North Page 8

  Marshall was out millions on a piece of land he probably didn’t even want. He’d turn a nice profit based on what Macon had agreed to pay him to be the middleman. Marshall never expected Macon to up and die. Since the deal wasn’t with Macon personally but with Wainright Holdings, someone had to sign on the dotted line. And hand over the cash.

  Jed had said he’d gone to the wake for Marshall, then stayed for me. His appearance at my office this morning had been part of his job. Was that why he’d shown up here tonight? To give me orgasms in trade for finishing what Macon had promised?

  Was I only a transaction to Jed? There was one way to find out. I climbed from the bed, pulled my laptop from my leather satchel and sat down at my desk. It faced west and the view was impressive. The sun was setting, and I watched as it slowly slipped behind the craggy peaks. I pulled up the legal paperwork for Marshall’s deal on my laptop, signed it at the indicated places, hit the submit button.

  It was done.

  The contract for the land was signed. I grabbed my cell from the slim pocket in my leggings, called Julian. He answered on the first ring, as usual, no matter the time of day.

  “The land contract with Marshall is signed,” I told him. “Ensure the wire for the funds goes through during banking hours tomorrow.”

  “On it,” he replied, then hung up.

  I watched as the color of the sky changed from orange to pink. I loved it here. The land. The house. Everything that my family had built for generations. It didn’t make any sense since Macon had tainted it all.

  My brothers. Me.

  Especially me.

  I felt a nudge at my calf and I looked down. Eddie. I petted him and his tail bumped against the leg of my desk as it went back and forth. I hadn’t closed the door all the way and he’d nudged it open to settle into the dog bed in the corner where he slept at night.

  He followed me everywhere around the house. Sometimes I took him to the office when I drove, but most of the time since I took the helicopter, he remained here and slept. Since he wasn’t a puppy any longer, that was what he did all day. Plus snore and fart.

  Macon had complained about how horrible a guard dog he was.

  I hadn’t gotten Eddie to protect me. The dog gave me unconditional love and wanted nothing in return. As I stared down at that sweet face and thought about it, it was really fucking sad.

  “Every guy wants a little attention from you.”

  I whipped my head around and my heart skipped a beat. Jed was in my doorway, filling most of it. He took off his hat, tossed it onto my reading chair in the corner. It was beside a fireplace, now cold.

  “How did you find your way up here?” I asked.

  He pointed to the dog. “He follows you everywhere.”

  “So do you,” I replied. I’d never been more vulnerable than when with Jed. Even Macon didn’t make me feel this way. I’d hidden my emotions well from my father, or he hadn’t wanted to really see them.

  But Jed saw me. I had no idea how. Or why he’d want someone as fucked up as me.

  I stood and Eddie loped over to his bed. “Why did you do that, in the kitchen?”

  “What?”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “Make me tell my brothers. It wasn’t your secret to tell.”

  “You’re right, it was yours. They deserve to know, North. What their father did. What he was really like.”

  I laughed. “They knew.”

  He shook his head. “They had no idea.”

  I threw my hands up in the air because he knew how to drive me crazy. Drive me wild. He infuriated me and intrigued me. When he came running around the house because he’d heard shots, a thrill had gone through me. To see the concern on his face.

  He’d run toward gun shots for me.

  Which only circled my thoughts back to what he wanted. Why would he run toward danger for a woman he hardly knew? Why was he still here, really? He’d already gotten sex and yet he was still around after that shit show in the kitchen. He wasn’t done with his mission.

  Was he here for the deal? He didn’t know I’d signed the papers. Only Julian did. He’d fucked me and in the morning, he’d learn the deal was done.

  Did I enjoy him tonight before he moved on? Marshall would have his money and Jed would be redirected to someone else to work over. I’d gained a nice parcel of land and a few steamy memories. I’d never be able to go into the telephone room again without thinking of wallbanging sex and Jed.

  “Am I different?” I asked.

  He came in the room, closed the door behind him.

  “Different?” he repeated.

