Wound Tight: A Rough Riders/Blacktop Cowboys Crossover Read online

  “Meaning?”

  “She’s seen you so she’s salivating over the fact you’re a cowboy hottie. She knows you’re single and living in the bunkhouse, without home and hearth to go to when your teaching gig is up. She’ll see your…transient lifestyle as a challenge.” She ran her fingers down the pearl-snap buttons on his shirt. “Annie’s on the hunt, looking to trap you and tame you.”

  “I appreciate the warning, but I’m a big boy.” He kissed her. “Should I be worried that you know so much about Annie because you’ve been secretly checkin’ out her wedding ideas Pinterest board?” He kept his tone light as he feathered kisses across her lips.

  Callie ducked away from his kisses and headed for the door. “God, no. In three months I finally get to start my dream life—well, my dream career anyway.”

  “What happens in three months?”

  “I start school.”

  “Why wait?”

  She spun around. “Because I had to live in Colorado for a year to establish residency. Once I accomplished that, I applied, got my acceptance letter and I’m waiting to hear on financial aid and housing options.”

  “But aren’t you makin’ good money as a bartender?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Yes, but I want a career, not just a job.”

  “What kind of school?”

  “In two years I’ll be a licensed cosmetologist. Maybe I’ll get a wild hair—ha ha—and go for an esthetician certification too. After years in the bar business, I’ll just be glad to finish my last working hour of the day before two a.m.”

  When he stared at her blankly, she got snippy. “Don’t give me that look. I have nothin’ against bartending. In fact, my mom still tends bar and that’s her choice. But I want a different future. Getting out of Grand Island was the first step. Starting school is the next step and I can’t freakin’ wait.” She offered him a sheepish smile. “Sorry. I get a little wound up talking about it. Besides, I have no interest in settling down. I’m still at the ‘hang and bang’ stage. I’ve got years before my biological clock starts ticking.”

  Justin wondered if he looked as confused as he felt. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-two.”

  Jesus Christ.

  He was absolutely pole-axed.

  How the hell could she only be twenty-two?

  And why was this the first fucking time she’d mentioned it?

  His phone buzzed on the nightstand.

  Callie peered at it and winced. “It’s Deke. Annie’s probably holding him hostage until you show up. Since the coast is clear I’ll go first. See ya.”

  Chapter Five

  “That woman is stomping on my last nerve tonight,” Callie said, plunking two bottles of beer and four shots of Jäger on Neenah’s tray.

  “She is in rare form.”

  They both briefly glanced at the Barbarian, who’d moved on from chewing ass with the bar staff to ripping into the DJ. Maybe the bouncers would be next.

  “I don’t know what I did to piss her off,” she said, adding two cans of Red Bull and two highball glasses of ice to the tray. “I’m here on time, I do what I’m told, and I don’t cause drama. Yet I’m the one who gets penalized when Trixie-Belle shows up late, sporting a shiner and pleading to only work the floor because she needs the money?” She slammed the cash register drawer shut and nestled the change from the fifty-dollar bill between the beer bottles. “I need the damn money too. We all do.”

  Neenah patted her arm. “I know. It sucks. But at least you ain’t dumb enough to stay with a man who smacks you around.”

  Callie leaned in. “It’d happen one time and one time only. Afterward I’d cut the dude’s dick off and give it to the neighbor’s cat as a chew toy.”

  “Harsh, sister.” Neenah hefted the tray up with one hand. “Not all women are as strong, brave, and determined as you. For many of them, it’s not a matter of choice.”

  “Exactly. I had no choice,” she said to Neenah’s back.

  And she’d have no choice but to suck it up tonight too. Accept her tips would blow since she wouldn’t get even one lousy solo dance on a Friday night.

  Your other tips will be shit too if you don’t lose the attitude.

  Callie plastered on a big old smile for the next two guys that walked up to her station. “Howdy, fellas, what’s your pleasure tonight?”

  The blond leaned in and leered at her cleavage. “You on the menu…Calamity?”

