Take Me Hard
Arizona Heat 3
Katie Douglas
Copyright 2019 Katie Douglas
Edited by Celeste Jones
Cover Design by Katie Douglas
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Epilogue
Thank you!
Chapter 1
“The only failure is not to try.” — George Clooney
Kinsley
I didn’t want my mama to be right. Didn’t want to be a failure. Maybe that’s why I kept going, despite the fact I was so over hitchhiking. The trouble with being female—and I don’t think looks were a factor—was guys let me into their cars, vans and trucks, but they only wanted one of two things: To “save” me or to fuck me.
Girls with money for trains, buses or fancy airplanes don’t have to put up with this shit.
I’d slept in a ditch last night, on the outskirts of El Paso, and after getting lucky early in the morning and finding a gas tanker driver who only wanted to tell me about his version of Jesus in exchange for letting me ride along through New Mexico, I spent the rest of the day being pretty damn unlucky. The truck driver dropped me in Bowie, Arizona, where he emptied his load at a gas station and turned around.
That had been ten a.m. and I’d thought I’d find a ride at a gas station, but this one didn’t seem to get much business. I stood there with my thumb out, but all I got was sunburn where the edges of my hat didn’t cover my shoulders.
Eventually, a man in a Prius came by, promising he’d take me all the way to Yuma. We’d barely gotten through Tucson and out of the suburbs when he made a move on me.
“So what’s the deal with the hitchhiking?” he asked.
“I have to get to L.A.,” I replied.
“You got a boyfriend there?”
Ugh. No. Why? Why do men say shit like this? They always think they’re being so casual, but jeez.
“What’s it to you?”
“Just askin’. Tryin’ to be friendly. Y’know, it must get awful lonely spending so much time on these roads,” he said, putting his hand on my leg.
I smacked his hand sharply.
“What the hell, lady? I was just bein’ friendly!” He stopped the car in the middle of nowhere.
“You were making a move on me. I’m not interested.”
“Well maybe I’ve changed my mind about letting you ride along. Get out.”
“No problem. I don’t travel with assholes.” I opened the door, picked up my plastic bag of clothes and my purse, and got out.
He drove off in a squeal of tires and left me on the side of the road somewhere on the interstate between Tucson and Phoenix.
I hesitated for a moment while I centered myself, then I took a deep breath, plastered a smile on my face, and stuck my thumb out.
* * *
Clay
“This the horse?” I looked it over, wishing Jake had been able to come. This horse looked nothing like the one in the online ad.
“Yep. She’s already broken in.”
I eyed the ribs poking out of the horse’s chest. “Is she off her food?”
“No. Eats like a horse.” He laughed at his own joke, but I didn’t. I couldn’t believe I’d towed a horse trailer all the way to Tucson from Snake Eye for this.
Jake had brought me the idea of opening a riding school, and I thought it was a great way of bringing more business to the ranch. We needed good horses for it, so I’d come to buy one. The online ad had sounded fine, but looking at the horse, I guessed they’d used a stock photo of a healthy animal for the ad. This horse had open sores on its body and it didn’t look like it was going to live long enough to be ridden by anyone.
“I’m sorry to waste your time, but I don’t think this is the sort of horse I’m looking for,” I said, trying to be amiable.
“You said on the phone you’d take her today!” The man’s voice was getting louder and I knew I’d pissed him off. I had no patience for this after a long drive.
“And you said in your online ad that this was a healthy horse. And you used pictures of another horse to make her look like a good purchase. And you wasted my time driving out here today.” I began to walk back to my truck.
“Wait! We can work something out!”
“Take her to a vet,” I called over my shoulder. I cared about animals, but it wasn’t my job to rescue every sick horse I ever saw. Perhaps if Jake were here, this might have ended differently. I drove away, wondering if there was a good place to get food on the route home.
I’d been driving down the I-10 for a few minutes when I saw a young woman hitchhiking. Seemed like an odd place to be trying to catch a ride. Her long, brunette hair looked perfect for pulling, and I half-wondered about stopping. I was slowing down to make a turn in a few hundred yards when she did something stupid and jumped out in front of my truck.
I braked harder, but with the added weight of the horse trailer, I couldn’t stop in time. I was going at maybe five miles per hour when I hit her.
I turned off the engine, hit the hazards and went to check on her.
“Jeez, lady, why didn’t you get out of the way?”
“Uh, hello? You hit me! You’re supposed to apologize.” Her jeans were scuffed from road dust and she was trying to clutch her leg and get to her feet at the same time. I lifted her upright.
“You leaped in front of my truck! Are you stupid?”
“No. I’m determined not to be stranded out here all night!”
I sighed. The whole thing was a ploy to get me to help her. “So, what, you jump in front of the truck, I hit you, you demand money then get an Uber back?”
She looked affronted. “No! I just need a ride to Phoenix.”
“’Fraid I’m not going to Phoenix. You hurt?”
