“Right?” Lawson grins. “And I even have the junk jewelry. Guess you already know my brother here is too straight an arrow to decorate his dick.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell Lawson it actually curves a little to the right and is fantastic without any decorations, but luckily Pierce speaks before I do.
“Really? Was that a necessary share?”
Lawson inclines his head in my direction. “She’s the one who brought it up.”
Pierce sighs. “If we’re going to look at a house, you need to change out of your hippie gear and dress like a real human.”
“I’m not changing, and I’ve already been in that house. I know what it looks like. I want it. We just need to know what we have to offer to get it.”
“Do you mind if I talk to my brother alone for a moment?” Pierce asks me with a tight smile.
“Oh! No, not at all. I’ll just step outside.” I’m glad for the reprieve. I join my sister on the deck. Now that I’m thinking with my brain and not my sex parts, I realize I should’ve followed her in the first place, then maybe I wouldn’t know about Lawson’s peen piercing. Those two men couldn’t be any more opposite.
Marley’s heels lie on the deck, while she paces the length in bare feet. She gives me some kind of eyebrow wag with a little thumbs-up, then she inclines her head to the right.
I glance over and do a double take. Beyond the loungers that are set up facing the beach with a perfect view of the volleyball nets in front of our rental, and the side table with what appears to be a set of broken binoculars, lies a dog. Apparently, Pierce really does have one.
Trip—I think that’s his name—lifts his head when he sees me and pops up, running around in a circle before he trots his lopsided way over. He only has three legs. I’m instantly in love with this dog, and a little bit more enamored with Pierce. Trip seems to be completely oblivious to the fact that he’s missing a leg.
I rub that space under his chest that makes so many dogs happy, and his tail thumps on the boards.
That’s when I realize it wasn’t the dog Marley was pointing out, but the set of dolls perched in lounge chairs, tiny glasses with little umbrellas in them poised in their plastic hands. Huh. Odd. Maybe one of them has a kid. Oh God. What if I slept with a single dad? What if he wants me to be his baby mamma?
I can barely handle doing my own laundry and cleaning up after myself and my sister, let alone a little child. It’d be one thing to mess up my own offspring, but I don’t want to be responsible for messing up someone else’s.
“Actually, we’re in the area. We could arrange to meet in say, twenty minutes? They’re very keen to move quickly. Yes. Definitely. We’ll see you then.” Marley ends the call and does a little hip shimmy, then looks over her shoulder to make sure we’re not being watched from the other side of the sliding glass door. “It’s on. We need to make sure they give their best offer up front. They were planning to follow the listing for their place as a gauge, but I said if we start at $799K, that we should get a little over $800K for it with so few on the market and what other comparable properties have gone for.”
“Does this feel dodgy to you?”
“Does what feel dodgy?”
“Don’t you think we should tell them we’re representing the sellers too? What if they think we held off on putting up the property until tomorrow to scam them?” My fingers are at my mouth and I’m at risk of biting my nails.
Marley’s confused expression shifts to understanding. She takes my hand in hers and squeezes. “We didn’t do anything wrong, Rian. You’re not scamming them. We’re going to make a legitimate sale like we always do, no messing with numbers, no playing odds or people.”
I take a deep breath. “It’s just … he’s a lawyer and he’s in real estate. What if he knows people who knew Dad? He could figure out who we’re connected to and then no one would want to buy from us.”
“Take a breath, Rian,” she says softly. “We’re completely ethical here. Is it crazy that you’ve slept with this guy and now we’re potentially selling them a house? Sure, but it has nothing to do with what happened with Dad. You need to stop owning that; you were a kid and you had no idea what he was doing.”
I exhale my panic on a nod. Logically, I know she’s right, but all of these pieces coming together make me anxious, as does the fact that I’ve slept with a relative stranger—and would like to do it again, despite current circumstances. Beyond that, being so close to affording our own flip makes me as antsy as it does excited. And maybe it has something to do with being so close to the Mission Mansion this weekend, where so much of our history is tied up. As much as I want to be close to it, I still get nervous. We’ve done our best to distance ourselves from our family’s scandalous past, but if it ever came out, our careers in real estate could come to a grinding halt. Who would want to buy houses from a couple of girls whose family is responsible for stealing millions of dollars through real estate fraud? It doesn’t matter that we weren’t responsible, a sullied name taints the generations that follow.
“Do you think we should reconsider giving them a break on commission since we’ll be getting all of it?” I fight to keep my fingers from migrating to my mouth.
“Let’s see what they offer first.” Marley motions to the dolls, probably to distract me. “What the hell do you think this is about?”
“Maybe one of them has a kid?”
“Yeah. I thought that too, but those dolls are too perfect. Like they’ve never been played with, and there was one in the hallway. It’s odd, right?”
“Yeah. Definitely odd.” It would be my luck to hook up with someone who’s extraordinarily awesome at sex and also a serious weirdo. I’d like to say this doll thing will deter me from hooking up with Pierce again, but I don’t think that’s true.
