Authors: Sosie Frost
I bounded to the door, swinging it open without bothering to greet her. I grabbed an armful of dirty laundry from the living room. No more quarters for the machines downstairs. Hell, I could buy new outfits whenever mine needed to be washed.
“Azariah, Grab whatever looks like clothes and follow me.” The laundry smothered me as I gave the order. “We have to figure out how to stuff everything I own into one suitcase.”
I hobbled to the bedroom and dropped the armful of clothes onto the already bigger pile cluttering the floor. Maybe Dad did help more than I thought. Without worrying about car payments or school, I had much more disposable income to spend on my wardrobe.
I examined the mess. Where did I get a Taylor Swift shirt? That was Azariah’s doing. I kicked the shirt over to her and finally looked up.
I hadn’t welcomed Azariah into my apartment.
It was Zach.
And he picked up the laciest, pinkest pair of panties I owned. He stretched them between his fingers.
“Packing the necessities?” He asked.
Oh, sweet Jesus.
I leapt over the bed and slammed shut the suitcase brimming with panties. The bed frame was a piece of junk. The slats holding the box-spring slipped, and everything tumbled, including the suitcase. Zach laughed as a wave of panties cascaded over his legs.
“What the hell are you doing in my room?” I shrieked.
He jerked a thumb to the door. His t-shirt tightened over his biceps. Didn’t he have
any
clothes that fit?
“You let me in.”
“Well, get out!”
“Why?”
“Because
this
place only has me on the lease. You don’t live here!”
Dimples, a flash of teeth, and a quirked eyebrow. He disarmed me without even trying.
“Relax. I wanted to see if you needed help moving.” He wagged a folder in his hand. “William called me. Said he had some paperwork for us. I volunteered to bring it.”
I took the folder. “Thanks. Get out.”
He declined with a smile. “So, you’re packing? Decided to come stay with me after all?”
“I’ve decided to live in the house that my father passed to
me
.”
“I haven’t had a roommate for a while. Hopefully it’s better than the barracks.”
“We are not roommates.”
“Not yet. Look at all this packing you have to do.” His grin would suffocate me. “Seriously, need any help getting this to the car?”
“Not from you.”
Zach motioned to sit on my bed. I chased him away.
“Shay, come on. There’s no sense being angry.”
I had every right to be angry. I fluttered around his feet, collecting stray bits of the sluttiest and most embarrassing underwear I had. I didn’t know what was worse—the granny panties or the slinky silk ones.
I poked his chest as he dared to get in my way, but brandishing a thong at him wasn’t threatening.
“You
tricked
me,” I said. “You had sex with me without saying you were my step-brother. You lied about who you were, why you found me, and what you were doing. It was cruel, and I want nothing to do with you now. No help. No moving. No nothing.”
“How am I supposed to make it better if you won’t even listen to me?”
“There’s nothing to
make-better
. You are beyond apologies at this point.”
“Give me a chance?
Was he kidding? I threw the laundry onto the bed. “Zach, you
hurt
me.”
His smile faded. “It wasn’t my intention.”
“First I poured my soul out to you, and then we had…”
And there I went again, imagining everything I had tried not to imagine for the past week and a half.
And he must have imagined it too. Zach shifted, adjusting himself without making it obvious he was adjusting.
That namesake again.
Hard
.
He lived up to it. He was supremely gifted. Just knowing how he had felt, tasted, and pleasured was too much for me to handle right now.
Or ever again.
“You are the biggest mistake of my life.” I took a breath, but I didn’t let him intimidate me. “But you know what? I’m going to take you up on your offer.”
Zach tilted his head—a look I’d consider cute and puppyish if I didn’t know better. He was no little rolly-polly cutie, he was the wolf. Cunning. Sleek. Built for power and precision. I didn’t meet his gaze. The green was far too inviting for what I needed to say.
“You’re going to come stay at the mansion?” He stepped closer, twirling the little pink panties around his finger. “It’s a good idea, Shay. We could keep each other company. Again.”
