The Hot Brother (Romance Love Story) (Hargrave Brothers - Book #5)

by Alexa Davis

  I let my eyes run the length of her body. She had nice legs for an older lady, and in the barely there skirt she was wearing, I could see almost all of them. When my eyes made it back up to her face, she smiled and showed off a mouthful of way-too-white veneers.

  Her nipples weren’t all that was touching me now, either. She had one of her hands casually resting on the tattoo sleeve on my arm as she pushed up to her tiptoes so her mouth was close to my ear and said,

  “You looking for some fun tonight?”

  I looked her over again and then asked, “You hosting?” I never, ever take women to my house. It’s my haven, my escape from the rest of the world. My friends and family are lucky to get an invitation. There was no way in hell I’d risk some one-night stand beating down my door on a Sunday afternoon.

  “You bet, baby. I got a room upstairs.”

  Perfect; a tourist who would be moving on soon, I thought. Las Vegas was prime hunting grounds for a guy like me…or maybe a guy that used to be like me, after tonight anyways. “Let’s go.”

  She held on to me tighter as we made our way out of the club. When we reached the exit, she stopped next to a hot blonde about my age and said, “Baby, don’t come up to the room for a while.”

  I actually felt myself blush with shame. That was brand new, and I didn’t like it. The truth was I didn’t like myself much these days. I thought about Martin again, sitting there on his couch all alone surrounded by what could have been just as the girl said, “Mom, you’re kidding, right?”

  She opened her mouth, but I interrupted her. “You know what, darlin’? I’m actually going to pass tonight. My head is pounding, and it looks like your room isn’t available, after all…”

  “She can find a guy with a room herself.”

  Even I wasn’t low enough to fuck a woman that would tell her daughter to find a stranger to spend the night with. It was ironic, I know. If I’d met the daughter first, I might just be that stranger. But the whole thing felt creepy to me now, and all I wanted to do was get the hell out of it.

  “You ladies can do whatever you like, but I have to go. I hope you enjoy the rest of your stay in Vegas.” I had to use my other hand to disconnect the woman’s hand from my arm. She had her lips turned down in a pout and the sight of a middle-aged woman pouting made me even happier that I still had some scruples. Once I was free, I walked away to the sound of the mother telling her daughter,

  “Thanks for ruining my night.” I walked faster so that I didn’t have to hear any more. That was enough for me.

  I hit the front door of the casino and instead of the breath of fresh air I was hoping for, I was almost knocked back by a blast of heat. I’m from Vegas, but since my father saw fit to send my brother and me off to boarding school for most of our lives, I still had trouble with the climate. It was October and still over ninety degrees. Fucking desert.

  “Hey, Nick,” the valet said when he saw me.

  “Hey, Mike.” I handed him my green ticket and he took it before scrutinizing my face.

  “You okay to drive home?”

  “Yeah, only had one drink.” I’m six foot four and over two hundred pounds; one beer was like drinking tea.

  “Your eyes are really red.” If it had been anyone but Mike, I may have gotten pissed. He was an older guy that had worked at the resort since his early twenties. I didn’t doubt that he’s stopped countless tragedies from happening just because he genuinely gives a shit.

  I nodded and said, “Long day at the gym, and I have a fucking headache that won’t quit.”

  “Okay, then I’ll get the truck so you can go home and get some rest.”

  “Thanks, Mike.” He took off at a run. I smiled as I watched him and wondered how tired he must be at night when he got home. He was back with my big Ford F-350 in less than five minutes. I took the keys and handed him a twenty. His already bright face lit up more as he thanked me. At least I could go home feeling like I’d done something worthwhile today.

  On the drive, I thought about my new trainer again. He came highly recommended and he gave me one hell of a work-out today, but I got the feeling he and I weren’t going to be friends.

  His uptight way of approaching things reminded me a lot of my own father, whom I hadn’t gotten along with since I was four. Maybe I didn’t even get along with him then, but at least I can’t remember it.

