The Rider's Dangerous Embrace (An Interracial Bad Boy Romance Story) (4 page)

He interrupted her without so much as a polite nod, “I really gotta be heading’ out.”

He grabbed his ball cap and replaced the cowboy hat he rode with. She got a peek at raven locks before he switched them out. “I’m late for my next ‘social engagement’. Think you could swing by the dance hall tonight? It is the end of the rodeo and I should be there. We can talk then.”

“Luke.” Thomas said, tipping his hat.

“Thomas.”

She couldn’t help but notice the muscles in his body, particularly his tight ass moving back and forth in those tight cowboy jeans. Heat pounded into her cheeks, leaving her dumbfounded. This was one of those times that she was glad no one could see her blush.

“What the hell just happened?” She furrowed her brow and looked at Thomas who responded with a chuckle.

“I think you just got asked to a dance.”

“But…” She had to resist the urge to run after him and tell him what kind of opportunity he was letting slip out of his fingers.

“I know what yer thinkin’. Let him go. He’s a tough one, Jayda. You’re dad’s been tryin’ to get him to sign on for years. You have to go, you have to bag him.”

She hesitated, turning on her heel to face Thomas. “Years?”

“Yeah, about ten.” Ten years was a long time in the business. Especially for a bull rider.

It peaked her interest. “Why hasn’t he?”

Thomas chewed on his check for a moment, thinking about it. “Luke was a loose cannon for a while, and when he wanted to be signed, well, your father wasn’t ready. Then, after that, it was nothing but no. Foolish pride? Wantin’ to go it alone? I don’t know. I just know he has the talent and he is on fire now. He is finally looking to be sponsored. Don’t want to lose his talent.”

She straightened her shoulders and looked Thomas square in the eyes. “You should know by now that I don’t give up that easily.”

***

Jayda didn’t like parties. She entered the large barn to see crowds of people gathered about., standing in small groups as they talked over the music and sipping from bottles or red cups. She could see the dance floor just a little ways off and it looked like there was no shortage of people on it. Country music blared, pounding so hard she could feel it in her chest, vibrating her body across the floor. It was a lively group, excited and animated after a successful show. Rodeo folks did everything big.

She tried to take it all in, but it was overwhelming. Jayda didn’t realize that many people were involved in the rodeo on a day to day basis. She should have been, her business was exceedingly lucrative, but she never thought about it. Not really. Plus, she had never been to any of these shindigs. Her dad expressly forbid it, knowing firsthand what went on at these parties. In part, she thought it was because he was trying to protect her from being fetishized. She was a beautiful, strong, black woman, and he was aware of that, even if he was white. He often said that it was important to find someone who loved her for her, and not just because she was “exotic” or “exciting”.

She thought he was being old fashioned, but it was an unfortunate truth that she learned the hard way while living with her mother.

He wanted to keep his daughter as far away from what he called ‘the dark side of the rodeo’ as he possibly could. She rolled her eyes when she was fifteen, thinking he was being too strict. But as she watched the women and men dancing together, she was no longer so sure about her assessment. The way they pressed together, their bodies close and their legs moving to the music, the looks in their eyes… it was deliciously sinful. She fought the urge to throw herself into the mix, abandoning all pretense of business and acting like the twenty-five year old she was, deep down inside.

As she was about to go and find herself a partner she felt a gentle touch on her arm. Luke looked at her from underneath his ragged ball cap, a smile on his face.

“I take it you have never been to one of these dances before?” His mouth quirked up into a handsome smirk. The kind that made her want to roll her eyes.

“I was never in the rodeo, remember.”

He handed her a beer bottle and looked out over the crowd. “Neither have most of these kids. Maybe they want to, maybe they have family who is. Figured you might want something to drink first.”

“First?”

“Thought we could have a drink, maybe a dance. Then discuss terms.” Luke took a large swing of his beer and then winked at her. Actually winked.

She wanted to tell him no just to be spiteful, but that hard jawline and those strong muscles were more than she could resist.

