by Paula Cox
This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, events, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.
Fury copyright @ 2017 by Paula Cox. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
FURY
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Chapter Twenty Two
Chapter Twenty Three
Chapter Twenty Four
Chapter Twenty Five
Chapter Twenty Six
Chapter Twenty Seven
Chapter Twenty Eight
Chapter Twenty Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty One
Epilogue
TORCHED
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Epilogue
Preview of SMOKE
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
More Books by Paula Cox
FURY
Chapter One
Jessie smiled at Mrs. Harrisburg's back as she folded up the paltry tip the old woman had been able to scrounge together. In truth, she would have cut and curled Mrs. Harrisburg's hair for free; the woman had been patronizing Delilah's Do for more than a decade.
Delilah, the owner, had stopped telling the woman about price increases about five years ago, when Mrs. Harrisburg, disturbed by the $3 increase, had skipped her monthly trim and nearly crashed her car because her bangs were in her eyes. Delilah swore that the decision was to protect the community at large, but really? The older woman's kids had moved away from Castello to more exciting parts of California, and her husband had died years back. She was lonely.
She rang the check through the till and walked to the front door to lock up, but before she got out from behind the counter, a huge man walked through the door. Absolutely huge. At 5 foot 8 and wearing heels herself, it wasn't as if Jessie was a tiny fainting flower, but this man was nearly a foot taller than she was.
He was broad through the shoulders, wearing the kind of muscle that said he worked hard and often, instead of the sort that bragged about gym time and "PBs" with CrossFit updates on social media. He had tattoos up and down his arms, swirling designs in dark ink that had been weathered by the sun. He wore a plain white t-shirt and dark denim jeans that had been worn lighter along the thighs. His hair was bright blond, shorn close on top, with a neatly trimmed beard that covered his chin.
"The -" her voice squeaked out. She coughed and tried again. "The barbershop's just down the street. Usual pole, can't miss it."
Castello was a small, sleepy town, with not a hell of a lot happening. She'd lived here since she was a kid, and she would have sworn on a stack of Bibles that she knew everyone. But this man was watching her with disarming intensity, as if he knew her inside and out. As if he knew everything she'd ever done or thought of doing.
She tried to not shift nervously. That was a horrible habit, and her mother had done her damndest to drill it out of Jessie's brain, but, in moments like this, she still wanted to cock out a hip and bite her nails.
What was it about this guy? It wasn't like she hadn't seen gorgeous men before. She had an Internet connection, and she wore out her vibrator's batteries every month, if not more frequently. He wasn't even all that handsome. But he was fiercely intense, and his hands were huge, and all she could think was how he could probably hold her up against the wall with just one of his big, strong arms, while the other flicked almost idly at her nipples. What would that feel like—
This time, she had to shake herself a little. She was absolutely not fantasizing about a stranger who hadn't even spoken to her yet. He could be a serial killer, for all she knew. He could be anything.
He could be a phenomenal time in the sack, and it had been a literal year since she'd had anything between her thighs that didn't need regular recharging, and she was aching for someone to do naughty things to her that she was afraid to put into words.
That was why she'd stopped dating town boys.
She wanted something dirtier, nastier than their loving and quietly muffled cries of pleasure. She wanted something darker. But how could you ask someone for that, and then see them on the street a day later without dying of embarrassment?
He raised a pale eyebrow at her comment about the barbershop, and for just a moment, she really did think he'd go. And then he shifted his weight with a grace that reminded her of big cats prowling, dropping himself almost daintily into the closest styling chair.
"There was a picture of a dude in the front window," he said, his voice thick and gruff. As if he didn't talk all that much. His gaze stayed locked on her, his thighs spread wide.
She had a vision of straddling him there, riding him while he wound his fist into her hair, panting into her neck until he yanked her head back to bite her pulse.
Down girl. Too many vampire movies and porn videos. Take a breath.
"Can you cut a guy's hair?" he asked. He was teasing now; she was entirely sure of it. There was something about the tilt of his mouth and the angle of his eyes that gave him away.
She glanced at the time. It was past 7, which was technically when she was supposed to lock up, but Delilah had always been very clear; if someone made it into the salon before closing, they got their cut.
Especially now, with Jackson having been poached out of the building by the new spa that opened across town, Delilah would be furious if she turned away someone who could pay. And, truth be told, her paycheck could use any kind of boost.
