Jared (Coyote Ridge) (Volume 2)

by Nicole Edwards

  “You know Dad’s gonna be pissed when he sees it.” Zane doubled over in another fit of laughter.

  Kaleb wasn’t all that worried about their father and what he thought about Sawyer’s wild and crazy antics. It was their mother they actually had to worry about. Curtis Walker would laugh right along with Zane, but Lorrie Walker would be fit to be tied.

  But that was Sawyer for you. At thirty-three, he wasn’t supposed to be the wildest of the seven of them, but he even gave Zane a run for his money.

  The screen door slammed and Zane sat upright, immediately choking on his laughter. As Travis made his way into the small kitchen, Kaleb barely suppressed a groan.

  “What’s going on?” The oldest of the seven Walker brothers wasn’t smiling, and Kaleb had a feeling he wouldn’t find Sawyer’s antics all that funny anyway, so Kaleb kept his mouth shut.

  “Sawyer’s down on Main and First half dressed holding up a sign.”

  “Fuck,” Kaleb muttered and pinned his brother with a death glare. “Seriously, Zane?”

  He was met with a shrug.

  Telling Travis anything that didn’t pertain to Walker Demolition was like telling their mother as far as Kaleb was concerned. The oldest of the Walker boys at thirty-five, Travis had turned into an old man in recent years—at least as far as his mood was concerned.

  “Fuck,” Travis groaned as he turned to the coffeepot sitting on the counter. “When will he ever grow up?”

  Today, just like any other day, Kaleb was going to give Travis a wide berth, not to mention knock Zane upside his head for telling on Sawyer. “Likely never if I had to guess,” Kaleb chimed in, knowing that was the only sufficient answer.

  “Did you hear back from Carl Stranford?” Travis glanced over his shoulder at Kaleb before returning his attention to pouring his coffee. “You were going by his house yesterday?”

  Suddenly wishing he’d had more coffee, Kaleb rubbed his hand over the back of his neck trying to squeeze some of the tension out. Not that there ever was a good time to have this conversation with Travis, but now certainly wasn’t it.

  “Yeah.” He definitely stopped by Carl’s, just like he had several times that week, but his brief conversation hadn’t resulted in anything other than the expected “Let me think about it, Kaleb, and get back with you.”

  “Shit,” Travis groaned again, obviously knowing what that response had been before Kaleb even had to say it out loud. “That man keeps stalling, and I don’t know what the hell for. You’d think he’d be ready to sell off a portion of that land by now. He’s all but lost every one of his crops and to tell you the truth, I’m getting damn tired of waiting,”

  And if Carl didn’t do something soon, he’d lose a lot more than just his crops, but Kaleb wasn’t going to share that with Travis just yet. Until he had the chance to talk to Zoey about it, he wasn’t ready to spread the devastating news.

  Not to mention it wouldn’t matter what he told Travis until he had a firm agreement from Carl. His oldest brother would just get even more pissed off than he already was.

  Walker Demolition—the company Kaleb and his brothers had built from the ground up—had grown by leaps and bounds over the last few years. content with what they’d built, Travis was ready to venture in another direction, expand their horizons he’d said. Due to reasons Travis had only vaguely shared thus far, Kaleb’s oldest brother seemed to be following some big dream that he’d harbored since he was younger. Kaleb anxiously awaited the in depth version which didn’t seem to be coming anytime soon.

  Instead of focusing solely on tearing shit down, Travis had come up with the idea to build a resort. Not that Kaleb didn’t think it was a brilliant idea because he did. He was just content with the tearing-shit-down part.

  The plans he’d seen for a mega resort, the likes of which their small town had never seen, were under way. They’d received the necessary approvals, and now the only thing left to do was to secure the land. Travis had already bought out two of their adjacent neighbors, acquiring a good three hundred acres of decrepit farmland, but he hadn’t been satisfied with that. Now he was looking for another hundred that backed up to what they’d already purchased. Only this land belonged to Carl Stranford, an ornery old farmer who had been giving them the runaround for the better part of the last six months.

  “Call him.” Zane’s tone was laced with sarcasm. “Or better yet, go see him. Maybe some of your macho intimidation will make him come to a decision.”

  Kaleb groaned.

  Zane, at twenty-four, was the youngest of seven, and considering the age difference between him and Travis, he didn’t remember much of the Travis they had all grown up with. The fun-loving, hang-on-by-the-seat-of-your-pants guy they’d all wanted to be like. But that man never returned from his four-year stint in the army. In his place was the grouchy, unsmiling man who sat before them now.

  “I might just do that,” Travis snapped, before turning and walking out of the room.

  When the screen door slammed behind their brother, Zane turned to Kaleb. “Why don’t you go talk to Carl? Or better yet, Zoey?”

