by Callie Rose
It makes me miss the fuck out of my mom. She made this stuff look so easy.
Bri disappears through an arched doorway with the couple behind her, and I walk quickly down the stairs while the foyer is empty. I’m about to head toward the kitchen when the doorbell rings again, making me pause in my tracks.
To be honest, I feel like kind of an asshole letting Bri work her butt off while I traipse around the house like I’m an actual resident here and not just the daughter of the previous maid. I shoot a glance in the direction she disappeared, then turn and head for the door, opening it as I slip on my bland “house staff” smile.
A lone man stands on the front steps rather than a couple, and my brows furrow as I take him in. He’s probably in his early forties and has a sort of George Clooney vibe, with deep lines in his forehead, full lips, and a little dimple in his chin.
Alexander Hollowell. The guy my mom went out with twice.
The guy she thought might be able to help her if her case goes to trial.
Fuck. Should I say something?
I have no earthly idea what to say. My mom was probably just grasping at straws, hoping that having a connection to a respected judge in Fox Hill would help her somehow. But wouldn’t asking him for help be unethical or illegal? The last thing I want to do is make things worse for Mom by crossing some line I didn’t know existed.
The man cocks his head, squinting slightly as he takes me in. I see the moment when he realizes why he recognizes me, and my cheeks flame. He was at the party where Mom got arrested—so the last time he saw me, I was chasing after a bunch of cops who’d just handcuffed my mom.
We stare at each other for a second, and I’m not sure either of us know what to say.
Finally, I jerk myself into motion, opening the door wider and stepping back. “Please, come in.”
“Thank you.” He steps forward, brows still furrowed. “You’re… Penelope’s daughter, right?”
“Yeah,” I mutter. “Harlow.”
He nods, sympathy crossing his features.
It makes my heart jump in my chest. If he’s sympathetic, maybe he doesn’t think mom did it. Maybe he’d believe she’s innocent.
Ask him for help, Harlow. Just fucking ask him. Say something.
I lick my lips and am about to open my mouth Bri comes back into the room. She shoots me a look that’s both panicked and slightly annoyed as she hustles over, probably worried I’m making her look bad or something. Not that anyone’s here to see it.
“Judge Hollowell. Please, come in. May I take your coat?”
He nods and shrugs out of his overcoat, handing it to her before following her toward the ballroom. He glances back at me as they leave the foyer, and I give him a limp smile.
Well, fuck. So much for that chance.
Although if he’s friends with Samuel Black, maybe I shouldn’t trust him after all.
That’s a long fucking list though. The Black family is extremely well connected in Fox Hill, so if I’m looking for help from someone who has no ties to this family, it’s gonna be hard to find. And who knows. Just because these people come to the Blacks’ cocktail parties, I’m not sure that makes them all friends.
Deciding that Bri clearly doesn’t want my help, I hightail it to the kitchen before any other guests can arrive. I wonder if the Bettencourt and Lauder families have been invited.
Most likely. They’ve come to every other party hosted here.
“Oh, hey, Harlow. Cute dress.”
Gwen looks up from the large island in the middle of the kitchen, where she’s putting garnish on a couple trays full of hors d’oeuvres that are ready to go out.
“Hey, Gwen.” I peer around at the food, trying not to make it obvious that’s the only reason I came down here. “Is there anything you won’t kill me for stealing?”
She laughs, jerking her head to the left. “Take a few canapés. I made too many.”
“Thanks.”
I grab a napkin and load it up with several of the little sandwiches. Then I head for the door to the back terrace. It’s been warmer the past few days, like fall is having a last hurrah before it cedes the floor to winter. My thin Arizona blood still chills as soon as I step outside, but the long sleeves on my dress help, and I take a seat on the steps leading from the terrace to the large backyard, curling my body tight to preserve warmth.
It’s not completely comfortable, but it’s nice to be outside. I was getting almost claustrophobic inside the house.
The canapés are gone in about ten seconds, and I’m just wiping off my fingers on the napkin when my phone’s screen lights up beside me. Hunter’s name flashes across it, and I smile in spite of myself. I wad the napkin up and drop it on my lap as I swipe across the cellphone screen to answer.
“Hey, dummy. What’s up?”
“Oh, you know,” she answers. “Just another thrilling Saturday night of being single.”
I chuckle, bending forward to hug my knees, protecting my bare skin from the elements. “It’s barely been a month since you and Kevin broke up. It’s okay to still be single. It’s probably good.”
“Yeah. I know.” She sounds very disgruntled, but her tone changes quickly as she asks, “How are you?”
Oh, God. I wish I could answer that. Really answer it.
Hunter knows my mom got arrested for murder, which she thinks is insane. She falls firmly into the “Penelope Thomas could never do that” camp, which I’m grateful for.
But that’s all Hunter knows.
She doesn’t know about the night the guys and I saw Iris get killed.
She doesn’t know that someone—probably the same man who murdered Iris—framed my mom.
She doesn’t know that the man in the black mask might be the same man hosting the party in the mansion behind me.
And she can’t know.
