Tasty Treats Anthology: Volume One Read online

  RACHEL'S SEDUCTION by Jenny Penn

  [M/F/M Cowboy Ménage Romance] In a reckless attempt to escape boredom, Rachel tumbles into a Cattleman's fantasy. Adam and Killian intend to keep her there.

  RIDING LESSONS by Eve Adams

  [M/F/M Cowboy Ménage Romance] When Cole brings Leah home for a night of passion, his brother Jesse joins and together they show Leah exactly how a country boy survives.

  MACKENZIE'S MELTDOWN by Amber Carlton

  [M/F/M Ménage Romance] Computer crash. Backstabbing co-worker. Meddling mom. Dead battery. No chocolate. In the hands of two gorgeous hunks, Mackenzie's meltdown just changed directions.

  THE ELIXIR by Dee S. Knight

  [M/F/M Paranormal Ménage Romance] Barb Morrison's stuck centuries in the future where an elixir and two sexy guys set her afire. Can she get home? Does she want to?

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  TASTY TREATS ANTHOLOGY

  Volume 1

  Jenny Penn

  Eve Adams

  Amber Carlton

  Dee S. Knight

  MENAGE AMOUR

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Ménage Amour

  TASTY TREATS ANTHOLOGY: VOLUME ONE

  Copyright © 2009

  E-book ISBN: 1-60601-449-8

  RACHEL'S SEDUCTION

  Copyright © 2009 by Jenny Penn

  RIDING LESSONS

  Copyright © 2009 by Eve Adams

  MACKENZIE'S MELTDOWN

  Copyright © 2009 by Amber Carlton

  THE ELIXIR

  Copyright © 2009 by Dee S. Knight

  First E-book Publication: June 2009

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2009 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  RACHEL'S SEDUCTION

  Cattleman's Club 2

  Jenny Penn

  DEDICATION

  This story is dedicated to Lee and the hope that adventure

  awaits us all in our lives.

  RACHEL'S SEDUCTION

  Cattleman's Club 2

  JENNY PENN

  Copyright © 2009

  Chapter 1

  The crystal pearl started as barely more than a trickle before it rolled into another plump droplet and slid down the uneven curve of the bag to splat into the laminated counter. Rachel's eyes shifted back up to the top of the frozen Italian dinner to track another rivulet of water as it grew into a drop before following its predecessor onto the counter. Beside the thawing bag sweated a log of garlic bread, losing its cool to the late summer night heat.

  If my mother could see me now.

  She'd have some choice words for her daughter. A ready-made, frozen meal, no matter how fancy the bag or sophisticated the actual dish, it would be considered a sin by her mother. She'd look on it as if Rachel were shaming her upbringing to eat such a thing.

  Rachel herself wasn't particularly excited to eat it either. The trip into the grocery store had been merely a matter of ceremony. She needed a toothbrush. Then the bubble bath had caught her eye, which led to visions of a nice glass of wine, red wine and a proper meal to match the cheap bottle. The only thing that she hadn't traced back from that bubble bath had been the chocolate syrup.

  Look at me now.

  She sat there watching her expensive, fancy frozen dinner going to mush, with the wine bottle unopened and a bowl of vanilla ice cream in front of her. Covered in chocolate, Rachel couldn't help but feel guilty for her lack of sophistication. She wanted something different. Chinese food that didn't come from a buffet, raw fished wrapped in seaweed, desserts that came in martini glasses and looked like little mini-sculptures. She wanted to eat real Italian food in Italy.

  I watch too much Food TV.

  Actually, too much TV in general. Rachel loved her television and her satellite even more. It opened a world of adventures she'd never go on. For an hour she could be a fireman being air lifted into the heart of a raging forest inferno or an archeologist braving the blazing heat of the unforgiving desert as she searched for some sign of a lost civilization. She could be so many more exciting things than Rachel Allen, feel good reporter for the Pittsview Press. She could have been Rachel Allen, investigative journalist for the New York Times, reporting from exotic locations like South America, as she did an exposé on climate change or maybe from some desolate, dangerous desert while she bedded down the troops.

  As long as I don't actually have to live in New York.

  Rachel had seen pictures of New York. Not the sanitized images that Hollywood like to recreate in set format but true images of the congestion and chaos of the big city. She didn't know if she could live somewhere that crowded. Hell, she didn't even know if she could leave Pittsview.

  Let's face it, I have a boring life because I'm a boring person.

