Montana Heat

by Vanessa Vale

  I swallowed, nodded. God, he was so hot and alpha and dominant and yet sweet, checking in with me before we went too far. As if.

  “Now. Please. Hurry,” I said.

  He didn’t ask twice, which was fine by me, and slid inside in one prolonged, deep stroke. I clenched and squeezed, adjusting to his size. He was big and long, and I was a bit stunned he actually fit.

  And he fit soooo well. My back arched and my hands went to the top of his butt to pull him deeper.

  “Incredible,” he said, dropping his forehead to mine.

  “Why are you not moving?” I asked.

  His pale eyes met mine and he laughed. “I thought…never mind. Thinking is overrated.”

  “Exactly.”

  With our handcuffed wrists by my head, he curled his fingers with mine and began to move. And then I forgot everything. Nothing existed but this. Us.

  Sam. Me. Handcuffs and a bed. What could be better?

  5

  My cell phone startled me awake. At first, I didn't know where I was, or why I was so blissfully warm. It all came back with wonderful clarity as I felt Sam's body pressed against my back, like two spoons in a drawer. Sam's arm was wrapped over me, my breast nestled in the palm of his hand. Being handcuffed wasn't as bad as I first imagined, although the small gathering of clothes that was trapped was a little awkward.

  Ring! I groaned, not wanting to move. Leaning forward, I bent at the waist to grab my jeans off the floor. Sam sighed as I tugged on his arm to reach into the pocket. “My hand was happy,” he said, his voice rough and sleepy.

  My breast had been happy, too, my nipple going instantly hard at the cool air. Grabbing my cell, I flopped back on the bed, Sam still on his side next to me. His hand slid my open shirt and sweater out of the way to return to its happy place, his fingers doing very distracting things I liked very much.

  “Hello,” I said into the phone, feeling my nipple harden further beneath his touch. It was going to be a very short call because I gasped when he gave me a playful pinch—which he knew I liked.

  “MeMe! What's this strange voicemail? You're stuck in handcuffs? Please tell me it's to someone who's super-hot and sexy!” Goldie's very perky voice was loud enough that Sam opened his eyes and quirked a brow.

  “Super-hot and sexy?” he whispered and waggled his eyebrows.

  “MeMe? Are you there?” Goldie asked.

  “MeMe?” Sam repeated.

  I swatted his hand off my breast, ignoring his question. I couldn't talk to Goldie with that kind of distraction.

  “Yes, I'm here and handcuffed to someone. You didn't include the keys in the gift box. Are you insane?”

  Sam lay there next to me, eyes closed, sexy as can be, his chest hair and flat abs peeking out from between the sides of his dress shirt, now completely wrinkled and mussed from sleeping—and quite a bit of not-sleeping—in it. He smiled broadly, clearly amused. He didn't seem bothered by this at all.

  “Keys? Of course I put the keys in the box. That wouldn't have been safe.” Goldie sounded offended.

  “What are you talking about?” I turned away from Sam and covered my hand over the phone. I yanked at the shoulder of my sweater to pull it back in place. “Goldie, I had to...to pee in front of someone else!” I whispered. We'd done more on the first date than the average couple.

  I felt a tug on my wrist but didn't turn around.

  “Who are you stuck to? You never said, is he hot?” Goldie asked, persistent.

  “Sam.”

  “Sam? The guy you were talking about at the store the other day?”

  I turned and looked at Sam over my shoulder, did a double take, then whipped around to face him, the tails of my shirt flopping open. He was sitting there, half naked, holding up a tiny key.

  Stunned, I just sat there staring at him, processing, ignoring whatever Goldie was chattering on about. “You had it?” I asked him.

  Sam smiled wickedly. “I wanted you all to myself, and I figured this was the only way to guarantee you wouldn't bolt before you heard me out.”

  “You had the key, all this time?” I repeated. I didn't know what to think. He'd tricked me. Lured me to his bed by underhanded plans. Had he been right? Would I have given him the time to explain why he'd walked away that night in Seattle? I'd like to think so, but I couldn't be sure anymore. Too much had happened, too much had changed in the past seven hours.

  “MeMe?” Goldie said through the phone.

