Rough Rowdy Reckless (RRR #1)

by Kimball Lee

  “Scarlet! Come here sister-girl, you are not going to believe who this is,” Gigi says and the last time I saw her this happy was when a butt-ugly, non-photo-shopped picture of her mother made the cover of People magazine.

  “Jon-Wylder McCauley, the neighbor, nice to meet you,” He says, forcing his gaze away from Gigi’s body long enough to take my hand and brush his lips across it.

  I swear he’s the most beautiful man I’ve ever laid eyes on, movie-star gorgeous. He has that pretty-but-masculine look, like a young, long-haired Brad Pitt in Legends of the Fall. When he gives me a smile he has totally swoon-worthy dimples and I’m sure my jaw just hit the ground. With that face and that voice—I wouldn’t blame Gigi if she dragged him to the ground and they engaged in all sorts of Cirque du Soliel sex moves right here in front of everyone.

  “Scarlet’s at a loss for words, hard as that is to believe. She’s a big, big fan of your music, Jon-Wylder,” Gigi says and let’s go of him long enough to place a finger under my chin to close my gaping mouth.

  “Scarlet’s only interest in the Austin music scene was to hear some guy named Jon Wylder sing, and now here he is—our next-door neighbor and Gigi’s crush for the day. What are the chances?” Penn chimes in and that’s when I notice that she’s acting fairly demure and blushing and standing awfully close to another handsome stranger.

  “What the hell is going on here?” I ask, wondering how we’ve all managed to stumble across so many hot men in the short time we’ve been in town. “I slept late and my two best friends morph into giddy pre-teens?”

  “Traeger this is Scarlet, our unofficial den-mother for the week,” Penn says, squeezing the tall blonde guy’s hand and shooting me a sweet pixie smile as if it’s the most natural thing in the world for her to be infatuated with a man!

  Seriously, what the…?

  “Okay, I am definitely trippin’,” I say, shaking my head to clear the cobwebs out of my addled brain. “You all look like you’ve been partying hardy for a few hours, so I’m gonna go back inside, take a shower, make myself presentable, and when I come back out here, it would be nice if my two best friends would either snap out of it or give me a hint as to what I missed.”

  “You missed a lot,” Walker says, untangling himself from the two purring red-heads to stand up and stretch. He grabs a couple of beers from a cooler, opens them and hands me one, “My brother has been up all night doing his bullshit music thing and his buddy Traeg followed him home. They met your girlfriends this morning at Jo’s Coffee down the street and surprise, surprise, now it’s one massive cluster fuck.”

  “Goodbye Walker, you dick, don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. If you’re ever in the neighborhood, drive on by and don’t bother to stop,” Jon-Wylder says and he and his brother stand eye to eye looking like they’re ready to rumble.

  “You can come downstairs to our place, Walker sweetie-pie. Shame on Jon-Wylder for throwing all of us aside for a girl from out of State,” One of the red-heads who was curled up next to him like a cat in heat says, giving Gigi and the rest of us the evil-eye.

  “Ohhhh, Scarlet I don’t think you’ve met the ski-name sisters,” Penn says and rolls her eyes. “One of them is Vail and the other is Aspen. I have no idea which one is which, but I’m pretty sure they’re interchangeable.”

  “Yep,” Gigi tears herself away from Jon-Wylder, grabs my arm, and hiss-whispers in my ear. “Look at them, tiny little silicone pocket-pets, and they live downstairs—right underneath this penthouse! Neighborly, huh? Not only that—and this is gonna gross you out—I think they have known Jon-Wylder and Penn’s dad in the biblical sense.”

  “Okay then, I’m heading inside,” I say, because there are way too many mixed messages flying around and I need another cup of coffee. “Jon-Wylder, there was someone else here last night, maybe another one of your buddies?” I ask just before I step inside the penthouse.

  “Holt, you mean? Yeah he likes to sleep out under the stars like the crazy son-of-a-bitch he is. He was on his way out around dawn when Traeg and I were just getting home. He went back to Tallulah, I would imagine,” Jon-Wylder says and Traeger laughs.

  “He’s a glutton for punishment,” Traeger says. “All he does is build shit, never has time to party, I’m telling you, he’s fucking married to Tallulah.”

  “He’s married?” I ask, my voice cracking.

