SweetHarts (5 Book Box Set)

by Kira Graham

  “Rose! Dang it, are you listening to me?” Cleo barks, huffing out a curse that makes Mom’s eye twitch as I shrug and go back to imagining Cleo trapped in a cave, while a booby trap is set off, and fiery poison darts are hurled at her fa—

  “Rosetta! That isn’t nice. We all know that Cleo can’t move fast enough to avoid poison darts,” Mom barks, wagging a finger at me when I smirk and level a hostile glare at my sister.

  Sweetharts, my ass! Me, marry one of the Hart men? What is she thinking will happen here? That Achilles, that rat-sucking bastard, will change his mind about being in love with—just don’t think about it!

  “I can, too. Hart makes me go to the gym with him, because, according to him, I should be able to fight off attackers and run in four-inch heels. We’ve whittled those expectations down to just plain running, which we all know isn’t exactly my forte,” she muses, getting a giggle from me despite my annoyance.

  Saying that Cleo can run is like saying that a moron can whip out a four-thousand-word essay on the climate change scandal. The woman has four left feet, a quarter cubic inch of lung capacity, and the muscle mass of a dead and rotting seal. In other words, she can’t run at all, and the last time she tried, she ended up passing out less than a third of a mile into her jog and was found by some homeless guy, who woke her up just to tell her that her shoes were so ugly that even he didn’t want to steal them.

  Cleo doesn’t “do” exercise, and the last time that someone suggested it, that person woke up with a chocolate replica of a horse’s head in her bed as a message. Of course, I ate the whole thing and sent her flowers afterwards, apologizing for blaspheming and mentioning the E word. By which I meant “effort.” But, once again, I digress.

  The thought of Cleo exercising is akin to thinking that Mom will ever produce something edible. Laughable.

  “You kicked him in the balls, didn’t you?” I muse, my suppressed giggle escaping when she nods, and Mom starts to titter.

  “So hard. We had to go to the emergency room. The doctor recognized me, seeing as how his wife had ordered his birthday chocolates from me, and so when Hart insisted that he call the cops so that he could press assault charges, they ignored him,” she sighs, sounding so happy that I find myself laughing and shaking off the depressing idea of the Harts.

  It’s not that I dislike the whole family. Just most of them. I love Lovey and Creed, and I totes adore Paris, who is so calm and laid back that it’s hard not to want to like him. The rest, though…okay, so I love Adonis, too, but that’s only because he’s marrying Cleo, and he does stuff like threaten to have her arrested even though he loves her. It’s hilarious.

  The rest, though? I won’t go into how much I despise Achilles “Chilli” Hart, and don’t even get me started on Zeus, that shit-eating asshole! He keeps calling me and showing up at my office to bring me lunch, and if I weren’t almost certain that I’m not his type, I’d be afraid that he’s got a thing for me.

  Thank God he outright told me that I’m not the kind of woman he usually goes for, I think, my eyes narrowing at the thought of ever being told that I’m not someone’s type. I’m everyone’s type! Everyone’s. I get hit on by all men and even women, and once this old lady came up to me and touched my butt, because it’s so awesome that my allure breaks all barriers, even the age gap.

  Crap. See? It’s the Harts. They’re defective.

  “As his lawyer, I’d have advised him to sue you stupid,” I point out, smiling when she mutters a curse about how I have no loyalty.

  Is it my fault that her man pays me in more than chocolates and promised to give me a hell of a bonus at the end of the year if I managed to keep Cleo lawsuit-free? Which is harder than you’d think, especially when your sister drives around in a death trap, is color blind when it comes to stop signs or traffic lights, and has a temper that veers between emotionally unhinged and just plain psychotic.

  “You’re a bitch, but whatever. I still love you. Now, as I was saying—they saw Tee creeping out of Ares’ place, and then yesterday, Aunt Constance caught her puking—”

  “Wait, wait, wait. Hold up just a minute. First of all, how did Aunt Constance get into Tee’s apartment?” I ask, needing details in case I need to defend my cousin in a murder trial.

  “Oh, she has a copy of her key, just like Mom has a copy of—”

  “Cleo! We talked about this,” Mom yells, side-eyeing me in a way that makes me think that I should probably call a locksmith.