  I looked at Sam. Really looked at him. He was smiling at me, but it was tentative. Contrite, like a little boy who knew he'd done wrong. He had a crease in his brow and his free hand played with the white sheet.

  Was I mad? I didn't feel mad. Okay, I was a little mad. How dare he take away my choice!

  He hadn’t exactly forced me into anything. If I’d told him no at any point, he’d have stopped. And if I’d hated him, I was sure he’d have pulled out the key and set me free. But it had been hot being stuck together. Wild.

  At the same time though, I was...happy. He'd locked himself to me because he wanted me. So much that he was willing to risk my anger when the truth was discovered.

  He'd seduced me. Pure and simple. It had started at the party with the kiss under the mistletoe with three sets of covered eyes and... hadn’t stopped yet. I still wanted him. My body was screaming, “More! I want more!”

  Once he turned that little key in the lock, I wasn't going to run away. He sat there, looking at me, expecting me to do just that. But I wanted him even without the handcuffs, to get to know him with two free hands.

  I smiled. Big and bright. “You had the key the whole time.”

  “You're not mad?” he questioned, one eyebrow raised. Cautious. Still locked together, he couldn't escape my wrath.

  I shook my head. “It's the most romantic thing that's ever happened to me.” I wasn't sure if I should laugh or cry with happiness.

  “MeMe!” Goldie shouted, sounding angry at being ignored.

  Sam tugged on the handcuffs, pulling me into him. “So, you and Goldie had talked about me, huh?”

  I nodded and I felt my cheeks heat.

  “That's really good to hear,” he said. “I like your nickname. MeMe. But I'd like to change it.” He lowered his head to mine for a quick kiss, then moved to nibble down my neck. His hands drifted over me, one hand settling on my breast, the other lower. I whimpered and writhed.

  “MeMe!” Goldie shouted again, but we both ignored her.

  “Oh?” I asked, hitting End on the phone. And Goldie.

  “How about MineMine?”

  Note From Vanessa

  Don’t worry, there’s more Small Town Romance to come!

  But guess what? I’ve got some bonus content for you with Emma and Sam. So sign up for my mailing list. There will be special bonus content for each Small Town Romance book, just for my subscribers. Signing up will let you hear about my next release as soon as it is out, too (and you get a free book…wow!)

  As always…thanks for loving my books and the wild ride!

  Want more?

  Read an excerpt from Montana Wild, the third book in the Small Town Romance series.

  Montana Wild - Excerpt

  Summer vacation. No two words held more allure for kids; what they dreamed about all school year long. To me, they were equally potent, equally daydream-worthy in the dead of winter when those long summer days are months and months away. No, I'm not thirteen. In fact, I'm twenty-nine. I'm Violet Miller and I'm a school teacher. A first-grade teacher, to be exact. So when that final school bell of the year rang last week and kids ran screaming out the doors of Crestview Elementary eager to ride their bikes, swim, camp and all the other possibilities of the ten weeks of summer break, I was about five minutes behind them.

  Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be manning a lemonade stand or zipping down the water slide at the city pool. Instead, I’ll spend my days working at Goldilocks, Bozeman's only ‘adult’ toy store. I have to squeeze in my fly fishing, hiking
and camping on my days off. At least until my sister, Veronica, gets back from her cross-country road trip.

  “No, honey, you can't mix the flavored in with the glow-in-the-dark ones,” Goldie West told me as I restocked boxes of specialty condoms. Goldie had opened the store eons ago and had catered to every unusual, and some very kinky, whims ever since. Both she and the store were Bozeman icons. Infamous and quirky.

  Goldie was like the Tasmanian Devil, all fluffy hair, long nails with the ability to wreak havoc on anyone in her path. Today, her nails sported a cotton candy pink and her blonde hair was teased up like a Southern pageant queen’s. She wore a T-shirt with a red-sequined heart in the center, black Capri pants and black clogs. For a woman in her early seventies, she looked pretty darn good, although I wasn't sure if all that hair spray was safe for her health.

  She had a mind like a vault. Not only did she know everyone in town—their brothers, cousins, wives, dentists—she remembered everything about them since time began. Nothing slipped by her or her Rolodex for a brain. Because of this unique and often annoying ability, I tried to keep as low a profile as I could around her. Goldie knew everything about Veronica, because she's been a faithful employee since college, but being her identical twin didn't mean I was fair game. I didn’t want Goldie to know what I was up to, not that I was up to much of anything this summer.

