by Madison Faye
Rough Rider
Sugar County Boys: Book 3
Madison Faye
Contents
Rough Rider
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Epilogue
Also by Madison Faye
Mailing List
About the Author
Copyright Notice
Copyright © 2018 Madison Faye
Cover: Coverlüv
Photography: Wander Aguiar Photography
Model: Brian L.
Rough Rider
Country swagger, filthy mouth, and one big, huge…gun.
The wildest outlaw in Sugar County is about to get his dirty hands all over one lucky lady.
And this is one cowboy who knows how to hold on tight.
No one ever said robbing a drug kingpin was gonna to be easy. But for a rough and tumble outlaw like me, it should be a cakewalk.
That is, before I crash in locked and loaded to find the prettiest little firecracker this side of the Mississippi sticking a gun in my face.
She’s the good girl gone bad – the gorgeous, tempting little socialite with a shotgun. Problem is, we’re after the same money. Problem is, one look at that fiery red hair and those sweet curves that won’t quit, and I’m hooked like a fish on a line.
Problem is, we already slept together.
Yeah. Shit.
I know the rules, and I know a rough, filthy country boy like myself should stay away from a rich, sassy heiress like Chastity Huntington. But I’ve already had a taste of her sweet lips, and gotten a tease of her soft moans. And now? Well now I’m gonna make this little piece of trouble mine.
We’re tied to each other – literally – and on the run from some very dangerous people. But lucky for her, I carry a big gun.
Lucky for her, I know how to hold on tight and ride all night.
Lucky for her, I’m never gonna let go.
Giddyup.
Real talk: this book is totally over-the-top, wildly unrealistic, and a complete fantasy. But then, hopefully, that's exactly why you're here ;).
If you like your romance with a touch of stick-em-up heists, car chases, shoot-outs, filthy-talking country boys, and handcuffs (*wink wink*), well, I'm pretty sure you're going to eat this one right up. As with all my books, this standalone novella is safe, with no cheating, and a HEA guaranteed.
Chapter 1
Chastity
Son of a bitch.
Our eyes lock, and a shiver of heat tingles through my body. I swallow thickly, and when I see that sly, roguish, loaded grin of his pull across his perfect, chiseled jaw, my pulse quickens.
Heat pools between my legs.
The world stutters for a second.
…My fingers tighten on the shotgun in my hand.
Because right then, I know. Right then, with that grin, I know damn well who he is. Even with the ski mask covering the top part of his face. Even with the fact that I’m sober this time.
…Even if this time, we’re pointing guns at each other, not throwing back an ungodly number of tequila shots before tearing each other’s clothes off in that fucking parking lot.
He’s still wearing those jeans that fit him like the perfect crime from the night before. Different plaid shirt, but I’ll be damned if those aren’t the same jeans. Same scuffed, black cowboy boots, too. He’s lost the hat though — that dark, black, Stetson he was wearing the night before. Kentucky is hardly cowboy territory, but there he was in that shitty little roadside dive, looking like the lone ranger, or freaking Zorro. Like Johnny Cash, sidled up to the bar looking like a bad decision just waiting to happen.
And oh, did it happen.
I should have known better. Or, maybe I did and decided to go with it anyways. Tequila always makes me fucking crazy. Crazy and turned on. Crazy, turned on, drunk, and feeling wild around this man? Well, you’d have to be pretty stupid not to take that bet.
And yet, that was last night. Last night where his lips crushed to mine, tasting like whiskey and something wicked. Last night, when he dragged me — or, shit, maybe it was me dragging him behind the bar to his pickup truck. Last night when we tore each other’s clothes off, when I screamed for more. When it was so goddamn good I swear he fucked me sober for a second or two.
All of that was last night. But this is now. And “now” is us standing eye to eye, surrounded by dangerous chemicals, test tubes, and meth lab workers dressed in hazmat suits with their hands in the air. Why are their hands in the air you may ask? Well, that’s easy: because the two of us are holding guns. Except, they’re not pointed at the workers of the drug lab we’ve just stormed into. We’re pointing them at each other — him with two pistols cocked and loaded and leveled at me, and me with the pump-action shotgun at my shoulder, aimed at him.
…You might call this a “predicament.”
Now, what are the odds that two strangers decide to rob the same meth lab which also happens to be holding close to a million in cash from said meth lab’s drug kingpin proprietor? On the same day? At the same damn time? I’d guess pretty low. But add in the odds of those two would-be robbers having screwed each other’s brains out in the back of a pickup truck at a roadside bar the night before, without either of them having a damn clue what the other’s plans were for the next day?
Well with those kinds of odds, I might just need to go out and buy a fucking lottery ticket.
“Well, well, well.”
He grins, and that’s when I know. That’s when I know it’s not just me that looks right past that mask of his and knows exactly who he is. That’s when I know he’s doing the same damn thing to me. Because he’s not looking at me like I’ve got a shotgun leveled at him. He’s looking at me like he’s thinking through every single detail of the night before in slow motion in his head.