  The last time I had to face a possible murder trial was when I woke up to find my mother staring at me while I slept. Talk about fucking creepy.

  But back to the juicy gossip.

  “So Tee slept with Ares?”

  “Uh-huh! And now she’s puking her guts up, and she ate some of Mom’s food yesterday!” Cleo yells, as if this should explain something other than the fact that Tee may have lost her mind.

  “That’s probably why she was puking,” I mumble, dodging Mom’s slap when she swipes at me with a growl.

  I’m saved only by the sound of the front door and Adonis’s yell that the Harts have arrived. God help me, I think, my pits breaking out into a cold sweat. I’d take Mom’s cooking and a possible beating over what I’m about to face.

  Chapter Two

  Zeus

  The trouble with love is…

  It’s a war. It’s full of daily battles and skirmishes that, nine times out of ten, end with me bloody and crawling back home to lick my wounds and patch myself up. It’s also the one thing that gets me out of bed in the morning and ready to face another day, excited at the prospect of sparring with the only woman I have ever met who is a worthy opponent.

  Rosetta Sweet. My girl, and the woman who just so happens to be so crazy that she stalked my brother for almost a solid year. And planned a wedding. To be fair to Rosie, no one blames her for her adoration of Achilles, and I can say with unbiased honesty that the man is one good-looking SOB. So good-looking that I once saw a woman run after his car in tears, because she was obsessed to the point of lunacy with the guy.

  And he’s nice. If there’s one thing that I can say about my brother Chilli, it’s that he’s one of those genuinely nice guys who cares about the feelings of the women he’s with. He’s kind and giving, and he never has anything bad to say to or about the women he’s been with. Hell, most of them still text him and call him, and I know for a fact that Christie Powel invited him to her wedding. And the shithead went. With a date.

  I get why Rosetta saw him and fell for him, and I even understand that she could have been blinded by the sick combination of his good looks and even nicer personality. The only problem with her infatuation is that Achilles is nothing like the man Rosetta needs. He’s too nice. Too easy to control when it comes to a powerhouse like her.

  Rose needs someone like me, a man who will love her independence and see her power as the sexy gift it is. And, God help me, it turns me on when I see her strutting her way through the offices, her head held high, that sneer curling her lips as if she’s inviting the world—no, daring the world—to fuck with her.

  Right now, for example, as she prances out of the kitchen and into the living room, clothed in a hot pink suit, her stocking-clad feet bare of heels, all I can see is her body under mine, writhing and demanding satisfaction. Maybe that’s the one thing that I love most about my Rose. The woman doesn’t accept half-assed attempts at anything, and, unlike most of the women I’ve been with in the past, she won’t give a damn who I am, how much money I have, or what I can do for her.

  No, she’s someone who will kick me in the balls, slap my face, and spit in my eye if I dare to shortchange her in any way.

  “Do me a favor, bro?” Achilles whispers, coming to stand beside me in the hall, where the Sweets are greeting my parents and chattering about the wedding that’s probably never going to happen, at least not if Cleo has anything to say about it.

  Damn woman’s a commitment-phobe of note.

  “If this is an
other one of your ‘make an excuse while I duck out’ moments, then hell no. The last time you did that, Angelica Sweet spent an hour yelling at me, demanding to know where you’d gone, and she nearly fucking tongue-kissed me before Jack pried her away. Jealous bastard,” I mutter, my mouth twitching because at this point, I can’t decide if I like Honey’s wet kisses or hate them.

  Does it make me sick that it’s a little of both?

  “No, man,” Achilles mutters, pinning on that award-winning smile when Angelica “Honey” Sweet looks our way. “Just keep Rosetta distracted, okay? I mean, not that I’m afraid of her or anything. It’s just that the last time I had to sit beside her, she tried to stab her fork into my knee.”

  I want to laugh at that image, and I can well imagine her fury if her attempt ended up failing. If nothing else, my Rosetta is a woman of extreme passions, and if she feels passionate about hurting you, then you can guarantee that she’ll find a way.