Jayda took a big swig of her beer and set it down on the table, “What the hell, why not?”

Luke pulled her out onto the dance floor, taking her up in his arms and spinning her around in a fast paced two step.

Moving around the dance floor with the tall cowboy felt as natural to her as walking. She didn’t need to worry about stepping on toes or having to lead. He was strong and confident as he led her across the floor, in a sea of people also following the same steps. She could have closed her eyes and just moved along with him. But then she’d miss studying every inch of him. Her eyes were locked on his as they moved around the room. And each moment she had to fight not to let those eyes wander down his entire body.

“You’re pretty good.” He whispered in her ear, bending down and breaking eye contact. His voice was the kind of thick deep baritone that made her want to melt into a puddle. “Not many women can dance like you can.”

Keep it together, this is business.

“Taught by the best.” She answered. Damn, he had a way of getting under her skin, but she refused to let her emotions overwhelm her.

“I’m sure you were, honey.”

Shake it off.

“How did you learn his moves?” She had the upper hand and she was going to use it.

“I watched. A lot.” Was that a smirk?

“I watch a lot of medical shows, doesn’t mean I can preform open heart surgery.” That bit just a little too hard.

He stumbled, then let her go, turning to walk away.

So she did the only thing she could think of, she grabbed his arm.

“I’m sorry. I, I didn’t mean to, can we do this over?”

Jayda narrowed her eyes. This one certainly wasn’t going to be easy to land. So she tried a different approach. Letting her body relax she switched into a more amicable version of herself.

“I guess we can try.”

“So, how did you learn my dad’s moves?”

“I watched him, tried to copy him. He said I had natural talent.”

“Sounds like him. He always knew how to speak the truth.” She said, her tone flattering but not completely obvious. “I’ve seen you ride. That kind of talent is… natural.”

“What about you? Where did you learn your moves?” Luke’s brow drew in as he tried to assess her new attitude. “You seem like a natural, yourself.”

“I watched. A lot.” She grinned at him, repeating his mysterious line, her voice dipping down just a little, creating a husky tone. “But most of his charisma was natural. Afraid I didn't inherit that.”

“We ain’t in agreement there.” His eyes looked right though her, and it took all her willpower not to swoon.

When straightforwardness doesn’t work, kill them with kindness. Or in her case, sex appeal.

Jayda moved in closer to Luke, her body slowing with the change from a fast paced song to a ballad. The guitar quieted and she could hear the soft saw of a fiddle. It was the kind of music she loved, complex but gentle.

Complex, like Luke. She wasn’t about to give up, and he seemed to be enjoying himself. His body close to hers was enough to make her lose her breath. She pushed the feelings down, reminding herself that this was business. But they would not be quenched. She could feel the distinct tingle between her legs. The characteristic twitch of her mound confirmed her arousal, making it all the harder to pay attention to anything but his musky scent and his brawny muscles.

Just breathe, girl.

She felt his hand splay out across her back, inching her yet closer to him. His warmth radiated against her as she welcomed the push, her body now against his. She could feel his ever delicious muscles. Even the bulging one in his pants.

She almost forgot to move when he touched her, lightly brushing up against her belly. Teasing her with his touch. She wasn’t the one in control anymore, and he knew it. She could tell by the smirk on his face.

He bent down towards her, his lips just barely touching the soft skin on her ear. “What’s your angle? Because I am pretty sure you have my attention.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” She knew her nose was scrunched when she asked that, but she really was confused.

“You came to talk business, Jayda. Not pleasure. But if you want to mix the two, I am sure I can oblige.” He reached up into her hair and threaded his fingers through her dark chestnut locks.

“Business. I came to talk business.”

“I can respect that.” Luke looked her over, his eyes focusing on her, but it wasn’t sexual, it was the opposite. He sneered at her the same way a rider would sneer at an ornery bull. She was an advisory.

“I already pay for your services, for your facility, and your coaches. What would make me want to take you up as a sponsor?” Thane asked, “besides flirt at me if I don’t do what you want.”

