Page 6 of Sexting The Tattooed Outlaw (Curvy Boss Babes of Wild Bronco #3)

SAM

Unfortunately, The Blue Horse is exactly what I expected. Loud, boozy, and full of men who would love to take Kay home.

When she runs right into me – literally – I’m relieved.

And then I’m insanely jealous.

Call me old-fashioned, but I’ve never liked the idea of other men ogling what’s mine. Or at least, what I wish could be mine. She’s wearing a short skirt that bares most of her legs, and a tank top that gives me a generous glimpse of cleavage from my towering height above her.

I wouldn’t mind the view at all, except that I know every other man in here has been enjoying it, too.

I put my hands on Kay’s shoulders, steadying her on her feet before she topples over from our collision.

“Here he is!” a brunette next to Kay exclaims, bumping her fist on my arm. “The man himself. We were wondering when you’d turn up, big guy!”

I look at Kay.

“What the hell is she talking about?” I deadpan.

I wait for Kay’s scowling rebuff. To my surprise, Kay comes a little closer, laying her palm on my chest in what – to any outside observer – would be a familiar and intimate touch.

Fuck.

Just one touch from this woman and I’m coming undone.

In a single second, I’ve planned a whole damn life with this woman. Putting a ring on her pretty finger. Buying her a house and making it ours. Filling her little pussy with my cock every night until she’s knocked up with our child. Marking her in every way a man can mark a woman as his.

“Just go with it, okay?” Kay mutters.

“Go with what?” My brain has gone completely foggy. I’m staring down her shirt, imagining cupping those perfect tits in my hands as I ride her.

“Wait,” a weaselly looking man in a crisp pearl snap shirt wrinkles his nose at me. “The guy you’re moving on with…is Sam Wallace?”

I look over and vaguely recognize the guy as some kid from high school. Don’t remember his name, though he apparently remembers mine.

“It’s fate, when you think about it,” the brunette sighs. “I always knew they’d end up together someday.”

“You did?” Kay asks in mild surprise.

“Right,” Weasel Face rolls his eyes at Kay. I’m liking this asshole less and less as the seconds tick by. “You and Sam are dating. Sure .”

I wrap an arm protectively around Kay. I expect that any minute now, she’ll throw my arm off of her and tell me to go to hell.

Except she isn’t doing that right now.

“It’s true,” Kay says faintly. “We, uh…we are an item. Right, Sam?”

She looks up at me pleadingly and finally, I think I understand the assignment.

I grin cockily at Weasel Face, squeezing Kay to my body even harder. I feel the softness of her chest press against my abs and my cock begins to tighten and swell. Any second now, Kay is going to know I’m rock solid for her.

Only, I don’t care anymore. I’m tired of trying to control the effect she has on me. Tired of hiding how I really feel about her.

“That’s right,” I tell Weasel Face. “I’m the boyfriend. Who the hell are you?”

“I’m the ex,” he scowls, his shoulders slouching downward as he surveys us, his eyes lingering on my arm that’s wrapped tightly around Kay. “She didn’t mention me?”

“Nah,” I say, scratching my chin curiously. I look at Kay. “Baby, why didn’t you tell me about him?”

“It wasn’t a serious relationship,” Kay shrugs, leaning her head against my chest. “I didn’t think he was worth mentioning.”

Attagirl.

By now, I’m fully fucking immersed in this game of pretend we’re playing. It doesn't feel like pretending; it feels completely real to me.

“We dated for a year!” Weasel Face protests. “How could you not mention me?”

Kay’s brunette friend butts in now.

“Dougie, let it go,” she sighs. “This is just pathetic. Breakups happen. Move on.”

“I have moved on,” he replies indignantly. He frowns at Kay, then points a finger in her face. I stiffen, ready to lunge at this asshole if he moves any closer to her.

“You’re the one who hasn’t moved on,” he continues. “And clearly you’re just using this…this criminal outlaw to get back at me.”

His words turn my blood to ice.

This kind of shit is exactly why I stayed away from Wild Bronco for so long.

Because no matter how much time passes, a small town remembers everything. Including every dumb mistake I ever made.

