Smug Bastard: A Hero Club Novel

by Stacey Marie Brown

A stab of terror pinched my ribs, a panicked response of never seeing him again.

  “I know I probably don’t deserve a moment of your time, but I’m asking you to listen.” His statement was pleasant enough, but his body and tone were hard. Demanding. Firing desire through my nerves.

  “When have you ever asked before?” My voice came out husky.

  “This might be a first.” A sexy smirk lit up his face, melting my insides.

  I took a few moments, a debate volleying in my head, greedily absorbing the sensation of his weight, his body touching mine again. He was like an addiction I tried to quit, but the temptation of tasting it again, luring me back, was far too powerful to resist.

  “You get the walk to the park,” I said evenly, our mouths only inches away.

  Another beat and he stepped back, the cold air attacking the empty places he had been, making me shiver.

  He picked up Goat’s leash with a nod, letting me lead the way. We walked in silence before he spoke.

  “You didn’t make it easy to track you down.”

  “I didn’t want you to, but sounds like you have an ally in my family.”

  “It took more convincing than you think. I think jail was less scary than your mother’s threats.”

  I flinched, tucking hair behind my ear.

  “You said Becca’s in jail?” I peered at him.

  “She was sentenced a few weeks ago. Very minimal sentence. I’m thinking because of the baby.” The blade twisted in my chest looking away. “She’ll probably be released far sooner than she should. Bryan got much longer.”

  I stayed silent, my gaze on the pavement.

  “Shit, where do I start?” he muttered, pausing to let Goat sniff a bush and pee, Smith’s gaze moving over me. “I know what Becca told you at the wedding… the only truthful part was, yes, I was arrested and put in jail, but I was set up. Little did I know my ol’ buddy Bryan was a swindler. He embezzled money from other companies before, but it was little, not enough for him to get caught. When we started our company and he and Becca started an affair, they came up with a plan to use the business as a front to launder money. Of course, he didn’t plan on getting caught, but greed started to dictate him. He was smart though, made sure all the evidence pointed to me. Both of them testified against me in court, acting like I had totally betrayed them.”

  “What?” I blurted. “She accused you, and you still let her come back into your life?” Slept with her? Got her pregnant.

  “She performed her part well. She played the unknowing, distraught wife who was shocked and grieved that her husband would commit such a crime. But I still didn’t trust her and felt betrayed she so easily turned on me, but at that time I wasn’t completely sure of her role in it.” He licked his lips. We strolled down the street, Goat’s sniffing keeping us at a slow pace. “It wasn’t until four months ago, when Becca came running to me, everything came out. Bryan had been arrested, caught trying to steal money from another guy. That’s when I discovered they were partners in bed and out. He told the police she was his accomplice.”

  My jaw dropped, my hand going to my mouth. “Wow.”

  “They had a twisted relationship. I’m still not sure who is telling the truth. According to him, she was the one leading the scams. From her, she was blackmailed and manipulated by him.”

  “What do you believe?”

  “Neither. Both.” He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter to me anymore. They have been caught, and I can finally move on.”

  I shook my head, not able to fully compute his tragic story. His best friend and the wife he loved more than anything, betraying him so deeply. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Not something I wanted anyone to know. I spent three years in jail coming to terms with it. I just wanted to move on.”

  “I know, but I still…” What did I feel? He was obligated to tell me? That I was different and he should have confessed this secret?

  “I’m not much of a sharing kind of guy, only to very few do I let it out.” He’d always been like that, even as a teenager. Silently taking his father’s abuse, acting like he was fine. “And you and I? Well, I really didn’t want you to know, not even earlier, that I had been locked up.”

  “Why?”

  “At first because you were Kyle’s baby sister, and I thought after the trip I’d never see you again. You were just a girl who annoyed me when we were young. But when I saw you and we started to spend time together, it became more because you already had such a bad opinion of me. Hated me, if I recall.” He peered down at me. “I guess I felt it would only confirm what you already thought of me. Not that I could get much worse now.”

  “You’re right; you can’t.” I let a smile curve my mouth, our eyes catching.

  He smirked, his head dipping. We crossed the street to the park, watching Goat run around.

  “I thought about you all the time,” he said hoarsely, watching Goat chase after a squirrel. “My friend was about to drive me up here himself so I’d stop being such a bastard.”

  My chest filled with emotion, not able to respond.

  “Kinsley.” He touched me.

  “No.” My throat and eyes burned. “I can’t do this.” I backed away. “I can’t do this with you… nothing changed.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because.” I nipped my lip. “You’re still having a baby with her.

  “Kins—”

  I thought I could handle that…”

  “Kins—”

  “The baby should be your priority.”

  “Kinsley!” He put a hand over my mouth, a bewildered smirk on his face. “Fuck. Let me get a word in, okay?” He waited until I nodded then dropped his hand. “I thought you understood… Guess I didn’t make it clear. I’m not the father… Bryan is.”

  “But—”

  “She just wanted you to think I was. We haven’t been together in more than three years.”

