Still Taking Chances

By Roz Lee

After a mission gone wrong, DEA Agent Elgin, Hud, Huddleston returns to his boyhood home to get his head on straight. Despite his better judgment, he's drawn to the woman across the street, a petite Dominatrix with a freeze your balls off name. Figuring a little time on his knees will take his mind off his troubles, he puts himself in her hands, but Mary Beth Winters' methods aren't like anything he's experienced before. He wants her, but what she's asking in return is more than he can give.

Following a Domme/sub relationship gone wrong, Mary Beth Winters packed away her toys and put her career, the BDSM lifestyle, and her hometown in her rearview mirror. She's built a respectable life for herself in Willowbrook, but when former bad-boy, Elgin Huddleston returns to town, the pain she sees in his gaze convinces her to dust off her toy box to help him heal. Can she delve into the heart of his problems and protect her own heart at the same time?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Roz Lee
• Release date: Nov 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781735511498

Roz Lee

USA Today Best-Selling author Roz Lee is the author of thirty romances. The first, The Lust Boat, was born of an idea acquired while on a Caribbean cruise with her family and soon blossomed into a five-book series published by Red Sage. Following her love of baseball, she turned her attention to sexy athletes in tight pants, writing the critically acclaimed Mustangs Baseball series.Roz has been married to her best friend, and high school sweetheart, for nearly four decades. Roz and her husband have two grown daughters and are the proud grandparents of three adorable grandkids.Even though Roz has lived on both coasts, her heart lies in between, in Texas. A Texan by birth, she can trace her family back to the Republic of Texas. With roots that deep, she says, “You can’t ever really leave.”When Roz isn’t writing, she’s reading, or traipsing around the country on one adventure or another. No trip is too small, no tourist trap too cheesy, and no road unworthy of travel.Visit Roz’s website – www.RozLee.net

Book preview

Chapter One

Elgin

I’ve imagined this walk a thousand times over the last fifteen years. Always at the end of the journey is the house on the corner, my grandmother in the tiny kitchen, and a plate of warm chocolate chip cookies waiting on the table for me. Not much has changed on the shade-dappled street. The clapboard houses and neat yards are the same as when I last made this walk. Then, the house had been at my back, the sidewalk lit by streetlights and lightning bugs. The memory is bittersweet. I didn’t want to leave, but I had no choice. There was no future for me here. I’d worn out my welcome long before I stepped on that bus bound for Dallas and the Marine Corps recruitment office.

I shift my small duffle from one hand to the other, the irony not lost on me. The bag holds everything I need, just as it did when I left, only now my wallet holds more than enough for a bus ticket to Dallas, and there’s plenty more in a bank account, should I need it.

I’ve been on recon missions through jungles filled with deadly creatures sporting anywhere from zero to eight legs and felt more prepared, more in control, than I do today. When I go on a mission for my job, I’m armed to the teeth and have plenty of backup. Today, I’m on my own. No body armor, no weapons, no backup. I’m a sitting duck for memories, old and new, that hold the power to end me. To say I’m terrified isn’t an exaggeration. Yet, I’m here.

The last few weeks have been hell for me. Losing my only living relative did a number on me, and, for reasons I can’t explain, I need to be here. I thought seeing my grandmother’s final resting place, saying a proper goodbye would help, but it didn’t. My mind is reeling, my gut churning with anxiety. I don’t belong here. I never did, though it’s the only place I’ve ever called home.

It’s a few blocks from the cemetery to the street I grew up on. Physically, an easy walk, but, mentally, it’s taken a toll on me. My shoulders ache and, if I clench my jaw any tighter, I’m going to need dental work. Coming home should not be this hard.

I come to a stop across the street, letting the memories settle over and through me. The house looks much the same as it did the day I left, fifteen years ago. As long as I can remember, the place has been in need of a paint job. I sent my grandmother money to paint it a few years ago, and I see now she didn’t spend the money on repairs, which accounts for the savings account she left me. If a house can look lonely, this one does. Its windows, despite the curtains, are as vacant as the eyes of a dead man. The For Sale sign behind the white picket fence strikes me like a blade to the gut.

A movement draws my gaze to the opposite side of the yard, and I close my eyes against the mirage. My mind is playing tricks on me. She isn’t there. Randy, an old friend and now my attorney, dropped me off on the edge of town, and my first stop on my solitary journey home was the cemetery next to the Methodist Church. I found the tombstone easily enough as the ground hadn’t yet been filled in where the freshly dug dirt settled and sank. I know for certain my grandmother isn’t in the front yard, but someone for damn sure is.

