“Darby!” I said as he came around the corner. “Are you okay?”
His eyes locked with mine, and for a second there, when our eyes met, things changed.
“I’m okay,” he said.
Just as I was about to push, Candy, Banks’ wife, came barreling around the corner and nearly barreled into Banks.
I caught her by the arm and pulled her into my side as I said, “If you hit him with that much force, he’s gonna hit the deck. And we just got him standing.”
She burst out crying.
Banks laughed weakly and opened his arms.
I let Candy go, and they had a moment.
Darby backed away and headed back into the arena.
I looked at the list of remaining riders, thankful that there were only two more to go.
I watched as his tight ass disappeared around the corner and then turned to look at Banks, who was watching his brother go.
That’s when I chose to say what I had to say.
“I don’t know what y’all did to him,” I said. “I do know that he’s a good guy. I know that he may appear invincible, but he’s not. And I know that each day that y’all refuse to get over whatever the hell y’all did to him, puts him just that much farther away from coming back to you.”
Banks opened his mouth to say something, but I ran back up to my area and started with the announcing again once I got the heads up to proceed.
Darby didn’t look hurt or anything, but I’d seen him hit the fence.
I’d also seen him take at least one hoof to the foot.
The man was hurting, even if he didn’t want to admit that he was.Chapter 11
If I had a dick, I would definitely have tried to see how many donuts I can stack on it by now.
-Text from Waylynn to Darby
Waylynn
An hour later, Darby was bullshitting with the other bullfighters when I found him.
I wasn’t going to say that he was hiding from me, but he was definitely not trying to be found, either.
I walked up to him and smiled at the other two men. Both the other bullfighters that’d been in the arena with him all night.
“Excuse me,” I said. “But can I steal him away from you for a bit?”
Kyle and Chris winked. “Sure, you can, darlin’.”
I smiled weakly and caught hold of Darby’s wrist.
He followed in my wake all the way to the trailer without saying a word.
Not even to the three women that offered to have a foursome with him.
Opening the trailer door, I urged him inside.
The moment the door closed behind us, he slumped.
“That’s what I thought,” I said as I took him in. “Off with your clothes. Let me see the damage.”
Darby grunted out a laugh but didn’t argue.
That should’ve been the first indication that things were bad.
As he stripped off his clothes, the bruises started to appear.
One by one, his clothes came off. And one by one, the bruises made themselves known.
“Oh fuck,” I said when I saw the long line of a bruise from where the long pipe fence had hit him across the back when he’d been thrown. “Shit.”
Darby bent down and removed his boots, straining hard to get one off.
I saw why when he took off his sock.
“Is it broken?” I asked softly.
Darby laughed and propped up his foot.
“I don’t think so,” he admitted. “I wouldn’t be walking on it if it were.”
I wasn’t so sure of that.
My dad had walked around with a broken femur for a week. He’d tried to ‘walk it off’ as he’d said, but in the end, it’d only hurt him more and more until he’d admitted defeat and gone to the doctor. Lo and behold, he’d had a hairline fracture and he’d had to be put in a cast for six weeks.
“Did you get checked out?” I asked, feeling my heart rate speed up a bit at the sheer number of bruises on his body. At least where I could see.
I sat on the coffee table in front of him, surveying his ribs.
Those were probably hurting, too.
I’d seen the bull rub his horn along his left side earlier. And though there was only a rather large red mark from his armpit to his jean waistband, bruises would likely form.
He hadn’t taken his pants off yet, and I had no doubt in my mind that there would be more underneath them.
“Pants,” I ordered, staring at the injured foot.
He sighed and stood up, effectively putting his cock at eye level for me.
I didn’t pull back like I knew I should, and he didn’t take a step back, either.
My phone rang on the coffee table, and I distractedly picked it up and answered it without once moving my eyes from his penis.
The first thing to be removed was his belt. His large belt buckle was quite frankly captivating as the lights above our heads caught the metal as he removed it.