  She forced a laugh. “Nope. But I can whip up a special margarita with your name on it, slick.”

  “Will you stir it with your finger so I get a little taste of your sweetness?”

  Eww. Even the slimy way he said sweetness made her skin crawl.

  Not in the tingly, panty-dampening way that her body reacted when Justin called her sweetness.

  Justin.

  That hot make-out session on his bed guaranteed she’d be thinking about him all day and all night. But it wasn’t helping now, especially when she considered Justin had acted weird after Deke’s knock had interrupted them.

  She turned away to mix the drinks—shaking her ass as she shook the booze together was part of the show. Normally she’d tune everything out and focus on making one drink at a time, but she’d been distracted since the moment she’d walked in here tonight.

  For her…distracted meant recklessness was right around the corner, waiting to pounce and turn into chaos.

  Callie’s mother had joked that rare “fuck you world” look in Callie’s eyes had her counting out bail money, putting the priest on speed-dial, and hiding the guns.

  Maybe those actions worked as a talisman since Callie had never been arrested, gone to confession, or shot shit up in a fit of rage. What would cure her mood was one day off. Just one. Where she could lounge naked in her bed all day, nibbling on junk food, reading trashy gossip magazines, and napping.

  Or better yet…Lounging naked in her bed all day with one cowboy hottie, nibbling on his junk, reading porn for dirty ideas, and napping with him lying on top of her. Or him pumping behind her. Or him grinding into her slowly. Or him pounding into her hard enough to rattle the camper and her teeth.

  Oh hell yeah. Hours of hot sweaty sex…that’s what Callie really needed.

  She needed Justin’s experience and inventiveness between the sheets. Her relatively few sexual experiences had been straightforward—foreplay, oral sex, sex, and then they were done. She wanted the dirty thoughts she saw dancing in Justin’s eyes put into action. She wanted to strip herself bare before him and say, “Show me everything I’ve been missing.”

  “Calamity? Them drinks about done?” her customer asked behind her.

  She whirled back around, pouring the frothy green liquid with a flourish. “Here you go, boys. You suck ’em down once, you’ll be back for more.”

  “That’s what he said,” Neenah chimed in, giving the guy closest to her a hip bump. “Better move, guys. The bar dance is about to start.”

  They paid their bill—with a surprisingly decent tip—and motored away.

  Callie glanced at the clock. “Trixie-Belle isn’t on yet.”

  “I know. But you had that I’m gonna dick-punch these frat boys look, so I headed them off for you.” She leaned in and kissed Callie’s cheek, moving her lips to whisper, “Cowboy hottie from last night is approaching. I’ll run interference with the Barbarian while you do your thang.”

  Her guts tied into a knot and a tickle of anticipation teased her breastbone.

  Neenah stepped aside and there he was.

  Justin had dressed similarly to last night except he wore a tight black shirt with his black hat. The man looked good in black.

  He probably looked better in nothing at all.

  Callie gave him her sunniest smile. “Fancy seeing you here, bull rider. You the DD tonight?”

  “Nope. I’ll take a shot of Johnnie Walker Black.”

  He’d picked a thirty-dollar shot. Maybe he didn’t know that. “You sure you want that? Bet you c
an’t tell the difference between it and Jack Daniels.”

  “Bet I can.”

  “Fine. That’ll be thirty bucks.” She cocked her head at the sign behind her that read:

  NO BAR TABS FOR SHOTS—NO EXCEPTIONS!

  Callie walked to the back bar and snagged the JWB from the top shelf. She set a shot glass in front of Justin and poured the amber liquid to the rim.

  “Reckon that I can’t complain that I didn’t rate one of them fancy ass-shakin’ pours when you weren’t stingy with this pour.”

  Justin’s hand was completely steady when he picked up the shot glass and knocked back half of it.

  He hadn’t smiled at her or done that eye-fuck thing.

  Uh-oh. “You seem tense. Something wrong, cowboy?”

  “Yeah, Calamity, there’s something wrong. Don’t you think you should’ve told me how young you were before the second goddamned time I had my tongue in your mouth in the last two days?”