  My dad was an asshole, plain and simple. My mother died when I was four and my brother was six. After a year of being raised by a nanny, Dad decided even that was too much presence and sent us off to separate boarding schools. I grew up only seeing my family on the holidays and school vacations, and it felt like attending a celebration of strangers.

  My brother Ethan and I had become good friends just over the past few years. After graduating from boarding school, he headed to the East Coast for college. He’d been at NYU for two years when I graduated high school. I came home to Vegas after graduation and refused to go to college. I’d never been as into school as Ethan was and I’d had my fill.

  Dad threatened to cut me off and kick me out, but he never followed through with either. I think he was worried about his high society friends in town finding out and it making him look bad. Whatever the reason, it afforded me the opportunity to do what I wanted – which was spend money, party, and chase tail. Dad and I ignored each other for the most part and for the first time in my life, I was actually having fun…that was, until Ethan came home.

  As I drove my big truck into the garage and pressed the button to close it behind me, I laughed. Ethan was five foot eleven in his shoes and very lean muscle. If I wanted to, I could crush him. But for some reason, hearing him say the same things Dad had told me about wasting my life had penetrated my thick skull.

  By that time, I was tatted up from my neck to my waist, and I looked like a billboard ad for one of those Pay-Per-View MMA fights. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, but I knew I’d never fit in working for my Dad at one of his biomedical labs or wearing a suit and going into a law office or a courtroom every day like Ethan.

  My brother was actually the one who introduced me to Martin. He’d represented one of Martin’s fighters while doing his internship at the law firm. The fighter had gotten in a fistfight in a bar and nearly killed the guy with one, well-placed punch. The district attorney charged him with attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon. My brilliant brother presented evidence that the fighter was simply defending himself and got the charges thrown out.

  When Ethan introduced Martin and me, the old man took one look at me and our relationship was born – and so was my career. In the past four years, I had gone from never being in an octagon to practically living in one. My name, face, and body graced posters, billboards, buses, and cabs all over Vegas.

  It pissed my father off not only because he didn’t find it to be a “fitting” career for a Grant, but also because I refused to use the name Grant: I used my mother’s maiden name of Storelli. I liked that it represented my Italian heritage, and I also liked that it pissed off my dad.

  Now, four years later, I was one win away from being the heavyweight champion of the world and this was the time that Martin chose to retire.

  He insisted it was the perfect time because Charlie could give me more of an advantage. I couldn’t help but wonder if it was because he thought I was going to lose and he wanted to get out while I was still on top.

  Either way, I was stuck with a trainer who had no sense of humor and seemed to take some kind of sadistic pleasure in putting me in the cage with the biggest and meanest sparring partners he could find. I’d gone three rounds today with some eighteen-year-old kid named Bryce that Charlie was training. He was six foot six and over three hundred pounds. One of his hands was bigger than my head. I got him to tap out in the end, but he didn’t go down easily.

  No wonder my fucking head was killing me.

  CHAPTER TWO

  KARLI

  I was sitting in my room with my laptop ope
n to my latest assignment while talking on the phone with my good friend, Michaela. She was trying her damnedest to try and talk me into going to a costume party with her in one of the private rooms inside of Circus Circus.

  I didn’t have any desire to party and mingle with a bunch of knuckle-dragging jocks. It was bad enough some days that I had to live with and work for one.

  “Not tonight, Michaela. I have homework, and Dad’s making dinner.”

  “You’re twenty-two years old, Karli.”

  I laughed. “Thanks for the reminder; I almost forgot.”

  “Oh shut up; you know what I mean. You don’t do anything but study, work, and spend time with your dad. You work for him – I would think that would be enough togetherness.”

  I smiled. “He’s lonely, Mich.”

  “Then he should join Match or eHarmony and let you have a life.”

  “He lets me have a life. Look what I’ve done with it. The last two boyfriends I had turned out to be the biggest losers on the planet. At least when I stay home with Dad, there’s no danger of meeting another one. I attract them like magnets. Besides, I do things.”

