Not by Synergy Coal. I’m talking about the Banners.
You ever heard of the Hatfields and McCoys? They were famous families down here after the Civil War who got into one of the bloodiest family feuds in history. They made a movie or TV show about them or something. You might’ve heard of them in movies or whatever.
Well, that shit still happens. There’s no gun fights in the middle of town at high noon or any of that shit, but the rivalry is there. For us here in Sugar County, Kentucky, it’s the Bronsons and our kin versus the Banners and theirs. Me? I stayed clear of the crime angle of things all my life. I don’t fuck around with running guns or drugs, or any of that shit. The Banners though are filthy with it. Hell, my own brother is full outlaw.
But no, for me it was always horses. When Grandpa Doyle died in that “car crash” along with my parents and left the farm to me, well, I took it over. I was done with the rodeo life anyways, and settling down with just me, my land, and my horses was all I wanted. I stayed legit, even if Shepherd, my younger brother, never took to it. Our kid sister Taylor was still in school when it all happened, too, and that was part of me coming back. Someone had to raise her, and take care of her, and make sure she went to college. So, horses and running a legit farm it was.
The Banner family wouldn’t know “legitimate business” if it bit them in the ass though. And I know why they want this land too. Synergy Coal is a fake front they set up a few months back, but the real coal companies are out there. And this is coal country. Those fuckers want to strip mine the whole fucking county and leave us with poison and ruin. And the Banners want to sell it to ‘em, at a premium.
Well, part of it at least. Their part they want to keep in control of so they can keep running their Oxy and meth through Sugar County. That and whatever the hell else they’re up to these days.
I don’t know how the fuck she fits into all this, but I knew the second I saw her she was trouble.
…Looks like I was right, too.
“Unhand me you fucking asshole!”
Her kicks get wilder as I step up onto my porch. She gets a knee into my ribs, and I grunt but I ignore it. I’m a big guy, after all. And she’s small.
And gorgeous.
And innocent looking.
And sexy as fuck.
And the mere smell of her hair across my face has my balls aching and my cock swelling thickly in my jeans.
Fuck, what am I, lusting after the enemy? The one who wants to help those people take my land? I heard about her the last week, even if this is my first time meeting her. She’s already been to old man Buffet’s place with just as shit a deal, trying to get him to sell his parcel to “Synergy Coal” too.
Well, no more. Not me. This land is never leaving my family, and it sure as fuck isn’t going to the Banners, or a coal company at that. I know what I should do. I should call up Harlan Bishop, with the Sugar County sheriff's department and get her ass thrown in the lockup for trespassing. Let someone else deal with her and the leg.
But here I am, stepping into my house with her — bringing the wolf inside.
The door to the old famous slams shut behind me, and I storm into the living room, towards the couch.
Tara’s squirming and shrieks suddenly turn into something else.
“No! No! Not— please! I won’t tell anyone about this! Just please let me—”
I toss her down onto the couch and roll my eyes.
“You think if I was that sort of man, I’d bring you all the way down here to my house just to do it on a couch?”
Tara’s mouth purses into a thin line, her wild dark eyes darting over my face.
“Now sit fucking still.”
I drop to my knee and go for her leg, but she suddenly kicks out with it.
Fuck.
I grunt, seeing stars as her foot catches me square in the face. I blink, lurching for her until the sudden sound of a shell being chambered has me stopped in my tracks. I shake my head, clearing the spots and the stars to see her standing right in front of me, my own damn shotgun pointed right at me.
Aw shit.
“I’m leaving now,” she hisses, her face stormy and scared, her eyes still darting all the hell over the place.
“Put that gun down.”
She hisses, taking a step towards me as if to threaten me with the gun in her hands. But she steps on that ankle that was caught up in my trap, and she winces in pain.
“Tara—”
“Don’t come any closer!” she yells.
My eyes drop to her fingers, seeing them all twitchy and jittery on that trigger. She doesn’t look like much of a shot, but at five feet and with a sawed-off, she could cut me in two with her damn eyes closed. Plus I don’t even know where she really is with all of this. She might honestly just be working for the Banner’s shell company, but with a gun leveled at my gut, I’m not about to make that call. She could be a right hand man of Lawson Banner himself. She could be a hired gun to take me the fuck out so they can take this land that way.
So don’t think. I just act.
She screams as I rush her, her arms jerking up. And suddenly, the roar of the gun fills the room. I can feel the heat of the shot blasting past me as I slam into her, knocking her back and wrenching the shotgun out of her hands. We crash into the wall, and she’s screaming and raining her fists down on me as I hold her firm with my hands. I glance back, blinking at the shotgun blast to the wall right behind me.
Shit. Cut that one way too close.
“Goddamnit,” I hiss, whirling back to her and growling. “I am trying to help you with that leg! It needs—”
“Don’t you dare put your hands on…on…”
She blinks, and suddenly, it’s like the fight goes out of her. Her face flushes, and she starts to teeter on her feet a little bit when suddenly, it hits me.
Aw shit.