“Criminal outlaw?” Kay asks with a laugh. “Dramatic, much? Also, speak for yourself, Mr. DUI.”

“Kay, enough,” Weasel Face says. “You’ve made your point. Don’t be a moron. Sam Wallace isn’t good for you. He’s dangerous and -”

“I’m about to be real fuckin’ dangerous if keep talking to her like that,” I growl, surprising even myself with the force in my voice.

Between hearing about how I’m “dangerous” and the condescending way that this guy is speaking to Kay, I feel like I’m about to throw him through the wall.

Though the judge wiped my slate clean in Wild Bronco years ago, the last thing I need is another arrest in this county. It won’t look good on me to get into trouble so soon after being back in town for the first time.

Kay must be thinking the same thing, because she shifts so that she’s standing right in front of me.

“It’s alright,” she says softly, those almond shaped eyes flashing at me in a warning. “Let’s get out of here. I’m tired of this place anyway and I just finished my drink.”

She’s doing her best to distract me. But because I stand over a foot above her height, I can still see Weasel Face in full view behind her. He’s smirking at me. I glare back at him.

I will fucking end this guy.

Soft curves press against me again and then her hands are fisting my collar, pulling me down so that my face is an inch from hers.

And now my mind is filled with very different thoughts.

She’s so god damn beautiful. Always has been. She’s always been the one woman in the world whose beauty had the power to stop me in my tracks. So cute, so innocent, so undeniably sexy.

“Sam,” Kay implores me again, her voice soft as velvet. “Let’s go home.”

I can’t tell what the hell is real anymore.

Surely nobody is this good at acting. When we were younger, I used to tease Kay about what a bad liar she was.

Every time she even thought about lying to her parents, she’d turn red.

From the tips of her ears to the nape of her neck, Kay would turn tomato red when she tried to tell a lie.

She’s not tomato red right now. Not at all.

Am I supposed to believe that all of this was fake? That touch, those eyes, that voice?

She’s going to get me in trouble if we stay here any longer.

Either because that dumb ex of hers is going to finally say something to send my anger over the edge…

or because Kay’s going to tempt me so badly that I finally give into my desires, hitching that little skirt up over her ass and bending her over a nearby table.

Holding her by those luscious hips and pounding her hard until she’s screaming my name.

Fucking her in public would be nice. Sure, I’d probably get arrested. But not before everyone in Wild Bronco understood that Kay Beaumont belongs to me. Sam Wallace, dangerous criminal outlaw.

Suddenly, I kind of like the sound of that title. If the men in this town think I’m dangerous, maybe they’ll keep their hands off my property.

“Sam?”

Kay’s voice brings me out of my vulgar, unhinged fantasizing and back to planet earth.

“We need to get out of here,” I say in a strangled voice.

“I know. That’s what I’ve been saying,” Kay replies, raising a brow.

“Yeah. Okay. Let’s go, then,” I say.

My hand grabs hers and I tug her toward the door, pushing through the crowd.

“Wait,” Kay says, resisting. “I need to say goodbye.”

“To who? That jerkoff who pointed his finger in your face?” I growl as we get to the exit. “You’re not speaking to him again. I’ll rip that finger right off his hand and shove it up his -”

“Not to him, to my friend!” Kay interjects. “Nadia!”

“You can text her,” I reply curtly.

I practically drag Kay to my truck, the stuff of my caveman dreams. Dragging this woman off to my cave and -

“We’re out of sight now,” Kay tugs her hand out of mine. “You don’t have to pretend to be dating me anymore.”

I blink as I pull my key fob from my pocket, unlocking my truck.

Right. Pretending. That’s what we were doing just now.

“I can’t believe you dated an asshole like him,” I mutter, coming to the passenger side door and opening it for Kay. Despite my caveman-like thoughts, I still manage to be a gentleman as I help her into the seat, closing the door behind her.

When I get inside the truck on the driver’s side, Kay is glaring at me.

“I didn’t know he was an asshole when we were dating,” she snaps. “He seemed really nice at first.”

“They all do,” I growl.

“Oh? You’re an expert?”

