by Max Monroe
Head down with my chin to my chest to protect against the chilly October wind, I moved swiftly from the hired town car to my plane and jogged up the stairs. Tonight, I was headed out to Phoenix for Sunday’s away game.
My personal flight attendant, Janine, stood waiting to greet me as I ducked through the door. “You’re the last one, Mr. Lancaster,” she told me with a smile.
“Well, nothing new there, huh?” I replied easily because it was true.
I knew it wasn’t fair to the people waiting for me, but I’d made quite the name for myself in the being-late department. There always seemed to be just one more person waiting to talk to me about some issue or some phone call to answer. A last-minute email asking for staff approval or a change to the menu at BAD. A fight between chef and sous-chef and what I wanted to do about it, and if I liked the blue or the red lights for the bar makeover.
There was always something that needed attention, and most of the time, I loved it. I loved to be busy and needed, and it made me feel good to put so much time and input into everything I did. But there really weren’t enough waking hours in the day, and because of that, I was always fifteen minutes late. Always.
Three sets of blue eyes hit me like a wave of water as I turned to the cabin and took a step forward.
All three women looked at me in their own way, but they all managed to say the same terrifying thing without actually speaking the words aloud: I’ve been designed to bring a man to his knees.
“Christ. I definitely didn’t think this through,” I muttered with a cheeky grin. “I should have flown commercial.”
Georgia was the first to move, jumping up to greet me with a friendly hug. She laughed through it and then pulled back to look me in the eyes. “Aw, come on, Wesley. Three big, bad girls scare you enough to brave the wilds of commercial air travel?”
“Yes,” Frankie Hart, my GM for the Mavericks, mumbled from the other side of the aisle, but he was smiling when all of our eyes shifted to him. “Just kidding.”
Cassie’s and Winnie’s contempt melted into contentment like chocolate on a hot day.
Georgia’s smile never wavered. She’d known Frankie longer, and she liked him and his good-natured humor enough to call him Uncle Frankie on occasion.
It freaked me out a little, but I think that was mostly because I’d never gotten to know him on anything more than a professional level.
And whose fault is that?
As Frankie put earbuds in his ears and opened his laptop to old game footage, Georgia dragged me over to sit with her and the women. I looked over my shoulder at Frankie and his laptop longingly. He was kind enough to spend only five seconds silently laughing at me.
Janine walked the aisle from the back of the plane to the front and asked all of us to fasten our seatbelts. I settled in and did as she asked, swiping the screen of my phone to unlock it and getting lost in the land of correspondence rather than becoming the fourth hen in the coop.
They filled the silence with mindless chatter about shoes and skirts and hair color and something godawful called Jamberry Nails, as we taxied out onto the runway and turned into position for takeoff. The engines roared as the pilot throttled forward, and I cracked my neck back and forth a couple of times to fight off a kink.
The fall air lifted us up and into the sky easily enough, and a piercing ray from the setting sun hit my eye like a laser.
Winnie didn’t say much, as though she was content to let the Georgia and Cassie duo do most of the talking. I glanced in her direction a couple of times, but I avoided eye contact carefully. It felt safer to follow the line of her silky legs as they disappeared under her skirt or count the number of times her stiletto-clad toe tapped the carpeted floor.
I wasn’t looking to get caught, no matter what I was looking at, so after giving myself the opportunity to make a full-body circuit twice, I turned my attention back to my phone.
Well. Except for my ears. They were still highly trained on the babbling conversation of three beautiful women.
“Who’s watching Lexi?” Cassie asked, and I couldn’t stop myself from peeking up from the email I was typing to glance at Winnie.
I knew she had a kid, but I tried not to think about it.
And yes, I’m well aware that makes me sound like an asshole. But remember how busy I said I am? Kids take all kinds of time and energy. Not in the bad way, they just deserve someone who can give them everything. Every effort, countless moments, and endless encouragement. I’m the guy who would show up fifteen minutes late to the recital—if at all.
