Truck Stop Trouble
A Muscles and Tattoos Bad Boy Romance
Peter Presley
Contents
About Peter Presley
1. Buck
2. Fiona
3. Buck
4. Fiona
5. Fiona
6. Buck
7. Fiona
8. Buck
9. Fiona
10. Buck
11. Fiona
12. Buck
13. Fiona
14. Fiona
15. Buck
16. Fiona
17. Buck
18. Fiona
Bonus Book - Alex: A Chicago Bad Boy Romance
1. Alex
2. Heather
3. Alex
4. Heather
5. Alex
6. Heather
7. Alex
8. Heather
9. Alex
10. Heather
11. Alex
12. Heather
13. Alex
14. Heather
15. Alex
16. Heather
17. Alex
18. Heather
19. Alex
20. Heather
21. Heather
22. Alex
23. Heather
24. Alex
25. Heather
26. Alex
27. Alex
28. Alex
29. Kendrick
30. Heather
31. Alex
About Peter Presley
Hello!
Peter Presley is the alter ego of Piper Presley. Piper writes shorts at 10K and under; Peter writes novellas.
Thank you to my street team member Amanda Showalter for coming up with the title TRUCK STOP TROUBLE!
Are you on Facebook? Join Peter Presley’s Street Team and enjoy free books, contests, and more!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/PeterPresleyStreetTeam/
Get my free eBook THORN of a SOLDIER: An Army Wife Romance when you join my mailing list!
https://www.subscribepage.com/piper-peter-presley
Excerpt
I'm supposed to be at work at noon today, but as I lay here in my bed, I'm deciding whether I should call off sick. Yeah, I'm sick. Sick with lust after some hot truck driver guy who is just gonna blow me off after he's done with me here. So why blow off hundreds of dollars in tips I could make today for the guy? Because I want more of him, that's why. I can't help it.
Do you know how many orgasms I had last night? Two! I’ve never had two in one night. Maybe you have, but I haven’t. Spending time with him, even for this short period, will keep me feeling good for at least the rest of the month. Then, when it wears off, I can whine again about being single.
FIONA
1
Buck
It’s dark and long past midnight. I’m driving my truck across state lines, like I usually do. The only other vehicles on the road at this time of night are other trucks. While I’m driving, I sometimes look up at the dark sky, because one of my favorite things to do when I’m on the road is to stare at the moon.
I can’t explain to you what I see tonight. I mean, I can try, but I’ll probably fail. I’m not that great with words. All I can say is that this evening, the moon is larger than I’ve ever seen it. In fact, right now I feel like I’m in a science fiction movie with this crazy big moon following me.
I’m Buck Hamilton, a 27-year-old long-haul truck driver. I’ve been a trucker going on six years now, and there is no other life I’d rather have. People ask me how I can do this job. They’ll ask me if I ever get lonely or if I ever get sick of sleeping in my truck or if I ever get tired of eating in diners. That’s just some of the shit they ask me; I can’t remember them all.
It doesn’t bother me though, and I realize some folks wouldn’t want to do what I do. They don’t get that I love getting behind the wheel and going from place to place, but I can’t just get in a car and drive, I need to make a living too. So what better way to do that than by being a trucker? Now, don’t get me wrong, this is not an easy job. I lift some heavy shit, and I worry about getting injured, but I’m not one of those people who can work in an office all day. I’d go crazy if I had to do that.
I guess this is as good a time as any to tell you more about me. I used to be homeless. Well, homeless according to most people’s standards. I owned one of those 1970s custom vans, crazy ancient; it even had orange shag carpeting. Back then, vans were cool, not lame. You wanted to be seen in one, at least that’s what I figure, even though I wasn’t born yet. When I had bought it, with it being all retro and everything, people probably thought it was just as cool as it was back in the 70s, at least based on the comments I’d get.
It was a tricked out van. Shag carpeting is backward now, but it wasn’t back then. Plus it had a kick-ass sound system for its time. The best part about the van was the artwork. On its exterior, on each side, was a painting of a sexy chick with big boobs riding a horse. In fact, the artwork is the main reason I bought it. The old guy who sold it to me told me there had been a lot of sex and drugs happening in that van. I didn’t ask him for the details, although I’m sure he had wanted to tell me.
Anyway, despite that van being old as fuck, it never broke down on me. So that was good. I would drive it around, and then park it in rest stops or 24-hour grocery store parking lots when I needed to sleep. When I needed to use the can, I’d do it at the restrooms at work, or the ones in fast food joints or other public places, like the library. When I needed to wash up or take a shower, I’d do it at my local gym.
I lived in that van for two years, making money any way I could. Sometimes those ways weren’t legal. Now before you get that idea in your head, I was never a rent boy. I’ve met some men who were, but I’ve never swung that way. I’ve got no interest in being with a man, at all. It doesn’t matter how much money those fuckers want to pay. No, Buck worked in a factory, on a farm, and at a gas station. But I also sold drugs and stole stuff. Not proud of it, but it is what it is.