  “Well, not exactly, but he might as well be. You didn’t go falling in love with him, did you?” Traeger says and he and Jon-Wylder find this hysterically funny.

  I wave Gigi and Penn away when they try to follow me inside, I know what I’ll see on their faces—pity—and I’m not in the mood for it.

  *

  “Slow down Scarlet, you know how you are with tequila, this is smooth but potent,” Gigi says as I throw back my third shot and slam the shot-glass down on the bar a little harder than I meant to.

  “Like its maker, smooth and potent,” Traeger says and drags Penn a little closer to him, he has to bend down to fold her into his embrace, there’s nearly a foot difference in their height. Traeger is a lot like Penn, sort of a mystery, aloof and reserved, at least that’s how he seems. Not that I actually know him yet, we’ve only exchanged a few words since he and Penelope are absorbed in their own reclusive world.

  “Should I ask what you mean by that, or just let you demonstrate later, back at the condo?” Penn asks, and for the life of me I cannot get used to this starry-eyed, lovey-dovey side of her.

  “I’m sure he’ll be glad to show you ASAP,” I say slurring my words just a tad, but who cares, I’m waiting for that fuzzy ‘don’t give a shit’ feeling to kick in.

  I need to get fall-down drunk now in the middle of a bar whose name matches my mood tonight. We’re here at the Mean Eyed Cat to watch Jon-Wylder perform, and he stands on stage fondling his guitar and belting out my favorite song just for Gigi. The shots are helping me out of my funk and allowing me to enjoy my righteous indignation. I’m loosening up and feeling better about the nearly-married man who slept in bed with me last night.

  Dear Lord, what was I thinking? An unknown man kisses me in a sleazy bar and I’m convinced he’s my forever love, my anti-Corey Bumfuck!

  “Umm, does anyone here realize that the rush of seeing Jon-Wylder on stage is practically as good as having sex,” Gigi asks, gulping another shot and swaying dreamily to the music.

  “Ha!” Penn says, “Then one of you must be doing the sex thing all wrong.”

  “Look at him, my new lover-man has all the right moves… I mean we haven’t actually… you know… we will the minute he’s done with this show…. Oh kiss my ass and shut up, Penelope,” Gigi says and Penn and I double over laughing because this girl desperately needs a few good orgasms that involve a person rather than machinery.

  “TNT?” Penn says, regaining her composure and reading the label when Traeger motions for the bartender to leave the bottle on the counter.

  “Yep, Traeger’s Natural Tequila. All natural, handmade in the heart of Tallulah, Texas by yours truly,” Traeger says and this causes Penn to giggle and shout “Amazing!” and pull his lips down to hers.

  “Tallulah, Texas. Tallulah, Texas?!! Tallulah is a TOWN?” I shout after I’ve slammed down another shot and my head is spinning and my stomach flips over a couple of times.

  “Well yeah, we were kinda bullshitting you earlier about Holt. You don’t believe any girl would be crazy enough to tie herself down to this big, rough jackass, do you?” Traeger laughs and clamps a hand on a broad shoulder that is suddenly looming over our little group.

  “Hey, got here fast as I could. How many of those shots have you had, beauty? Traeger brews his moonshine in a horse-trough, that shit is lethal,” Holt says, smiling down at me as my heart trips around in my chest and all I can do is stare up at his face and try not to let everyone see how immensely relieved I am. “You okay, Scarlet?” he says and his ‘little-boy’ smile fades as his hands settle on the sides of my face
, thumbs brushing over my temples as he leans down and kisses me lightly.

  “I’m good, better now, your friends told me….” I force myself to step back out of his reach, “They said you were married, or close to it.”

  He throws his head back and laughs and I realize three things— One- He’s not wearing the cowboy hat. Two- He looks even better without it, his eyes flash bright-green and his hair is glossy and permanently messy and adds to his utterly-fuckable hotness. And three- It might be crazy since I only met him twenty-four hours ago, but if Holt Corrigan isn’t the love of my life, I can’t imagine who ever will be.

  “That was a sorry-ass thing for them to do, but it’s how they are, both of them are dicks. Sorry if they upset you, beauty, how can I make it all better?” He says and although his tone is light, I can see that he’s truly concerned.

