Trick (A Cocky Cage Fighter Novel Book 7)

by Lane Hart

  “Listen, Mina,” he starts. Coming over, Derek kneels in front of me, placing the flowers by my side. “What I said yesterday…shit, I don’t know what I was thinking.” He shakes his head and jerks on a handful of his hair. “I’m sorry, okay? There’s no one I want but you.”

  Despite my relief that he’s here and apologizing, I still need to know…

  “How many women did you fuck before you realized that?” I ask him.

  “None! I swear. God, I felt so bad after I left and then you wouldn’t answer your phone. But I didn’t even go out with the guys; I just went home and kept trying to call you.”

  Oh lord. Is he serious? After everything he said about we’re so young, and he doesn’t want to regret not sowing his wild oats before the big day, now he says he’s changed his mind? If he had called, I wouldn’t know since my phone has been off since he left my house yesterday.

  “You can tell me the truth,” I assure him. “I’ll forgive you, but I want to know what you did so we can move past it…”

  “I promise you, Mina. You’re it for me. The guys got into my head, but I was an idiot to even say that shit. Once I left you, I realized that there was no way I could ever hurt you like that. You were right, and I can’t imagine being with anyone who isn’t you.”

  Wow. What an ironic twist.

  “And I trust that you would never hurt me that way either. You love me, and that’s all I need to be happy,” he adds.

  Fuck.

  Now, I can’t come out and tell him I fucked a stranger outside of the club last night or he’ll be angry, probably end things. That cannot happen. He’s my ticket out, and Trick is a secret that I’ll just have to take with me to my grave. And it’s not the only secret I’ll be hiding from Derek, unfortunately.

  “Does, um, this mean that the wedding is still on?” I ask him, swallowing back the tears caused by my dishonesty. What happened…well, Derek brought it on himself, but now it’s over and done with if this is what he really wants. I’m desperate to leave this house, even if it means lying to my future husband.

  “God, yes,” Derek answers, pulling the diamond ring I threw at him yesterday from his pants pocket and slipping it back on my finger. “I just wasn’t sure, you know, if you still wanted to marry me.”

  “I’m so glad to hear you say that,” I tell him, throwing my arms around his neck.

  “Thank you. I’m sorry I upset you. It’ll never happen again,” Derek promises, his arms holding me, his lips pressing kisses into my hair.

  “Okay,” I agree. “But why are you wearing a suit on a Sunday morning?” I ask. “Heading to church?”

  “Not unless you turned me down, then I was gonna go pray for you to change your mind,” he teases. “I told your dad I would come in and help out, you know, do some catching up before next weekend.”

  My stepdad, being the gem that he is, offered to let Derek intern with his prestigious law firm. I tried to talk Derek out of working in the same office as the devil, but no one seems to see that side of him but me.

  Maybe because my stepfather isn’t beating any of them with a belt, sodomizing them with his various tools, or fucking them from behind most nights.

  Chapter Five

  Trick

  Monday afternoon, the driveway to my father’s estate appears outside the window of the taxi quicker than I expected. Not for the first time today I ask myself why the fuck I’m coming here. He’s probably gonna give me the usual hell, even though I haven’t seen him in years. It’ll be the same old spiel about how worthless and stupid I am since I didn’t go to college or law school like him. How I haven’t done shit with my life…

  The cab driver drops me and my duffle bag off at the front steps and pulls away before I even know if anyone is home. I don’t see any cars, but it looks like there’s a house-sized garage or some shit in the backyard.

  Figuring I might as well get this over with, I climb the steps and ring the doorbell. A second later, a young girl with dark curly hair dressed in Hello Kitty pajamas opens up.

  “Hi, can I help you?” she asks pleasantly without an ounce of recognition on her face.

  Shit. This must be one of my sisters I haven’t seen in so long she doesn’t even know me. Not that I recognize her or even remember her name. I only met my father’s new wife and daughters once at the wedding.

  “Hey, I’m Patrick, Mike’s son…” I say, lifting my aviator glasses to the top of my head.