  “What does Zoey have to do with this?”

  Zane liked to give Kaleb shit about Carl Stranford’s only daughter. Not only had she been Kaleb’s closest female friend for the better part of the last decade, she was also the woman Kaleb had always wanted, but never had. Despite the ever-present physical attraction, he’d somehow managed to be friends with her without ever trying to push it any further, although he’d wanted to.

  More than wanted to.

  Since she’d never shown even an inkling of interest in him other than friendship, Kaleb had opted to take what he could get, and they’d established a very solid friendship. Hell, the woman knew everything there was to know about him and most of his brothers, yet she still chose to associate with him, so he considered himself lucky.

  They were infamous in their little town, but that was mostly due to their wild and crazy behavior since about the time each of them could walk. They were a rowdy bunch, and there was a long list of rumors associated with them—some true, some not entirely true. For whatever reason, Zoey ignored them, and for that, he was grateful.

  Not that Zoey Stranford wasn’t as wild as they came. That was partly what he found so damn attractive about the woman. She didn’t care what other people thought about her, and it seemed her one goal was to have fun and not hurt anyone in the process.

  So he’d mastered the art of pretending when it came to Zoey. First and foremost, he was her friend, but that wasn’t the problem. His issue was learning to hide the unbridled lust burning deep and hot for as long as he’d known her.

  And since his brothers had dubbed her the one woman who wouldn’t give him the time of day, they loved to give him a hard time about her.

  It certainly wasn’t a hardship being friends with Zoey, but it had gotten increasingly more difficult in the last few years. Ever since she and that jackass Jason Tribbons divorced, Kaleb did everything he possibly could to make sure he kept his feelings for her hidden. But hell, he wasn’t a saint, and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could pull off the charade.

  “Zoey doesn’t have any say in what her father does with that land,” Kaleb added as he watched the wheels turn in Zane’s head. His little brother was going to piss him off, he could feel it.

  “Yeah, but she likes you,” Zane goaded. “I’m sure if she goes running to Daddy, telling him her boy toy wants to buy the land, he’d sell it in a heartbeat.”

  Boy toy? “I know you’ve got something better than that,” Kaleb pushed.

  Kaleb had grown quite fond of his dick over the years, and he didn’t have any intentions of losing it, thank you very much. Carl Stranford would just as soon cut off Kaleb’s dick than let him date his daughter.

  Carl was an overprotective son of a bitch when it came to his one and only daughter, a
nd he and Zoey had had to clarify their friendship on more than one occasion over the years. Granted, Carl was close to eighty now, and Zoey was very much a grown woman who didn’t let her daddy tell her whom she could see, but still . . .

  Hell, he’d expected Carl to answer the damn door with a shotgun in his hand the night he had taken Zoey to her senior prom. Thankfully Carl hadn’t, but that was probably due to Zoey’s mother, who had liked Kaleb. Not that Kaleb could blame the man. If a nineteen-year-old man had the balls to show up on his doorstep asking to take his seventeen-year-old daughter to the prom, Kaleb knew damn well that young man would know how acquainted he was with his gun collection.

  But true to his word, even back then when he was ruled by hormones alone, Kaleb never laid a finger on Zoey, no matter how badly he wanted to. And to this day, he’d never so much as kissed her, and his dick knew it all too well.

  Shaking off the thought, Kaleb pushed himself out of his chair. “I’ll go talk to Carl. Until we get that land, Travis won’t let it go.”

  “Nope, he won’t,” Zane agreed as he stood. “Tell Zoey hello for me.”

  “Fuck off.” Kaleb grinned as he walked out the back door.

  Kaleb (Alluring Indulgence, #1) is available now!

  Keep reading for an excerpt from:

  Travis

  Alluring Indulgence, #3

  Nicole Edwards

  Ménage Romance

  Erotic Romance

  Release Date: July 30, 2013

  The oldest of the Walker brothers opens a unique resort—catering to fetishes and fantasies—in this sizzling ebook from New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Nicole Edwards.

  Travis Walker, the oldest of the seven Walker brothers, has been referred to as moody and mysterious, and for the most part, he would agree. Until recently, he spent his days helping his brothers run the family business. Now, he dedicates his time and energy to building a resort, Alluring Indulgence, that caters to fetishes and fantasies. And despite his attempt to work himself into the ground, Travis has never denied—at least not to himself—that something is missing.

  Ten years ago, Travis made the hardest decision of his life, breaking his own heart in the process. A decade later, he is learning that life has a strange way of turning things upside down before placing the pieces exactly where they were meant to go.

  Prologue

  At the party for Kaleb and Zoey . . .