  “Let’s go,” I say and I don’t care what anyone thinks. I raise up on my toes and the wisp of a dress I’m wearing rides up so that the bottom of my ass is quite possibly showing. His hands reach around to cup my butt-cheeks, long fingers dipping beneath the lace thong, his eyes lids fall halfway closed and he releases a long-held sigh. I turn my face up to his and his lips are on mine, hot and lush, his tongue slipping into my mouth, probing and insistent, and we kiss for a long, long time.

  “Hey son, glad you could leave ol’ Tallulah and make it!” Jon-Wylder says, and suddenly he’s next to us smiling like the cat that ate the canary.

  Honestly—I should be mad at Jon-Wylder but his easy, flawless smile is indeed infectious. He’s taken me under his wing today and calls me ‘Sis’, presumably a shortening of ‘sister-girl’, the preferred nickname that Gigi, Penn, and I use as our personal term of endearment. In the past few hours I’ve learned that he has never met a stranger or a person he doesn’t like, he calls all men ‘son’, and he’s not only effortlessly and blatantly sexy, he’s also the most cheerful, good-natured, easy-going man I’ve ever met. So—with tequila and relief coursing through my veins and my lips swollen and throbbing from Holt’s kiss—I’m going to forgive Jon-Wylder’s little deception about Holt’s marital status.

  Holt lets me slide down his body and when my feet reach the floor he lifts his hand to shake Jon-Wylder’s, then tilts his head and says, “That was a lame-ass joke you and Traeg played on my beautiful Scarlet. Apologize, you two sick sons-of-bitches, and I mean it.”

  “Sorry, Scarlet, we were just dicking around,” Jon-Wylder says scooping a bouncy, adrenaline-rushed Gigi up next to him.

  “That’s right, we were, and we definitely deserve to be punished,” Traeger says and Penn pulls his face close to hers and whispers in his ear. He blushes and Penn looks pleased so she must be cooking up some kinky shit in that brilliant mind of hers.

  “You’re both forgiven,” I say and hand two tequila shots to Holt, pick one up for myself, and we clink our glasses in a silent toast and throw them back. I shiver as the warm liquid slides down my throat and the truth is—Traeger’s Natural Tequila really is incredibly smooth and delicious.

  “Don’t let the easy way those slide down fool you, beauty, they’re lethal and I think you’ve had enough,” Holt says, tossing back one more and then crushing me against the massive, solid wall that is his body.

  “You’re right, I’ve had plenty to drink, but not enough of… you,” I say and slip my hands under the black T-shirt he’s wearing and run them over his chiseled abs.

  He draws in a sharp breath, slips an arm around my waist, picks me up and walks a few feet away from the others before he sets me down again.

  “Scarlet, you sure about what you want? “I’m twenty-seven years old, how old are you, twenty? Twenty-one?” He asks and runs a hand through his hair and down across his mouth, along his jaw.

  “I’m twenty-two. I know what I want, Holt, drunk or sober, and I’m not that drunk.” My hands cannot stay away from his skin, they move back under his shirt and up his hard, hot chest, and there’s no way for me to stop touching him. “Do you have a car, where are you parked? Let’s go, let’s just leave….”

  “Alright, my truck’s out back,” he says, and his voice is so dark and rich that I know without seeing his eyes that he’s made his decision.

  He leans down and his lips brush mine, he clamps one hand on my waist and the other slides up the back of my thigh and I press into him, my arms wrapping around his neck. He rests his chin on the top of my head, murmurs my name low and gravelly, then backs up a step, grabs my hand and we leave the building.

  It’s dark out tonight, the moon is low in the sky and the parking lot is a maze. He leads the way, threading through haphazard rows of cars and SUVs, and I hear the chirp of the alarm as he unlocks his truck. Before he can open the door I wrap my hands around his biceps and drag him with me as I lean back against the warm metal of the shiny black truck. His mouth covers mine in a heartbeat, one huge hand splayed out holding the back of my head, tangled in my loose hair, the other gripping my hip through the filmy fabric of my dress. I arch into him, hips forward, meeting his, we both moan at the shock of contact. His erection is hot and hard and huge pressing into my thigh, I gasp into his mouth as his tongue strokes my bottom lip, tasting me, sucking, rough and then gentle, raising goosebumps on my skin. A primal need spikes low in my belly and spreads lower, wet and urgent, his kiss consumes me, deep and intense, our mouths fit together like pure perfection and I want more, all of him, closer than close, naked, inside me.