  The girl’s eyes widen, and her mouth falls open. “Holy shit! You actually came! It’s been, like, forever. You look…different,” she says with a grin.

  “You mean old?” I tease with my own forced smile.

  “Definitely older. And bigger,” she says with a nod while twirling a dark ringlet around her finger. “Daddy’s not home. He’s at the office preparing for a trial, hoping to get it done before the wedding.”

  I try to ignore how she calls him “daddy” like he’s earned the title by actually being a father figure in her life. Growing up, I only rarely saw him since he was always working or “traveling for business.”

  “Right,” I say as I recover. “He didn’t know which day I was coming, but he invited me to the wedding. Are you the one getting married?” I ask even though she looks too young to be tying the knot.

  “God, no,” she scoffs. “That’s Wilhelmina.”

  Wilhelmina. That’s one of the long ass names I could never remember, although I doubt I can forget it now since it ends in Mina and I’m still thinking about the girl from the other night…

  “Hey, Bridge, who’s at the door?”

  A young boy appears beside the girl. Judging by his size, he looks close to Alyssa and Austin’s son Grayson’s age. With the same dark eyes as my father’s blinking up at me, there’s no doubt that he’s my half-brother.

  “Michael, this is Patrick,” the girl, Bridge apparently, introduces us. “You remember me telling you about your older brother?”

  Michael, as in Michael Thomas Foxx, II, no doubt. My father named him after himself but let my mother name me Patrick with no middle name.

  “You’re my brother?” the boy asks me with raised eyebrows. “You look old enough to be my father.”

  That makes me laugh out loud since it’s so damn true. “I was grown before you were born,” I tell him. “How old are you? Seven or eight?”

  “Seven,” he answers. “How did you know?”

  “I’m psychic,” I tell him with a wink.

  “Who is it, Bridge?”

  Another feminine voice calls out from inside the mansion of a house, this one sounding somewhat familiar.

  “If it’s those assholes selling meat, I’ve told them that if they come back again, I was gonna shove their frozen steaks down their throats,” the girl says before she appears. Her long, jet-black waves cascade down her shoulders, partially shielding her beautiful, flawless ivory face and icy blue eyes.

  “Mina?” I gasp in shock, dropping the duffle bag from my hand and wondering if I’m hallucinating or some shit. There’s no other explanation for why in the hell this gorgeous woman I’ve thought about nonstop since two nights ago is in my father’s house.

  “Holy fuck! It’s you!” Mina exclaims, pushing her hair out of her wide eyes before she slaps her palm over her mouth.

  “Language, sis!” Bridge hisses, covering the boy’s ears with her palms and ushering him down the hall, away from us and further into the house.

  Sis?

  Wait a second…

  Oh dear God!

  My elation at finding the mystery woman that gave me the best night of my life quickly shifts to horror.

  “What-what…I mean, what are you doing here?” Mina stutters, holding onto the door with one hand and wrapping her other arm protectively around her slender waist. Instead of a tight, sexy red dress, today she’s much more casual in a baggy white tee featuring a famous animated mouse and black leggings, looking like she just got out of bed. Fuck, she lives here.

&
nbsp; “Are you my…” My mouth goes dry as I try to swallow, and my stomach drops. I can’t even say the words. “You’re my…”

  “How the hell did you find me?” Mina hisses, looking over her shoulder I assume to make sure her siblings are out of earshot.

  “I didn’t,” I deny with a shake of my head.

  “Obviously you did find me since you’re standing on my doorstep!” she shrieks.

  “I’m your…” The words stall in my throat again. If my father finds out I slept with his stepdaughter, he is gonna be so fucking pissed. But then I remember the reason I came. The wedding my dad told me about in a Facebook message but didn’t bother sending me an invite to.

  Hold the fucking phone.

  “You’re getting married?” I shout.

  “That-that is none of your business,” she replies, crossing her arms over her chest and straightening her back, trying to look indignant.

  “Oh, but I think it is since just the other night we were…”

  “I, ah, I think I made a mistake,” she says while avoiding my eyes.

