Hate F*@k:Part One (The Horus Group #1)

by Ainsley Booth

  I don’t like Cole. But I do like his hungry gaze.

  I think I like it a lot. So I lick my lips.

  His mouth crashes into mine at the same time as his hands slide through my hair. He’s shaking as he tastes me, and I have this vague realization that he’s holding back. Screw that. If this can’t be anything more than a one-time-only taste, I want all of him. I nip at his lower lip, which I think he likes because he makes this grunting noise that my body responds to on a primal level.

  My nipples tighten, making me aware of how heavy my breasts feel against my bra. Deep inside my pelvis, something tugs, freeing my inhibitions.

  I bite him again and he rewards me with the same noise, louder and longer this time. He rocks me backward, sliding one leg between my thighs, and I can see how biting him might have been a mistake.

  The kind of mistake that leads people to get naked against their better judgement.

  Cole shudders, then he’s all over me, like he needed that second sink of my teeth into his flesh to confirm consent. I get that. He kisses in a way that needs consent, that makes you feel like you’ve been stripped bare and fucked hard. This kiss is going to leave me achey and satisfied, even though the bare part can’t happen.

  It can’t happen. I’ll keep telling myself that.

  Our tongues tangle as I wind my arms around his neck, and his hands start to roam. First his fingers drift along the V-neck of my sweater, raising goosebumps across my chest. I desperately want him to cup my breasts and thumb over my nipples, but I know that’s beyond the boundary he’s set. I shudder as he slides his knuckles down the outside of my shirt, blazing matching trails along the sides of my boobs that I very much want him to re-trace with his mouth.

  As his hands land on my hips, I’m suddenly self-conscious about how wide I am there, but he’s squeezing and it feels good and he’s still kissing me. My mind flashes to that glaring look he gave me right before we collided, and instead of casting doubt on what we’re doing, it revs me up.

  “Fuck yeah,” he mutters, his voice gravelly and deep as I slide my mouth to his neck, tasting the warm, tight skin. I want to devour him, and he seems okay with that. His breathing slows, like he’s trying to control it. I want to make him lose that control, but I’m not the only one playing with fire. His fingers toy with the bare skin at my waist, between my sweater and my generic stretchy black dress pants. Big hands. Strong, warm, calloused fingers. I almost wore jeans today. Never before have I been so lucky in a wardrobe choice, because I can feel all of him pressing into me and it’s burning me up in the best way imaginable.

  Tentatively, I lick down the valley between his Adam’s apple and the corded muscle that flexes as he tips his head to the side. Between my legs, his thigh bunches and shifts. His hands slide back over my hips and onto my butt, and all of a sudden he’s lifting me.

  I’m a big girl. People don’t just hoist me in the air, but Cole’s got me settled on the counter before I can say, “Don’t strain your back,” so I don’t. Instead I give in to the delicious thrill of being kissed like he just can’t help himself.

  He settles into the V of my legs, his erection throbbing between us and he slows his kisses as if to say, if we were two other people, we’d do a hell of a lot more. But we’re not.

  “You’re still distracting me,” he says quietly after tracing my lower lip with the tip of his tongue.

  “I don’t mean to…” I trail off, leaving my lips parted in invitation, but he just looks at me instead of closing the gap again. Fear holds me back from pushing in for another kiss. I’m not sure what the rules are here.

  “I have to go.” He’s got me securely in his arms, but I feel like this is the end, that he’s rocked my world with the sexiest kiss ever and that’s it, and all of a sudden, I’m filled with a different kind of emotion.

  Sadness.

  Fuck off.

  I shove that prickly bitch back into the pit of my stomach where she belongs, and I nudge his face with mine. He nudges me back, heat zinging between us, and then it’s all wet and hot and delicious again.

  But there’s more this time, it’s hot but it’s also heavy. Too heavy, and I feel myself getting mad. Who the fuck is he to kiss me like this, make me feel like this, when it can’t go anywhere?

