Getting Dirty: A Second Chance Menage Romance (Hard n' Dirty Book 1)

by Aubrey Cara

  Oh, yeah, she’s getting to him.

  “You want another, princess?” he asks.

  She surprises me by tossing back her own drink and thumping her empty down next to his. “That would be great. Thanks,” she says, her voice laced with sweetness.

  “When I get back, how about we play some pool?” His eyes track down Madeline’s body like he’s imagining bending her over the table.

  I flatten my hand against her stomach to draw her back against me and drop a kiss on her nape in a possessive move, just to fuck with him. I’m rewarded with her full-body shiver, and husky laugh.

  Now I’m in danger of not being able to stand up without making an ass out of myself.

  “Sure,” she tells my brother. “As long as you don’t mind being beaten by a girl.”

  “I don’t mind beating a girl.” He pauses, as if realizing what he said.

  Madeline’s eyebrows go up.

  I cough, shaking my head. “Poor wording, man.”

  “Darts,” he challenges. “And we’ll see who wins.”

  I roll my eyes. Jace has never known when to quit and always been strangely competitive.

  “That’s fine.” Madeline shifts her ass against my crotch in a way that makes me groan. “I can beat you at darts as easily as pool.”

  I amend my earlier thought. Jace has definitely met his match. And I think I may be a little in love.

  3

  We have this idea of perfection that is so unrealistic. We are our own worst enemy. ~Emmanuelle Chriqui

  M adeline

  My one party trick in college was being able to drink anyone under the table. This gift of incredibly high alcohol tolerance has come in handy while dealing with misogynistic international businessmen, and now motorcycle-building assholes.

  Jace tried to match me drink for drink. He finally gave up, but the night is not going well for him.

  The thundercloud over his head has been growing darker with every game I beat him at. We started with darts and, after a few rounds, moved to pool then the pinball machine, of all things.

  That, I have to admit was beginners luck.

  He’s quickly learning that I, Madeline Elaine Fitzpatrick, never lose.

  This last week I had forgotten that about myself. Thankfully, this afternoon, I was reminded.

  Celia. Blessed, traitorous Celia, forwarded me an email from Chen Cho the founder and CEO of Nagasawa Tech. Maybe it was a mistake, but I know Celia. I trained Celia. She doesn’t make mistakes.

  The email was waiting for me in my otherwise deserted inbox. And from the string of texts I’ve been ignoring, Cynthia and Tristan have also discovered I can hold the winning hand, even when I’m not at the table.

  I look over at Jace’s scowling form as he weaves a little on his stool, and I almost feel badly for him. Maybe I should have let him win at least once.

  I shouldn’t take such sadistic pleasure in getting under the man’s skin, but I do. He’s been an unmitigated ass to me all night, but I probably deserve it. Or at least seventeen-year-old me does.

  I should have taken Jess’s offer to leave the second I spotted Jace at the table.

  I don’t know what compelled me to stay.

  “We should go,” Jess announced. “I’ll give you a ride.” He gives my hip a squeeze, and I turn.

  I’d like to give him a ride. I giggle, and he gives me a, you’ve definitely had too much to drink, look.

  I have had too much to drink, but I needed to unwind, and I want to get laid. I think Jess is the just man to do it.

  After all, I’ve practically been in his lap all night, and I’ve enjoyed it way more than I should. I like him more than I should. He’s laid-back and funny. And when I narrowly beat him at pool, he whispered in my ear how damn sexy he thought I was.

  Jace, on the other hand, nearly broke his cue stick.

  I eye Jess’s wide shoulders and perfectly sculpted features from under the veil of my lashes, thinking he’s pretty damn sexy himself. Jess Wallace does something magical to me, and I’m drunk enough to appreciate that fact more than hate it.

  Being around him, makes me feel…alive. I’m not Madeline going over assessment reports on her way to or from a meeting. I’m not Madeline who’s continuously under pressure to ensure every investment gains the highest yield. I’m not even Madeline who has to be flawless and on at all times. I’m carefree Madeline who turns off her phone and drinks at dive bars with men who probably think penetration statistics are something far more interesting than they really are.