And Buck is a ladies’ man. Yeah, I have a good paying, legit job now, but I’m not the settling kind. Shelia, a beautiful waitress I met, once told me I was a bad boy, going after as much sex as I can with no regard for the ladies. But that’s not it. She was just pissed at me because I didn’t hang around.
I don’t want to treat a woman wrong, but she’s got to understand that I won’t be around for long. We can have a good time, but then I’m back on the road. So the only chicks I deal with are the ones who know what time of day it is. That’s not treating a lady wrong if she understands what I’m about, is it?
With my lifestyle, being with a woman who wants to settle down isn’t going to happen. It would take a commitment on my part, and a willingness to be there for her, and like I just told you, I’m a man on the move. Few women who wish to settle down want to hassle with that. Right now, I’ve got three days to rest, and then I’m right back on the road. During those three days, I’d like to take care of my needs, and yes, by that, I mean sexual.
The ladies? Well, some of them have been hookers; I’m not gonna lie. But I’m clean, and I always use a condom. I’m actually pretty healthy. If there’s one thing I’ve ever been good about are my doctor appointments. Even when I was rollin’ in my van, I kept up with my doctor appointments. All of them: dentist, eye doctor, physical. You see my mom died of breast cancer when I was 12. Then it was just my dad and I.
I wanted a father I could look up to, but that just wasn’t him. My dad was an alcoholic, and he died from that at only 45. When he was alive, somehow he was able to keep his job working at the factory, but when he would come home from work, he’d just drink all night and pass out most of the time. I basically ra
ised myself after my mom died.
It didn’t take long for my dad to start looking like hell: bad skin, missing teeth, bloodshot eyes. One night, when he was passed out on the couch, like usual, I stood in front of him and just stared at him. I don’t know for how long. Maybe just a minute or so. But after looking at him, from then on, I promised myself that I would always take care of my health, and even though I’m sitting in this truck a lot of the time, I still get my exercise in.
How do I manage that? Well, first off, I lift heavy loads. So that’s exercise right there. Plus, after my truck is parked, I’ll run three miles at least three days a week. The good thing about running is that you can run anywhere. No matter where I am, I can get my miles in. It works out pretty well.
I also store weights in my truck. So I’ll take them outside and do about 30 minutes of weight lifting. I do that on the days I’m not running. When other truckers see me working out on the side of my truck, some of them give me a hard time about it, but I don’t give a shit. Some of them have guts bigger than pregnant ladies. That won’t be me. I also make sure that even though I have to grab restaurant grub most of the time, I keep it as healthy as I can. I bet you didn’t know truckers care about their health. Well, this one does.
So now, I’m headed to Vegas. After I drop off my load, I’ll use my break to clear my head, maybe walk around town a bit, though I’m not much of a gambler. I guess the bottom line is that I have three days to blow off steam, and I plan to find the first, hot and available woman to do so with. I’m just being honest.
They say I’m good-looking. That’s another thing my fellow truckers give me a hard time about. Finding the ladies has never been a problem for me, thanks to the way I look. Now I’m not stuck on that, but I’ve got muscles from working out and hauling equipment, and tattoos, like the scorpion on my chest. Chicks seem to dig that.
Vegas is an easy place to find an available lady, and no, they’re not always hookers. The thing about women out at night, if they’re not with a guy, they’re looking for someone. Sometimes they just want someone to talk to them, pay them some attention. Sometimes they want a lot more than that. In this day and age, it’s still considered bad for a woman to be dressed up, looking good, out at night by herself, looking to meet a man. I get why they’re judged, but people do this to these women without understanding their whole story.
I’m not out here judging any of them. I know I’m no better than they are.
2
Fiona
Oh, my God! This day sucks so badly. First of all, my feet are killing me. Why did I wear these shoes today? I bought them on sale, telling myself that I had to have them because they were just sooo cute. I do that way too much. It’s not that they’re too high or anything for cocktail waitressing. They’ve got a short heel, and ordinarily, they would be comfortable. But, they’re new, and they’re obviously shoes I need to break in. I don’t need to be doing it while I’m working. I’m such a dumbass sometimes.
Second of all, I’ve only made 50 bucks so far today. Now, you may think that’s pretty good, but not for this place. I’ve been working for four hours. Usually, I’d have about 100 bucks by now, even with three of us working the floor. It’s not even that its dead in the casino, it’s just that I happen to be serving people who are just plain cheap asses today. Sometimes that happens. Cocktail waitressing at this casino is pretty good money, but when you rely on tips, nothing is certain.
My name is Fiona Little, and I’m a 28-year-old cocktail waitress who has been working at Sunrise Casino for seven years now. Al Moreno, my ex-boyfriend, owns the place, and he’s the one who brought me on.