…He’s looking at me like he’s hungry for more. And goddamnit does my body respond. My traitorous body responds to that look like a moth to flame, and the heat starts to melt through me.
“Seems like we’ve got a situation here, don’t we, sweetheart?”
I swallow, biting back the heat from my face under my own ski mask, and tensing my body. My nerves stop jangling, my instincts taking over as I take a deep breath.
“Situation?” I smile. “No, I don’t think so. As long as you drop those water guns and go ahead and step back through that door you just kicked in.”
The man — my dark, rough, sexy as all hell stranger from the night before — grins wider.
“Sweetheart,” he purrs, that Kentucky heat to his accent melting over me like liquid fire and honey. “Pretty sure it’s you who need to lower that thing and go ahead and back on out that door—” he points to the side entrance to the place that I kicked in at almost the same damn time as he did the front door.
“And go ahead and be on your way.” He sighs, turning to look at the freaked-out looking meth cooks. “So damn unladylike to come kicking in a door like that, am I right, fellas?”
“Prick.”
He grins, turning back to me. “That wasn’t very ladylike either.”
“Keep talking and I’ll show you just how unladylike I can be when I start talking with this thing.”
I nod at the gun in my hands, and he chuckles. It’s both infuriating and panty-melting at the same time, which is very confusing.
“You realize that I’ve got two, right sweetheart?”
“Mine’s bigger.”
I smile at him as his brows go up, and tha
t damned infuriating smirk of his grows across his face.
“You sure about that?” He winks, his eyes dropping down his own body. “Maybe you need a second look.”
My face burns, and I purse my lips tighter as I take a step towards him.
“Uh-uh.” His eyes harden, and I watch his fingers hover over the triggers of his guns. “Hang on now, let’s not do anything stupid.”
“Only thing stupid I see here is you, cowboy,” I mutter back.
That grin returns. “Tell you what, darlin’. You lower that peashooter and let me do my thing, and I’ll toss you ten grand.”
I snort, arching a brow at him as I nod at the table-full of cash next to us, with the meth cooks in rubber suits standing behind it, arms still raised.
“Ten whole thousand, huh?”
There’s at least a million on that table, and I’m willing to bet we both know it.
“Twenty. Final offer. Now lower that damn thing so I can collect my money.”
“Get fucked.”
“I did, last night.” He chuckles, turning to the meth cooks again, like they’re his audience at a stand-up comedy show. “And boy was she a wild—”
Big mistake. He’s given me an opening. And I take it. My foot shoots out, my boot connecting with one of his hands and knocking the pistol out of it. The butt of my shotgun slams into his other hand, knocking the gun out of that one too before I swing the barrel around and level it right at him
…That cocky grin drops from his face.
“Easy now, sweetheart,” he says slowly, his eyes narrowing at me.
“Here’s how this is gonna go.” I smile sweetly, batting my eyes at him. Call it salt in the wound. I kick the canvas duffle bag at my feet over to him and nod at it. “You’re gonna fill that with my money.”
“Darlin’, you’re gonna want to—”
“Now,” I mutter. He stops, eyeing the gun in my hand and glaring at me as he snatches the bag off the ground.
“You’re making a mistake here, sweetheart.”
“Noted. Keep filling, pretty-boy.”
One of the meth cooks snickers, but when my stranger shoots him a glare, the man clams back up. My cowboy scowls as he starts stuffing the big stacks of hundreds into the bag, until the whole table is cleared.
“Give it here.”
His eyes lock on mine, his lips thin. I blow him a kiss, and he rolls his eyes as he extends the bag to me. I take it, and for one second, our fingers brush. An electric heat buzzes through me, but I ignore it as I heft the bag onto my shoulder. Shit, a million bucks weighs more than I thought it would.
“Thank you.” I smile sweetly at him again. “Such a gentleman. Now, I need you to stay here and count to fifty, sweetheart. You come out the door after me before then and I’m shooting first. Got it?”
“Big mistake, darlin,” he growls. Fuck, why is his voice so hot? Why is just him growling out those words enough to send a tingle through my whole body? I shiver, shoving those thoughts away as I start to back towards the side door.
“Nice to meet you, cowboy.”
“Be seeing you soon, sweetheart.”
“Oh, I doubt that.”
I duck out the door, turn, and run for the getaway car I’ve left running in the side lot.
…The getaway car that’s no longer there.
Oh shit.
Chapter 2
Shepherd
Last night…
She looks like trouble the second she walks in. Hell, if this was any other story, I might say some shit like “she looks like she doesn’t belong in a dive like this” or “she looks like a little lost lamb in a den of wolves.”
…But yeah, this girl? Not even fucking close. She walks right in like she’s the toughest motherfucker in a room full of tough motherfuckers. She’s all sass and attitude, from her wild red hair, to those green eyes flashing emerald fire across the whole damn bar. Those pillow-soft lips that look like they might just be the tastiest, sweetest kiss in the world or the filthiest mouth this side of a truck stop.
