by Hagen, Casey
Devious Wingman
A Cocky Hero Club Novel
Casey Hagen
Copyright © 2019 by Casey Hagen and Cocky Hero Club, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including: photocopying, recording, or by any storage and retrieval methods without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher at the address below.
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual persons, things, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Edited By: Kimberly Dawn Edits
Cover Photo: Shutterstock
Cover Design: Wildheart Graphics
DEVIOUS WINGMAN/Casey Hagen. — 1st ed.
Contents
About Devious Wingman and the Cocky Hero Club
Readers…
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Epilogue
Afterword
About Casey Hagen
Also by Casey Hagen
About Devious Wingman and the Cocky Hero Club
Devious Wingman is the first book in a three book series inspired by Vi Keeland and Penelope Ward’s Stuck-Up Suit. It's published as part of the Cocky Hero Club world, a series of original works, written by various authors, and inspired by Keeland and Ward's New York Times bestselling series.
To find out more about all the Cocky Hero Club World books and authors, visit:
http://www.cockyheroclub.com
Readers…
*** SPOILER WARNING ***
If you hate spoilers…make sure you read April Canavan’s, Cocky Corporal, before Devious Wingman!
1
A rough sigh crawled from my lungs. Throngs of people filled Rigby’s Tavern, specifically between me and a much-needed drink.
Situated on the west edge of Brooklyn, it was only a matter of time before young professionals from Manhattan discovered the place. Now they filled the bar after a grueling week of barreling through crowds on the city streets—day in, day out—to work jobs barely paying them enough to get by living in the city.
Naturally, barely getting by meant hauling their asses here and spending money they really didn’t have on alcohol to blow off steam. The smiles on their faces, the laughter dancing through the air, and the glow in their buzzed eyes said they'd worry about their light wallets and drained bank accounts on Monday when the grind started all over again.
Me, I had the money to drink, I just didn’t want to do it surrounded by twenty-somethings looking for the best prospects to grind up against after a long nine-to-five workweek.
Okay, so I should clarify.
Random grinding was fun when I was in my early twenties when torrents of testosterone ruled my every extracurricular decision. When I hunted for a willing woman who looked just crazy enough to score her nails down my back hard enough to tear my skin open or bite me until I bled. Back at a time when I only wanted pleasure with a serving of pain and punishment on the side.
I could have spent half the night on the dance floor with a willing, nameless chick palming my cock through my jeans before finding some semiprivate sturdy surface to fuck her against. A wall, a car, a fucking tree, it didn’t matter. No names exchanged. No soft caresses. No long, sultry gazes filled with unspoken words.
Basically, none of the shit most women wanted.
I thought I’d been fucking profound in the way I used sex as punishment for my sins, but looking back on it now, in my thirties, I saw it for what it was. Childish and cliché.
That was the goddamn problem with Friday nights anywhere the alcohol flowed, every part of it, cliché as fuck and a shit way to spend my time.
The anniversary of Pop Steele’s death just had to fall on a Friday. My buddy Hawk’s history with his grandfather called for honoring his life and legacy here, the first bar the patriarch took Hawk into when he turned twenty-one.
At the time, the average patron tended toward the middle-aged. Parents escaping their kids for date night, divorcées trolling for a hookup, some for a happily ever after, or your has-beens.
Fallen prom queens, sadness lingering in their eyes, dissatisfaction bracketing their mouths. Suspicion ever-present in their gazes, a smirk of disdain when jealousy reared its ugly head.
The high school football star who peaked at eighteen and now spent his Friday nights drinking cheap draft, forty pounds over his football weight if he was lucky, his bulk uncomfortably perched on a bar stool. His bleary eyes never leaving the game on the TV in the corner as he tried to drown out the reality of his day job, his child support payments for kids who refused to talk to him, and the can of SpaghettiOs he’d be eating later before he fell fully clothed onto his bed, not caring if he woke up the next morning.
There were always a couple of those in the mix and the great part, they kept to themselves. They knew no one wanted to hear their story, and hell, they had no interest in telling it either. Socializing was nothing more than a jerky nod of acknowledgment before their cloudy gazes turned back to the soundless images streaking across the screen.
The old demographic would have given us the space to tell a few Pop Steele stories, laugh, and go home happily buzzed, and maybe a little nostalgic. But the new demographic meant despite my buddy having almost a decade of years on most of the females in the place, he’d also be looking to bury his pain in a warm, willing woman.
Yeah, the energy made my cock stir too, but since hitting my thirties, I preferred to get my drink on at home, on my leather couch, in my underwear, with whatever game happened to be on. Fuck, I didn’t care if it was goddamned figure skating; as long as I had my privacy, I was all in.