I fucking knew the kid complicated going there, but my dick didn’t want to hear it. He wanted her—I wanted her—and ignoring the kid seemed like the only acceptable compromise, for the time being.
“My brother Remy,” she answered easily, and my half-assed attention immediately kicked into overdrive.
Remy. Her brother.
She’d pretty easily left out that little detail when I’d had my tantrum in her office. I’d tried pretty hard to lock it down, but I’d been instantly jealous at the sight of another guy’s name on her phone.
I’m insane. It’s not like she belongs to me.
“Does Remy watch her a lot?” Georgia asked, but my mind turned down the volume on her voice and started to run through its own commentary.
Jesus. I needed to remind myself of a few things here. Kids were fucking sticky and needy and always had a knack for interrupting all pleasurable activities with the need to shit, vomit, or exercise some other disgusting bodily function.
You don’t need a goddamn woman with a kid. No matter how fucking sexy she is.
Her white shirt looked crisp against her tan skin, and the dusky gray-blue of her eyes flicked to me on more than one occasion. Georgia and Cassie didn’t seem to notice, too busy cackling and laughing with one another, but I sure did.
My cock was half hard behind the fly of my pants.
Jam hands, I told myself. Remember that kids always have sticky goddamn jam hands.
“It’s usually Remy,” Winnie went on, and my ears perked back up at the rough rasp of her authoritative voice. “If not him, one of my other brothers is usually free.”
How many fucking brothers did she have?
“How many fucking brothers do you have?” Cassie asked, and I nearly seized up at the realization that crazy Cassie Phillips and I were traveling the same road of thinking.
Though, hers probably had considerably fewer visualizations of Winnie’s naked body on all the billboards.
Winnie’s laugh rang in my ears. “Four. Remy, Jude, Ty, and Flynn.”
“Fucking hell. One shy of a basketball team,” Cassie commented, and Georgia’s eyebrows pulled together as if she was mentally trying to figure out if Cassie was correct. I laughed at that.
“What?” Winnie asked me. Her voice was hard, no doubt thinking I was laughing at her.
I jerked my chin toward Georgia. “Little Georgie. Working for the NFL and still no concept of sports.”
“I know about football,” Georgia muttered.
Cassie added, “Sort of,” and we all laughed.
My interest returned to Winnie quickly enough, scanning from her crossed legs all the way up to her eyes. “What happens when none of your brothers can watch her?” I found myself asking.
What the fuck, Wes? This doesn’t sound like ignoring the existence of the kid to me.
Winnie answered me, but she looked at Cassie as she did. “I have a regular nanny. But she’s also a full-time student, so my brothers fill in the holes.”
“I bet they fill lots of holes,” Cassie said to everyone’s amusement but Winnie’s.
She groaned. “Don’t you dare put that goddamn picture in my head.”
“We’ll watch her sometime,” Cassie volunteered once she stopped laughing. “We could use the practice.”
“She’s not like the sample cart at the grocery store,” I grumbled. Three very active sets of eyes swung to me again.
&n
bsp; Shit.
But Winnie’s eyes—openly surprised and unexpectedly warm—were the only ones I could seem to see.
I stared out the window, watching the white, bubbly clouds float past as we slid through blue sky. The sun had already set over the horizon, highlighting my aerial view in hues of reds and oranges and pinks. With Georgia and Cassie running the gab show, the flight had been nothing short of entertaining, despite my mind’s incessant need to fixate on every single thing about the tall, handsome, irritatingly surly man sitting across the aisle. It felt like every two minutes or so my brain urged my eyes to chance a glance in Wes’s direction.
I’d never considered myself anything less than intelligent, but on this matter, the one that revolved around my hidden desire for Wes Lancaster, I was two more secret glances away from being a certified idiot.
He was not the kind of man a woman with a six-year-old daughter should ever want to get involved with.