  Boring and scared, those two words summed her up completely. She was boring because she was scared, not just of leaving Pittsview but doing just about anything. She'd been too afraid to buy her own house because of the debt, too afraid to go scuba-diving or parasailing on vacation because she'd read all the things that could go wrong, too afraid to travel further than the Florida coast just a hundred miles away because she knew what could happen to a girl on her own, too afraid to even go out with Killian Kregor when he'd asked her out last month simply because she knew she couldn't hold a man that good looking's attention.

  Too afraid, too afraid, too afraid of everything.

  It disgusted her. She disgusted herself at some level. The mind of a dreamer, the heart of a wanderer and still she sat at home alone on a Friday night trapped in the web of her own mundane life. All because she was too afraid to go out there and do anything about it.

  Three weeks from now she'd turn thirty and close the chapter on her twenties. The twenties were when a girl was supposed to be wild and free, to have adventures with men and travel to exotic locations. The thirties were for settling down, falling in love with the right man, getting married, having children and settling into the sweet rhythm of domestication. It felt like she'd been born thirty.
r />   Well, damn it! I'm going to have my fun!

  In three weeks, she might not be able to travel or go on any great adventure, but she could do one thing that every woman should experience by the time they reached thirty. She could have an orgasm. Not one of those half-assed ones she gave herself sometimes while she fantasized about some overly idolized perfect man. No she wanted one of those dirty, sweaty, pelvis grinding, real-sex orgasms.

  She knew just who could deliver such a birthday gift, and this time she wouldn't allow fear to rule. She'd step up and ask him out. Pushing out of her stool, she left her dinner to thaw on the counter and went for her cordless phone. She didn't make it half way before the doubts started settling in. It was Friday night and Killian was probably busy. Even if he wasn't, he'd probably think she was weird just to call him out of the blue a whole month later.

  Hell, he might think you are obsessed with him to call him after a whole month.

  Really, it wasn't like she was friends with him. She'd been doing an article about the budget the city council had drafted up and gone to the police station to interview them on what they thought of their spending needs for the coming year.

  Alexander Krane, the police chief, had been off handling something or another. That had left Killian manning the station. He'd been all too happy to show her around and then take her out for a long lunch. They'd sat at the diner for nearly two hours just talking. The interview had long been forgotten as their conversation had moved onto more personal interests and stories.

  He'd been the interesting one. You were the…

  Boring one. Yes, she knew it. Killian had spent nearly twelve years in the Marines. He'd been stationed in exotic locations like Japan and Hawaii. He'd traveled almost everywhere, been in exciting, dangerous situations. He'd even been to war.

  She'd lived her whole life in the same house. Even after her parents had retired to Florida, she still slept in the same bedroom. She'd been on a road trip, traveling the perilous path from Panama City to New Orleans. She'd even been as far north as Chattanooga to see Rock City.

  Oh, yeah. I'm sure Killian would just be so excited to hear more about those rocks. Loser.

  Okay, so she wouldn't call Killian, but that didn't mean she would abandon her plan. She wanted that orgasm and wouldn't find it here.

  Knowing even as she punched in the numbers that she would most likely just end up at a bar with her friend, drink two pineapple and rum mixers, get sleepy, pass out and then wake up tomorrow wondering what she had been thinking the night before. She still punched the numbers.

  "Hey, Rachel." Hailey answered her cell on the third ring. She shouted out the greeting to be heard over the chaos in the background.

  "Where are you?"

  "I'm at some stupid-ass bonfire playing an even more moronic and juvenile trick on some very large and likely to be pissed of men."

  Oh, a bonfire.

  "I swear to God, Rachel. You know I love Patton. I really do, like a sister, but I cannot wait until she either goes back to Atlanta or those Davis brothers put a stop to all this insanity."

  I wonder where this bonfire is.

  "As if it isn't bad enough she seems determined to piss off Chase. Now she's run off with Cole Jackson. Cole Jackson! It just boggles the mind why of all the men she chose that—"

  "How come you didn't invite me to this bonfire?"

  "Huh?"

  "I might have wanted to go."

  "Why? I don't even want to be here. This place is a meat market. It's full of oversized, egomaniacal, wannabe studs and a bunch of barely-dressed, half-witted bimbos. Nobody is looking for anything more than a goodtime."

  "I like a goodtime."

  There was a pause before Hailey spoke again. "Are you all right, Rachel?"

  "I'm fine. Just a little insulted that you didn't invite me to the party."

  "Ah, man. You're having one of those 'I'm boring' moments again, aren't you?"

  "I am not. I'm just saying I like parties."

  "You wouldn't like this one and even if I had invited you, you couldn't have gotten in. It was invitation only and Patton got me in."

  "Invitation only? Pittsview has those kinds of parties?"

