Flawless: A Small Town Enemies to Lovers Romance

Kip: Stop googling yourself. That’s my job. You just wear the Wranglers and ride the bulls.

Rhett: This is the worst fatherly advice you’ve ever given me.

Kip: Just do what Summer says, you’ll be fine. Don’t stress. We got this.

Rhett: Stop being nice to me. It’s fucking weird. And your daughter is a pain in my ass.

Kip: Don’t be such a pussy, Eaton.

Rhett: Better. Thank you.

“Rhett!” Some girls are gathered right by the exit of the ring where I ditch my helmet and place the brown cowboy hat back on my head. I recognize a few. The rest . . . well, I recognize the type. “Hell of a ride,” one says, biting her lip in a very intentional way.

“Thanks,” I say and keep walking. Not in the mood to stop for them.

Lame as it sounds, part of what I love about this gig is the attention I get for being good at something. It makes me feel like I have something to offer, like people are invested in me. And not just riding my dick to say they did.

Because as close as I am to my dad and my brothers, none of them have ever taken my job seriously. It’s more like they’re all waiting for me to outgrow it. To grow up. And I hate that.

I grit my teeth as I walk through the staging area toward one of the locker rooms. The splash of heat burning on my cheeks. One of the best rides of my life, and the crowd gave me a fucking golf clap. I swear I could feel their disdain for me.

Except for Summer. That woman surprises me at every turn. I can’t figure out what to make of her. I thought I had her pegged as a smug little princess, but I’m second-guessing that assessment more every day.

“Rhett!”

I start at the voice, and wince when pain shoots down from my shoulder. I said I wouldn’t stop, but I’ll stop for Summer.

I stop because there’s no avoiding her. She’s relentless, and she’s really fucking nice. Which makes me feel like a total dick for being growly at her.

Turning stiffly, I see her petite form striding toward me like a splash of color in a sea of concrete, dirt, and brown fence panels. She’s paired her dark yellow sweater with a flowing skirt covered in some sort of flower print and a pair of high-heeled boots. Her leather jacket and purse are slung over her arm, and her heels click against the concrete, drawing attention from all sides.

She carries herself like royalty, oblivious to the side-eye she’s getting from the people back here. Especially the buckle bunnies hanging around by the gates.

“That was . . .” Her dark eyes go wide, sparkling like stars, and those cherry lips pop open wordlessly. “Just incredible. I think my heart is still racing.”

Her excitement over my ride is real—not at all forced. The skin beneath the sprinkling of freckles across her nose and cheeks is a soft pink, and she sounds out of breath.

Her encouragement shouldn’t feel this good. I shouldn’t like that she’s excited. So, I just say, “Welcome to the wild side, Princess.”

I turn to walk away, wanting to get the vest off. Just the weight of it against my shoulder is agitating me. I wave her along but suck in a breath as I do. Pain lances up into my neck.

I hear the clicking of her heels behind me, and then her hand slips over my elbow, dainty fingers splayed over the joint as she leans close and whispers, “Did you make it worse?”

I grunt back because I don’t want a bunch of people knowing I’m injured. It’ll just give them one more thing to talk about, and I’m not feeling terribly trusting right about now.

“Let’s just get back to the hotel.” I want out of here before a tour doctor gets wind of this or before someone convinces me to come out and party tonight.

Her fingers rub gently, making the fabric of my shirt rasp against my skin. Heat blooms through the joint in an unfamiliar way before she pulls away with a stiff nod.

Our drive in the rental car from the arena is silent, something I don’t entirely mind. And when we’re back at the hotel, the silence continues all the way through the lobby.

In the elevator, we lean against opposite walls. Some shitty instrumental version of what I’m pretty sure is that song from Titanic filters through the speaker. My arms are crossed, and hers are pressed behind her.

And we stare. Actually, I glare. But this girl doesn’t back down. My eyes on her don’t make her nervous, and she just stares right back. Not saying a goddamn thing. Like she can read the thoughts running through my head.