  I stood from the desk, closed the lid on the laptop. The sky was now purple, bleeding toward black.

  “You work for Marshall.”

  “Yes.” He undid the cuff on one of his shirtsleeves.

  “He sent you to the wake.”

  “Yes.” He undid the other.

  “Do you fuck men who have deals that need closing?”

  He tugged the tails of his shirt from his jeans. “I like being the only one with a beard in a relationship.”

  He didn’t seem bothered by my probing questions, which pissed me off. Why was he so… relaxed all the time?

  “What are you doing?” I asked. While I was enjoying the show of him stripping out of his shirt—and the broad expanse of chest and six-pack abs—I didn’t know why he was taking his clothes off.

  “Getting ready for bed.”

  My mouth fell open as he tossed the shirt onto my chair beside his hat. I hadn’t wanted him in this space, having this room filled with memories of him.

  “Here?”

  “Here.”

  “I don’t want you in my bedroom.”

  “You told me that before. Too intimate?”

  I blinked as he undid his belt buckle.

  “Y-yes.”

  He dropped his hands, the belt laying open at his waist. God, he was gorgeous. The dark hair, olive skin, the dense muscles. His calm demeanor drove me bonkers. Why didn’t he get riled? Throw things? Shout? That I could handle. But that strong jaw and beard, the way he skillfully used his fingers were things I didn’t know how to deal with.

  He frazzled my brain cells.

  “What we did in that tiny room downstairs wasn’t intimate?”

  It had been. Shit, he was right.

  “Take off your clothes, princess.”

  He got back to work on his. I couldn’t do anything but watch because… wow.

  Soon he was naked before me. N.A.K.E.D.

  Every encounter we’d had so far he hadn’t taken off his clothes. Only his pants had been opened earlier. Nothing more and I hadn’t even gotten a glimpse. Now he stood before me as an amazing specimen of man. Perfectly proportioned, better than David, and dappled in dark hair. And that dick. My pussy clenched. That had been in me?

  It was long and thick, perfectly formed. It bobbed, angled up and toward me. I could see pre-cum beading at the tip of the flared crown. I hadn’t watched a lot of porn, but he had a fallback career with that thing.

  “Don’t make me say it again,” he said, cutting through my staring, and drooling.

  My nipples beaded beneath my t-shirt so I crossed my arms.

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” I snapped.

  “Keep talking to me in that tone and we’ll see what else you can do with that mouth,” he countered.

  My mouth fell open and I snapped it shut. I couldn't believe we were having this conversation with him bare assed. Of course he wasn’t the least bit modest standing in the middle of my bedroom.

  I laughed to hide how his words turned me on. I glanced down at his dick, imagining it stretching my mouth wide as he’d insinuated.

  “I won’t kneel for you,” I countered, straightening my shoulders.

  He took a step toward me. His dick swayed. I swallowed.

  “I’ll be the only one you kneel for,” he said, his eyes narrowing. He came close, close enough to stroke my hair back, for his
dick to press into my belly. “You like when I take control.”

  I shook my head, but his hand slipped around and wrapped in my hair. Tugged.

  The slight bite of pain had me gasping. I met his eyes as he held me in place.

  “Out there,” he tipped his head indicating anywhere outside this room. “You’re in charge. You can juggle all the fucking balls you want. Make the deals in those dresses and high heels. That dressy armor you wear. In here, when you’re wet and aching for some attention, I am.”

  Was that what drew me to him, the fact that when we were alone, I didn’t have to do anything but be me? To feel something real? I wanted that. As much as I craved to lick off that drop of pre-cum and taste him on my tongue.

  I stepped back, wrapped my arms tighter around myself. “How do I know if this is real?”

  “I’m standing here buck naked, princess. I’ve got nothing to hide.”

  I couldn’t look at him, at every inch of tanned skin and sinewy muscle, so I closed my eyes.

  I heard him sigh. “He destroyed you.”

  “Yeah, he did,” I admitted, knowing he was talking about Macon. “I’ve got a hot guy, naked and hard and we’re talking. Any whole woman would be riding your dick now.”

