by Christa Wick
Sutton Lee
Real Cowboys Love Curves
Christa Wick
Contents
About Sutton Lee Turk
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
More from Christa Wick
About Sutton Lee Turk
Meet the Turk brothers one hard riding, curve loving cowboy at a time!
From the moment FBI Agent Madigan Armstrong met Sutton Turk, she has tried to avoid him at all costs. It's not that the plus-size beauty doesn't want to get close to the ex-soldier. She fantasizes about it a lot—usually in bed, usually while her eyes are closed and her fingers explore the soft, delicate curves of her body.
But Sutton is her boss's brother. Worse yet, Maddy has been hiding a secret from the entire Turk family for years. Once exposed, that secret could force Maddy out of her job, ending the world she has so painstakingly built around her.
She would have to be desperate to let him in, desperate for the kind of help only Sutton can give. She would have to be no-other-choice desperate…
And she is.
Suggested reading order for books in the Real Cowboys Love Curves series
Adler James—Book One
Walker Pierce—Book Two
Barrett Cole—Book Three
Sutton Lee—Book Four
Copyright © 2018 by Christa Wick
All rights reserved.
Any person, place, entity or brand is fictitious or fictitiously used.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Chapter One
Finished with my quad curls, I swivel on the weight bench and stare at the scars running from the middle of my right thigh to where they disappear into the sock. Time has lessened the leg’s Frankenstein appearance. Gone are the once swollen red welts stitched together. The dents in the flesh have filled in, dark auburn hair returning to lightly dust the skin.
Only the white lines remain. They will always remain, mocking me on the loss of a life filled with action, purpose and concrete results.
My mood jumps from dark lament to guilt. I didn't lose a life—I lost a lifestyle. I’m still breathing. Gimp leg or not, I’m still kicking. Others in my unit were not so lucky. Three of them have died in the time since a mortar round shredded my parachute in a country I am forbidden from naming.
Grief chases away guilt. The emotion rising up is not for my fallen comrades. I never met two of the men. The third I knew only loosely. He transferred into the unit to fill my spot after the Army pushed me out on a medical discharge.
The grief suddenly grinding me down is for the father and sister I lost a few months before my injury. It is for all the family they left behind, especially my sweet little niece who must grow up without a mother or a grandfather. The preschooler’s cherubic face reminds me daily of what real loss looks like, reminds me why I can’t sit on my ass whining because the military no longer finds me fit to serve.
So I get off my ass, put the weights away and head into the kitchen. Scooping up a Gatorade I left out, I crack the seal and chug it down. When the bottle is empty, I toss it into the recycling bin and grab a cold one from the refrigerator.
Drinking the second bottle more slowly, I stare at the warped reflection of my body in the appliance's shiny metallic surface.
My first year home, I lost weight, all of it muscle. Recovery took massive amounts of calories as bone knitted itself together. Therapy concentrated on getting me on my feet, walking with crutches and then a cane, progressing from there to an off-loading brace and then to walking without any assistance.
Now I am busting my ass to put the muscle back on—all so I can risk taking my first jump since the injury, a jump the Army doctors proclaimed I would never be able to make again.
I don't plan on anything fancy or dangerous. And I definitely won’t do it close to home. My widowed mother has enough problems to stress and fuss over. Maybe after the first few jumps, I’ll let her know what I’ve done.
First, however, I need to strap my balls back on and book a date for the jump before my brain “conveniently” wanders off to some other task and I’m left looking for my balls all over again.
Mind firmly set, I take the Gatorade into the living room and plop down on the couch. My sweaty back immediately suctions to the leather. I shift, unstick, then stick again.
Abandoning the attempt to get comfortable, I balance my laptop across my legs, open the browser and click the link I favorited for a skydiving company in Whitefish. The little city bordering Glacier National Park is in-state but nearly four-hundred miles away. I can book a jump and not worry about the news reaching any of Willow Gap’s gossips.
Yep, I coax my restless thoughts. All I have to do is click the RESERVATION button, pick a date, enter my bank card number, and then I’ll be good to go.
Fingers strumming against the computer’s edge, I glare at the button. It’s nothing more than pixels, just a rounded rectangle filled with a green background and white text waiting patiently to be clicked.
I skim a finger across the touchpad until my mouse hovers over the button.
Fresh sweat dots my face.
It’s just a booking. Worst case scenario, something comes up and I lose the deposit. And if I show for the jump, it’s not like anyone will shoot at me. I won’t be staring at a pre-dawn sky while the ribbons of my mortar-shredded parachute flap at terminal velocity.
