by Pippa Grant
“Great. All he needs is a construction company and a bank and he can buy his own town and the friends to put in it.”
“I wouldn’t move there,” Willow says.
Eloise smiles darkly. “I would, but only to poison the water supply.”
Have I mentioned my undying love for Eloise? And that’s not the alcohol talking. “Anyway, the good news is, I’ll have way more time to practice my keyboard skills soon.”
“What? Why?” Parker asks.
“My current moral dilemma. Refuse to let Chase Jett’s presence in my workplace affect me and do my job anyway like a big girl, or quit because I refuse to let him boss me around while he profits off my work? And let’s not forget to take into account the increased probability that I’ll be terminated because of our history.”
“If he fires you because he banged you and left you in the Bratwurst Wagon, you can sue him for wrongful termination,” Willow offers.
I almost smile. Willow said banged.
“But if she decorates his office with dicks and sends a company-wide exposé memo, he’ll almost have to fire her, and then she can call in the lawyers.” Eloise for the win, ladies and gentleman.
“Being fired wouldn’t be all terrible.” I hiccup. “Maybe I’ll be a subway performer. I could start writing original songs. I went to jail for banging a billionaire in the Bratwurst Wagon has a ring to it, don’t you think?”
And to think, I’ve wasted a decade of my life being mortified by my youthful discretion. I’d level up in cool points with at least half the marketing department if they knew.
“Uh-oh,” Parker says.
“What?”
“Anti-dick moves. According to Wikipedia, he runs in the St. Jude Marathon every year. Also, since officially reaching billionaire status two years ago, he’s built a new no-kill shelter in upstate Minnesota and started a foundation that’s running food banks in four states.”
“If I had a billion dollars, I could buy a PR company and look like an angel too.” Eloise taps a drumstick against her thigh. “You know what you need to do, don’t you?”
“Legally change my name and apply to be a maid at Willow’s stepdad’s place? They need fresh, young, non-incestuous blood to bear a few royal babies, don’t they?”
Willow goes pink. “I don’t think my stepbrothers have any issues finding non-incestuous blood.”
“You need to sleep with him again,” Eloise declares.
I’ve mentioned how much I hate Eloise, haven’t I?
She pushes her cats-eye glasses back up her nose. “You’re lacking in closure.”
“The only closure I need is to not work for the man who let me take the fall for our Bratwurst Wagon adventure. Either he goes or I go.”
Eloise taps her drumstick again. “Do you want to go?”
“Um, no.”
“Then we need a plan. He might have a billion dollars, but we have something he doesn’t.”
All three of us stare at her blankly.
“The collective outrage of scorned women everywhere,” she says as though it should be obvious.
“Uh, sure,” Parker says.
“We owe it to women everywhere to show this pompous prick that we’re done doing jail time for his crimes while he rakes in the dough.”
“I’d rather just forget it ever happened,” I say. And honestly? I would. All of it. I’ve moved on. He’s moved on. My brothers have moved on.
The Bratwurst Wagon has moved on.
Maybe in another ten or twenty years, I’ll even be able to go home again.
“But I’d feel happier staying at Crunchy if he agreed to donate fifty percent of his profits to charity every year. That’s reasonable, right? Then I’m not working for him. I’m working for charity.”
“Charity?” Eloise snorts. “No, the man has to pay, and we’re just the women to make him do it. We collectively have ten brothers. If anyone can find ways to torture a man, we can.”
“Um, can we not count mine?” Willow says. “I don’t know them all that well.”
“That’s okay. Mine count for three apiece,” I tell her.
“That’s eleven brothers then.” Eloise smiles. “We’re going to hand this dick his balls.”
4
Chase
Indescribable as it is for a kid who grew up wrong side of the lake in a little Minnesota town to own a thirty-million-dollar brownstone overlooking Central Park on the Upper East Side, something about the townhouse makes me claustrophobic. Maybe it’s the hemmed-in feel of sharing walls with the neighbors on all seven floors. Maybe it’s the dark tones of all the furniture, natural woodwork, and modern art.