  “He’s six feet under, princess. You’re here. It’s time to pick up the pieces and make the life you want.”

  “That’s what you want to do, pick up all the pieces of me? Am I even worth it?”

  I heard something like a growl come out of him before I was scooped up in the air and tossed onto the bed. Instinctively, I popped up onto my hands and knees facing the headboard to move away from him, but he grabbed my ankle.

  Glaring over my shoulder, I met his dark stare. I was breathing hard. “What are you doing?”

  “Getting answers,” he replied. His grip remained on my ankle as his other hand came down on my upturned ass in a hard spank.

  “Jed!” I shouted as I tried to kick him with my free leg.

  He yanked me back, which had me dropping to my stomach on the soft mattress. He shifted, tugged me onto his lap so my toes touched the carpet while my torso was still on the bed. “What did I say about talking bad about yourself?”

  He spanked me again, then tugged down my yoga pants. Another growl. “Good girl. You’re learning how I like you. Without panties.”

  Another spank, this time on my bare ass.

  He wasn’t gentle and it hurt, but the sting morphed into heat. And I was angry, so I had that fueling me. Yet his dirty talk made me hot and that made me wonder who I was mad at. Him or myself. Either way, I said, “I hate you.”

  “In your deals with Macon to get your brothers to college, what did you offer?”

  I squirmed, which only had me feeling every inch of how hard he was.

  “We finished this downstairs,” I replied.

  “Not even close, princess. Let’s start with South. He was a year after you in school. What did you give your father for South’s freedom?”

  I gripped the bedding and stayed silent. He waited a second, then another, then began to spank me. Hard. One cheek then the other. “Jed!” I shouted, but he didn’t stop.

  I saw Eddie on his bed, curled up and sound asleep. I wasn’t getting any help from him.

  Jed was relentless.

  The pain got to be too much and I had no idea if Jed would ever stop. “I switched majors!”

  His hand settled on my hot skin. “Keep going.”

  I was sweating and angry and turned on, which made me angrier.

  “I wanted to study forestry,” I said. “To be a park ranger. But Macon wanted me in business, to take over. Said I couldn’t do that or get my MBA if I was fucking Smoky Bear.”

  I loved the land. The wilderness. Jed didn’t know that it was my only escape. Hiking or horseback riding. Snowmobiling. I owned enough of it that I had it all to myself. Except every acre that belonged to me was only that, an escape. It wasn’t my life.

  “So Daddy picked your major in trade for South to be an artist. What about East?”

  I didn’t say anything, remembering back to that conversation all those years ago.

  “Need a little refresher of who’s in charge here?” Jed asked. “You talk or I spank.”

  I huffed, then turned my head. I was in an awkward position over his lap but fighting seemed useless.

  “After my sophomore year, I came home from Harvard for the summer instead of working on the Cape like my friends. He put me in the mail room. I worked sixty hours a week in the basement of Wainright Holdings. Starting at the bottom.”

  “Nothing wrong with the mail room,” he said, knowing there was more to this than just hard work.

  “You’re right,” I replied. “I met the nicest people. Genuine, unlike Macon and his cronies.”

  “You said Macon threatened to break East’s leg. He wasn’t doing it to fuck with your brother, he was doing it to get something from you.”

  I groaned, then pushed up. He let me but took my leggings off as I moved. My t-shirt was long enough to cover my ass, but that wasn’t why I felt exposed. Tucking my legs under me, I sat in the middle of my bed as Jed, naked, remained on the side.

  “Macon rewarded me by pulling me out of the basement. Dinner meetings to learn the ropes.” I made finger quotes in the air for the last. “Turns out, I wasn’t the only one he made deals with. In fact, for East, I was the offering.”

  He stood, grabbed his jeans from the floor and tugged them on. He didn’t button them, but when he turned to face me and he raked his hand through his hair, he was at least covered.

  “He offered you how?” he asked. “Golf partner?”