“Well, all those things would be provided at little or no cost to you, depending on which package you select, and the number of outside sponsors we are able to pull in…” She had been rehearsing this speech since she first took over the business, but it wasn’t coming out as smoothly as it had in the past. Everything about him made her confused.

“Yes, but I would lose my agency in all of this. I won’t be able to be independent. You make the choices, you choose the rodeos. You pick the circuits.” “True, that being said we get you into more exclusive circuits, we are able to book better competitions, those with a higher pay out.” She had a point and she knew it. It took connections, skills, and sponsors to get into some of the more profitable shows.

“For the top three.”

“You don’t think you will be top three?”

“That’s not what I am saying. You… you have a point.” Luke seemed almost amused, his body relaxed visibly.

It only served to enrage her, make her more vigilant in her argument.

“I know I do. I am trying to show you that this is the best possible solution for you.”

“I don’t like being told what to do.”

“I don’t either, but sometimes we all need it.”

It was an admission she wasn’t ready to give, because it meant she would have to admit to herself that she needed to be told what to do. Luke was all too ready to tell her what she needed, and she barely knew him. Her stubborn nature rallied against his personality, but right then, with her life, with her business it was exactly what she needed.

He paused, thought about what she said, and then let her go, leaving her in the middle of the dance floor.

“Let me think about it. Meet me at Ray's tomorrow. We can talk about it some more.”

Ray's was one of the few real cowboy bars left in this town, the only other one she knew of was Boonies, but it was hours away. She would rather have driven the distance, because Ray's wasn’t known for being particularly friendly. What kind of guy was he, if it was his establishment of choice?

She couldn’t show fear.

“Okay. I can do that.” She didn’t know if he heard her, because he made no acknowledgment.

He just walked away.

“Mary, can you get my mom on the phone?” Jayda asked her secretary from her intercom in the office. Her dad’s office. But hers now, she guessed. She was still trying to get used to it. His leather chair engulfed her. It even smelled like him still.

That they still had the seventies style intercom was hilarious, but once she got used to using it, it was innately practical.

She had spent most of her working hours at the office, but she never got used to the ins and outs of it. The way that it was mostly quiet, but at any point in time, a dirty, dusty man could walk through the doors to negotiate training fees, coaching, or even ask for an advance on paycheck. It amused her, while at the same time provided a much needed foil for the very serious backdrop of the office.

Thomas didn’t even bother to ask her last night how it went with Luke, which meant that he knew what the mostly likely outcome was, and it wasn’t good.

“You came to talk business, Jayda. Not pleasure. But if you want to mix the two, I am sure I can oblige.”
That was what he said, it was burned into her brain, right down to his voice. His dark, sultry voice.

She knew he was going to be a hard sell, but she was determined to do it, and keep their interactions strictly business. Even if the way he eyed her ample curves did threaten to unravel her at any moment.

She was a business woman, and she trained for this kind of life. College was all about business and finance, but the last few years of working as a clerk in a few small offices were not enough to prepare her for running a business of this magnitude.

So much for all those years as a glorified secretary.

“Ms. Rivers, I have your mother on the line, would you like me to put the call through?” The question came through the intercom, and Jayda nodded, before realizing that she needed to respond. It had been that kind of morning, no coffee, no breakfast, just an up and out kind of morning.

Especially after the night she had, she was left reeling.

“Yes, please.” Jayda picked up the phone and waited. Talking to her mother was not the most pleasant of experiences, but it needed to be done, or else her mother was going to think she was avoiding her.

And the last thing she wanted to do was set her off.

“Darling, is that you?” Her mother’s voice wavered. She was probably on the second drink of the morning.

“Mom, how are you doing?” Jayda knew the answer to that question before she even asked it. It was silly game they played. Her mother tried to act as though she was fine, but the sobs always started before she got off the phone.
Why
. She would say. Not a question, but a wail.
Why
.