  “Whoops, sorry,” I replied, looking closer at the packages and rearranging them into their appropriate shelf space. It was my first time in the condom section as I was just filling in for Veronica on a short-term basis. She was enjoying Florida and all its steamy summer weather with her boyfriend Jack Reid, packing up his belongings and driving back across the country. Since we lived in Montana, a few time zones away, they were going to be gone a few weeks.

  “Did you try out some of the things I put in that box for you?” Goldie stood at the counter pulling red lace thongs from a brown shipping envelope. To the average person, a conversation about a box from a friend might revolve around hand-me-down clothes or even homemade cookies. To Goldie, it involved a sampling of Goldilocks' wares: nipple clamps, a vibrator, a sampling of lubes, scented lotions and other things I still couldn't exactly name. “I hope the Goldilocks Training Program has helped.”

  With what? My personally-delivered orgasms or learning the ins-and-outs of a sex store? Nipple clamps weren't a solo thing, and if I told her I'd taken the vibrator for a test drive, she'd pull that little nugget of information out when I least expected it. She was fishing here and it wasn't for trout.

  I tried some of my yoga deep breathing to keep from mangling the condom box in my grasp. Goldilocks’ Training consisted of watching ten pre-selected Triple X-rated videos, sampling a variety of sex toys, thus the take-home box, as well as taking a field trip to the nearest BDSM club, which was halfway to Butte. All had to be completed within the first month of employment. “Um, yeah,” I replied, hoping to sound non-committal. Since I was only subbing for only a few weeks, I was hoping I didn't have to fulfill all of the requirements. I didn't know anyone I could call who would want to venture to a club devoted to varying kinky lifestyles. I had no doubt Goldie would volunteer, but that was a girls' night out I never wanted to consider.

  “It's like working at the kitchen supply store in the mall. If you're going to sell the product, you've got to test it out first. My employees need to be the experts in the field because people are counting on us.” She had neat little piles going of various sized lingerie on the counter.

  Goldie talked as if we were testing fire trucks or life jackets, and a person's safety and well-being were held in the balance. In fact, I'd spent the past three evenings watching Big Boobs III, Junk In The Trunk and Rump Pumping. It was still up in the air whether all that porn was going to give me the expertise I needed to work at Goldie's, or a backup career as an adult film star.

  Sadly, watching those movies was the closest thing I'd had to sex in a long time. My sex life was practically nonexistent. Unless you counted the vibrator test run from Goldie's box. There was more in that package than I could handle. At least alone. She'd provided everything for my sexual pleasure and then some. Everything except a man.

  “Right. Kitchen supplies.” I finished the glow-in-the-dark and moved on to piña colada flavored. “Although I'm not sure if this is the same thing as cooking.”

  Goldie waggled her eyebrows, her poufy hair going up an inch. “But it can get just as hot.”

  I couldn't help but roll my eyes.

  “Like your story.” She pointed her finger at me again, changing the subject. “Hoo wee, that last chapter made me menopausal all over again. Talk about hot flashes.”

  I had to shake my head as she once again began to wave a piece of lingerie in front of her face. Trust Goldie to consider a tiny black garter the perfect instrument to cool off her overheated imagination.

  “Good,” I told her, shelving with more oomph than necessary. “You drove me bonkers for two months to finish that stupid book. And I wasn't even working here!”

  Secretly, I was pleased. To have Goldie, Queen of Steamy Scenes, like what I’d written and get all hot-and-bothered over it made me feel good. First grade gold star for me. I'd spent many a late night working on the story, crafting it, putting my heart and soul into it, but I wouldn't share that. My secret, to be an erotic romance novelist, had been mine for...well, forever. And it was going to stay that way—a secret.

  “It took you long enough.” She set the scrap of lace down on the glass counter. “And it's not stupid. It's H-O-T, hot.”

  “It's word porn,” I told her, sharing my personal phrase for my illicit writing. Goldie had made Veronica start one, but let her off the hook when she'd fallen in love with Jack Reid. As Veronica had a real, live, sexy guy of her own, she didn't need to have a fictional one found in a romance novel.

