Billionaires, Boarders, and Bastards: A Limited-Time Collection of Reverse Harem Romance Novellas

by C. M. Stunich

  I just … sort of want to get fucked.

  Nothing wrong with that, right?

  An apple a day keeps the doctor away … and a good screw makes the whole experience more palatable. Besides, if I'm going to be trapped in this house—literally trapped—with a wall of ice and snow outside, a perfectionist father and a workaholic mother … I deserve a special present, right? Because Crispin Fox … looks like he'd make for a very merry Christmas.

  “San Francisco. I mean, I grew up here, but my grandmother moved to California just after I graduated high school, and I followed her.” I shrug and roll onto my back, making sure Crispin has a nice, uninterrupted view of the candy cane disappearing down my throat. “She helped me open the bookstore of my dreams and encouraged me through four … semi-successful years of running it.” I swallow hard, pulling the candy from my mouth. I'm not quite as turned-on as I was a few moments ago … “She died about six months ago and, well, the store's finances were never great. I just put it up for sale. Hopefully, I get a buyer before the bank takes it all back.”

  “So you're moving in here?” Crispin asks, sounding surprised, snapping off the end of the peppermint stick with his pretty white teeth. He chews carefully as he continues to stare at the ceiling, almost like he's lost in thought.

  “I feel like an outsider in my own family,” I say, surprised to hear myself confessing to a random stranger. “They don't care about me or what I do … did.Not a single one of them showed up for my grandmother's funeral.” Tears prick my eyes again, but I ignore them. “She worked her whole fucking life to make sure my mom had a good education, a good job, a good life. And what did she get in return? Nothing.”

  “I wouldn't say nothin',” Crispin says, turning toward me and pulling the candy cane from my fingers. He leans up on an elbow and tosses them onto the side table. His left hand comes down and cups the side of my face, his brown eyes boring into mine. “She got you, didn't she?” he asks, and my heart stutters … stops … starts thundering. It feels like Crispin is playing me the way he does his bass, digging in and plucking the strings, getting them to sing exactly what it is he wants.

  I guess that's what makes him a good musician then because … my lips are parted and I'm ready to make whatever notes he wants.

  He leans down to kiss me, and then pauses, his breath teasing my already wet lips, the hardness of his cock pressing into my thigh.

  “What I meant to say earlier,” he begins, talking so that his mouth brushes mine. I've closed my eyes without even realizing it, and force myself to open them again, taking in Crispin's heavy half-lidded stare. “Was that … this ain't no game, Cherry Pie. The boys and I … we always date the same woman.”

  And with that little nugget of truth, Crispin rolls onto his back and then swings his feet down to the white fur rug on my floor.

  “Grab your suit,” he tells me with a grin and a nod. “And meet me on the deck.”

  I can't decide if he just dropped a diamond into my metaphorical stocking … or a piece of dusty black coal.

  The upstairs deck is home to a pretty fabulous fucking eight person hot tub. In fact, there are two of them, their view of the snow covered woods an unbeatable winter treat, even in the midst of a blizzard.

  The wind is howling and admittedly, it's a struggle to even get to the first of the two hot tubs, let alone the second one. I doubt anyone in their right mind wants to spend the time needed to clear four feet of fucking snow off the top to take a dip—especially not when someone already rescued this one.

  “Why the two tubs?” Crispin asks as I climb in, enjoying the way his eyes take in my white bikini with the little Christmas bulb pattern all over it. I'm a tad skinny, so the boob cups are a bit large and have a tendency to gape, but I like the way I look in it still. It was better when Grandma was alive and I could actually fill it out, but I've lost a lot of weight since her death.

  Shouldn't be hard to gain it all back here though, with—and Crispin was right about this—Dad whipping up holiday treats all day. That's what he's doing to kill time while he waits for the storm to pass, so he can have another fancy party—baking. I snagged three sugar cookies before making my way out here and ate them all. He'd also made brownies with red and green frosting and a Christmas cake decorated with a nativity scene made from modeling chocolate and fondant.