“No.” I recognized that tone. She was lying.
“There’s two things I can’t stand. Being lied to and being manipulated. Congratulations, you’ve just done both.”
“Will you get me to civilization, or won’t you?” She avoided answering about whether she was hurt. She was desperate about something.
“What’s so important about getting a ride that you risked getting killed?”
“I’m on my way to L.A.”
Of course she was. Tousled chestnut hair, tanned skin, big blue eyes, bigger breasts, which strained at her T-shirt... She was the epitome of a pretty young dreamer who wanted to make it big.
“Why didn’t you get the bus?”
“Buses are for rich people.”
Well, that explained why she was imagining L.A. would solve her problems.
“Name’s Clay. What’s yours?”
She hesitated a moment. “Kinsley.”
“Where you staying tonight?”
“At a friend’s house.”
Another lie. That did it.
“Know what? I’m going to give you a ride all the way to my ranch, then I’m giving you a damn good spanking, for lying to me and for putting your life in danger like that. You don’t like the terms? Get your invisible friend to collect you from the side of the highway.” I turned and walked back to my truck without waiting for a reply. If she got into the truck, she was consenting to getting her ass blistered when we made it back to the ranch.
* * *
Kinsley
He was going to do what? But his truck had hit me pretty hard for such a slow speed, and my leg was screaming at me. I didn’t know how much longer I could stand there waiting for someone else to stop. I couldn�
�t believe I’d made everything worse by trying to solve my problems.
I watched him get into his truck and my jaw dropped. I mean, I’d already seen him from the front, with his deep brown hair and smoldering dark eyes, so I knew he was hot, but his ass? W-o-w. It was something else. It was clear straight away that getting into that truck was dangerous. Not because I thought he’d make a move on me, but because I wanted him to.
I knew better than to let boys interfere with my dreams. I’d learned that lesson the hard way. But I couldn’t stay here. And anyway, he seemed too gruff to try anything.
Taking a deep breath, I got into his truck and hoped he wasn’t another creep.
* * *
Clay
She clearly had no self-preservation. Anyone else would have told me to take a hike, but she just got into my truck.
I got back on the road again before I decided to try and make sense of this whole thing.
“Do your parents know you’re doing this?” I asked.
“I left them a note before I set off.”
“When was that?”
“Two weeks ago.”
Two weeks? She’d been on the road by herself for two weeks? I was amazed she hadn’t been killed, yet.
“Are you running away? Because there’s helplines and such.”
“Nope. I’m going to L.A. to become an actress.”
Great. A starry-eyed kid.
“Are you twelve? Or is this the fifties? I mean, do adults really do things like that these days? There’s YouTube, now.”
She sighed. “I’m an actress not some fancy person with a video camera and a hipster boyfriend to vlog about.”
“You’re likely to wind up a dead actress if you carry on being so reckless.”
“Find me an acting job in Siddle, Alabama that doesn’t involve having sex with the cameraman, and I’ll go back. For an actress, it’s a nowheresville.”
She was stubborn and determined. That was probably how she’d gotten this far. Now I recognized her accent. It was subtle, like she’d worked hard at trying to pronounce things with a more neutral voice, but there was no mistaking the occasional word when it slipped out.
“How ‘bout Nashville?”
“No, thanks. I want to be in movies. Real movies. With premieres and A-listers.”
“Do you have something lined up?”
“Yeesh, what’s with the twenty questions? What about you? Why were you driving down this road with an empty horse trailer?”
“Lose the attitude. And I was buying a horse. Turned out to be a dud.”
“Where are we going?”
“Lemon Tree Ranch, just outside Snake Eye. I can call your parents and let them know you’re safe, if you like.”
“I’ll call them when I’m in L.A. and I’ve gotten a part on a show.” She went silent for a moment.
In the silence, one question was bugging me.
“Anyways, how’d you know the trailer was empty?”
“Either that, or you’re the worst horse owner ever. You made a sudden stop when you hit me, and you never checked your animal.”
“Good observation.” I was a little impressed. But not enough to change my opinion on her just yet. She needed to earn that, by showing me a side of her that wasn’t irresponsible and reckless.
Not that I planned on being around her long enough to get to know her better. But she ought to at least stay the night before attempting to hitchhike again.
* * *
Kinsley
After driving for quite a while, we turned at a sign for Lemon Tree Ranch, and suddenly we were on a bumpy lane.
We pulled up outside a farmhouse and I had a strong feeling of deja-vu, as if I’d been there before, maybe a thousand years ago or something. It was like my soul just resonated with the place, and I was coming home to somewhere I’d never been before.
“Dinner was going to be leftovers from yesterday,” Clay said.
“I can’t take your food,” I replied, a little abruptly.
“Why not? It’s for eatin’.”
“Because then I’d owe you.”
He laughed out loud like I’d said something crazy. “What about the ride?”