Castello was an interesting town. They were too far from both Los Angeles and Santa Clara to draw in college crowds, so the town mostly survived on tourist income from the surfers and boaters who like the warm Pacific waters and the bright beach.
But apart from the town itself, Castello didn't have much to recommend it.
Santa Cruz had the shopping, Berkeley had the hippie association, even Monterey
had the aquarium. Castello just had...Castello. A couple of quaint B&Bs, the small shopping strip, and that was about the end of it. There'd been some talk about opening a water park or even some kind of technical school, but then the economy fell apart in '08, and that was that. The town was too busy trying not to disappear to worry about expanding.
She'd thought more than once of moving away. Los Angeles was way too plastic, but in Santa Cruz, or even Santa Clara, she could make a name for herself. Delilah had taught her the basics, but her customers often said she had a knack with color and cuts that they didn't often find.
But to move away, she'd have to leave Danny behind, and that wasn't ever going to happen.
She shook off her thoughts and pushed a smile onto her face, hoping that the man wouldn't be able to tell how forced it was. "Of course I can cut your hair," she said, stepping in close and spinning him to face the mirror.
He was huge, and she had to lower the chair almost all the way to put him at the right level for her hands. She ran her hands over the short blond stubble. A quarter inch, maybe less. And uneven. Almost like he'd hacked it all off himself with scissors, or maybe with old, dull clippers.
"You're just not giving me a lot to work with here." She said. It was strange. His beard was meticulously neat, and his hair was a mess. Why pay so much attention to one and not the other.
"I tell you what, beautiful," he said, and his voice shot from her ears straight down to her groin, making her achingly wet in a moment, "you keep touching me like that, and you can do anything you want to me."
It was something about the words. They tickled a memory she hadn't thought of in ages. She couldn't call it to mind, not now, but it was there. Something. She really did know him from somewhere, only she was completely sure that if she'd ever met someone this magnetizing, she'd remember them, clear as anything.
"Do I know you?" Jessie asked. It seemed like a stupid question, especially given how it echoed in the quiet salon.
He didn't say anything to her, just closed his eyes and leaned back into the chair.
Chapter Two
Tex held perfectly still in the chair, his eyes closed, his head tilted just a little bit back so Jessie would have full access to his scalp. His hands, clenched into fists in his lap, were shaking. He hadn't known what he would do when he saw her.
Finally let go? Fall head over heels? Drop down to one knee and beg her to marry him? Throw her down on the nearest surface and indulge the fantasies he had been having since he'd discovered that it felt good to run his hand along his dick once it got hard?
There were so many tempting options.
She wore her black hair long, and he could imagine bending her over a desk or the end of a bed, wrapping that hair up around his fist, and pulling her back to watch him as he fucked her long and slow. Directing her down to suck his cock. Commanding her to swallow—if she didn't already know—to get him all the way down past where she'd want to gag.
Jesus Christ, he had to stop this. He'd been half hard since he'd seen her bright green eyes, still full of laughter and light after all these years. She didn't remember him. If she did, she would have said something. No question. So she thought he was some weird freak begging for a haircut after hours.
He opened his eyes and looked in the mirror. She stood perfectly still behind him, her gaze on his in the mirror. There was an unmistakable paleness underneath her tan and circles under her eyes.
No one was taking care of her. He was sure of it.
This hadn't been the plan. He was going to find Jessie, and introduce himself right away. Or he was going to romance her all slow and soft, like a woman like her would deserve. Or, hell, he'd take her hard and fast, like a man like him was used to doing.
But the plan had never involved seeing her from the street and buzzing into the salon like a customer, then plopping his shaved-headed ass down into the salon chair like the kind of person who saw a fucking stylist to get their hair done.
He made his mouth bend in a smile, the easy-going, wanna-get-fucked smile that melted the panties of most of the women and more than a few of the guys that he'd known in his life.
"Sorry." He let his voice drop a few notes lower, imagining the sound caressing her along the undersides of her breasts and down into the sweet crevice between her thighs. "I just burst in here like I owned the place. I have somewhere to be and someone to impress, so I was hoping to sharpen up my look just a little bit."
He reached up and ran a hand over the uneven scruff at the back of his head. "I can see my beard well enough to keep that looking good, but back here? I can't see what the fuck I'm doing."
