The Quick and the Hot 2: Slick Rider by Em Petrova Page A

right.
    Her heart squeezed at the sight of his lazy smile. “Glad to know my money is employing the most attentive staff available,” he drawled.
    Insufferable man. Fucking gorgeous, yes. But insufferable.
    A crease lived between his dark brows, and his mouth was drawn.
    But those eyes—there’s something deeper there than he lets on.
    She leaned against the door and stared at him. “How’s your pain level on a scale of one to ten, according to that chart?” She gestured toward a mint-green paper taped to the wall, sporting ten faces in various stages of distress.
    “Ten,” he said, his eyes unwavering.
    “Is that so? I’m sorry to hear it. One would think a big strong cowboy who gets hurled off the backs of two-thousand-pound beasts could handle a little postsurgical pain. Ah, no matter.” She came forward, withdrawing a pen from her pocket but concealing it in her palm.
    He waved her away. “Get out of here with that syringe. Damn, girl, you’re a wildcat.”
    “Let me show you my claws.” She grinned and uncapped the pen with her teeth.
    Realization sparked in his eyes. He leveled his gaze at her. “You gonna try to pump me full of ink for my pain? Try it and you’ll be sorry, Whiskey.”
    She jerked to a stop. Confusion settled in her mind, but warmth tightened her belly. He had a nickname for her? “What did you call me?”
    His gaze flickered over her hair. She raised a hand to her hair, putting two and two together. “Oh my whiskey-haired gal and all that. Why, Juss, you are a genuine cowboy.” She drawled “genuine” like “gen-u-EYEN,” and couldn’t stop the smile from spreading over her face. Her hair was mud brown in comparison to her sister’s golden blonde. But Juss made it seem as if her hair color was a good feature.
    He scowled and tried to fold his arms. The dislocated shoulder shot pain through him, and he growled a curse. “Damn shoulder! Can’t even move the way a man should.”
    Lilly moved toward him, his frustration a beacon to her need to comfort. But moving closer meant coming face-to-face with his unadulterated maleness. He refused to wear a shirt, and the ridges of his abs were on display for every Buckle Bunny who came to visit—and so far there had been at least a dozen. She had shooed them all away, telling them not to come back because Juss needed rest to heal.
    As Lilly stared at the handsome Slick Rider, she felt her temperature rise a degree. What would he do if she crawled over his bed, careful not to jar his injured parts, and straddled him? Would she be able to wipe that ornery look off his face and replace it with the smile she longed for?
    “What’s on the agenda today, Physical Therapy Assistant Hall? Torque my shoulder and overextend my knee?”
    Laughter bubbled up her throat. She pocketed her pen and came forward to help him out of bed and into the wheelchair. “Every exercise we perform is to help you make a full recovery.”
    “Exercise?” He squinted, creating perfect creases around each smoldering eye.
    She reached to the small table beside his bed and grabbed a roll of kinesiology tape that would keep his wound dry. He was wearing loose shorts, and his hurt knee was propped on a wedge pillow. Earlier that morning she’d removed his splint to give his leg a break.
    She pulled off a length of tape and wrapped it around his knee, taking care not to hurt the small incisions from the laparoscopic surgery they’d performed to fix a ligament tear.
    Thank goodness he only has a few small incisions. It means he can be ridden properly.
    She bit her lip at the errant thought. She needed to stop thinking about him so much and in this way. He was a devil, urging women to sin. Even boring girls like her who were no longer nineteen and didn’t sport fake breasts.
    At least Buckle Bunnies have the nerve to go after what they want.
    “What’s the matter, Whiskey?”
    Lord, was he going to start calling her that? A shiver traced her spine. She bent over his