  My brothers and sisters were in there helping him, laughing and smiling and sharing family gossip. When I'd walked in, dressed in my robe with my swimsuit underneath, they'd all gone quiet.

  “Oh,” Tina said, looking at me with a strained expression on her face, “we didn't think to invite you.”

  And that … is why I am not looking forward to moving back in here.

  I'm an afterthought to the Fallon family, that extra child my parents never intended to have and decided to go through with at the last minute anyway. Sometimes when they look at me, I wonder if the taste of regret is bitter on the backs of their tongues.

  “The two tubs … for my parents' parties,” I say, sinking into the warm water and loving the feel of the heat against my chilled skin. The wind is still threatening to steal every ounce of body heat I have through the top of my head and my exposed face, but the hot tub does a good job of trying to combat that.

  The best of both words—scalding water and icy snow.

  I love it, the only part of this place that I truly missed after I left with Grandma and moved to San Francisco.

  “What sort of parties do your parents have?” a voice murmurs from behind me, and I jump, splashing water in Crispin's face as I glance back and find Vale Kesselring … completely naked. He climbs into the hot tub like it's no big thing at all and makes himself comfy in the corner nearest me, draping his muscular arms over the edge and staring at me with those half-lidded bedroom eyes of his.

  “All kinds,” I say, deciding not to worry about his nakedness if he doesn't seem concerned with it. “Whatever lascivious thoughts you might be thinking, they're probably true. No need to be subtle. I know my parents have swinger parties and whatnot.”

  Vale raises his blonde brows at me, and smiles … gentle … awful … wicked.

  How does a man who looks so … nice smile like a demon?

  He reaches up a wet hand and tousles his silver-blonde-blue hair, the tattoos on his fingers finally making sense to me.

  Good Time.

  That's what he has written across knuckles, the words Good and Time with a hand inked … in pussy. Er, what I mean to say is … he has a tattoo of a pair of cats—one white and one black—sitting facing away, their tails curled together at the tips.

  “I just told Cherry Pie here about our arrangement,” Crispin says, leaning his head back against one of the headrests and sighing in pleasure. That sound … it tightens my lower belly, twists it into knots, makes me shiver.

  “You didn't tell me anything,” I reply, taking up my own corner of the tub and enjoying the strange darkness above us, the blackness that coats the sky despite how early in the afternoon it is. Big white flakes filter down and swirl in the air around the hot tub, melting in the steam above the water. “You cryptically implied that you and your friends often date the same woman. How is that supposed to surprise me?”

  Crispin flicks his eyes open and then glances over at Vale.

  “She doesn't get it …” Vale begins, tapping his tattooed fingers against the water. “Or else you didn't explain properly.”

  Crispin just laughs and shakes his head, scooting a little closer to me, so close that our knees touch beneath the surface. My breath hitches, but I cross my arms over my chest and lean back, waiting for an explanation.

  “A bunch of pop rock musician assholes all dating the same girl, so what?”

  “This ain't like that,” he says, and Vale laughs, the sound drifting around me, like it's adhered itself to the hot tub steam and is now caressing every inch of my body.

  “Then what is it like?” I ask and hear a scoffing noise from behind me. Yet again,
another rockstar sneaking up on me through the snow.

  This time, when I turn to look though, it's both Frost and Aspen.

  Uh-oh.

  At least they're both wearing swim trunks.

  The two men climb in and take up the opposite side of the space, all four of them positioned just-so, all looking my way. And I feel like their gazes … are intense as fuck.

  “What's it like?” Frost asks me mockingly, a veritable frigging sex god with raven-dark hair and emerald eyes. His tattoos color his entire chest and arms, a nice contrast against Vale's mostly empty skin. “We don't just gangbang girls together for fun,” he says, narrowing his eyes at me. I sort of want to kick him in the balls, but then … I remember he gave me his number on a napkin … That was cute, wasn't it?

  But Christ Almighty, what a dick.

  “We don't gangbang anyone,” Aspen says, looking at me with that same intensity I saw in the kitchen yesterday. “We date together.”

  “And we also fuck together,” Frost adds which just causes Aspen's face to tense up like he wants to punch his friend in the eye. Instead, he ignores him and takes a deep breath, sucking in the white steam and swimming closer, taking up the seat between me and Vale.