  From the corner of my eye, I see Jace stand and then sway before catching his balance on the side of the table. I snort laugh.

  “Shouldn’t we order an Uber?” I ask because somewhere in the back of my mind I know I should. Friends don’t let friends drive drunk, and all that.

  Jace scoffs and gives a mean laugh at my question. “She wants to call a fucking Uber.”

  “What’s so funny about that?” I ask.

  “Uhh, see that guy in the postal uniform,” Jess says, nodding in the direction of someone behind me.

  Sitting at the bar, surrounded by empty beer bottles, is a gray-haired man with a bushy mustache wearing the navy shorts and light blue shirt of a postal worker.

  “What about him?” I ask.

  “That’s Henry Johnson.”

  Having heard his name, Henry swivels on his stool. He squints at us a second before a smile spreads across his face. “Hey, the Wallace boys!”

  “Hey, Henry.” Jess gives a little wave and tells me, “He’s Clover Creek’s one and only Uber driver.”

  Oh dear God. We really are in the middle of nowhere.

  “You need a ride?” Henry slurs. “I don’t usually work after six, but I’d make an exception for you.”

  “No. We’re good. Thanks, Henry,” he assures the man. “I switched to water over an hour ago,” Jess tells me. “I’m good to drive.”

  I squint at the table. Maybe I’m a little drunker than I realized because I didn’t even notice him switching to water. “Have I been drinking water?”

  “Probably going to wish you had been tomorrow, beautiful,” Jess says as he steers me and a stumbling Jace to the door.

  Jess pours his brother into the back seat of his Mustang and then holds the door open for me. I melt into the front passenger seat as he rounds the car and gets in. The rev of the engine vibrates through me, and I giggle in a way only very drunk me is capable of. Jess winks at me like he knows exactly why I’m suddenly all flushed and melting.

  I definitely drank too much.

  Speaking of over imbibing, Jace starts singing some weird limerick about a girl with a rosy-cheeked ass.

  “I’m sorry about this...or really, him.” Jess thumbs to the back seat.

  “Bah.” I wave off his concern.

  “We’ll drop him off first and head to your house. I don’t trust him to keep his booze down for very much longer.”

  “Eek. Yes, by all means, let’s drop him off.”

  “Are you all right? How are you feeling?”

  “You worried I’m going to damage your pretty car?”

  “Partially, yeah.” He gives me a cheeky grin.

  “I’m fine. I’ve never gotten sick from alcohol.”

  “Never?”

  “Nope.” I think about it to make sure. “Never. And I’ve only had the flu once.” I hold a finger up and squint at it when it becomes two. “My sophomore year of college. Thought I was dying.”

  “ Aren’t you the medical marvel?”

  “My dad always said it was a sign I should go to medical school.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Never had the calling.” Not even after my mom died. And if I didn’t get it then… “I was going to go to school for corporate law. I interned at a different hedge fund between my freshman and sophomore year then switched to business. I thought I wanted to be a legal consultant but ended up in the business end. And trust me. Not ever needing to take a day
off has come in handy.”

  His brow pulls down as he drives. “So, all work and no play?”

  “Basically. I mean, I’m not that bad.” But I am. Tonight was the first night in a long time I went out just for the thrill of it, not because we had a potential new client.

  “How long have you been in town?”

  “Seven days.” Too long. “But I need to get back to the city. Get my life back,” I resolve. “Once I meet with my dad’s lawyer tomorrow, I’m going to find someone to oversee cleaning out the house and then I’m out of here.” I smack my hands together for emphasis.

  “That’s good.” His tone is flat, like he doesn’t really mean it.

  I study his handsome profile in the dashboard light. He’s gorgeous, and he knows it but isn’t arrogant about it. He’s…sweet. Maybe the last sweet man in existence. And if I’m reading things right, he’s bummed out by the thought of me leaving.

  That pleases me too much. What we have, if we have anything, is a vacation fling. Something to get our rocks off. We’re in a bubble here, and anything that develops can’t be real or lasting. Our worlds are too different. Too far apart.

