Playing To Win: The Complete King Brothers Collection (A Contemporary Romance Box Set)

by Teagan Kade

  CHAPTER THREE

  NOLAN

  One button or two, I consider, fingers hovering around the neck of my shirt.

  The reflection in the mirror doesn’t answer back, thank Christ.

  It’s been a while since I went on an actual date. Usually the King name alone is enough to seal the deal, so to speak, at least for the others. I prefer a slower approach. Or at least I did before Linnea came along and basically took over my brain.

  It’s incredible how much she’s been on my mind today. The sex was amazing, but that’s not what I return to. In truth, I don’t know whether to feel intrigued by her or scared shitless. She’s overwhelming, but I can’t decide if that’s good or bad. If nothing else, she’s determined as hell. That is a trait I can respond to.

  I still expect Titus to suddenly crash into the room and tackle me, a blow-up doll to pop out of the hallway, or any one of his other endless pranks. It’s strange having him in Boston. I’ve got Peyton, Phoenix, and their better halves to fill the space, but it’s not the same without all of us. When he was here, I constantly wished he’d get lost, but now? I can’t make up if his absence if good or bad. Seems I can’t decide any damn thing, even how much chest to show tonight.

  I think of Linnea and dial it back.

  One button.

  Honestly, I never thought I’d see the day where any of my brothers were married off. The world has gone topsy-turvy and I’m not sure I know my place in it anymore. Could Linnea fit into it? Could she be my Erin or Maya? I consider the two girls in question. They’re strong individuals, but Linnea is notched up to eleven. The way she powered up that summit trail… I barely had time to check out her ass let alone keep up.

  I exhale and tug on my shirt in the mirror. “Here goes nothing.”

  I take the Beemer to pick up Linnea. It used to be Dad’s car back in the ’90s, isn’t half as flashy as my brothers’ many show-pony automobiles, but it’s enough for me. I don’t need to stand out like they do.

  Linnea’s waiting out front, but I don’t get a good look at her until I pop the passenger door open.

  She ducks her head, sliding into the passenger seat wearing a tight black halter dress, her hair pulled back into a single, glossy ponytail. She’s wearing makeup—about a quarter as much as my last date, who looked like she’d fallen face-first into rainbow. It’s refreshing. Elegant.

  “You look…” I start, but Linnea reaches across to place a finger on my lips.

  “If it’s a cliché, I don’t want to hear it.” She removes her finger slowly.

  “You can’t be a cliché if you’re one of a kind.”

  She rolls her eyes, laughing and pulling the hem of her dress down her thighs. “All right. Chalk up a point for that one, but do understand I expect this sort of creative conversation the whole night.”

  I start the car and place my hand on top of the steering wheel, the other reaching for the gearshift. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  Linnea seems surprised we’re headed up the mountain. “If you’re planning a midnight picnic,” she tells me, “I hope you brought bear spray.”

  “No picnic,” I reply, remaining secretive. Phoenix gave me the heads up about this place a while ago. I believe he took Heather here when they first started dating, and that seems to have panned out. I figured I couldn’t do any worse. We’re rather lacking for quality restaurants in Crestfall.

  Half an hour later I pull down a cobblestone drive, the restaurant emerging through the trees looking—like Phoenix said—like an unassuming modern house.

  The opulence is really revealed as I usher Linnea inside. This time I do hang back, take a glance downwards at that gravity-defying ass that was such a handful the night of the party. Thankfully we’re seated before my cock has had time to fully stiffen.

  A waitress arrives and asks about dietary considerations, but we’re good to go. It’s a degustation menu. I ask Linnea if she’d like the matched wine pairings.

  She straightens her dress, and looks—if I can believe it—nervous? “Uh, you decide,” she says, smiling.

  I relax back in my chair. “Really? Because you seem like a girl who knows what she wants.”

  Her lips tighten seductively. “If you are referring to yourself, I already got what I want.”

  “So, if I asked you to take your panties off and meet me in the bathroom, what would you say?”