“Oh no; you hit me, remember? I got the car ride fair and square.”
“You jumped out in front of my vehicle.”
“Bet I could still sue if I wanted.”
“Probably,” he conceded. “But you wouldn’t win.”
“Why not?” I frowned. People sued for stupid stuff all the time.
“Because the judge would see through you. Now get out, please; you’re staying for dinner.”
“Fine. Bossy much?” I sighed in defeat but really I was sort of relieved that he’d taken charge of the situation. The last time I ate was yesterday, and I was famished.
He got out and began walking to his front door. I decided going in and eating would be better than returning to the highway, so I grabbed my belongings and followed him.
His house was beautiful. All warm varnished wood and cream walls. The floors were those fancy big terracotta tiles. The hallway was mostly doors to other rooms, but when he led the way to the kitchen, I stopped and gasped.
It was a real country ranch kitchen. Nothing like the beat-up area where my mom had a few broken chipboard cupboards nailed to the wall. I’d come to associate thick yellow grease that never scrubbed off and broken floor tiles showing the concrete underneath with country living, but this was something else.
This was a fancy place.
I’d bet the beds didn’t have springs poking out and that the bathtub and basin didn’t have brown water-stains from times when the water wasn’t so clean, either.
I want this place looking like something out of a magazine. My mom would demand it every time she went anywhere. She, of course, had far more important things to do than to keep the house clean and who cared if I had time to do my homework?
School never did nothing for no one. I don’t know why you still go. You’re old enough to quit. I was pregnant and managing a house at your age.
My teachers at school had said I had potential. I’d showed up every day until I got my diploma, despite my mom’s constant nagging to drop out and clean the house, instead. Perhaps if all the boys I knew hadn’t repulsed me, things might be different.
And now I was here. Almost at Los Angeles. Nearly ready to take control of my destiny and make it in the acting world. My future was so close I could almost touch it.
“You eaten dinner, yet?” Clay asked, interrupting my thoughts.
I laughed sarcastically. “Nope.”
“I won’t warn you again. Lose the attitude.”
“Lose the assumptive questions,” I countered. “I haven’t eaten dinner, or lunch, or breakfast, and I didn’t yesterday, either.”
“Where I come from, that’s called an eating disorder.” He pulled a big ceramic pot out of the fridge and put it into the oven. I sighed.
“There you go with the assumptions, again. Where I come from, it’s called ‘not being able to afford food’.”
He closed the oven door and literally stopped in his tracks. His face changed and he seemed to soften, somehow.
“Don’t you understand how dangerous this is?” he asked, in a kinder voice than before. “You’re thousands of miles from home and you don’t have money for the most basic things. Why don’t you call your parents and ask them to send something so you can get by?”
“I don’t take money for sex. Mine or other people’s.”
He frowned, trying to figure out what I meant, and I decided to help him out.
“My mom has ‘boyfriends’ over several nights a week. Daytimes, too, for the dirty cheaters who don’t want their wives to know what they’re doing. It’s how she pays for stuff.”
“What about your dad?”
That was more painful. “He’s paralyzed after an accident five years ago. He never leaves the bedroom. Mom uses the guest room, these days.”
�
�She has people over... when your father’s...” he stopped in disbelief.
“In the next room. Yeah.” My father needed residential care, but there was no way we could afford it. A lady came in to check on him twice a day and otherwise, I had done my best to help. A shock of guilt ran through me as I wondered how he would manage without me. He couldn’t even speak. When I’d left, I’d been of a mind that my mom could take some responsibility and look after him, but now I was having doubts about whether she’d just forget about him.
“Holy shit.”
“She barely makes ends meet. I’d never ask them for money.”
He busied himself with the coffee maker and I realized I’d said too much. I needed to work on that brutal honesty thing. My circumstances were liable to shock and offend people. Nice girls had the luxury of not needing to tell people anything about themselves, and when I got to L.A., I wanted people to think I was a sweet middle-class girl from someplace like this, not someone to be pitied.
* * *
Kinsley
After dinner, he insisted that I stay over. I probably should have refused, but my leg was still pretty sore and the lure of a warm bed was too much temptation.
I was still almost certain that he only wanted sex, but I was willing to risk it for a soft pillow. I didn’t think he’d force himself on me, but he was so hot, I was sure if he asked I wouldn’t stop him doing anything he wanted. If I’d misjudged him... there was pepper spray in my purse.
The stairs were difficult, and I took them one at a time until he caught up with me and supported my shoulder.
“Leg still giving you trouble?” he asked.
I shook my head, not wanting to be more broken and vulnerable, after what I’d told him about my family.
“Strike three.” His voice was quiet but I heard the subtext and it made me shiver. At the same time, my pussy spasmed.
“What does that mean?” I asked, feigning innocence. I didn’t fully understand his threat to spank me, but I hadn’t forgotten about it, either.
Take Me Hard: Arizona Heat 3 Page 1