by T. S. Joyce
No, no, no. Don’t get a crush. It’s Trigger. Trigger Massey. The boy who was always rude and could barely stand to look at you. That is not your person. Leave that boy alone.
The door swung open, and as she jumped in startlement, Trigger strode in, fastening a belt buckle over some jeans he’d put on. He was still shirtless, and his eyes were locked right on hers with such an intensity in them, her stomach dipped to her toes. His black hair was mussed on top as though he’d run his big hands through it, and there was a devilish smile sitting right at the corners of his lips. He didn’t say a word, just shoved her robe off her shoulders, gripped her waist, and dragged her against him. His skin was surprisingly hot. She knew because she splayed her palms against his chest, and that heat zinged straight up her arms. His chest was hard as a rock, and her breath began to shake. She should run. Every instinct from her childhood said this was a bad idea, but the way he grabbed her with such confidence made her want to give in. Something about the sparking intensity in his eyes as he searched her face made her want to give him control. How utterly terrifying. How utterly exciting.
He slid his hand up her waist, dragging the hem of her tank top along with it, fingertips brushing her bare skin as he slid her shirt upward. Her body quivered and warmed from the inside out in anticipation. It had been so damn long since a man had touched her. Since she’d allowed anyone to touch her.
She exhaled a soft, shaking breath. “Trigger,” she whispered.
A strange sound emanated from his throat. It was almost as if he purred. It was a sexy noise, and his fingertips found her jawline. He brushed it in gentle strokes, like he was petting her. Like he was steadying her, and then he gritted his teeth in a feral smile and gripped her jaw. She yelped, but he only angled his face and seized her lips with his. It was rough. His beard scratched her soft skin, and his teeth grazed her lips. Three seconds, and he pushed his tongue past her lips and tasted her. Run. Run Ava, what are you doing? But her feet were planted and now her traitor hands were sliding up his chest and wrapping around the back of his neck.
She didn’t want him to stop. Since she’d come here, she’d been bombarded with memories she’d long ago buried, but Trigger was giving her an escape from all the noise in her head. With each stroke of his tongue, she lost herself a little more. And she didn’t hate it. In fact…she liked it.
She brushed her tongue against his, and that purring sound emanated from his chest again. She could feel it against her breasts now that he’d pulled her in close. His arm was strong around her back now, his other hand holding her face in place as he kissed her like no man had done before. It was wild, powerful, and unexpected, and each time he changed the angle of his head, he never left her lips. It was as if he liked the taste of her so much he couldn’t bear to put an inch between them for even a moment.
Traitor body backed slowly toward the bed, testing him, and Trigger followed, his body staying right with hers. It was graceful and easy, like a dance they’d done a hundred times before. Their feet moved together, hers backward, his forward, toes staying right against each other as they walked the five steps to the bed.
She thought she would ease onto it all seductively, but Trigger bit her bottom lip, then leaned down, picked her up, and tossed her unceremoniously on the bed like a caveman. A squeak escaped her, but she didn’t have time to get angry at his surprise move because he was on her within a second. Between her legs, he rolled against her sex. Only his jeans and the thin material of her panties separated them, and she could easily feel his big, thick erection. A wave of possessiveness took her. That’s mine.
What? Mine? Something was wrong with her. Or with him. He was making her feel…feel…well, he was making her feel. Why wasn’t she running? Ooooooh, he was grinding against her now as he kissed her. Trigger gripped her wrists and slammed her hands against the bed above her head so now she was in a completely submissive position. No. No. No. This wasn’t what she liked in the bedroom. She liked to be in charge. So why were there a million butterflies flapping around in her stomach right now? And why she was rocking her hips to meet him? Oh, she was in trouble. Deep, wide, humongous trouble. He smelled good. He’d been outside all that time doing God knows what, but he still smelled of hotboy deodorant, cologne, and something subtle. Something animalistic. Fur? Maybe he had a dog.
His stomach was flexing so hard against hers, and with every roll of his hips he was hitting her just right. She could finish like this so easily. Was that a thing? She hadn’t dry humped since college.
