by Karr, Kim
Oh, yeah.
Fuck, yes.
Sliding back down under her, I thrust my hips forward. “By lunch, I mean a delicious piece of meat, of course,” I told her with a grin, and then I took my dick in my hand, practically serving it to her. All I needed was the silver fucking platter.
I wasn’t a complete selfish prick. I had morning wood and if she insisted on tending to it, who was I to stop her.
Happy birthday to me.
Besides, it wouldn’t be long before she wouldn’t be able to make that much noise.
As if on cue, her mouth hit the broad tip of my shaft and she sucked on it like I was a cherry Popsicle.
Blocking out everything around me, I stared down and watched as she deep-throated me. I wasn’t certain what this chic did for a living; I think she told me she was a yoga instructor. Or maybe it was a physical therapist. Either way, I had to wonder if she wasn’t a closet porn star. This brunette knew how to give head and the thought of dismissing her no longer tempted me.
Small sacrifices for the greater good.
I watched as she slid my cock in and out of her hot mouth.
In and out.
And she was on the mark by playing with my balls at the same time.
“That’s it, baby. Just like that.” I grabbed ahold of her with my palms to guide her, slowing the pace just a little so I could enjoy the silence a bit longer.
“Oh yeah. That’s it, take me all the way, baby.”
And she did.
In and out.
In and out.
Over and over and yet I felt not much more. When I tighten my grip on the back of her neck, she used her teeth, and fuck yeah, that got my blood pumping.
“Harder,” I told her, my voice heavy.
The fact that I wanted to fill her mouth wasn’t what had her unsealing her lips from my cock though, but rather the undisputed dinging of the elevator door announcing someone’s arrival.
What the fuck?
An uninvited person had used the elevator to my penthouse. This building had a doorman, the elevator a code. I hadn’t cleared anyone to come up, so no one should have been allowed.
The orgasm that should have blossomed fizzled out like a dud firecracker. The brunette had stopped all that tongue-action and was looking up with a quirked brow. “Did you invite someone to join us?”
Now that would have been a great idea.
“Tyler!” The raspy voice crawled under my bedroom door and into the space in my mind I had set aside for this intruder.
Muttering, “Fuck,” I took my time getting out of bed. When I had both feet planted on the wood floors, I grabbed for pink toe’s clothes and tossed them to her. “It’s time to get dressed, baby.”
“Who is she?” the brunette asked, stunned. “Your wife or something?”
With a shake of my head, I grabbed the Hennessy bottle on the dresser and took a long swig, and then another, and another, and one more. Lowering it from my mouth, I sneered, “The Wicked Witch of the West,” and strode toward the door. Then I offered flatly over my shoulder, “And you need to leave, now.”
“Tyler!”
Stark naked, I swung the door open and sauntered toward the railing. Feeling the buzz, I peered down. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
Wilhelmina Madeline Fox Holiday might have legally been my grandmother, but she was no little old lady with a nurturing soul and kind heart.
At sixty-eight, she looked more like fifty-eight and wished she was forty-eight. All botoxed, tucked, tanned, and bleached blonde, she glared up at me. “Happy birthday, Tyler.”
My disdain for her was hard to curtail. “You drove all the way down here to tell me that?”
She set her Gucci bag on my never-once-used kitchen table and pranced over to the European coffeemaker I hated. “I tried to call you first.”
Right, that call from earlier.
After another sip of the amber liquid, I offered, “I know, and I didn’t answer. Wasn’t that a big enough hint that I didn’t want to talk to you today?”
“Well, if you would have picked up, you could have spared me the trip to the city,” she said, opening a cupboard to pull out a bag of beans.
I gripped the banister with my free hand. “We don’t meet with the lawyers until Monday at four, and I already told you I’ve arranged to video conference with them, so what do you want?”
“I came here to bring you home.”
Feeling the buzz whisking through my veins, I laughed. “You’ve got to be joking.”
Pushing the button to turn on the contraption she bought for me, my step-grandmother glared up. “No, Tyler, I’m not. I’m dead serious. You have to come home.”
This time my response was as bitter as her favorite espresso. “Wilhelmina, I think you’re growing senile in your old age because in case you’ve forgotten, you don’t control what I do or don’t do. And in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not a kid anymore, either. I make my own decisions now and if I wanted to come back to Calistoga for my birthday, I’d be there.”
Grabbing a cup, she set it on the pedestal beneath the spout. “Yes, I can clearly see you’re not a kid anymore, so how about you stop acting like one and put some clothes on? Then come down here so we can talk in a civilized manner.”
