Chapter One
“Screwing two guys doesn’t make you a slut.”
Lainie Capshaw darted a quick glance at the crowd in Bucky’s Tavern. Luckily none of her coworkers—her male coworkers—lurked about. “Maybe you could’ve said that a little louder, Tanna. I don’t think they heard you on the dance floor.”
“Puh-lease. The men in this joint are too busy gawking at the cocktail waitress with the watermelon-size tits to be eavesdropping on us.” Tanna sucked down a healthy swig of beer. “Twenty bucks says ol’ monster jugs pops a strap in the next ten minutes.”
“No dice. If I take that bet, you’ll sneak up behind her and slice the damn strap just so you can win.”
“You’re no fun.” Tanna sighed dramatically. “I’m bored.”
Lainie rolled her eyes. A bored Tanna was a dangerous Tanna.
“So let’s talk about Lainie’s lewd love life.”
“Let’s not.”
Tanna wagged her finger. “Ah, ah, ah. Suck it up, chickie. You walk the walk, you gotta talk the talk. Besides, who cares if you’re boning two guys? Cowboys are notorious for having a different buckle bunny every night, in every podunk rodeo town on the circuit. It pisses me off there’s still a double standard for women.”
“True. But . . .”
“But what?” Tanna looked at her quizzically. “You aren’t feeling guilty, are you?”
She shrugged. “Maybe. Wouldn’t you?”
“Hell, no.”
Bull. Lainie called Tanna’s bluff. “So if the buff babe in the yellow shirt sauntered over and said, ‘I wanna screw your brains out against my truck right now,’ you’d follow him out into the parking lot without question?”
“Or hesitation. Well, besides checking my purse for condoms.”
“Even when you’re already making time with that studly bulldogger from Austin?” Lainie challenged.
Tanna planted her elbows on the table. “I’d do it in a heartbeat, Lainie. What would you do if both your men showed up here tonight?”
Wet myself. “Umm . . . I’d probably run.”
“Like a contest to see who wanted you more? Whoever catches you first wins?”
Good Lord. Talk about an overactive sense of drama. “No. More like running from my problem.”
“Doesn’t sound like a problem to me. Two sexy men angling to thrill you between the sheets.” Tanna smiled brazenly. “Or against the bathroom stall, in Kyle’s case.”
Whoo-ee. Just thinking about the hot tryst with Kyle still fried Lainie’s circuits. Never in her life had she warranted an I-need-you-right-fucking-now bout of raunchy monkey sex. So yeah, it’d earned her bragging rights. Even been-there-done-that Tanna had been impressed by Lainie’s balls-to-the-wall behavior.
Tanna’s cell phone vibrated on the tabletop. She squinted at the number and snapped, “ ’Bout time, you dumb bastard,” before she flounced out the side door, chewing the caller’s ass.
Lainie hunched over the table to discourage any cowboys from asking her to dance. Probably an unnecessary precaution, since tantalizing Tanna usually garnered that type of male attention, not her.
Which was why it was so twisted that Lainie had captured the interest of not one, but two men. Two very hot, very alpha men on two different circuits.
Lainie liked working the rodeo circuits, even though the pay was crap. As a med tech for Lariat Sports Medicine, she split her time between the two largest rodeo organizations: the Cowboy Rodeo Association, known as the CRA, and the Extreme Bull Showcase, known as EBS.
The CRA was comprised of rough stock events: bareback, saddle bronc, and bull riding; as well as timed events: calf roping, team roping, steer wrestling—also known as bulldoggin’—and barrel racing. The EBS had just one event—bull riding.
The CRA bull riders didn’t compete in the EBS and vice versa. Which was how Lainie ended up with a hot cowboy hookup on both the CRA and the EBS.
Fraternizing with cowboys could be career suicide for a woman in the male-dominated sport, especially when her job was to examine those glorious bodies. Lainie prided herself on avoiding the sexual temptation for damn near two years.
Until she’d met Hank Lawson.
She’d encountered the intense CRA bullfighter after he’d pulled his Achilles tendon during a CRA event and grudgingly limped into medical services. After she’d fixed him up, he asked her out on a date. Lainie refused—tempting as it’d been. Not only was Hank a hundred percent real Wyoming cowboy who handled bulls with ease and panache, but at six-three, with inky black hair and ruggedly masculine features, he embodied tall, dark, and handsome.
She kept refusing until Hank invited her to dance at a sponsors’ dinner. A simple dance—what could it hurt?
If she appreciated Hank’s moves in the arena, his moves on the dance floor were equally fine. Whenever hard-bodied Hank studied her with those eyes the color of new denim, she experienced a rush of adrenaline that must have been equal to spending eight seconds astride a two-thousand-pound bull.
Two weeks later, Hank asked her to two-step at another rodeo event. Too much wine and too much Hank went straight to her head. One slow dance led them directly to Hank’s motel room for a little mattress dancing.
Revisiting that romp with Hank caused Lainie’s thighs to clench with want. Intense concentration and instinctual reaction were the hallmarks of good bullfighters, and Hank had both in spades. No surprise his single-mindedness carried over into the bedroom.