  I pull back, my lips still swollen from his bruising kisses. He chases my lips for a minute, not realizing that we’re done, but we are. I need to be the one to stop this time.

  It’s like dragging myself blindfolded through mud. Putting distance between us is strangely disorienting when sparks are still firing in all directions and every cell in my body is saying, ditch work and drag him into your room before he realizes what he’s doing.

  “I didn’t mean to—” he starts at the same time as I make a dismissive sound and cover my face with my hands.

  “Don’t worry about it, faces bump all the time,” I mumble through my fingers. “You should go.”

  He makes a noise I can’t quite decipher, and after a beat I feel the absence of his body heat as he moves away from me, then the door knob turns, the hinges squeak, and he’s gone.

  I said it. And yet I’m standing here, wishing like hell I hadn’t just pushed him away, because kissing Cole Parker was like winning the make-out lottery.

  Too bad I’m never going to do it again.

  —four—

  Cole

  Outside Hailey’s apartment, I stand on the landing for thirty seconds. Twenty to get my shit together and will my erection away, and the last ten talking myself out of heading back inside.

  Kissing her was a stupid move. I didn’t mean to do it.

  I’ve thought about it for months and done everything I can think of to cock-block myself. Dated other women to drive the thought of her mouth from my head. Stepped back into the shadows at the handful of events we’d happened to both attend. Watched her with other men—men nothing like me—and told myself to get a fucking clue.

  Downstairs, Wilson is patiently waiting for me. He looks up from his phone and smirks. “Did you forget we agreed on video surveillance for the apartment?”

  Fuck me. Not patient at all, the fucking perv. “Destroy that.” I close my eyes. “No. Download it onto a USB stick for me. Then destroy it.”

  “Seriously, you want to wank off to it? You’re an idiot.”

  “Fuck you.” I take a deep breath. I don’t know why I want it. I don’t need video of what is probably just her heels on my ass to get off. I’ve got the memory of her tongue licking along my lips and her teeth against the skin on my neck. I’m good. But I still want the video.

  “And stop the video surveillance.”

  “You trust her?”

  “More than I trust you, asshole.” It was a lie. I’d trust Wilson with my life, as much as I would Jason or Tag. But it scrapes at me that I forgot for a second that his eagle eyes were always watching—that just a few hours earlier, I’d asked him to put that surveillance into place.

  And all it took was Hailey yelling at me across her kitchen for my blood flow to head south and make some dumb-ass decisions.

  I’m not going back to her place. I do have will power, and I’m able to bury what I want when it’s for a greater good. What’s good for Hailey is me, far, far away from her.

  But just in case. “And sweet talk yourself back in there and remove the cameras.”

  “And what should l tell her…?”

  “Tell her nothing. Tell her you want a fucking knitting lesson. Tell her you need to babysit her until after we figure out a plan of attack for the media. I’m heading back to the office to meet with Jason.”

  Wilson shrugs, his slightly-too-long hair flopping in his eyes. He does apathetic disturbingly well, part of his everyman presentation. I’ve seen him be everything from a gamer geek to a blue collar construction worker. I’ve also see him in the underground fighting rings. Nothing everyman about how he pummels bulkier men into the mat.

  Floppy hair my ass.

  “Thanks
,” I mutter, shaking his hand.

  Twenty minutes later, I pull into the underground parking garage beneath our offices. We have the second and third floors of an office building between Dupont Circle and Adams Morgan. Shiny enough to impress our clients, but not quite institutional K Street. Also, close to my condo, which is really all I care about. I stop at the coffee shop on the ground floor and get lunch, telling myself I’m not postponing the inevitable lecture on professionalism and priorities from my business partner.

  I’m lying, because Jason is waiting to pounce as soon as I step into our reception area on the second floor. I should have just gone straight up to my office on the third.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” he spits at me, and I ignore him.

  Instead I nod at Ellie, our receptionist. She gives me a wincing smile that says he’s been pissed for longer than the half hour it took me to get here from Hailey’s place. I let out a long, slow breath, and wag my coffee at the stairs. “Let’s go do this in private.”

