Page 1 of Tied to Trouble

Chapter 1

“Idon’t care what yousay, Az Newcomb, it’s none of your business where I spend my time,” Mandy declared stubbornly, her eyes narrowing at the impossibly tall man glaring down at her. He’d only been home for a few hours, and her self-appointed protector was bossing her around again.

“Youcannotgo to a bar and leave with the first cowboy who offers to take you home, Mandy,” he gritted. “You havenoidea what trouble you might be getting into.”

“I never said I was going to do that,” she protested hotly. “The virginity thing was just a frickin’ joke. Where’s your sense of humor?”

Mostly...maybe not.

“You might as well have,” Az insisted. His eyes, the color of turquoise stones, were glacial. His eyes were very different, and Mandy had always found them fascinating, but at the moment, she wanted to punch him in one of them and make it all black and shiny.

Besides, she had her private reasons for wanting to frequent The Lazy Saddle Saloon; she was searching for a special guy in her life. She didn’t know who she was looking for, but she was sure she would know him when she found him. Isn’t that how love is supposed to work? All that ‘across a crowded room’in the romance books must have a basis in reality somewhere. The Lazy Saddle Saloon seemed like a good place to meet a lot of people to choose from. It’s where all the singles in Whippoorwill County hung out.

Secretly, shewasa tad bit worried about being the only virgin left in Whippoorwill County. But the virginity thing had just been a joke...mostly...except Az had taken it all wrong.

Now they were arguing in the stockroom of her grandmother’s store, Benson’s Market, and Mandy’s temper was quickly escalating. What had started as a ‘catching up with each other’s life’conversation, and a simple joke about frequenting the bar every weekend to find candidates with which to lose her virginity, had quickly deteriorated when Az suddenly went all bossy on her.

She hadn’t intended to do it...well...maybe she was a little serious, but he irritated her with his overprotective attitude. Shouldn’t he be over that by now?

“I havehadit with your hovering over me and bossing me around,” Mandy snapped, her rebellious chin shooting high. She had no intention of allowing him to tell her what to do. She was so over that.

“I’m not hovering,” he denied, a bit of red creeping up his neck.

“Yes, you are, you might as well admit it,” she yelped. “I get that you felt sorry for me when my dad died when I was fourteen. And I guess that’s why you decided to be my big brother, but I’m all grown up now. I don’t need protecting anymore.”

“I said no, and I meant it.” Az’s strong, angular jaw was set in stone as he glared right back at her.

“You can’t tell me what to do, I’m old enough to make up my own mind now. I am not your responsibility, I never was. You just chose to make it so.”

She stared defiantly back at him, his commanding attitude suddenly giving her indigestion. He’d always been bossy, but there was a new maturity to his stance, a rigid, iron determination that he seemed to have grown into while he was away.

A funny curling sensation began in the pit of her stomach. She wondered if the spicy barbecue she had eaten at Tilley’s diner was giving her indigestion.

Deciding it didn’t matter, she spun on her booted heel and started to walk away. She had a delivery to make, and Az was only keeping her from working.

She’d spent two years chasing an associate’s business degree and planned on getting her bachelor's as well, eventually taking over her grandmother’s market. She wasn’t a little lost high school girl anymore; she could take care of herself. She was shocked when he grabbed her arm just above the elbow and swung her back around to face him.

“You have a bad habit of getting yourself into trouble, Mandy. Trying to seduce me when you were fourteen was bad enough, but now you’re bound to attract the wrong sort of person by going to the bar.”

“Thank you for that ungentlemanly reminder, Az, but it’s none of your business. I’ll do as I please, and I can date who I please. You have nothing to say about it.”

“You want to experiment, little girl?” he snapped, his arm muscles bulging in his red plaid shirt as he reached for her. “I’ll show you what you’re in for.”

Mandy stared wide-eyed at the sudden fire in his eyes, the determination of the dark head bending down towards her. She gasped as his mouth closed cruelly over hers, taking her lips in a fierce plunder. He put his lean, tanned hand in the curls that fell to her waist, holding her head still as he ravished her sweetness like the ruthless Aztec warrior she’d always imagined he resembled.

Az actually had Osage Indian in him. His mother loved and studied Indian cultures and was especially fascinated with the Aztec culture, hence his strange name, Aztecuani Newcomb. Tecuani in the Aztec language means jaguar or tiger. His mother lopped off the Az part of Aztec and added it to Tecuani to get the name. Supposedly, he got his eyes from his Swedish great-grandmother on his mother’s side. His height of 6’6” came from his great-grandfather’s Osage Indian DNA. As commonly happens with strange or difficult names to pronounce, Aztecuani was shortened to Az, much to his mother’s chagrin. Mandy had found it all fascinating when she was younger, but now? Now he was just a pest. A pest who was suddenly stirring feelings she’d never felt before.

Their hats fell to the ground as the brims clashed, and he pulled her in closer to his whipcord body. His other arm wrapped around her slender waist like an iron clamp. He smelled good, like horses, hay, and something tangy.

Mandy whimpered in protest and tried to snap her head from side to side, but she couldn’t escape the punishing mouth that held hers captive. She pushed ineffectually at the broad shoulders until her traitorous arms finally began a journey of their own volition up and around his powerful neck. His hard length against her soft body was intoxicating.

When her exploring fingers slid into the fine, dark hair at the nape of his neck and her bones melted into his hard abs, his ravaging kiss changed to something even more devastating. Desire stronger than she’d ever felt before careened along her veins like quicksilver as she tentatively returned his exploration, her tongue sliding along the inside seam of his lips.

Nothing but Az existed in that moment, and she found herself returning his ardor as hot, sweet pleasure encompassed her entire body. She fit into him like a glove, like they were made for each other. Her pert breasts hardened where they thrust against his hard chest.

She’d often wondered what it might be like to kiss Az, but he was just a friend, her self-appointed protector since high school. At one time, she’d been infatuated with him, but the first time he’d turned her over his knee and swatted her, the rose-colored glasses had broken. In her mind, he was a bossy bully from that time on.

When Az finally broke off their kiss and stood back to stare at her, she gasped and panted for breath, her world suddenly turned upside down. Trembling all over, she stared wide-eyed up at him.

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