Dead of Winter (Battle of the Bulls #2) - T. S. Joyce Page 0,37
and White Claws.”
She giggled at the mental picture of her sitting on a lawn chair caked in mud, drinkin’ and waggling her eyebrows seductively at Dead. The man possessed the perfect level of weird.
“I got you something at the gas station, too,” he said mysteriously as he opened his door.
“A present?” she asked, slipping out of the passenger side of his truck.
“Yep!”
He pulled a long cylinder-shaped bag out of the bed of his truck and climbed the ladder that led to the roof of his camper. She couldn’t see what he was doing from this angle so close to the camper, but when she started to back up to get a better view, Dead told her, “Don’t look yet.”
Well, okay. What was that man up to?
She shoved her red gas station sunglasses farther up her nose and watched Cheyenne pour some kind of liquor out of a flask and give the shot glass to Two Shots. A pre-buck ritual perhaps?
Cheyenne gave him two shots, took one for herself, and then lifted the flask and glass to Raven. “Want one?”
“No thanks. It’s a little early for the hard stuff.”
“That’s what she said,” Dead called from the roof of the camper. “Okay, come on up! Cheyenne, toss me one of them girly drinks you been icing down.”
Raven scaled the ladder, and when she got to the top, she grinned so big. He’d set up a camp chair with a big umbrella and faced it to the arena.
Dead stood there with his legs splayed and his hands on his hips, looking like a proud peacock and, good gracious, she’d never seen a man look hotter.
Today he was wearing a V-neck black T-shirt, wranglers that hugged his muscular legs just right, and his worn boots. His muscles were popping out everywhere and, damn, that tattoo down his arm sure looked yummy.
“You like it?”
“Y-yes,” she stuttered. “The chair and…” She waved her hand around at him.
“I’m the total package, baby.” A White Claw came sailing over the side of the camper that he caught without his eyes ever leaving Raven’s. And then he popped the top and offered it to her with the most charming smirk she’d ever witnessed on a man’s face.
Raven scaled the rest of the ladder and hoisted herself onto the top of the camper. After she took the drink from Dead, he held out his hand again, and an energy drink landed in it. He still hadn’t broken the stare-off with Raven.
“Okay, that was awesome,” Cheyenne called from below. “Good catches!”
“Mediocre throws,” Dead kind-of complimented her back.
“Uuuh, thanks?” Cheyenne said. “I think?”
He popped the top of his energy drink and did a toast. “To your perfect tits.”
“Oh, my gosh,” Raven murmured, mortified.
“Not a good toast? Fine. To your perfect tits and also your voluptuous vagin—”
“Okay!” Raven tinked her drink against his and took a healthy swig.
Dead chugged the whole drink, threw down the frothing can off the side, kissed Raven fast, and then jumped off the camper.
She screamed and bolted to the edge, but he was fine. The man was already walking toward the arena, peeling off his shirt.
“Where are you going?” she asked. “Two Shots is about to buck!” The white bull was already loaded in a chute, and though she didn’t know much about her kind, she knew bulls were volatile around each other.
“I’m going to fight Quickdraw.”
“Wait, what?” she yelled after him.
Cheyenne came over the top of the camper, a bag chair on her shoulder and a small cooler in her other hand. “He said he’s going to fight Quickdraw. Hey!” she called after him. “Be careful of your faces. We have a photoshoot this week.”
“No, no, no, no!” Raven exclaimed. “Why are they fighting? They’re friends!”
Cheyenne pulled the chair out of her bag. It was navy blue with little colorful llamas all over it. “Oh, they always fight. Quickdraw needs it before a buck. He needs blood, Dead needs energy drinks, and Two Shots needs two shots.”
“What kinda man needs blood before a buck?” she asked, horrified.
As Dead approached Quickdraw leaning against the arena gate, Quickdraw straightened up with his fists clenched, an evil smile on his face.
“The kind that’s half-devil.” Cheyenne frowned at them as Dead threw a punch. “Want some cheese crackers?”
“Um, no thank you.” Raven clapped a hand over her mouth as Dead blasted a fist across Quickdraw’s face, and she mumbled, “I don’t have much of an appetite.”
Crunching loudly on the snacks, Cheyenne relaxed back into her llama chair and assured her, “That’ll