Bridled: Bitter Creek Doms #1

BRIDLED: BITTER CREEK DOMS
#1

by

Erika Masten

SMASHWORDS
EDITION

Copyright © 2012 Erika
Masten.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Erika Masten

[email protected]

http://erikamasten.com

Published by Sticky Sweet Books. This
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This is a work of fiction. Any
similarities to actual persons or events are purely
coincidental.

Warning: Explicit content. Intended for
mature readers only. All characters depicted herein are 18 years or
older, and all sexual activities are of a consensual
nature.

This is a work of erotic fantasy. In
real life, please protect yourself and your lover by always
practicing safe sex.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Bridled: Bitter Creek Doms
#1

Excerpt From

Valentine’s
Dom

Excerpt From

Dominated By Brothers:
Hot Hard Ménage #1

BRIDLED: BITTER CREEK DOMS
#1

My pulse has only just quit pounding
at my temples, in my ears, in my throat and the tips of my fingers,
when I hear the sound of tires on gravel behind me, outside the
barn. “Peterson, you just do not know when to leave it alone,” I
say out loud to myself as I toss aside the horse blanket I’ve been
folding and grab the nearest shovel. Another surge of adrenaline
floods my veins, sending an anxious tremor through my body. I grip
the shovel handle tighter so my hands won’t shake.

I spin toward the barn door, my long
blond ponytail whipping over one shoulder and lashing the other,
and stalk toward the sound of footsteps on the driveway. When I get
outside, I plant one hand on my cocked hip and the blade of the
shovel next to me in the hard, summer-baked ground. This is not
what I expected, though I guess maybe I should have.

Instead of a fancy, brand
new, black extended-cab with red-faced, barrel-chested Earl
Peterson behind the wheel, I’m looking at a green and white
four-by-four with a bright gold sheriff’s star on each side. So
Peterson called for the deputies, did he? And they had to send out
the pretty boys—
detectives
—to make matters worse.
Like I’d take one look at these two and go all weak and giddy and
promise not to bother poor Mr. Peterson anymore when he’s breaking
my fences and irrigation lines and trying to run my family off our
own property.

Maybe I shouldn’t have scoffed when
Earl boasted that he owned the law around here. I’ve been gone
eight years, only just moving back three months ago to the Sierra
Nevada foothills and my hometown of Bitter Creek to help my mother
care for the ranch after Dad’s death in an accident. So I might not
have the handle on folks around here that I used to.

It’s Zach Garwood walking toward me,
with the usual bad boy smirk curling one corner of his full, tanned
lips. And I do mean usual. He was two years ahead of me in school
growing up, and he’d already mastered that grin and the gleam in
his blue eyes by eighth grade. A heartbreaker from the day he
discovered girls, that one.

He makes no attempt to hide the fact
that he’s checking me out behind his dark shades and the longish
strands of ash blond hair falling over one brow. I can practically
feel his gaze sliding from my blue and white cloth tennis shoes up
the length of my curvy bare legs to the short, faded denim cut-offs
I put on when I got up at six in the blessed morning despite it
being a Saturday. The blue cotton t-shirt knotted under my round
tits—yeah, I know I’m stacked—exposes my toned midriff to just
below my navel. I admit it’s hard not to tense as his gaze pauses
appreciatively at key points along my petite frame, but I won’t
give Garwood the satisfaction of getting a physical reaction out of
me. Not one he can see, anyway.

I don’t care how gorgeous he is. And
he is, still. Four years in the Marine Corp after high school
didn’t do him any harm. I wouldn’t have guessed he’d been out of
the military six years already. He’s still hard and tanned, from
what I can see at the collar of his white button-front shirt and at
the rolled up sleeves. The muscles of his thighs shift under his
tight jeans as he walks, flexing just enough to make me wonder how
much power he’s got in those legs, those hips. My gaze alights on
his dusty brown cowboy boots, and I frown. He’d be easier to
dismiss if they were new and polished and clean, like Peterson’s.
I’ve always had a thing for guys in crisp blue jeans and well-worn
boots, guys who work for a living but clean up well.

“
Not going to swing that at
us, are you, Miss Hawn?” Zach asks, his voice tinged in that
particular accent found only in the more rural reaches of
California’s San Joaquin Valley, a little bit Louisiana, a little
bit Texas, a little bit beach boy. It’s a combination inherited
from grandparents and great-grandparents who followed the field
work west from the Appalachians during the Great Depression. From
the right man, in the right tone, it’s got the best features off
all three: the spicy twang, the deep drawl, the laid-back
charm.

Before I can decide how I’ll respond
to Zach trying to charm the shovel away from me, the driver’s door
on the four-by-four slams shut. The sight of Quinn Blakely gets my
hackles up immediately. The hair at the nape of my neck stands on
end. My shoulders and back stiffen. But more than that, my pussy
tightens, clenches, slicks itself like a damn dog salivating at the
sound of a dinner bell.

