by Max Monroe
Banking Her (Billionaire Bad Boys, #2.5)
Published by Max Monroe LLC © 2016, Max Monroe
ISBN: 978-0-9975406-3-5
All rights reserved.
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Editing by Silently Correcting Your Grammar
Proofing by Indie Solutions by Murphy Rae
Formatting by Champagne Formats
Cover Design by Perfect Pear Creative
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Contact Information
Acknowledgements
To Dedications.
No one ever dedicates their dedication to the Dedication, but it does such an awesome job of being dedicated. So here’s to you!
But, um, you should probably do a better job in, like, bars and at weddings and stuff. You’re always so sloppy and drunk and shit.
Oh, and to cake. You’re delicious.
Light reflected off the glass of her office window as I approached the end of the hall. It was late and I was tired, but if she was going to leave lights on all over the goddamn place, some compulsive part of me wouldn’t let me leave without turning them off.
Taking leisurely strides, I pulled out my master key from my pocket and rounded the corner, only to pull up short when the interior of her office became visible through the slats in her blinds.
Long, tan legs crossed at the ankles and up on the edge of her desk, Winnie Winslow sat staring at the file in her lap, a pen twisting and turning between the plush pads of her pink lips. Her normally perfectly placed blond hair was a wreck, as though she’d been running her hands through it, and the crisp edges of her white blouse lay untucked at the top of her skirt.
It was a natural progression for me, following the line of her temptingly exposed skin in an explorational effort to find more, but as a line formed between her dark eyebrows, my gaze shot to her face.
She was concentrating on something, but I couldn’t decipher the nuances of it enough to know if she was confused or frustrated or both. It was startlingly clear to me, however, that I wanted to be able to tell the difference.
The thought made me scowl.
Goddammit. The last thing I needed was some unavoidable siren’s call at work—from some woman who drove me absolutely insane by just sitting there doing her job.
The longer I stood, scanning the muscles of her legs as they rubbed together restlessly and watching her breath puff through her lips in little pants, the angrier I got.
Watching her as she studied something else felt too good, like I could get my fill without her judging eyes and harsh looks urging me to hurry it along and get down to business—on her terms.
It was a compulsion, and every time I thought I’d gotten enough to satisfy the craving, she’d shift or twist and a new inch of skin would expose itself at the top of her thighs or on the inside swells of her fucking incredible breasts. Five minutes of unabashed attention later, with steam making a bid to shoot right out of my nose, realization dawned.
Fucking hell. This was, by far and large, the creepiest thing I’d ever done. I couldn’t find it in me to proclaim Winnie Winslow innocent in many ways, but she was right now. Harmlessly staying late at a job where she didn’t get paid overtime, staring into the files of players and cases and timelines and God knew what else for the greater good of my team, and I was out here watching her like a fucking psychopath.
Resolute in my newfound self-loathing, I quietly turned back from her office toward the direction I’d come. But I only made it two steps before karma saw fit to torture me for my behavior with the bleating, annoying ring of my cell phone.
“Shit! Fuck!” I cursed as I juggled the folders in my hands and shoved a hand into my pocket to retrieve the offending electronic device. It was a test of willpower so mighty I thought I might bust out of my suit, shredding it to pieces, and turn right into the Hulk. But I must have had some latent superpowers because I didn’t turn around to look into the window of her office again.
When the name of my ill-timed caller flashed across the screen, it took all I had to answer normally—without f-bombing all over the goddamn place about how inconvenient it was to be friends with him.
“What?” I asked as I put the phone to my ear, tucking the nearly scattered papers under my arm for safekeeping.
“You talk about the way I answer the phone, but you answer it like a fucking prick. Every time,” Thatch said.
“Yeah, well, I’m busy. And last time you called it was because you were trying to con me into doing one of Cassie’s late-night craving runs for you.”
He laughed, the fucking bastard.
“I only do the work for pregnancies I create, and I had not one moment of fun or involvement in the creation of that little hellion.”
Though, truthfully, I had heard the sound of their fun plenty of times. The horny little exhibitionists couldn’t seem to keep their clothes on, no matter where they were or how many people were listening.
“Wes?” I heard from behind me, Winnie’s sweet, self-assured voice making me squeeze my eyes together. Of course, she couldn’t just let the fact that she’d seen me out here go.
“Oh, hey, Winnie,” I greeted. “I didn’t realize you were still here.”
Liar.
“Look out, Winnie,” I heard my most annoying friend say directly in my ear. “Pinocchio’s nose is only seconds away from poking you right in the pussy.”
I fought the urge to curse Thatch out, laugh, and, hell, maybe even cry. I was normally stoic, so much so that I’d earned a public reputation for it, but it seemed like I couldn’t control my reactions anymore. So breaking down in tears might not have been that far off.
