by Madison Faye
Wilder
The growl caught low in my throat — a deep, primal, animalistic sound that rumbled through my broad, muscled chest.
She was late. And we’d been over this. In this house, there were rules, and when rules were broken, there would be punishment.
So far, I’d — we’d — been lax on that front, and that was what the root of this problem was. We’d allowed her insubordination and rebelliousness to grow, unchecked and unpunished.
Not anymore.
But then, this wasn’t just about “punishing” her, or keeping her in line, and I fucking knew it. Lincoln and I both knew it, even if at that point, we hadn’t spoken it out loud, even to each other.
This was about lust. This was about wanting her willing obedience and her sweet submission. This was about wanting to claim and dominate every single square inch of her sweet young body. I’d been hiding it away since the day she’d fucking arrived, but no longer.
I couldn’t take anymore. I doubted any other red-blooded man could’ve taken what I’d held strong against for an entire month. No way. No man could resist temptation like that.
Not with Mackenzie.
Kenzie had arrived at my house a month before that day, dropped off by the Child Protective Services from two states over, even thought she’d already turned eighteen. Just. She had a full ride to the state school here — paid for in advance by a rich aunt or grandmother or, fuck, I don’t even know who, before they’d passed. And after CPS had taken her away from my deadbeat sister and Kenzie’s deadbeat father, they’d decided it was in her best interest to remain with family until she started school.
That’d be me.
You could call her my niece, but she wasn’t — not really at least. I wasn’t really “family” to her — not in the blood relations way, thank fucking God. Kenzie was my sister’s dipshit boyfriend’s kid. Her dad and my sister were never married, and she was his kid from some other chick anyways, before he and my dumbass sister had gotten together like a match made in hell. Those two were like Syd and fucking Nancy, without the rock music or the fame. They were junkies, and when they’d been busted a week before Kenzie’s eighteenth birthday trying to rob a pharmacy for Oxy, that’s when CPS had stepped in.
The dickbag boyfriend had no family, and the only family my sister had left was me. Since I also happened to be, for one, not a fucking junkie, and two, very very wealthy, I guess the state just made the decision that family or not, I was a far better choice than “the system” for Kenzie.
I’d said yes over the phone, glancing at the picture they’d emailed over of the gawky little ten year old I’d seen maybe twice, and probably not since the picture was taken.
Big. Fucking. Mistake.
Because if they’d sent a picture of her the way she was now? Yeah, hell no. I’d have taken one look at eighteen year old Kenzie Gates and seen how monumentally stupid it would be to invite a girl like that to live with a guy like me.
Because Kenzie Gates had grown the fuck up.
Hard.
Because the girl who’d been standing on my front porch next to the social worker when I’d opened the door was five-foot nine inches and one-hundred and eleven pounds of pure. Fucking. Temptation.
Long, auburn hair, pouty, coy pink lips, and big, sultry blue eyes that screamed “bait.” All legs, small, perky tits, and a tight little ass that was begging for someone to take a bite out of it. Curvy hips, and a flat, supple little tummy that’d been peeking out from under a belly-shirt that first day and hadn’t actually stopped ever since.
She’d been here for one month, four days, and eleven hours. And I’d been hard as steel for her for one month, four days, ten hours and fifty-nine and a half minutes.
Constantly.
I gritted my teeth and glanced at the Cartier watch on my wrist.
Late. I growled again, feeling the blood roaring like fire inside of me. I couldn’t take it anymore, and I couldn’t deny myself any longer. That night, I wouldn’t be denying myself any more.
I knew it was wrong — so very wrong — but I didn’t give a shit. Not anymore. Not after swallowing back the lust, and need, and the raw desire to make her mine for so long. Her tight, hot little body made me crave her, and the teasing, flippant, bratty way she sashayed her way around this house had had me living on edge for a month.
And she fucking knew it. This wasn’t some innocent girl who didn’t yet understand the effect she had on men. Nope. Kenzie was a grade-A, flirty, bratty, barely-legal little cock-tease, and she fucking knew it.