I’m mostly calm and rational once we go back inside and inform them that we’ve secured a walk-through. While Lawson has been inside the yet-to-be advertised house, Pierce has not, so we make the ridiculously short drive down the beach to the property in question. Pierce decides I need to be the one who shows him around, leaving Marley and Lawson to talk offers.
“This is one of the bedrooms.” I Vanna White the room and step aside to let him go first. It’s outdated, but at least it’s just bad paint and no wallpaper. Sometimes that stuff is a nightmare to get off, especially if it’s circa the seventies. I have no idea what kind of glue they used back then, but it sure was made to last.
The rose-and-doily décor is awful, and for most Hamptons buyers, it would be an absolute turnoff. They want move-in ready summer homes, not properties they need to sink time and money into before they’re visually palatable. If Marley and I had the capital ready, we would’ve already put an offer in on this one, but we only have enough to purchase, not enough to cover the cost of a renovation without making things tight. This sale will change that, though.
“I messaged you this morning and you haven’t responded yet.” Pierce brushes by me.
Even that simple, innocent contact makes all my special parts zing. The presence of a bed doesn’t help either. “It’s rude for me to check messages when I’m with a prospective buyer.”
“Even if you’ve slept with that prospective buyer? The same prospective buyer who’s messaging you?” He takes a look in the closet. “This is small, but workable.”
“You can probably give yourself a tour; you don’t need me.” I turn to walk away, but he grabs my hand and threads his fingers through mine.
“What’re you doing?”
“Keeping you from running away.” Pierce tugs me forward and brings our twined hands to his lips, biting my knuckle. I clench my jaw and try my hardest not to make any noises of pleasure, or do anything else to encourage him to continue. “Where do you feel that?”
“Pardon?”
He bites my knuckle again. “Where does the sensation resonate the most?”
“Where your lips just were.” That’s untrue. That’s where it starts,
but it’s as if the sensation pushes through my veins and ends right in the sweet spot between my thighs. Which I clench, lest I give in to the urge to wrap myself around him and front hump him.
“I don’t believe you.”
Why does it feel like he’s burrowing his way into my head when all he’s doing is touching me? “Why ask the question if you’re not going to trust I’m being truthful with the answer?”
His lips turn up against the back of my hand. “Why’re you still so prickly with me, Rian?”
I try to pull my hand away, but he tightens his grip. “Why do you ask so many uncomfortable questions?”
“I didn’t realize I was making you uncomfortable.”
I scoff. “Yeah, right. I don’t buy that for a second. You get a kick out of antagonizing me. You like to have control over these interactions we have so you pose uncomfortable questions and use intimacy to unnerve me.”
“Are you psychoanalyzing me, or yourself?”
Probably a bit of both. “This thing you’re doing, this game you’re playing with me, you’re too good at it. How often do you do this?”
“Do what exactly?”
“This whole seduction routine.”
He almost looks hurt. “You think this is a routine?”
“Isn’t it?” It’s bad that I don’t want it to be, that I want this connection we have, these strange coincidental meetings to be fate throwing us together, even if it is a colossally bad idea.
“Why are you so hell-bent on villainizing me?”
That’s a good question. One I can’t answer honestly because it’s tied up too much with a past I can’t share. I think I like him. No, there’s no thinking. I know I like him, and the chemistry between us is unreal. It makes me feel vulnerable, and vulnerability is a weakness. Besides, he’s just so perfect, too perfect—he has all the right components—physical, sexual, and I bet if I got to know him better, I’d probably like every side of him—which is terrifying, because he can’t know every side of me and still like me. “Why do you keep coming after me? I haven’t even been nice to you.”
He’s still kissing my knuckles, lips sweeping back and forth. “You were nice to me last night, before you kicked me out, anyway.”
“You’re not going to let that go, are you?”
He flips my hand over and kisses the inside of my wrist. “Probably not. Can I tell you something else? Something important?”
He looks so earnest. Please don’t let him be a baby daddy. “Sure?”
“My intention last night wasn’t to get you naked.”
I roll my eyes. “Oh, come on.”
“I’m serious. I usually like to take things a little slower. I mean, I’m certainly glad I had the opportunity to get my hands on you, and I won’t lie and tell you I wouldn’t love to have that opportunity again, but I had no expectation that would happen last night.”
“You could’ve said no.”
He laughs. “No, I couldn’t have.”
“Because I’m so irresistible?”
“Yes. You’re smart and sassy and sexy, and right now all I want is for you to bite my lip like you did last night, and I’m a little obsessed with knowing what color your panties are.”
I stare dumbly at his gorgeous, sincere expression. If I end up sleeping with him again, I won’t be able to kick him out. I won’t want to.
“Help a guy out here. Say something, Rian.”
I grab his tie with the hand that isn’t still twined with his and drag his mouth down to mine. And I do exactly what he wants. I bite his lip. Well, it’s more of a nibble.
“Thank fuck. I thought I was going to lose my ever-loving mind.”
Fingers still laced, he folds my arm behind my back—I think this is his thing—his other hand slides into the hair at the nape of my neck, twisting through the strands to anchor there. I suck his bottom lip, dragging my teeth across the sensitive skin.
Pierce makes a low, rough sound in the back of his throat and a shiver forces its way down my spine, goose bumps exploding on my skin.