  “What things?”

  “I went to the football game with you last weekend.” I had hated every second of it.

  Michaela’s on-again, off-again boyfriend, Trent, played football for Las Vegas University. She begged me to go with them and to the after party. I bailed on the party about a half an hour into it when I’d already gotten hit on by two, dumb jocks and a third one rubbed up against me and tried to pretend it was an accident.

  “The football game doesn’t count.”

  “It doesn’t?”

  “No, because after the game, I had to beg you to go to the party and then you left after fifteen minutes – alone.”

  “It was half an hour.”

  “Oh geez, excuse me. If you would have stayed, you might have hooked up with one of the hot guys on Trent’s team since you completely ignore the yummy fighters at the gym you get to work at.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I ‘get’ to work there. Have you ever tried to get the smell of dozens of sweaty, funky guys out of a roomful of equipment?”

  “Well, I’ve had to air out my bed once or twice.”

  “Michaela!” I laughed. My friend was crazy. It’s part of why I loved her. “Anyways, you know, after the last, disastrous relationship, I don’t date jocks. I’m holding out for a nice, non-sweaty law student with his muscles between his ears, instead of places that makes him think he’s God’s gift to every woman over eighteen. I’ve had more than my fair share of players in my life.”

  “They’re not all players. Trent isn’t.” I had my doubts about that, but for now, I kept it to myself.

  “I know, honey, but I have too much going on in my life to even risk it right now. I don’t have time for head games. Dad gave me this whole week off so that I could get caught up on my homework. I’m not about to tell him I’m going to a party instead of having dinner with him.”

  “The party won’t be in full swing until nine, at least. You have plenty of time to do both. Please go with me!”

  I sighed. “I don’t have a costume.”

  “I have that red flapper dress you loved so much. We can do your hair all up in curls and you can wear your black stilettos. You’ll look so good! Please!”

  “Grr, you’re so persistent!”

  “Is it working?”

  “I guess, but hear me say this, Michaela – I am not hooking up with any jocks tonight.”

  “I hear you. I’ll be there at eight to help you get ready.”

  I hung up, still shaking my head at my crazy friend. Before she got serious with Trent, she had a reputation for being loose and easy, but she wasn’t really like that.

  My poor Michaela had been left home alone to raise herself most of her life. Her mother was a showgirl and her father owned one of the smaller resorts in Vegas. They had plenty of money, but not much time for a kid. She compensated for the lack of love at home by going from one man to the other. I hoped for her sake I was wrong about Trent. I just got the same feeling from him that I did every player I’d ever known…and I’d known plenty.

  “Karli!”

  “Yeah, Dad?”

  “Dinner’s ready, honey.”

  I put the phone down and closed my laptop. Whatever Dad was making smelled great. I went out to the dining room to see he already had the table set and my plate heaped with chicken, rice with asparagus, and a bowl of what looked like some kind of cream soup. Dad spent his life taking care of his body, so everything he made was healthy, but he also knew how to make it all taste great. I’d learned to eat right and take care of my own body at a young age thanks to him, and even now that I’m in law school, I do my best to find time to work out every day.

  “It looks great, Dad.”

  “Thanks; the chicken is marinated in a garlic sauce. I got the recipe from Carole Lewis; you remember her?”

  I sat down at the table and poured a glass of the iced tea Dad had put in a pitcher on the table. “Yeah, I remember her. Are you seeing her again?”

  Carole was a sales rep for one of the protein powders Dad pushes at the gym he owns. They had dated for a while last year and all of a sudden, they just weren’t. He never told me what happened and I never asked. My father’s dating life had never been a comfortable topic for me. I did wish that he’d find someone, though. He’d been single for a long time and the longer it went on, the guiltier I felt about finding my own place and moving out.