The laughter that fell from my mouth was undeniably wicked. “Civilized, now that’s a joke.”
“Tyler, I’m serious. We need to talk, now.”
“That would mean I’d have to stop what I’m doing, and I don’t really think I want to stop fucking.”
Okay, perhaps I wasn’t exactly being a grown up at the moment, but my rebellious side never could stay quiet when she was in the room.
“Don’t be crude.” With a press of the button, the sleek espresso machine whirled to life, spitting out the exquisite dark fluid that I had no doubt would taste like liquid gold to her. Too bad she’d given the contraption to me and I’d never bothered to get rid of it.
“But, Grams,” I taunted because she hated when I called her that, “I only have you to thank for what I am.”
Over the soft sound of grinding beans, she said, “Tyler, I hate to inform you, but I didn’t turn you into a party boy. You did that all on your own.”
The tension in my jaw released. “Yes, I think for once we can both agree.”
She sighed, and her frustration became evident. “Can we please stop this? I didn’t come here to trade insults.”
“And I didn’t invite you. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m busy.”
The disappointment in her glare was all too familiar. “Messing around with some random woman whose name you probably don’t even know really should be the last thing on your mind right now.”
With a lift of my brow, I taunted her. “On the contrary, dear old Granny, it’s the only thing I need to be thinking about today, and her name is—” I stuttered for a moment. What the fuck was her name? “Rita,” I finally said when it came to me.
As if on cue, said random girl came storming out of my room. “It’s Greta. And you’re a real asshole.” She scowled at me as she stomped down the stairs. “Don’t bother calling me.”
Okay, I thought, I wasn’t going to anyway. It wasn’t like I’d asked her to leave her number.
Whatever.
The insult made my grandmother smile in triumph like she’d just won the argument.
She hadn’t.
Still, the whole situation was really pissing me off.
I didn’t give a fuck about that girl or what her name was, and I didn’t give a fuck that Wilhelmina had decided to honor me with her presence on my birthday. It was a little too late for family sentiment.
As soon as the door closed, Wilhelmina slowly pranced over toward the staircase with her cup in her hand and stared up at me with that same fucking expectant smirk on her face.
Beyond annoyed, I pointed to the door. “One slut down. One to go.”
“Tyler, stop the insults right this minute.”
> Why did I always feel like I was seventeen again whenever I was around her? “I will as soon as you leave.”
She shook her head, and her voice wavered a tad when spoke. “This isn’t how I wanted to do this.”
“Do what?” I groaned, hating that I allowed her to pull me in to whatever drama she’d come here to stir up.
Tension managed to line her botoxed face when she said, “California Jane is on the verge of bankruptcy, and I’m here because I need your help to turn it around.”
Now that made me want to put my pants on.
Tyler
I STARED AT the bottle of Henny.
Funny how things can change so quickly. One minute your up, the next your down. And I was down all right.
The fact that California Jane was in trouble and I didn’t fucking know anything about it left me speechless.
Sitting at my kitchen table for the very first time, I ran my hands down my face. My emotions were a maelstrom of turmoil.
I was confused.
I was upset.
I was fucking pissed.
The truth of her deception coupled with my own ignorance left me trembling to the bone.
Numb.
Questions shot like a pistol at a target range through my brain. How did I not notice I hadn’t seen any financial statements all year? And why the hell had I been so self-absorbed in myself to see the company wasn’t performing well?
Sure, we were outsourcing product, but the equipment had been slowly being updated and functioning well. Okay, so yeah, the marketing was a bit outdated and the brand had lost some of its luster from long ago, but failure hadn’t been spray painted on the walls for fuck’s sake.
Stupid.
The truth was times had changed and we hadn’t kept up with the pace, which is why I’d been relentless in the idea of pursuing other boutique labels.
No wonder she wasn’t interested.
But this—keeping the near collapse of my family’s legacy from me—it was more than irresponsible of her—it was shameful.
As hard as I tried, there was no containing my fury over the blatant omission. I couldn’t shake the blistering anger echoing in my ears with every word she spoke.
After she laid CJ’s situation out in one big, fat, messy picture for me, I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths and then practically barked, “How could you have let things get so bad?”
She looked into her coffee cup. “I didn’t realize they had until it was too late and even then, I still thought I could turn things around before your birthday,” she answered.
A blinding fury rushed through my veins and I pounded my fist on the wooden surface so hard her espresso flowed over the rim. “You thought?” I barked. “You just thought you could turn numbers like that around?”
“Yes, I did.” On an exhale, Wilhelmina set an almost pleading expression on her face, like she knew I was about to blow and was begging me to calm down.
