DARK
LASHES
©
Felice Fox 2014
When
Talia Iverson’s never-ending search for love takes a desperate
turn, she skips out on her Hollywood starlet clientele hoping to
disappear on her uncle’s ranch in western Montana. Training
livestock guard dogs seems the perfect diversion—protect the wolf
pack living on Iverson Ranch, and her uncle’s cattle. But when a
son of their neighboring ranch suspiciously offers to help her track
and ID the wolf pack, Talia discovers what it really means to tangle
with a predator.
Rancher
Abel Cameron is the most dangerous kind of bad boy—when he’s
wicked, he means it. Convinced the shared, open relationship he’s
in is the only kind that will tolerate his dark sexual needs, Abel
knows he won’t ever be the primary man in any woman’s life. But
when Talia Iverson shows up to protect the wolf pack denned up on his
neighbor’s ranch, he sees her for who she is—a lost soul who
could break open his cold, jammed up heart. And he’s just reckless
enough to show her how to do it.
. . . . .
The rodeo competition ended
and, as they pulled away from the fence, Marcie paused and Talia did
too, not giving much thought to why or what was next on the agenda.
She was here to follow, mimic someone else’s healthy behaviors for
a while.
Marcie caught her eye and they
smiled knowingly at each other. It was good to just be together.
A couple headed toward them.
The man had a sexy swagger, golden-brown eyes and a killer smile he
was aiming right at Talia.
Whoa.
Her eyes slid from those hunky shoulders down to the fingers entwined
with another person’s. Thank goodness he was holding hands with
someone already. And wedding rings too. Way
off-limits.
“You must be Talia,” the
woman said, beaming at her, arms wide for a hug. “I’m Holly and
this is my husband Gavin.”
Talia accepted the hug with
her shoulders bowed forward, then pulled away. Gavin tipped his hat.
Didn’t try to touch her. Not even a handshake. Good.
Better not to touch him. She wasn’t ready for that challenge. She
shoved her hands into her jeans pockets and squinted down at her
toes.
“Nice to meet you.”
“Brody did pretty good out
there,” Marcie said.
Holly laughed. “That’s
what Gav’ tells me. I couldn’t figure out what the hell was going
on.”
Marcie smirked.
“So you’re saying this is
your first rodeo.”
Holly rolled her eyes at
Marcie and the warmth passing between them settled Talia. Something
about her was actually comforting. She was lovely. She
was the kind of girl men would stick around for. She—
Talia stopped herself. She
recognized this line of thinking and knew it wasn’t going anywhere
good. She’d start to compare herself to Holly and her own
self-esteem would plummet. Then she’d start hating Holly for
absolutely no good reason. Holly was her own person and no threat.
Talia had spent too many years comparing herself to other women,
seeing them as the competition.
Lost in her thoughts, Talia
had not heard the other man approach, but she felt Marcie stiffen
beside her and looked up into a face she wished she hadn’t seen. A
treacherous beauty of a man, six-two or taller, with ruffled black
hair just visible under his cowboy hat. He was stunning, appearing
out of nowhere, looming behind Gavin, a presence that would have made
Talia stumble had she been in motion.
Marcie looked away. No one
else acknowledged him. After a few long moments, Talia wondered if he
was a phantom only she could see, the physical embodiment of the
thing she was running from, the thing she feared most.
But a moment later Holly
reached back and touched his shoulder, running her fingers down the
back of his arm, to briefly lace his hand in hers and bring him
forward. He moved stiffly into their small circle and Talia moved
back.
“Talia, this is Abel
Cameron, one of Gavin’s many brothers.”
She felt, rather than saw, her
cousin watching her. Talia pressed her heels into the dirt and
nodded. She didn’t want to show any reaction to him whatsoever but,
when her gaze finally met his, she swallowed hard.
Ice blue eyes shifted down the
side of her neck and lingered, and Talia lost her grip. Abel Cameron
sensed what she was; his kind could smell her. She thought she’d
scrubbed herself clean of all sensual expression—no make-up, no
tight clothing—so as to avoid this kind of attention, but no. Here
it was before her, temptation like a demon gatekeeper that would not
let her pass easily into another kind of life.
He licked his lips, as if he
knew how good they tasted, and drew his eyes slowly back up to hers,
nodded, then looked away.
Talia plummeted.
Raven hair. Wicked mouth.
No, no, no!
It’s just black.
Plain old black. And a regular old mouth she had no need to kiss.
“You two want to come back
to our place for supper?” Gavin asked.
“No—” Marcie and Talia
said at once, a little too fast and hard. Their gazes snapped
together like magnets.
“What we mean is, thank you
but no, Mom is waiting on us. Been cooking an all-day roast and I
don’t want to miss it.”
Relieved, Talia’s shoulders
dropped and she took a deep breath. Good ol’ Marcie and her little
white lies. Talia knew she’d come to the right place. She wasn’t
ready for so many new people, not to mention being at a table
with—well goodness knows how many more brothers there were at home.
She’d spend the evening staring into her dinner plate, trying not
to fantasize about stealing Gavin away from his wife.
Or this one.
Abel.
Even his name was a warning.
It was a test she wasn’t
ready to take. Not yet anyway. She was like an alcoholic newly sober,
keeping to the other side of the street, away from the bar.
It was all too easy to fall
for another guy. And another. And another. Endlessly and without
genuine love.
Talia’s sense of weakness
twisted her gut. She raised the backs of her fingers to the side of
her neck, absently brushing them over the tingle and burn where
Abel’s eyes had grazed her. She looked up at him and, catching his
smirk, quickly lowered her hand and raised her chin.
She wouldn’t let him catch
her again.
. . . . .
ABOUT
FELICE FOX
Felice
is a big fan of bluegrass and country music, and a lover of all
things wild, woodsy and romantic. She wears bad girl boots and was
twice mistaken for a roller derby queen. Hold
Me Together,
the first Cameron Ranch story, was an Amazon #1 bestseller and Hot
New Release. It has been described as a “danger to panties
everywhere” (Herding
Cats & Burning Soup)
and “not for the faint of heart” (Fresh
Fiction).
Her fiction debut, Take
Me for Longing,
has been an Amazon bestseller since it’s release in 2012 and her
second title, It’s
Just Sext,
became an instant Amazon #1 bestseller. Felice lives, loves and
frequently sends out naughty text messages from Silver Lake,
California.
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