THE SUN SHINED in on my woman, and my mind played tricks on me because she looked better under it. She looked better every time I looked at her. Long blonde hair and smooth sun-kissed skin. Her bruised lips were evidence that I’d kissed her enough last night. Still, I wanted another taste.
I shifted up on to an elbow to stare at this perfect specimen of womanhood. She’d fallen asleep not long after I’d brought her to a final high of many. Then she woke me up by straddling me and admitting that my dick was the only thing she wanted. She told me she wasn’t taking no for an answer. Suffice it to say, I let it happen.
My dick didn’t give me much of a choice.
The white sheets were tangled around her now and I had every intention of taking her again before we joined the family downstairs for breakfast.
“Man, my flight got delayed and you should have seen this guy—” Jaydon swung open my bedroom door.
“Jesus.” I pulled the comforter over Vick whose eyes popped open at Jaydon’s voice. Then she smiled like it was no big deal.
“Jaydon!” She grabbed the sheet and leapt up to hug him.
Naked.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I grumbled and wiped a hand down my face.
“Vick, you can’t be serious. You’re sleeping with Jett?” He pulled back from his hug but kept his arms around her waist to puppy eye her like he could win her over. “I lost Brey to Jax. Jett’s worse, babe.”
She gazed up at him and laughed. “Maybe if you hadn’t left us for LA and the big screen.”
“I’ll fly you out any time you want.”
“Prove it,” she replied coyly, like proving it wasn’t our private joke.
“Vick, go put some clothes on,” I grunted.
“Or leave your clothes off.” Jaydon waggled his eyebrows.
“Jaydon, get the hell out of my room.” I leaned over the bed to find my shorts.
He kissed Vick’s cheek. “I’ll see your fine ass and his grumpy one downstairs for breakfast soon.”
“Sounds good.” She beamed and once the door was closed, she turned to glare at me. “Don’t tell me what to do like that in front of someone ever again. It’s disrespectful and rude.”
“Don’t hug men in front of me while you’re naked then.”
“First, I’m not naked. I have a sheet wrapped around me. Second, even if I was, it isn’t something your brother hasn’t seen before. Three,”—she dropped the sheet—“you want to keep seeing it, don’t be an ass.”
She turned and slipped into the bathroom before I could compile my thoughts.
I heard the shower turning on and barged in. I whipped open the shower door. “What do you mean my brother has seen you naked?”
“Exactly that.”
“If you screwed him, Vick …” Warning heated my voice. I didn’t have a threat to follow through with though. Water cascaded off her hair, tits, waist, and ass. I drank in the picture, the glistening pebbles and tracks decorating her skin. I wanted to lick them off and fuck her against the shower wall.
“Then what, Jett?” she asked pointedly as she rubbed shampoo into her hair. “I’m not asking you who you’ve slept with before me.”
“Because there’s no way in hell I’d sleep with a sister of yours.”
“Well, to be fair, I’m an only child, so I guess we will never know the truth of that claim.” She laughed at her own joke, trying to lighten the mood. When she saw I wasn’t laughing, she sighed, “I haven’t slept with Jaydon. Jeez.”
“Thank God.” I shucked off my shorts and stepped into the shower with her. “Now bend over so I can fuck some sense into you.”
Her hands were already on the shower tiles. “I’ve been friends with him for years. It makes complete sense that he’s seen me naked once or twice. You know I don’t care if guys look.”
My hand grabbed an ass cheek to pull her hips out toward me. “Start caring, woman. Your body isn’t up for display unless you’re displaying it to me. Privately.”
“You’re so damn territorial,” she mumbled, but she was losing herself to my hands rubbing her everywhere.
I slammed into her. “Damn right I am. Territory marked and owned.”
I screwed her hard. She needed to remember who she was dealing with.
WHEN VICK FINISHED GETTING READY, she disappeared to find my mother for tea.
I took a few work calls because Thanksgiving didn’t mean I was completely free. Then I meandered down the hallway, hoping to catch Vick alone so I could drag her down to the lake behind our home.
Instead, Brey popped up out of nowhere, her dark hair down and her green eyes glowing with determination. She stood in my path, and I tilted my head in question.
“Brey?”