  She froze.

  “You’re twenty-two. Jesus Christ. How is that possible? You told me you’d been bartending for six years. Logic dictates you’d be twenty-seven. So why did you lie to me?”

  Callie had dealt with irate customers for years and she slipped into her “bless your heart asshole” persona with practiced ease. “Lemme break it down for you, Mr. Math Fail. I started bartending when I was sixteen. Yes, sixteen. My mom’s uncle owned the bar so age restrictions for family workers didn’t apply to me. By the time I was nineteen and working in my third bar, no one gave my age a second thought because I’d turned into a damn good bartender and that’s all they cared about.”

  “What in the hell was wrong with your daddy that he had no issues with you workin’ in a bar that young?”

  Do not smack him over the head with a 200-dollar bottle of whiskey because he automatically tried to take on a parental role with you.

  She rested on the bar on her forearms, allowing his hat to shadow her face from other patrons, but ensuring he saw every spark of anger in her eyes. “You don’t get to come into my place of employment and grill me about things in my past and my family that don’t have a fucking thing to do with you, Donohue. That’s bullshit, and you know it. So why are you really here?”

  “You’re twenty-two years old.”

  “I know how old I am. Why does that matter?”

  “Because I’m eighteen years older than you.”

  “I can also do the math.”

  His eyes were troubled. “I’m old enough to be your father, Callie. Christ.” After he tossed back the shot, he nudged his glass forward for more. “I’m definitely old enough to know better.”

  “And I’m too young to know right from wrong?” she said sharply.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You didn’t have to. It’s written all over your face.” She pushed upright and refilled his glass. “The age difference between us wasn’t a big deal to me. But I can see that it’s a big deal to you.”

  “Ya think?”

  “You wouldn’t have kissed me twice last night and for ten solid minutes today if you’d suspected I was six years younger than the age you deemed was acceptable?”

  “Big difference between twenty-seven and twenty-two.”

  “So you drove into town to give me the kiss-off in person? You figured by doing this in public that I wouldn’t make a scene?”

  He grunted—maybe that passed as communication in his forty-year-old human male world, but it wouldn’t fly in hers.

  “Tell me something, cowboy. What part of our age difference bothers you the most? Worrying what other people think when they see us together?”

  A scowl flattened his lips. “People will assume you’re my daughter.”

  “And?”

  “And I don’t wanna have to explain every damn time I take you out who you are.”

  She shrugged. “So don’t. Tell them to mind their own fucking business.”

  “See?” He pointed at her, his gaze dark with guilt. “That right there just proves how young you are.”

  And…Callie was done. “Know what I think?”

  “What?”

  “You’re a fucking prude, Justin Donohue.”

  His green-eyed gaze snapped to hers.

  But she continued before he could argue. “You’re most worried that people will see us together and imagine us fucking. Guess what? That’s human nature. If I see a hot couple, I wonder if they’re having kinky sex or better sex than me because they’re both sexy as fuck. Men your age will ogle my perky tits and toned ass, but they’ll be jealous that you can get up in my tight, twenty-two-year-old pussy any time you want.”

  He sucked in a breath.

  “On the flip side, you are a hot hunk of man who sure as hell doesn’t look or act like forty. And your age doesn’t matter because women watch you with lust, wondering about the size of your dick and what your face looks like when you come.”

  “Enough. You’ve made your point.”

  “I haven’t even started to make my point.” She poked him in the chest. “You will listen to me, Justin, because maybe then, you’ll really hear me.”

  The muscle in his jaw ticked but he said nothing.

  “You want me. You like me. Just a few hours ago you would’ve been happy to hold my hand and share a meal with me in public. Now, you’re looking at me like I could only ever be your dirty little secret and it’s wrong for you to want me the way you do. What’s changed in the past six hours? Not my age. Not yours.” Her eyes searched his. “Your attitude changed. Doesn’t matter how you feel about me, it matters more that society dictates you shouldn’t feel that way for a twenty-two-year-old?”

