“They’re called sparkle pens,” she enlightened him primly.
“Why is mine in pink?” growled the burly, black-haired giant, who had just walked in, yanked his nametag from the seat beside her, and sat so heavily on the opposite end of the table he dang-near broke the fancy office chair that housed his giant ass right now.
“Because I figured you like pink,” she said with a vacant smile. “And because the gold ran out of ink, and the pink pen was all I had left.”
“Why would you spend money on a pen that shits out glitter?” Quickdraw asked. He hadn’t taken his eyes off her, or even blinked, since he came through the door. He was the most intimidating creature she’d ever encountered.
“I have contracts for you both to sign. Signatures are needed on pages three to seven. The last two pages of your folder is your code of conduct.”
“Fuck conduct,” Dead of Winter barked out, staring at the pages in front of him in horror. “It says I have to keep my beard trimmed shorter.”
“Ha, ha,” Quickdraw said under his breath.
“You think that’s funny? You have to keep the tattoo of your ex-girlfriend hidden.”
“What? Why?” Quickdraw demanded, flipping to the next page.”
“Because you did a portrait of her naked. Nipples and all,” Cheyenne deadpanned. “No one needs to see that on their HD television sets.”
“Nakedness is art.”
“I don’t understand why you are so proud of that tattoo, though,” Dead of Winter murmured. “You’ve been broken up for a decade.”
“Yeah, well she had perfect tits, so…”
Dead of Winter slammed his hand on the table. “I’m really not trimming my beard!”
“You will, and you’ll thank me for it later. You look like a mountain man who hasn’t showered in three weeks. I need you to have fans, Dead of Winter. You can’t get fans if no one can see your freakin’ face.”
“You mean woman fans. You want me to be some pretty boy like Two Shots Down. Well, that ain’t me. I’m not showering any more than I already do, and I ain’t trimming my face hair. The ladies never complained about it before. As a matter of fact? I’m gonna get me some of them hair growth vitamins.”
Cheyenne arched her eyebrows up high. “Oh, you mean the ones for women? To help our hair and nails grow?”
“Yep. Those are the ones. I’ll take them religiously just because you’re pissing me off. I hope I grow chest hair. Hell, I hope I grow back hair.”
“Don’t forget butt hair,” Quickdraw said quietly.
“We don’t need your input right now, Quickdraw, thank you,” Cheyenne ground out. “We’re having a very productive negotiation without your help.”
“I’m going to send you weekly update pictures of my hairy legs,” Dead enlightened her. “While I take my woman vitamins.”
“Deep, deep down, under all the facial hair and dirt and grease, there is an attractive man in there.” She slammed down on the table in front of him a newspaper clipping of his first year in the circuit. “Look how hot you were!”
It was a picture of Dead of Winter, slicking his long hair back, beard trimmed short, flannel shirt open, abs chiseled, walking out the front gate of a rodeo down in Texas after he’d bucked off a world champion. He had this crooked smile on his face, and his eyes were still the dark brown of his bull, but shining with a wicked glint.
Currently, Dead of Winter sat in front of her with long, mussed hair, a beard down to his nipples, and dirt under his nails. “Stop looking at me like I’m some kind of swamp rat. I just bucked! I’m tired, I’m dirty, and I’m so sorry I didn’t have time to brush out my hair for this stupid meeting.”
“Is that cow shit on your shirt?” she asked, cocking an eyebrow.
Dead of Winter looked down at the pocket of his flannel shirt that, indeed, did have a brown smear across it. The nasty man sniffed it and then licked it.
“Whoa, man!” Quickdraw said with a disgusted face.
“It’s a melted chocolate bar, cool your jets,” he told him.
“But what if it had actually been cow shit?” Quickdraw looked scandalized.
Dead of Winter shrugged and leaned back in the chair. “No to all the rules of conduct.”
“It’s not a negotiation,” Cheyenne said.
The door swung open, and Cheyenne sat there frozen like a bump on a log as Two Shots Down strode in and sat beside her. He narrowed his eyes at the glittery name tag with his name on it, ripped it to shreds, and then tossed it on the code of conduct she was about to read out loud.
“Sell out,” Quickdraw muttered, his eyes boring into Two Shots.
Two Shots opened his folder and muttered, “The fuck I am.”
He looked so good. Where Dead of Winter looked like a manly mess, Two Shots had his hair gelled into place, his facial scruff trimmed short, and wore a tight navy V-neck T-shirt that read Don’t Get Ready, Be Ready in gray print. The fabric clung to the curves of his muscles so tight she could see the perfect line of his pecs and his six pack under the thin cotton. His skin was tan, and he had bicep veins that dredged up some tingling sensations her nethers hadn’t felt in a long time.
“You gonna mate now or what?” asked Dead of Winter.
Oh, dear goodness, she and Two Shots had just been staring at each other. For how long? She didn’t know. Three seconds? Five years? Her cheeks caught fire with an epically embarrassing blush. “Mate is such a crass word,” she blubbered out.
“Mate is the exact terminology we use in the shifter world so, to us, it’s not crass,” Quickdraw murmured low.
“Pretty sure the media would have a hay day with that,” Two Shots Down said, shoving his phone toward her. “They’re already speculating.”
She stared down in horror at the headline across the screen. It was an entire article titled “The Bull, the Belle, and the Betrayal.”
At the top was a picture of her in between two men, her late husband, Tarik, and Two Shots Down. Both of their arms were around her, and they were both staring at the camera with fire in their eyes. She was grinning.
“Oh, my gosh,” she whispered, pulling the phone closer. “Where did they even get this picture?”
“Reilly Rally Rodeo, 2015,” Two Shots said. “We took a huge group picture after the crowd went home. After a few beers, anyone who stuck around was interviewed by that Up and Coming Shifters magazine. You were there with your girlfriends and Tarik, partying with the riffraff. You’d barrel raced that night. Got a 14.5 second run and damn near won it. This was a group photo that the reporter cropped. I had a girl I was dating at the time on my other arm, but they didn’t show her in this picture. News spread that you want to represent me, and not just through the circuit. I mean news spread through the human news, and they’re running with it.”
She reached forward and scrolled through article after article.
Widow to Wed the Bull Who Murdered Her Husband
Two Shots Down Gunning For the Life He Killed For
End A Life, Get A Wife
Cheyenne Walker Walking Right into Two Shots Down’s Bed Again
Dating Your Husband’s Murderer. When is Too Soon?