by Maxine Marsh
EVERNIGHT PUBLISHING ®
www.evernightpublishing.com
Copyright© 2018 Maxine Marsh
ISBN: 978-1-77339-549-4
Cover Artist: Jay Aheer
Editor: M. Allison Lea
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
DEDICATION
For J
TROUBLE TIED UP
Maxine Marsh
Copyright © 2018
Chapter One
Clayton always headed home from the ranch wondering if he’d done enough to make a difference in the horses’ lives that day. There was work, and there was progress. It wasn't a question he applied to much more than work—his own life was steady, stable. It was enough that the horses got better, and most of his day relied heavily on routine. And tonight his routine was to go have a beer or two on the way home from the ranch. Since his wife had gone, there wasn’t much to throw off his routine, and that was just fine with him. But every once in a while, like tonight, something was different. Tonight, that something was a young woman, blonde and bored-looking, new to town, and new to his routine.
He had lived in the small community of Gooding, Texas for a long time, and she was a complete stranger who he first noticed sitting in the corner of the bar and drinking by herself. Her body language, everything about her, read that she didn’t want any attention or any trouble. She just wanted to drink by herself, which wasn’t a great sign in someone so young. Despite his initial impression of the young woman while the bar was rocking in the high night wind, he did not and would not have judged her poorly. Everyone had a story, and everyone’s story had a resolution. That was where the training came in.
There was the matter of the wind that night. They were alone at the bar at closing time. Everyone was gone, and the barkeep was cleaning up around them. Clayton watched her sideways out of boredom for the past half an hour now that they were the last customers in the bar, and his boredom passed to fascination while the minutes quietly came and went. The wind, when it rushed in, pushed blonde tendrils of hair around her face and when it went out, the tendrils dropped softly like falling leaves back down to her shoulders. From the side, her face reminded him of one of those old-fashioned cameo profiles, with a long slender nose and thin lips. She didn’t move from her seat once, just sat there staring ahead like she was somewhere else entirely. The wind pulsed in and out and the shutters kept slamming, particularly the one in the wall at the back of the bar behind her. It seemed to taunt her all night until finally she got up, walked measuredly to the wall, caught the broad shutter as it threatened to bang its frame once again, and latched the damn thing closed.
“Thank you, miss,” said Ronny, the barkeep. He held a broom in his hands, but still managing to tip his hat like a gentleman.
“Whatever,” she murmured. She swigged the last of her beer, pulled a fistful of cash out of a denim pocket, and stacked in neatly on the bar. Another shutter farther down banged in with the wind before flying open again. She picked up the empty mug and put it on top of the cash.
She rose with the grace of a bobcat and looked straight at Clayton. Her head tilted slightly as she stepped down from the bar stool and pulled the edges of her jacket close into her chest. Now that she looked at him straight on, Clayton saw she was young, early twenties probably. Beautiful, but with an unmistakable hard edge. Not shy, he gathered by the way she kept his eyes without flinching. Messed up somehow. Just like the horses he worked with. The same look the eyes got with prolonged pain and suffering. Sometimes he’d look himself in the eyes in the mirror at home to make sure it wasn’t happening to him, too.
When he walked out of the bar, he found her standing in the parking lot, staring up at the sky. It was cloudless, and the stars dotted the expanse above. She looked slightly embarrassed when she glanced over and realized he was watching her. She turned away and walked up the road. Clayton knew there wasn’t much in that direction besides a few storefronts and the motel. Maybe she was staying there. He grew a little concerned, which was his tendency, and got in his truck and pulled up slowly alongside her. He thought she rolled her eyes as she watched him keeping pace with her.
“Hey, it’s late,” he said. “Let me drive you.”
“No, thanks.” She waved him off.
“I can’t let a young lady walk herself home alone in the dark, now. Come on.” He tried to sound friendly and not creepy.
She stopped walking. He put his foot on the brake. She leaned into the open passenger window and said, “It’s not that far.”
“Then it’ll be a quick ride.”
She stared at him, appraising him, then pulled the door open. She sat back in the seat and looked over at him. “You shouldn’t pick up hitchhikers. Never know what you’ll get.”
She was smiling, so he took the comment lightly. “You weren’t hitching.”
She shrugged. “You usually the last one at the bar?” she asked, looking away from him and out the window toward the night sky.
“Not always. Like to keep Ronny company while he’s cleaning up, after the drinkers have abandoned him.”
She nodded and continued staring out the window and up at the stars.
“You’re new in town?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“You like the stars here?”
She looked at him again. “They have stars where I’m from. Just not this many.”
He pulled into the motel parking lot. “Which one?”
“Around the side,” she said, eyes not moving from him.
Something tensed below Clayton’s belt. The motel was clearly barely occupied, and around the side looked even less so. He pulled the truck around the corner toward a room halfway down the parking lot where there was little light.
“That’s it?” he asked.
“That’s it.”
