Hard Lovin'

By Desiree Holt

Erin Braddock, daughter of wealthy and powerful rancher Rance Braddock, has been to hell and back. So has wandering cowboy minstrel, Grady Sinclair. But the moment they meet, chemistry ignites between them, erasing everything else. The sex is scorching, explosive, addictive. They can’t get enough each other. The same talented fingers that coax seductive music from his guitar coax powerful orgasms from her body.

Seduced by his music as well as the sinfully sexy man himself, Erin runs away with him. The nights she sits in the bar, listening to his come-to-me voice promising her the erotic delights, he delivers on when they’re back in their room. But will the past follow them, or can they build a future together, in and out of bed?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Decadent Publishing
• Release date: May 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9781613338506

Desiree Holt

A multi-published, award winning, Amazon and USA Today best-selling author, Desiree Holt has produced more than 200 titles and won many awards. She has received an EPIC E-Book Award, the Holt Medallion and many others including Author After Dark’s Author of the Year. She has been featured on CBS Sunday Morning and in The Village Voice, The Daily Beast, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The London Daily Mail. She lives in Florida with her cats who insist they help her write her books, and is addicted to football.

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Hard Lovin’

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2015 by Desiree Holt

ISBN: 978-1-61333-850-6

Cover art by Syneca Featherstone

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

Published by Decadent Publishing Company, LLC

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www.decadentpublishing.com

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Also by Desiree Holt

Joy Ride

Aftershock

Night Mission

He Came Upon a Midnight Clear

Flyover

Lust Becomes You

Overnight Sensation

Soul Dreams

Dark Secrets

Knockin’ Boots

Dedication

As always to David, my once and future cowboy

Hard Lovin’

By

Desiree Holt

Chapter One

Gypsy rover came over the hill, down through the valley so shady

He whistled and he sang ’til the greenwoods rang and he won the heart of a lady.

Erin Braddock slipped into the ill-lighted bar through the back door, squinting against the darkness, and found her way to a tiny booth in the corner. The area was so small, a second person would be hard pressed to find room in the space, but that suited her fine. She hadn’t come here looking for company. Unless it was the cowboy up on the postage-stamp sized stage, alone in the spotlight with his guitar and his smoky voice. Ebony hair curled down to the nape of his neck, and a work shirt and worn jeans clung to his lean body like a second skin. The muscles in his arm flexed as he picked at the strings of the guitar, coaxing a tune from it.

The lights were dim in the smoky club, a sea of black with the man in the searing white glow of the spotlight a stark comparison. The air was heavy with expectation as he strummed the melody of a love song that whipped its sound over the crowd, only to slow like the stroke of a lover’s caress.

You are so out of your mind for doing this.

So what else was new?

She’d had to get out of the house. Away from the ranch. Away from…everyone. Her father, Rance, who was suffocating her with his protective kindness. T.J. Elliott, the fiancé she couldn’t seem to break away from. The houseful of people all gathered to celebrate a wedding tomorrow.

Hers.

A wedding she didn’t want.

The memories of the nightmare with Cal hadn’t yet faded, and her father was suffocating her with his protective kindness. The far too wealthy Rance Braddock was like a tidal wave swallowing people up. And then there was T.J. Elliott, her father’s choice for a safe and well-connected husband. A way to guarantee her future. No danger there.

Not like Cal, the worst mistake she’d ever made. And she’d wanted safe. Needed it. Her father and T.J. treated her like some child too fragile to be let out on her own. Well, maybe she was. Look what she’d gotten herself into. And didn’t want to get out of, until she’d had no other choice. Now, at thirty, she suddenly didn’t seem to be able to put one foot in front of the other anymore.

Until now.

The bad part about being rescued from a situation like the one she’d been in was people were afraid to take their eyes off you. She didn’t even seem to have the strength to tell them they could let her be. She went along to get along, letting herself be swept up in a courtship she didn’t want and a wedding suddenly bearing down on her like a tornado.

She’d come to the bar a few nights ago with her girlfriends, who had practically dragged her out of the house.

Have fun, her father said.

You’ll be fine with the girls, T.J. told her. He’d kissed her on the cheek and teased, Last night out before becoming Mrs. Elliott.

She was safe with her friends. Girls’ night out was okay. Both her father and T.J. had relaxed.

But her friend, Lili, had whispered in her ear, Wait until you see Grady Sinclair. He’s hot, hot, hot. And his music! Lili rolled her eyes. Just listening to him makes your pussy get wet and your nipples poke like diamonds.

Erin had shivered, skeptical but hopeful. She didn’t think she’d ever have that reaction again. Or want it. The best thing about T.J. was he was nonthreatening. She could always fake orgasms. She’d become a very good actress living with Cal.

So she’d let them coax her out and come to Smoky’s with them, and damn but Lili was right. Wrapped in the almost mystical cloak of the music drifting to her from the stage, she’d felt stirrings she’d thought long dead. Responses she didn’t think she was capable of anymore. And then she’d come back with them. Again and again, to hear the troubadour with eyes as black as his hair and a rugged face, drawn by the clear, mesmerizing notes of his songs and the sadness in his voice.

Tonight, when the reality of what was happening in her life crashed in on her, when she’d felt herself squeezed by the juggernaut rolling over her, she suddenly had to get out, get away. For once, no one’s eyes were on her. Her father and T.J. were both busy in the mob of guests at their pre-wedding celebration. How easy it had been to slip into the kitchen and out the back door. With all the vehicles coming and going, no one paid attention to another truck pulling out of the driveway.

And she’d headed straight here like a homing pigeon, to the cowboy minstrel whose music gave her the first real pleasure she’d ever known. A pleasure all her own. So, now, here she sat, listening to him sing about love lost, a heart broken. Cruelty. Well, she certainly knew about that.

The waitress came by, and Erin ordered a soft drink. She didn’t drink alcohol anymore. Not since….

Don’t go there. Do. Not. Go. There.

The song ended, and he moved right into the next one. This was about loving and being free, about giving and being given to, and something in the words unlocked a part