“Ava,” Trigger growled.
“Hmm?”
“Stop thinking. Just feel.”
“I…I don’t know how to do that.”
He smiled against her lips and dragged his fingertips down her neck. “Feel good?”
“Yes,” she answered breathily.
“And this?” he asked, grabbing her breast gently and massaging.
“Oh, yes,” she whispered.
He trailed kisses down her jaw and clamped his teeth gently on her sensitive earlobe, then released her. “This?”
“Mmm hmmm.”
Trigger eased back by a couple inches and slid his hand down the front of her panties. Without a second of hesitation, he pushed his finger into her and whispered, “That’s a good girl,” when she arched her back against the mattress and let off a soft groan.
Holy hell, Trigger was good. Really good. He was playing her body like a violin. He was hitting all the right pressure points, and now she was on fire with each stroke of his finger. And when he pushed a second finger into her, she gasped his name. She was lost. Completely lost. There were no other thoughts outside of whatever Trigger was doing to her. She closed her eyes and just…was.
He pushed into her harder, faster, and she rocked her hips to meet his touch. But right as she was on the verge of coming, right as she was raking her nails down his back and moaning in rhythm to the pace he was setting, right when her body was about to detonate around his fingers, he pulled out of her and jerked away. His movement was fast. Too fast. Her body was left cold, and he damn near blurred to the other side of the room.
“Shhhhit.” He stood there panting, chest heaving with his breath, his neck and shoulders and face flushed, making the strange color of his eyes even brighter. He ran his hand through his hair, mussing it even more, and then he muttered, “I’m sorry,” and walked out of the room. He didn’t bother to close the door, but a few seconds later, she heard the forceful click of his own bedroom door.
And as she sat on that bed, leaned back on locked arms, her clothes all disheveled and her body feeling unsatisfied, the mysteries that surrounded Trigger Massey became even deeper. Before, she’d only wanted to do this job and leave as soon as possible, but now? A small curious part of her was sitting straight up and paying attention to that quiet man.
Maybe he didn’t hate her after all.
Maybe he never had.
Chapter Six
Sleep hadn’t come easy for Trigger. In fact, sleep hadn’t come at all. Fuck, if Colton found out he went after his sister, he would shoot him. Again. He had three bullet holes in his body from Colton trying to stop the bear from rampaging.
Colton was one of them good shots. Practiced. If this was the Wild West, Colton would’ve been one of those infamous gunslingers. He had the drive and eye for it, and thank God for small blessings, because three times Colton had redirected the bear’s attention from wreaking havoc outside of the ranch.
He hadn’t aimed to kill on those. If he found out Trigger had been fooling around with Ava last night, though? He’d put one through his heart and piss on his carcass.
And Trigger couldn’t even blame him. He didn’t have a sister, but he’d been super protective of Ava any time she dated a boy in high school. He had wanted to rip their innards out and hang them from a light pole. That wasn’t sarcasm. He’d spent many a night lying awake, thinking of ways to kill the boys he imagined had their paws on his girl. Trigger frowned so deep his fac
e hurt, and he pulled Harley to a stop. What the fuck. His girl? Ava wasn’t his. She never was and she never would be. Leave that girl alone.
Harley blasted an impatient snort and dragged a front hoof through the snow. Beast. Trigger had asked him to stay still for three seconds and already the stallion was impatient. Well, he was gonna hate this next part.
Trigger sighed a froze breath and scanned the clearing. The frozen creek was giving him hell already this winter, and the cattle were thirsty. He still had a hundred head to keep alive until the auctions in the spring. That was his big payday. Maybe he could float the ranch another six months if he kept the herd safe. From himself.
He hated his life. Hated himself. He was full of flaws and failing at everything. Dad had been so good at running this place, and when he’d gotten sick, where had Trigger been? Running a motorcycle club a few towns over, leaving all the work to Dad. Stubborn old mule didn’t tell him how bad it was at the end, but Trigger should’ve seen it. He should’ve been here.