  Jace snores loudly from the back seat, and Jess shakes his head as if annoyed.

  “He really hates me, doesn’t he?”

  Jess scrubs the back of his neck uncomfortably. “After the way you stood him up in high school… I guess, he’s still got a chip on his shoulder when it comes to you.”

  I didn’t just stand Jace up. I threw his offered friendship in his face and stomped all over it. I knew he liked me, and I destroyed him.

  “I wasn’t very nice back then.” I’m not very nice now.

  “You weren’t exactly a mean girl, either,” Jess says trying assuaging some of my guilt.

  “I’m not so sure about that. I was pretty mean.”

  “ So was Jace, and he hadn’t just lost his mom, so...”

  “Are you making excuses for my bitchy teenage self?” It’s sweet, if misguided. Jace wasn’t ever mean to me. He only wanted to be my friend.

  “Nah. Calling it like I see it.” He glances my way, and like his brother, Jess Wallace seems to see way more than I want him to.

  “I’m still not nice,” I confess.

  Jess glances over at me. “No? Why’s that?”

  “Because I can’t be. Because being cold and in control leads to higher efficiency and fewer people who think they can railroad me or take my position.” And I can’t lose my position. My power. My job is everything. It’s money and prestige, and proof I won.

  For a second, his eyes bore into me. He’s trying to read me. Figure me out. It’s uncomfortable.

  “Sounds exhausting,” he says, but it’s enough to know I’ve said too much. Let him see too far behind the curtain.

  Luckily, he’s driving, so his focus goes back to the road, and I can breathe again, but his words rattle around in my head. Sounds exhausting. It is.

  Senior Year

  “Where do you think you’re going, young lady?”

  I groan. Father is drunk again. He acts like he’s the only one who lost Mom. Like he’s the only one who’s hurting.

  “I’m going out with friends.” I grab my purse off the entry table, fully intending to step around him and head out the door.

  He blocks my sidestep. “Friends? You don’t have friends here this time of year.”

  No thanks to him, that’s true. He ripped me away from all my friends. My senior year was supposed to be special. I’d been attending Windsor Academy since preschool. Now, my friends are going about their lives like I never existed. I’ve been completely shut out, and it’s my father’s fault for going crazy after Mom died.

  “They’re kids from school.”

  He scoffs. “The local school?

  “Yes, the one you enrolled me in after moving us up here!” What did he expect? I wouldn’t associate with anyone perceived below me in social status? Truth is, I’m not going out with a group of kids. Just one. And my father would loath him. It makes me like him more.

  Besides, everyone here hates me, and Jace…he’s an olive branch. I’ve been miserable all year, and I can’t stay hidden away forever. I deserve to have some semblance of fun my senior year.

  “Cancel,” he demands.

  “What?”

  “I said, cancel.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we need to talk about the fact you didn’t get accepted at Yale.” He holds up a letter, and heat creeps up my neck.

  “You’re opening my mail, now?”

  “How did you let this happen?”

  Me? He’s the one who killed my chances of getting into Yale. “It doesn’t matter. I already mailed in my paperwork for Columbia.”

  “Columbia is a shit school.”

  “Ha! It’s ranked higher than Yale.”

  “You’ll go to the school I say you can go to.” His words slur, and I shake my head.

  “You’re being ridiculous. I’m leaving now, and you can’t stop me.” I’ve never in my life talked to my father this way, but enough is enough.

  “You’re turning out to be just like your father. Your mother would be so disappointed.”

  “What are you talking about?” Is he talking about himself in third person now?

  “After everything I did to ensure your mother had a good life. A life she deserved. A life he couldn’t give her.”

  Creeping tentacles of ice snake up my spine and wrap around my chest, giving it a squeeze. Again, I ask, “What are you talking about?”

  “I thought I could love you. When I married your mother, I didn’t care that your father tried to sully her. She was perfect to me.”

  Dread uncoils in my stomach as I try to make sense of my father’s drunk ramblings. “You’re not my father?”