“Lucky number thirteen, huh?” He frowned, looking at the shabby, well-worn door lit up in his headlights.
“Yeah. I asked for it.”
“That makes you seem superstitious,” he said.
“I guess maybe I am.”
They sat there, the truck engine idling. Moments passed, and still she didn’t move to get out of the truck.
“Turn off your lights, already,” she said.
He turned the lights off, then twisted the key, silencing the low rumble of the truck and plunging them into more quiet. There was a stillness about the place, broken only by the wind rustling through the shrubs, bringing the lingering scent of dogwood from somewhere nearby.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Clayton.” For whatever reason he, he didn’t see the need to rush her out.
“Want to come in, Clayton?” she asked.
He rolled the idea around in his head for a few moments, during which his blood flow began to redirect itself downward. He looked over. “What’s your name?”
“DJ.”
“What’s that stand for?”
“Dina Jo.”
He smiled and nodded, couldn’t help it. “A good Southern name.”
“I’m from Texas. Not here though. South. Near Beaumont.”
“I know, I can tell. You’ve got a gulf accent. I’ve heard it before.”
She looked over at him, really looked at him then. Something told him his chance to let her go on with her night and let himself go on with
his had passed. She dropped his gaze, leaned forward again, and looked up through the windshield at the stars one last time, then sat back and smiled.
“You in a rush home?” she asked.
He didn’t answer, didn’t trust himself to say one way or the other.
He watched her begin to unbutton her blouse. She did it in a way that was so casual he assumed she had something on underneath. Technically she did but it wasn’t her bra he expected to see. Just as casually, she reached for the clasp at the front of her bra, then that was undone, too.
“Hey now—” he began.
“Hey now, what? It’s warm in here, Clayton.”
He looked at her breasts. She made a show of pushing her hair back over her shoulders. With her arms raised, her breasts lifted and her nipples jutted out toward him in the near darkness. He caught the look on her face. She was smirking. knew she’d caught him off guard.
“Better?” he asked.
“Yeah. The breeze feels good.”
She was right, the breeze hadn’t quit, only picked up the deeper the night got. Her nipples were hard and free to it, at his eye level. Her chest heaved. He could tell she was getting excited as she sat forward, pushing them even closer.
“I’m still a little warm.” He’d made it obvious to her that he wasn’t turning her down, so she took her time now undoing her jeans and peeling them off. Her panties, white and lacy, followed, and all of a sudden, Clayton had a naked woman in the front of his truck. She tossed her panties up onto the dashboard and moved toward him.
“Wait,” he said.
She paused.
He took a deep breath. “I want to see your pussy. Sit back and play with yourself.”
He was surprised when she did exactly as he’d asked. Just like that, she sat back in the shadows of the front seat, back to the door, legs spread, pussy exposed to him. She began touching herself slowly, just as he’d asked.
He let her go on like that for a few minutes while his cock grew harder and pressed firmly against the inside of his thigh.
“Come here,” he finally said.
The next moment, she straddled him. Two round, firm breasts pressed close to his face. She ground herself down onto him, so close her naked crotch made contact with his fly.
“What’re you waiting for? You wouldn’t want a girl to get bored, would you?” she asked.
Trip. Like he’d walked right into a fine trap of her making. He supposed he had. Something inside him was set in motion, and there was no way to undo it now.
“I’ll take my time,” he said, not harshly but directly, eye to eye with her.
He reached, took up her wrists, pulled them behind her. They were light and thin, easily engulfed in one of his hands. He pinned them tight to her lower back.
“You like that sort of thing, huh?” she whispered, grinding her pelvis down again.
“Be quiet and be still.”
He used his other hand to reach down between them and undo his pants. His cock came free, felt the warm air, jutting into the space between her legs. She pressed her mound toward him.
He tightened his grip on her wrists, pulling so her arms went tighter back behind her and she froze. “I said be still.”
Her breasts hung before him, nipples at attention. He delicately prodded one with his lips, not quite taking it into his mouth, just feeling the tip of her flesh. His suspicion that they were sensitive proved true—she took a sharp breath in, then another to steady herself. He liked that. She was already trying to be still and fixed.
Her reward was a flick of his tongue. And then a much slower, measured full lick of her nipple that elicited a soft whimper. He liked her whimper. His cock pulsed in response, seemed to strain closer to her labia all on its own where her heat and wetness pressed against the tip of him. Her other nipple needed attention—first slowly, then a sweet kiss, and then the full embrace of his lips as he drew it in and suckled.
For several minutes, he mostly ignored her but took his time with her breasts, moving between each nipple, licking and suckling when it suited him and enjoying the drip of her arousal onto his erection whenever she managed to wiggle a bit.
He paused and laid back against the seat to look at her. There was a tremble to her body. He didn’t take his eyes from her but reached down, grabbed his cock and offered it.
“Find your way.” He loosened his grip on her wrists enough to give her leave.