Harley stomped again and turned, clamped his teeth on Trigger’s jeans and yanked his leg. It wasn’t play. If Harley was more flexible, that asshole would’ve bit the tar out of his shin. Trigger had learned long ago to keep his legs back a few inches to avoid the bites.
He dismounted stiffly, as always happened the day after a Change when his body was screaming to stay in bed and recover. Yanking the reins, he pulled Harley over to an old felled tree and tied him off. With the other mounts, he could just wrap the reins once around a branch and they would stay put. With Harley though, he had to secure him better because the monster would run off the second he yanked free. Trigger had spent a whole lot of hours tracking down his runaway horse.
He bit the fingertip of his glove and jerked his hand out of it, and with the glove hanging from his mouth, he pulled an ax from a tie on the saddle. And with the cattle bellowing around him, he went to work busting up the four inches of ice on top of the creek water, careful to check the mottled white and black bull’s position regularly. He had an attitude to match Harley’s, hated all people and animals other than his cows. If Trigger wasn’t careful, he would get charged from behind and end up with cracked ribs thanks to the flying hooves of Deadfast Demon, a retired PBR bucking bull he’d gotten at a discount because he was a fence jumper with aggression problems.
Whatever it said about Trigger that he liked the mean animals the most, he didn’t really care. This life out here required toughness. Submissive animals got eaten. By him. Deadfast would charge him and smash him in his bear face if he even tried to take a bite out of him. Trigger liked that shit.
The air was so cold it was burning his lungs, and as he broke through the layers of ice and exposed fresh water, the wind shifted. He inhaled twice just to make sure he wasn’t imagining her, but nope. He had Ava’s scent memorized from when they were kids. Sure, she’d changed up her perfume, but her skin still smelled exactly the same.
And in an instant, the memories of how wet she’d felt as he slid his fingers into her washed through him. He had to get this under control. He had to get back to his ornery old self so she would stay away from him and do her job and leave. It wasn’t for him that he wanted her gone. That was gonna feel like ripping his guts out, just like when she’d left here at eighteen. No, he needed her to leave for her own sake, her own safety. For her own chance at happiness. All he knew how to do was hurt people.
And Ava Dorset deserved so much better.
****
“I just don’t understand why you won’t let me see the inside,” Ava murmured over the crunching of the snow under the horses’ hooves.
“Because,” Colton gritted out, “it’s my cabin, and I don’t want you in there. My territory. I don’t have to explain. It ain’t like you ever invited me to your fancy apartment in the city. So stop bellyaching about a lack of invitation into my den.”
“Your den? Why do you talk so weird now?” She was staring at him, but all she got was his profile. He had been avoiding eye contact all morning. Great. Apparently, living with Trigger was making her brother weird, too.
“Lots of people call their houses ‘dens.’”
“I’ve never heard it called that.”
“Aaah! Ava! Are you gonna be on my case the entire time you are here? If so, I’m leaving. I’ll go stay in town, and you can annoy Trigger instead. One day with you, and I’m maxed out.”
“You just don’t like anyone knowing your business, but I’m not just anyone, Colton. I’m your sister, and you’re keeping me at arm’s length. We have two weeks!” Frustrated, she said exactly what she wanted to. “Make me want to come back here again!”
Colton jerked a glance to her, but she gasped. His eyes were that strange color Trigger’s had been in the cabin light. It was almost pure gold.
“What the fuck is wrong with your face?” she said so loud, the white filly named Queenie skittered a couple steps to the side, and she had to let her settle before she said at a less-psychotic volume, “What the fuck is wrong with your face?”
“I told you,” he muttered, giving her his profile again. He lowered his cowboy hat over his forehead. “Bear attack.”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it. Are those contacts? Y’all can’t afford more than beans for dinner but you’re wearing colored contacts? Is it to get girls? I don’t understand. You look fine the way you are.” She huffed a breath and eased Queenie right beside his bay mount with four white socks. “Colton, you looked fine before. You know that, right? Before all the muscles and weird contacts.”
“What are you getting at?” Colton asked in an irritated tone.