Or maybe it’s the faint smell of cigar lingering like a ghost.
Whatever it is, I decide I prefer the office at 3 AM. I own several—offices in New York, that is—but tonight I’m drawn back to Crunchy.
Best part of owning a grocery store—unlimited midnight snack options. Maybe I’ll buy a condom company next.
On second thought, that’s like buying a sports car. Looks like you’re compensating.
The security guards on the first floor leap to their feet when I walk in. You wouldn’t know it from the outside, but this building is worth its weight in gold. Crunchy’s more than your standard organic grocery store.
It’s also a successful experiment in growing food in the city. There are six floors of vegetables planted, tended, harvested, packaged, and shipped out to our local stores here every day. Security is non-negotiable.
I nod to the guards. “Evening, gentlemen. How’s night watch?”
They share a look. “Good,” the first says while the second trips over himself to get out, “All quiet and normal, sir.”
I didn’t squander my youth being a hellion to not see through the lies. I could fire them on the spot, but that kind of power isn’t my thing.
I’d rather get the rush of the game before I decide their fate. “Excellent. Carry on.”
The building is quiet tonight, except for a hiccup echoing down the hall.
Odd.
Even odder, and most unwelcome?
Ambrosia May Berger is standing in the elevator bank, peering up at the numbers. She hiccups again. I stop beside her and watch her eyes go wide, then narrow, then cross. Mirrored elevator doors are possibly the second greatest invention known to man.
First, of course, is the internet.
I stare at Bro in the door mirror.
She stares back.
For all the shit she gave me growing up, I always respected her spine. As much as one can respect something that infuriating. She got away with everything. Even when she was reckless.
I can honestly say no woman I’ve been with since her has ever tried to make a break for it in the Bratwurst Wagon.
As long as I block out the month that followed, I can think of the Bratwurst Wagon with a smile.
“Working late or coming in early?” I ask.
“The hogs are mating again,” she replies.
The world believes this woman to be a sane, competent adult. Mind-boggling.
“Do you always wait in elevator banks for women you want to harass?” she asks.
“Only when I’ve gotten bored staking out the bathrooms.” I reach over and hit the up button, because she hasn’t. “Do you always assume the elevators can read your mind?”
“They were doing better than you. I didn’t want to go up.”
“And you’re standing here because…?”
“It’s my thinking spot.”
“It’s 3 AM on a Wednesday morning.”
“Do you see me judging you on wanting to use an elevator at 3 AM on a Wednesday morning? No, you don’t. So why do you have to judge me for wanting to think in an elevator bank at 3 AM? Hmmmmmm?” The hum trills up on the end, right in time with her swiveling to face me. She squints one eye, then the other, before scrunching her face, pointing her index finger at my nose, and making pew, pew noises.
If this is what the secur
ity guards were worried I’d find, I’m rather disappointed.
“Drinking on the job again?” I ask.
“Again implies I’ve done it before. Which I have not, unless you count that time the guava kale juice fermented, which I don’t, because it only counts as drinking if I enjoy the alcohol. Also, all whisky was consumed off-premise.”
“So you’re drunk.”
“I’m not drunk. I’m barely buzzed enough to be able to tolerate you.”
I eye her and decide she’s telling the truth. Her eyes are too focused and her tongue’s too sharp for her to be drunk. I can’t even smell anything on her. Tired, maybe, but not drunk.
“Was it organic?” I ask dryly.
“It’s whisky, dickhead.”
Christ, that mouth. I want to lick it and tape it shut all at the same time. “You shouldn’t call your superiors names.”
She blows a raspberry. The sight of her ripe pink tongue makes my cock leap to attention.
“Looking for disciplinary action?” I murmur.
“Oh, don’t you wish.” The elevator dings, and she lists inside. I’d try to catch her, but frankly, I wouldn’t mind seeing her crash to the ground.
She comes to a solid stop at the railing along the back paneled wall. “And you’re not my superior,” she says.