“On men? Yeah, I reckon I know about men more than you do, Kay.”

“Not every man is like you, Sam,” she retorts. “Not every man leaves.”

Deafening silence fills the cab of my truck. I start the engine, pulling out of the parking lot of Blue Horse in the direction of the Beaumont’s family ranch.

“Sorry,” Kay says quietly.

"I’m not offended.”

“It’s okay if you are.”

“I’m not,” I shake my head. “But…earlier, you said I didn’t wrong you. You acted like you didn’t care that I left, that the only people I hurt when I left town were your folks. Clearly that’s not the case, if you’re throwing out barbs like that.”

“I didn’t mean to say it like that,” she replies. “I didn’t mean you left me. I meant you left…you just left . Okay? The town.”

“Right.”

I’m not convinced. In fact, I’m ninety-nine percent sure that if I could see Kay’s skin under the light of day right now, it would be red. Tomato red.

We drive in silence back to the ranch house and park in front. She’s waiting for me to cut the engine. I’m waiting for her to jump out of the truck and run inside. But neither of us moves, paralyzed in place, staring forward through the windshield at the headlight-illuminated trees in the distance.

So I take a chance.

Saying the thing I should have said as soon as I saw her after rolling into town.

The thing I’d imagined saying to her a hundred times before I returned to Wild Bronco. I look at her and our eyes meet.

“Kay…I have always loved you. Always. Past, present, and future. I love you. I left town because I felt like I’d messed things up past the point of fixing.

Not just with your parents, but with you too.

I never felt like I deserved a girl like you to begin with, but I was trying.

I was trying to become the kind of guy who could deserve you.

I was cleaning up my life. And then in one night, I screwed it all up. ”

“You never even explained why,” she says weakly. “You just…packed your things up and left. Just an empty bedroom left behind. It was like you were never there. I think I deserve to know why, Sam.”

“You do,” I reply. “But I don’t have a great reason.”

“Why did you do it?” she presses. “You stole from my dad. Stole the keys to my grandpa’s Bronco. You know, that’s all we had left of him. My dad took care of that truck like it was his second child. It was his baby.”

“I know,” I say, my voice rough with regret and shame.

“So why?” she asks.

“I got drunk. It was stupid. I was…so angry. And I didn’t know what to do.

I ran into some old friends I hadn’t seen in a while — hadn’t seen since I’d moved in with your folks and started to turn my life around.

We decided to get drunk and ride around and…

I said I knew someone we could borrow a vehicle from. ”

“Were you the one behind the wheel?” she whispers.

I wish I could tell her no.

Instead, I nod.

“Sam,” she sighs.

“I know.”

“Why? What were you so angry about?”

“My dad, my mom…”

“Your dad?” she asks curiously. “I thought your mom didn’t know who your dad was.”

“Yeah,” I say bitterly. “I thought so, too. But that was a lie. My whole damn life was a lie.”

“Who is he?”

I look at her.

“You know Dr. Baker?” I ask her.

She frowns.

“He’s Dot and Darren’s dad. You went to high school with his daughter.”

Realization dawns on her face, then horror.

“No way.”

“Serial adulterer. Asshole cheats constantly, apparently. I went to Darren when I found out and we worked it out. He was cheating on his wife with my mom, while his wife was pregnant. Can you fucking imagine? That’s the man whose bloodline I come from.

Except not born in marriage. A bastard, a mistake. ”

“Shut your mouth,” Kay says, her voice suddenly fierce. “Don’t call yourself those things. You’re not a mistake, Sam.”

“By definition, I am,” I reply with a shrug.

Kay takes my hand, squeezing it and leaning across the middle of the truck to speak closely to me.

“You aren’t a mistake, Sam,” she says. “You matter. And there are a lot of people in this world who are glad you were born.”

“Including you?”

She bites her lip. Then she looks down in surprise at her hands, wrapped around one of mine. She drops my hand, sliding back to the passenger’s side and reaching for the handle.

“We should go inside,” she says. “Mom is a night owl, she’s going to wonder what we’re doing out here.”

“Kay…”

She shakes her head at me, then exits the truck.