Busted Steel: An Age Gap Stand Alone Romance (Steel Crew Book 6)

by Mj Fields

  “You sure you should be blowing off college for this, Brisa?” he asks.

  “I planned on traveling for a year anyway. Plus, you blew off college for a couple. She’s my sister; we’ll be fine.”

  He scowls. “Fine isn’t good enough for you.”

  “Well, then I’m better than fine, because it was less of a fight with my parents this way, and it’s Tris, so none of you boys are gonna be around to twat swat.”

  “The fuck?” Patrick laughs uncomfortably.

  The fuck is right, I think, gripping the mug so tightly I hope it doesn’t shatter.

  Taelyn laughs. “I think it’s the female equivalent to cock blocking.”

  Brisa smirks. “Yeah, she knows.”

  “Three brothers; I know all too well.” Taelyn shuts the oven. “Just be safe and be careful.”

  “Mom, this is Brisa.”

  “Oh, please,” Brisa huffs.

  “She’s always known what she wants, this one.” Momma Joe walks into the kitchen. “L’amore, l’onore, il rispetto.”

  Brisa leans up to her grandmother, who Brisa traits after more so than the others, kisses her cheek, and whispers, “E il buon sesso.”

  I make a mental note to google translate that shit.

  Josephine throws her head back and laughs. “Why, of course.”

  “What’s so funny?” Max asks through a yawn as he walks in.

  “It’s a beautiful day, the birds are chirping, the sun is shining, and the girls and I are hitting the spa. What will you boys be doing?” Momma Joe asks before kissing one cheek then the other.

  “Matteo is taking us to an art exhibit.” He smiles big and fake, obviously not impressed.

  “I’m pretty certain that it’s his exhibit, so do your best to pay attention.” Momma Joe kisses his cheek again.

  This must be why the men are accompanying the ladies today. I almost laugh at the fact that the younger guys got stuck going to the museum until it hits me that I’m now stuck doing the same shit.

  I look at Patrick, who also looks less than impressed. He hasn’t hidden the fact that he’s not happy that Tris’s little affair turned into what appears to the world an epic-slash-taboo love story, obviously dependent on whose opinion you’re hearing.

  “I’m meeting a friend for drinks tonight.” Brisa smiles at her mom as she walks in.

  “Oh, well, um, do you want Ranger—”

  “No, absolutely not,” Brisa interrupts. “I’ll only be gone for a couple hours. I’m an adult and—”

  “But if you’re drinking, then maybe—”

  “Alonso can drive her,” Momma Joe interrupts. “We’re not going anywhere tonight.”

  I see a wicked grin come and go all too quickly from Brisa’s face, and I’m immediately on high alert.

  I tap out a text to Patrick and send it.

  Me: Wanted to make sure we get together to have a few celebratory drinks for getting through the past couple years before you head back. Tonight works for me, if you’re up to it.

  Patrick Steel: Perfect. One last hurrah.

  Northern Fights

  Ranger

  Leaving Italy, we’re heading toward the frozen equivalent of what I assume hell will be like—a smorgasbord of perfectly cooked prime rib you can’t quite reach to get a fork in, and pussy that sparkles, but you’re literally only allowed to put “just the tip in,” thanks to all the assholes in the world who made that promise so they could slide in. I’m a mile high in the air, seated next to Brisa Steel, who has had her perfect little nose in the air for two days, pretending I don’t exist, even when asked a direct question.

  After the night I got head-butted by the kid who I want to pummel but coincidentally can’t until he turns eighteen, yet I can sway Max Steel, who I’m assuming will be running shit at Seashore Academy in the fall, to set up a fight where I will train the little fuck’s, Marc, opponent for free and sit front row to watch him get pulverized … But I digress. The point is that I no longer see Brisa as a fifteen-year-old little girl. I see her as a thorn in my side, just like the barely legal little snobs I’ve been hired to basically babysit over the past several years. Except, she’s not my charge, and I have no business whatsoever feeling obligated to treat her as such, yet I still do.