I braced as he approached. He was huge, powerful, and perfect. I had never felt petite before, but in his shadow, I was overwhelmed.
Zach could haul me around a bed with one arm and then cuddle me against his strength when we were done. And I remembered the wonderful things he’d whispered, things that warmed me from inside once more.
My chest tightened, and everything else clenched too. How could a man who was so wrong, so horrible, and so
awful
tempt me?
My head and heart tangled with each other. Neither could overpower the other.
Con-artist.
Sexiest man I ever touched.
Liar.
He smiled, baring his teeth, reminding me of his teasing bite.
Step-brother
.
He was too close to me. The rugged, dusty scent of him dizzied my head worse than the drinks he bought me that night. I would have done
anything
if he were just a stranger, just someone I met, just someone I could have once more.
But he wasn’t.
He was Zach. He was the worst thing that ever happened to me.
And he was still holding my panties.
I ripped them away from him, but my fingers brushed his. A dozen little shivers cracked into a thousand tiny whispers with a million different regrets. His hand warmed mine, so much bigger and stronger than my delicate palm. His skin, light and fair, contrasted mine with perfect beauty. Like we were made opposite just to be brought together. Two sides of a coin. Two polar extremes of a magnet.
My mouth dried. He stilled.
“Shay—”
His voice rumbled with a playboy’s confidence, the smooth jazz of a man who knew what he liked and got it every time.
But not this time.
I couldn’t let him do this to me.
Not again.
New life rule. Zach was a sin, even worse than the cardinal ones, if they made it. Blue-jay maybe. Or, since he was an American soldier, Bald Eagle Sin.
In any case, Zach Harden was completely off-limits to me. Forbidden. And I had one way to make sure he left my life forever.
It wasn’t every day a girl could recover from her mistakes with grace. It was an even rarer day she could buy redemption. I had the money. I had the opportunity. I would spend as much as I could if it meant banishing my greatest mistake. Enough was enough.
“I’m moving to the mansion,” I said. “But once I get my trust, I’m buying your half of the estate from you. After that’s done, you’ll have no reason to contact me again.”
“Fair is fair.” Zach leaned close. “Though I think you’re missing a great opportunity.”
“For what?”
“To fall for me.”
I met his gaze, just as hard and deliberate as the rest of him. “I would rather lose every penny to my name than fall for you.”
“Say the word. You can get me for free.”
I laughed. “Cherish your memories. That’s all you’ll ever have.”
“Those are some priceless memories, baby.” He grabbed a packed box from the floor, but nearly dropped it. His fingers trembled. He cracked his knuckles and tried again, lifting it without a problem. “Are these going?”
“Put it down.”
He winked. “I’ll take it home for you. But don’t be late. I’m ordering dinner for seven.”
He grabbed another box on the way out.
Great. I was barefoot, and every pair of shoes I owned was packed in the box he carried outside. My panties scattered in his wake.
I groaned.
Living with Zach would be living with pure temptation. Either I’d throttle him or I’d…
I didn’t let myself finish the thought. There was no other alternative. We could tolerate each other in a semi-peaceful truce and that was
it
. No ordered dinners. No falling for him.
And
no
reason for him to have stolen my favorite pair of black panties!
I rifled through my suitcase and checked under the bed. Gone. God, he
was
a pervert.
I fumed.
He had it right. He deserved every part of his nickname.
Living with Zach was going to be
H-a-r-d.
Chapter Seven – Zach
The mansion had a lot of perks. The gym. The pool. I even got myself a king-sized bed.
But a bed like this wasn’t for sleeping. I could think of much better things to do on it.
But the one woman I wanted
in
the bed was the one who wanted nothing to do with me while horizontal.
Good thing I was just as proficient when vertical.
I kicked my duffle bag into the closet. This wasn’t a room that deserved a mess on the floor. The bed had eight fucking pillows. Who the hell used that many pillows? Or a quilt that looked like someone stretched and ruined a scarf then tossed it over a corner. They painted the ceiling with cherubs, and mismatched marble and granite in the fireplace.