  “She said…”

  “And you believed it,” he replied.

  I did. Taking the tiny morsel she showed me, I filled in the rest. So used to being hurt, I instantly accepted the bad, turned Smith into another asshole, when I shouldn’t have taken Becca’s statement as the full truth.

  “I don’t want to think or talk about regrets or the past. That’s not why I came here.” He swallowed, peering down at his boots. “I came here because when my lawyer called me late last night with some news, I found myself in the car heading for you, hoping I wasn’t too late.”

  My lids fluttered, my head turning to the side.

  “Kinsley?”

  “What was the news?” I still couldn’t look at him, trying to keep my voice steady. I stared at the famous Painted Ladies, the row of houses famous from TV and movies.

  “My divorce is official.” He cleared his throat. “He was able to push it through faster than normal because of her being sentenced.”

  My lids squeezed together, my heart flipping and aching at the same time.

  “Kins…” He turned to me. “You were the last thing I thought would happen or I’d even want right then. Besides my life being such a fucked-up mess, and not looking for a relationship after what Becca put me through, you were Baby K… Kyle’s sister,” he rumbled under his breath. “But fuck, woman, from the moment I saw you, I knew I was in trouble. Everything about you has crawled under my skin and consumed me. Made me fucking nuts. I spent so many nights over these past months thinking about you or wondering about if my bike hadn’t broken down or I hadn’t agreed to Kyle’s foolish idea to drive across country with you. The thought I’d never have known you, your smile, or laugh… the way you taste, cry out my name, or feel when I’m inside you.” His fingers gripped my hips, spinning me to him.

  I inhaled sharply through my nose, heat blazing down my torso to my core.

  “It made me so insane.” His grip tightened. “That trip was the best time I’ve ever had. I had just come from the worst darkest place in my life, bitter, angry. But being with you
made it all disappear. I laughed and smiled, no longer hating, but had hope…”

  “You just got divorced, barely got over Becca.”

  “You don’t get it. Becca never came close to making me feel what you do. In a strange way, I feel all this shit was leading me to you. Deserve it or not, I don’t care. I want you, Kinsley. The thought of losing you made me realize something.”

  “What?”

  His eyes blazed with hunger as he pushed me into tree, pinning me there with his frame; the feel of his erection pushing against me made me gasp.

  “It wasn’t just the idea of wanting to be inside you again.” He breathed against my ear, trailing down my neck to my breasts, flooding my system with desire and need. “It was knowing I never wanted to leave.” His mouth grazed my neck. “I never not want to be inside you… around you. Near you.”

  He tipped his head back. “Wherever you are, I want to be.”

  “Shhh.”

  He blinked at me, his brow furrowing.

  A wicked smile curved my mouth. “Too much talking.”

  A vibration came from his chest as his mouth crashed down on mine, claiming and demanding.

  I had no idea where life would take us or what was ahead. All I knew was I wanted to be with this Smug Bastard.

  And a dog named Goat.

  Epilogue

  Smith

  (2 years later)

  “Hey.” Her voice floated through the air, snapping my gaze up to the woman in the doorway, a smile on her face, a look in her eyes that usually led to me clearing my desk with her body as I sprawled her naked figure over it.

  “Hey.” A smile I could never fight when she was near, curled my mouth.

  “What are you doing?” She leaned into the doorjamb of my home office. Most days my office was out at a building site.

  “Just finishing up these contracts before we take off.” I straightened in my chair, stretching my back. Sitting behind a desk was my least favorite part of my job, but when you were owner of your own company, it was simply part of the deal.

  Only a year and half old, my construction company had taken off. It was growing so fast that I knew I would have to hire more employees and possibly get a business manager. I liked being outside and building more than being behind the desk, but my past left me very hesitant to let anyone else step in.

  “You know, I still haven’t gotten payment this month for my residuals.” She sauntered into the room, a coy smile on her face. “The business plan, the PR, the logo.” She arched an eyebrow, prowling around my desk in her tiny shorts and tank.

  Fuck, this woman could undo me in seconds. A hum echoed in my throat as I grabbed her hips, pulling her onto my lap, her legs straddling mine.

  “You think you deserve residuals?” My thumb rubbed her cactus tattoo, which turned me on every time I saw it, knowing our story was marked on her body.

  “The logo itself gets you more work than you know what to do with.” Kinsley leaned into me, her mouth brushing mine, her hand tugging at the buttons of my jeans, getting my dick hard in a blink.

  She wasn’t wrong about the logo. The offhand idea she had come up with that one morning in New Orleans more than two years ago was on billboards, magazines, bus stops, and TV. My workers all wore T-shirts with the logo, which got us more business. Kinsley proposed the idea of hiring “hunky” men, her words, not mine, as my construction crew. Of course, I first went for experience, but in Los Angeles, there were more good-looking guys with excellent resumes than I thought. I hired women too. I was certainly not sexist or discriminatory, but I had no doubt the Hollywood-wife type liked a bunch of hot guys building her lavish she-shed.