“I’m doing okay. How is the business going? I hear you are taking it by storm.” Pride was thick in her mother’s voice. To be honest, she was a little jealous that Jayda got the business while she got very little. A small month endowment from her father was all that he had for her in his will. Enough to supplement her living, and more than more ex-husband's give, but they were also lovers. Her mother had been angry at him ever since he died.

A smile started to form at the edge of her lips. “Thomas been talking to you again?”

“How did you know? That is the only person who can bring me any comfort these days. Wish you would phone as often as he does.” Guilt dripped off her words.

She knew that was going to come. Her father had been the brunt of her mother’s unreasonable expectations for so long that she expected nothing less than to be the one who got all that blame after he was gone.

“Mother…” She started, but was quickly interrupted.

“It is fine. I am used to being treated like this, Lord knows. When your father was alive we were left alone for so long, I almost forgot what he looked like. At the end of the season, he would come riding up, a big smile on his face as he got out of his truck, babbling about how he ‘won the west,’ or some garbage. That man… I still don’t know how to live without him.”

It always shifted, in that manner, first he was a devil and then a saint. But the truth was, he was neither. Just a man, trying to make a living, a legacy.

Even if that meant leaving his family for a few months and earning on the rodeo. Then setting up shop in a little town among the plains of Indiana while his wife opted to stay in her lake house on the Erie.

One that he bought her with his winnings.

“Mom, the business is doing well. How is the lake?” Jayda hated the lake. The homes were beautiful and so affordable she was able to rent one when she lived there after college, but it wasn’t where she wanted to be. She took every opportunity she could to get back to the lodge, with her father.

He wanted her to earn her own way, those were his words, and she did that. Right up until the day he died, and left her with so much responsibility.

“Oh, the same as ever, you know nothing changes around here. Except for the faces. Roger Kinny passed away last week. Stomach cancer…” The woman droned on and on about the various comings and goings of people in the area. Weddings, funerals, diagnoses of various ailments. She was a wealth of information about the community, people Jayda didn’t even know very well. So she just nodded into the phone, making various noises that sounded like she was listening. Because she was a good daughter, after all.

Finally, after she had listened long enough, she was able to escape, saying her good byes and putting the phone down. This time was different. It was the first time her mother didn’t actually guilt her on the phone.

Jayda exhaled a long breath and leaned against her chair. She had taken in too much, and she didn’t even know where to begin. Most days were just whirlwinds until she could go home, signing papers, and sitting in on meetings. Occasionally she came in to the office just to be told to go home, there was nothing to do that particular day.

All this responsibility and it seemed like she didn’t even know what she should be doing.

She pressed the little button on the intercom. “Mary, would you mind getting me a coffee? I have a feeling it is going to be a rather long day.”

***

Ray's wasn’t exactly her choice of a hangout. It was set out from town a little ways, just on the corner of a main road and a dirt road, making for the perfect, rural backdrop. Apparently honky-tonks used to litter the rural Indian back in the seventies, but as the times changed, so did the landscape. Now, there were redneck bars, sports bars, and any memory of the old honky-tonks were few and far between.

Except for Ray's. It stood there, proud and tall, still going strong.

Jayda approached the bar that was known for the rusted, old mechanical bull on the roof, complete with a metal cowboy hat attached. She knew before she entered, that it was going to be lacking any class, but then again, why did rodeo cowboys and buckle bunnies need class? The aim was to have a good time and get drunk doing it.

Ray's certainly advertised that well.

She climbed the wooden stairs to the old fashioned porch, and then opened the big swinging door into a whole different world from the quiet, serene country night just on the other side of the door.

It wasn’t like the rodeo party. This was more. A permanent fixture. The decor, the lights, were tailored to the wild cowboy type. Bull horns, deer antlers, and horse shoes decorated the walls, along with the old kind of hardwood that you just didn’t see in establishments anymore. It smelled of beer and wood and dust. Just like she imagined it would when she first saw it.

This time she wasn’t paralyzed by the party people or the dancers. She knew exactly what she was doing. Jayda walked up to the bartender.