And on top of all of this, it wasn't just me she was teasing…
Lincoln was my best friend in the world — a man closer to me than a brother. We’d served together way back. We’d started Hammer and Spark together afterwards, and when we’d sold the mercenary contractor outfit we’d built with our bare hands to another, bigger, company and cashed out, we’d both gotten filthy rich together.
I’d bought my enormous house immediately, but Linc was in the middle of custom building his dream home. And since it was close to mine, and since my place was almost literally a castle, he’d spent the last few months living with me.
…Including when Kenzie had shown up.
So, yeah, the whole thing would’ve been bad enough if it was just me that she was fucking with, and flashing her tight little body to while wearing next to nothing all the fucking time. But it was Lincoln too.
And like I said, the little cock-tease knew exactly what she was doing, to both of us. She was pushing her fucking luck because she knew I was hesitant to act because of how hard she made me. And she knew it was the same damn thing with Lincoln. Staying out late, missing curfew, fucking off on all the summer workload she had before she went off to college in the fall — she’d gotten away with murder the last month.
But the buck was going to stop that night.
No more of me being a pussy pushover, and no more of her getting away with it. The little brat had pushed me too far. And that night, I was going to take matters into my own hands.
There was the rattle of keys in the front door, and I glanced at Lincoln across the kitchen island, seeing the hard, heated look on his face, which mirrored mine.
“Easy, Wild,” he growled, his jaw tight.
I shook my head, hearing the front door kick open.
“No.” I tensed, my muscles bunching, my hands clenching to fists, and my cock throbbing rock fucking hard between my thighs.
“No more easy with her. Tonight, we’re doing it the hard way.”
2
Mackenzie
I knew I was in trouble the second I got home.
Good.
My pulse hummed in my ears, my skin prickling with the unknown of what might happen there that night. My core tightened as I jammed the key in the lock, ignoring Justin’s honk in the long driveway behind me and the squeal of his tires as he drove off frustrated, pouting like the little boy he was, and probably nursing a serious case of blue balls.
Also good.
I wasn’t going to put out for a whiny jerk like Justin Carson. I never was going to, even if I’d let him take me out that night. But going out with the rude, douchey quarterback from the local college that night hadn’t been because I wanted to go out with him, it’d been because I’d pretty much exhausted every single other idea I’d had.
…It was because I’d already done everything else to try and push the man — or, really, if I was even ready to admit to myself yet, the men — I’d been lusting over for over a month into doing something.
Anything.
I’d never been like that before he’d opened the front door that day a month before. I’d never lusted over a guy before. Actually, I’d barely ever been interested in any guys before. Because guys my age were dicks. Or nervous, stammering wimps. Or petulant, immature, handsy, clumsy assholes.
Or all of the above, mostly.
I knew there’d been times when I could have just “gotten it over with.” I’d considered it — ju
st going to one of the asshole jocks in school, or even one of the fumbling awkward guys and just getting it out of the way so it wouldn’t be hanging over me like this big neon “virgin” sign. But I never did. I’d made out with two guys — horrible experiences both of them. One of them had tried to get a hand up my skirt, but that’d stopped pretty quickly once I’d decked him in the face.
I’d spent most of high school fending for myself anyways — finding my own food, and clothes, and money any way I could, since Dad and Stephanie were basically MIA most of the time. I hadn’t had time to get all goo-goo over boys like other girls might’ve, because I was too busy making a counterfeit cafeteria card to get a second lunch to sneak home for dinner, or too busy stealing tampons from the drug store. Or, somehow, studying and working my ass off so that I could actually get in to the college that Nana had apparently set up a trust for me to attend.
But, all that had changed when my father and Stephanie decided to up the ante and go full Bonny and Clyde. I’d just graduated, and I was just about to turn eighteen when CPS had showed up with the cops and taken me away. I wasn’t sad to leave — I’d already done that part, over and over and over again, over the years of my dad basically pretending I didn’t exist.
