by Madison Faye
His Big Mountain Axe
Madison Faye
Contents
Free Books Offer
His Big Mountain Axe
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
Featured Content
Hard Core
Possessing Beauty
Professor
Also by Madison Faye
Mailing List
About the Author
Copyright Notice
Copyright © 2018 Madison Faye
Cover: Coverlüv
Photography: Wander Aguiar
Model: Roddy Hanson
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His Big Mountain Axe
Beard? Check. Alpha as hell? Check. Huge, hard lumber? Very check. The biggest outlaw on the mountain has his sights on one woman, and he’s carrying a very big axe…
Beast. Monster. Outlaw. I’ve been called a lot of things, but let me promise you, a knight in shining armor ain’t f*ckin’ one of them.
But when the man I’m supposed to kill lays a hand on her – the firecracker cocktail waitress with the soft lips and the sweet curves that make my pine tree grow – there’s no way I’m not stepping in.
Beautiful, blonde, tempting as hell. She’s got a body that was made for me to claim, and legs that were born to spread around my bike. Or my waist.
But I’m a man with a mission – a blood vendetta that has to be paid. Mixing it up with Larkin is a bad idea at best. At worst, it might get us killed. But once I feel that sweet little body of hers pressed against mine with my chopper rumbling between her legs, I know there ain’t a chance in hell I’m letting her go.
I’m not here to save her. I’m here to take her – over my bike and across my bed.
Pretty little Larkin is about to get a taste of how a real man claims his woman. Because up on my mountain, I carry a big axe.
…And I know how to use it.
Now didn’t I promise you that Axe was getting a book? ;) Get ready for Blackthorn Mountain’s biggest, baddest, most growly alpha hero and the sassy heroine he’s laid his eyes on. So light a fire, find a cozy cabin, and get ready for one truly panty-melting, bodice-ripping ride. As with all my books, this one is safe, with no cheating, and a HEA guaranteed.
1
Larkin
The music thudded darkly like a lover’s pulse, rumbling through my body as I moved across the room. Neon pink and blue lights glistened across the sheen of my skin, green laser light from the DJ booth tracing up one arm and then off my shoulder as I twirled to dodge a particularly sweaty and panting patron. Up on stage, Triss swayed sensually to the pulsing rhythm, her eyes closed as she reached back to pull at the thin tie at the back of her dress with a small tug. It gave, and the front of the dress slipped down over her bare breasts like liquid satin.
All around me, the cat calls and whistling tripled, men nodding their heads and holding beers tight as they hungrily drank in her performance. Another patron lurched drunkenly out of his seat, barely missing plowing into me and almost making me topple the overpriced beers on my tray. Up on the stage, Triss pushed the flimsy dress over her hips, letting it drop to the floor and bringing another whole round of grunting yells and hollers as she hooked a knee around the pole and twirled.
Yes, I was working in a strip club.
No, it’s not like it was my dream job.
But at twenty-two and broke after graduating college, the money was just too good. No, I wasn’t actually stripping — yeah, right. I was a cocktail waitress, taking table orders and bringing drinks from the bar. Did I feel a little dirty? Sure, sometimes. I mean, I wasn’t taking my clothes off, but the waitress uniform was barely a step above what Triss had just disrobed from up on stage — a tight, plunging neckline tank top, a skirt so short it would have made a sorority girl on Halloween blush, and fuck-me heeled boots that went up to my knees. I looked like something between a gothy biker chick and a Hooter’s girl, but like I said, the money was just too good to have time for scruples.
I did my best to flash my most winning, charming, alluring smile at the table full of sleazy looking middle-aged guys as I set their drinks down.
“Here you go, sugar tits,” one of them crooned out like it was the smoothest fucking line in the world. His buddies seemed to think so too as they whooped and clapped him on the back, like saying gross things to a cocktail waitress at a strip club was the height of being cool.
The guy made a move to try and push the twenty dollar bill into the waist of my skirt, but, this wasn’t the first time someone has tried that little game. With all due respect to Triss and the other dancers, I was not there for lap dances. I flashed the same winning, kinda bored, kinda forced smile as I twisted, plucking the money from his hand instead.
“Thanks!”
I twirled, swallowing back the sour feeling of five sets of leering eyes following me as I walked away.
Temporary, I thought to myself as I tried to brush the scowl away. This is all temporary.
Of course, it wasn’t just the money though. That wasn’t the only reason I was working at Centerfolds. It wasn’t the only reason I was living in Salt Creek, the grimiest, shittiest little town off the interstate in the history of shitty towns off the interstate. The place was a truck stop, three bars, this strip club, a Smith’s grocery store, and a Shell gas station.
Yeah, home sweet fucking home.