A few of my barbed traps up in the woods are tipped with Amobarbital. That’s knock-out juice if you’re not a doctor. No, I don’t lace ‘em for people — I’m not a psychopath. But I’ve put it on the traps near where I know I’ve spotted bears up in my woods after a few cases where I happened upon one of my traps with a mad-as-hell bear about ready to tear its own leg off to get free. A bear having the best sleep of its life is a touch easier to get free than one who wants to literally bite your head off.
My eyes drop to the raw redness of her ankle, were she was caught, and I swear under my breath. Fuck. She couldn’t have gotten one of the tipped barbs that long ago, or she’d have been knocked the fuck out way before I got to her. Which means she must have nicked one of the tipped barbs right before I got her free, or hell, maybe even as she was slipping her leg out.
Either way, from the looks of her, she’s got about fifteen seconds before she goes to dreamland. Hard.
“Tara,” I growl, my hands steadying her as she sways, blinking up into my face. “The trap had a mild anesthesia on it, okay? I know you can already feel it, but you’re going to be just fin—”
“You drugged me?” she whispers.
I shake my head. “It’s not like that. It’s to keep bears down so I can get them—”
“I’m not a bear,” she slurs, her words running together as she starts to slump into me.
Shit. It’s hitting her hard. She’s about to crash.
“Easy, girl,” I murmur, catching her in my arms.
“Don’t touch me,” she mumbles, her eyes closing before she suddenly collapses right into my arms.
I sigh. Well, shit. Now what? Call the cops now? Explain how it is that I’ve got a passed out girl with a ripped dress and no shoes in my living room with evidence of a struggle all over the place? Harlan is a friend, but, c’mon I know how this looks.
I glance down at her, and something in my chest catches.
Fuck, I know how this feels too. Her in my arms like this? I shake my head, blowing the air out slowly from my lips. Damn, she feels right in my arms.
But she’s the enemy. I have to reme
mber that. Whether she’s willfully with the Banners or not, she’s here to fuck my shit up, and I have to keep that in good mind, even with how damn beautiful she is.
Hell, especially with how damn beautiful she is.
But the way she curls into my arms as I carry her upstairs? Shit, that’s gonna be a problem. The way she smiles quietly in her sleep, her hands tightening on my shirt? That’s also going to be a problem.
The way she slowly opens her eyes, like she can barely manage it as she glances up at me and smiles and says “don’t let the bed bugs bite, okay?” before slumping off to dreamland?
Oh, yeah, that’s gonna be a big fucking problem too.
But what’s going to be the biggest problem is the way I just can’t look away once I lay her in the guest room bed and pull a sheet up over her. The way my blood roars through my veins, and how my cock throbs against my jeans, and the way the raw desire to have her thunders through me like a stampede.
Yeah, that’s all gonna be a big problem too.
In fact, looking at her sleeping there all innocent, gorgeous, tempting, and fragile?
Yeah, everything about this girl is going to be a problem, and it’s just getting started.
Chapter 3
Tara
I know it’s a dream, but I can’t stop.
In it, the bed creaks as he stalks over me, pinning me to the sheets. His mouth hungrily drops to my neck, biting and sucking as his hands tear at my clothes — as in actually tearing them. I moan in pleasure as he rips my blouse away, shredding my skirt up the seam. My panties pull tight and snap under his rough fingers, and when he touches me there, I cry out as his fingers easily push inside my slippery pussy.
“Time to show you what we do to horse thieves around here.”
I want to tell him again that I’m not one, but then, part of me doesn’t want to. Part me — a dark part of me — wants to know what he does to horse thieves.
“Maybe I should just tie you up and fuck you hard — make you scream for more before I let you come all over my big cock.”
I moan wildly, his filthy words making my whole body ache and my blood run hot like fire. He flips me over, my torn clothes hanging off of me by threads as he pins me down. His knees go to either side of my thighs, his hand to the small of my back. The other tangling in my hair, making me gasp. He pushes his hips forward, and when I feel the hot, throbbing head of his cock ease between my thighs and press against my slick, eager lips, everything melts.
And then I wake up.
My heart races from the fever dream, and the wet heat between my thighs is nothing I can ignore. I gasp quietly, the vividness of the dream tingling over my skin and making my whole body pulse with something hot.
And then, I blink, and the rumble in my head turns into thunder. I groan as the headache lances through me. I try and move, but it suddenly hits me that I’m tied to the bed.
Tied.
…In the house of a man I don’t know who caught me in a trap in his woods.
My heart jumps into my throat, my pulse racing as I start to panic. I gasp, yanking at the rope as the adrenaline courses through me. I squirm, wincing at the headache but trying to push through it as I yank at my arms. But they’re tied tight above my head — bound to the iron frame of the bed.
Someone clears their throat, and I scream as I whirl to see him standing in the doorway to the room — coffee in one hand, and a revolver in the other. I blink, my mouth going dry and my heart thudding in my chest as I stop struggling.
“Morning sunshine.”
My eyes drag up his body — covered now in a threadbare white t-shirt pulled tight across his bulging arm muscles and hardened chest. He’s also got his jeans and boots on. I stop at his smug, grinning face, and I glare at him.