My hand clenched tight around the woven canvas strap on the duffle, I step off the curb and cross the street in long, purposeful strides. A woman wearing denim cutoffs and a white T-shirt is on her knees, her back to the street, pulling weeds from my grandmother’s flower bed. A large-brimmed straw hat flops limp in the early morning heat, obscuring her face. The dainty pink soles of her bare feet draw my attention. My gaze travels up her short, milky-white legs to her sweetly rounded bottom. My body reacts, my dick swelling, despite the warning bells in my head clanging louder than the Baptist Church carillon on Sunday morning. Damn. I’ve been too long without a woman. I should have stayed in Dallas long enough to at least visit one of the clubs there. A night or two on my knees would have done me good. It’s too late for that now. I came back to Willowbrook to heal, and I don’t need sex for that. I need peace and quiet. I need to be left the fuck alone.

Lust gives way to white-hot anger. Coming home is hard enough without finding a do-gooder busybody in my yard.

Get the hell out of my yard. I use the commanding voice I know gets results, dismissing the intruder without another thought. I push the gate open and stalk up the creaking wood steps to the front door. For the briefest second, I face the oval glass, looking but not seeing the empty room beyond. The moment of panic passes, and I count the flowerpots on the porch rail until I get to the fifth one. I lift the plant out by the roots and pry the hidden key from the tangled geranium roots.

I suck in a calming breath and fit the key in the lock. My footsteps on the polished hardwood floors echo through the empty rooms. All the furniture has been moved to a storage facility to facilitate the sale of the house. All that’s left are the ghosts of antiques, and my memory of the warm feeling of home. I walk through the empty shell of my childhood home, standing momentarily in the center of each room, slowly turning a full circle, taking in the out-of-date paint colors and timeless architecture of the Craftsman-style bungalow.

The curtains are all that remain of my grandmother’s furnishings. There are lacy ones in the living room, cherry-dotted Swiss café-style in the kitchen, pink ruffled ones that matched the rose-colored carpet in my grandmother’s bedroom, and faded Texas Mustangs panels in the room that was mine until the day I graduated from high school. Since then, I’ve lived with a lot less than a hard wooden floor and a roof over my head. It’ll do for now. I drop my duffle on the hardwood floor in my childhood bedroom and turn.

A woman stands in the doorway, blocking my exit. My ability to size up my opponent has saved my life more than once, and I instinctively catalogue her. Petite, late twenties to early thirties, red hair, blue eyes, and freckles liberally spread across a face flushed from the strain of pulling weeds in the heat. Or maybe anger. Or desire. I quickly dismiss the possibility of the latter, based on the way she’s holding a garden spade in her gloved hand as if she means to use it on me. Her stance says attack rather than defend. Even if I hadn’t recognized the droopy hat, I would have recognized her as the same woman I saw in my yard. Standing up, her legs aren’t any longer, but they sure as hell are shapely. I take a quick inventory of my opponent and decide she has curves in all the right places. My cock, already at attention, throbs with the need for action. Too bad she’d probably run screaming if she could hear the thoughts running through my head. I hold my hands up chest high, palms out. I surrender. What else can I do, faced with such overwhelming opposition?

She continues to hold me prisoner with the spade. I give her credit for following me. Not many men would have done it, and a few who did, didn’t live to tell about it. When a woman half my size can sneak up on me with a weapon, garden spade aside, it’s time to call it quits. Time to come home.

Who are you, and what are you doing here? Her voice is steady, and she holds the spade like she knows what to do with it.

My cock swells against my fly at the thought of a little pain.

"Who are you, I counter, and why are you in my house?"

I asked first.

Not an ounce of fear. Either she’s stupid, or she thinks she has the upper hand. I drop my hands to my sides and take a step closer to her. Get out. I don’t want company.

She stands her ground. I move closer. I tower a good foot over her, but she doesn’t budge. Instead, she presses the tip of her makeshift weapon against my fly.

Come closer, and I’ll hurt you.

Damn. She sounds like she means it. She certainly isn’t like any of the women I remembered in this one-horse town.

Promise? I shuffled my feet closer. Fire blazes in her eyes, and she digs the tip of the spade into my cock. Goddamn, that hurts. I step back. Geez, woman! I refuse to let her see how much the pain excites me.

I warned you. She plants her feet and waves the spade in my face. Who are you, and what are you doing here?