As for fucking, I preferred mine sober and carefully arranged. No one catching any fucking feelings which could ruin getting a nut off. And although I didn’t look for the side of pain anymore, I secretly welcomed it if the woman riding my cock happened to deliver.
Dodging an elbow to the gut, the swing of long brunette hair reeking with the chemical edge of cheap hairspray to my face, and an overzealous shithead sloshing cheap-ass beer, I finally made it to the scarred slab of mahogany bar, Rigby’s point of pride, the one original piece of the pub left after a fire blazing through more than half of the place in the early eighties. The last piece remaining of the devastating fire…a deep, black three-foot-long badass scorch mark licking up the corner of the wood. It’s very existence screaming, “Witness motherfuckers, not even flame can take me down.”
I respected that.
The fact I commiserated better with a scorched piece of wood than I could with humans didn’t escape me. It didn’t mean I planned on taking a closer look at the little jagged nugget of truth either.
Self-reflection confirmed what I already knew.
Death and taxes weren’t the only sure things in life.
DNA held a fucking royal flush in this poker game called life, and no matter what I did, I’d never escape it.
Yeah, maybe tonight wasn’t the best night for me to be alone at home drinking with living shadows crawling from the dungeons of my psyche to assault my often-elusive peace of mind. I slid onto the stool next to Hawk, nodded to Penn, and took the highball glass of jack on the rocks Hawk thrusted into my hand.
“To Pop Steele,” Hawk said with a grunt before tossing back the last of the liquid amber, a hiss on his lips as he rolled them inward.
“Pop Steele,” I agreed, thinking of the weathered pilot with the snow-white hair spiked on top of his head and decades of living life to the fullest etched into the brackets framing his mouth.
At least this year we managed to convince Hawk to go out for the night, even if it had to be here, with the kiddie drinkers.
Last year?
Fuck last year.
We’d all slogged through the haze of hangovers for a good week after the bender we’d gone on for the first anniversary of Pop Steele’s death. There’d been a time when we bounced back from a night of heavy drinking by noon the next day. Now with all of us in our thirties, quick rebound turned into an elusive little bastard, reminding us we weren’t twenty-year-olds running around with cast-iron stomachs and an endless train of raging hard-ons.
Mores the fucking pity on the hard-ons.
“Mmmm, now there’s something worth sidling up to,” Hawk said, straightening as his eyes locked on a tight ass in a black fitted skirt.
See, look at me all psychic and shit.
I waved a quarter in Penn’s face, recognizing the hunt ablaze in Hawk’s eyes. Better he bury himself in a woman than drink himself into a stupor we’d all pay for over the course of the next week. “Hawk needs a wingman. Flip to see who’s on deck?”
“I’ve been on deck three times in a row. We use my coin,” Penn said, shoving his hand in his pocket and pulling out a shiny quarter all his own. “Because, although I can’t prove it, you fucking cheat.”
I scoffed. He nailed it. I did cheat. It helped me keep order when it came to the female company I kept. An ounce of self-preservation because I love me. Yada, yada, yada. “You seemed pretty happy to get laid all three times, so what the fuck’s the problem?”
“The condom broke with the last one. I’m pretty sure I’m still suffering PTSD,” Penn mumbled against his glass before gulping down half of the contents.
The hair stood up on my neck, and a chill of dread sprinted down my spine. “Dude, you know you don’t have to fuck all of them, right? It is possible to have a good time without slipping it in.” A hot memory speared through me of creamy thighs on either side of my hungry mouth, making my lips tip in a grin. “A real good time without slipping it in.”
I’d say it until my dying breath, there was nothing better than burying my tongue in the warm, wet pussy of a woman on the edge of oblivion.
“Says the monk of the group.”
I shrugged Penn’s comment off. “I prefer to see it as evolved past drunken hookups.”
“Yeah, you’re a real Boy Scout penciling that shit in.” He threw back the rest of his drink and waved to the bartender for another.
Ahhhh, the flightless bird of Hawk Air, Inc. was definitely bitter, but I’d let it slide. The Air Force had left its mark on all of us, but for Penn, the mark ran to the bone, scarring it as much as the fire scarred the wood of the bar. I gave him more latitude to be a dick, to a point.
“Don’t knock it. You don’t see me fighting back panic shits from the scare of possibly fertilizing a random egg. Now flip the fucker already,” I said, trying to infuse some humor into the moment and pull Penn out of his shitty mood. If I were really nice, I would throw myself on the sword and just volunteer to be Hawk’s wingman, but my generosity only went so far.