  "It's a Cattlemen's Club event and, trust me, you'd be surprised at what kind of party this is."

  Cattlemen's Club?

  There were rumors, big, juicy rumors about that particular club. Hailey's voice faded out as Rachel began to envision all the possibilities.

  A bonfire means they're outside.

  Outside meant exposed. Exposed led to exposés on the front cover of Pittsview Press. Hell, it could even be picked up by some of the larger newspapers in Alabama just because of the shock factor. From Alabama to the national news, she might even end up on one of the cable networks being interviewed for her story. Then, hello New York Times!

  "Rachel?"

  "Huh?"

  "I said, I got to go. We'll have to do your two-depression-drinks night-out tomorrow, okay?"

  "Yeah, sure whatever. Hey, Hailey, just out of curiosity, are you at the Cattlemen's Club?"

  "What?"

  "I'm just asking."

  "No, you're not. Don't even think about it, Rachel."

  "About what?"

  "About coming out here and trying to get into this party."

  "I'm not going to."

  "I know you're in the middle of one of your little pity-fests and you're probably at that point where you think having a man is going to solve your problems, but, trust me, none of these men will."

  "Relax, Hailey. I was just curious."

  "Yeah, right. Don't even try it, Rachel. They not only have guards at the gate, but according to Cole they have surveillance all around the party to assure nobody who isn't invited gets in."

  They protect something that much and you know they have something good going on.

  "I wouldn't dream of it."

  "Don't."

  "I'm going let you get back to whatever Patton has you doing now."

  "Rachel—"

  "I'll call you tomorrow."

  "Damnit!"

  Rachel smiled as she hung up on Hailey cursing. She could smell the story before her nose. It was big, juicy and guarded. It sounded like an adventure awaited her tonight after all.

  * * * *

  "I cannot believe we're stuck on patrol duty." Killian kicked a rock and sent it skipping across the uneven ground. "This just sucks."

  "I told you Alex would find a way to make us suffer for luring Sweetness away from him." Adam lined up a rock and whacked it with the tip of his boot. It caught a little air and he smirked when his went a foot farther than Killian's.

  "Yeah, well she was sweet." Killian chuckled and took aim at a slightly smaller stone. He lost his laugh when it came up short of Adam's rock. With a sigh, he shook his head. "Still, it isn't right. I mean we're supposed to share. That's sort of the motto of the club and Alex punishing us for having a little fun with his plaything goes against the grain."

  Killian watched Adam kick another stone. It went farther than his first. Bastard cheated with those pointy cowboy boots. All Killian had on were his regular work boots with the thick, rounded toe. He couldn't get under the stones to give them the lift they needed to get that extra distance.

  "Hey." Killian turned toward Adam. Even way out here on the outskirts of the bonfire, the collective glow of so many fires allowed him to see his best friend quite clearly. "You don't think Alex actually liked the girl."

  "Liked?"

  "Like liked the girl?"

  "You mean as in loved her?" Adam gave a short, disbelieving laugh at that. "Alex? Are you insane?"

  "Yeah." Killian turned back to the rocks. "Well, it's just, I mean this is a little extreme, being banned from the party to do patrol work is one thing, but he has us on real patrol tomorrow night and that's when the most fun is. Think about it, man, we're going to miss the auction."

  "All that prime female flesh." Adam sighed.

  "F
resh flesh."

  "I don't know. Somebody's got to work. The whole station can't take the night off. Besides, the party will still be going when we get off."

  Killian didn't bother to respond to that. He knew as well as Adam that by the time they got off, all the events would be done. The party might still be going, but everybody would have paired off. By the time they showed up all the women would be claimed and those that hadn't, well there never were any of those.

  It sucked. Anyway Adam wanted to dress it up, the truth remained. Alex had screwed them. It seemed to Killian that Adam didn't really care. He'd felt that turning shift in Adam for a while now and it had begun to unnerve him. He had the sickening feeling that Adam might actually be maturing.

  Three months ago Adam had turned thirty three, and it seemed almost to that day he had changed. Killian knew what had done it, too. Adam's damn brother. James had come in to town with his wife and three kids to celebrate Adam's birthday and it seemed as if the sight of his brother's, big, happy family had somehow triggered a strange craving in Adam.

  Killian feared that craving. He for one didn't want to settle down. Maybe he'd have children one day, but hell, he was a man. That day could be when he was forty. He could marry some twenty-something and have a whole, fricken brood if he wanted. There was no good reason to stop all the fun now.

  Apparently, Adam didn't agree. He'd started making comments, worrisome comments, after James had left. At first Killian had argued against them, attacking each point as best he could. That plan had backfired all over him.