But he is the kind of man you enjoy mind-numbing, wild, hot, insanely dirty sex with…
Before I let myself board that train of thought, I checked the time and realized we would be landing in Phoenix shortly. Since I knew the pilot would be calling for everyone to turn off their mobile devices in the next ten minutes, I made a quick call to Remy to see how things were going back home.
The phone rang three times before he picked up, and I glanced around the cabin to find everyone else pretty much occupied with their own devices.
“Hey, Win,” he greeted.
“I figured I’d call and see how things were going. How’s Lex?” I asked and tapped the screen to put his voice on speaker because, yeah, no one was paying attention to my boring conversation, and I was too damn lazy to hold the phone up to my ear. First world problems, right?
“She’s good, Win. I just put her to bed, and she was out before I finished reading the Mavericks’ offensive stats for their game against Phoenix last year.”
I laughed and shook my head. “I told her no football stats at bedtime.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, well, Uncle Remy didn’t tell her that, and Mom’s not home. Anyway, I’m pretty sure she knows more about football now than I do. When did she get so interested in the NFL?”
“Since I took the job with the Mavericks,” I explained. My six-year-old daughter had a tendency to fixate on things. Once she had the voracious urge to learn something new, she’d use all of her brainpower to absorb and devour anything and everything related to it.
“I’m still trying to figure out how half of Nick’s genes make up Lexi. She’s so fucking smart, Win. Are you sure she’s Nick’s daughter?” Rem asked with a teasing tone.
There was no denying my brother Remy—actually, all four of my brothers—despised Lexi’s father with a passion. But it was par for the course, considering our nasty breakup and Nick’s tendency to be MIA.
I laughed. “Unfortunately, yes. And you act like her dad is a moron. He runs the neurosurgery department at one of the most prestigious hospitals in the country, Rem. That’s about as far from moron as you can get.”
“Don’t defend him.”
I sighed. “I’m not defending him.”
“Yeah, you are.” His voice had taken on a serious edge. One that was very uncalled for, but it was expected when it came to anything related to Nick Raines. “Are you guys dating again or something?”
Deep down, me getting back together with Nick was Remy’s biggest fear. I honestly thought he’d be happy if I just remained single and focused on my daughter and work for the rest of my life. He was ridiculous, but I knew he was just worried and trying to live up to the role of protective older brother.
But I wasn’t a child. I was a grown-ass woman who could handle her own shit, and considering I’d managed to finish my residency while pregnant with Lexi, I’d say I had been successful so far.
“Win,” he added sternly. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“Jesus, Rem. Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m not dating Nick. That ship sailed about six years ago.”
“Oh, really? So what about last year? Why did that happen, knowing that ship had sailed?”
My face flamed red, and my jaw damn near fell into my lap. How in the hell did Remy know about that one wine-fueled night with Nick?
I chanced a glance around the cabin to see if anyone caught that part of our conversation, but luckily, Frankie, Cass, and Georgia still had their earbuds in, and Wes’s nose was buried in his laptop. I flipped the phone off speaker and held it to my ear. “Who told you about that?”
“Ty.”
“What? When did he tell you that? Seriously, how did that subject even manage to come up?”
“Tonight, when he stopped by to hang out with me and Lex,” he explained. “Nick called to say hello, and Ty hopped on the phone and gave him a piece of his mind.”
Thanks a lot, Ty. Consider yourself officially scratched off the one and only brother I can confide in list.
“You guys do realize I’m not sixteen, right?” I sighed heavily, and my eyes rolled skyward. “I swear to God, I’m never telling you guys anything. You’re like a bunch of gossiping high school girls hopped up on steroids and ready to join the wrestling squad,” I muttered into the receiver.
“Look, Win, I’m not trying to be a dick here. I just don’t want to see you or Lexi get hurt. A man who can’t even make it to his daughter’s birthday, two years in a fucking row, is a moron and an asshole. Lex doesn’t deserve that bullshit, and neither do you.”
I couldn’t disagree with him there, but Remy’s tendency to protect us was unwarranted. I wasn’t their teenage baby sister anymore. I was an adult who could make her own decisions, and my track record of making the right decisions for my daughter was spotless.