“I mean, just because your face is scarred up now, it doesn’t mean you have to change other parts of yourself to take away from it. The scars look fine. I mean…they look badass. You survived a bear attack, and that story is written right on your face for everyone to see. Own it, big brother. Don’t get a complex. Don’t change other stuff about yourself to draw attention from the scars. You’re fine just the way you are.”
Colton ghosted her a glance, once, twice. On the third time, he offered her a curt nod and murmured, “What, did you major in? Psychoanalyst bullshit one-oh-one? Don’t study me, little sister. I’m complicated, and you won’t figure me out. That ain’t a challenge either. I’m not broken, so don’t try and fix me.” With a fiery look, made a clicking sound behind his teeth while kicking his horse before trotting away toward a herd of milling, mooing cattle.
“Smells like cow poop,” she complained under her breath as she watched him leave. “Specifically, it smells like bullshit, Colton.”
“It ain’t bullshit!” he called over his shoulder from much too far away to have been able to hear her. What the hell?
She was bundled up for the frigid morning weather, but still, she got chills on her forearms that prickled her skin uncomfortably. And then she saw him—Trigger. She’d been anxious to see him all morning while she’d gone through the stacks of paperwork on his finances that he left on the kitchen table for her to find this morning. She hadn’t been able to focus, and her attention had drifted time and time again to the front window in hopes that Trigger was coming back for breakfast. When he didn’t, she baked a can of buttermilk biscuits in the oven, buttered all of them, and packed them up in foil in hopes of keeping them semi-warm, then enlisted the help of Colton to find Trigger. He ran a ranch. For all she knew, he could be out all day working, and what if he didn’t have food? Yeah, that had been her excuse to get to see him. Colton didn’t even flinch when she asked him to help her saddle up Queenie, the ancient, scruffy white horse that looked just slow enough not to terrify Ava on her first ride in over a decade. She hadn’t been in a saddle since she’d left Darby, Montana.
Colton seemed to be herding off a monstrous mottled white and black bull that had been dragging its hoof through the snow and inching closer to Trigger. But Colton cutting a path through the herd meant Ava had a clear view of the man who had surprised her so much
last night.
He was slamming an ax into the ice over a little river. Each time he connected the blade to the frozen water, chips of ice exploded around him. In a smooth motion, he pulled the ax back and hurled it downward again. Trigger made it look easy, effortless, tireless, but she knew if she tried to lift that heavy ax, she would be worn out in ten swings and have blisters on her palms for days. God, he was sexy. He wore jeans over work boots and an olive-green jacket with sheep wool lining around the collar. The cowboy hat he wore wasn’t the same one as yesterday, this one more beige than cream, but it looked damn good on him. There was his black horse, Harley, pulling as hard as he could on his reins that were knotted to an old felled log. From the divots in the snow, the stallion had already dragged it about ten feet. She gave a private smile for his bad behavior and then guided Queenie to Trigger. He stopped and straightened his spine, but he didn’t turn around as he growled out, “I’m working. What do you need?”
She was so taken back by his rudeness she couldn’t find the words to answer. She’d thought they were past this. The whole fingering and fooling around and making out should’ve gotten them to a better place, not right back to square-freaking-one.
Trigger twisted, and his eyes were full of anger. “Ava, I have a million things on my plate right now. Say your needs and be on your way.”
What was this hollow, aching sensation in her chest? Hurt? When was the last time she let a man hurt her? When Dad left. When he decided he didn’t want to raise two teenage kids and would rather chase blackjack tables and horse betting. That was the last time. Until now.
She pursed her lips and blinked hard a few times. Damn him for making her feel weak, and double-damn him for making her eyes burn with these stupid tears. She wasn’t a crier.
She tossed him the bag of foil-wrapped buttered biscuits, her appetite completely slaughtered now, and said, “I brought you breakfast. Enjoy your day. I’ll ask finance questions later.” And because she couldn’t help herself, she added, “When you decide you can talk to me in a respectful manner, you pompous anal hair.” And with her pink mitten-clad middle finger up in the air, she turned Queenie and made her way back through the milling cattle, because fuck him. And herself. She was so dumb for entertaining the idea of a crush on him.