  She leans over the table and wets her lower lip. “I’d tell you I’m not wearing any panties.”

  And god damn it, my cock’s so hard it’s going to flip the fucking table.

  Five minutes later the waitress arrives with the first pairing.

  Linnea picks up her glass—more like a fishbowl. “Is this where all you King brothers take the women you’re looking to impress?”

  I laugh. “My brothers are all for the shock-and-awe campaign, yes.”

  “Whereas you prefer the more subtle route of a two-hundred-dollar-a-head meal?”

  “You looked at the prices.”

  “I did.”

  “Good, because you’re paying.”

  She lifts an eyebrow. “What if I don’t have any money?”

  “I will pay and you can pay me back with sexual favors.”

  “You won’t get much for two-hundred dollars, sorry.”

  I smile at the thought. “Is that a fact?”

  She nods. “Let’s steer the conversation to safer waters, shall we?”

  “Why? Because you’re getting wet?” Now I’m starting to feel like my brothers, but this mutual tit-for-tat seems to be working for Linnea and me.

  She puts the wine glass to her lips and drinks slowly from the rim, eyes wavering hot above, lips just parted when she pulls the glass away. “Yes,” she replies slowly. “I am. And you? I suppose you’re packing an erection under there that would put a Louisville slugger to shame, yes?”

  “I am.”

  She seems suddenly embarrassed, placing her glass down and going to pull her hair over her ear…even though it’s done up in a tight pony. “Why don’t you choose the topic of conversation?”

  “All right. Do you want light and fluffy or deep and meaningful?”

  “You choose.”

  I’m puzzled. She seems different, reserved. She was anything but reserved before. “Where do you stand, politically? A lot is riding on this state. People are talking, so what about you?”

  I see her take it in and process, her mouth opening to speak but closing just as fast. She’s thinking it through, dampening down her answer. I can feel it. “I’m neither here nor there,” she smiles. “Politics isn’t really my thing.”

  “It’s not mine either, but you’ve got to have an opinion on the state of this country right now. Come on. Humor me.”

  “I think…” she starts, looking to her plate, “there’s room for improvement.”

  “Such as?” I press, determined to get some kind of spark out of her, something of the fiery go-getter I remember from before, but she’s unwilling to go there.

  “I guess…the Democrats, look, they…” But she stops short. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “No, what were you going to say?”

  “It’s nothing. What about you? Where do you stand?”

  I decide to attack, something to get a rise out of her. “I think the current administration is doing a fine job.”

  She almost chokes on her wine, placing it down abruptly and wiping her lips to speak. “You can’t seriousl—” Again, she stops, barely holding back.

  “Black lives matter. How do you feel about that?”

  “I think all lives matter, but…”

  “But…?”

  She’s flustered, fidgeting with her glass, the table cloth. I don’t know what’s going on, but this isn’t the girl I met at the party who seemed so forward, so assured of herself.

  Is it the restaurant? I wonder. Is it too much? Fish out of water and all that?

  I keep going. “You look at what Milwaukee did, no
t taking the floor in protest. The NBA postponed its entire slate of Wednesday fixtures after they refused to play. That took balls, don’t you think?”

  I’d hoped shifting to sports might spark her into action, but she remains neutral.

  “Everyone should take a stance against racial inequality and social injustice, she says.”

  “I asked for your opinion, not a bumper sticker.”

  She looks pleased—no, relieved—when our entrees arrive. “Shall we eat?”

  I pick up my knife and fork. “Sure.”

  I’m puzzled as I eat. Why is she acting so differently? Maybe it was an act at the party, but she seemed so certain of herself. I’ve never been led on like that, dived so fast into the deep end.

  I don’t regret it. Hell, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that night, or the morning that followed—any of it, really. So what has changed?

  Throughout the night I try to swing the conversation back into subjective territory, but just when it seems like she’s about to get passionate about something, she pulls back. I deliberately goad her with controversial topics, but she doesn’t break. I’m not sure what she’s doing, but the attraction is starting to lose its appeal.