I’d been here two months now, and I’d like to say “you get used to it” about a place like Salt Creek, but I was pretty sure I could live there two hundred years and still hate it. I’d landed here when my car died after running away from my psycho ex, Mike. Mike who liked to slap me around, fuck anything that moved who’d have him, and steal from what meager savings I had. When I’d finally hit the breaking point after he’d really laid into me one night, I’d thrown whatever shit of mine I could grab into my beat up old Camry and just driven.
…Until the stupid car died right here on the exit ramp to Salt Creek.
So, that about brings us up to speed. I worked at Centerfolds as many hours a week as I could, I lived in a crap-hole of an apartment behind the grocery store, and I was just saving my strip-club money to finally push off and head somewhere new.
“Your boyfriend’s back.”
I snorted as I sidled up the bar. Jackie, the bartender, grinned, pushing some of her jet-black hair behind her ear as she slid me a bottle of water.
“Is he? I hadn’t noticed.”
This time, she snorted.
“Oh I’m sure you didn’t. Liar.” She grinned as she gave me the finger jokingly.
She was right, I’d seen him. I mean, how could I not? The man who’d been coming in almost every night for the last two weeks was enormous. He towered over even some of the bigger truck-driver crowd — easily six and a half feet tall and pure freaking muscle. Broad shoulders, a thick chest, and bulging, rippling arm muscles straining his plain black t-shirt. He had shaggy long dark hair, a beard, and these piercing dark eyes that felt like they were seeing every single secret you had inside w
hen he looked at you with them. With the size and the wild look of him, part of me had started thinking of him as caveman. Well, a caveman with gorgeous eyes and sleeve tattoos.
We’d barely spoken more than a handful of words — him just ordering the occasional beer, me saying “sure” and “you’re welcome,” but that was it. The weirdest part was, even though there was never a shortage of naked girls dancing around up on stage, it was like the guy wasn’t even there for the strippers, which was weird because there were three other bars in town where you could drink without the distraction of tits. And then there was the little detail that no matter where I was serving drinks that night — the front section, the back, or the mezzanine level, that’s where he sat, and I was who he got his drinks from.
Hence the “boyfriend” joke that Jackie and some of the dancers had decided to start teasing me with.
I followed Jackie’s raised brow and turned to glance over my shoulder. And sure enough, there he was.
He loomed in the doorway, his shoulders practically touching both sides of the doorframe and his head definitely lowered so it wouldn’t. I watched as he scanned the room like he did every time with those piercing, hooded eyes. I flushed as that gaze landed on me and quickly looked away, taking a big sip from the bottle of water.
“He ask for you number yet?”
I rolled my eyes. “C’mon, he’s not going to. He’s just a regular, that's all. Besides, I seriously doubt I’m his type.”
“And which type is that?”
“The type that’s not up on stage taking her clothes off and spreading her legs?”
Jackie chuckled as she shook her head. “Well, he sure as shit doesn’t look at anyone else in here but you, spread legs or not.”
I blushed.
He’d been in here almost every other day the past two weeks. Always sat in my section, always drank the two beers, barely glanced at the stage, and as far as I knew, he’d never asked any of the girls for a lap dance. And I wasn’t going to admit to her face, but Jackie was right: he always watched me with fire in his eyes like I was the only other person in the room, or hell, the world.
I couldn’t tell if it scared me or sent a thrill of fire through my core. Maybe both.
“Well?”
Jackie smirked at me, and then nodded to where my stranger was settling down at a table — in my section, of course.
“Don’t want to keep your boyfriend waiting, do ya?”
I rolled my eyes as I turned away, listening to my friend’s chuckle as I headed for the stranger, my core tightening and my heart flip-flopping with every step.
2
Axe
She moved like sin and secrets. The growl lodged in my throat, and I could feel fire spark inside of me the second I stepped into the room and laid eyes on her again.
Fuck, this wasn’t good. But fuck if I could look away. The animal blood inside of me pumped like diesel fuel, gunning the engine that ran inside my heart. I could feel my muscles clenching, my hands closing as if they were training themselves to close around her body as I drew her close. And my cock fucking throbbed between my thighs, pushing hot against my leg as it bulged at my jeans.
That's not why you’re here.
It wasn't. She wasn’t. As fucking tempting as she was — more than any woman I could think of, and certainly more tempting than my self-imposed celibacy the last four years, I couldn’t be distracted by her. Her or any woman, but certainly not her.
Because with her, it touched something primal inside of me, like no other woman ever had. And I knew that was dangerous.
No, the gorgeous blonde with the fierce green eyes and the body that my hands ached to grab ahold of was dangerous for me. To think about, or to be around. But that didn’t seem to stop me. Every time I’d been in here the last two weeks, I just kept sitting in her section. I knew it was a mistake — a glaring miss-step in my planning, but I couldn’t fucking stop myself. Repetition was the enemy, and patterns could and would get me killed, like my friends had been killed.