“You need me to look at something?” I asked Winnie.
Thatch pretended to cough in my ear before murmuring, “Her pussy.”
She shook her head and then nodded, seemingly undecided, and the glimpse of uncertainty had my eyebrows pulling together of their own accord. In my relatively short time around Winnie Winslow, she didn’t do uncertainty. She was one hundred percent confident in all of her decisions and remarks, and I’d come to expect that from her.
I opened my mouth to speak again, when she straightened, her long legs getting longer, and any curve befalling her spine disappeared.
“Only if you want to. I was just looking over the MRI results from Mitchell’s hamstring injury.”
It’d been a co
uple of weeks since Mitchell’s initial reinjury, and we were expecting him to play this weekend. I couldn’t really afford to not have him play. She didn’t say anything had changed, but maybe looking at the MRI myself wasn’t a bad idea.
“Okay. I’d love to see the MRI. Just give me a second to finish up this phone call, and I’ll be in.”
She nodded and swung her body back into her office with the help of her hand clenched around the doorjamb. My gaze followed her as she strutted to her desk and rifled through the papers, pulling something out from the bottom of the stack. She started to tuck her shirt back into her skirt, and I jerked my eyes away when she looked up self-consciously in my direction.
“Well, well, well. Late nights with Ms. Winslow. Someone’s a naughty boy.”
Something didn’t add up with Winnie—the whole interaction reeked of not-quite-right—but thanks to Thatch in my ear, I couldn’t seem to figure out what.
My attention back on Thatch, I spoke into the phone in an angry whisper. “I didn’t even know she was still here, asshole. Jesus.”
His laughter rang out through the phone loudly enough that I had to pull it slightly away from my ear.
“Me thinketh my fair Whitney doth protesteth too mucho.”
I shook my head and rubbed at my temple, keeping the folder clenched tightly with the pinch of my elbow. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
“Come on. The sooner the two of you bang, the sooner we can all go on a tropical vacation together. It’ll be like that movie, Couple’s Retreat.”
“Don’t like seventy-five percent of the couples in that movie break up?”
“Okay, so it won’t be like Couple’s Retreat. It’ll be like a totally better, porno version of it. No one breaks up in porn.”
“Of course, no one breaks up in porn,” I told him, following him down the rabbit hole of conversation without even realizing it. Thatch was the master of dragging you into insanity without your knowledge. I think it was the matter-of-fact way he talked about absurdities. “It’s an explicitly no-boundaries situation.”
“It’s an accidental anal situation.”
“Exactly. In real life, women break up with you for accidental anal.”
His voice turned grave. “Is that why there’s so much tension with Winnie? I thought it was because you hadn’t fucked, but it’s because you gave her accidental anal, isn’t it?”
“Jesus Christ! No.” My whisper turned harsh as I took a couple of steps away from Winnie’s office and checked to make sure she couldn’t hear me.
“It’s not accidental anal. There’s no anal.”
“Oh. So that’s the problem. I’ve gotta tell you, Wes. Even I haven’t gotten anal. And if I can’t get anal from Cassie, you’re never getting anal from Winnie.”
“I don’t want anal from Winnie!”
Thatch laughed, and I closed my eyes in frustration. “So just the pussy, then?”
“I’m done talking to you.”
“Wait!” he called before I could hang up. “I called for a reason.”
“I’m not going to get ice cream for Cassie.”
“That’s not—”
“I know nothing about pregnancy panties.”
He barked laughter. “Well, you know more than me. I wasn’t aware there were pregnancy panties—”
“I don’t have access to any fried pickles, and I absolutely will not bring you Chinese food.”
“You know, I’m really starting to question your opinion of me, Whitney.”
“That’s fine,” I told him. “I’ve been questioning my opinion of you forever, in that I have one to give, because I’m still friends with you despite the fact that you are one of the most ridiculous human beings I’ve ever met.”
“It’s the big dick.”
“What?” My voice was incredulous and completely fucking confused about how we’d gotten here.
“Why you’re friends with me. The big dick.”
I laughed then. “No, no. I can assure you my friendship has nothing to do with, and I quote, ‘the big dick.’”
“Come on. You know you wouldn’t want to be friends with some little-dicked guy.”
“I’m pretty sure I want to be friends with the guy who doesn’t tell me about his dick size.”
“Huh.” He managed to sound like I’d surprised him. “Well, you’re out of luck there.”
“Thatch, I’m hanging up now.”
“Wait!”
God help me. I glanced over my shoulder once more, but in my attempt to do it inconspicuously, I completely failed to see anything. Apparently, subterfuge wasn’t my specialty.
“I just want to know what safety precautions you have on board your plane.”