  He laughs. It’s a cruel, hollow laugh. “Your real father was a loser. A small-time nobody. Died before you were even born. And your poor mother…” He sobers for a moment, all the grief seeming to weigh his shoulders down. His eyes well, and I think he may start to blubber. “She was getting sick in the mornings at the office. I knew what was happening. I promised to protect her. I didn’t even care that she was pregnant. All I wanted was her.”

  My world tilts. Shifts.

  I knew my mother was an intern at my father’s firm when they met. He was twenty years her senior. I hadn’t known she was pregnant. Or how obsessed he was with her.

  It was never like this when she was alive. They seemed so normal. And then the car accident happened.

  “Now she’s gone, and you’re here, still carrying my name and proving to be such a disappointment.”

  It’s been nearly a year since Mom died and tonight… Tonight is my death. The death of everything I thought was real.

  I have so many questions, but Father—the man I thought was my father my entire life—has already shut himself into his study. He’ll drink there until he passes out.

  I’m not sure how long I stand in the foyer. Eventually, I wander up to my room and climb into bed fully dressed. It’s only later I realize I ditched out on Jace, but I don’t care. I’m done caring.

  My only desire in life is to prove my father wrong. Not only that, but to prove I’m better than him in every way. Stronger. More capable.

  I don’t need his perfect lineage or approval.

  I don’t need anyone.

  Present

  About a mile or so down a deserted road, we pull into a long drive through a sprawling yard. A 1950s bungalow that looks like it’s been added onto stands at the top of a rise. At the end of the driveway, there’s a detached garage with a beat-up rusted basketball hoop mounted to the front. There looks to be a bigger structure farther back, but it’s hard to see, it’s so dark.

  “Jace’s place is homey.” If not excessively provincial.

  “Oh, thanks. It’s both of ours, actually,” he explains. “Our dad left us the house, and we’ve been fixing it up.” He climbs out of the car, folds the
seat down, and starts dragging his brother out the back.

  “Can you give me a hand?” he asks.

  “Uhh, sure?” After watching him struggle, I jump in, sling Jace’s arm over my shoulder, and try to prop up one side while Jess gets the other.

  The cold air helps me sober up a bit, but Jace is a big bastard. He’s just as tall as Jess, well over six feet. At five nine, I’m pretty tall myself, but I’m definitely drunk, and my ankle is still tender.

  We half drag, half stumble him up the side steps and enter the house through a cute kitchen updated with dark wood cabinets, black backsplash, and black countertop and cheap tile floor, and into a living room. The space looks like it used to be two rooms but they knocked out a wall to make one large one.

  A masculine monstrosity of a leather couch and La-Z-Boy recliner take up the space. We dump him on the couch, and I’m sweating lightly by the time we’re done.

  “Wow, he was heavy.”

  “I should have left his drunk ass at the bar,” Jess groans and stretches like he pulled something dragging Jace into the house. I second that.

  I pat his chest, mostly because I like touching him.

  Jess captures my hand before I can pull it away. “I should get you home.”

  The thought of going back to my big house, full of memories I’d rather forget, is not in any way appealing.

  “You don’t have to,” I hear myself say. Jess’s eyebrows go up, and I falter. “I mean, we’re already here. At a house.”

  As I babble, Jess moves himself into my space until I’m pressed up against his hard body. He cups my neck so I have to look up at him and runs a thump along my jaw. “You staying in the guest bedroom or mine?”

  If that isn’t an invitation, I don’t know what is.

  A thrill trips through me. “Yours is fine.”

  “Fine, huh?”

  I want to run my fingers over his playful heart-stopping grin.

  “Yes, fine. As in satisfactory or acceptable. Fine.”

  He chuckles low. “Come on, beautiful.”

  My stomach flips as he takes my hand and leads me back the way we came.

  His room is off a small hall behind the kitchen. Like the rest of the house, the room is simple, cozy, and a world away from my sleek modern penthouse in the sky. He has a slatted-wood-frame bed and navy comforter. A plaid throw is tossed over a big leather chair in the corner. One long dresser along the side wall, with a little flat screen propped on top.