  What’s worse is that she cut her ass-length, thick, black waves into a badass shoulder-length bob, so now she looks older than her nineteen years. Shocked the fuck out everyone when she came back from the spa.

  It was also the night she met “a friend,” aka Dr. Salvatore, for “drinks.”

  Patrick and I ended up at the same place.

  Coincidence? Not a fucking chance. The man is a snake. Her father is distracted, and who the hell can blame him? So, I did what I do, and it was … a fucking mistake.

  It was a mistake to sit there and watch a man look at her like she’s a woman, which she obviously is. It was a mistake to watch him take in her beauty and behold her confidence and serious as fuck sex appeal with blatantly hungry eyes. It was a mistake to get pissed that she was enjoying his company, his attention.

  It was a mistake that she straight-up showed me, and yeah, kind of told me that she was sick of being treated like a kid, and I made a joke of it. It was a mistake, my mistake, because four years ago, she was a kid, even though she didn’t quite come off that way, and kids make mistakes. And here I am, not accepting her apology, because my shit, my hang-ups, my past, doesn’t allow it.

  That’s all me, not her.

  She is fucking stunning, and smart, and sassy, and kind. She’s no doubt a woman, and I’m no doubt being a douchebag, and after the other night, seeing her look at that doctor like she’s been looking at me since the night in the vineyard, add a shot of lust and a shot of jealousy to that cocktail of emotions, and it would no doubt be toxic.

  “I feel your cold, soulless, arctic eyes boring into the side of my head. If I get a brain freeze because of it, I’ll find some comparable kind of torture to inflict upon you when you least expect it.” Her whisper is laced in annoyance.

  Fuck, I think, looking forward before she opens her eyes and confirms her suspicion.

  When she hits my elbow with hers, I lay my head back against the seat and ask, “Like what? Making me sleep in an igloo for four nights next to two fuck fiends in Norway, trying not to freeze my nuts off while I look at a big green nightlight in the sky?”

  “I’m sure we can find you some teeny-tiny little earmuffs to keep them toasty,” she says without pause or thought.

  “Perfect. Can we get them in blue to match—”

  “Your balls?”

  “Get your mind out of the gutter, Miss Steel.”

  “Oh, trust me; when you’re around, it’s not anywhere nearly as pleasant as the gutter.”

  “Ouch.” I place my hand over my chest. “That hurts. And here I thought we’d made amends.”

  “Yeah?” she asks, sitting up and turning toward me. “What in the world would make you think that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know … saving you from getting nailed by a man your father’s age, who, by the way, frequents a gentlemen’s club called Queens House, ran by a bunch of dominatrix, weekly.” I turn and look at her. “Which means he pays to get his ass spanked and probably has a few diseases floating around in his mostly dust-filled sac of saggy old man balls.”

  “Did you think I was going to give it away for free?”

  I sit straight up. “The hell did you just say?”

  She sighs and leans back, closing her eyes. “Stay out of my lane, Ranger. My plan has always been to find beauty and myself on my travels. No one’s going to stop that.”

  “You trying to find yourself in Dr. Dickwad?”

  She turns and looks at me but doesn’t say a damn thing.

  “It’s a six-hour flight. Just making conversation.”

  Rolling her eyes, she turns away. “Didn’t take you for a bullshit artist.”

  “Never have been one.”

  “Then ask t
he question,” she says quietly.

  “Just did, and you swayed.”

  She looks back at me. “Ask me if I fucked Dr. Salvatore.”

  “I don’t have to ask; I know you didn’t.”

  “Oh, that’s right; you and Patrick were on my date.”

  “Sorry, not sorry.”

  “Well, thankfully, you won’t have a wingman, and you’re not invited when he meets me in two days. He’s actually excited about seeing the Northern lights.”

  “I call bullshit.”

  She pulls a white fur blanket out of the bag on the floor in front of her and spreads it out over her lap. “I don’t have to explain myself to you, but I will. I had shitty sex, at best, with my longtime boyfriend, and it got me through a really crap-tastic year. I’m in for a few rough months, and if I choose to get down with the doc to take my mind off reality, then you bet your ass I will. If he’s not as good with his hands as I imagine, and doesn’t know how to please a woman, I’ll move on. If I want to choose some rando local in all the places we’ll be traveling, I can. That’s my choice. You can spank it in the shower for two months if you want to, or do the same. That’s your choice. Adulting.”