“Can I help you?’ The way the bartender looked at her, it was like he was saying “You don’t belong here.”

But she did, and she got tired of seeing that look on people’s faces. Rather than questioning it, she just ignored it.

“You got top shelf whiskey?” She desperately needed a drink, and she wasn’t going to go for something cheap.

“Yeah.”

“Double shot. You know Luke Daniels?”

“Who doesn’t?” He snorted, wiping out a shot glass with his cloth before slamming it down and filling it up with her liquor of choice.

“He here?”

“Over in the corner, sulking. As usual. Alone.” Bartender rolled his eyes, and slapped the bar.

“Put it on his tab, I’m here, meeting him.” She didn’t expect this to fly, but he just nodded and walked away, leaving her to her thoughts. She downed it and then made her way straight towards him, confidence flooding her for the first time.

“Of course.”

It couldn’t be the Crown, it hadn’t gone into her system yet. This was all her. She was going to rope that bull in, she knew it. He was interested, he wanted to talk to her, and he was damn sure ready to sign.

Thomas had said as much, and now she was going to do something right. Something good. For her father’s company.

Her company.

“What took you so long?” he asked, smirking.

“Had work. You know, that thing I do,” she shot back, her tone just a bit unprofessional. He had a way of unnerving her, but not this time. Even if she had to get a little rude.

She had to let him know who was in charge.

“Oh, I am sure you work, sitting there in your air conditioned office, your ass on a leather chair, not bothering to get covered in the dust you make your money on, Princess.” His deep, gravelly, voice drove her crazy, he had a way of flirting with her. Even when he was insulting her. It was enough to make her want to scream at him and pull him in for a kiss.

A kiss that shouldn’t happen. Couldn’t happen.

He unbalanced her again, but that only made him smile, the quick smirk coming to his lips and then off again before she even had the chance to glare at him.

“You know what real work is?” he asked, no sarcasm or snark in his tone.

“I’ve been working my whole life. I didn’t get anything handed to me, Luke. I think, if you knew my father, you would know that for certain.”

“It’s true, one of the things I most valued about him. He was a good man. And he ran a good company.”

“Why didn’t you sign with him when he asked?”

“Because I thought I could do better, myself. For a long time. I thought more offers, better offers, would come to me. And they didn’t, not at first. After a while, a few did, but their terms weren’t fair. Your dad’s was, but I still want to be my own person.”

“And now?”

“I’ll be honest, Ms. Rivers. I’m not sure how I feel about your operation.” Luke pulled down the bill of his cap giving her a dark, challenging stare. Any emotion was gone, she wasn’t Jayda anymore, she was Ms. Rivers.

But that was lost on her, what she heard was his insult, the one to her father’s legacy.

He had no right.

“This company is flawless! My father…” The air left her lungs. This was not the beginning of the business relationship she had expected. Jayda worked so hard to show that she was a business woman, she played the part just right, and he saw right through her.

He saw a scared little girl. She was sure of it.

“Your father ran a great center. Men were lucky to have his coaching expertise, his support. Since you took over, folks aren’t sure what to make of your company. You aren’t decisive enough. You like to hand the reins over to Thomas so that he can make the decisions for you. Let him choose your candidates. It lacks soul. Confidence.” A crooked smile appeared slowly as he stared at her.

She could feel her blood pumping, her shoulders shaking. Her nostrils flaring. She wanted to scream at him. How dare he question her father’s company? Her intentions?

But he was right.

She stopped mid-argument and righted herself. She turned to leave but he grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

What the hell?
! She fought the urge to punch him in his self-righteous face.

“If you, and I do mean
you
, decide to take a chance on me, I might just let you. But it ain’t gonna be so easy. You need to become involved in the everyday operations ‘round here, Jayda.” His eyes softened a little with his grip on her arm. “I know you wanna snag me. Your dad did too, but I didn’t make it easy on him, and I sure as hell ain’t gonna make it easy on you.”