  “Ya think?” I bark out a non-humorous laugh, unable to believe that the evil motherfucker known as fate helped me find this gorgeous girl again only to learn she’s taken and refers to me as her mistake. “What kind of woman screws another man right before getting married?” I ask.

  Mina closes her eyes and rubs her fingers over them before she says, “It’s a long story, and you need to leave.”

  “No can do,” I respond, picking up my duffle bag again. “You see, ironically enough, I’m not just here to return those sexy red panties you left behind. I’m still in Daytona because my father told me about this little wedding shindig of yours.”

  “I don’t know who the fuck your father is, but I didn’t invite you…” she says through clenched teeth.

  “I really hate to tell you this, but Mike is my father. Which means I’m your...”

  “Patrick?” she shrieks. “But you said…you said your name was Trick…”

  “Shortened form of the name. Just like Mina apparently is for Wilhelmina,” I explain.

  “Did you know?” she asks, her fingers grabbing onto the door tighter when her tall frame suddenly pitches to the left, her ivory face going even paler.

  “God, no!” I reply, resenting her insinuation. “If I had known who you were or that you were engaged, I never would’ve laid a finger on you!”

  “Where the hell have you been anyway?” she suddenly asks with a scowl. “We haven’t seen or heard from you in…in years, and now of all times you decide to show back up?”

  “I’ve been busy,” I answer with a shrug since I don’t want to go into my past with her at this particular moment.

  “Pfft. That’s bullshit! Too busy to call or visit even once in…in how many years, seven or eight? You’ve never met your own damn brother!”

  “It’s not like my dad ever tried to contact me!” I snap in response, remembering all those times Austin and the other guys received letters and photos from home or talked to loved ones on video chat. There was no one who wrote me. Not a single soul gave a shit if I was alive or dead.

  “You…you were our older brother! If you had been around…” She shakes her head, shoving her fingers through her silky black waves. “We needed you!”

  “What?” I ask, my heart stopping at the weight of those words.

  They needed me?

  No one has ever fucking needed me. And if someone has, I’ve let them down. Like Austin. And Alyssa. Shit, this woman has no right to make me feel guilty, so I fight back. “Needed me for what?” I ask. “My dad had his brand new, perfect little family and there wasn’t room for me, his loser adult son reminding him of his first failed marriage.”

  “Fuck you. You never even tried to be a part of our family,” she snaps caustically.

  “Maybe I just got tired of my father telling me what a piece of shit I was, not worth a damn to him because I didn’t get into his alma mater or follow in his footsteps.”

  “Thank God. The world is shitty enough with one of him in it,” Mina says, and then her glacier blue eyes bulge before she slaps her palm over her mouth again.

  “I take it you won’t be buying him Best Dad in the World coffee mugs for Father’s Day?” I tease, relieved that he hasn’t been the picture-perfect father figure to her either.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that. Please don’t tell him,” she pleads with a look of terror on her gorgeous face, the same one I saw the other night when she begged me not to fuck her from behind.

  Dammit. I need a magic eraser to wipe that shit clean from my dirty mind since I can’t stop replaying the images or memories of how it felt to kiss her, taste her, be buried inside of her…my goddamn stepsister.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t mention your insult to dear ole dad when we see each for the first time in nearly a decade.”

  “Thanks,” she says shyly, lowering her eyes again while fidgeting with the ring on her left hand. A diamond. Her engagement ring that was definitely absent Saturday night. “And can you, um, not mention how we know each other to anyone either?”

  “Right,” I say, clenching my jaw, angry to be her dirty little secret. Her mistake. “I wouldn’t want to be the reason your wedding is called off.”

  So this explains why she couldn’t wait to get away from me the other night after we fucked. I was nothing but a fling. One last screw before she marries a man and spends the rest of her life with him. And the poor bastard she’s marrying…well, I almost feel sorry for him. He’ll never know that just days before Mina became his wife she got her rocks off with me, her stepbrother, coming on my tongue twice and once on my cock.

