gate in the middle of the bucking chutes.
She was beautiful. Savage. Powerful. Confident. Looking around for a body to fight. Ears erect, head up, horns sharp, black eyes taking in everything. Beautiful badass.
“You’re up soon,” Cheyenne murmured. “Better go change. There are three other bulls bucking before your first turn.”
Two Shots and Quickdraw were already loaded in their chutes and causing chaos as usual. Quickdraw was rattling the chutes with his kicking, and Two Shots jumped and damn near cleared his chute. Good luck to those riders. Those two bulls had just watched Lace kill it, and the momentum was with the bulls now.
As he left the platform, he reveled in the stunned looks the riders were exchanging with each other.
That’s right, fellas. My lady is baaaaad.
He’d never been prouder of a ride, and it wasn’t even his.
That was love. He wasn’t good at romance or feelings, and he’d never been in love before, but this was it. Love was wanting better for your person than you had for yourself. It was contagious smiles, pounding heartbeats, and being there for each other. It was not being scared of the monster in the other person, and oooh, monsters existed in everyone. It was understanding that dark side and caring about the person more for that knowledge.
He loved her. There it was, he loved her, and someday soon, he was going to make it special when he told her. She deserved to feel special.
Because this was it. She was it.
That woman might not know it yet, but she was his.
Chapter Seventeen
Raven couldn’t stop shaking, but it wasn’t from nerves anymore. It was from excitement. From disbelief. From euphoria.
Rushing, she pulled on her Wrangler shorts and shoved her feet into her boots, then placed her black cowboy hat on her head and rushed out of the changing room. When she threw the door open, there was a monster waiting for her. She skidded to a stop and grinned. Her monster.
Dead was changed into his enormous black and white bull, pacing in front of her door.
“I didn’t want to miss your bucks,” she uttered breathlessly.
His muscles were tensed and he came for her, but she wasn’t scared. He skidded to a stop in front of her and gently bumped her with his head. She hooked her arms under his horns and held his head against hers, then rested her cheek on his forehead for a moment. “You’re gonna do this,” she gritted out. “You stay in that top three.”
She didn’t care who was around or who was watching. Dead was hers. She shoved his head back and grinned. “I love you, you big oaf.”
His head lifted, his ears twitched and, God, his animal was magnificent. Huge muscular chest and shoulders, big hump of muscle behind his horns. Her animal adored his animal, and that was a first ever. Her animal didn’t like anything or anyone…except for Dead.
“Now go to work,” she teased. “Momma needs these boots paid off.”
“Can you drag him this way?” a handler yelled from by the chutes.
“Yep!” Raven took off jogging, and Dead kept pace with her, trotting with powerful strides. She led him right through the narrowing alleyway and into his chute and climbed out as the handlers began closing him in.
“You’re a badass,” one of the riders said as she scaled the chute and landed on the platform behind it. He offered his hand for a shake, and she shook it, stunned that he even knew who she was.
“Th-thank you.”
“Did you see your score?” Cheyenne exclaimed, running up the platform stairs toward her.
“What score? I thought I wasn’t taking a score.”
“They gave you one! I negotiated a spot for you here with Tommy right before you bucked! You got a forty-one-point-four on your first buck! Out of forty-five!”
“That’s good?”
Cheyenne shook Raven’s shoulders and bounced up and down. “Buck, yeah, it’s good! I told Tommy I took you on to represent you pro bono, so the circuit wasn’t liable if you got hurt. He said if you did bad in front of all those cameras, I was fired, but I wasn’t scared for even a second.” She knelt down to her bag and handed up a stack of papers. “I need you to sign these real quick if you want to be in the running for money tonight. Let me find that dang pen. It always falls to the bottom,” she grumbled as she dug around in her bag.
Raven read the title page.
Bucking Bull Shifter
Seven Day Contract
PBSRC
“You risked your job?”