“I write your paycheck.”
“Not yet you haven’t.” Spittle shouldn’t be sexy, but her second raspberry gives me a longer look at her tongue. I remember that tongue. Long as a lizard’s, hot as a volcano, talented as a porn star.
That’s as complimentary as I get where Bro Berger is concerned.
“So Mr. Liver-bellied Bratwurst-runner-away-er,” she says, “wouldn’t you be happier owning a grocery store that I don’t work for? Because I’m sure we can find another zagillionaire to take your place.”
I punch the button to the eighteenth floor—where the fresh greens for tomorrow are being picked and packed right now, if all’s on schedule—and give her my worst smile. “Aw, Bro, your inflated opinion of my bank account is touching.”
“You could be a mega-ka-billion-trillionaire, and you still wouldn’t have enough money to buy a soul.”
I’m relatively new to the ranks of the ten-figure club, but it’s still been years since anyone has insulted me to my face.
Her blatant hatred is oddly erotic. “Who needs a soul when I have the power to sack tempestuous employees?”
“Go ahead. I dare you.” She bangs the button for the fourth floor. Then the third, fifth, seventh, ninth, and every odd number to the top. With a frown, she draws her hand down the row of even numbers until every single floor is lit, and if I’d still thought this was alcohol motivating her, the sharp, devious intention in her cold eyes removes any doubt.
She’s fully in control and she’s intentionally trying to bait me.
Heat creeps over my scalp. It’s working.
She’s making this elevator stop on Every. Single. Fucking. Floor.
I whip out my cell phone—security can override her little prank—but as the doors close, my signal dies.
She does the MC Hammer dance, and her breasts jiggle under her swishy spring dress in a way even a celibate Tibetan monk couldn’t resist. There’s no fucking way she’s wearing a bra.
My cock twitches harder.
How did a woman so insanely evil land the world’s most perfect tits?
“Go on, rich boy.” She switches to the Lawnmower, and now her hips are rocking it too. “Buy your way out of that.”
Good Chase, the businessman, the gaming tech genius, the face I show the world, the smarter part of my brain, hops off when the doors open on the second floor, because he appreciates stairs and getting the hell away from this deranged woman.
Bad Chase, though, has possessed my body and keeps me in the elevator.
I wave goodbye to rational thought and better judgment—who needs those bitches anyway?—and turn to Bro with a growl.
She’s wiggling her sweet curvy ass at me now, arms circling, stirring the batter. “It’s my birthday, happy birthday, it’s my birth—oomph!”
Huh. Emergency stop button works, but it’s a little choppy on the execution. Better have maintenance look at that tomorrow.
I take one large, purposeful step toward Bro.
She fists her hands on her hips and calls me an asshole with her dark, heavy-lidded, fuck-me bedroom eyes.
Yeah.
She’s feeling it too.
That pull. That hate. That inexplicable force of rage that can only be satiated with a hard, hot fuck.
“I fucking hate bok choy,” I growl.
“Then you shouldn’t have bought a fucking organic grocery store,” she growls back in a perfect mockery of me.
I’ve always detested her ability to do that. I take another step, and we’re toe-to-toe. The lead pipe in my pants is poking her belly. My sanity has fled the building. Maybe the whole city. Hell, it’s just skyrocketed out of the fucking atmosphere.
This woman drives me mad. She’s obnoxious as toe fungus and pathologically self-righteous. I want to crush her. I want to ruin her. I want to own her.
“Not enough bratwurst for one day?” she hisses. “You had to put a crooked one in your pocket too?” Her eyes are obsidian ringed in gold, pillowy lips parted, her hands fisted in my sweatshirt.
I back her into the corner, my dick doing all the talking. “You want my long, thick cock, and you know it.”
“I want to break it in two and feed it to maggots.”
“You want to bite it. And suck on it. And ride it.”
“I fucking hate you.”
I fucking hate her too, but I have a fistful of her hair, and I’m suddenly doing the only thing I know to do to shut her the fuck up.