  He waits until we get upstairs, then lets loose. “Tag? You gave Morgan Reid to Tag?”

  Oh. “That’s what you’re pissed about?”

  “Tag’s a fucking bull in a china shop. Shit. I spent most of the morning apologizing for him.”

  “Did he make Amelia and Taylor happy?”

  “Only because one or both of them want to fuck him.”

  I sigh. “And we know that’s not going to happen, right? So who cares how pissed Morgan gets?”

  “He’s the one paying our bill.”

  This is delicate ground. Jason’s half-brother Mack is a silent investor in our firm, and Jason has a legit oar in wanting to always stay in the black. On the other hand, I don’t give a fuck about money, not the same way he does. Plus we’re plenty profitable. “Then you should have gone yourself.”

  “I did. But he’s your client.”

  “I don’t want him as my client.” The half-year-old tension simmers between us. Truthfully, neither of us is right or wrong. It’s fucking shades of gray and Jason wasn’t pushing me for selfish reasons. Between the two of us, he’s more the good guy. Hell, he’s still working for Uncle Sam, even if it’s in a dark and unseen way.

  But it wasn’t fucking right, what we did. Not then. And that truth has eaten at me for six long months.

  I don’t care where the order came from.

  Jason grits his teeth and glares at me. “Is that why you’re fucking his daughter?”

  I don’t even feel my coffee slip out of my hand. He says the words and I’m in motion, one fist grabbing the front of his shirt, the other cracking against his jaw.

  He’s like a brother to me, so I stagger back after that one shot. One too many, but I couldn’t help myself.

  “You done?” he asks slowly, glaring at me from under pulled together eyebrows. His voice is quiet as he rubs his jaw. Nobody does Disappointed Dad quite like Jason.

  “It was one kiss and Wilson has a big fucking mouth.” There’s no point in staying pissed about it. Part of me knew I’d be coming back to this conversation. But I’m prickly—too prickly, which would be Jason’s point if I let him make it.

  “No secrets, remember?” It was our promise to each other when we started the firm. It’s how I know that Jason still does covert work and Tag has a sometimes on-again, mostly off-again affair with his ex-wife. Wilson…well, the no-secrets rule has weird asterisks when it comes to our resident spook. But he tells us what he can, and Jason vouches for the rest.

  “Fine. What do you want to know?”

  “Why her?”

  I can’t help myself. And that’s the problem. That’s always the problem with relationships. They’re a distraction. They make men weak.

  “Fine, don’t answer that. Is it out of your system?”

  Memories from that first night we were called to the Reid estate slide forward in my mind, offering themselves up as if I need a reminder that Hailey’s been under my skin for six long months. I don’t. “Leave it alone.”

  “She’s not your type.”

  I clench my fists, and shove them in my pockets so I don’t punch him again. Jason’s known me for eleven years. I know he’s not talking about her curves, because in that respect, she’s definitely my type.

  He’s talking about her heart. And he’s right.

  “You’ll break her.”

  “I know. I’m not going to kiss her again.” But that’s not good enough, just saying it. I have to push her away, and I know exactly how to do it. “Really. I’ll take care of it.” By being a bastard. “Tell me about the plan of attack for Taylor.”

  Reluctantly, Jason lets me change the subject. He outlines the interview with People magazine—“the fewer words the better”—and the lawyers are already on retainer. Unless the Vice President was completely honest about the affair, it’ll be likely that the House of Representatives would find a way to impeach him.

  Taylor Reid, Washington party girl, might bring down the man who thought he was eighteen months away from being the next President.

  It was a good thing the Reids didn’t have any political aspirations, because they’d just destroyed their own political party with what would surely be a protracted scandal.

  “Please tell me we have a plan to find other women he’s slept with.”

  “Wilson’s got his interns on it.” Three computer nerds at Georgetown who’d latched on to our friend after he’d spoken to their class. Whatever turned their crank.

