Calamity Gene

Chapter 4

Gene woke the next morning with a clear visualization of the day ahead, thanks to the additional YouTube videos she'd watched before bed.

She would mount her new horse flawlessly; she would round up her share of cattle with aplomb (perhaps even saving a baby cow caught in a fence if she was lucky); she would swing expertly down from the saddle at day's end, and Trace would be so impressed he'd ravish her on the spot. Because hey, it stood to reason that if he'd gotten that massive erection yesterday when she'd made a complete idiot of herself around the horses, the hard-on he got today when she excelled in the saddle would be a humdinger of epic proportions, unable to be denied.

Of course, as she'd already acknowledged, some men could get a hard-on looking at anyone with two X chromosomes so Trace could become equally impressively erected by looking at the other two single female dudes, Rina and Julie from Chicago. Pretty. Friendly. Great riders. Nothing not to like there.

She tried to imagine Trace on top of Rina the way he'd landed on Gene yesterday, the scorching look in his eyes suggesting he was a breath away from shoving her legs apart and going at her, hot, hard, hammering...

Nope. She couldn't quite get there. Rina was too relaxed, too take it or leave it, for that scenario.

So...Julie, maybe? Julie had explained the term "Wrangler butt" to Gene and Llew, and they'd all agreed Trace had one hell of a Wrangler butt.

Buuut no. Just no. Wrangler butt appreciation aside, Julie was too sophisticated for the awesome alliteration of hot hard hammering. She was the type to order a Negroni and a bowl of warm Sicilian olives to share with her man in a hot tub after a day in the saddle, and there was no hot tub (and certainly no Sicilian olives) on the Three Range ranch.

Which wasn't to say that the abstract idea of cocktails in a hot tub (and Gene would just bet Julie had the makings of a Negroni stashed in her cabin) wouldn't appeal to Trace. He did, after all, own a bar, where all sorts of women ordered cocktails and no doubt invited him into hot tubs at the end of the night. Into beds, too. Or maybe into toilet cubicles if they couldn't wait until the end of the night.

Uh-oh. It uncoiled suddenly, like a startled snake. A little tendril of jealousy at the idea of Trace with other women.

Oh no! Not happening! No jealousy. A Teflon-coated tough-as-rawhide girl did not get all hands-off-my-man over a guy she'd known for one day and would kiss goodbye in two weeks.

She grabbed her hair dryer, trusting that the concentration required to recapture a little Beachy Jennifer Lawrence hair magic would send that pesky little tendril darting for the rocks, out of sight. And as she brushed and flicked and blew, she gave herself a stern talking to: It didn't matter how many other people Trace had sex with, as long as he had it with her. He could do it with take-it-or-leave-it Rina; he could do it with Julie as they sucked a mutual hypothetical olive; hell, he could do it with Llew, just for the sake of variety! That was why condoms had been invented: so people could screw around without impregnating anyone and landing themselves with a lifelong commitment, and spread the love without spreading disease. Just bring on the condom and she'd be AOK to get what she wanted. Buck would get what he wanted—Trace re-entering the field. Trace would get what he wanted—hello, hard-on!—even though he might need to be persuaded that he really truly did want it. And nobody would be hurt at the end when she returned to London. All that she had to do was get on with it!

She turned off the blow dryer with a snap and fluffed her hair. Not bad.

Next, she examined her underwear, choosing a flimsy pair of pink lace panties in preparation for seduction.