Read Online Ride: A Bad Boy Romance by Roxie Noir - Free Book Online Page A

kiss her back, but it’s all teeth and tongue and tequila, so after a second I give up and turn my head away.
    I push the hat down, but Mae’s turned away, snapping photos of the other couch.
    The girl over there’s taken her shirt off and is just holding a cowboy hat in front of her tits and giggling. Mae just keeps taking pictures, a look of total concentration on her face. In a minute the girl is on her knees on the couch and Raylan’s behind her, and she’s making a face at the camera that I think she thinks is sexy.
    “You wanna get out of here?” the girl on my lap purrs into my ear.
    “It’s still early,” I say. “Give it some time.”
    She pouts, but my eyes slide past her and to Mae, who’s perfectly sober, quietly snapping away.
    I bet Mae’s the only one who’s going to remember most of this tomorrow , I think.

9
    Mae
    T his wasn’t really how it was supposed to go, but I’m rolling with it. Instead of quietly taking pictures from the background, somehow the pictures have become the main attraction.
    Right now, there’s a half-naked lady on a couch holding a cowboy hat over her chest. She’s alternating between looking at the camera flirtatiously and trying to get her bra back from Raylan, who’s holding it just out of her reach.
    She’s not trying that hard. Neither of them are, but it’s a good diversion from Jackson, who’s got a girl on his lap right now and keeps sloppily making out with her.
    I don’t mind. There’s no version of reality in which I have a claim on him, and it’s not like I didn’t know what I was getting into by coming here.
    That doesn’t mean I have to watch .
    “Ray lan !” the half-naked girl squeals, and lunges across his lap for her bra, her ass sticking into the air.
    Raylan looks at the camera and grins, and I snap it.
    “Okay, everybody,” says a woman’s voice behind me, and I turn. Everyone turns, and the crowd quiets a little.
    It’s a middle-aged woman, streaks of gray in her brown hair, stern face.
    “This ain’t a nudie establishment,” she says, picking up two empty pitchers. “Ladies, please keep your clothes on , you got that?”
    She stares hard at the half-naked girl. The half-naked girl actually blushes. I’d love to get a picture of them both, a wide-angle shot, but I’m not in a good spot for it. Crap.
    “Sorry, Betty,” the girl says, and everyone else mutters an apology too.
    Betty grabs a few more empties and leaves. Amazingly, most of the cowboys there look slightly chastened, and I raise my eyebrows.
    The half-naked girl takes her shirt and bra and slinks off to the bathroom. I take the chance to fade into the background again, lean against a wall, and just watch.
    Karaoke kicks up again. The girl finally gets off of Jackson’s lap and walks off somewhere else, and he stands and joins another karaoke group. None of them can carry a tune in a bucket, but everyone is so wasted that they hardly notice, or if they notice, they don’t care.
    I’m trying some shots with a slightly longer exposure, the camera kept still on a table, when one of the cowboys who isn’t singing walks over to me. I think his name is... Clay, or Wyatt, or Trevor, or something else typical.
    “You takin’ pictures?” he asks, coming up behind me. His voice is slurred, and it makes his accent sound particularly thick.
    “Actually, I’m a minion of Satan and I’ve been sent here with this soul-capturing device,” I say. “If I can capture a hundred souls in one day, he’ll give me a bonus. I’m saving up to buy a house in the nice part of Hell.”
    I click the shutter and hold my breath, giving the exposure an extra moment. Then I look over at Clay-Wyatt-Trevor, and he just blinks at me.
    “What?” he says, his face a mask of confusion.
    “Yes, I’m taking pictures,” I say.
    He frowns.
    “You said something about Satan,” he says.
    “You must be hearing things,” I say. “I’m a photographer for Sports Weekly , covering the