“Staring is rude, Summer.”

She doesn’t smile. “Running yourself into the ground when you’re already injured is stupid. You need to take care of yourself.”

“Don’t ride, don’t get paid,” I bite out. It sounds harsh—harsher than I intended—but this isn’t a new conversation for me. Everyone in my family tries to get me to retire. They haven’t succeeded, and neither will Summer.

“What are you doing to manage your injuries? Anything?”

I cross my arms tighter across my body and clamp my molars together. “You going to play nursemaid now too? Go all Mary Poppins on my ass?”

She sighs deeply, shoulders drooping as she does. “Do you remember the part where she daydreamed about holding one of those kids down and gagging them with a spoon full of sugar?”

I go back to glaring now.

“Yeah, me neither,” she mutters.

When the doors slide open, I storm out, leaving her behind. And I feel like shit about not letting the lady go first the entire way to the door of my room and into the scalding hot shower. The guilt almost outweighs the pain of removing all my clothes with a mangled shoulder.

But not quite.

I’ve just gotten out of the shower, wrapped a towel around my waist, and am pouring a miniature sized bottle of cheap bourbon into a plastic cup when I hear a knock at the door.

“No!” I bark toward the door. These fucking buckle bunnies are relentless. It wouldn’t be the first time one followed me back to my hotel. But I don’t want that right now. And even if I did, I’m too sore to put out tonight. I’m not opening that fucking door for anyone.

“Yes!” Summer barks back, banging again. “Open up.”

Except maybe Summer.

I sigh and take a huge swig, the liquor burning down my throat as I stride forward and pull the door open wide.

Summer shoots me a dirty look and barges past me—without being invited in—toward the desk near the window overlooking the parking lot. She plunks a plastic bag on top of it and starts pulling out small boxes and tubes of cream.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I ask, taking another sip.

“Taking care of you,” she mumbles, unboxing a bottle of pills with jerky movements.

“Why?”

“Because you’re too dumb to take care of yourself. I went and bought some stuff at the pharmacy across the parking lot so we can try to patch you up.”

“I don’t need your help.”

She makes this adorable little growling noise that sounds like an angry kitten as she props her palms on the desk and drops her head down, staring at the glossy expanse between her hands. “Has anyone ever told you what a massive prick you can be?”

I chuckle, kind of enjoying seeing her frustration bubble to the surface. I like our verbal sparring. Summer can keep up. She’s witty, and I like that about her. “Nope. You’re the first. Usually, it’s more about what a massive prick I have.”

She huffs out a quiet laugh but doesn’t look up at me. “Nobody is going to care about your cock when you’re too broken to bang them, Eaton. Now put some clothes on.”

Jesus. The things that come out of those cherry lips.

I lift the cup back to my mouth and watch Summer. Her shiny hair tucked behind her ears, her back rising and falling under the weight of deep breaths.

I must really annoy her. And I kind of get off on that. I also get off on the way the word cock sounds on her lips.

When she turns her attention back to me, our eyes lock, and for the briefest moment hers trail down my bare chest, landing on the cheap white towel wrapped around my waist. “Was I unclear?”

All I do is snort, swipe a pair of sweats I laid out on the bed, and saunter into the bathroom to get changed. When I emerge back into the main part of the room, she’s laid out an entire pharmacy.

“Shirt, too, please,” she trills, tidying all the wrappers.

I ignore her request. The truth is, I don’t think I can currently lift my arms high enough to put a shirt on. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because it’s my job.”

I go quiet because deep down that’s not the answer I was hoping for.

“What did you hurt?”

My eyes drop to her lips, pursed in displeasure.

Need more bourbon.

“My shoulder.”