  “Cyan, we actually date girls as a group, as in … we're a package deal.”

  “I'm sorry … what?” I ask, blinking and tilting my head to one side, brown hair sliding over my shoulder and sitting in the water as I sink low, trying to escape a particularly chilly gust of wind. “You guys are … lovers?”

  “Sometimes,” Aspen continues, casting his gaze around the group like he's expecting somebody else to chime in and help him out there. Crispin just grins, Vale smiles, and Frost glares. How nice. What an interesting mix of men Inked Pages is. “But mostly we like women.”

  “Women?” I ask, sinking just a bit lower, until the water touches my lips. “Or woman?”

  “Look, Cyan, we have a career that takes up a lot of time, and we all … want someone, you know? But we don't want to lose what we have together either, this dynamic we've spent so long building. We're looking for a girl that understands us.”

  “And we figured since you fucked me and Aspen that you might be interested,” Frost says, and I sit up suddenly, flicking water into his face. He just squints and lets it drip down the sculpted perfection on his cheekbones and jaw, off the tip of his perfectly straight nose.

  “So … let me get this straight,” I say as I scoot out of the hot tub and onto the edge, leaving my legs dangling in the water. “You four … are occasional lovers … who want to date the same girl because you're all such good bros you can't stand the thought of losing each other?”

  “We'd rather put all our effort and love and focus into one woman together because none of us has the time to be a proper partner otherwise,” Aspen says, sighing deeply and looking me straight in the face. Between his sapphire eyes, Frost's emerald ones, Crispin's dark chocolate gaze, and Vale's golden stare, I'm completely lost. Sitting in a hot tub with three half-naked men … one naked man … and all of these hormones?

  Not good.

  “Why are you telling me this?” I ask, and Aspen's eyes lock on mine. His stare is … it's uncomfortable. I feel like I'd need to be at peace with myself, inside and out, in order to meet that gaze and not want to run like hell. “We met like three days ago.”

  “Yeah, but …” Aspen smiles, shrugs, lets his face get tainted with a bit of that cocky edge. “We like you, Cyan.”

  “So … you want to date me?” I ask, swinging my legs outside of the hot tub and tapping my feet around, searching frantically for my slippers.

  “We want to fuck you,” Frost says as my toes finally find them and slip inside. I'm getting the expensive wool all wet, but screw it—I just need to get the hell out of here.

  “Goddamn it, Frost,” Aspen snaps, but I'm already making a beeline for the back doors, slipping inside, and running like hell for my room.

  The question is … why?

  CHAPTER SIX

  This house is swarming with cousins and siblings and a mother on a rampage—as soon as the blizzard hit, she decided she needed to get back to DC for some big anti-piracy case and is now pissed that she can barely make it to the sidewalk to get the mail.

  Well, if there were any mail to actually get; USPS has suspended service for a few days, until the snow clears.

  I do my best to avoid the inked up bastards, but they manage to track me down the next morning, sitting in the sunroom with a cup of coffee and staring at several pages of words that have somehow … just flown right the hell out of me. I sat down to write and for once, I didn't have any trouble coming up with the story.

  My fingers flew across the keys as I wrote about Frost in the bus bathroom, Aspen in the kitchen, and … all the things I wanted to do with Crispin and Vale in the hot tub. And the next scene, the one that was currently being fueled by my caffeine addiction … it was a hot and heavy foursome.

  “Do you want to bake with us?” Aspen asks, coming to stand next to the bistro table and folding his arms over his … Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer apron. Huh. Okay. And I know that did not come from my father's apron collection.

  “You keep aprons on your tour bus?” I ask and Aspen flicks his tongue across his lower lip, letting his blue eyes slide to the side, like he's embarrassed and unwilling to admit it.

  “We like Christmas,” he says, nostrils flaring, turning his attention back to me as the other three boys mill around the room, staring at my dad's vast collection of expensive holiday décor. I don't miss the fact that they're also all wearing aprons. “Well, I like Christmas,” he amends with a long sigh. “I didn't exactly have any as a child, so … I'm making up for it now.”

