BUCKED Box Set: A Bull Rider Western Romance (23 page)

After all, I could talk to pretty much
anyone. Women swooned over me at home, so why should the beach be any
different?

No, despite my actions and forced
thoughts, I was actually looking forward to this summer far more than I would
ever admit to myself.

After all, I did have my own room, which
was cool. This was the first vacation where I didn’t have to share my space
with anyone, but it wasn’t like it was going to matter much anyway.

As I heard my mother and new stepfather
downstairs, falling all over each other in what I presumed was a somewhat
forced, extended honeymoon phase, I thought,
it isn’t like they were aware there was a planet Earth anymore anyway.
The
two of them were so wrapped up in one another, it was like he was still trying
to get in her pants, even though they were married. I’ve heard the two of them,
quite frequently getting it on in various rooms throughout the house where they
had moved after my mom married this guy.
Old
people sex…Gross.
I felt my lip snarl at the thought, before I rolled off
of my bed onto the floor, turned my music up and began my ritual of pushups.

While I was here, I was looking forward to
not only working on my tan, but also picking up some hot ladies with whom to
share my bed.

After all, it should be pretty simple,
since my mother and stepfather were still up one another’s asses and rarely
took notice of what I did, so long as it didn’t interfere with their plans.

Plus, in addition to adding a few more
notches to my bedpost, I was also interested in what kind of attention I could
gain for my typical beach body. Therefore, I knew that I had to keep up with my
exercises, just in case.

Since I hadn’t been to the beach since I
was very young, I was extremely curious at exactly what this area had to offer
a man with such a handsome, cocky and assured sense of self-worth.

My body easily glided through the first
fifty, but then I began to feel the prickle of discomfort as my muscles
strained to accommodate the motions, while keeping in the even stride. My music
wasn’t much help to keep a pace though, because it was far too slow. If I kept
any kind of rhythm from what was blaring into my ears, I would never make it to
my goal of one hundred pushups in one sitting.

As I continued, I began to feel my back
heat up with the force of the exercise. I moved up and down, up and down,
faster, stronger and more efficiently. The stronger I was physically, the
better I could make myself in every aspect of my life. I lived for fitness. I
needed to feel powerful and I did.

There were very few situations where I felt
out of control. I knew how to manipulate people, almost at an expert level. It
was a gift, and my physical stature, my strength, only made that gift more
prominent.

I smiled as I reminded myself that there
were only twenty more to go. By now, I could feel every inch of my body
beginning to burn with the power that came from growing stronger. My breath was
still just as even as my stride, which was a big deal to me. I needed to ensure
that whatever situation I got myself into, I never showed it that I was
fearful.

I had spent too many years being fearful.
I had made one promise to myself: that I would never feel that way again. Sure,
I was in every situation for my own personal gain, but I liked it that way. I
was the only one who could let myself down, and I always found a way to have
the power so that didn’t happen. I was confident in myself and intrigued by
everything that surrounded me.

I was used to getting what I wanted. For
years, I had perfected the art of getting exactly what I was after, no matter
what the cost. I learned at a young age that the only person who was going to
get me what I wanted was myself, which spurred my attitude and foul mouth. This
trait, which I kept so dear to my heart, in the effort of survival, tended to
get me into a lot of trouble. However, I was always able to hold my own.

Yet, part of that assurance was the
knowledge that there was always the risk of it all catching up to me. I knew
that, I understood that, and that was a good reason to just keep moving
forward, being the best that I could be, and realizing that I was the creator
of my own destiny.

However, the only thing that I knew I
needed to find, rather quickly, was a place to work out that would bring the
heat like my gym back home. As encouraging as the pushups were, it wasn’t
nearly the extent that I needed to keep up with my training.

Once I found a gym and perhaps a couple of
strongest man competitions to boost my ego, I would be all set. I snickered as
I reached the last stretch of my pushups, feeling the singing in my lungs and
throughout my body. I didn’t really need a stroke to my ego. It was big and
prideful enough, but there was no harm in making me feel better about myself.

After all, this was a chance to conquer
new ground. Back at home, I had already won all of the competitions multiple
times and therefore, it was beginning to get a little
boring.
In fact, in recent years, I had even noticed a decrease in attendance and
effort, for it was obvious who was going to take home the championship.

But all I ever cared about was giving
myself a challenge, since I made sure that I was better than my competition
before the day to prove it even arrived. So when others didn’t try to beat me,
I almost felt like a failure, and that was unacceptable. I needed a challenge
to beat, for I was really only competing with myself anyway.

Therefore, I had known for a long time
that I needed a fresh competition, to breathe new life into my advancements. I
figured with this area, and all of its allure to natural beauty and the need to
achieve perfection, there had to be some kind of competition around here.

After all, this was a beach town, so while
I didn’t bother to look up the extent to which the area had any competitions, I
also didn’t anticipate any problems.

Once I reached one hundred, without having
even broken a sweat, I pulled myself up easily and thought about running
downstairs. After all, I needed to find something or someone to occupy my time
with.

I was never in one place too long and I
got bored quite easily; therefore, I was always looking for things and people
with which to occupy my mind.

However, before I had a chance to turn
around and head out of the room, I saw a car pull into the driveway of the
beach house. I was certainly intrigued. I didn’t know who that car belonged to,
but there was something about the way the car looked that told me there was a
hot female inside of it.

