by Wild, Nikki
Sure, we would lose a rec center and the only homeless shelter within a twenty mile radius in the process, but Harold Verger had deep pockets—the kind that could not only pay off the code enforcement officials, but could go a long way in supporting Harvey Enterprises in all manner of future endeavors.
That was the rub. From what my father had told me, Mr. Verger had a very good shot at becoming a US Senator very soon. Money could buy you many things, but if you wanted real influence, you needed to know the right people. My father would very much like to know a senator. He’d very much like to have done favors for one, so that that senator might be amenable to returning those favors in his more prestigious future. And what my father wanted, my father got, even if that meant tearing down a perfectly good building to get it.
Only he wasn’t going to do it. He was going to make me do it. I wasn’t completely heartless, though. I’d first seen the job as a moral quandary. Homeless people already had it rough. Why make it rougher by eliminating one of the few safe spaces that they had?
I kept telling myself there were always more safe spaces, and there was plenty of land in the city. The non-profit organization keeping both the rec center and the shelter open could always open some new ones. It might take a year or two, but it would get done.
“Young man, I was a lawyer for twenty six years. Don’t lecture me on the law. I was under the impression you would take care of this without any questions being asked,” Mr. Verger said. “Your father made certain assurances.”
I could feel my temples throbbing. Though I hadn’t thought about her in weeks, I would almost have preferred a conversation with Jane to one with this guy.
“All right, Mr. Verger. I’ll get the ball rolling on Monday. We’ll have that homeless shelter knocked flat in three weeks or less. The recreation center might take a bit longer, but I’ll personally expedite the process. You have a nice weekend, all right?”
“You too, Mr. Harvey. Oh, and tell your father I say hello, will you? I’ve got a hankering to play some golf next week. Let him know I said so.”
I forced a smile into my tone. “I’m sure he’ll be thrilled.”
I could barely contain my excitement when Mr. Verger finally hung up. I couldn’t imagine that man as a senator, with the kind of power to make decisions that could affect all of America. He was incompetent, fidgety, uncertain, and a complete worry-wart. Then again, I couldn’t think of a senator who wasn’t completely ill-suited for the job in one way or another. I guessed there was always room for one more.
I turned around, taking my Bluetooth earpiece out and nearly running straight into Maddy. It wouldn’t have been the first time we collided, and I grinned at her as I shook my head.
“Maddy, we’ve got to stop meeting like this…”
“How could you?” she asked me, her voice barely above a whisper. She looked utterly horrified, and it took me a few seconds to realize she’d overheard the conversation I’d been having on the phone.
“Oh. You mean the shelter?”
She stared at me. “Of course I mean the shelter. And the recreation center! And oh God, what else is there?” Then she waved her hand and shut her eyes. “No. Don’t tell me. Really. If there’s more, I don’t want to know…”
“Oh, come on,” I said, moving past her and into my bedroom. “It’s urban renewal, nothing more. The condo development is going to bring in a lot more money for the city than a homeless shelter ever did, and it will reduce crime and vagrancy. Ten years from now, you won’t even recognize the city center. This is a win, Maddy. We should celebrate.”
I turned back to see if she was coming, but she hadn’t moved. I sighed, leaning against the wall. “Come on. I’ll take you anywhere you’d like. Do you like seafood? There’s this place over by the marina. It’s a bit of a drive, but the lobster is worth it.”
“I can’t even comprehend this right now,” she said, taking a seat on the edge of my bed. She shook her head at me, eyes pinched. “Urban renewal? Extrajudicial? You’re talking about a criminal conspiracy. Are you fucking serious right now? I know that part of the city. You’re going to help someone build a fancy pants condo development and knock down a homeless shelter and a rec center for disadvantaged kids?! Have you lost your mind, Preston? Never mind that—have you lost your soul?”
I watched the red-orange hues of the dying sun light up her face. They complemented her anger perfectly. She looked like a painting, the portrait of a woman on the edge of rage. It was stunning.
“Look,” I told her, “this is business. Mr. Verger has connections and my father still has the final say. You know how it is. It’s still about getting the biggest piece of the pie, no matter what you have to do. I don’t like it, but I’m not running the show here. Not yet. I have to do what I’m told just like everyone else. I mean, come on, Maddy. You should know this better than anyone. If I don’t do this, my father will.”
“Yeah,” she said. Her face had tightened. Anger had turned to disappointment. “I just didn’t think you would do something like this. You seemed different. You told me you were going to save the world…”
I shook my head. “I’m not a saint, Maddy.”
She shook hers too. “No, I know that. But this is something I would have expected from your father. Not from you.”
Now that struck a chord. I could feel the snarl in my voice before I’d even answered. “I’m nothing like my father. You know that.”
“Do I?” she asked me, looking up at me again. Her green eyes searched mine the same way they had back at the restaurant the day she’d lost her job. She was looking for an answer, but this time, she’d already asked the question. “Do I have any idea who you are at all?”
