by Mj Fields
“They have those Igloo huts?” she asks, excitement in her eyes.
“They do, but they’re expensive and—”
“I’m rich. Let’s do it.” She all but skips toward me, hugs me, and whispers, “And let’s get out of here as soon as we can.”
I have been sitting in my room for hours, trying to plan a trip with family in and out, telling me how excited they are for me. Every one of them has come in except one person. Patrick hasn’t stepped foot in here, and I’m glad, because Tris is adamant that he doesn’t know, because she wants him to leave since he “doesn’t like her.” I tried to explain that he loves her, and if she told him, he’d understand. I can tell that she feels guilty about what she’s put him through, and I’m annoyed that she won’t just tell him the truth. I won’t do it behind her back either, but if he asks, I won’t lie to him. I just can’t.
Dad and Mom have come in several times and tried to talk me out of it, but how can I not? I seem to be the only person she wants to go. I can’t abandon her.
By the time I have the first three weeks booked, my eyes are wonky and I need a break. I also need to schedule in a good cry, because I’m feeling the resentment she has toward me. It fucking hurts.
I look at my phone and see it’s after midnight. I stand from the desk chair and stretch. Wanting to finish the entire thing tonight, so as not to let Tris down, and so that Mom and Dad can see how extremely capable I am, so that maybe they can breathe, I decide a snack and some fresh air are in order.
Walking back up the stairs, juggling my laptop, a bottle of S.Pellegrino and a Cornetti Con Panna, wrapped in a napkin, I make my way back up the stairs and head to the terrace.
Met with the cool sea breeze kissing my face, I walk out and am glad that the chaise lounges are still set up from the “wedding” today.
I set my things down then look up at the sky. It’s less clear today, but a few stars are visible.
“Twinkle, twinkle, angel lights,” I whisper as I walk over to the wall and look down, happy to see the moon’s reflection is visible.
“Miss Steel,” comes from behind me, but I don’t jump out of my skin this time. The reason is the voice.
It’s Ranger’s.
I look over my shoulder. “We’re back to that, are we?”
He shakes his head as he steps out of the dark. “I’ve just been informed that you decided to take yourself up on your sister’s offer.”
I look away from his angry face and back at the sea. “Sure am.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Says the guy who should have been taking it easy for a couple days, per doctor’s orders, yet was lurking behind the scenes all day.”
“Miss Steel, I strongly suggest you—"
“Yeah, well, I don’t think I asked for your opinion. And don’t worry about me being around; your virtue is safe with me, big guy.”
“I’m going to repeat—”
“I’m not hard of hearing. I’m also a grown-ass woman. I can handle myself.”
“I don’t think you can,” he sneers.
I whip around and glare at him, which is a bad idea, because now, under the light of the moon, I can see him better. He looks like shit. Well, shit for Wyatt Dalton. He’s bruised under his eyes and the majority of his face.
I clear my throat so that I sound strong. “You worry about your end of this, and I’ll worry about mine.”
“If it’s true that you feel what others do, then this could be a kind of hell you aren’t prepared for in the least.”
I turn away and rest my elbows on the wall. “She wants me there.”
“You’re a pain in the ass, Brisa.”
Brisa.
“The only people she’s remotely even with is Matteo, because she’s head up her ass about him, and me, because she knows I won’t put up with her shit. She feeds off your weakness—”
I step as close as I can to him without touching him. “I’m not weak.”
He doesn’t step back. “Your love for her makes you weak. You’re doing this for her, which again, I’m going to advise against.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I’m trying to return the favor from last night. I’m trying to save you from the scars this will definitely cause.”
“I hope it cuts deep enough for me to feel something other than someone else’s pain.” I turn and look away. “You look at me and see a fifteen-year-old little girl who believed in white knights with tattooed armor. I’m not her anymore. I’m a grown a—”
“Ass woman,” he finishes, nostrils flaring, eyes blazing blue pools of heat. “I’m aware.”