It’s just a booking…
Three short raps sound against my front door. I slam the laptop shut, but don’t move to answer. I don’t recognize the knock, didn’t hear any footsteps on the porch beforehand.
Silly for me to think someone is sneaking up on the place. My house is on the edge of a town that itself feels like it teeters at the edge of the world. The only danger in Willow Gap comes from the kind of hard work some folks have to do—handling horses and cattle, logging, working the oil fields. It doesn’t come from home invasions or ISIS death squads.
The three raps repeat. I slide the laptop onto the coffee table and quietly approach the front door from the side. My heart shouldn’t be pounding in my chest, but it is. I shouldn’t be able to hear the tattered strips of my parachute from that distant morning, but I do.
Footsteps sound at last on the porch, their direction heading away from the door. Still moving cautiously, I turn the knob and pull.
The way I’m sweating, my soldier's instinct expects an assassin. For one flashing second, I am instead treated to the shapely backside of a woman dressed in a summery skirt. Soft flounces of the material play around the middle of her calves as a lustrous cascade of dark red hair spills down her shoulders and the center of her back.
The hair is gorgeous, but it cannot compete with the plump hips that my eyes lock on. I want to reach out and touch that backside, pa
lm one rounded cheek and give a little squeeze.
Okay, more than a little squeeze and more than once.
Burying the impulse, I clear my throat and speak.
“Can I help you?”
The woman slowly pivots in my direction. My gaze doesn’t make it up to her face before she answers. I’m too hooked on the sight of the full breasts bouncing against the same gauzy fabric as the skirt.
“I really hope so,” the woman replies in a hesitant, yet familiar, voice.
I shake my head a couple of times. There’s no way that soft, breathless voice belongs to Madigan Armstrong. Especially coming from a body wrapped in so much allure. Far as I’ve been told, no one is getting married today—and weddings seem to be the only occasion for which Maddy leaves behind her rugged jeans or the understated, oversized pantsuits that scream FBI before she ever whips out her handgun or flashes her badge.
Familiar voice or not—my brain refuses the possibility that the woman I’ve been lusting over for almost two years is standing on my porch with her luscious, plentiful curves so clearly outlined.
Look up, genius.
“Is everything okay?” the woman asks.
I nod, my hand lifting to rub furiously at my forehead, the gesture nothing more than an excuse for avoiding her gaze.
“Yeah,” I mumble. “Sorry about that, Agent Armstrong. Fell asleep on the couch after working out—then I got up too fast or something.”
Already pinched tight, the beautiful, freckled face puckers another degree as Madigan Armstrong quickly closes the distance between us. Her voice, so hesitant before, sounds strong as she takes control.
“You need to sit down,” she orders, gripping my shoulders.
Her fingertips are cool to the touch, or I’m still hot from the workout…or from staring so hard at the fabric cuddling her breasts. She hasn’t really touched me before, not on purpose. I've delighted in the unintentional graze of a shoulder or curvaceous hip. That magnificent backside offered an achingly brief caress once when she had to slide past me in an overcrowded room to reach her seat.
That single ass-to-groin moment had been painfully erotic. The way she touches me now is nearly the same, the skin-on-skin contact sending little waves of pleasure rippling down my back.
“Did you re-hydrate?” she asks, steering me onto the couch I just vacated.
I point at the bottle of Gatorade on the coffee table.
“What’s gone plus a full one right before it,” I answer.
Looming over me, her heavy breasts bouncing in front of my face, she nods, scoops the bottle up and thrusts it into my hands.
“Finish it.”
Lips rolling against one another, I keep from snorting at the order. Now that I lied about feeling dizzy, I have to play along. I can’t very well admit to her catching me in a locked-and-loading position, all the blood rushing from my now useless brain to a cock that continues to swell…and swell...and swell.
“Drink,” she demands when I don’t take the bottle.
“Not while a guest is standing,” I reply. “In fact, can I offer you anything, Agent Armstrong?”
A scowl thins the round face as she sinks onto the club chair.
“I’m fine,” she answers.
Buying time for my burgeoning dick to go down, I sip at the Gatorade and cast surreptitious glances across the coffee table.
I still can’t believe this is Madigan.
Not in this outfit.
Not acknowledging the fact that I exist.
When the scowl doesn’t ease from her otherwise soft features, I get worried. Maddy has never been to my place. Hell, we’ve never been alone, not even when I stop by the office she shares with my brother.
“Emerson okay?” I ask, realizing for the first time she might have come to my house on a Friday afternoon to deliver terrible news.
Her head bounces, then her hands curl around her knees.
“It’s nothing like that. I didn’t mean to worry you…I…”
My brother might be unharmed, but I know a woman on the verge of crying when I have her sitting in front of me. Still, I don’t have the right of familiarity. I can’t just get up and wrap an arm around her shoulders, comforting Maddy until she is ready to talk.