  So far, I’ve seen her send Achilles a triple layer cake that was decorated with a death threat and topped with what I thought was a very accurate impression of Achilles’ severed head. It tasted great, too, and I enjoyed watching him gulp and eye the thing while Adonis, Paris, and I ate it and laughed ourselves sick.

  “What do I get out of it?” I ask, my smile dark because, honestly, it’s not as if I won’t be sitting next to my girl, doing my best to gain her attention.

  I’m fucking living for the day that Rosetta Sweet looks at me with anything other than reluctant murder in her eyes. My dick would literally love me if she so much as smiled our way.

  “Dammit. Can’t you just help out your favorite brother?” he hisses, pulling at his tie and collar when Honey finally gets done tongue-kissing Ma and starts to bustle our way.

  Meanwhile, Rosetta is standing in the living room, wielding a knife and glaring so hard at Achilles that he should be dead.

  “You’re not my favorite. Adonis is. He’s much easier to tolerate,” I deadpan, enjoying his discomfort when Rose uses her knife to shank the apple in her other hand.

  “Christ! That isn’t nice. Or fair. Who always sends you chocolate whenever Cleo deigns to give me some?”

  “You—but to be fair, you don’t even like chocolate,” I say easily, despite the fact that I don’t understand it.

  What kind of an animal doesn’t like chocolate? Even I like chocolate, and I’m a health nut. The first time that I’d eaten something sweet enough to count as candy in years, was the first time that Achilles brought over some of the stuff that Rose had sent him, and I haven’t been able to curb my addiction since. Now I constantly bug Cleo to make me chocolates, though I only get them when I gossip with her, something I despise doing. Unless it gets me information about Rosetta.

  “Because it gives me the shits! And because the last thing I ate that tasted like chocolate was so filled with laxatives that I had to be put on an IV. At the hospital,” he mutters out of the side of his mouth, gulping when Alex saunters in, slaps his ass, and skips over to Rose.

  When they immediately start jabbering, in hushed whispers interspersed with dark looks, I almost feel sorry for the man. Almost. I can’t forget that he’s the same man that my woman had an infantile crush on, though. Oh, and I kind of enjoy his suffer—

  Oh, Jesus! I should have been paying attention, I think, my arms flailing out around me when I feel two steel clamps locking onto my cheeks, pulling my head down, and holding me in place for—God, no! She licked her lips first, my mind wails, as Honey’s lips smack onto mine and begin a suction that will leave me longing for both mouthwash and therapy.

  She’s a good kisser for sure, but two things make this all kinds of wrong. One, Jack Sweet doesn’t look at all happy from where he’s standing beside Pop, his arms folded across his chest with a homicidal snarl curling his lip. Two, I don’t want my girl to feel awkward about the fact that her mom hits on everyone. Even my own. Oh, and there’s a third fucking wrongness to the list, and it’s one that makes me want to cry. It sucks that the first Sweet female that I’m kissing is Rosetta’s mother and not Rose herself.

  When Honey finally lets me go, her lips smacking, I practically scramble back to give her access to Achilles, who makes a soft whining sound and looks every which way for an escape. I could help the fucker, obviously, but I don’t. Like I said, he’s my brother, and I love the guy, but I’m still not over my Rose digging him, and his suffering soothes my beast.

  Finally, after what I can only—and laughingly—describe as mouth rape, Honey releases Achilles and bustles off towards Jack and my folks, with everything right in her world, while I pop a mint, and Achilles wheezes and tries to hold in his girlish sobs.

  “Jeeeeesus!” he groans, his grumbling beat out only by the snickers that we hear coming from the room where the Sweet girls are all congregated in a sort of coven. “She always kisses me longer.”

  “Because you’re a pretty boy. And a dick,” I taunt, chuckling when Achilles curses again and tries to avoid eye contact with Jack.

  How the man can walk with his head still pointed our way, holding a thunderous scowl, is beyond me.

  “Yeah? Well, this dick has had a truly shitty day, and I would really appreciate some help. Please, Z. Just keep Rosetta company while I try to dodge whatever Alex has planned for me,” he pleads, another whine escaping him when we see Alex heading for the kitchen, her eyes focused on him and a truly evil smile on her face.

  “What’s in it for me?” I ask again—besides getting exactly what I want, I think silently, mentally rubbing my hands together with glee.

