Taming Sugar
Rebecca Grace Allen
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Taming Sugar: © 2017 by Rebecca Grace Allen
Cover Design by Annoula
Formatting by BB eBooks
ISBN: 978-0-9978792-2-3
Kobo Edition
All rights reserved.
After being dropped from the best role she’d ever gotten, actress Roxy Cavanaugh is on a week’s vacation to work on her patience. Being holed up in a little cabin isn’t doing much to help her, and neither is meeting sexy property manager Hunter Finn. Unfazed by her willful determination, Finn might be the first man strong enough to take her…if they don’t kill each other first.
A modern day, BDSM, Taming of the Shrew.
Praise for Taming Sugar:
“Rebecca Grace Allen has a way of making the raunchiest BDSM story feel tender and careful, and she works her magic again with Taming Sugar! Roxie gets just what she deserves—and what she needs, which makes this quickie all the sweeter!”
—Ms. Marie Lark
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
About the Book
Acknowledgements
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Thank you!
Other books by Rebecca Grace Allen
Acknowledgements
Thanks to the Goodreads BDSM Group for the Bring Out Your Kink: Kink In Ink Writing Event, and for the prompt that inspired this story. A lot of love to my crit partner, Marie Lark for her fabulous feedback, as always. And of course, to the Bard, William Shakespeare. Thanks for lending me your characters a while.
Chapter One
Roxy looked around the dilapidated cabin she’d been exiled to and sighed.
Okay, maybe she hadn’t exactly been exiled. She’d been sent on a vacation by her best friends, all expenses paid. And to a house that was significantly bigger than her own apartment. The place couldn’t exactly be called decrepit, but Gio and Rog’s idea of “rustic” was a far cry different from hers.
The front door still open behind her and her bags propped up against it, Roxy put her hands on her hips and surveyed the living room. A stack of logs sat in front of a wood-burning fireplace she was sure she’d never touch. In the middle of the room, one lumpy couch faced an ancient and dented TV. A wooden table sat in the far corner, surrounded by four mismatched chairs. To her right were a few steps leading up to a galley kitchen, the bathroom and bedroom beyond. And the whole room was lined by picture windows with a fabulous view of…trees.
Not a few trees. Dozens of them. Bunches upon bunches of trees.
“Get back to nature.” That was what Gio had told her when he’d sent her here to cool off. As if there had been any nature in her past to get back to. She’d been born in Manhattan, for fuck’s sake. Spent all of her twenty-five years on earth somewhere between the Upper West Side and Wall Street. When had nature ever been a part of her life?
It hadn’t. And she had no idea how staring at a bunch of trees was supposed to help her with her current problem.
The sound of gravel kicking down the driveway drew her attention. Roxy glanced over her shoulder as the cab driver backed his taxi toward the street. Tiny rocks spat over themselves as he rolled down the driveway, crunching and grinding together under the weight of the hulking vehicle she’d been shocked had made it up the winding mountain road.
She watched longingly as he drove off. After his departure, Roxy was immediately blanketed in silence, broken only by the chirp of crickets and whatever other sounds came out of the woods in Tannersville, New York at dusk.
She was officially stuck here now.
Well, not stuck, not really. She could’ve called the taxi company and had the driver come back. Turned the hell around and hopped on the first Amtrak out of Hudson home. But then she’d be proving Gio and Rog and that damn director who’d fired her right. Proving she couldn’t relax, couldn’t wind down, couldn’t stop throwing her weight around as the uncontrollable Roxy Cavanaugh.
She wasn’t ashamed of that title. She could be a bit of a diva at times, but it was because she was talented as shit. She knew it, and so did everybody else. Her gifts onstage certainly overshadowed the fact that she had a bit of a temper. But as Gio had said, if she didn’t figure out how to learn some patience, she’d probably never get a role again.
Kicking the door behind her closed in a huff, Roxy retrieved her bags. One week away should’ve meant more than two suitcases, but it wasn’t as if she’d traveled someplace exotic. Tannersville was once a booming ski town decades ago, full up with vacation rentals that these days were decently filled in the winter but were pretty much vacant in the summer. If she’d been sent here in winter, at least she could’ve dusted off her ski boots, but there was almost nothing to do this time of year.
Make that more than nothing.
At least the fridge in the cabin had been stocked with the grocery list she’d sent ahead of time, and the lack of other activities made it a perfect place to work on the things Gio had suggested for her.
“Meditate. Go for a long walk in the woods. Learn how to cook something.”
Oh, yeah. All things she was going to be excellent at.
Roxy heaved her suitcases up the stairs, then walked backwards, dragging them along with her until she’d made it into the bedroom. A hideous flowered comforter covered a full-sized bed that took up most of the room. There almost no space to maneuver between the bed and the wall, making it nearly impossible to get her bags to the closet. By the time she’d shimmied them over there, she was sweating.
A minor flash of panic at being alone up here set in, but Roxy pushed it aside. She was no stranger to being by herself. That was a long run she’d had a part in for years now, since no date had ever turned into a leading man.