“Good thing she’s got four uncles who more than make up for it,” I said, trying my best to lighten the tone and direction of the conversation. The last thing I felt like doing was discussing my sex life—or lack thereof—with my brother. “And even though it’s really none of your concern, I have zero plans for letting something like that happen again, Rem. It was just one night, fueled by too much wine, that happened a very long time ago.”
I breathed a sigh of relief when the pilot announced over the intercom that we were about to land. I was more than ready to cut this phone call short. “Hey, we’re about to land. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay? Give Lexi a kiss for me.” Before Rem could interrogate me further, I ended the call and slipped my phone back into my purse.
As our plane started to slowly descend toward the ground, I looked across the cabin to find Wes staring back at me. Our eyes locked for a brief moment before I looked away and silently prayed he hadn’t heard the part of my conversation that insinuated nefarious things with my ex-boyfriend Nick. Why I even cared about that was still open for debate. Because honestly, why did I care what Wes heard? Frankly, it was none of his business either.
“Your brother has a fuckhot voice, Win.” Cassie’s comment pulled my eyes away from the window and back toward the cabin.
“What?” I asked with a laugh.
“Remy has a sexy as fuck voice,” she answered with a smirk.
My nose scrunched up in disgust. “He’s my brother, Cass. There will never be a time in my life where I equate the word sexy with him.”
“But what about your other three brothers? For the love of God, tell me they sound just like Remy.”
Georgia groaned. “Here we go.”
“What? I can’t acknowledge a sexy voice?”
Georgia pointed in Cassie’s direction. “This has zero to do with his voice and everything to do with the fact that he’s Win’s brother.”
Cassie tilted her head to the side. “You think I’ve got a thing for brothers?”
Georgia nodded. “Yes. My brother Will is Exhibit A for that case. It should also be noted that I think you need to stop reading so many stepbrother romance novels.”
I laughed at that, not the least bit
surprised Cassie had a thing for that romance trope. Her book choices generally cracked me up. If they weren’t BDSM-based, they were quick and dirty—one-handed reads, if you know what I’m saying.
The plane jolted a few times as the wheels hit the runway, and the brakes squealed when the pilot worked to bring all of our forward momentum to rest.
“Wait… Stepbrother romance novels?” Wes asked while the plane taxied down the runway. “That’s a thing?”
“It’s a thing, Wes,” Cass explained. “A very hot thing.”
Georgia’s nose scrunched up. “It’s gross.”
Cassie rolled her eyes. “They’re not related. It’s not incest.”
“You’re deranged. A total fucking pervert,” Georgia teased with a smirk.
“Thank you.” Cass grinned and then looked at Wes. “You got a brother, Wes?”
He shook his head and laughed. “Nope.”
“Damn,” she muttered.
“You’re with Thatch, you freak,” Georgia said. “And you also happen to be knocked up with his child.”
Cass smirked. “Pregnancy makes me horny, and I’m traveling so much I barely get to see him. Spank bank material is needed. Anyway, I know Thatch jerks off to Margot Robbie when I’m not home. He can’t get e-fucking-nough of her since we saw Suicide Squad.”
“She was so badass as Harley Quinn,” I tossed out.
“Right?” Cass agreed. “You should be her for Halloween, Win. You’d make a hot Harley Quinn.”
I laughed. “Pretty sure my neighbors wouldn’t be thrilled with me strolling around in booty shorts while Lex goes door-to-door.”
“Yeah, but you could wear that costume to Brooks Media’s big Halloween bash,” she encouraged with a waggle of her brows.
“Oh, yeah! You have to go to that, Win. It’s a blast,” Georgia exclaimed. “Plus, my usual drinking partner got knocked up, so I’m looking for a new one.” She flashed a wink at Cassie and earned a middle finger in return.
“When is it?”
“Three weeks from this Saturday,” Georgia said. “We’re playing Baltimore at home, so we’ll be in town.”