It was all my mother’s doing, as was most of the décor in the house. If Shay noticed the mansion transitioned from eighteenth century France to nineteenth century Venice, she said nothing. My mother transformed the estate into journey through history. We were lucky she hadn’t require powdered wigs and cummerbunds to enjoy it.
I couldn’t fault her style, even if the bleach in her hair scrambled what she thought looked classy. At least Mom and Darnell had been happy before the end. She wanted a guy with a bottomless wallet to take care of her, and he liked them blonde and pumped full of silicon. Match made in Heaven.
I wished them well and then headed overseas. It wasn’t my place to judge and, hell, I didn’t have time for family. But life had a funny way of trapping you in an ambush and splitting your flesh with two pounds of explosive shrapnel. Fate spoke to me, saying
slow down
or
bleed out
. I woke from surgery with my mother talking about diamonds, tulle veils, and destination weddings. Took her two days and one seizure before she asked which of my organs didn’t make it back from Iraq.
Par for the fucking course.
My head pounded. The bed looked good, but so did the stack of weights in the basement gym and the salt-water pool. I needed to do both.
I kicked the pillows off the bed instead.
I didn’t need this luxury. I got used to lying in two inches of standing water and sucking mud in the middle of monsoons. I once laid motionless for twenty-two straight hours in the stinging desert waiting for a target to slip from the hut where the fucker traded children for God-knows-what. And that night was
comfortable
compared to other assignments.
And now I owned a king-sized bed with a remote that controlled the television, lights, stereo, climate settings, and security systems.
I even had a panic room.
A SEAL.
In a
panic
room.
Unless an intruder planned on locking me inside of it, the fucker messing with me was in more danger—even while I blinked away headaches.
A headache that was getting worse.
“Fuck it.”
I yanked my shirt over my head and kicked off my boots. Pretty sure there was a hamper somewhere in my room, but damn if I cared.
I collapsed on the bed, feet kicked over the side. Close enough. The migraine came on strong. I clenched my eyes shut, but that didn’t do shit. I flopped over into the remaining pillows and buried my head. That was better. Darker at least. Comfortable.
Except for my namesake.
Christ.
I shifted. My cock didn’t. Hard didn’t begin to describe it.
I spent entirely too much time thinking about Shay, and I wasted even more concocting a crazy excuse for a chance to see her again.
Christ she was pretty when she got mad.
Shay was the kind of beautiful you hallucinated after a blow to the head. And she was the one girl who’d make me swallow my tongue before I thought of something clever to say.
Like…
I probably should have told you I was your step-brother before I fucked you
. That might have helped. Keeping it secret rubbed her the wrong way…which was ironic since our problems started when I rubbed her the
right
way.
I couldn’t get her out of my head or the blood out of my cock. I hoped my headache would temper my reaction, but if Shay’s hatred hadn’t swayed me, nothing would.
She didn’t know it yet, but the SEALs trained me for intricate games of cat-and-mouse. I lived for the hunt. And after I caught Shay? I’d make sure she was both
stuffed
and
mounted
.
If she didn’t kill me first.
“Get out of my bed.”
Fuck.
The pounding headache only just started to yield. Figured. I gritted my teeth and rolled. Didn’t make it up, but I bluffed anyway. I patted the pillow beside me as my vision cleared.
“You could join me.”
“Are you always such an asshole?”
“Do you always burst into people’s bedrooms uninvited?”
I tucked my arms behind my head. My lovely intruder fumbled with a suitcase packed with more panties than a sexy woman like her ever needed to wear. She was pissed. That only made it more fun. I got off on making everything a war with her. She wound up too easy and exploded with all the subtlety of a grenade.
Last time I checked, she didn’t have that big of a stick up her ass. Still, watching her squirm amused the fuck out of me, even if it ruined my chances to glimpse that perfectly delicious backside.
“This is the
master
bedroom,” she said.
I grinned. “Didn’t know you were into those types of games.”