She nods and holds up a bottle. “You can take one of these every twelve hours. And one of those”—she points at the desk—“every four. To start, though, let’s double you up.” She pours one of each into her palm and moves to stand right in front of me, head tipping up to gaze into my eyes as she holds her hand out flat. “Take them.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re going to get on a bull tomorrow either way. No point in suffering.” She jiggles her hand at me. Pushy little thing that she is.

I take the pills from her palm and toss them into my mouth, holding her gaze the entire time, even as I chase them with my last sip of bourbon.

“Happy?”

“Happier.” She turns away on a sigh and grabs two tubes of cream off the table. “This is arnica cream. It’s homeopathic but I swear it works and it doesn’t smell terrible. I also got you IcyHot that will burn and clear out your nostrils. Don’t rub your eyes after using it. And when we get back home, you’re seeing someone to help with this.”

“We have a doctor on tour. I’m good, thanks. I’ll do physio once the season is over.”

“Then go see the doctor.”

“No.”

Her cheeks flush. “Why?”

I snort because she definitely doesn’t get it. “He’ll tell me not to ride. Everyone tells me not to ride.”

Her eyes widen. “Then don’t ride.”

“I have to ride.”

“Why?” Her voice is full of disbelief, like everyone else’s. No one gets it. The high, the addiction, the thrill. That I’ll have to face figuring out who I am without it.

With a few steps, I take a seat on the edge of the bed and confess, “Because I’m more myself on the back of a bull than I am any other time. I’ve only ever been a bull rider.”

The frustration leeches out of her at that confession, and she regards me with so many questions in her eyes. I look down at the plastic cup, small and flimsy between my hands, and after what seems like a long time, she finally talks again.

“Okay. When we get back to Chestnut Springs, will you at least agree to let me book you a massage or acupuncture appointment? Can we just manage the pain responsibly for the next couple of months until you win?”

My head flips up, the tips of my hair brushing against the top of my shoulders. “You think I’m going to win?”

All at once, I feel like the little boy who so badly wants attention, who wished his mom was there to see him do something impressive. The trouble-making shit disturber who didn’t care about getting a scolding because it was still attention. It meant someone cared about me, and as one of four kids with a single dad breaking his back to run a ranch, I sometimes got lost in the shuffle.

She blows a raspberry as she moves toward the door. “You’re pure magic up there. Of course, you will. Now put your cream on and go to bed.”

My chest warms as she reaches for the knob, and suddenly I don’t want her to leave at all.

I want to hear all about how I look to her.

It’s fucking lame.

I clear my throat and blurt out what I’ve been trying to figure out since she mentioned the cream. “I don’t think I can lift my arm to put the cream on my shoulder.”

She freezes, skirt swishing against her knees. On a heavy sigh, she turns back to me with an expression I can’t quite place on her face. Some cross between annoyance and sadness. And then she’s kicking her boots off and padding across the room in socked feet, swiping both creams off the desk, and then crawling up on the bed until she’s kneeling behind me.

“Which shoulder?” Her voice is tight as her breath dances across my bare back.

“The right one.”

“Where?”

“Everywhere.”

“Jesus, Rhett,” she breathes.

“Getting hung up tonight didn’t help.” Nothing worse either because you can see the disaster coming in slow motion. This sense of panic settles into your gut that your hand is really fucking stuck in there.

“Okay, before tonight, where did it hurt?”

“Under the shoulder blade.”

The tips of her fingers land gently right where the plate of my shoulder blade rests over my ribs, and I shiver. “Here?”

“Jesus, why are your hands so cold?”

“Because it’s freezing outside, and I walked to get you all this, dumbass.” Her fingers prod along the line of the blade, and I wince.

“Careful. Your dad told me to keep my hands off you.”

“Yeah, well, he didn’t tell me to keep my hands off you.”

A quiet, strangled noise lodges in my throat as her hands flutter over my skin. Somehow, that one sentence from her lips has all my blood rushing in a singular direction. And suddenly, things feel awkward. Altogether too quiet. Too personal.