His fingers brushed against hers when he touched the back of his neck, and an electric shock of pure need ran straight to his dick. He was stiff against his thigh, and it hurt inside the denim.
She laughed, and unless he was completely teasing himself, there was a nervous thread of need in her voice, too. "What did you do, go after yourself with a pair of garden shears?"
She hadn't moved her fingers. In fact, she pressed them into his scalp, scratching up from the back of his neck, and holy shit, he was seriously wondering if he was about to come right then and there.
"Not far off," he said, and he was thrilled his voice didn't crack. "I wore it long for a long time, but I got a new job, and I had to clean up my act."
He closed his eyes again. When had that happened? Probably when he slipped into a vision of going down on her in this chair, her heels hooked neatly on this little metal rung while he fucked her with his tongue. That was probably it. He opened his eyes, and her lips were parted, staring at him, the top of her chest moving rapidly with her breath.
If she were anyone else, he would take her hand and pull her down over his shoulder. He'd rub her hand against the rod of iron in his pants and bite the side of her breast. He'd take whatever she gave him, and when he was done, he'd be on her way.
He'd hoped it would be that simple with Jessie. But of course it wouldn't be.
He'd been thinking about this girl every time he'd gotten hard for almost twenty years. That kind of shit wasn't simple.
"Understandable," she said.
He stifled a groan when she shifted, the nipples on her small breasts pressing into her neat little black top. He wanted her in his lap, he wanted to rut against her until she screamed, until he came in messy spurts all over those tiny tits.
"Do you want me to shave it clean, or just even it out?"
He felt the shift in her, the turn back to the professional. He didn't like it at all. He wanted the fantasies, the daydreams, the stories where pretty little good girl Jessie had grown up into a wild woman who would do filthy things with a man she'd never met.
Well, she'd never met him as far as she knew. He could make her put her hands on the counter where all her tools were stored, and back up into his lap, and he'd be able to fuck her right here. This way, every time she put some client in this chair, she'd think of his cock and get all hot all over again.
"Even it out," he said, and this time his voice did crack. She turned him inside out, and his cock was aching, leaking against his thigh, desperate to be buried inside a sweet, hot pussy that would clench and squeeze for him. Or, fuck, his fist would do, if there were nothing or no one else.
But no, he'd had the brilliant idea to walk into this salon with no prep time or forewarning and just...sit down like an asshole and demand she cut his hair.
"Okay," she said. He closed his eyes again, and heard her clippers buzz to life. Then her hand pressed against his scalp, pushing his head forward gently so she could get the clippers where he needed them, and he had to bite his lip to keep from moaning with delight.
She was good at her work; she moved efficiently, quickly, and steadily, and he felt the soft fluff of tiny bits of hair falling around his ears. Every time her fingers lifted off and then touched him again, whether they were bending down the top of his earlobe or repositioning his head at the right angle, it sent a pulse of n
eed to his groin. He didn't dare open his eyes to look down; he just had to hope his erection wasn't too obvious, down the side of his jeans, and that the wet spot he could feel developing wasn't showing.
He wanted her. He wanted her so much he was on fire, but she wouldn't want him. There was absolutely no way she would ever want him.
The clippers went silent, and he made himself open his eyes. She was staring at him in the mirror again, her green eyes big, her pupils so dark he could hardly see her irises. "All done," she whispered. She picked up a soft dusting brush off the counter—her hand was shaking—and brushed the stray cut hairs off his neck and shoulders. And then she took one step back, wobbling on her heels like her knees had gone weak.
He caught one booted foot on the floor and turned himself around slowly, still facing her. He could imagine how he'd looked. One of his boys had caught a photo of him last year when he'd been relaxed and hungry, and he'd looked like a prowling cat. His hair had been wild and tangled, his beard a windblown mess, but his eyes had been ferocious.
Tex knew more than anything that he needed to stand up and walk himself right the hell back out of Jessie's life, just as fast as he'd walked in, but he also knew it wasn't going to be that simple. He'd been lying to himself for years, pretending it would be. Hell, he'd never thought he'd find her this fast. He'd never thought a girl with as much potential as Jessie had would still be living in this fake-cozy shithole of a town. Especially not once he'd heard what the Racketeers were up to.
