’d seemed really worried that I’d leave. Why does he care? It wasn’t like he was short of women.

I glanced over again at the crowd of girls. Most of them were standing with their arms crossed, stares of pure death aimed right at me. If I ventured over there again, I was pretty sure I was going to get bludgeoned to death by ten pairs of heels. That’s ridiculous. They think I’ve stolen their man? Me?!

Bull grinned at me across the table—laidback and easy, not a care in the world. The polar opposite of myself. He didn’t seem to be in any hurry to make conversation. He was happy to just look at me and, the more he looked at me, the more antsy I got. I could feel his eyes sliding over every part of me: my cheeks, my neck, down my collarbone to my breasts. Down over my stomach to the little bit of leg he could see around the table. I could understand him drooling over one of those girls in the crowd, but a big girl like me?

He was looking at me as if I was something special, which made no sense at all.

And God he was hot. The hard line of his jaw. Those full lips that suggested rough, powerful kisses. The sheer size of him—he looked as if he could carry a horse across those shoulders, and the way his pecs pushed out the front of his shirt…

You know it’s impossible. Just have a drink with him and go.

“Why do they call you ‘Bull,’ anyway?” I blurted, just to break the silence.

His grin got even wider. He leaned back further in his chair, almost lying on it, and humped his hips skyward. “I’d be happy to show you.”

Before I could stop myself, I was looking at the thick bulge in the denim, a bulge that extended well down his thigh. The more I stared, the more the heat gathered inside me, rolling down through me and turning to sticky wetness as it hit my groin. I tried to tell myself, that’s ridiculous. It must be padded. No guy is—

I’m staring at his groin. How did I fall for that?

I tore my eyes away, face flushed, and heard him laugh. I felt the anger bubble up inside me. What the hell am I doing here? Let the local girls fawn over the alpha male. I didn’t need the cocky son of a bitch.

I was just fine on my own. And I didn’t have any choice in the matter, anyway.

What I should have done was to get up and walk out. What I actually did was to clear my throat and say, in a cool, crisp voice, “Aren’t bulls often castrated?”