  “No, we’re just friends,” he said. “So, will you be at work tomorrow? If not, that’s okay, but I’ll have to ask Linda to come in and clean the equipment before things start growing on it.”

  I laughed. “I’ll be there. Thank you for the time off; I really got a lot done.”

  I usually spend at least three days during the week taking care of office work, ordering supplies, and cleaning at the gym. Dad has three other part-time employees, but I’m the only one he trusts to access the finances. He hates anything to do with money or paying bills. I’m not sure how he managed after Mom died and before I got old enough to do it.

  Sundays are slow and he doesn’t do any training with the MMA fighters, so that’s usually the day I spend cleaning the mats in the octagons and washing all of their sparring equipment.

  “You know how important your education is to me,” he said as he swallowed a huge bite of his chicken. “If you ever need time off to study, all you have to do is let me know.”

  “Thanks, Dad. There’s a party at Circus Circus tonight that Michaela wants me to go to with her. You don’t mind, do you?” I was twenty-two years old and I didn’t need my father’s permission to go out, but as long as I lived with him and he was paying all of the bills, I felt kind of obligated to at least let him know what I was doing.

  “Of course not. You’ve been working hard studying all week, you need to get out and have some fun. Just be safe.”

  “Always. We’ll take an Uber from here and back,” I told him. “If it’s really late, I might stay with Michaela tonight, but I’ll be in to work early tomorrow, I promise.”

  “Whenever you get there is fine. I’ve got this new kid I’m training, and he’s supposed to meet me there at seven.” He rolled his eyes.

  “You’re training on a Sunday?”

  “I’m training as often as I can get this kid in. He’s the one I inherited from Martin.”

  “Oh.” I tried to be casual as I swallowed the lust that suddenly surged up inside of me.

  I knew I just went on an on to Michaela about jocks and I wouldn’t touch this guy with a ten-foot pole…but damn was he hot. I’d yet to meet him in person, but Vegas was covered with photos of him in nothing but shorts; a more perfect specimen of a man I had yet to see. He was like sex on a stick dipped in ink, and I wouldn’t even be human if my body didn’t react. “He’s training for the heavyweight match in a few weeks, right?”

  “Yeah, and he’s got a cou
ple exhibition matches in between, too.”

  “So why do you say, ‘supposedly’ he’ll be there at seven?”

  “I’m just having a hard time getting this kid to focus. He wants to stay out all night partying and doing God knows what, and then he shows up half an hour late or more and I can tell that his head is just not in it. He’s crazy talented, and that is what has saved him up to this point. But I’m afraid the day is coming when his lack of focus is going to cause real problems for him.”

  Typical, I thought. A guy that looked like him was way too busy spreading the love – and who knows what else – around Vegas. “Martin probably partied with him,” I said with a laugh.

  Martin and my dad had been friends as long as I could remember, which was funny since they’d also been in direct competition with each other until Martin retired. He was a funny old man, and unlike my dad who was rigid about his diet and work-out routines, Martin somehow managed to stay in shape while partying like a teenager right up into his seventies.

  Dad snorted. “Yeah, I’ll bet you’re right.”

  We dropped the subject of his new fighter, which was good since I was suddenly feeling hot from the inside out just thinking about a poster I saw of him last week in front of the MGM. Dad asked me about school, and I told him how my classes were going and we talked about some of my instructors.

  There was one attorney who had come in a couple of weeks ago to do a two-day class on criminal law. His name was Ethan, and he couldn’t have been more than a few years older than me. But he was so knowledgeable about the law, there wasn’t a single question asked that he didn’t have an intelligent answer for. He was also good looking, so that helped keep my attention. I didn’t tell Dad that part.

  Ethan had been that intellectual type that I’d been telling Michaela about, though, and I’d actually been thinking about him a lot over the past week. He was in good shape, but he looked more like a runner than a fighter. His dark hair was perfectly styled and his suits well-tailored and always seemed to match his dark-blue eyes to a T. He was definitely not my usual type, but that was the main attraction.