We’ve got history, not that Quinn
seems to know it. Same short but ruffled brown hair under a beat-up
tan cowboy hat—standard issue around here even for law enforcement.
Same pale, sea green eyes. Same tall, lean, bronze body. I doubt he
even remembers how I moped and trailed after him all through high
school or that the night of the senior graduation pool party I
finally got what I’d wanted since I first laid eyes on the boy,
when we were both just nine years old. Quinn kissed me.

Not quite the kiss a nine-year-old
girl with her first crush imagines, either. It was the best
make-out session of my life, out by the gymnasium pool, behind the
towels hung to dry on the lifeguard tower while everyone was
gathered for the barbeque. I can still recall the feeling of him
stretched out on top of me, damp hair smelling lightly of chlorine,
cool water beaded on hard muscles, his hips nestled between my
thighs. He was hung—still is, presumably—and the bulge of his stiff
cock was pressing through his swim trunks and my bikini bottoms
against my aching clit. I’d have gladly lost my virginity to Quinn
right then and there.

That never quite happened, but he did
slide his hand so gently into my bikini, his fingertips parting the
lips of my sex to play with me. I had my first orgasm clinging to
Quinn Blakely’s warm, firm shoulders, his tongue probing my mouth
while his long fingers explored my virgin pussy.

I didn’t find out under after the fact
that he’d left Bitter Creek to join the Marines two days later.
That had been the way of it for a few years. Jobs had been scarce
in town, and most families couldn’t afford to send their kids to
college down on the valley floor. Earl Peterson’s family being an
exception, of course. About a quarter of the boys and a handful of
the girls from Zach’s graduating class had gone military, mostly
Marines and Navy. A few more the next year. With my senior class of
seventy students, it was almost half, including Quinn.

Figuring out that night behind the
lifeguard tower had meant nothing to him broke my heart. He could
have at least told me he was leaving.

In the end, few of Bitter Creek’s
wayward sons came home. Some went career military. Others settled
in the big cities they’d discovered in their travels. A lot of the
rest of us went elsewhere, as well, for work or to see what we
could see. Lots of debris piled up around here from all the broken
hearts. When I moved home from Los Angeles three months ago, I
hadn’t expected to find either Zach Garwood or Quinn Blakely back
in town, with about a half dozen more prodigal sons.

It probably isn’t a good thing that I
can feel my grip tightening again on the shovel handle as Quinn
stalks toward me. Temper, Melanie, temper.

“
Mel,” Quinn huffs at me,
sensual lips pressed into a thin line, eyes narrowed and brow
lowered as he advances. I can’t help thinking how good he looks in
the dark red shirt he’s wearing, which only makes me see more red,
as the saying goes. Honestly, I’m surprised to hear him call me
Mel. Everyone did back in high school, but I doubted he’d remember
that.

“
What are you thinking? Put
down that shovel right now,” Quinn orders. I’ve seen him around
town a few times in the months I’ve been back and even waved, but
these are the first words he’s spoken to me in eight years. His
voice has a little more Texas in it than most, warm and deep, and
it pisses me off how much I still like that.

I roll my eyes. “Oh, please. Don’t
worry. It’s not loaded. I only use it for fixing irrigation lines
my bastard neighbor keeps breaking so I can’t water the pasture for
my horses.” I flash an overly sweet smile. “Is that what you’re
here to talk to me about?”

This actually makes Zach laugh, though
it earns him a sidelong glare from Quinn. The blond deputy ignores
his partner and keeps smiling at me. “Fixing irrigation lines? Is
that what you were doing when you swung the shovel at Earl
Peterson’s foreman an hour ago?” Zach asks.

“
It is.” I square my body
with Garwood’s and meet his gaze with a challenging stare. Oddly,
my heart beats double time, and a gush of juices from my wet pussy
seeps all at once into my cotton panties. Not the best idea, I
guess, to argue with a gorgeous deputy with this much adrenaline
winding me up. I’ve always heard there is a connection between
adrenaline and anger and violence and sex.

Quinn finally comes to a halt directly
in front of me, near enough that he looms over me with every inch
of that 6’4” body of his, blocking my view of Zach and insisting on
my attention. “You keep trespassing on Peterson’s property and
swinging shovels at people and you’re going to get yourself
hurt.”

I bite the inside of my cheeks,
feeling the heat of blinding indignation rushing up to burn and
color my cheeks. “Is that a threat, deputy?”

This question makes Quinn rear back a
bit, grasping the front of his cowboy hat and blinking his pretty
eyes rapidly at me a few times. “What?” he asks, with pronounced
offense in his tone. “No.”

Off to one side and leaning into view,
Zach snickers, bringing out faint dimples, and shakes his blond
head. “He means Earl’s foreman has eight inches and a hundred
pounds on you, sunshine. I’d still put my money on you, but I’m not
known for my betting instinct.”

I grimace to keep myself from smiling
at that remark. “You guys ever going to do anything about Peterson
knocking down my fences to let my horses out or those irrigation
lines he’s breaking two or three times a month? Or you just going
to let him harass my mother and me until we give in and sell him
the ranch so he can build his precious riding arena?”