He angles my head to one side and slants his mouth over mine, tongue pushing past my lips, hot and aggressive. Our chests and hips meet, his hardness pressing against my stomach.
It’s like I can taste the pheromones in the air, and it only serves to fuel the lust. Our tongues dance and twirl, battle and stroke, teeth nip and bite.
Pierce rolls his hips. “I want to fucking consume you,” he groans into my mouth.
I get what he means. I would seriously rip his clothes off and ride him on the horrible floral print comforter, get as much of him inside me, have as much of his skin touching mine as I could, if I wasn’t suddenly conscious of the fact that my sister and his brother are upstairs, talking numbers.
The numbers I usually deal with.
I grasp his chin in my free hand and push his face away. It’s the only way I’ll be able to end this kiss. We’re both panting. I tip my head back even as he tries to bring our mouths together again. And I want him to. The desire is visceral, a shimmer in the air, a heat in my veins, and a fire in his eyes.
That is what wanting someone is.
This is the pinnacle of desperate attraction. This is the chemical reaction that ignites and burns until there’s nothing left but ash.
This insatiable craving is why people ignore a two out of ten on a compatibility test.
“Enough,” I whisper. My voice comes out a smoky rasp, but there’s command in it and he yields.
He nods his head once, eyes darting to my lips, the longing making his lids heavy. “Never. But okay … for now.”
He releases my hand and he takes a step back as he smooths out my hair. “Sorry. That was … I…”
“You’re fine.” I’m not sure I am, though. My whole body feels like it’s been lit up and I’m on overdrive.
He glances down to where his very impressive erection pushes against the fly of his dress pants. “Well, that’s questionable.” He turns around, his broad back shifting as he rearranges things—I can see his reflection in the mirror across the room, though. His eyes roll up as he moves things around and his lip curls.
I don’t think I’ve ever had this effect on another person before.
The power is intoxicating.
His eyes meet mine in the reflection and his grimace turns into a grin, which matches mine. “Now who’s enjoying whose discomfort?”
I raise my hand, finger and thumb half an inch apart. “Me. But just a little.”
“Not interested in helping me resolve it, then?”
I shake my head. “I’m going to show you the rest of house now, and you’re not going to antagonize me into kissing you again.”
He nods his agreement.
“Great.” I put a little extra sway in my hips. “And Pierce?”
“Yeah?” He follows me out of the bedroom.
“Mint green.”
“What?”
“You said you wanted to know what color my panties are. They’re mint green.”
He grabs the top of the doorjamb and heaves a deep sigh. “Patterned or solid color?”
“Solid.”
“Cotton, satin, lace, or a combination?”
“Lace.”
“Thong?” He sounds hopeful.
“Cheekies.”
“Ah fuck.” He bites his lip. “Wanna give me a peek?”
I laugh. “Nope.”
“Never hurts to ask.”
CHAPTER 14
DANCING IN THE SAND
RIAN
It isn’t until after I’ve given Pierce the tour that Marley informs them we’re the selling agents. She was right, my paranoia was unfounded, but then, she wasn’t the one to inadvertently help our father swindle millions of dollars out of unsuspecting families. Surprisingly, they don’t try to negotiate the commission down.
Pierce refuses to put in an offer without having a private conversation with his brother. Lawson is ridiculously keen on buying the property, ready to thr
ow out whatever figure is necessary. Pierce wants to make sure the minor renovations needed can be done in a time-sensitive manner so they can capitalize on potential summer revenue. It’s smart. Pierce is smart. Logical where his brother seems impulsive.
We leave them to discuss it with the expectation that they’ll call before four in the afternoon with an offer, otherwise we’re going through with the open house the following day. Marley and I lounge on the deck, anxiously watching the minutes tick by as we wait.
Pierce calls at 3:39. Not Lawson. Pierce. And he calls my phone, not Marley’s.
“You still haven’t answered my text messages from this morning,” he says by way of greeting.
“Is this a social call or a business call?”
“Both.”
“It can’t be both. It has to be one or the other.”
“Why can’t it be both?”
“You have twenty minutes until your window of opportunity closes.”
“To get into your panties tonight?”
“Do you ever stop?”
“Not really.”
“I’m talking about putting an offer in on the house. Your time is running out. We can’t do social until we’re done doing business, and social doesn’t include getting into my panties, FYI.” Such a lie. Although it won’t be the mint-green ones I was wearing earlier, those are already in the laundry pile, courtesy of the effects of that kiss we shared.
“Okay. Let’s clear up the business first. We can talk about your panties later. We’re putting in an offer.”
“If you’re putting in an offer, you should be talking to Marley, not me.”
“I don’t want to talk to Marley. I want to talk to you.”
I sigh and put the phone on speaker, dropping it on the table between our loungers. “I draw up papers. Marley presents offers. You have to deal with both of us.”
“You know what would make this even easier?”
“If you dealt with Marley?”
“If we came over there and discussed it in person.” I roll my eyes at Marley, but before I can respond, Pierce says, “We’ll be there in less than ten.”
“You only have nineteen minutes left to make an offer. You better get your rear in gear.”
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