“Don’t talk that way.” His voice is harsh and I’m beginning to understand that he doesn’t like when I refer to it as fucking around. “I’m not fucking around with you.”
Oh, damn…how do I even respond to that?
“You sore?”
“Not from Hammer…” I smile. “But from you?” I nod. “Yeah.”
I don’t know too much about Callan but as we sit there, I want to know a little more despite him leaving. “What’s it like being on the pro rodeo circuit?”
“Lots of travel and so damn hard on your body.”
“Do you get hurt a lot?”
He nods against my shoulder and kisses it softly. “Every time. Some aren’t as bad as others but then there’s sometimes where I’m laid up for a few weeks.”
“Are you ever scared?”
“No. Having confidence is key. You’re man versus beast. You gotta learn how to make moves in response to the bull and stay on. There’s always gonna be a certain amount of fear, but there’s adrenaline there too, and you gotta know that nothing you expect to happen is gonna happen.”
I breathe in deep, fresh morning air that makes me smile. “So Reed and Ty are pro too?”
“No, just Reed and I. Ty just turned eighteen two months ago and got his permit but once you apply for your pro card you gotta win twenty-five hundred before they’ll grant your license.”
I feel like I’m getting to know him and it’s all so strange and different from what I’ve done in the past. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me since he’s leaving soon. Callan doesn’t seem too interested in moving either. He’s slow touching and soft breathing. A gentle kiss only to wrap his arms around me a little tighter.
The way I feel in his arms watching that sun rise, the cool crisp morning shivering my sinning soul, it’s like never before. I feel things happening, what I’m not sure but I want to know.
His voice comes closer at my ear. “I drew Shooter for tomorrow night in Rocksprings.”
“Are you serious?” I twist in his arms to look at him. Shooter is the bull he rode the weekend before the World Championships and hoped to ride then, but he never drew him. Now was his chance at the rank bull no one has been able to cover.
He nods, smiling wide, that same smile I saw the first night I met him. “I’ve been waiting a year to get another ride on him.”
Callan stands and reaches for his jeans when he knows it’s time he needs to head out.
He’s smiling as he looks down at his buckle. A slow blush creeps over my cheeks. I roll my eyes, smiling myself, but looking out at the dry land.
“You aren’t coming back here again, are you? Will you remember me?” I ask propping up on my elbows.
“I’ll remember tonight…” then he shrugs, “Well, last night I guess, huh?”
“Yeah.” We had spent all night out here and had sex three more times. Nothing would ever compare to what I feel right now. Not even knowing he’s leaving. I will always feel this.
He needs to get going, but I see it, he’s confused. He looks at me. “How’d you do this to me in a week?”
“Once you get around those buckle bunnies you’ll forget.” I say, winking at him. I’m not looking for him to say anything. He doesn’t have to. I know when he leaves me this life I’ve always had will remain. And his will too. Something tells me he lives a wild life on the road.
“You’re better than that.” He says to me, watching my face fall. He knows so much that I don’t ever have to say. “Don’t let them touch you like that. Don’t let them take something that’s not theirs. You give, you don’t take.”
“Unless it’s a bull you’re riding. Then you take?”
“Baby,” he grins. “Nothing’s the same when you’re on a bull. A beast decides your fate.”
I think back to what he’s just said, before the beast decides your fate. The part about me being better than I am. I’m not sure I believe that I’m better than that. But I do like the way he cares enough to say that to me. He’s the first one who has.
“Would it be too much…too soon…if I said I’m depressed you’re leaving?”
He smiles, and gives my shoulder a bump with his own. “Well, I would have to say…you wouldn’t be the only one who was bucked off.”