Roxy collapsed on the bed, pulled her phone from her pocket, and tapped out a text.
‘You’ve sent me to my death, Gio.’
It went out into cyberspace with a satisfying little whoosh. Free Wi-Fi—the cabin’s only saving grace. She’d made sure to connect and type in the password before she even got out of the taxi.
Gio’s responding text came quickly. ‘You’re not going to die, Rox. It’s upstate, not the Ukraine.’
Roxy snorted. Her thumbs flew over the screen.
‘It smells like it’s the Ukraine in this bedroom.’
Not that she knew what the Ukraine smelled like. But it was probably something along the lines of mothballs, stale air and musty blankets. Which was everything filling her nostrils right now.
Her phone chirped again a few seconds later.
‘The Feldmans said it might be stuffy there with the lack air of conditioning. Open a window.’
The Feldmans were Rog’s aunt and uncle, owners of these oh-so-lovely digs. Roxy had dismissed the lack of central air, since Rog insisted it never got that hot up here in August, and the breeze coming off the mountains would keep her cool.
Clearly she was never speaking to him again.
Roxy peeled herself off the bed and went to the window. After a few seconds of fighting with it, the glass pane shot up surprisingly fast. It slammed to a halt at the top of the frame, which apparently was a homing beacon for a crap-load of giant bees. They came at the screen like a small stinging orchestra and knocked angrily against it. The sound of their buzzing was almost as loud as Roxy’s yelp
as she jammed the window shut again.
Grabbing her phone, Roxy ran from the room. She barricaded herself in the bathroom, flipped on the light and called Gio.
“No, my darling,” he answered in a sing-song greeting. “I can’t come there and open the window for you.”
“Bees!” Roxy said, breathless. “Ten thousand angry bees outside the bedroom window.”
“I think you’re being a bit melodramatic.”
“I am n—”
Before she could finish her sentence, the single fluorescent light in the room made a popping sound. She caught her own horrified expression in the mirror before the bulb shorted out and she was plunged into darkness.
Roxy shrieked and yanked the door open. Stumbling into the light and down to the living room, she sank onto the couch, closed her eyes and pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead.
“Did the ten thousand angry bees sting you?” Gio asked.
“No. The light in the bathroom went out. And I’m not being melodramatic. I’m being punished for telling that idiot accompanist she needed to learn how to fucking play.”
“Among other things.”
The note of placating humor in Gio’s voice both pissed Roxy off and drove her into stomach-plunging homesickness for her friend.
“Yes. Among other things,” she agreed with a huff.
Gio sighed, a sound that was both sympathy and exasperation. Roxy had heard that sigh more times than she could count since their days back at Julliard.
“The bees I could tell you to ignore,” he said. “But obviously the light needs to be fixed. How else will you doll up that pretty face?”
“There’s no one to fix my face up for. All those trees don’t care how I look.”
Roxy winced at her own whining. She sounded pathetic. That wasn’t how her father had raised her. Sure, she was here because she’d been booted from one of the best roles she’d gotten to date, but that was only because she’d been doing what he’d taught her. Take no shit. Demand what you want out of life.
Demand respect, Roxanne. And people will treat you with it.
Opening her eyes, she straightened her spine and sat up.
“Someone needs to come here and fix this, Gio. Now.”
He went silent for a moment, then sighed again. “Okay. Call the property manager. There should be a note on the fridge with his name and number.”
Roxy stood, marched to the kitchen and snatched the paper in question from the magnet keeping it up.
“Hunter Finn?” she asked. “That’s the property manager?”
“Sounds right to me.”
Of course that was the guy’s name. He was probably some redneck wore flannel and smelled like manure.
“I’m calling him now. Goodbye, Gio.”
“Rox—” he replied warily. “I’m sure it will all get taken care of. Just try not to be too…you, okay?”
Too her? Meaning she shouldn’t boss anyone around too much? Roxy momentarily faltered, then looked up to the bedroom and bathroom she currently couldn’t use.
“Not promising anything,” she said. Once they’d hung up, Roxy immediately dialed Hunter Finn’s number. Her call was answered on the fourth ring, her greeting a single word:
“Finn.”
Roxy paused. His voice was deep. Soft, and yet commanding. As if instead of people calling him to do business for them, it was somehow the other way around.
She wasn’t having that.
“Hello, Mr. Finn. I understand you’re the property manager of The Feldman’s cabin?”
“I am.”
That was all he said, his words coming to an abrupt halt like a dropped line. He didn’t follow it up with a “what can I do for you?” or “what seems to be the problem?” either. He simply waited.
Someone had a high opinion of himself.
“Well, it doesn’t look like you’re very good at your job,” she snapped. “I’ve got a swarm of bees and a pitch black bathroom and God knows what else wrong in this house, and I’ve barely been here ten minutes.”
A low chuckle was her reply. “I’ll be right there.”