My eyebrows shot together. “What?”
His voice turned suddenly serious. “I know Cassie has that shoot coming up for your away game—”
That wasn’t for a couple of weeks. Did I really have to deal with this now? “Thatch—”
“And I’m really trying not to get in her face about all the traveling and everything because, yeah, she’ll pretty much cut my big dick off, but I just need to know.”
I still didn’t even understand what he was asking. “I’m not following here.”
“What kind of medical provisions do you have on the plane?”
I glanced back into the office at Winnie, and actually caught sight of her this time, to find her sitting behind her desk and staring at the ground. I wondered if she was trying to avoid looking at me as hard as I was trying to avoid looking at her.
“Well, Winnie will be on the plane with us. And she’s a doctor.”
“Yeah, yeah, okay. That’s right.” He exhaled, and for the first time in this entire conversation, I didn’t want to wring his motherfucking neck.
I was a lot of things, a fair many of them probably not good, but I could tell when something genuinely meant something to him. “She’ll be fine,” I told him gently.
“I know. Fuck. I just can’t stop myself from worrying.”
I shut my eyes. Goddamn this big fucking sap. When he was vulnerable like this, I could barely even stand it. He was so damn genuine. “That means you’re going to be a good dad.”
He didn’t say anything, and I felt my chest tighten.
“I promise that Winnie will look out for her,” I told him. I knew he needed the extra encouragement, and in that moment, I wanted nothing more than to give it to him. “She’s more than capable, and you know that, no matter what, I’d make sure Cassie got the help she needed.”
“I know.”
“Thatch—”
“I’ll let you go,” he interrupted. “Go do anal with the good doctor.”
The line was dead before I could respond.
I shook my head to clear it and then turned to walk into Winnie’s office. I didn’t bother knocking as I walked through the already open door.
“Thatch?” she asked, and I raised my eyebrows.
“How could you tell?”
She put a finger to the skin between her own eyebrows and explained. “You always get a line, right here, when you talk to him.”
I laughed and shook my head, and then, for some reason, shared. “He’s really nervous about Cassie’s pregnancy. I think he calls me and Kline because he’s afraid to smother her about it.”
She looked me right in the eye, and for the first time in as long as we’d been working together, I didn’t feel the hot lash of her anger burning through me.
“Well, he’s not the only one nervous about her pregnancy,” I added for some insane reason. I was thrown off by this entire interaction with Wes. Our history of conversations was short but definitely had an undertone of aggravation or annoyance. I often found myself wondering if he could even stand being in the same room as me. Hell, I had a hard time being stuck in close quarters with him.
Sure, physically, Wes was the absolute perfect picture of my dream man—tall, fit, and Lord Almighty, his hazel eyes whispered promises of hot, m
ind-blowing sex.
But then, he’d open his mouth and pretty much ruin everything.
He needed a muzzle.
And to stop questioning every single one of my decisions related to the Mavericks. I honestly thought he made it a point to challenge me. It was like he obtained some sort of enjoyment out of being the one person who consistently disagreed with me.
Which made it completely ridiculous that I had asked him to come into my office to look at Mitchell’s MRI. I was the physician between the two of us. Not him. Sure, he was the owner, the one who signed my checks, but he had zero medical background; therefore, his opinion didn’t mean jack shit.
Yeah, but you didn’t ask him into your office for intellectual conversation. You want to ogle his fine ass in that suit…
I did. I really did. And I was torn between thinking I was a genius for luring him into my office so I could stare at his ass, versus realizing I had reached an all-time low. The truth of it was, I hadn’t even been looking at Mitchell’s MRI—it just seemed like a good excuse to get him inside. But hell, it had been over a year since I’d last had sex, and Wes Lancaster had a really fantastic ass.
Yes, you heard that right.
One whole year.
Three hundred and sixty-five days.
Five hundred twenty-five thousand and six hundred minutes.
But who’s counting, right?
Obviously, me. I’m counting. And it’s a wonder my vagina hasn’t packed her bags and fucked off to somewhere else where single-mom responsibilities and work hours aren’t a priority.
The last time I had sex was a drunken night of regret with Lexi’s father. Nick had been in town for Lexi’s preschool graduation, and I’d caved on letting him spend the night at my house. And I’d justified it by telling myself I was merely letting our daughter have more time with her father before he left again for who even knew how long.
It wasn’t that Nick was a shitty father, he was just an absent father.
Needless to say, after our daughter had gone to bed, we’d shared a bottle of wine, and then another, and then another, until my brain had only been able to focus on how much I missed the feel of a man. In me, around me, I had just needed to be kissed, touched, fucked. I’d needed to feel like I was desirable again. I had needed an orgasm that didn’t occur from my own devices.