The CPS lady had told me to pack a bag, and then we’d jumped in a car and driven eight hours straight, to here. Stephanie had a brother, apparently, and he was apparently rich. The CPS lady hadn’t said much, aside from that he’d been in the military and that he’d owned some sort of company that worked with the Government.
Wilder Banks.
I’d rolled my eyes — he sounded so boring, and I imagined some weird, nerdy-looking accountant type shut away in some big house like a weirdo. And the place we’d finally pulled up to eight hours later hadn’t helped my impression very much. I mean, it was beautiful — this castle-like stone mansion surrounded by gardens and a forest. But still, all I imagined was the weirdo cooped up inside I was about to live with until college started.
…And then he’d opened the front door, and everything changed. Wilder Banks wasn’t some nerdy, pasty, agoraphobic weirdo. Wilder Banks was a fucking hunk.
He was gorgeous — like, movie-star gorgeous, with dark eyes, dark hair with just a hint of silver at the temples, and a chiseled jaw covered in dark scruff. His crisp white button-up shirt was open at the neck and rolled up over his forearms, pulled tight across bulging, rippling, tanned muscles and gorgeous swirls and lines of tattoo ink.
And he was huge. I mean, I was pretty tall for my age, and for being a girl, but Wilder towered over me — his broad shoulders stretching that shirt tight. His eyes had trailed over me, his jaw had clenched, and his hand had tightened fast on the doorknob. And something fierce had flashed behind those dark eyes. Something hungry.
It’d lasted one second, and then suddenly, it was gone, and he’d spent the next month pretending it’d never happened. But I remembered.
God did I remember.
Wilder wasn’t the only surprise that day. My heart racing and my whole body tingling with the very real, very adult feelings raging through me, I followed this insanely gorgeous man into his insanely gorgeous home. And then I’d met him.
Sandy-brown hair, piercing blue eyes, a clean-shaven, squared jaw like some sort of cowboy, and a look of pure heat on his face the second I’d stepped into the living room. But then, just like with Wilder, it was gone — blanked from his face as if it’d never been there, even though I knew what I’d seen.
He was just as tall, and just as perfectly built as Wilder, too. Broad, muscled shoulders, a hardened chest, and thick biceps that bulged at the corners of the plain black t-shirt he wore. Tattoo ink swirled down one arm, and I felt an exact repeat of the thrilling sensation I’d just felt at the front door slam through me all over again.
“Mackenzie, this is Lincoln Reece, my business partner and best friend. He’s staying in my guest quarters over the summer while they work on his house. Ms. Smith, I believe your offices have already okay-ed the arrangement based off his credentials.”
The CPS agent had just beamed at this insanely attractive man and nodded, blinking quickly as she fawned all over him and told him that yes, of course, CPS was already aware of Mr. Reece living on the premises and saw no trouble with the arrangement.
Holy shit.
Yeah, there were two of them. One the uncle who wasn’t really my uncle, and the other his equally and absurdly good looking friend. And I was going to spend the next three months living here with them. Somehow, CPS had decided that a ragingly hormonal, extremely curious, and red-blooded eighteen year old girl was totally fine living with two extremely good looking, extremely single, extremely not-related-to-her men was a good idea.
…I was not about to correct their thought process on that.
And then she’d gone, and suddenly, this was my world — living with two staggeringly good looking, rough, sexy as sin men for the next three months.
The sass — my sass — had started almost immediately, even if I wasn’t even really sure why I was doing it. It would have been so easy to just be normal around Wilder and Lincoln, or at least it should have been easy to. But somehow, it was impossible for me to be “normal” around them. I mean, Jesus, how the hell was I supposed to be normal around that?
So instead, I’d put up my walls and my armor, and retreated into my back-talking, question-authority attitude. They’d taken it in stride — I mean, I guess they both knew my backstory. And I guess we would have spent the next three months in that little standoff, if it hadn’t been for that day — the day I’d told them I was going out, but then hadn’t.