So I don’t know quite what to say to her.
“Hey, Low?” Her voice is softer, concern creeping into her tone. “You there?”
“Yeah.” My eyes burn, and I squeeze them shut, but a few tears slip out anyway. “I miss my mom,” I whisper. “I miss her so fucking much I can’t breathe sometimes.”
There’s silence on the other end of the line for several beats. But it’s a nice kind of silence. The kind that means Hunter would be hugging the shit out of me if she were here right now.
“I’m sorry,” she says finally. “That sucks so much.”
“Yeah.” I drag in a deep breath and release it, forcing my body to relax. “But it’ll be okay. It has to be.”
“Yeah. Yeah, it will.”
We talk for a while longer, and I tell her about how my mom thinks maybe Judge Hollowell could help her, but that I don’t know if I should say anything to him. At least that’s one little thing I can share with Hunter, and it feels good to talk openly and get her advice. Then we move on to lighter topics, and I can tell she’s trying to distract me and cheer me up as she fills me in on the stupid shit my old classmates have been up to.
It helps.
Hunter’s always been good at that—at knowing when I need to talk about something and when I need to talk about anything but that thing.
The phone is still pressed to my ear, but my fingers and legs are starting to get cold. I’m about to stand up to head back inside when I hear a noise behind me and look up sharply.
Lincoln stands near the door to the house, his face cast in shadows. The last hints of daylight were fading when I stepped out here, and it grew fully dark while I was talking to Hunter.
The striking boy in the tuxedo crooks a finger, beckoning me, and my body is moving before I even think.
“Hey, dummy? I gotta go.”
“Okay.” She sighs into the phone. “I hope you feel better.”
“I do. Thanks. You’re the best.”
“Love you, Low.”
“Love you back.”
I press the button to end the call just as I reach Lincoln, who’s been watching and listening silently. When
I stop in front of him, he drops his head to kiss me once on the lips, not touching any other part of me. Then he jerks his chin back toward the house before turning and walking inside.
Accepting his unspoken invitation, I follow after him, tossing my wadded up napkin in a wastebasket as we walk by. He makes his way toward the west wing of the house, turning down the hallway that leads to the pool room.
When we step inside, Dax, Chase, and River are already gathered at one end of the pool, lounging on the padded chairs in their suits and tuxes. The sight of it is so incongruous that it makes me smile. They look like they’re here for some kind of edgy editorial photo shoot—and halfway through the shoot, they’ll end up jumping in the pool in their fancy formalwear, because the rich and famous just don’t give a fuck.
“What’s up?” I ask, quirking a brow as I glance from Lincoln to the other three.
“We ditched out on the cocktail party a little earlier than usual. Decided to make it a pool party instead,” Dax says with a shrug.
“Yeah. We thought it might be a shitty night for you, so we decided to make it better.” Chase grins.
His words hit me in the chest, harder than I was prepared for, and I gape at the four boys gathered in the pool house as a pleasurable ache squeezes my heart.
They did this for me.
Because of the party.
Because of what happened at the last party.
Because my mom’s still in jail, and sometimes just thinking about that makes me want to curl up into a little ball.
They know.
They understand.
14
I swallow down the lump in my throat, grinning back at Chase. “Thanks.”
He waggles his eyebrows, loosening his tie before pulling it off entirely. When he starts unbuttoning his shirt, I glance at the other guys to see that they’re all doing the same.
“Um, what…?”
“You can’t really have a pool party without getting in the pool, Low,” Chase tells me, as if that should be perfectly fucking obvious.
He finishes unbuttoning his shirt and tugs the ends from his slacks. For a moment, all I can see of his torso is a line of sculpted, muscled skin in the space where his shirt hangs open. Then he slips his jacket and dress shirt off, draping them over the back of one of the lounge chairs.
The others are all doing the same, and when River’s hands move to unbuckle his belt and flick the button open on his pants, my heart rate kicks up into high gear.
I was right about them jumping in the pool—I was just wrong about how much they’d be wearing when they did.
He kicks off his shoes, leaving his pants unbuttoned and unzipped while he reaches down to tug off his socks. And then the pants go too, and he’s left in nothing but a pair of nice black boxer briefs that leave way too little to the imagination.
My teeth clamp down hard on my bottom lip as I watch, waiting to see if anything else is going to come off, torn between hope and panic at the thought that it might.
“Dude. I think your dick hypnotized her,” Chase says with a laugh, and my entire body jerks as I rip my gaze away from River’s crotch.
Motherfucker. I was full-on staring at his dick, like I was waiting for it to do a magic trick.
Or… something.
A heavy flush makes my face burn, and I shake my head, about to call Chase out for being an asshole—but when I glance over at him, there’s so much heat in his eyes alongside the humor that the words die on my lips. My flush grows deeper, but now the reason for it is entirely different.
All the guys stopped at their underwear, not taking off more than that. Which is good, because even though it’s unlikely any adults will wander away from the party and into the pool house, we’ll be less likely to get in trouble if we’re not completely naked.
Besides, this gives me a fighting chance of keeping my shit together.