  “I’ll give you a week at the cabin.”

  Ooooh. I like the cabin. It’s gorgeous out there this time of year, and if I can get a certain woman to come along with me, then it’ll be even better. I can just see it now. Swimming in the lake, skinny-dipping, and having sex out on the dock while the sun beats down on us and dries the water from our skin. And then spending an hour eating her out while we sit on the deck and wait for our food to finish grilling.

  “It’s a deal. Oh, stop that,” I mutter when Achilles sniffles. “She can’t go into that kitchen and do anything worse to the food than Honey already has.”

  Christ. I don’t know how I’m going to avoid eating the shit that Honey “cooks,” but I sure as hell came prepared tonight, having asked my housekeeper to sew plastic freezer bags into the pockets of a jacket that Adonis would have fits about if he found out how cheap it is.

  “But she’s evil, Z. You just don’t understand. I woke up this morning to her voice on my answering machine, cackling! Cackling, man. Just cackling,” he whispers, his eyes going round when we look over at Rosetta and find her smiling.

  I love that look on her, though truth be told, I think I’d feel a whole lot different if it were directed at me instead of Achilles. Screw that, I think. I’d love it even if it were directed at me, because then her sweet blue eyes would be all over me, right where my obsessively needy heart needs them to be.

  “Be thankful that it wasn’t you who got stuck with Nefertiti—”

  “Be thankful? You want me to be thankful that I got my ass stuck with the craziest Sweet? Alex is batshit bananas, man. Ba. Na. Nas! Last week, she delivered one of Rosetta’s little ‘gifts,’ and you know what ended up happening?” he asks, stepping behind me when we hear Alex’s heels clicking back toward us.

  I actually do already know, thanks to the fact that I have a deal with the security team at the office. Whenever a delivery for Achilles arrives, they call me, and I hustle down to the security room. We’ve got bets going on just how long Chilli can last when it comes to either Rosetta’s “gifts” or Alex’s little visits. Last week, the woman delivered a plant to Chilli, and, since there was no outward sign of hostility, he ended up accepting it. Fast forward to three hours later, after he’d fished between the leaves to retrieve the card that Rosetta had sent, and we were all laughing so hard that Mike, the security guy on our floor, blew coffee out of his nose.


  Whenever I pull my phone out, I can now treat myself to a photo of Chilli covered in what can only be described as hives. Or pustules. From the poison ivy-riddled plant that Rose sent him. The funniest part wasn’t even the way he looked when the hives popped out, but rather the fact that he’d gone to the bathroom just after touching the plant.

  The guys in the office still ask him if he had ball fleas, a rumor I started because my brother ran out of the office scratching his crotch so fiercely that half the chicks on the tenth floor called in sick the next day. To go get tested for STDs!

  Hilarious.

  “You ended up scratching your nuts like a flea-riddled mutt,” I muse, chuckling when he hisses and cradles his balls defensively.

  “Do you know what it’s like to have your balls itch so much that you’re willing to use a cheese grater to make it stop?”

  “No, but then again, I don’t lead chicks on and then give them the ‘soft’ letdown.”

  “I did not—”

  “You accepted all of her gifts, Achilles. Every single one. The surfboard that you used to help you bang the surf instructor. The couples cooking classes that you took Nancy Vaughn to, and then screwed her and the chef at the same time.”

  “It wasn’t my fault! I was just going to learn to cook. Nancy flirted with the chef, and it was her that suggested the threesome. What was I supposed to do, say no?” he sputters, grinning slyly when I groan and shake my head.

  “You were supposed to take Rosetta to the classes and then tell her that all you wanted was friendship. Remember? That’s what we discussed.”

  Instead, I spent four hours sitting outside her apartment, watching her pace in front of her window, cry, annihilate a box of donuts, and then go drinking with Alex and Sin, the two most unhinged women that I have ever met.

  That night, I watched Rosetta drink so much that she passed out in front of her front door, whereupon I picked her up, tucked her into bed, and then went home to jack off because her boob popped out while I was trying to unzip her dress, and—well, yeah. I didn’t mean to see it, but once I did, it was etched into my brain.