“Why don’t you collect yourself while I grab a shirt,” I suggest, rising from the couch and heading for the hall.
Madigan doesn’t stop me. I slip into the bedroom. If her problem requires immediate action, it won’t do to be in just a t-shirt and shorts. So I take an extra minute to slide into jeans and boots.
Returning to the living room, I bypass Madigan and go into the kitchen. Pulling a gallon jug filled with water and mint leaves, I pour a glass and carry it out to Madigan.
She accepts it with a wan smile. “Betty Rae make this?”
I wince as she mentions the town’s biggest gossip. I’ve known Betty Rae almost as long as I’ve known my own mother. No denying the woman does a lot of good around town—but she’s also an information merchant. I’m not in the market to buy or sell, so I am constantly hoping she decides to spread her help somewhere else.
But it’s not like I can share my opinion of Betty Rae with Madigan. I can’t really share anything with her. After nearly two years of my trying, we aren’t any closer than the day we first met.
“Betty Rae brings some by every few days,” I answer as I take a seat on the couch. “Be nice to have it all gone before the next batch arrives. I think her feelings were hurt the first time she returned and the container was only half finished. I’ve been dumping a little bit since then.”
Madigan nods and then we sit in silence as she takes a few sips of the mint water. She stares at the glass in her hands, studying the way drops of condensation form on the outside. I focus on her face, reasonably secure she won’t catch me looking because she hardly ever bothers to meet my gaze.
Her lashes and brows are a darker shade of red than the hair that flows past her shoulders. Hiding beneath the lowered lashes are yellow-brown eyes that glow like topaz catching sunlight. A straight nose and strong cheekbones balance out the softly rounded chin. The cherry pink mouth has fueled more dirty fantasies and hand action than I care to admit, even to myself.
My attention is locked on her full lips as she finally places her glass on a coaster. I look at the fireplace behind where she sits, careful to avoid any glance at the clock lest she think I’m eager to have her go.
She clears her throat. The sound borders on a whimper.
I sit up straighter, silently urging her to start.
“My sister moved in with me,” she begins, the words stilted. “You probably don’t know that.”
“Didn’t know you have a sister,” I answer, forcing a neutral tone.
I’m probably overreacting, but I feel like my chest is caving in from a sharp kick or punch. Family is basic information, information that is shared with friends and acquaintances. I apparently rate as neither in Madigan’s estimation.
“Go on,” I urge, hands folded in my lap, one thumb scraping at the opposite wrist in irritation because, for all my attempts at more, Madigan treats me little better than a stranger.
“Delia is seven years older than me,” she says.
I nod and store the information away. I'm not certain exactly how old Madigan is, but the range she has given suggests Delia is mid-thirties.
“She lost her husband two months ago,” Madigan continues.
I nod again, but the timing immediately bothers me. If Maddy means two full months, then her brother-in-law died a week before my brother Barrett got married. We were both at the wedding and reception. As much as I looked at her, I saw no evidence of grief on her face at the time.
If I’m honest with myself, I’d seen little evidence of any emotion during the wedding and reception. Seems to me that most women are either happy or sad at weddings, the event triggering reflections on the state of their own love life. Madigan wore a face like she was sitting at the final table of a mill
ion-dollar poker tournament.
Inscrutable.
“She and Kenneth met when they were both paramedics in Boston,” she tells me. Gripping the glass of mint water with two hands, she lifts it to her lips and takes another sip, water sloshing from the tension running through her arms.
I lean across the table and take the glass from her. What I want to do is pull her across the table and onto my lap. It doesn’t matter how much Madigan has iced me out. Something hit me hard in the chest the very first time I saw her.
“Tell me what you need,” I say, my tone gentle but with the firmness of a command.
Sucking her lips inward, she drops her head.
“I thought moving Delia and Caiden out here would help,” she whispers. “I’ve always had a good rapport with him.”
My shoulders tense up a little more. Caiden is probably a kid. Probably her sister’s kid. Even if he is an unrelated adult male, I have no right to wonder just how good the “rapport” with Madigan is.
“Caiden?” I ask, the syllables of his name coming out clipped despite my best attempt otherwise.
“My nephew,” she answers. “He is really taking the loss hard. More than Delia can handle.”
Her face screws tight then smooths some with an uneasy smile.
“More than we can handle,” she amends.
“What are we talking about here?” I keep the question vague and open. It’s not that I’m incurious about the boy. But Madigan showing up on my doorstep, presumably to ask my help or advice, has me all shades of perplexed.