Page 33 of Ride the Sky

My cock throbs at her sharp words. She turns me on when she’s mean to me. Christ, I’ve never loved anything more than Fallon’s bite.

She throws her next words like they’re grenades. “I don’t want to argue with you. In fact, I don’t even know why you’re here. You have your school. You have your life. So why are you here, busting my fucking balls before my big ride tomorrow?”

Damn it. I hate that she can see right through me. This is what I wanted, isn’t it? A chance to talk to her, to bring her home. But knowing what I want to say doesn’t mean I know how to say it.

I take a step closer, towering over her. “That ain’t you, cowgirl. Playin’ dress up.” I glance over at Pappy, who’s on his phone. “I know you’d rather snap his fat neck than take orders from a man.”

She snarls. “You don’t know me. You don’t know anything about me anymore.”

I flinch. “You’re right, I don’t. Because you left.”

“I took a time-out.”

“And that time-out lasted a year?”

For a long second, she’s silent. She holds my gaze, her expression unreadable. Then she says, “It was either leave, or walk into the Pacific with rocks in my pockets.”

Fuck.

It’s what I thought. She ran. Had something so dark hanging over her none of us even knew about.

Voice thick, I manage to ask, “Do you like it here at least?”

Even though her leaving tore my heart out, I need her to be happy. If she wasn’t, that’d just feel worse.

She hesitates. “I do. It stops the voices in my head from getting too loud.”

I cover her hand, rings of turquoise, her bright, bold tattoos. Surprise crossing her face, she tenses, but she doesn’t pull away. My thumb brushes over the delicate bone in her wrist before settling over her tattooed knuckles.

Electricity zips between us. Our gazes clash. Hell, if we lock eyes for longer than seven seconds, we’re either fighting or fucking. Right now, I’d take either.

It’s been three hundred days since I last touched her, and I’ve been going crazy for every single one of them.

The memory of our last time, my mouth between her legs, Fallon on cold sheets, gasping for air. Her hands gripping my shoulders like she wanted to strangle me. That breathless noise she made when she came, how she smelled like bourbon and vanilla, and how every day of the week after that I wanted to eat her again and again.

Like she can read my thoughts, her cheeks pinken.

Chancing my own death, I trace a finger over her high cheekbone. The feel of her is enough to unravel me. “I missed your face like hell, Trouble.”

The old nickname makes her flush, and she tries to step away, but I hold tight. “Don’t call me that.”

I ignore her. “Come home.”

“For Dakota?”

“No. For me,” I rasp, deciding to be honest.

Anger and something like pain flare in her eyes. “If you wanted me home, you had your chance.”

I frown. “What are you—”

“I’d offer to buy you a drink, but I see you already have one.”

At the gruff voice, we both turn. Quickly, Fallon slips her hand from beneath mine, recoiling like a snake rudely woken from slumber.

I curse under my breath at the interruption.

Bull rider Cole Weston and his cronies stand there. He and Fallon have been trading barbs in the paper. She’s the first woman—the first person—to give Weston a real run for his money.

---