Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 88262 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88262 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
He’s also my sister's boyfriend.
Until they break up on the first night he’s in town…
…And suddenly I’m the one with a very bad, very wrong cowboy on my hands.
Draven Lyons is the heir to the wealthiest Montana ranch dynasty.
He’s also a walking red flag, carrying a violent past filled with blood.
Letting him touch me was the first mistake.
Enjoying it was even worse.
I’m straight, but now he’s making me want things.
And it ends up with me pinned against a wall. My lips up against his ear. Begging him for more, especially when it hurts.
Telling Draven about my online stalker was the next mistake.
So what if my online videos make men want me? It’s just business.
Now Draven’s following me in the name of protection.
But his own dark secrets torment me. What happened back in Montana? Why is he still here in Tennessee, hiding out in my small town? And why does he want a frat boy bartender like me?
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Part One
Roses
Chapter 1
Max
Something was off.
Maybe it was the crowd at the bar.
Drunker than usual. More depraved than usual.
Within the first hour of my regular bartending shift down at the Hard Spot, I’d seen enough.
Mascara running down cheeks.
A guy passed out on the back patio.
A man dick deep in somebody else’s mouth, too, before I politely separated the two of them in one of our bathroom stalls.
I was pretty sure I was going to see blood spill by the end of the night.
I leaned against the cool wood surface of the back of the bar, collecting my to-do list inside my head:
Restock the bottom-shelf vodkas.
Check on the patio, which is probably littered with empty pint glasses.
Probably about time to sweep the bathroom stalls again for any more active penetration, too.
The plan had been to sneak some time to film a quickie video for my online channel tonight between rushes. The Cocktail Bro was my baby, and my followers had come to expect regular updates and recipes.
I wanted to give it to them.
I wished I had time to record a dozen videos a day, but with the state of the bar tonight…
So much for having time to film anything.
Firstly: people needed their alcohol. The music was loud in here, and I could feel eyes on me as more groups filed in through the front doors and sidled up to the bar, waiting for drinks.
I gave myself ten seconds to take a breather before plunging back in, heading over to another mob of college guys awaiting a round of green apple vodka shots.
“The rum thing,” a girl called out to me from the other side of the bar, hiccuping. “Can I get another rum thing? You’re cute.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“Like, really cute. I’d fuck you.”
I nodded. “Here is one rum thing, and a tall water. I recommend it.”
Before I became a bartender I didn’t know that the job description included being a therapist, a babysitter, and a constant referee. Sometimes I felt like I was behind the bar to act as a pure, blank canvas for people to paint their sins on.
Usually I didn’t mind.
It was fun, and I got good tips, enough for me to keep putting money into more renovations for my barn house.
I was also good at the whole therapist-babysitter thing because being 22 and fresh out of a frat house meant that I’d had a lifetime’s worth of experience with drunk bros and learning their limits.
But tonight, I was bone-tired. On edge. Ready to take a damn breath.
When I finally got to the end of my shift, it felt like crossing the finish line of a marathon.
I gunned it home in my truck.
But I didn’t know that going back to my house wasn’t going to help at all.
It was only going to take this night from bad to catastrophically worse.
The air coming in from my driver’s side window was humid. It felt tinged with electricity like right before a storm, even though the sky was cloudless.
Tennessee weather could be unpredictable, but there were stars for miles in the black sky up above. If there was a storm coming, it wasn’t from anywhere I could see.
I got to my driveway.
Threw the truck in park.
Cut the engine.
And I made my way to my front door like I was a kid on Christmas morning.
Home.
I shut the front door behind me and let out a long breath.
Now can tonight please start feeling fucking normal?
I dropped my keys onto the little table by the front door. It was dark other than a tiny lamp I left on in the far corner. My place was just a barn, situated on the far edge of my parents’ property, but I’d retrofitted it into a living space for myself over the past year.
It was the first space that was truly all mine, and I loved this goddamn barn like it was my child.
I was in my little kitchenette by the window, raising a cold, short glass of liquor to my lips just a few minutes later.
Lemon and whiskey hit my tongue. Sour, sweet, and bitter.
Followed by the kick of the secret ingredient I’d laced into the back end of the cocktail: a splash of spiced tart plum liquor. My followers online were going to love it. I was going to name it The Sucker Punch in my next video.
I first heard a sound at my front door as I raised the glass to my lips for a second time, cutting through the quiet in my barn.
A rattling sound.
Then, a slight jingling.
I froze in place, my ears perking up like two antennae.
Not possible.
I was alone here.
At least… I should have been alone, for a radius of at least a football field around this barn.
There was no chance someone could be out there.
I put down my phone. The sound of one of my videos was still playing quietly on a loop, my voice coming out from the tinny phone speaker: “And this cocktail is like an old friend… with benefits. And that’s how we do it in Tennessee, baby.”