  Gage Matthews wasn’t sure exactly what he expected to happen if and when he ran into Travis Walker again, but this specific scenario wasn’t anywhere on the list.

  He’d been coming back from the bathroom on his way to rejoin the pre-wedding slash bridal shower slash bachelor slash bachelorette party when Travis stepped right in his path. In the dining room of Travis’s parents’ house of all places.

  Now that he was pinned against the wall, Gage was fighting the ever-present supply of lust that bubbled inside of him anytime he laid eyes on Travis. It seemed to be a response that was hardwired in his brain at this point. Going toe-to-toe with the man was a by-product of that reaction as well, and . . . well, Gage was more than ready to put up a fight.

  Considering what the reward was going to be, he didn’t see a downside one way or the other.

  “What the fuck do you want, Walker?” Gage asked, maintaining a defiant bite to his tone.

  With the Sheetrock at his back, a hard, warm body at his front, Gage stared into stormy blue eyes that appeared to be trying to read his mind versus determining whether he approved of the physical contact. Gage’s dick was already answering the latter for him, so he doubted Travis had any questions as far as that went.

  What Gage couldn’t resolve was what Travis was thinking. The shadows in the man’s eyes were just as vivid as they always were, guarding whatever deep, dark secrets he harbored.

  Despite his desire to be pissed at Travis for blowing his cover to hell and back in order to save Travis’s brother Zane’s life—which, by the way, Gage would’ve done without the threats Travis had made to his physical well-being—combined with a staggering urge to take him to the ground and bury himself balls-deep inside of him, Gage found himself waiting for Travis to explain what the hell he was doing.

  “I’m picking up where I left off,” Travis stated. He was eerily calm, his restraint admirable as he kept Gage’s body pinned between his and the wall.

  When Travis lifted one hand, gripping Gage’s chin firmly, he knew he wasn’t going to be able to turn away. He also knew clear as day what was about to happen. He welcomed it, damn near close to begging for it. But he prayed the indifference he let settle over him was shielding him from Travis’s scrutinizing gaze.

  He’d silently been taunting Travis for weeks, every time the opportunity presented itself. The last time, at Zoey and Kaleb’s bachelor/bachelorette party in Vegas, Gage had gone out of his way—probably a little overboard—to make sure Travis understood Gage’s role in Kaleb’s current relationship.

  And just like that night, Gage recognized Travis’s determination to exercise his own version of payback at the next opportunity.

  Gage had been banking on it.

  And here they were.

  Granted, there wasn’t any privacy where they stood, but considering his hunger for this man was picking up speed and rumbling in his veins, Gage wasn’t sure he even gave a shit where they were.

  But Gage wasn’t giving in just yet. “And you chose now to do this?”

  “It will happen again; I told you that,” Travis answered, sounding bored. But the way his gaze slipped down to Gage’s mouth told him that Travis wasn’t holding on as well as he wanted him to believe.

  Before he could get another word out, whether it was to defy him or to beg, Travis’s mouth came crashing down on his. A blatant claiming that took Gage by surprise but not for long. Instinct kicked in and he kissed Travis back, one hand snaking through Travis’s hair, an attempt to hold him close.

  God, this was beginning to tear at him. The teasing kisses, these promises of what might happen in the future. It didn’t matter that his body damn near melted from the heat churning between them, there was still this little niggling voice in the back of his mind that suggested Travis was just fucking with him.

  There was no doubt that Travis wasn’t a man searching for a forever kind of love. He was a onetime-only kind of guy, and since Gage had had his fair share of meaningless sexual encounters, he wasn’t currently in the market for another.

  No, what he wanted he seriously doubted Travis could ever give him. Which made this—whatever it was—all the more disappointing.

  Before they broke apart, a fleeting thought sprang to mind as though it had been planted there: a flickering image of him and Travis and a beautiful woman trapped between them, her body coming apart as they both fucked her. At the same fucking time.

  His dick twitched, a warning that he was about to get in over his head.

  Their mouths separated, their gazes locked as they both worked to suck in air, and Travis said, “Will. Happen. Again.”

  A promise that Gage prayed Travis would keep, but one that still pissed him off, making him crave revenge against this man for putting thoughts in his brain that he knew were better left alone.

  Damn Travis Walker.

  Travis (Alluring Indulgence, #3) is available now!

  About Nicole

  New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Nicole Edwards lives in Austin, Texas with her husband, their three kids, and four rambunctious dogs. When she’s not writing about sexy alpha males, Nicole can often be found with her Kindle in hand or making an attempt to keep the dogs happy. You can find her hanging out on Facebook and interacting with her readers - even when she’s supposed to be writing.

  Nicole also writes contemporary/new adult romance as Timberlyn Scott.

  Nicole would love to
hear from you!

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