What
the fuck is this?
I stopped to stare out the window with
intrigue, careful not to be observed if she was looking up at the house. She
sat there for a long time.

I was fascinated by the stranger and I
wondered why she had decided not to get out of the car.
Did she have the wrong address?
I wondered, even though I didn’t
really care, beyond my own self-interests.

There was minimal movement within the car,
but every once and a while, I would get a glimpse of a carefully crafted
waistline or a flash of hair, which kept me interested to find out why this
woman was here.

Finally, my persistence and aversion to
losing interest paid off as I watched a beautiful blond woman emerge from the
driver’s side of the car.

I was right about her slender form and her
luscious hair. However, her hair and her slim physique wasn’t the part of her
that caught my attention. She was wearing cutoff shorts, which showcased her
long, athletic legs, and a tank-top that helped pronounce her large, inviting
breasts as she stood up straight and turned around to open the back car door.
That revealed a perfectly firm, taut buttocks that caused my lips to slip into
an appreciative smile.

It took quite a lot for me to feel that a
woman, or anyone, was on the same level of physical attraction as myself,
especially since I worked so hard to ensure I maintained my own standards. But
I had to admit that this woman was pretty close.

“Damn…the wonders that I could show you…”
I said to myself as I admired her from the window.
With any luck, she is here to stay.

I had the thought that perhaps she was a
neighbor or something, but I couldn’t help but notice that even from the distance,
she looked vaguely familiar. However, I wasn’t here to see if I knew her before
this. My only goal at the moment was to make a good impression in order to
satisfy the needs that were awakening inside me.

In order not to waste any time, I turned and
began my descent downstairs, hoping that I would be able to catch her sooner
rather than later, and start laying on the charm right away.

However, as I made it down the creaking
old stairs, I noticed that the woman was already making her way into the beach
house….
My beach house?
I thought,
trying to figure out what exactly was going on.

When the girl walked in the door, I spied
my mother, finally detached from my stepfather for the moment. I moved over to
stand by her. After all, a man standing by a woman, especially his mother, was
supposed to be a sign that he was a good guy. I didn’t know about all of that,
considering what I’d been told by people, women especially, who weren’t worthy
of being or staying in contact with me, but it never hurt to give off that
impression.

Quickly, my mother was joined by my
stepfather.

That
didn’t take long,
I thought, but tried my best not to roll
my eyes.

“Hi, Dad!” the woman said as she saw my
stepfather.

Dad?
I thought, looking at the girl, who now looked even more familiar than she did
when she first made her way out of the car.

My stepfather moved toward her quickly and
gave her a hug. “Hello, Ashley! How was the ride up here?”

Ashley?
I thought, frantically trying to run back into my memory bank to figure out exactly
what was going on. A haze of different proportioned women flashed to the front
of my brain.
Ashley is such a common
name…So many whores…
I thought, but when I came to the mental image of a
woman dressed in one of the ugliest bridesmaid dresses I had ever seen, thanks
to my mother, with her hair pulled back easily in an updo, I knew exactly where
I remembered her from.

Wearing clothing that did not make her
look like a Christmas tree had helped hide her appearance, since I was not
aware there was such a glorious body underneath my mother’s horrible taste.

Part of me thought then and was even more
convinced now, that she had done that on purpose. That way, none of the
bridesmaids, nor the maid of honor, would have even had a chance at looking
better than her in her decadent wedding dress. However, the thought that it was
an insurance policy was pushed aside in my mind, because of my mother’s
naturally gaudy taste and insufficiency to think that far ahead about anything.
But now, looking at Ashley, I might not have given my mother the credit she
deserved.

I looked over and glanced up and down
quickly, testing my theory and thought,
well,
if it was my wedding and I had that body, against that bridesmaid, I would
sabotage her looks; without question.
Then, I sneered as I narrowed my eyes
at my mother, feeling a sense of seething aggravation run through my veins
before I shrugged and thought,
you keep
on insisting I am so much like my father.
I tried my very best not to
laugh, before I turned my attention back toward the scene unfolding in front of
me.

When they broke apart, Ashley shrugged.
“It was fine. How are you?”

“Good…Good…” My stepfather answered
casually.

I could tell there was a significant
amount of strain between the two of them. I knew there was something that I
didn’t understand and perhaps, it was something that I would never know, but as
my stepfather eliminated any doubt about who this woman was,
I
found that I wasn’t as deterred as perhaps I should have been. Instead, as we
shook hands and I smiled in a charming fashion, feeling like I had just won the
lottery and telling her that I remembered her well, I had a sense that instead
of being a challenge, this beautiful new notch in my bedpost was going to be
extremely easy prey.

Chapter
3

Ashley

Tyler’s smile was sickening, just like the
first time I saw it when we were introduced at the wedding.

Just as I remembered, he was nice to look
at. But the way he stared at me, with his eyes piercing into me and his teeth
stretching out around the corners of his smile, as though he had too many, he
resembled a shark more than a man.

I was very turned off by his slick,
slippery demeanor. Even though his body looked healthy and he was the epitome
of what most would consider handsome, with a sharp chin and a bronze
complexion, I was immediately turned off.

As I shook his hand, which was a strange
thing to do,
I grew increasingly uncomfortable with the way he was
glaring at me. His hand lingered, grasping mine possessively, almost as though
he felt that I was only there for his own enjoyment.