Well, I guess I should come clean. He was my boyfriend, but he really wasn’t much of a boyfriend; he was just someone who did things for me if I did certain things for him, you know? I’m not proud of being like that, but it’s not like I’m the only woman who works it around here. I’m not a prostitute, but I guess if I’m going to sleep with a man in exchange for him doing things for me, I might as well be one, right?
I grew up in California, and in the beginning, my life was idyllic. It really was. We lived in a beautiful home in Orinda. Everything was nice until my dad, who was a corporate executive, killed himself. I was 12. Come to find out, based on the note he left, he was deeply in debt due to bad investments, and he couldn’t figure out a way to get out of it.
So after my dad died, of course, all the bills were left for my mom to handle. She knew there was no way she could do it. My uncle got wind of our situation, and he helped my mom sell our home. We moved in with him. The proceeds from the house helped to lessen our debt, and then my uncle took care of the rest of the debt. (My uncle has a lot of money.) But, in the meantime, he decided he wanted to make me his girlfriend. Not my mom, me.
When I told my mom about it, she didn’t believe me. Actually, I think she did believe me, but she knew living with my uncle was her meal ticket. By the time I was 17, I had had enough. So I ran away to Vegas. When I got here, I lived in a homeless shelter while I worked at a fast food joint. Eventually, I had enough money to live on my own in a tiny apartment, the same one I’m in now. It’s small, but at least there’s no bugs or anything.
One day when I was working one of the registers at the fast food joint, Al walked in. He said that when he saw me, for the first time, he told himself right then and there that he had to have me.
I’ve seen some handsome middle-aged guys, but Al had let his looks go. Plus, he had a gut from drinking too much beer, but his personality was decent enough, so I ignored that stuff. I was in an apartment, but I was barely making my rent. In fact, I was afraid I’d end up back in the shelter. So when Al said he wanted me, I let him have me. I didn’t move in with him. (He didn’t want me to.) But he got me caught up on my rent, and he gave me the job at Sunrise. I had just turned 22.
The other ways to get money I never did. Men want sex, and Lord knows I’ve paid the price for being a pretty girl with long dark hair and green eyes. I could have easily said, “Fuck it, I may as well get a job as one of those high-priced call girls or as a stripper at one of those high-end gentlemen’s clubs.” But I didn’t, and I’m glad I didn’t. I was Al’s girlfriend. He gave me what I needed, but I’ve never felt like a prostitute with him, even though I guess I acted like one. Al is nothing like my uncle. He’s no prize in the looks department, but he’s not some sick abuser. I actually liked Al.
To be honest, I want to get away from cocktail waitressing, go back to school, and make something of myself. I can’t keep doing this forever. Al only hires pretty cocktail waitresses. So how is it going to be when I get older? I feel like I’m already getting older. I’m almost 30, well not for another two years, but still. Al won’t keep me on. He always gets rid of the women he feels are too old, because he says it’s bad for business. Yeah, he’s been nice to me and given me opportunities, but he’s a jerk sometimes too.
“Hey, Fiona.” Nina is one of the waitresses who has been here as long as I have. She’s got platinum blonde hair, which came from a bottle, and big boobs, which came from a surgeon. She may be fake in many ways, but her personality isn’t. She’s one of the sweetest girls I know. She’s got a fiancé, a nice guy who treats her well. So, I’m not sure Nina will be working here much longer. She says she and her fiancé want to get out of this town after they get married. I try not to think about it because I know I’ll miss her like crazy. “How’re your tips?” she asks.
“Mine suck.”
“I know! Mine do too. Things better start picking up.”
“Actually, I think things are picking up right now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look over there.”
Nina points her finger at one of the most gorgeous guys who has ever come into Sunrise.
“Holy crap he’s hot!”
“Damn right! Tell you what, I saw him first, but I’ll let you wait on him. But you better grab him before Christine does. You know what a table hog she is.”
Nina is talking to me, but I can’t get my eyes off the guy. “Yeah, I’d love to wait on him. Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. Now go!”
I walk over to him as tall as I can, trying not to think about my aching feet. The dresses that we wear hug our bodies tight. I unzip the front of my dress to show a bit more cleavage, helps with tips.
As soon as he sees me, he doesn’t look away. He just smiles and watches me approach. Now my heart is banging against my chest. Messy hair, black leather jacket, open shirt, a scorpion tattoo on the top of his muscular chest; this guy is gorgeous.
“Hello, welcome to Sunrise. What can I get you?”
He smiles again, only longer this time. His big brown eyes sparkle and pop. “What would you like to get me?”
Okay, I know a flirt when I see one. Women like me get men flirting with us all the time, but when it’s a hot guy doing it, it becomes fun.
I move in a little closer to him. “You look like a beer man to me, am I right?”
“You’re right today. Why don’t you bring me a Bud?”
Truck Stop Trouble Page 1