Under different circumstances, I might have found this situation promising, but not today. As cute as she is, I don’t have the patience to put up with any more nonsense. My voice rumbles out of my chest and over the woman, like thunder across the Texas prairie. Only an insane person would hold their ground in the face of the impending storm. "Look, lady, I’ve had a long day, and all I want is some peace and quiet. I’m only going to say this once, so listen carefully. This is my house. I belong here, you don’t. So, unless you plan to put that spade to good use, I suggest you leave."

An evil smirk crosses her face. Drop your pants, and I’ll put this to good use. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?

My mouth opens, and my cock begs me to let it out to play. What the hell? I make a conscious effort to close my mouth, but there’s nothing I can do about my erection. Correction—there’s nothing I’m willing to do. I can only pray she doesn’t notice. Her next words prove God has ceased answering my prayers.

You don’t think I noticed how your cock got harder when I rammed you with the spade? I know your kind. You’re big and macho on the outside, but you get turned on by a woman in charge. If I had a whip instead of a spade, I bet you’d have your pants around your knees, and you’d be begging me to hurt you. She comes close enough I can easily grab her. I’m too stunned to move, much less subdue her. She waves the spade under my nose near enough to give me a close shave if I don’t take a step back. I take a step back.

This is a small town, and people talk, so don’t get your hopes up. She drops the spade, narrowly missing my toes, then stomps away, leaving me in a world of hurt and confused as all hell. I fall against the nearest wall for support until I have sufficient blood flow to my brain to process what just happened. That little sprite of a girl took me by surprise. Is she a domme or just stupid? There aren’t many men of my acquaintance who would let her get away with the nonsense she just pulled. Most would have overpowered her and taken her makeshift weapon away. Others wouldn’t have stopped with disarming her. No doubt about it, she’d been foolish to confront me the way she did.

Unless... She’d read me right and understood her power over me like a well-trained domme would.

Absurd. She doesn’t look the part of a dominatrix and, most damning of all—she lives in Willowbrook where there are more do-gooders per square mile than anywhere else on the planet. I should know. I grew up here and was on every do-gooder’s radar in town from the time I was old enough to ride a bike.

Yet, she spoke with the authority of a woman who knew how to handle a man like me. A woman who knew how to bring me to my knees.

I’ve been gone a long time. Is it possible the town has changed that much?

Well damn. I crouch to pick up the spade, fingering the small gouge it made in the floor. Welcome home, Hud.

Chapter Two

Mary Beth

Ithrow the dead bolt and press my forehead against the cool, sturdy wood of my front door. My pounding heart and spiking body temperature have nothing to do with the oppressive heat outside. I moved to Willowbrook five years ago hoping a change of scenery would equal a change in other ways, too, but in less than five minutes, I’ve proven how unsuccessful my plan has been.

At first, I saw something dark and wounded in his eyes that I wanted to comfort, but then he reacted to my jab, and I saw something completely different. Desire. Then my past life rushed back in on me, and words I swore never to say again spilled out of my mouth before I could stop them. All my carefully guarded secrets are now in the hands of a complete stranger. A stranger who has secrets of his own. Dark ones. I’d bet my last lump of clay on it.

I push away from the door and head to the kitchen. My mouth is as dry as the Sahara. Too bad it wasn’t too dry to speak earlier. Maybe then, I wouldn’t have hung my dirty laundry on the line and given a stranger enough clothesline to hang me. Granted, he is a sinfully handsome stranger, but still.

Who is he anyway? And why did he march right into Mrs. Huddleston’s house as if he owned it? Away from his seductive presence, his words come back to me. This is my house. His voice hadn’t wavered. He truly believes the house is his.

You don’t suppose...? No, surely not. The idea is too incredible to even think. As far as I know, no one has heard from him, other than Mrs. Huddleston’s lawyer, in fifteen years. It can’t be.

I leave the empty glass on the counter and cross to the front window to gaze across the street at the house that is a mirror image of my own. The interloper is nowhere in sight, a good thing in my opinion. He knew where to find the key. I didn’t know there was a key there. How did he know about the key?

If it is him, he’s a bastard, literally and figuratively. Mrs. Huddleston didn’t speak of him much, but when she did, it was with pride and lots of love. She had a few photos of him scattered around the house. I asked about the boy in the photos once, wondering who he was and why she didn’t have any recent pictures of him.

That’s my grandson, Elgin. He’s a government agent, a real hero.

Most of the photos were of him as a child, school photos. There was one of him standing next to an old beat-up car. I recognized the location, the driveway that ran along the side of the house to the detached one-car garage. The boy in the photo had skinny arms that were years away from the

Reviews for Still Taking Chances

[Mhmyup · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Rollercoaster but the best one I've been on all my life, loved the ending. Good read