“You want heads, right?” Penn asked, flipping the quarter into the air.
“Fuck it…I’ll take tails this time.”
Penn glared, caught the coin, and slapped it on the back of his hand.
“Heads. Lucky for you. I would have won again.” I tossed a twenty on the counter next to him. “Looks like you get the night off. Drinks are on me.”
“I still think you cheat,” Penn muttered.
I laughed because fuck if I’m going to confirm or deny it. I focused my attention on Hawk who’s leaning his back against the bar, swirling his drink in his hand, the sound of ice clanking against the inside of the glass barely audible with the sound of people laughing around them and the beat of a Billy Joel classic pumping out of the speakers of a retro jukebox.
At least the music hadn’t changed which meant I could count on a little Bruce before the night was over.
“So, you find something worthwhile?” I asked, nodding out at the crowd.
“Most of them don’t even look old enough to drink. When the fuck did we get so old?”
“The crowd has changed, but don’t let them fool you. They work office jobs and get facials. They haven’t done Mach 2 in a F-22, their lives hanging on their proficiency at dodging a spray of bullets.”
Hawk took a long gulp of his drink and sucked the liquor off his upper lip. “If I ever get a facial, kick me in the balls.”
I laughed, but the look on his face said he’s not kidding. “Besides, thirties aren’t old.”
“Says the guy still on the uphill climb to thirty-five. I’ve started the slide down the other side.”
“So dip your wick in the fountain of youth for the night. Just stop lamenting your lost youth like a damned woman. It’s embarrassing.”
“He was the last real family I had left,” Hawk said, the words dripping with pain as they dragged from his lungs.
I swallowed the rise of panic in my throat. I’d listen to Hawk, I’d always listen, but Penn handled emotion with ease. Me, well, emotional shit still gave me hives, and fuck if I didn’t want to run every single time. Despite the way my heart hammered a war beat behind my ribs, as much as I hated wading into matters of the heart, Hawk had to know I had his back. Always.
“No, he’s not.”
Hawk snorted, but a hint of a grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Says the guy who won’t even sign the partnership papers.”
I took a gulp of my jack to keep myself from snarling at him over the same old argument we’d had a dozen times. “Not happening until you fix the percentages.”
“We should all be equal.”
“No, we shouldn’t. He was your blood. He built Hawk Air with every intention of seeing you run it. The controlling percentage is yours.”
Hawk cut a glare my way. “You’ve put in as much money as I have.”
I started shaking my head before he could even finish his words. “Doesn’t matter. You want me to sign the papers, you have to hold controlling interest.”
“You said you were in this with me. You said you had my back.”
“This is me having your back.” Equal investment did not mean I deserve equal partnership. It wasn’t up for debate, and one of these days Hawk was going to give in. Hawk and Penn knew me better than almost anybody, at least anyone living, and still they had no idea how hard I could dig my heels in on this one.
It’s not like I didn’t want it. This was a real chance for me to have something tangible, something successful. Yeah, I fucking wanted it. I wanted it so bad my mouth ran dry every time I thought about possibly not coming to terms on the deal, but it had to be on my terms if I would ever be able to take any pride in it.
Anything else would be tainted and dirty. Like I’d hustled for it or took advantage to attain it, and that I couldn’t live with.
“You’re never going to let this go, are you?” Hawk said, his eyebrows angry slashes over his flinty, hard gaze.
“No.”
“Fuck.”
“That was my suggestion…now quit dicking around and pick one.”
Hawk sighed and rested his elbows on the bar behind him. “She’s cute,” he said to a bubbly blonde with an infectious smile.
And she had crazy eyes.
A little too wide, a little too bright. The look on her face, a solid nope. She was far too excited to be on the prowl. Hawk needed someone in it for the same reasons, pleasure with no strings. “Nah, I can’t let you do that to yourself.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“I guarantee she has a shrine of her perfect wedding day. Her friends are probably the same. As your wingman, I’m not interested in women mining my wallet for diamonds, thanks. Look at it as me saving you from yourself. No thanks needed.”
“What about her?” Hawk said, gesturing with his glass.
“You caught the last redhead you hooked up with dousing your ‘Vette with gasoline. You sure you’re ready to tap into her kind of temper again?”
“Okay, you’re right. I’m looking for some fire, but not the literal kind.” His buddy slammed back the rest of his drink and stretched his neck from side to side. Rubbing his hands together, he narrowed his eyes and scanned the masses.
The hunt flared in Hawk’s eyes with renewed enthusiasm as his gaze found a group of women, laughing and smiling while holding raised shot glasses from where they stood around a high top in the corner.