  His hand leaves my hip and I miss the heat of it immediately, he opens the door of the truck, lifts me onto the seat and stands there looking down at me. “You are so fucking beautiful, Scarlet,” he says and leans in to kiss me again.

  “So are you,” I say, my hands under his shirt, nails scratching down his chest to the soft trail of hair that disappears into his faded jeans. “I need you to hurry, please. Here, now.”

  He shakes his head but he’s already reaching for the hem of my dress, pushing it up, his fingers twine in the sheer lace of my panties, shredding them. He drops them beside me on the seat and his eyelids fall closed when he feels how wet and ready I am.

  “Fuck! You’re soaking wet, you feel like silk….” He says and all I can do is utter greedy little gasps and lift against his fingers as they slide over my pussy.

  I clutch at his shoulders and I’m lost as he leans in, hovering over me, filling the small space with the wide bulk of his body. His thumb circles my clit with electrifying precision as his eyes hold mine, and then his lips are on my mouth, my neck, biting at my breasts through the dress. I want him to rip the fucking fabric, I need his tongue, his beautiful sculpted lips to suck perfect little marks into my skin. I feel myself start to crumble under his touch, come apart and fall to pieces like those skimpy panties.

  He’s whispering sweet-dirty words while one hand frees my breasts and his breath is like a furnace against my flesh, his tongue a hot lash against my nipple and I’m close, so close to the edge of something vast and unknown. He works one long finger past the slick folds of my sex and pushes it inside and then another, two long, thick fingers pumping in and out as his thumb circles in a relentless rhythm. My hips lift off the seat, thrusting and desperate for this insanely perfect pressure, and a hot wave starts at my toes and climbs fast and hard to my core and I’m shuddering and shouting— So good! Please, yesssss, ohhhhhhh!!!

  He’s crooning words, my name, soft and low— That’s it, Scarlet, you wanna come now? Yeah, sweet girl, just like that!

  When I come it’s like shattering, exploding, and melting all at once, and something wild breaks loose inside me, the good girl who did the right thing, dated the right boys, followed the rules, never strayed from the predictable path; that girl just went up in flames under his hands, and I love it. I swear to God, my body is humming, vibrating, probably glowing like a firefly, and it’s like nothing I’ve ever, ever felt before.

  My head falls back against the seat and he straightens my dress, trailing light kisses across my chest, my jaw
, my eyelids. He’s standing under the night sky, tall and solid, nearly blocking out the moonlight, and his angular face is a miracle of tenderness as he watches me recover. His eyes are bright and that smile—oh, that smile!—he knows exactly what he’s done to my body with nothing more than his fingers. That I might as well have been a virgin, because I’ve never climaxed so fast, so violently, a ferocious release, this is totally unexplored territory. Before he can move away I grab his shirt and beg him to climb in with me. He hesitates and my free hand moves quickly over the bulge in his jeans. He inhales sharply, hips thrusting forward, he’s indecently hard, long and thick, his cock jerks as my fingers curl around the pulsing shaft through the fabric.

  “Ah, beauty,” he groans, and leans in and kisses me, his hand covers mine on his cock, but I’m fast and shameless, unbuckling, unzipping. I sit up on the edge of the seat and jerk his jeans down so that his cock springs free and that’s it, my eyes widen at his size, so fucking long and roped with veins, the head massive, the tip glistening. I lick my lips without even thinking, my pulse is raging, pounding in my ears, I’m dizzy from the shock of adrenaline that shoots through my veins like a drug, I want this—HIM—now, in my hands, in my mouth, inside me. FUCK!

  I circle the shaft with my hands and lick a drop of moisture from the slit and he growls out a curse, head thrown back as he steps toward me, toward my touch, my tongue. The sound of his groans are all I need, I’ve never been good at this but his wild desire spurs me on. I wet my lips, my tongue flicking over the tight flare of the crown, taking him in, sucking, tongue swirling, probing, deeper, in love with the feel and taste of Holt. He loses it then, his hands tangle in my hair, holding my head as he shoves roughly into my mouth, thrusting, barely in control, scraping the back of my throat. His animal sounds, legs shaking as he presses into me, groaning, apologizing— Sorry baby, it’s too good, sooo fucking good. I’m close, fuck, Scarlet, you’re gonna ruin me!