“Then that’s a you problem, so I’ll tell you what I can’t tell them because I love them too much. Stop pushing your worries off on me. Stop trying to save me from experiencing all the things I need to experience myself in order to feel alive. Stop trying to save me from the world so that I can make mistakes all people make. Mistakes that mold people. I’m gonna be fine.” I look over my shoulder at him. “Can you say the same?”
“I assure you I’ll be fine,” he hisses.
“Good talk.” I turn away, my body buzzing, feeding off his energy.
“I’ll need the itinerary,” he says from behind me, close enough that I can feel the heat from his body, but not feel it against mine.
Even though I have been closer to him over the past few days, touched him, fallen against him, it’s been years since I’ve been this close without fear, worry, or confusion about what he was feeling, what I was feeling, and my body is definitely … purring.
I took one of those quizzes online once, the kind you do when you’re bored out of your mind to pass time. My score sucked.
I’m one hundred percent sure that my Big Dick Energy score just skyrocketed.
I raise my hand over my shoulder and flip him off.
T minus two days and counting…
Ranger
“Can you say the same?” she asked while looking me up and down, knowing damn well I was on edge.
She got my number. Had it even before I did.
Since last night, since seeing that bastard with his hands on her, and then when she was taking care of me, even though she didn’t have to … Hell, I told her not to, but there she was, defiant and goddamn taking liberties that no one has been allowed to take since I was big enough to throw a punch. Since seeing her up close after all the years, I stayed away because it was definitely all sorts of wrong to feel drawn to her smile, her sassiness, her sweetness, and being shocked when she put her hands on me that I didn’t tense up. Since all that, I’ve been beating myself up.
She’s young, so fucking young. She has so much to learn from and about men, and even though she’s saying in action that she wants me, she sure as hell deserves better than what I can give any woman.
When I went to her room to grab the pain pills from Dr. Dick Pickle, and she was in those little sleep shorts, I wasn’t thinking about treating her the way she deserved to be treated. I was thinking about how to restrain her ass so that I could show her how a man should make her cum and do it in a way where she would remember me every time she came. But I also need to save her ass from what having me in any way would entail, especially now that it’s going to be damn near impossible to stay away from one another.
It ain’t pretty.
The little brat who lied about her age might have deserved to have the fear of God put in her so she knows not all men in the world wouldn’t put their hands on a minor. But the woman she’s definitely become, she doesn’t deserve to be afraid of shit. But fuck if she’s not literally opening the door to disappointment when it comes to me, and she’s doing it every fucking time I’m around her.
All day today, she was aware of where I was. She made damn sure I saw her, too, all fucking decked out in a rose gold dress that fit like a second skin. Her tits and ass are most definitely what plastic surgeons should show prospective clients in search of perfect or enhanced parts. I
swear I could see the outline of her damn belly button it was so tight. I’m ninety-nine percent sure it’s pierced. Confirmation would have come if I ever saw her tight, naked body, dangerous curves in all the right places, on the beach or in the pool, from a distance. Now? Fuck, now I’m sixty days in a figurative foxhole with her giving off fuck-me vibes, and she’s feeling me. She knows what she’s doing to me. She knows I see past the pigtails. She’s made damn sure I’m seeing her as a woman.
Never in my life have I been attracted to a woman whose pussy was sure to sparkle like glitter. Call me fucked up, but I like hair on parts that should have hair, and a woman to smell like want and need, not Chanel #5.
I like a girl who doesn’t give a fuck if her nails are polished or her toes are pedicured. Those kinds of women wouldn’t be impressed with me beyond the bedroom. I don’t own anything worth a damn, let alone something that sparkles, except my bike. My neck isn’t surrounded by platinum chains that cost half a year’s earnings; I wear dog tags. My clothes aren’t custom-tailored unless absolutely necessary, and I sure as fuck don’t drop a few Benjamins on a pair of jeans with holes in them, but I’ll wear jeans until they have holes big enough that my junk is damn near visible.