He ended the call, and Roxy stared at her phone in surprise. She was the one who did the hanging up in life, not the other way around. Not that she actually had a reason to be angry. She’d gotten her way—she wasn’t Russell Cavanaugh’s daughter for nothing after all, and being the only child of an extremely wealthy and powerful businessman had taught her well. He’d taught her to be tough when she had to be, to know her own worth and refuse to wait for anything.
It was the same advice that landed her here.
Roxy scrunched up her nose. Maybe she hadn’t sounded any different on the phone just now than she had during rehearsal last week, but she was within her rights this time. Something was broken, and it was this guy’s job to fix it. And once he did his job, she could get back to doing hers. Relaxing. Getting back to nature.
Or holing up in her yoga pants and watching Netflix for a week, Gio’s list be damned.
By the time a dark blue pick-up truck that presumably belonged to Hunter Finn arrived in front of the house twenty minutes later, Roxy was waiting by the door with arms crossed. Be right there in Manhattan meant a bike messenger weaving like a maniac through traffic with a script on his back, or a Starbucks delivery appearing approximately five minutes after she’d ordered it.
Apparently, be right there meant something different upstate, because the way the truck idled in the driveway before the engine cut was the opposite of haste.
Roxy was about to tell Hunter Finn exactly what she thought of his slow, hick ass when the door popped open and a set of work boots hit the gravel. He stepped out of the truck, limbs unfolding as he came to his full height, and oh, Hunter Finn was no flannel-wearing redneck at all. His dark hair was shorn close to his scalp in a military buzz cut, and he was clean shaven, although Roxy would’ve bet if she ran a palm over the v-shape of his chin, she’d feel the prickly rasp of stubble under her fingers. A powerhouse of a chest was visible even beneath the confines of his T-shirt, his arms hewn in a way that could only be described as chiseled. His denim shorts were cut off at the knee, and even though Roxy had never had a thing for a man’s calves before, she couldn’t stop staring.
He slammed the door shut, took a few steps up the walk and glanced up at her from beneath his brows. Piercing blue eyes regarded her quietly as he squinted into the setting sun.
“It’s late enough in the day that the bees should be less active,” he said with no other greeting, no apologies for taking so long to arrive. “I’ll take care of that first.”
Roxy opened her mouth, but no sarcastic comment came out. All she could manage was a, “Great. Thanks.”
He nodded and went to the back of the truck. A ladder was one of the many pieces of equipment he seemed to have stashed back there, as well as a can of what she assumed would kill the offending swarm. He tucked the bug spray under one arm, then picked up the ladder with ease. His shirt lifted with the move, and Roxy was afforded a teasing glimpse of the taut muscle that hugged the curve of his spine.
She swallowed. Yeah, they didn’t make ’em like that in the city. All of her straight cast mates fell into the metrosexual category, too polished with their hair gel and cologne. Truth be told, she spent most of her time with Gio and Rog, and she couldn’t recall the last time she’d been on an actual date. Not that Hunter Finn was date material. Men with dirt under their fingernails didn’t get their hands on her.
But, seriously. Goddamn.
Aware she wasn’t exactly at her best after two hours on a train and a half hour cab ride, Roxy fluffed out her bangs, then flipped her head over to tease some volume into her long blond locks. She tugged on her shorts until they sat a bit lower on her hips, then pulled down her top until it showed the hint of cleavage that got her all the bombshell roles. Hunter Finn didn’t look at her at all however, as he easily balanced the steel frame on his shoulder and walked toward the house.
“You were perfectly safe,” he said. “These are carpenter bees.”
“So, what? They’re bees that build shit, or something?”
He stared at her for a long moment, and it made her prickle with something that wasn’t quite discomfort. More like she was being judged. And had been found wanting.
“They bore into the wood to make their nests,” Finn told her. “The males don’t even have stingers. And the females are docile, unless provoked.”
His tone was all arrogance. Any concern she’d felt flushed quickly out of her system.
“It’s never actually been necessary for me to know what different types of bees there are,” she said.
“No, I’ll bet it hasn’t.”
He chuckled again as he said it, and the sound both aggravated her and made heat pool in her belly. Lower than her belly, if she was being honest. What the fuck was that about? The guy was a total dick. She had half a mind to go back in the house and ignore him, but stayed put instead, acting like she was surveying his work. Finn uncapped the can, aimed it at the bees and sprayed the ever loving shit out of them. A dozen or so insect carcasses fell to the ground. He went up the ladder, and Roxy tried not to admire the cut shape of his forearms and sun-warmed skin, a physique obviously created from hours of hard work.
She’d never had to work—not like that. She’d studied her method and craft at school, and danced until her toes had bled. She’d had vocal lessons until she could sight read cold at perfect pitch, proving to anyone she auditioned for that she was the best triple threat in a decade. But she’d never stood on a ladder in her life, not one that didn’t involve her career anyway. And her toned arms, abs and rear had been born in a gym off Fifth Avenue.
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