She lifted her hips a bit, rocked for a moment so that the head of his cock felt her slickness completely, then slowly lowered down. She was stoic in that moment, he had to hand it to her. She lowered completely, swallowed him up, and then sat still, squeezing and trembling and breathing heavily, not moving an inch, and most impressively, not averting her eyes.
Pulling her wrists back tighter again, he reclined the seat back and then with the leverage he gained, worked himself into her deeper until their bodies were pressed together. She moaned but kept still. Soon his cock was coated in her wetness. Satisfied, he wanted to feel her move now. He nodded, and she understood.
They formed a rhythm of movement together; she came down upon him just as forcefully as he moved up to meet her. He half expected her to struggle at some point against his hold on her wrists when her arousal increased and her need to climax grew, but she didn’t, only grasped at his hand with her loose fingers as if wanting him to hold onto her even tighter. Moans turned into cries, wetness turned to flooding, until she was so wet his cock could barely stand it.
It’s been too long, he realized. Too long since I was in charge of a woman who’s a natural like this. She embodied something he missed. It made him thrust and seek even harder.
He released her waist and grabbed her ponytail until her head pulled sharply back. She whimpered but didn’t miss a beat to the grind of their hips and kept him deep inside. Her throat was exposed, vulnerable, he could see the sleek curve of tendon and vein running down to her collar bone. He kissed her throat, right in the hollow where he could almost see her life pumping through.
He was close and found some real strength to pull her down and keep her down, impaled. She whimpered again, tried to rock her hips back and forth, but he held her fast to him. She trembled and then forced herself to stop moving. Good girl, he wanted to say, but it took everything he had to not come. It was too soon.
“Please please please please…” Her whispers came and went like the wind but she didn’t move.
They sat like that, him reclining back into his seat, looking up at her, watching her breasts tremble slightly with need. She squeezed hard around him then stilled, back pressed hard against the steering wheel. Moonlight reflected off her hair and the sweat dripping leisurely between her breasts and down her torso. The hot breeze coming in through the window, rustling through the trees nearby, from the desert off the highway made her skin grow goose bumps and shiver. Her nipples puckered.
She sat penetrated by him in excited stillness. He kept her hands pinned tight behind her; he loved the feeling of the small wrist bones squeezed tight into his palms. He let her hair go. She kept still. “Good girl,” he said.
He put a thumb between them, working it down to her clit, and heard her breath catch and hold. A squeezing ache set in as she clamped down even tighter around his cock, straining toward his thumb while he worked it in circles over her soft, soaked flesh. He told her, “Don’t move.”
She whimpered like she might start crying. The sound made him slow down his thumb even more. Pleasure and torture, torture and pleasure. It was a tightrope, a line he hadn’t walked for so long, and he was walking it along with her, feeling her squeeze and loosen, squeeze and loosen, strained in stillness, putting off his own orgasm for hers. He relished the build he watched in her face as he controlled her orgasm expertly, as though there hadn’t really been a gulf of time since last he’d led a woman down this slow path. No time at all, because no matter how much he might have denied it, this was his way.
The little nub beneath the soft,
thin sheath of flesh turned rigid. “You’re coming,” he said in a low voice.
A flash in her eyes, and the shaking begun. He loosened his grip on her and let her quiver freely. It started as a squeeze inward and emanated out through her thighs and abdomen, like an earthquake, shaking her breasts, tightening the tendons in her throat and her wrists. He held her tight again, so that it would find him, those vibrations of completion. When they did, he came too, hardening completely like she had, shaking as she had and emptying inside her.
He released his grip on her wrists. She fell forward against his chest and silently panted.
She was the first to move, gently pulling up until he fell from inside her, climbing back over to the passenger seat. She sat for a moment, breathing heavily, then pulled on her blouse. She looked down into the dark footwell of the truck and found her jeans.
“Thanks for the ride.” She closed the truck door softly behind her. A moment later her room door was open, then closed, and she was gone, leaving him to breathe in the hot night air alone.
Chapter Two
The old man was a one-off. A fun one, but just a screw. DJ’d been working up the will and the courage all night with beer, eyeing a few younger men who looked like they might have it in them. But the bar had emptied out, and he was the only soul left. Too old, probably forty-five, at least. Probably had a kid her age. He was clean-cut, clean-shaven, wore his shirt tucked in, and had a nice face. The kind of guy you could see smiling in his eyes before his mouth turned up. He watched her but didn’t give her a creepy feeling. He didn’t give off the vibe of wanting to get in her pants, and seemed to have noticed her only once they were the last two in the bar.
DJ had almost asked the weird, shy guy behind the bar if they were looking to hire help, but decided to wait to see what her schedule at the ranch was going to be. She’d gotten the job long-distance, barely believing it when her parole officer told her it was hers, and wasn’t sure how long the hours were going to be. But there was no such thing as too much cash, so she’d probably look for a second job in town if there was one to be had.