  “You’re pushin’ the wrong buttons tonight, little girl,” he warned with a growl.

  “Call me little girl again, and I’ll turn you into a fucking soprano.”

  “Try it, Calamity, and I’ll have you hogtied so fast you’ll think twice about ever threatening my balls again.”

  His eyes sparked with heat. Not disgust, not remorse, but pure male sexual heat.

  Callie could work with that.

  She brushed her fingers across his tight jaw. “If you can’t get it up for me because it’d be so wrong to be sexually attracted to me—”

  “Jesus, I can get it up just fine,” he said with another growl.

  “Whatever. Be a pal and help me pick a dude closer to my own age that I’d be better off fucking than you.”

  He squeezed the shot glass with such force she feared it’d break.

  Riling him up…she loved that glint in his eyes.

  “How about the guy wearing the Broncos ballcap to your left?” she suggested. “He’s cute.”

  Justin’s eyes never even slightly flickered that direction. “I can pull him over here by his ear gauges if you want a closer look at his nose ring.”

  She bit back her smile. “How about the smart-looking ginger with the beard wearing the WOW T-shirt?”

  Justin finally—finally!—granted her that I’ll rock your fucking world grin. “Baby girl, he’s a gamer. He’ll be fondling his joystick all night rather than fondling you, and that makes him the dumbest dude in the room.”

  Her breath caught. Oh, she liked that he called her baby girl. It sounded…deliciously perverted coming from him.

  “So you’re telling me there’s not one guy in here you’d hook me up with?”

  “Oh, there’s one man. But he’s still tryin’ to wrap his fool head around the nearly two-decade age difference between the two of you, so cut him a little slack, huh?”

  Callie grinned at him with pure relief. “How about I give you something to think about that’ll likely destroy your ‘look but don’t touch’ mindset?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Don’t make me out to be a fool.”

  “It’s not my goal to embarrass you.” She kissed her fingers and pressed them to his lips. “It’s my goal to make you smile, make you crazy, and make you horny.”

  “Mission accomplished.”
He removed a rolled-up bill out of his shirt pocket and tucked it so deeply into her cleavage she hadn’t seen the denomination. “For the shots.”

  Callie signaled to the DJ and hoisted herself onto the bar.

  Justin didn’t budge.

  Not when the Barbarian and Trixie-Belle stormed over and demanded she get down.

  Not when “Cradle of Love” by Billy Idol started.

  He stayed right there, watching her every strut, snap, bend, shimmy shake, and jump. When she finished the dance on the opposite end of the bar, she looked over and he was gone.

  But he’d left a cocktail napkin with the words U WIN written in all caps.

  No, cowboy hottie, we’re both gonna be winners.

  * * * *

  Callie didn’t get the day off from her job at Grade A, but after the “stunt” she pulled at The Sly Fox, the Barbarian removed her from the schedule for Saturday night. Callie hadn’t bothered to argue; she just sucked it up and promised to be a better team player in the future.

  Three more months and she’d be done with it.

  With a rare night off, she’d been at loose ends. She thought about holing up and watching a movie, but she’d spent too much time indoors recently. So she enlisted Dickie, Bill, and Lana’s help to set-up a bonfire.

  Callie’s favorite part of working at Grade A was belonging to the community of fulltime compound residents who looked out for each other. Most everyone showed up, even for a little while, to shoot the breeze.

  Mitzi and Bob initiated a singalong.

  Tammy and Trent, the groundskeepers, brought S’mores supplies.

  Grumpy old Bill, the maintenance man, shared a jug of his homemade honey mead.

  Even Chuck and Berlin had dropped by with beer.

  No sign of Justin.

  Callie had been having too much fun to dwell on it.

  By ten p.m. the fire had dwindled and only Callie, Lana, Deke, and Jerry, the saddle bronc instructor, remained.

  She’d been gazing into the orange coals, content to listen to the night sounds and Jerry regaling Deke and Lana with wild tales from his years on the road to rodeo glory. But she’d even tuned that out as her mind wandered.