  Seeing my single status as her next mission in life, Goldie had pounced. And wrangled, cajoled, harassed me until I wrote a steamy, erotic romance. I'd faked most of the grown-up whining, not wanting to let Goldie know I longed for an excuse to write my word porn. Writing a sexy book under the excuse that Goldie made me do it kept my secret from getting out. Everyone in town had been forced to do something Goldie made them do at some point in their life. Besides, I figured if I wrote the scorcher I'd longed to write, to write the words that I'd kept inside, even Goldie would be shocked and lay off pestering me. But no. It only made her eagerness to read it to the very end even worse. I'd finished writing over Memorial Day weekend, a perfect procrastination for my class's report cards.

  “Word porn, that's good. It's sure something, all right,” Goldie said with a chuckle, and then moved across the room to hang the lingerie. “Heard from your sister?”

  “No, but that means everything's fine.”

  Goldie nodded her head in agreement. We both seemed to be of the same mind that 'No news is good news.'

  “She's not still mad at you, is she?”

  “No. Unconditional love has made her mushy.”

  It might have made Veronica mushy, but it made me feel a teensy bit guilty. Ever since the incident last winter with Veronica and the stalker, I'd felt inclined to fill in for her as needed so she could spend time with Jack. It hadn't been my fault the principal's wife was a little crazy and went bonkers when he'd tried to surprise her by having ski lessons. I was the innocent ski instructor in the whole house-burning fiasco.

  Timing hadn't been on my side because Jack Reid, Veronica's high school crush, had come back to town. Sure, back in high school I'd told my sister Jack wanted to go out with me instead of her. Not that I'd wanted him; I'd had my eye on someone else entirely. I’d just been mad at Veronica, which was a frequent occurrence. We’d been eighteen and she'd taken my favorite blouse, the blouse I'd done extra babysitting to save up for, and spilled catsup all down the front and ruined it. Before I'd had a chance to even wear it.

  Silly, I know, but we’d been teenagers. And sisters. Identical ones, at that. We
were petty, catty, and just stupid. Amazingly, over ten years later, Veronica had still held a grudge over that specific incident. So had Jack. In the end, long-lost love became full-time romance, but she and I were still dealing with the repercussions. Fragile feelings, bruised egos; thus my temporary role as Goldie's newest employee. The more tasks on Goldie's employee orientation I tackled however, I was closer to considering my emotional debt paid in full.

  I had to admit, it was an interesting summer job. It beat tutoring kids who'd rather be anywhere but at their kitchen table learning to read. But if I wanted to go to grad school, I needed the extra cash. Filling in for Veronica was a great way to do that. Getting a Masters in Education wasn't cheap, but the long-term career gains made it worthwhile.

  Unfortunately, working at Goldilocks had some pretty serious negatives. To start, Goldie was driving me crazy. A six-year-old nose picker would be bliss in comparison to Goldie's non-stop grilling. The only way to avoid her shenanigans would be if I got myself a man. I hadn't had much luck recently on the manhunt. In fact, I'd caught more wildlife than men, although if I'd gone after the guys who seemed remotely appealing with a hunting rifle and a tranquilizer dart, I probably would have had better odds. So it seemed like meddling was going to be a new constant in my life.

  “Your story, it's word porn, all right.” Goldie shook her head so her gold dangly earrings tinkled. “The moment MeMe Harding finishes designing your cover, you've got to publish that sucker, and fast.”

  “Publish it? Who would read that stuff anyway?” I wondered aloud as I tucked my slippery, stick straight hair behind my ear. It was black and went halfway down my back, except when it slid into my face. Flutters of fear and excitement warred at the very idea. I couldn’t imagine...a book of mine published! I could imagine the uproar it would cause—a very naughty book from a first grade teacher living in a small, conservative town. I still remembered the humor, at my expense, when I’d told my high school English teacher I'd wanted to be a romance writer. Looking back, he was a complete jerk for killing a teenager's self-confidence like that. Then humiliation once again; in college with my then-boyfriend, Todd. He'd been stunned by my lewd—his word—mind and quickly dumped me. I'd only written something now because of Goldie. Goldie was my excuse, the perfect cover for my nefarious word porn writing.