My ink is the only thing I’ve spent money on, and that’s because no one can take that away from me. It’s my fucking souvenir, purchased with my own blood, sweat, and tears.
I don’t dab on cologne to smell like something I’m not. I wash my body and use fucking deodorant. Shampoo and conditioner, well, I may spend money on that shit because my hair is my fucking crown. No old man is going to cut it when I sleep, and I’m no longer answering to Uncle Sam, so it’s not just a crown, it represents a kind of freedom earned, not given.
I shrug off the jacket, yank off the tie, and unbutton my shirt, all while looking in the mirror at the man I am. The man covered in ink I paid for, some covering scars someone else caused.
I toe off my leather loafers—fucking loafers—and then pitch the black pants and socks and quickly get in the shower.
One hand on the shower wall, the other wrapped around my shaft, I think about every-fucking-thing I wanted to do to her all day to get her out of my fucking system.
I wanted to walk up behind her as she was looking over her bare shoulder at me, giving me that come-and-get-it stare, pull the length of black waves to the side, and lick the shell of her ear, and ravish her neck until her knees were so damn weak she leaned her hot as hell body against me, shocked to find how fucking hard I am already, making her even more wet than she has been all day from thinking of me.
I wanted to run my hand down the front of her neck and watch her lashes flutter as she felt my callused hand lightly scrape the front of her chest until it was inside her dress, where I would feel her nipples harden against my palm before squeezing them, kneading them, and making her beg for more. She wouldn’t have to beg long, since I haven’t come in a month.
I wanted to drag her into the guest house and up the stairs to the room I’ve been torturing myself in, fighting this fucked-up attraction, bend her over the windowsill so she’s overlooking the grounds, pull up that dress, and confirm she’s not wearing panties and that her cunt is, in fact, glistening with wet desire, caused by me.
I wanted to slide deep inside her, hear her gasp, feel her body tighten around me as I drove into her over, and over, and over again, knowing not one fucking person saw us, but knowing she wanted me bad enough that, at that moment, she didn’t care.
I wanted to feel her come, contracting around my cock, crying out for me, saying my fucking name like it means something to her, burying myself deeper and filling her pussy full of my come.
“Fuck yes.” I pump harder, faster, turning my hand, rubbing my thumb over my head, balls now on fire …
“Fuuuuuck!”
Cum spurts out of my cock, one hot spurt after another, as I picture her begging for more.
Up and at it at six a.m., knowing I have a good three hours before anyone in the family wakes up, I walk across the grounds toward the castle.
Inside, I make myself a cup of coffee and flip through my phone, checking the footage from the four hours I slept just to make sure I didn’t miss anything.
Of course I didn’t.
I look up when Xavier Steel walks into the kitchen.
“Morning.”
“That it is.” I nod to the contraption they consider a coffee maker. “Fresh pot ready.”
“Cool. Thanks, man.” He opens the cupboard and grabs a cup. “The girls are hitting the salon with Momma Joe. My brothers and I are gonna tag along and pretend we’re into that shit.”
I nod and can’t help but smile. For rich motherfuckers, they don’t act like it. Of course, knowing the story behind how they came into money, money from Josephina Steel’s, aka Momma Joe, estranged family after busting their asses at the tattoo shop the family owned, I know they’re as real as real can be. What makes them cool is that they don’t act like douchebags.
Xavier wanted nothing to do with Steel Inc. and started a label, working his ass off. Tris, Xavier’s niece, is signed with them at Forever Four. Patrick has held her hand from the get-go and is now stepping back.
“Heard you’re going on a honeymoon with Tris.”
“Heard correct.” I lift my mug as he pulls out a chair beside me.
“She gonna be okay?” he asks before taking a sip of his coffee.
“Yeah, of course.”
“You think maybe we pushed her too hard?” he asks, clearly carrying some guilt that he shouldn’t, but that’s confidential information that I won’t share without Tris telling me to, even though they are paying the tab.