  “Random fucking isn’t adulting, Brisa.”

  She looks back at me. “No?”

  “Fuck no. It’s not safe for a woman like you.”

  “You can’t seem to see past the mistake of a fifteen-year-old girl who had a crush on a hot guy and fed off his confidence enough to pull up her little girl thong and kiss him. So, tell me, what do you know about me as a woman?”

  “I know you have a heart big enough that you are doing something for a sister who, on the surface, treats you like shit, but desperately wishes she was just like you. And I know you feed off other people’s feelings, so when Dr. Dick-tastic falls head up his ass in love with someone as young, funny, full of life, and as beautiful as you, you’ll fall for him, too. And when he gets the urge to have his ass beat, or … fuck, who knows, maybe fisted, and you can’t get down like that, he’ll be paying for it behind your back, and that will break a heart he should have never in a million fucking years had.”

  Her eyes ping-pong between mine as if she’s seeking the truth, and then she shakes her head. “Then you … he …” She quickly turns her head, facing forward, sits back, and clears her throat. “You should know, I didn’t fall in love with the boy who said those three words to me daily, because I knew they weren’t real, and Salvatore won’t fall in love with me. He knows what I’m looking for. I told him.”

  “You told him you wanted to what? Get off occasionally?”

  She looks around. “Would you quiet down, for God’s sake?”

  I hadn’t realized I’d raised my voice, but apparently, I did, because the fuckwad across the aisle is smiling at her.

  “Turn the fuck around,” I snarl at him.

  “Oh my God, do I need to have my seat changed because you don’t have the balls to admit you want me?”

  “Holy fuck, would you be quiet?” Tris and Matteo are only two rows ahead of us.

  “Yes,” she huffs as she leans forward and pulls out a set of earbuds. “Yep, I sure will.” Pushing them into her ears, she looks at me. “Oh, and one more thing, you can’t see the Northern lights until September at the earliest, so your balls are safe. We’re going to hike and stand on top of Pulpit Rock. We’ll be staying at a lake house for four nights. Dad should have given you the updated itinerary. We’re checking in under an assumed name when we stay anywhere, just to be safe. I’m not a child, and I’m not stupid.”

  “Never said you were.” My tone is clipped, for more reasons than one.

  One, I didn’t deny I wanted her, and two, I don’t drop the ball. And when Zandor handed me the itinerary, I just assumed it was what I had been given the night before.

  Thankfully, Brisa doesn’t fight me on driving the rental car, which is more than I can say for anything else, including carrying her bag and leg room on the flight.

  Norway is definitely everything I thought it would be, and nothing that I wrongly assumed Brisa Steel would want to visit.

  For the entire twenty-minute drive from the airport to the house on the Lysefjord, Tris asks a million questions about the waterways, and Brisa, clearly having done her homework, explains that the Northern Atlantic connects with the Norwegian Sea, that a fjord was made when the glaciers moved through, and that Pulpit Rock was high above, overlooking the same fjord the rental house is on. Tris thinks it looks an awful lot like the scenes in a Viking series that Brisa was apparently obsessed with after she’d gone through her Sons of Anarchy phase.

  Brisa quickly adds that it has a Game Of Thrones feel to it, as well, and changes the subject, rambling on and on about the other sites available, like the oldest cathedral in Norway, something about oil museums, but mostly about the nightlife and getting a real taste of the area, hanging out where the locals gather. I’m not sure if she’s intentionally trying to get under my skin, or if it’s me, and the fact that, yes, I’m wildly attracted to the young woman who is sexually deprived and more curious than she should be when it involves the risks she seems to be willing to take. The fact that I obviously love longer hair, and that she’s more attractive to me now than she was when it was hanging to her ass …

  When we get to the house, I’m shocked at how small it is, and the fact that it isn’t a five-star hotel.

