Panic has seized me. I feel it through every inch of my body. My heart is almost pounding out of my chest as I watch the little black and white terror stare at me. I mean we lock eyes. I always thought skunks looked so pretty. Flowers was my favorite character on Bambi. But watching as he stares at me, this animal doesn’t look cute. He looks mean, hateful, and mocking—almost as if he knows exactly what he interrupted and what he’s doing.
“Gray answer me!” I whisper again as fear threatens to consume me because the little shit is walking towards us. Strutting, even!
“Just hold still. If we don’t scare it, it won’t do anything. It will grow bored and leave.”
Really? That’s his advice? Okay, he grew up in Texas. Do they even have skunks out there? Because we do in Kentucky, and I’ve never known that advice to work. Of course, it’s usually hunters that I’ve known who’ve been sprayed, so there’s a chance he could be right.
As the skunk gets closer and closer, however, I start to experience serious doubts. “He’s getting closer,” I whisper in panic.
“Hang tight, Cooper,” Gray whispers next to my ear, holding me close. I do my best. My body is so still, it feels like I’m balancing on a tightrope. I’m afraid to move, afraid to breathe… until I feel Gray’s dick move inside of me. Good Lord!
“You cannot still be horny,” I whisper into his ear, biting it to get my point across.
“I’m inside of you, Cooper. You can’t expect me not to be horny.”
“There’s a rabid animal circling us!”
“He’ll move on if you’ll shut your sweet ass up,” Gray counters, which pisses me off.
Now I think it’s safe to say that I do not react well when my emotions are running high. I don’t plan. I don’t exercise caution. So his pissing me off, combined with being naked, feeling helpless, and having an animal circling us—not to mention all the stuff swirling in my mind about Riverton—pushes me so close to the edge that I feel the line at my feet, a line that I’m going to cross. I know it. I try to gain control one last time, and that’s when I feel it. It’s a feathery brush around my calf, so soft and light that it kind of tickles. Then I feel something wet and cold. My head moves carefully away from Gray as I look over my shoulder. There, I see a furry black face moving against my leg, nothing but a ball of fur, but I see the long white streak down its back and watch as its tail moves from a soft sway. It ever so intricately raises and I watch it go centimeter by centimeter. I push against Gray’s shoulders.
“Don’t do it, Cooper,” Gray growls because he can feel my panic. He’s holding tight to me. If he wasn’t, I’d be gone. I’m afraid to speak, so I look in his eyes. I’m busy sending him looks that would kill a lesser man. He still doesn’t let go. The idiot is still convinced his plan is going to work.
That’s when the cold, harsh smell of reality strikes us both—literally. The spray hits us and the smell blooms like we just walked into a hog pen in the mid-august. It’s so strong, it literally robs my air, but I don’t have time to worry about breathing. I jump up the minute Gray’s hold loosens. It doesn’t matter that I’m buck-ass naked. Nothing matters except getting away from that damn skunk. I can hear Gray beside me, but I don’t look at him; I’m running as hard and as fast as I can.
And I only have two thoughts on my mind: I will never have sex outside again, and I will kill Grayson Lucas if he ever taunts me with not living dangerously again.
“Whoa! Where do you think you’re going like that??” the doorman yells, grabbing me around the waist. I was so intent on getting inside that I didn’t even see him coming to block the entrance. “Good Lord! What is that smell?” he bellows. I try to pull away from him, but his grip is tight. I hear Gray come up beside us.
“Get your hands off my woman!” he growls like the caveman he is.
My head is swimming, my breath is ragged, and my heart is still beating out of my chest. I’m so hyped up on adrenaline that it doesn’t even hit me that I’m still completely naked—not until the exact moment I feel the doorman’s hand grope my ass. I push away from him immediately, but I needn’t have bothered because Gray is all but tearing me away from the man. I wince at his hold, knowing there will be a bruise there tomorrow.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Gray yells, and I can feel eyes on us. Gray moves me behind his back.