I’m shoving my tongue down her throat. As far as it’ll go. Gliding into that hot, wet, silky mouth where my joystick wants to be.
She sinks her nails into my ass and yanks me tighter against her, matching me thrust for thrust with her lizard tongue while she grunts incoherent insults.
I jerk my hips against her, rubbing my cock against her tight body. That’s for costing me my two best friends.
She wraps her long giraffe legs around my hips and rides me like she doesn’t know how to stay on the bull. I twist and shove her against the back wall, yank her skirt up, and dry-hump her like a freak. She’s drenched, soaking through her thong and coating my pants.
I take my tongue out of her mouth and bite her shoulder. She rakes her claws up my back under my shirt. “You are such an asshole,” she says.
“Save it for someone who cares, Bro.”
She bucks harder against me, and I silence her again, diving into her mouth like I’d like to dive into her pussy.
Licking. Sucking. Eating.
Mine. Mine to command. Mine to conquer. Mine to ruin for life.
Because she’ll never get dick like I can give. No one else knows her. They don’t know her dark side. Her evil side. Her carnal side.
I slide a finger under her panties and run it over her smooth seam. She moans in my mouth and rides my hand, twisting, demanding, as if she thinks she can give the orders.
In her dreams.
I pull my hand away.
“That’s right, fucker,” she hisses. “You can’t handle my pussy.”
I shove my hand between us again, and this time, I go straight for the kill. Thumb to her clit, all four fingers sliding up into her creamy channel.
She comes so hard, clenching around me so tight, I feel every spasm all the way to my elbow. Head thrown back, legs straight out, eyes rolling out of her head like a camel having a seizure while she rides my hand through the waves. Her high-pitched cry, “You diiiiiiiiiiick,” echoes in the elevator, and the room wobbles in the shaft.
That’s right, Bro.
Zero to sixty in four-point-three seconds. Good luck getting that with one of your crunchy, free-range, organic toadstool boyfriends.
And we haven’t eve
n gotten to the main event.
I consider dropping her on her ass while she’s a pile of rotten jelly in my arms, but instead wait until her eyes focus again. Fucking gentleman of the year, that’s me.
When she blinks at me, I give her another moment to remember she hates me. It’s remarkable, watching the transformation. One minute, she almost looks human, and the next she’s a screaming harpy with horns and vampire teeth.
“Two-point-one,” she says.
“Seconds to make you come?” I breathe. “You’re easy.”
“I didn’t come,” she lies. “That was my body recoiling in horror, and you get a two-point-one a scale of zero to one hundred.”
I chuckle. “We both know better, Bro. Now suck my dick.”
“Suck your own dick.”
I suck her juices off my fingers, and her breathing goes shallow. She licks her lips, and her greedy hands plunge into my pants to grab my aching cock.
I know she’s trying to strangle it, but sweet Christ, there’s pain, and then there’s pleasure, and fuck if I’ll let her know she’s mastered the art of riding that line.
With superhuman strength, I force myself to affect a bored eye roll. “Oh. Ow. Stop. That hurts.” I give enough of a thrust in her grip to tell her if she stops, I’ll fucking jack myself off in front of her, and she squeezes harder.
Fuck, that’s good.
Her fist yanks me like she’s a virgin milkmaid, and I’m blinded by a white-hot streak of furious lust. I’m enraged. I’m engorged. I’m—
She grabs me by the balls, scraping my sack, and that color behind my eyeballs goes iridescent. Beyond white. I can’t think. I can’t talk. I can barely keep my knees from giving out.
“Flaccid,” she whispers. “And still crooked. You should see a doctor about that.”
“If you don’t like it, you could quit touching it.” If she quits touching me, I’m going to fucking die. “I can barely tell your hand is there anyway.”
“It’s a mercy stroke. I’m generous like that. And you’re a lying fuck-face.”
“Beg all you want. I’m not giving you a pity fuck.”
“I don’t want a pity fuck. It’s all I can do to not barf while I’m looking at you.”