“You drugged me,” I hiss.
Colton shrugs, slipping the gun into a holster at is side. “Kinda.”
“Kind of?”
“Technically, you drugged yourself by stepping onto my land without my say-so and getting yourself caught up in that trap.”
My eyes narrow at him. “Whatever helps you sleep at night,” I spit before I glance down at myself. “I’m half amazed my clothes are still on.”
Colton chuckles.
“I sleep just fine at night, darlin.” He moves towards me, and I swallow thickly. “You thinking about how I sleep?”
I blush. “No.”
“And maybe it’s that your clothes are back on, hmm? That what you were dreaming about, wasn’t it? Me takin’ them off you?”
My face goes crimson.
“I wasn’t dreaming.”
He smiles that cocky, smug, gorgeous smile.
“Sure you weren’t. Just like I’m sure that wasn’t my name you were moaning out.”
I cringe. Dear God, kill me now? Please.
He leans close, leaning right over me, and I gasp, wondering if he’s about to just flat out kiss me. But his lips tease past mine, brushing my cheek until they find my ear.
“You ask nice enough and I might just do it right now, darlin,” he purrs as my whole body shivers in heat.
“You’re—” I swallow, panting. “You’re disgusting.”
“Yeah?” He chuckles deeply into my ear, and its everything I can do to hold back the whimper. “Lookin’ awful flushed for being so disgusted by me, sweetheart.”
“I beg your pard—”
“Your pretty little nipples always get that hard when you hate someone?”
I balk, my jaw dropping as I just stare at him in shock. But he just grins and keeps it up.
“Naw, I watched you dreaming, darlin. I listened to you dreamin’ too,” he growls, his gorgeous eyes tracing over me. “Sounded like a nice one too.”
“I was doing no such th—!”
“Right, right,” Colton sighs. “You weren’t dreaming, right? I just made it up that I watched you moaning and grinding your hips like someone was holding you down and giving you everything you wanted.”
I go bright red, and I can barely even comprehend that he’s talking to me like this. And I know I should hate it, or be disgusted, or wildly offended. But, I know I’m not. Not even close. The opposite, actually. No one’s ever talked to me like this, and good lord is it blazing heat through me in all sorts of places.
“I’m sure I just made that up,” he growls. “And I’m sure if I lifted this little smart skirt of yours and ran my hands up those pretty thighs between your legs, finding your sweet little city girl pussy all nice and hot and wet would be all make believe too, right?”
My jaw drops, and the gasp catches in my throat.
There’s a second where we both just stare at each other, him with fire in his eyes and me trying to figure out if I want to tell him to go screw himself or beg him to screw me.
“I—”
“Yes?”
I swallow, panting as I use the last of my willpower to shove that filthy, forbidden desire back down.
Get ahold of yourself, girl.
“Un. Tie. Me. Now,” I spit.
Colton holds the look for second longer before he chuckles and pulls away.
“Tell me who you work for first.”
“I already did,” I mutter.
“I want to hear it now, again.”
I sigh. “I work for Synergy Coal, and I can promise you that we’ll be pressing charges for—”
“Who do you really work for?”
I stare at him. “Are you like, touched or something?”
“You volunteering?”
I blush. “I mean are you like a crazy person?”
“People say all sorts of things. But no. I’m asking because I’m making sure of something, so I’m going to ask you once more, and you’re going to look me in the eye and answer.”
He taps the gun in the holster.
“Who do you work for?”
“Synergy. Coal. Consultants,” I spit.
Slowly, he nods. “Well okay then.” He moves to unite me, and I stare at
him.
“Wait, just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“Power-tripping asshole,” I mutter.
Colton pulls back and eyes me. “I could tie you up again too if you’d prefer it.”
I purse my mouth shut.
“Or you could have coffee.”
I glare at him, biting back the words I want to throw out as I eye the tempting mug in his hand.
“Coffee.”
“Please?”
“Coffee, please,” I grumble.
“There, see? Down here in the backcountry, us rednecks have manners.”
His hands deftly untie the cords binding my wrists and I don’t protest as he helps me sit up. And I don’t even know where it comes from, but I react on instinct just as he’s passing me the coffee. I kick wildly, knocking the steaming mug out of his hand and into his chest. Colton roars, stumbling back as I leap from the bed, shove him aside, and I run.
I bolt down the stairs, hearing him crashing behind me. His footsteps thunder closer, and suddenly, I scream as he tackles me. We both go down, crashing and tumbling down the stairs — both of us grunting as we hit the floor at the bottom. I blink, my head spinning and my vision blurring before I realize I’m face to face with him, laying right on top of him.
We’re panting, both of us inches apart — eyes wild and lips almost touching. His hands are firmly gripping my waist, my legs spread around his muscled hips.
Oh God.
“Colton, I—”
“That fucking hurt,” he growls through his teeth.
“I—” I shake my head slowly, our eyes locked. “I didn’t mean…” I swallow. “Whatever you think I am, I’m not, okay? Just please…” I bite my lip. “Are you going tie me up again?” I breathe.
Colton holds my gaze, the fire roaring behind his steely blue eyes.