Arms wrap around my waist from behind, and Lincoln’s breath teases my hair as his lips brush my ear. “What do you want, Low? Do you want to go swimming? With all of us?”
My body is pressed flush to him, and I can feel that he’s a little hard, his semi-erect cock pressing against my ass. The answering heat that flashes through my body is so intense it almost bowls me over, and I grab onto his muscled forearms for support.
I can’t help but think he’s remembering the conversation we had while he was inside me a couple weeks ago, when I asked him if the four of them had ever shared. That this is him offering me a chance to dip my toe into that water—literally, I guess.
Lincoln’s hands splay across my stomach, his touch both supportive and possessive, and I glance at the other three boys as I consider my answer. They’re all watching me too.
Clear gray eyes.
Green eyes and blue eyes.
And behind me, even though I can’t see them at the moment, Lincoln’s leonine amber ones.
My stomach clenches and relaxes, and I melt into Linc’s touch a little more.
“Yeah,” I murmur. “A swim sounds nice.”
Lincoln makes a noise low in his throat and kisses my ear once more before releasing me. The other three kings take my words as their cue, walking over to the water and leaping in. Linc follows them, and only once he resurfaces, pushing his dark hair back from his face, do all the boys turn to look at me.
Oh. Right. My turn to undress.
I can’t decide if it’s a good thing or bad thing that I changed into the little black dress before coming downstairs—because it means there’s really only one article of clothing that needs to come off to leave me in my bra and panties.
Kicking off my flats, I reach down and grab the hem of the stretchy black fabric. Then I pull it up and over my head in a single movement. I lose sight of the guys for a second as the dress obscures my vision, and when I find their faces again, their expressions have all shifted slightly.
They’ve intensified.
Heated.
Their gazes sweep over me with such deliberation that I swear I can feel each one of them individually, and the sensation makes me want to squirm with both pleasure and sheer overload.
My body is still flushed, and I can feel a slick ache building in my core, but I ignore it and step forward, slipping into the pool with a small splash.
Chase grins at me. “There. Now it’s a party.”
I grin back and splash him with water—and he, of course, retaliates quickly. I try to duck out of the way, but the other three boys fan out, trapping me in the middle of a rough circle as they all splash water at me.
“So—fucking—unfair!” I gasp as I spin back and forth in the clear blue pool, giving up entirely on evading their shots and focusing on just getting them all as wet as me.
They close ranks, coming closer and closer as we move toward the shallow end, until we’re hardly splashing each other at all and more just shoving water in each other’s direction.
Then they’re too close to do even that, and we stop the water fight entirely.
My feet can touch the bottom easily here, with the waterline several inches below my collarbone.
Lincoln’s hands find mine, and he tangles our fingers together, tugging me a little closer to him. The pool water is cool, but I can feel the heat of four large male bodies filling the space around me, and when Linc’s chest brushes against mine, my nipples harden instantly.
He’s directly in front of me, capturing me with his steady, enigmatic amber gaze. The twins ended up on either side of me, sandwiching me like they did the night I kissed Chase.
River is behind me, and it’s his hands that I feel first, resting lightly on the swell of my hips. Then Dax’s fingertips run down my arm under the water, and the light touch makes me shiver.
“Cold?” Linc asks softly.
“No.”
His grin is sinful. “Good.”
Keeping his hands locked with mine, he leans forward to press a kiss to my lips, and as if that’s some kind of secret signal, the other boys all move to
o.
River’s hands slide around to my stomach, bringing me closer to him, his chest brushing against my back. Chase drops his head to kiss the part of my shoulder that’s out of the water as Dax does the same on my other side.
I’m surrounded.
Completely encased by these four boys.
And it feels unbelievably good.
Lincoln must sense my body relaxing incrementally under their touch, because he deepens the kiss, asking for more, letting me take more.
And I do.
My fingers cling to his and my body undulates in the water as my tongue slides into his mouth, translating every sensation I’m feeling into our kiss.
The hands touching me grow a little bolder—not pushing too far, but exploring new parts of me, moving slowly and deliberately as they gauge my reaction.
Just when I think I might never come up for air again, Lincoln breaks our lips apart, staring down at me with dilated, half-lidded eyes. Then, without warning, he spins me in the water, turning me to face River. The twins release their hold on me but resume their exploration as soon as I come to a stop, and now I feel Linc behind me as River lifts a hand out of the water to trace the line of my jaw.
My clit is throbbing, pulsing in time to my heartbeat as my breath comes faster.
I didn’t know I would like this so much.
But I do.
I really fucking do.
River doesn’t push. He just waits. And it doesn’t take long for his patience to pay off. Lincoln’s hand presses lightly against my lower back—not so much a command as an invitation—and it breaks the last thin thread holding me back.
He’s okay with this.
He wants me to.
With that thought ricocheting around in my head, I move forward through the water and press my lips to River’s. We’ve only kissed once before, but somehow, it feels familiar, like we’ve done it hundreds of times. Like we know each other’s bodies and idiosyncrasies by heart.