Free Untamed: (Heath & Violet) (Beg For It) by Callie Harper Page A

that. I lost myself in
it, transforming junk into useful and treasured possessions. Taking
something discarded and cast off, I found new purpose and even beauty
in it. It felt a little like magic to transform something from
landfill into a dining table and chairs for families to gather
together and eat meals. Or rocking chairs, those I really liked,
taking rejected scrap and transforming them into something comforting
and traditional, a place to soothe your baby or set out on the porch
and watch time ooze by.
    I hadn’t started out
with the sole purpose of making money, but the funny thing was my
pieces were starting to sell pretty well. I displayed my work with
the artisan collective in town. We all chipped in for a storefront to
connect with tourists passing through. I knew I was shit at marketing
and I could do more, much more to grow my business. One day maybe I
would. For now, though, I was content to make just enough. Enough
pieces to satisfy customers, and enough money to cover my modest
living expenses.
    I had a good thing
going. I didn’t operate within limits or constraints. My days were
my own. And most days I lost myself in my work, no sense of passing
time.
    Except for today,
things weren’t going as planned. I kept finding myself gazing out
into the middle distance. In and of itself, that wasn’t such a bad
thing, but if you were holding a blowtorch the stakes got higher. I
nearly cut a chunk out of my treasured Chevy hood. All because of
Violet.
    I wondered if she’d
discovered the SUV yet. I hadn’t even needed to break into her
MINI. After I’d dropped her off last night, my raging hard-on
protesting mightily against my jeans, I’d returned to the bar to
see what I could do about switching out her ride. She’d left the
door to her rental car open.
    Impractical. High
maintenance. And damn if she hadn’t tasted like honey on a fresh
baked bun, so good you had to close your eyes while you licked so you
didn’t miss a thing. She’d felt so right, so slick and hot,
working her pussy against my fingers, so desperate and needy in my
truck. The sight of her succumbing to the pleasure, tossing her head
back and coming with a throaty cry, bucking down onto my hand. That
image kept playing over and over, like a glitch or a skip in my
brain.
    Maybe today wasn’t
the best day to use a blowtorch. I turned off the open flame and put
down the tool, flipped up the mask on my helmet and took off my
gloves. What was wrong with me today?
    True, I’d been
leading a solitary existence, but I’d had my share of women. It
wasn’t as if that had been the first time I’d ever made a woman
come. But it had felt like it. It didn’t make sense, but I guessed
this wasn’t my brain doing the responding. There was something
about Violet, some kind of chemical reaction, and I knew all about
that. As a metalworker, I’d studied the science of combustion, the
transformation from solid to liquid, the melting point. Something
about that woman heated me up quick. And I sure as hell had enjoyed
finding her melting point.
    Time for a break. It
was dark out, but I didn’t know what time. I purposely didn’t
have a clock in my workshop. I didn’t want to be governed by the
rigid passage of minutes and hours. I wanted to manage my own life,
dictate how I devoted my time.
    I did have a cell phone, though. I
didn’t really want one but even I realized they came in handy. I
glanced at it and saw I had a text. From Ash, one of my brothers:
    Hey, man, let me know soon.
    Right. I didn’t know
what to do about that one. I took off my helmet and ran my hand
through my hair, leaning against the frame of a window in my
workshop. The light at the front door of my cabin was on. In the glow
I could see a few flakes still drifting past. It didn’t look like
it was snowing so much as blowing around, the powder picked up and
thrown around by nature’s snowball fight.
    I had two older
brothers, Colt and Ash. We didn’t have too many snowball