Music: Save A Horse, Ride a Cowboy – Big & Rich, So Hott – Kidd Rock, Buena – Morphine, What Was I Thinking – Dirks Bentley, Here for the Party – Gretchen Wilson

Honestly, I should know better by now. I mean, here I am, 30 years old and fucking a total stranger at a bar. I mean seriously, this is why I don't drink in public anymore. What the hell was I thinking?

My night started out innocuously enough. I was lounging around, bored in my motel room, biding my time until it was late enough for me to go to sleep. Only Saturday was my drinking night, and there was no alcohol in my room and no bar in this crappy ass motel. I could rapidly become a full-blown alcoholic quite easily, but so far I'd managed to keep enough of a grip on reality to realize this would probably be a bad idea, and limited myself to a once weekly indulgence. I allowed myself just one day a week to forget my god awful reality, to have fun, to have enough confidence to believe in myself again.

I really just needed a drink. Or two. Or six, to get me through the night. Just one more night until I started my new life as a wrangler at Lazy Trails Ranch outside Big Sky, Montana. I'd had a Saturday night tradition for the past year and a half now and I wasn't about to break it just because I was stuck in some lame ass motel room. It was my one time during the week when I could just throw caution to the wind and let myself really feel again. It was the one time I felt alive again. I usually surrounded myself with music and books and art on my sacred Saturdays, but stuck in this god-forsaken hellhole of a motel room, I really didn't have anything that wasn't taped up in a box. It made me feel even more dead. I had to get out.

Lazy Trails was about forty minutes away just outside Big Sky (population 1560, er now 1561) so thank god I'd decided after flying into Bozeman to stay in town for my last night of…well for my last night before I started my new life. There was a promising looking bar called the Wagon Wheel about two blocks down from the motel and I made my way down the street with a lackluster hope of finding a decent beer. I wasn't holding my breath. So far, this place seemed to be sorely lacking in the type of amenities a city girl like me was used to. Whatever. I didn't really need any amenities anymore. I mean, who needs amenities when you're going to hell anyway, right? Thankfully there was no cover and it looked like things were just starting to pick up, so I made my way over to the bar. Well, one of the three bars I could see. This place was huge. There were two dance floors and a bull machine. You know, typical country stuff. Or so I assumed. What did I know? I know horses, not hickville. So yeah, I headed to the bar and they had hard liquor and Bud in all its variations. Joy. I hate hard liquor. Give me a beer or a glass of wine and I'm happy for days. But hard liquor, I don't know, it just makes me feel sticky sweet sick before I really get a good buzz on. So I suck it up and order a Bud and knock it back. And then I have another. As I order my third I'm starting to feel a little more alive and I start to notice the music. It's not so bad. They're playing a good mix of country and rock-type stuff that I could definitely get into. I order my fourth and pound it fast, blocking out the fact that I forgot to eat dinner because by this time, I'm starting to feel pretty good. Really good. So good, in fact, I order round number… I can't remember anymore…and decide I'm sufficiently drunk enough to hit the dance floor.

I hate dancing. I should rephrase. I only hate dancing sober. I've always just felt awkward and spastic, you know? Like what the hell am I supposed to do with my feet? My hands? Do I look as awkward as I feel? It's just unnatural to me. But the more I drink, the more I lose all inhibitions and the more I really love to dance. I'm sure I look like a complete ass, but that's the beauty of liquid courage, right? Oh, and the beauty of practically being in a foreign country and not knowing a soul there…who gives a fuck? So I drink, I dance, I feel alive. I feel beautiful. I almost feel sexy. There's an art to dancing drunkenly at a bar when you're by yourself. You have to move around the floor enough so that you don't draw attention to the fact there's no one else there dancing with you. But you have to make sure you don't move around so much that people think you're trying to tear it up or anything. I'd know. I only dance by myself, and it sure as hell isn't to attract any attention to myself. I'm toxic.

So there I was, innocently nursing my drunkenness and minding my own dancey spinny business when I saw him across the dance floor, watching me. Emerald eyes blazed at me beneath the most freakish copper colored sex hair I have ever seen. Seriously. It stuck up all over the place, just begging to have fingers run through it. He was wearing some nondescript tight black t-shirt that showed off just enough muscle to hint he was pretty damn ripped beneath it, and dark wash jeans that were fitted, but thank god weren't tight ass Wranglers. No one needs to see that much of your package, cowboys. He was just staring at me as he danced, hypnotizing me with those crazy shiny green eyes. I kept swaying my hips to the music, trying to move on, but I couldn't look away from his mesmerizing eyes. As he started predatorily stalking towards me through the crowd, all the hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention, and I found my breathing growing shallower as I started to back ever so slowly away from him. Holy fuck he was hot. I had never in my life seen a man this freaking beautiful, and I'd sure as hell never felt such a physical reaction just from looking at someone. When he finally reached me, he didn't say a word. I tried to move away. I swear I did. I wasn't here to meet anyone, but my whole body was rebelling against my brain and even in my drunken stupor I could feel his pull reeling me in. Those snake charmer eyes kept working their magic on me as we started swaying in rhythm together and his hands were on my hips and his nose was in my hair and his lips were on my neck. My brain was spinning and I couldn't tell if it was the alcohol or him, but I didn't care cause fuck he smelled good. Like whiskey and fresh cut hay and the sun, and suddenly we couldn't get close enough to each other. I don't know who I became in that moment but as he pulled me flush against his body and started grinding into me, I ceased to care. All I could do was feel. Feel him, in all his hard muscular glory, as we ground against each other in some electrified swaying, sweating frenzy. I was in serious danger of swooning. From his smell. From the way he felt. From how fucking beautiful he was. I couldn't help myself.

The opening drum line of some song started pounding out through the speakers and something in me snapped. I was too far gone to have any semblance of reason. I wanted him like I've never wanted anyone in my life. My hands were in his hair and his hands were on my ass and oh god the grinding and we started backing towards the bathroom. But he just kept backing me up and then we were through some backdoor and outside. He growled. I mean, fucking growled. I moaned and then my back collided with the brick wall behind the building as he shoved up against me and then I could really feel him and oh holy fuck he was huge. My senses were assaulted by his smell and that mouth and the feel of his hands as he raked them greedily over my body. I'd never felt this kind of intensity, this raging need to possess someone, to be possessed by someone. My hands were on his belt and his hands were up my skirt and he was pushing aside my thong and then fuck he was thrusting into me with all the same wanton need I was feeling for him. I wrapped by legs around his waist as he pounded into me, fast and furious as the pressure built. His hungry mouth was kissing and licking at my throat as mine met his collarbone and just as I couldn't take it anymore and bit down, setting off his release as I exploded around him. He peppered my face and neck with little kisses as we shuddered back down into reality, and then he carefully pulled out of me, giving me this fucking sexy half-smile and I half swooned again as I righted my clothes. And then he spoke in a voice that sent me into three-quarters swoon and I knew I was in trouble. I had to get the fuck out of there.

"So, uh, would you like to get a drink or something?" I smiled back at him, hoping he couldn't see my nervousness.

"I have to run to the bathroom."

"Oh right, of course," he said, and put his hand on the small of my back as he guided me back through the door and towards the bathroom. Fuck, did this dude read the manual on how to make Bella Swan swoon? I really, really had to get out of there. As I started through the bathroom door I turned to him and said, "I'll meet you up at the bar?" He responded with a simple, "Sure," and that same half smirk/smile and I swear to god I almost fucked him again right then and there, but he saved my ass by turning and walking down the hall towards the bar. I went into the bathroom, made sure my clothes were straight and then turned and ran the fuck out of the back door back to my motel.