That’s why I was in Salt Creek. I wasn’t there for the cocktail waitress. I definitely wasn’t there for the girl up on stage with her tits out, spreading her legs and showing her fucking pussy.
Nah. I was here for him. For vengeance, for justice, and to settle a blood oath.
It’d been four years since the shooting that’d torn the only family I’d ever known away from me. The Lost Devils had been everything to me — family, brothers, friends. And Miles Harding had shattered that.
We’d let the snake inside. I could have blamed Ryker, the president of the club, for not seeing it. But hindsight is twenty-twenty, and I wasn’t going to waste thoughts cursing my dead best friend for the mistakes anyone could have made. Instead, I was just going to find revenge for him and the rest of my brothers. Harding had come to us with a fantastic offer. He wanted the club to run guns down from Canada whenever we drove all the way up there. The money was good, the plan was solid, and any intel we had on our rivals, the Savage Riders, had them nowhere near this.
It’d taken him a month, but slowly, Harding got more involved with our inner workings. We started bringing him into the clubhouse, sharing beers with him. The man became an unofficial junior member for Christ's sake.
And then, he’d stabbed us in the heart.
It’d been a long night of partying to celebrate the deal being finalized, and most of the guys were piss drunk or busy with whatever woman was going to keep their bed warm that night. But me? I couldn’t sleep. Something had been nagging me all day, keeping me from really drinking or joining in on much of the festivities. Finally, I’d just gone for a night ride to clear my head. That’s when my whole world came crashing down.
It took me months to piece it together, but when it did, it was like a knife twisting my gut. Harding was a hired gun. A good one, too. The Savage Riders hadn’t spared a fucking dime with him. His specialty was infiltration, and that’s exactly what he did with us That night, while I was out and the rest of the club was mostly passed out, Harding had slipped out, opened the side gate to our compound, and let the wolves inside. Him and five members of the Savage Riders had come inside and just started emptying bullets, until everyone I knew was dead.
Deputy Givens of the local force who was loyal to the Devils, had got to me first. Shit, the man had even taken the punches as I’d roared and almost torn my own heart out. He told me what’d happened, and told me to get out and stay hidden.
So that’s what I’d done for the last four years. I’d stayed in the shadows, my rage and my vengeance burning like funeral pyres inside of me. I’d hidden, I’d waited, and I’d hunted.
The rest of the Savages were dead. All of them, not just the five who’d murdered my club. Those five, I did personally, of course. Those five, I’d done in the light, face to face, with my snarl being the last fucking thing they saw. There were nine other members who weren’t there that night, but association is everything. Those ones I didn’t have to kill, I just mentioned their whereabouts to the Los Muertos, another club they’d been feuding with for years.
So now, from that whole mess that night, there were just two left. Me and Miles Harding. I’d tracked him for the better part of the last year, and after a year of waiting, I was ready to make a move.
That night.
See, it seemed Harding had gotten out of the mercenary business and was now just a professional scumbag with money. He and some new business buddies had landed in Salt Creek about two weeks back. They were here to chat with one of the local Native American tribal councils — some bullshit about leveling half a forest to put a goddamn casino in or something. Fuck it, they could debate all they wanted, but Harding wasn’t going to leave Salt Creek alive, that’s for damn sure.
I had the plan. I’d put in the time, watching him and knowing his schedule in and out, from the hotel he was staying at, to the food he ate at the local diner, to the car he drove, to when he fucking took a shit. I knew it all, and in a few h
ours time, it’d all come to a head when I wrapped my hands around his neck until it snapped.
“Usual?”
I stirred, my eyes dragging away from my target at the melodic, haunting voice of the one variable to this whole thing that I never saw coming.
Her.
I’d slipped one of the girls a $100 to spill the blonde cocktail waitress’s name, but I was pretty sure “Ashley” was some made up bullshit. Fair enough. Women working at a place like that had a every right to use fake names. But “Ashley” or whatever her name was, was a big problem.
I’d avoided women for four years — hell, before that night too. I’d been too wrapped up in being the vice president for the club — pouring my everything into making the MC everything it could be. But now, she was a distraction.
A big one.
A gorgeous one.
A fucking tempting, innocent, sweet, ball-achingly, cock-swelling distraction. And she was standing right in front of me — a little sheep, smiling up at the big bad wolf. But she had no idea how close she was to me breaking the last of my resolve and gobbling her right up…
3
Larkin
The guy was sitting, and I was still basically eye level with him, standing in front of the table in my heeled boots. Good lord he was big. Big shoulders, big arms, big chest, big boots, big…
I blushed furiously as my mind went to places it probably shouldn’t have, especially right in freaking front of him.
You know what they say about men with big feet…
Well, my stranger had huge feet.
“Draft beer.”
His voice was deep and growly — rusty like he barely used it. It was also so insanely masculine sounding that it made my skin tingle, even when he said so few words.