  The food’s great, so at least that’s something, and she does seem to be enjoying herself. I just can’t help wondering what happened to the human firecracker I met before.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  LINNEA

  Pretending to be something I’m not has taken a lot out of me. I had no idea the kind of energy I’d expend acting, and for what? I’m sensing Nolan drawing back. He knows something is up. That is not the result I was after when I decided to take the edge off my usual, more confronting self.

  Nolan pulls up to the curb in front of my place, turns off the ignition with his wrist resting on top of the steering wheel. He looks across to me.

  “Thanks for dinner,” I tell him, just wanting to get inside, curl up into a corner and slowly die.

  “My pleasure.”

  Silence hangs and I can’t take it. I don’t know what I was thinking tonight, but I can’t leave it like this. I need to fix things and fucking fast before he does a runner.

  “Fancy a walk?” he suggests hopefully.

  Honestly, I’m surprised he’s not shoving me out the door.

  “Sure,” I reply. “It’s just a regular neighborhood, though. It’s not exactly jaw-dropping scenery.”

  A smile follows that spells trouble in the best kind of way. “You’re all the scenery I need, Ms. Marsden.”

  “There you go with those lines again.”

  He shrugs. “Call it habit. Come on.”

  He gets out and I follow. We fall in beside each other on the sidewalk. The moon is waxing crescent. It plays peekaboo through the cloud cover above, streetlights providing pools of light for us to walk through.

  I struggle to control the urge to respond to some of the things he said at dinner. I’m lost, don’t know how to play this at all, so I remain silent.

  Nolan doesn’t seem to mind. Before I realize it, he’s holding my hand. It happens organically. With that connection, the façade I was trying to put up drops. “I suppose I wasn’t quite myself at dinner, was I?”

  He looks down. “You didn’t seem like yourself, no.”

  “We’ve been on one date and you’re a Linnea Marsden expert now?”

  “Referring to yourself in the third person,” he says. “You know what they say about that.”

  “’I wanted to do what was best for LeBron James, and what LeBron James was going to do to make him happy’,” I reply, quoting the basketball star.

  That elicits a laugh from Nolan. “I suppose the sporting elite are particularly guilty of it. It’s got a name, you know—habitual illeism.”

  “What, you learn that in psychology?”

  “I did, as a matter of fact.”

  I’m thankful it’s dark enough he can’t see me blushing in embarrassment. “I didn’t know you were taking psych.”

  He taps his head. “I’ve always been interested in what’s happening up here. That’s where the edge is. It’s what separates the truly great athlete from the rest of the pack.”

  “And talking in the third person—I mean, ‘habitual illeism’—is a good thing?”

  He looks at me as we step through another pool of light, his eyes glinting mystery and menace. “Generally, no. It signals a stunted intellect, the presence of psychotic personality disorders, maybe rampant egoism.”

  “But…”

  “But recent research would suggest otherwise, some hypothesize a distanced perspective of yourself might promote greater inner awareness and understanding.”

  I figured Nolan might be smart, but I had no idea he was a walking, talking Sigmund Freud. “Keep going. You’re turning me on.”

  He stops walking and stands in front of me. He takes both my hands and lifts them, looking at me directly. “What were you doing, at dinner?”

  Busted, I think to myself.

  “I don’t know,” I shrug. “I thought maybe I’d come on too strong, too soon? I thought you’d prefer me a bit more watered down than usual, reined in?”

  He smiles gently at that. “I prefer the Linnea I met last night, forward and kind of crazy, definitely not afraid to speak her mind. Can we get her back?”

  I bounce my head from side to side. “I’ll have to speak to management.”

  “Tell them Nolan King wants to meet, at their earliest convenience.”

  We start walking again. “I’ll see what I can do, but be warned, this Linnea Marsden Company you’re dealing with isn’t afraid of controversy.”