  “Not a bad day’s work before lunch, then.” I vaguely point at my desk, only now remembering I dropped my coffee. I swear under my breath and Jason laughs at me. “I’m not sorry I punched you.”

  He sobers up fast. I’ve said too much, because I’m restless and frustrated, but that’s the thing about the brothers you choose. They forgive a lot, and they understand you better than you understand yourself. Thank Christ for that. “You can’t start something with her, Cole. There’s no way that ends well. I’ll take a few more hits if that’s what it takes for you to remember who you are.”

  “One step up from a hired gun.” I can’t keep the resentment out of my voice.

  “We’re fighting the good fight.”

  I shake my head. I’m not sure there’s any good left in this world, except for in the beautiful delusions of the innocent. Like Hailey.

  And that’s why I need to break her heart now. Not because of what I am, but what I believe—and what I can’t because I’ve seen too much.

  Done too much.

  Hurt too many.

  Been hurt. I shove that thought away even as I recognize that’s probably more true than all the other shit. Hailey’s the kind to care with a capital C. That the thought makes my hands tremble and my stomach turn is even more reason to slice the ribbons of want between us before she gets any crazy ideas.

  —five—

  Hailey

  The last few days have spun past in a blur. Taylor’s been on TV a lot, but the press has lost interest in me. I even went to work yesterday, and spent earlier today at the spa with my baby sister Alison.

  We didn’t call Taylor.

  Alison wanted to. I gave her my best stink eye and she changed the subject.

  Now I’m on a date, although Trevor Waters, junior advisor for the junior senator from Texas, has spent more time in the lobby on the phone than next to me in our seats at the Kennedy Center.

  I know I’m privileged to be here, that this isn’t a once in a lifetime experience for me. But I can’t help long for more. Something hot and intense, but a little less fucked up than whatever I’d flirted at with Cole.

  This is a date set up by my well-meaning but not-really-thinking friend Becky. Just because Trevor and I both like opera doesn’t make this a good idea. For one thing, it could only be a good idea if both of us were actually present on the date.

  A date I’d gone all out for, even though my heart wasn’t in it. Black velvet halter dress, tight through the waist, thanks to the best corset mo
ney can buy. My boobs look great, not that Trevor would notice.

  I sigh to myself. The truth is that he’s missing in body. I’m checked out mentally. That’s not better. I don’t even care if he’s into me, because even though he’s attractive enough—tall, slim, nice haircut, good teeth—he’s just not my type.

  It’s a sad state when my only nerves about going on a date are whether or not the press will hound me with annoying questions, and not whether or not there’s going to be kissing at the end of the night.

  I applaud with the rest of the attendees as the lights go up for intermission, then head out to the terrace in search of my absentee date. Or alcohol. I’ll take whichever I find first.

  It’s cold outside, and I don’t see Trevor anywhere. I head inside, hoping he can find me at the bar, when my skin prickles with awareness. I sense Cole a moment before he speaks, and it bugs me how I suddenly don’t feel alone. Annoyed. Alive and raging, sure. But no longer lonely. It’s an awful trick my mind is playing on me, because if there’s anyone who will abandon me, guaranteed, it’s the man behind me.

  “You’ve got your socialite rags on, Hailey.”

  I whirl around, telling myself it’s to lay into him. How dare he slide that silky voice all over me like we’re intimate. But when I collide with his gaze, I’m the one left doubting…because he sure looks at me like, at least on some level, we already are. My lips certainly remember something that felt like a hell of a lot more than an accidental collision of mouths. My ears remember his filthy words lighting me up from the inside out.

  He wants me. Why, I can’t quite understand. How, when we don’t even like each other, we can be ten feet apart and it already feels like we’re halfway through foreplay…I don’t understand.

  I don’t like not understanding. I don’t like anything about this, especially the part where it ends. I like the absence of our vicious dance even less than the mess of it. How screwed up is that?