  I laughed. “I’m actually pretty good at golf. But no. I was to fuck a potential business connection.”

  Jed went over to the fireplace, grabbed a glass vase and threw it into the cold hearth. It shattered into pieces, some flying across the carpet. Eddie lifted his head but settled back to sleep when I didn’t move.

  “Did you?” he asked finally, running a hand over his beard.

  “I knew in advance. He told me what I was going to do for him. Giving my consent was the trade for East staying healthy and going off to school like his brothers. The night it was to happen, I told him I had my period. To stall. Fortunately, that worked. It seemed Macon didn’t want to even hear about such things.” It had disgusted him. “He pushed it back a week, but that was when he had East kicked off the team, putting extra pressure on me. I had to go through with it or he’d have lost his scholarship, and broken his leg.”

  I licked my lips. I hadn’t told anyone about this. It was hard because while it had been consent, it had been coercion. Jed’s anger made it easier.

  “I went with Macon to the restaurant in a hotel in Billings. Made introductions. Had a drink with the guy, then Macon left. The guy, a big Texas oilman, took me up to his room. He’d had a lot to drink by then and I offered him more. It seems an overweight, sixty-year-old man with a liberal dosing of GHB in his whiskey can’t get it up. Or stay conscious. Or remember anything that had happened.”

  “You date rape drugged him?” He didn’t seem mad, more surprised. His eyebrows were at his hairline.

  I shrugged, picked at the blanket. “It wasn’t as if the guy was going to admit to blacking out and not remembering a fuck with North Wainright. He passed out. I left. I didn’t say a word to my father and neither did the guy. The deal went through. East went to college on scholarship.”

  Jed strode across the room, sat on the bed again. This time, when he tugged me into his arms, he settled me on his lap so I straddled his hips. My knees were on the bed, my ass on his hard thighs. My shirt rode up and he cupped my bare butt, which was hot and sore from the spanking.

  “He used you on my parents’ deal. With Jock.” It wasn’t a question.

  My mouth opened and I stared into his dark eyes. He was so close I couldn’t look away. All I could see was him. The various colors in his beard. The fullness of his lips. The dark
lashes women would kill for.

  I stared at his lips, not because I wanted to kiss him—although I did—but because I couldn’t hold his eyes for this. All I could do was nod.

  “You were seventeen,” he bit out.

  I nodded again. I pushed back and he let me get up. He didn’t grab me or keep me from walking away. Maybe it was because I was only wearing a t-shirt that I pushed down to mid-thigh that he figured I wouldn’t run. I began to pace. “He… he told me he was waiting for me to be legal, but the opportunity was too good. And because the guy he wanted me to fuck was also seventeen, it made it okay.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, I saw him hop to his feet and stride to me. He scooped me up. “Careful of the broken glass.” His hands went to my butt, and I put my legs around his waist as he carried me this way back to the bed. I was once again straddling his lap.

  “My parents were ready to sell. Why sweeten the deal?” he asked, returning to the topic.

  “He wanted it to be a sure thing. Your land probably has oil. A lot of it. Macon wanted it and the best way to ensure your parents would sell to him was to make the Barnetts and the Wainrights have a connection.”

  “You and Jock in a relationship,” he said, putting two and two together. “Don’t tell me he expected you to marry him or something.”

  “No. Then I’d be away from him and he had lots of plans for me. With Jock, he wanted me to hand over my virginity. ‘Get Jock’s dick happy,’ he’d said. ‘Keep it that way.’” I blinked. “I remember it vividly because I was so stunned. It was the first time I’d seen the real Macon.”

  “You didn’t do it. You broke up with him instead.”

  I nodded. “Jock was so sweet. I really liked him, and I couldn’t have him caught up in Macon’s… meanness. No one would have believed that North Wainright had a shitty father. That her life was a nightmare. Not with a house like this, not with Billionaire Ranch. I did the one thing I could. I told your dad he should stay away from mine, that whatever he was offering, he didn’t want. Then I left.”

  “You destroyed his deal.”