  “Fine.”

  “Or letting its opinion be known.”

  “All right.”

  “Even if it means breaking your little heart.”

  “Little?” Nolan scoffs. “There you go again. Nothing about me is little, Ms. Marsden.”

  “So I recall,” I slur, conscious of myself returning.

  “Do all you brothers share such sizeable…dimensions?”

  “I thought you were dating me?”

  “Is that what we’re doing now, dating?” I query.

  We take a corner, a truck blasting past on its way to the town center. “If it’s agreeable to Management.”

  I try to suppress a smile. “It is.”

  The conversation swings back to the topics I dodged at dinner. This time I make no attempt to silence or suppress myself, swinging wildly between subjects and loudly proclaiming my stance on everything from the politics to gun control and animal rights.

  “You’re all for animal rights but you don’t like dogs?” he laughs.

  I show him the back of my right ear, the scarring. “I was attacked when I was a kid.”

  “Oh, that?” he asks, trying to get a better look. “I thought that was from your days in the razor gang.”

  “Har-de-har-har,” I fake-laugh. “But yeah, me and dogs don’t gel.”

  “What do you gel with?” he asks.

  “Long Saturdays spent on the sofa watching ball, maybe a Diet Coke and some malted chocolate chip cookies to keep me company.”

  “And a man?”

  I try not to laugh. “No. No man required.”

  We keep walking and talking.

  Nolan jumps in when he can, seems to be enjoying himself. We don’t agree on everything, but I never get the impression he’s concerned or thinks of me differently because of what I say.

  It’s quite the opposite, in fact. The more outrageous I seem to get, the more he pulls closer.

  I manage to keep this up for a good hour, don’t even realize we’ve walked around the entire neighborhood twice.

  We walk a bit longer, looping around the block and coming back to Nolan’s car.

  It’s with some reluctance he lets my hands go, sliding his into his pockets and chewing on his lip. God damn it he looks good standing out here in the open, spicy hints of his cologne caught and released by my better senses, al
l kinds of wild and wonderful thoughts following.

  “You didn’t want to scare me off. That’s it, isn’t it? That’s why you were acting so different at dinner.”

  I nod, feeling like a toddler who’s just dropped a carton of eggs on the kitchen floor.

  Nolan takes a hand out of his pocket, places it against my face. “Only a weak fucking fool would be scared of you.”

  “And you,” I gulp, “are not weak, I take it?”

  He smiles. “No.”

  His hand burns there against my skin and all I want to do is get him inside, strip him bare, and have my way with him.

  “I like you just the way you are, Linnea. Promise me you won’t try to be anything else.”

  “I promise.”

  He leans in and kisses me. It’s fleeting, barely enough, but I’ll take what I can get. I have to twist my hands together to stop myself reaching for him as he gets into his car, the window lowering with an electric whir. “I’ll see you soon.”

  All I can do is nod back, the need and current inside me so strong I’m concerned it’s going to put me into shock.

  I curl my lips together, can still taste him there.

  I want more, so much more.

  But it’s not to be.

  I watch his car slowly pull away and disappear up the street.

  I’m left standing on the sidewalk horny, yes, but also oddly elated. This wasn’t how I planned the night to unfold, but I’m glad it went down this way. It may not have ended with the desired result, but I have a strong feeling redemption isn’t far away.

  Until then, it’s We-Vibe to the rescue.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  NOLAN

  It’s family lunch at Dad’s place, Phoenix and Heather busy sweating all morning in the kitchen cooking up a feast.

  My father, at head of the table, stands and surveys the spread, looking to Phoenix, who’s pulling a chair out for Heather. “My god, you two. You’re going to give Chef a run for his money.”

  Phoenix seats himself beside Heather and smiles. “Chef’s too busy cooking mac-and-cheese for Erin to whip up anything close to fine dining.”

  “Hey,” Erin shouts from the other side of the table. “That mac-and-cheese is worthy of a Michelin Star. Can you blame me?”