  There’s a code for the door, and a key lock inside the small but nice home, directly on the water, like step out onto the patio and look either left or right and you see the spectacular view of the cliffs surrounding the waterways.

  The master bedroom is upstairs and takes up the entirety of it. The smaller bedrooms downstairs are smaller than closets in comparison to what both Brisa and Tris are used to, and only one has an actual double bed. The other has a bunk bed. And to make quarters even tighter and more uncomfortable, one of the bathrooms, the one downstairs, has a shower that I’m sure no one any bigger than Brisa, let alone a Viking, can get into.

  I quickly set up the security equipment, window and door alarms, as well as outside surveillance while they all unpack.

  “How about you two go find a grocery store, grab some supplies, maybe scour the area for restaurants for takeout, and let us break in the bedroom?” Tris grins up at Matteo.

  “Okay, yeah, sure. We’ll do that. You have twenty minutes. Then I’m coming back here and taking a million pictures of the sunset.”

  Norway

  Lysefjord

  Brisa

  If I wasn’t highly in tune with Ranger, I would have missed the fact that there are tiny, little cameras placed everywhere. I’m unsure of why he’s being so overly cautious—no one even knows we’re here. As a matter of fact, during last night’s family dinner, where Dad was on edge, and so were my uncles, we were all told that, as far as anyone outside the family is concerned, and what we were all to say, is that Tris and Matteo are in Spain for their honeymoon. I was asked not to post pictures until we left one destination and were at the next. Of course, I agreed not to.

  When I asked Dad, in private, why they were being so over-the-top, he tried to act cool, but I could tell something was going on.

  As soon as Tris and Matteo head upstairs, I ask Ranger, “Why all the extra bells and whistles?”

  “It’s kind of my job,” he says, reaching above the doorjamb, his shirt lifting enough to show the slight V and a very lickable happy trail.

  Fuck me, I groan inwardly then shake off my inner wannabe sex goddess.

  “Dad was acting weird, and now all this. If you know something that I don’t, since I’m basically an employee, too, I think I have the right to know, so tell me.”

  “You’re off the clock,” he says, now bending down to grab a black bag, his dark denim jeans gripping his rock-hard muscular ass.

  As he stands, I look from his sexy as fuck form and toward the kitchen.

  “And you’re”—hot as hell, I think, but try to keep on task�
��“avoiding the question.”

  He turns, pulling his phone from his pocket and tapping on the screen. “We’re online, so let’s head out and get some staples.” He pushes his phone back into his jeans. “You need a few minutes?”

  I look down at myself, still in leggings and a tee-shirt with the cardigan I wore over it on the flight. “Do you prefer I throw on a full face of makeup and dress in—”

  “Just expected you’d need to be camera-ready.”

  I turn to grab my wallet. “Note to self: Ranger prefers divas.”

  “Has nothing to do with me,” he says as I walk past him.

  “Good. Then let’s go.” I walk outside, annoyed and wondering if this constant change in climate is what hot flashes will feel like when I get older.

  God, I hope not.

  “Does Tris still eat Pop-Tarts and cereal all the time? And drink coffee like an addict? Because, if she does, that’s not what she should be eating, and she should avoid alcohol—it causes depression.”

  “Matteo has a strict whole food diet. Since we came back from your graduation, she’s been following it, too.”

  “You were at my grad—” I stop, clear my throat, and redirect. “High in Omega 3s?”

  He pulls off the road, throws the vehicle in park, and then turns and looks at me. “What you’re asking of me is too much.”

  Heart racing, I swallow hard then word vomit all over the place. “It’s not like you don’t want me, and I’m not a kid. It’s sex, not love or dating or anything like that.”

  “I don’t do love, I don’t date, and just sex is what you had with that twit you took to prom and Miles. I fuck, Brisa. I fuck with no other objective than to come. I fuck without a cuddle session that ends with a pre-orgasmic nap or a kiss goodnight. I fuck people who don’t want dinner and a movie, romance and flowers, with no promise of a round two.”