…The day everything changed for me.
3
Mackenzie
He’d been panting and sweating when I’d bumped into him that day — every muscle on his gorgeous body bulging at his workout clothes as he stepped out of the home gym. I could smell the manly, intoxicating scent of him, which did all sorts of insane things to my body and my hormones. But I’d pushed all that back, swallowing thickly as I’d given him the same attitude I’d been giving him and Lincoln since I’d arrived.
“Going out?” he’d growled, his eyes sliding wickedly over my cut-off jean shorts, hiking boots, and tank top. Wilder’s estate occupied like thirty acres of woods, and I’d come to really like going out for hikes on some of the trails.
I’d shrugged, hoping to God he couldn’t see the way he made my body shiver or made my cheeks flush.
“Yup. See ya.”
I’d turned on my heel, but suddenly, I’d felt his hand grip my arm tight and tug me back around. I gasped quietly, my heart jumping into my chest as I’d whirled to come face to face with the gorgeous, brooding man who’d occupied every single piece of my fantasies since I’d arrived. He’d never really touched me before, and the feel of that strong, powerful hand on my skin had me melting for him.
“How about a little fucking respect, Kenzie,” he’d growled, his jaw tight as his eyes had burned right into me.
I’d shivered, swallowing the heat from my face.
“What, I’m just saying I’m going out. Do you need it in writing?”
“I need it nicely,” he’d growled, and suddenly, he stepped right into me, making me gasp as he backed me right into the wall behind me. His eyes burned fiercely into mine as he moved close. His hands went to the wall next to my head, like he was pinning me to it, and it took everything I had to stifle the whimper caught in my throat.
“How about ‘I’m going out for a walk’?”
“I’m going out for a walk,” I mimed back, rolling my eyes.
“I’m going out for a walk, what?” he’d growled.
“You’re not my dad, you know.”
I don’t know why I decided to say it, but it was what he said back that set the entire thing in motion. A dark look flashed across his face — the same dark look I’d seen all the other times I’d sassed him or Lincoln, and the same dark look that sent a jolt of pure electricity d
irectly between my legs.
“No shit,” Wilder growled under his breath before he suddenly lowered his face to mine, making me gasp quietly.
“Trust me, Kenzie. We would not be having this conversation if I was your daddy.”
Daddy.
Just like that, for the first time ever, the word hit me like a blaze of heat right through my core. It hit me like a teasing, wicked touch right between my thighs, and suddenly, I was more turned on, more turned around, and more wet than I’d ever been before.
He’d moved away from me, turned, and stormed right back into the gym, leaving me breathless, and aching for more.
…Yeah, I never made it out for a hike that day.
Instead, I’d run back to my room, through the huge, castle-like home. And I guess my mind was still squarely on Wilder mentioning being my daddy as he all but pinned me to the wall, because I didn’t realize I was walking past the doorway to Lincoln’s quarters until I heard the shower running.
I stopped, my heart still hammering in my chest and my pulse still roaring through my ears as I suddenly heard something I’d never heard before.
…Rough, growling, manly groans of pleasure.
My entire body shivered with heat, and I came to a stuttering stop outside the open doorway. I could feel my pulse hammering inside my veins as I turned and looked inside.
And there it was again.
“Oh fuck yeah, baby.”
Lincoln’s deep voice growled out the words, and my whole body tingled with forbidden heat. Did he have a girl over or something? Actually, the entire time I’d been living there so far, I hadn’t seen either of them even go out, let alone bring someone home. I trembled, listening to his rough growls and feeling the things those sounds were doing to my body, until slowly, I started to move.
I stepped towards the doorway, the thump-thumping of my heart beating like a drum in my ears as I pushed the door wide and glanced inside. Lincoln’s huge guest chambers were empty and immaculately clean but for some of his clothes draped across the king size bed. The groan came again, and my eyes darted across the room to the wide open door to the ensuite bathroom.