  My business was flourishing so fast I could barely keep up.

  When I told Kinsley I was serious about starting my own company, she hesitantly showed me a business plan she had come up with in one of her marketing classes. She was embarrassed because it was completely for me, but she came up with it when we weren’t together. Of course, it made me want her more because of the business plan, loving the idea she was thinking about me even when she thought the worst of me and didn’t think she’d ever see me again.

  Two years together and we still couldn’t get enough, having sex every opportunity we got, sometimes so loud Chance would chuck a soccer ball at our window. Though they were as bad, I felt sorry for our other neighbors. They probably wished they had obnoxious college kids who threw loud parties instead.

  After San Francisco, I let Kinsley decide where she wanted to go next. I would make whatever or wherever work. We went up to Seattle for a month, but the rain ended up getting to her. We traveled around for a bit and ended up back in Hermosa Beach. The moment she stepped inside my house, Goat leaped up on the sofa like he had done it all his life, she grinned at me. “We’re home.”

  Meeting Chance, Aubrey, their baby, and Mutton solidified it for her. Aubrey and Kinsley had become fast friends, and oddly both “goats” loved playing together.

  Kinsley ended up getting a job at a new boutique PR firm in Santa Monica. It was small but had a good list of clients, now including SB Construction. She loved it, which was all I cared about.

  We had been working so much that we planned a two-week vacation, taking the RV on a reunion tour with Goat, visiting some of the places we did the first time and discovering new ones. Our destination was New Orleans, staying a few days before heading back. Kay was mad we weren’t coming up to visit, but I wanted this trip to be just about Kinsley and me.

  Kay and Liam were completely happy for us. It took Kyle only a moment to accept his friend being with his younger sister, but Kasey still wasn’t my biggest fan. She was getting better, at least pretending she was happy that Kins and I were together.

  After this trip, she would have no choice but to accept me, since I would hopefully become officially part of their family.

  The ring was tucked away in my bag. I had no plan, though I liked the idea of proposing in New Orleans where we got together, but who knew? Maybe between jumping out of a plane in Colorado or skinny-dipping somewhere in the Rio Grande.

  That was what I loved about us—we took things as they came, pushed and challenged each other, never staying in the lines.

  “You owe me.” Kinsley’s voice brought me back to the present, her hands sliding into my boxers, her thumb rolling over my tip, forcing a grunt from my throat. Wrapping my hands in her hair, I yanked on the strands, bringing her mouth to mine.

  “I lost my checkbook.” I nipped her lip, my fingers working her shorts. “Any other way I can compensate?” My fingers slid through her folds, both of us hissing. “Shit, Nettles… already so fucking wet.”

  “Smith. Noooowww.” She tore at my jeans as I tossed her up on my desk, yanking off her shorts and tank, spreading her legs. We never seemed to get enough, always so desperate for each other; it would take us two or three times in a row to calm down. There were countless times we barely got in the door. Actually, several times we didn’t—on our lawn, against the shed in the middle of the day. Another time we had soccer balls volleyed at us from over the fence.

  Kinsley and I were the story that was never supposed to happen, a sequence of events that shouldn’t have been, chances that could have turned a different way with a simple choice.

  But as I sank into her body, with the feel of her around me and my need to be deep inside her, I saw our paths were destined for each other.

  The nerdy baby sister who could see right through the smug bastard.

  And owned his soul.

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  About the Author

  Stacey Marie Brown is a lover of hot fictional bad boys and sarcastic heroines who kick butt. She also enjoys books, travel, TV shows, hiking, writing, design
, and archery. Stacey swears she is part gypsy, being lucky enough to live and travel all over the world.

  She grew up in Northern California, where she ran around on her family’s farm, raising animals, riding horses, playing flashlight tag, and turning hay bales into cool forts.

  When she’s not writing she’s out hiking, spending time with friends, and traveling. She also volunteers helping animals and is eco-friendly. She feels all animals, people, and the environment should be treated kindly.

  To learn more about Stacey or her books, visit her at:

  Author website & Newsletter: www.staceymariebrown.com

  Facebook Author page: www.facebook.com/SMBauthorpage

  Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/s.mariebrown

  Twitter: @S_MarieBrown

  Instagram: www.instagram.com/staceymariebrown/

  Twitter: https://twitter.com/S_MarieBrown

  Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/author/show/6938728.Stacey_Marie_Brown

  Her Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/1648368945376239/

  Bookbub: www.bookbub.com/authors/stacey-marie-brown

  Acknowledgements

  A huge Thank You to:

  Penelope Ward and Vi Keeland for allowing me to be part of this Cocky World!

  Mo and Hollie for always making my work readable!

  Steamy Designs for making a gorgeous cover!

  All the readers who have supported me through PNR and Contemporary Romance: My gratitude is for all you do and how much you help indie authors out of the pure love of reading.

  All the indie/hybrid authors out there who inspire, challenge, support, and push me to be better: I love you!

  And anyone who has picked up an indie book and given an unknown author a chance. THANK YOU!