  He looks down at his apron and plucks the fabric as I close my laptop, carefully but purposefully. I do not want these guys knowing the fantasies I'm entertaining about them.

  “If you don't like these,” he says, lifting his head back up and pulling a rumpled piece of fabric from one of the large pockets at the same time. “I saw that your dad has a whole bunch with glass beads and shit in a kitchen cabinet.”

  Aspen tosses me a white apron … which turns out to be a very curvy and tacky looking Mrs. Claus in a bikini silhouette. I narrow my eyes at him and he smiles, this self-assured expression that makes my heart hurt and does weird things to my body. As long as I live, I don't think I'll ever forget hearing him singing and fucking me at the same time.

  Oh holy snowball son of a bitch.

  “Let's bake,” he says again, and Crispin moves over next to us, grinning, dressed in an apron covered in … trailers with Christmas lights wrapped around them. Redneck Christmas is what it says. That's … nice. But also kind of funny, especially paired with his nice jeans, boots, and the tight red long-sleeved shirt he's wearing; he looks beyond polished. Hell, my mother would be less embarrassed dragging him around DC with her than she would me.

  “Why?” I ask, but I'm already standing up and pausing as Frost moves over to us with that fucking intensity of his. It puts me on edge at the same time it makes me want to tear my clothes off and go rut with him in the snow. No wonder we ended up doing it in the bathroom … Just looking at him, smelling him when he stands close to me, is enough to light my body up like the fire roaring in the nearby fireplace.

  “Because,” Frost says, taking the apron from me and hooking it around my neck. He trails his fingers across my skin with purpose, making me shiver, causing my nipples to pebble beneath the gold fabric of my party dress. Technically, none of Dad's famous parties are happening because of the storm, but I know if I wear ratty jeans around the house, both he and Mom will nag me to death so … wearing an expensive designer dress to write sex scenes in seems appropriate. “I saw your family cooking yesterday, but I didn't see you. I figured we chased you off, and I wanted to make up for it. Your sister, Tina, told me you like to bake.”

  My heart goes cold, even as Frost ties the apron strings tight around my
waist, getting far too close to my back to be anything but a come-on. He's warm, and he feels good, and he smells like fucking Balsam Fir incense, but …

  “You didn't chase me away,” I say as I take a deep breath and glance over at Vale, leaning against the wall of windows, ankles crossed, as he watches me casually through golden eyes, his apron green with a red belt and little bells all over it, like he's an elf or some shit. “They forgot to invite me.”

  I weave between the members of Inked Pages and head through the double doors of the kitchen, making my way to a lower cabinet near the massive industrial stainless steel refrigerator. There are cookbooks lined up in here as well as in iPad and charge cord for looking up recipes online. I ignore it all and snatch the tattered, hideous tome from the corner, covered in grease stains and flour, pages falling out and browning at the edges.

  It's my grandmother's cookbook, all the recipes she collected over a lifetime. There's an entire section on Christmas, too. When we moved, I asked to take it with us, but she said she'd like to leave it here, just in case my mother or siblings ever got the urge to use it.

  I think she was hoping it'd serve as a reminder that the two of us still existed—not once did anyone come to visit us in San Francisco—but looking at it now, covered in a fine layer of dust, I realize that was a bit of a pipe dream.

  “Whatever you want to make,” I tell the boys as I toss the heavy book onto the kitchen island and flip through to the holiday section, the intro page decorated in glitter, metallic stickers, and green and red craft pom-poms. “It's in here.”

  Frost moves over to me wearing … a fucking Jack Frost apron with the character from Rise of the Guardians on the front. Wow. If my dad walks in here and sees all these hideous aprons, he'll probably have a heart attack and die.

  “I'm surprised you agreed to this so easily,” he says, leaning his hip against the counter, green eyes sparkling. I wonder if his eyes are like the trees outside, frosty and cold on the exterior … the majesty of their towering heights hidden underneath all that snow. Or maybe he's just an asshole. Yeah, probably just a dickhead. “I was convinced you were going to tell us to fuck off.”