  I may be nothing more than a distant memory to Mina in a few days or weeks, but I’m not sure I’ll ever forget her. That will be impossible, especially now that I know she’s my stepsister.

  Chapter Six

  Mina

  Ohmygodohmygod.

  Oh. My. God.

  I had sex with my stepbrother. Not just plain, boring sex, but hot, passionate, soul shaking sex like nothing I ever imagined. How is it even possible that he’s related to such a filthy fucking asshole, also known as his father?

  Sure, we’ve met once before, but only briefly at our parents’ wedding when I was just a preteen. The Patrick I remember from eight years ago was tall and lean with grungy, shoulder-length hair. That day he had looked so aggravated and angry that I didn’t even try to talk to him, then he disappeared.

  The son of Satan currently standing on my porch is so damn sexy, even more so in the sunlight today than the dim lights at the club, like a brooding Jamie Dornan on steroids. His bronze hair makes the gold in his eyes stand out even more, and his plain white tee is hugging his thick, suntanned, muscular biceps, chest and stomach so tightly I can almost make out the outline of his washboard abs through the thin cotton…

  “Are you gonna invite me in?” he asks on a sigh, halting my intense perusal, and coloring my cheeks red with embarrassment.

  “You’re staying here? Here, here? Like in our house?” I ask as I lower my eyes to the canvas duffle bag clutched tightly in his hand, well aware that my words came out all squeaky. It’s impossible for me to form a coherent sentence while standing in front of this man.

  “That’s the plan, sis,” he replies. “Is that gonna be a problem?”

  “No!” I say right away since it’s a fucking relief to have someone else in the house. Perfect actually… There may be seven bedrooms, but there are only two spare rooms, one of which has been turned into wedding central, packed full of decorations and shit, and the other my mom cleared out for her tanning bed. “In fact, you can have my room, and I’ll bunk with Bridgette.”

  “You sure?” he asks. And when I look up to meet his gaze, his eyes narrow suspiciously.

  “Absolutely,” I assure him with a fake smile that lasts only a second, especially when I imagine Trick in all his naked glory stretched out on my bed. I wonder if
he sleeps naked...Wait, no, I should not be imagining my stepbrother naked.

  “Come on in, and I’ll show you around,” I tell him, holding the door open wide for him.

  …

  Trick

  “Your, um, dad is at work and may not be home until late,” Mina says as she leads me up the massive, winding, Gone With the Wind staircase. “But make yourself comfortable. My mom will probably be home with dinner in a few hours. She usually teaches yoga and shit in the mornings and then has lunch with the other housewives of Daytona before going shopping to spend your father’s money.”

  “Right,” I say as we step into the girly bedroom. “Nice house. Even bigger than the one I grew up in.”

  “Yeah, only the best for Mr. and Mrs. Foxx,” she mutters.

  The night in the club I recognized the fact that Mina was a girl from a wealthy family since I was raised in the same uppity country club scene. She looked…expensive. But now, seeing her in a faded, oversized tee and leggings, she looks younger, more down to earth.

  I still can’t believe she’s my stepsister. Out of all the women in that big ass club, it was just my luck that I hooked up with her.

  And she’s getting married.

  What the fuck?

  Is this my punishment for abandoning my family? My dad is gonna beat my ass if he finds out I slept with my stepsister, and then he’ll say that’s the reason he didn’t keep in touch. Because I’m a complete fuck up.

  My dad knocked my mom up when he was in his last year of law school, and they were married a few months before I was born. All I remember growing up was hearing them constantly fighting because my father came home too late, my mother spent too much money. It was like they had separate lives and I wasn’t a part of either. I stayed with a nanny until I started school. It wasn’t unusual to get up in the morning and go to bed at night without seeing either parent all day.

  For years I thought that was how all families worked. Then, as I got older, I realized my friends had parents who loved each other and spent time together as a family. That’s when I came to the conclusion that my parents hated each other and were probably only together because they thought they had to be for me. I could see it in the way my father looked at me with contempt. He blamed my existence for his shitty life.