Quickdraw Slow Burn (Battle of the Bulls #3) - T. S. Joyce Page 0,11
my best friend! I’m getting hungry, Dead. Can you please continue your pissing contest in the car?”
Dead narrowed his eyes at Quickdraw and walked slowly past him. “I don’t know what a pissing contest means, but I could piss farther than you, too.”
Quickdraw’s eye twitched as he watched Dead walk away. Two Shots was laughing under his breath, and Annabelle’s cheeks were hot from the effort exerted not to bust out laughing.
“I would rather stick my balls in a fire ant mound than ride in the same truck with them to the bar,” Quickdraw enlightened her.
“Let’s take our own chariot then,” she said cheerily. “For I like your balls better without fire ant bites.”
“Mmmm,” he rumbled. With light fingertips pressed to the small of her back, he guided her toward his truck parked beside his camper. “So, you’re saying you like my balls.”
With a snort, she pushed him playfully. “One-track mind. All you boys have a one-track mind. Quickdraw!”
He startled. “What?”
“I forgot I showed you my wolf.”
“Holy shit, Annabelle. You scared me. I thought it was something serious.”
“Oh, no. Sometimes I just get random bouts of excitement.”
He got this lopsided little grin and ran his hand down his dark beard. “That’s pretty cute. And I don’t usually say that word because men don’t say the word ‘cute,’ but you’re really fuckin’ cute.”
Annabelle couldn’t stop the smile that commandeered her face if she tried.
“There she is.” His voice had softened.
“There’s who?”
“There’s the girl I remember.”
She exhaled, and a few pounds of pressure she hadn’t realized she was carrying on her shoulders released with her sigh. He liked when she was happy. She could tell. There was value in a man promoting happiness. Some didn’t know how to do it. Some didn’t care if their partner was happy or not, but the good ones? They nurtured it.
Yeah, he was a punchy-punchy-foul-mouthed-at-times-rough-around-the-edges cowboy with one maniac bull living inside of him, but down at his core? Where it counted the most? He had it together.
“Why are you single?” she asked as he opened the passenger door of his truck for her.
“You want the short version or the truth?”
“Both.”
He offered his strong hand for her to climb into his impossibly high Chevy, and then he leaned on the door. “Short version, I don’t want anyone taking focus off what I want to accomplish.”
“I respect that.”
He nodded and closed her door, then made his way around the front of the truck and got in. “Long version, I had someone take the focus off it for a long time.”
“A girlfriend?” she asked.
Quickdraw turned the key, and the engine roared to life. “More like a wife.”
Annabelle’s mouth plopped open. “A wife? You were married?”
He pulled out in front of Dead of Winter’s truck, fishtailing and spraying gravel behind him, and then he rolled down the window and flipped him off. There was that handsome semi-evil smile again.
“Okay, but on all the background info on you, it only mentions an ex-girlfriend…that you have tattooed on your arm.” She didn’t really like that part. It bothered her every time she glimpsed the naked pinup doll on his left bicep.
“You researched me?” he asked.
Oh, shoot. “Uuuuh, not researched per say, but just stumbled across all of your personal information.”
“It’s okay, Stalker. I researched you, too.”
“Gasp and shock. But how much could you really find out? I don’t do social media.”
“Have you Googled yourself lately? I found pictures of you from the third grade, easy. And what I couldn’t find on Google, I found out from other sources.”
“What sources?”
“Let’s just say you aren’t the only werewolf I know.”
“Eeek, okay.” Her heart was pounding hard. This was a good thing, right? If he knew more werewolves, he would understand her easier. “What werewolves do you know?”
“The Kaid Brothers, and one of them can find out just about anything if he puts his mind to it. Or if I pay him two hundred bucks. He’s like my own private investigator.”
“That’s a little creepy.”
Quickdraw shrugged up his shoulders and gave her a look that said he didn’t give a single shit about her name-calling. “It was a waste of money. I found out you had braces for a couple years in middle school, were turned into a werewolf when you were eight on accident and survived it, which means you must be one tough little hellion. You worked at your dad’s junkyard until a few years ago when you picked up a job as an online stylist. The company website is pretty awesome. I