“Thank you,” I mutter, it’s so much easier to say without looking her in the eye.

She rests her hand flat against my back for a few beats and quietly replies with, “You’re welcome.”

I can hear her squeeze the cream out into her palm next, the sound of her hands rubbing together as she warms the ointment between them. And then she’s slathering it over my shoulder, hands gliding against my skin with such tenderness that it doesn’t even hurt. She massages gently, and I let my eyes fall shut, my shoulders drooping when I didn’t even realize I had them tensed up.

Her fingers press and slide down every line of muscle, down into my mid-back, toward my spine and over the top of my shoulder.

“These muscles are hard as rocks,” she mutters with a thread of annoyance in her voice.

Yeah, and so is something else.

When her fingertips push up the line from the top of my shoulder into my neck, I groan.

“Is your neck sore too?”

“I told you everything is sore.”

She sighs and reaches for the other tube. I can smell the minty medicated scent the minute she squeezes it out. “Your neck is sore because all the muscles beneath it are so fucked.”

“Is that the medical diagnosis? Fucked muscles?” I ask as she brushes my hair aside.

Her responding laugh is quiet, but then her hands are on my neck, digits digging in at the base of my skull and pulling down, thumbs working hard. And when I groan this time, it’s in pleasure, not pain. I lean into her touch like a dog getting a scratch behind the ear.

I hate seeing the tour doctor on the best of days, but after The Summer Treatment, I will definitely dread his thick, rough hands when I could have her careful, soft ones instead.

My cock throbs between my legs, and I’m momentarily grateful for my loose sweatpants.

At least she’ll never know.

She spreads the muscle balm over my shoulders, covering areas she’s already soothed. And for a moment, I let myself imagine that she really likes this. Doting on me. Caring for me. Putting her hands on me. That it’s not just a job. That she isn’t just trying to prove herself in what I’m assuming is a brutally cutthroat industry.

When she pulls away, I bite my tongue to stop myself from asking her to keep going.

She swallows audibly before she crawls off the bed and straightens herself beside me. “Just make sure you cover that cream up with a shirt, so it gets nice and hot.”

“Okay. Yeah.” My eyes shift over to my luggage, wondering if I’ll be able to lift my arms comfortably enough to pull a shirt on.

Summer must catch the look on my face because she sighs deeply and moves over to my open bag while shaking her head. “Is this t-shirt okay?” She turns, holding up a well-worn gray shirt.

“Yeah.” I scrub at my beard, feeling a little embarrassed by her involvement here, but also relieved. Because I’m tired. Tired of hurting. Tired of knowing my body isn’t keeping up but pretending it’s fine. It’s nice not having to pretend in front of someone.

She saunters back toward me, gathering the body of the shirt up and holding the right side arm hole out to me first as she comes to stand between my knees. I silently put my arm through, lifting it as little as possible, and inhale her scent. She even smells like cherries. Once both arms are through, she steps even closer, legs brushing against my inner thigh as she lifts the neck hole over my head and pulls it down.

All I can hear is the brush of fabric over my ears and the sound of us breathing the same air.

The t-shirt falls over my body, and she gives me a forced closed-lip smile. She brushes my shoulder, as though there’s something there, and then quickly turns away. Almost like she can’t get away from me fast enough.

And who could blame her? I’m sure dressing a grown-ass man wasn’t what she imagined for herself when she went through law school.

“Thank you, Summer.” My voice comes out gravelly in my dry throat.

“Of course. Just doing my job,” she replies, pulling her boots up over toned calves. “You were incredible tonight. You should be very proud of yourself.”

She says it as she walks out, not looking me in the eye. Which is fine, because she’d see how much it bothers me that she’s just doing her job.

Because it does bother me, and I can’t put my finger on why.

The worst part is, it doesn’t bother me enough to stop me from limping over to the bathroom and fucking my hand while thinking about her cherry lips the minute she shuts the door.