That vintage Lynyrd Skynyrd concert t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off and the waist tied up in a knot, giving just the briefest flash of the creamy, tantalizing skin of her hips and navel. Those ripped jeans that look like they were painted on by a goddamn master artisan. Those boots? Fuck me. I take one look at those things and all I want is her in my bed just wearing those boots — preferably up in the air while she screams for more.
She’s got this smug little smile on her face, like she knows damn well every hard-ass in the room in scoping her out, or mentally ripping her clothes off. That look says she knows all this and it doesn’t faze her one bit.
She sidles right up to the bar about four seats down from me and orders a tequila, straight up. One of the old-boy bubbas at the bar tries dropping some line that’s about as smooth as sandpaper on her. I don’t hear what she says over the Waylon Jennings record blasting over the speakers, but the look on his face says it all — going white and nodding as he mumbles some lame-ass apology and actually gets up and leaves.
The red-haired firebrand knocks back the shot, slams the empty glass on the bar and winks at the bartender as she orders another.
…Like I said, she looks like trouble. The only problem here?
I fuckin’ like trouble.
A lot.
I always have — drawn to it like a moth to flame. And her? Shit, she’s the brightest flame I ever did see. And instantly, I want her. No, not “want” like the rest of these fucking dipshits in this shitty little roadside dive want her. I want all of her. I want to possess her, and claim her. I want her as mine for always, and all that runs through my head in literally one second of her walking into the bar. By the time she’s telling bubba to go fuck himself and slamming back her second tequila?
Well, I just might be in love.
She’s getting chatted up by some other hillbilly douchebag when bubba comes waltzing back into the bar, and this time, he’s brought three friends. My muscles tense, and without even thinking, I knock back the rest of my whiskey. The fire burns down my throat, getting the wild going inside of me like it tends to do. My brother Colton would tell me to sit the fuck down — that this isn’t my fight and that if I keep going through life looking for trouble, I’m gonna damn well find it.
But Colton ain’t here right now. And like I said — me and trouble have a thing goin’. Me and trouble go together like bread and butter. And this red-haired, sexy as all fuck little wildcat drinking tequila ten feet from me? Well, that’s something I want a slice of in a fierce way.
The big asshole she told off looks ticked as he marches over and taps her on the shoulder. She turns, smiles, and tells him get lost.
I grin, but bubba doesn’t. Neither do his buddies.
“How about a little fuckin’ respect, huh?”
“How about a breath mint?”
I’m grinning, but I’m also curling my hands into fists. I’m also tensing every muscle in my body. This little hellcat looks like she can handle her shit, but three on one doesn’t exactly seem fair. And call me old fashioned, but something about a man threatening to hit a girl makes me want to put him in a fuckin’ hole in the ground.
“Listen, bitch—”
He puts his hand on her arm. Yeah, that’s where my breaking point is. I lunge, but sure enough, it’s her breaking point too. She winds back and sends a haymaker right into bubba’s face before I can even reach them. The greasy bastard wails, clutching as his shattered nose as he goes tumbling back. I change course, and instead of him, I launch myself right at the closer of his three buddies.
The asshole’s already reaching for a knife in his belt when I catch him with a fist right to the gut, doubling him over and knocking the wind out of him. I follow through with a knee to the face, shoving him out of the way before going for friend number two. The girl looks surprised, but there’s that grin on her perfect pink lips — that fire in her eyes as she winks at me, ducks a swing from friend
number three, and then swipes his leg out from under him.
Yeah, now we got ourselves a good ol’ fashioned bar brawl. At some point, my back is to hers — me dodging punches and taking a few from two of ‘em while she beats the snot out of a third. The one I caught with a knee to the face is still out cold, which drops the odds a little more in our favor, but shit if it isn’t fun as hell fighting from behind like this. I can feel her body press to my back, her ass against me, her cute little grunts as she blocks a hit and lays one out right into what sounds like a gut.
And then, in what either feels like an hour or half a second, the whole thing is over. We’re both panting, and maybe nursing a few hits that’ll be some nice bruises come tomorrow. But the four dipshits who came at her are laid up on the floor.
“That’ll do it,” Mitch, the grizzled old bartender mutters, racking a round into his ancient looking shotgun and nodding at the guys on the ground. “You boys be on your way now, hear?”
I watch them mutter and pick their own sorry asses up and head on out before slowly, I turn. I turn, I lock eyes with her, and instantly, something inside of me fucking roars. It feels like a beast trying to tear its way out of a cage — a wildfire that starts with a spark and suddenly ignites the whole damn county.
A wrecking ball that lays me the fuck out.
“Thanks for the help, cowboy,” she says quietly, biting her bottom lip in a way that gets my blood pumping like fire and my cock throbbing hard as steel in my jeans.
“Anytime, trouble.”
She snorts. “That what I am?”
“Yep.”
“Think I could still buy you a drink?”
“Only if I can buy you one first.”
She blushes, those eyes sparking green fire as heat blooms over her face. “This might be a bad idea.”
“This is definitely a bad idea,” I growl, moving closer to her as I nod at Mitch and hold up two fingers. Two tequila shots slide out of nowhere, and she and I raise them up together, clinking glasses, our eyes never pulling away from each other.