“Hi.” She cleared her throat and placed her hands on her hips. “So, we aren’t at work.”
“So it seems,” I replied, somewhat amused. Brey and I had always gotten along just fine. I didn’t love her like either of my brothers, but I’d learned to appreciate her presence within the family and her intelligence within my company. She had a knack for spotting risky investments and an eye for problematic business ventures. “I’m happy we both get the weekend off.”
She nodded once. Then she nodded again and cleared her throat. “I’m not bothering you to discuss work. I hope you can set aside the fact that you’re my boss for a second and just be my brother-in-law.”
I examined her squirming under my gaze. Brey always appeared slightly uncomfortable, but now she fisted her hands tightly on her hips and her breath was somewhat erratic.
“You know I’m always your brother-in-law?”
“Well, yes.” She waved away my question. “We just … we work together. That’s our relationship.”
I shook my head slowly. “No. We’re family.”
Apparently, I hadn’t made that clear to her. I was hard on her at work and didn’t say much to her outside of it, but she’d married Jax and I respected that. I commended her for all she’d been through as a kid and as a woman too.
“Okay, well, then. As a part of your family, I’ll let you know a little bit about mine.”
I waited and widened my eyes to encourage her to continue.
“Vick’s not a toy. Don’t play with her like one. If you do, I’ll never forgive you, and that might not mean much to you, and you might not care, but I’m in this Stonewood family for life. So, for the rest of your life, I will make every single family event you attend a train wreck. It isn’t polite or nice, but I’ll do it.”
“Brey, I’m not—”
She held up a hand. “Just don’t play with her. That’s all I’m asking.” Her eyes pleaded with me, her dark eyebrows bunching a little.
I nodded once, and that was all she needed. She pushed past me to head to her own room. My phone rang on my way down the stairs, Bastian’s number popping up on the screen.
“It’s Thanksgiving,” I answered, my voice low with frustration.
“FDA wants to push one of Levvetor’s ingredients in one drug to the forefront. Seems they are willing to drag the brand name through the mud, even with Stonewood Enterprises attached to it.”
I stopped midway down the steps. “You’re sure?”
“I wouldn’t call you on Thanksgiving for shits and giggles.”
“Vick and Bob scrutinized the letter to them for hours before sending. They received it?”
“You saw the copied e-mail with the attached letter as well as I did, Jett.”
I hummed and looked down at myself in the hall mirror. The lines on my face had deepened over the years and the muscles through my body were this tense most of the time. The business took its toll and then it kept taking.
“I can take care of it my way or we can do it your way.”
“My way’s cleaner,” I answered, but I hated to do it.
Vick rounded the corner at the base of the stairs and looked up with a smile on her face. It died when she saw my expression. She moved to my side and rubbed a hand over my chest. “You okay?” she whispered.
Bastian blurted, “That Vick with you?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“It does. Let me talk to her.”
“No. We do this my way. I’ll pull investments and revoke the partnership on the dairy company the FDA is backing.” My stomach should have bottomed out. I’d essentially rolled down my window and started throwing stacks of hundred-dollar bills out of it.
“It’ll be a tremendous loss,” Bastian warned.
“I’m aware, and I’m the only one capable of handling that loss without it bankrupting me.”
“It takes me a lot less to—”
“Bastian,” I stopped him. “My company. My rules. You pulled me in. Now fuck off. It’s Thanksgiving.”
I hung up, and Vick squinted at me. “Levvetor’s deal is going to shit.”
“It’s handled.”
“Handled with how many millions?” she pried.
“Lots.” I put my arm around her shoulders and turned her back toward the bottom of the stairs. “Now, let’s go get interrogated by my family.”
She didn’t move. She grabbed my bicep to stop me. “You’re sure about this?”
“You said we were saving lives with this company, right? You wanted this, right?”
She recoiled at my words. I knew she would. “I did but …”
“Don’t ever second-guess yourself if you wanted it badly enough to fight for it in the beginning. If it was worth it then, it’s worth it now.”
Her eyes searched mine. Then she straightened up and squeezed my bicep. “I think it’s worth it.”
“And you’re worth it.” I winked at her and she looked at me completely confused. I pulled her down the stairs. “Let’s go. I’m hungry.”