“Of course you do.” I sighed. “Look, Maddy, you’re blowing this way out of proportion. Non-profit groups get funding all the time. Charitable donations are tax-deductible, for fuck’s sakes. Sure, we’re going to shut the shelter and the rec center down, but once it’s gone they can build on some other parcel, maybe something with a view out past the suburbs.”
“You actually think the homeless give two shits about a view?” she snorted. “You can’t just shove them out of the city and forget about them. You sound like a true one-percenter.”
“One percent? You’re the one who cried for help. I didn’t hear you complaining when I wrote you that ten thousand dollar check,” I argued. “Or when I hired you. Or when I paid you, for that matter.”
“Don’t you dare throw that money in my face,” she hissed, launching up from the bed. “You gave me that money to help me out when I was nearly destitute. And the rest you paid me for good, honest work. I haven’t been your kept woman, Preston. I earned that money working for you!”
“Which is why you should do what I tell you now and get in the goddamn car!” I was seething. I didn’t like this. I didn’t like the way she was challenging me, like suddenly she knew more about business than I did, like she had any idea what it was like to be me, Preston Harvey, the son of a billionaire whose first and only love had ever been cold, hard cash.
And yet I did like it. In fact, I loved it. Maddy never looked more beautiful than when she was standing up for herself. She had a backbone stronger than most men I’d known in my lifetime, and when she had a mind to, she put up one hell of a fight.
But I couldn’t stop the words from coming out of my mouth now. There was too much momentum, too much frustration welling up inside me, rattling my bones. “You work for me, which means my decisions are your decisions. If I say ‘jump,’ you say, ‘how high?’ If I tell you that what I’m doing is the right goddamn thing for my company, then you shut up and accept that maybe the guy with the Harvard business degree knows what the fuck he’s talking about. If those are things that you can’t handle that, then…”
“Then what, Preston?” she asked me. Jane had always had a heat in her, a passion, and a deep, ugly anger too, but Maddy was different. Her flame was brighter, stronger than any I’d ever seen before. It
danced higher, more beautifully than Jane’s ever had, and I was drawn to it like an unlucky moth gazing upon its flickering shape, mesmerized by how wild and effulgent she was. “Then you’ll fire me? You’ll send me back to my shitty apartment with some savings and hope I land on my feet? Maybe if I’m lucky, you’ll throw in an excellent job reference too, as long as I don’t make a scene like Jane did when I storm out.” Her lip curled in a defiant sneer. “Is that what you do to everyone who dares to tell you like it is, or just the women?”
I hated hearing that woman’s name leave her lips. It poisoned everything it touched, and the last thing I wanted to imagine was anything tarnishing Maddy’s sweet, soft, supple lips.
I stared at them, unable to look away. They were set into a firm line, one that meant she wasn’t going to back down. But I needed her to. I needed her to stop, because with every word she spoke, something hungry stirred inside of me.
“You love to flirt with poverty, don’t you?” I shot back, my muscles tense and vibrating beneath my skin. She was like a live wire sending currents through every part of my body, but I didn’t know of what. Was it anger? Disdain? Or was it something I couldn’t quite explain, something that seemed closer to lust than to fury?
“You had your own apartment, Maddy. Maybe you had to take a bus to work, but you had a job and a roof over your head. You act like your struggle makes you better than people like me, but you haven’t had to deal with half the shit that really poor people do. You get the self-righteousness with none of the suffering, and that gets you off, make you feel special so you can look down on an entire class of people. Grow up.”
She pursed her lips, and her eyes flared. “Is that what happened to you, Preston? You grew up to become your father—a man who would rather stuff more money in his pockets than think twice about the rest of the world trying to just get by out there? You are literally talking about destroying the only place the homeless in this city have to go! It’s evil, and if you don’t see it, then maybe you should ask yourself how long you’ve been staring into the abyss of wealth and business and politics, and whether or not it’s begun staring back into you.”
I closed the distance between us. “Maddy, if you don’t stop…” I lost the will to finish that sentence. I didn’t know what to say. I just kept staring at the woman who would become my sister and thinking how goddamn beautiful she was.
“Then what?” she asked me again. She didn’t move. Not an inch. I could feel blood rush through me, but it wasn’t going to my head. It was going far, far away from it, to places that would be bad for the both of us. “Tell me, Preston. What the hell are you going to do if I don’t stop calling you on your bullshit?”
She was searching me again. I could feel it. The way her eyes bored into mine prickled my skin. It seared my soul. She wanted the truth from me, a different kind of truth from the one I was used to telling. She wanted the kind of truth a man wasn’t likely to give, the kind that made him have to crack his ribs and bare his own heart for scrutiny. Was this how it was supposed to feel? Was this how being with a woman was supposed to be? Was it supposed to hurt like this, in a way that made every ounce of that pain worth it?
No wonder it had never worked with anyone else. If this was how it was supposed to be, and it sure as hell felt like it was, then Madison Hearst was the first woman in my entire life with whom things felt tragically, undeniably right.