“She’s a teenage girl who got her heart broken. Had nothing to do with you.” Both statements are true.
“Patrick got pretty mangled a couple years ago. He dove into this headfirst. Can’t help but think I fucked up letting them. Should have held them back.”
“He’s a good man. Strong. You raised him right.”
When he starts laughing, I can’t help but shake my damn head.
“Definitely living like his old man did at his age. Couldn’t get enough of getting off until I met my Irish—”
“And then what?” his wife, his Irish, Taelyn, asks as she walks in.
“You really want me to tell him how your sweet, little—”
“Oh my God, shut up.” She laughs.
He winks. “Over twenty years, and you’re still the wood in my morning.”
Jesus Christ, I think as I scrub a hand over my face to hide the laughter.
“You’re lucky you’re hot, or I would have dumped you a long time ago.”
“My looks may fade, Irish, but my stamina will never die.”
“Good. Get your ass outside and go for a run with your brothers,” Cyrus says from the doorway.
“Cardio for the day already completed, old man.” Xavier winks.
“Don’t be a pussy, X. Let’s go!” Jase yells.
“Bro, I’m good.” He laughs.
“Z’s out there, Xavier. Let’s roll.” Cyrus nods toward the door.
“Go.” Taelyn kisses him on the head. “I’ll have breakfast ready when you get back.”
“Already ate Lucky Charms, Irish.” He stands, and she pushes him away when he leans in to kiss her.
“Go.” She laughs.
“Where’s everyone going?” Patrick asks, walking into the kitchen, sweat drenched.
“For a run. You look like you could use one,” Xavier jokes.
“Breakfast?” Taelyn asks her son.
“Water, and I’ll help you cook.”
“Sit, relax, hydrate. I got this.” She tosses him a water bottle.
“Thanks, Mom.”
After chugging a bottle of water, Patrick sits down, wiping sweat from his face and hair with a towel that Taelyn also tossed him.
“You sure you can handle—”
“I’m good,” I cut him off. “Apparently, Brisa is plannin
g the trip and will be there to make her social media accounts ‘sparkle’.”
“I heard, and I’ve yet to stop in and wish her luck, because she’s gonna need more than that when Tris decides marrying Matteo isn’t the way to get over her heartbreak from that motherfucker—”
“Just pretend I’m not right here,” Taelyn mumbles.
“Sorry, Mom,” he says. “Just need to get the hell away from it all for a while, and the fact I’m leaving you to deal with the mess I’ve created just doesn’t feel right.”
“She’ll be all right, and if not, I’ll drag her ass back to the shore again.” I shrug.
“You gotta keep an eye on her. If she tries to hurt herself again—”
“I got two eyes on her. Her husband’s no dummy. And Brisa—”
“She’s too damn naïve and sees the good in everything. She’ll get hurt. Mark my word.”
“I think she’s tougher than anyone knows.”
He scrutinizes me for a bit too long, so I elaborate.
“The other night with Marcello, she was pretty fucking calm, considering the situation, and then she managed to get me stitched up, and I straight-up hate needles.”
“You watch out for her.”
I nod.
He huffs. “And Tris … Fuck, man, she’s just a baby. You need more hands, we’ll send more. I get she wants to pay you, but she’s still with Forever Four.”
“You will ask if you need it, right?” Taelyn asks.
I nod. “Of course.”
“And she’s sneaky as fuck, too,” Patrick says. “She gave him directions in here. Was she on something?”
“Aunt Bekah said she just wanted to say goodbye,” Taelyn interjects. “And by the way she looks at Matteo, I can tell she’s smitten with him, so I believe it.”
“I’d have told her to fuck off if she did that shit and she was mine. Fuck that. Bye, Felicia.”
I look up as someone clears their throat. Brisa. She is in a hoodie and sleep shorts, hair up in a knot, wearing black-rimmed glasses.
“She’ll be okay. And she loves you, Patrick. If she was in a better place, she’d tell you she’s sorry.”