I didn’t have an answer for Maddy. Not the way she wanted. Not with words and thoughts. Not with anything but a primal force that took me by surprise as much as it took her.
I grabbed my soon-to-be stepsister, one hand tangled in the sleek waves of her gorgeous brown hair, and I kissed her. God help me, I kissed her with passion and fury. And I loved it...
Oh, fuck.
Those were the only words that came to mind when Preston kissed me, the only words I could possibly form and hold onto long enough to give them meaning and weight. But what did they mean? Was I disgusted with him, my stepbrother for all intents and purposes, for the sweltering sweetness of his mouth on mine? Was I angry that he’d dared to touch me like this, or angry that he hadn’t done it sooner?
I clenched my hands into fists at my sides. I didn’t know what I wanted them to do. Or at least, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to admit it.
Preston’s lips were scorching hot on my own. His breath was like smoke filling my lungs, only it didn’t burn. It warmed me, but in places far below my chest, places that had begun to ache for more of Preston’s illicit touch.
I wanted to fight it. I wanted to fight him and this dark, forbidden desire lurking inside of me, the one that had been there since that first day I’d run into him on the sidewalk. I wanted to forget the cerulean flash of his eyes, his lopsided grin, the golden haze of his tawny hair. I wanted to, but I couldn’t.
Instead, I kissed him back.
I slipped my arms up around his neck, holding onto him tightly as he lifted me against his broad, brawny frame, clutching at my back as if he’d always wanted to do this. My ass was in his hands, and I felt him squeeze and dig in his fingertips all along my thighs, then back up again, roaming my body with his fierce touch. A soft wind blew in through the open balcony doors, carrying away the husky moan from my throat as Preston’s lips crashed against mine again and again, promising retribution for every hateful word I’d said.
I’d been disappointed in him. I’d thought he was different from his father, from the money that had corrupted the rest of our family. Had I been wrong?
I didn’t have time to think about it now—not when my stepbrother was dropping me onto the bed on my back and pulling my casual Friday jeans down my legs.
I whimpered, struggling up onto my hands to watch him as he yanked my ass to the very edge of the bed, then over it. With my legs suspended on his shoulders, he grasped my panties and pulled, ripping them off my hips and exposing my sweet, shaven pussy to feast his eyes on.
“Preston,” I whispered. “This is… wrong. We’re family. We can’t do this…”
I felt like I’d betrayed everything inside of me to say those words, and Preston didn’t even hear them. He was focused. He had seen what he wanted. And now he was going to get it.
He traced his fingers along my nether lips before spreading them wide and revealing the pink petals between. I could feel my clit throbbing in its hood, begging for the attention he’d already paid to my mouth and outer lips. He bent his head forward, delivering one long lick from my chasm to my crest, and I melted beneath him. Any resolve I’d once had to at least question the idea of fucking my stepbrother dissolved with one touch of his tongue, and I moaned for him again as he dove in and began to flick it against my aching button.
I wailed, burying my fingers in Preston’s hair, pulling at it as he lapped hungrily at the nectar flooding from between my thighs. I was feverish, shaking, convulsing, shrieking and rolling my eyes into my skull as he pleased me. I was sick, and Preston was the only cure.
He hauled my hips closer to his face, bringing me tight against his mouth as he sucked gently, his tongue still undulating hard and fast against my throbbing clit. I felt my nipples stiffen against the cups of my bra and pulled my blouse up over my head, letting him see how hard my breasts heaved for him.
“Preston,” I whimpered, “please…”
“That’s right,” he praised me, torturing my nubbin with his thumb. “I’m the one in control here, Maddy. I’m your boss. You do what I say, whether you like it or not. Is that clear?”
I squirmed uncontrollably under his touch. He laved me again, making me arch up off of his bed.
“Is it?” he asked me.
“Yes!” I answered, wriggling once more into his face. “Oh, fuck, Preston! Please don’t stop!”
“No,” he said. “Not until we’re clear on where you stand.” Then he turned me over so my ass was in the air, my knees barely making it onto the bed before he was behind me, panting, ripping his shirt off to reveal all those delicious muscles I’
d secretly been craving for weeks now.
His belt was next, his hands moving so fast they seemed like a blur, and as I looked over my shoulder I saw the slick mast of his manhood jutting out behind me. Its swollen tip was made even angrier by the crimson sky outside, and the veins throbbing along the shaft looked almost purple in that hot, violent hue.
I pushed against him, worried that if I thought about what we were about to do for just a second more, I might lose my nerve. But Preston was a step ahead of me. He’d already decided for us what would happen next, and there was no way he was letting me off easy.
He seized my hips in his hands, digging his fingers in hard enough to leave bruises where he touched, bruises I would gaze at later and recall every detail of our tryst. They would remind me of my stepbrother’s power, of his absolute authority in his house, and they would remind me of my place and what running my mouth would do.
But if this was the punishment, then I would run my mouth at every opportunity. Preston needed someone to challenge him, and I needed him to fuck me in all the ways no man ever had.