When my disposition remained harsh, she used the spill as an excuse to escape my wrath. Getting up, she slowly walked toward the sink. “You know in the ten years I’ve been running California Jane since your father passed away—”
“Passed away?” My voice was hard when I interrupted her. “He didn’t just pass away and you know it.”
That sympathetic look she always got on the few occasions I allowed the topic to be discussed entered her eyes and I scowled at her. Shutting that memory down for the both of us as fast as I could, I snapped, “Go on.”
After taking a breath, she continued. “You know the company has experienced its fair share of ups and downs for quite a while. Still, somehow, I’ve always managed to push through the tough times and come out stronger.”
“Until now,” I gritted.
Wilhelmina stopped wiping up the liquid with a paper towel and met my harsh stare. “Yes, until now. But I have a plan.”
“And let me guess—this plan involves me moving back to Calistoga?”
She nodded, and when she did, she dropped her gaze. It didn’t matter, I’d already seen it—the slight trepidation that appeared in her eyes.
I knew Wilhelmina Holiday, and I knew she never hesitated to go after what she wanted, so I had to admit, I took a moment to gloat.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I lifted both brows and glowered at her. “And what else does it involve? Me donating a kidney?”
Her gaze lifted and she met my stone-cold stare dead on. “Don’t be ridiculous, Tyler. Nothing like that.”
“Then what?”
“All you have to do is marry Paris Fairchild.”
My shit-eating grin instantly faded. “You can’t be serious?”
“Yes, I am.”
“No fucking way is that ever happening,” I snapped at her.
I had three hers in my life. Three women whose names I couldn’t stand to say out loud so I referred to them as her. There was the older her, the middle-aged her, and the younger her.
Wilhelmina Madeline Fox Holiday was actually more than my step-grandmother. She was also my step-mother but that cluster fuck of a story was for another day.
Audrey Miller, the middle-aged her, was the unwed vessel that delivered me.
Then there was the younger her, Paris Elizabeth Hollis Fairchild. She was my old high school flame and number one on the list of hers of whose names I couldn’t stand to taste on my tongue.
“Listen to me—” Wilhelmina insisted.
I cut her off. “No, I won’t. You’re insane. You’ve officially lost your fucking mind if you think I’m going anywhere near that woman. You know I can’t stand her.”
Pleading with me, she went on. “Tyler, you need to let the past go. Let bygones be bygones. It’s imperative that we join forces with Highway 128. It’s the only way.”
Shaking my head, I spoke with an edge to my voice I couldn’t hold back. “Just for pure entertainment value, I’m going to ask, why them?”
Her gaze showed nothing but determination. “Because they still have their vineyards and proximity wise, combining with them is a no-brainer.”
Looking to the ceiling, I rubbed the scruff under my jaw and tried to keep my shit together.
Right.
A no brainer.
“Look, Tyler,” she sighed. “They aren’t doing any better than we are after the fires. In fact, they would be doing even worse if it wasn’t for that tasting room of theirs. We might have lost our vineyards, but they lost their equipment. Without capital, once their inventory depletes, there’s no way they can stay afloat.”
The fires.
The damn raging fires that roared through the valley last year did that much damage to their business and they hadn’t attempted to fix it yet?
I had no idea.
Fuck.
I knew we’d been outsourcing our grapes, compromising on quality, taste, and paying a higher price, and I had accepted that we had to wait until this month to correct things. But that acceptance was before I knew money was an issue.
How the hell could we restore the vineyards?
Without cash, there was no way the rejuvenation of the acreage could possibly be underway. The future looked bleak. Capital would be needed to sustain the higher cost of product and obviously, we didn’t have that. Then again, neither did Highway 128.
Confusion creased my brow. “Joining forces with them doesn’t make any sense,” I muttered, still reeling from the mere thought of her crazy suggestion.
“It makes perfect sense.”
“How’s that? You just said they’re about to go under?”
“That’s why we need to merge. In the short-term, they have the product and we have the means of production. And then in the long-term, we form a single, healthy entity with plenty of grapes and working production equipment. It’s the only way for both companies to survive.”
Long-term.
I snickered. That was a laugh. Paris and I wouldn’t last two days together. I could guarantee that.
“I’m serious
,” Wilhelmina huffed.
I pointed my finger at her. “If you feel so strongly about your crazy idea, you marry her.”
She curled up her sarcastic grin. “This isn’t funny, Tyler.”
I shrugged. “No, it isn’t. Just like marrying me off to Paris Fairchild isn’t either.”
“Unless you’re a miracle worker, it’s the only way to save California Jane.”
“I got it,” I tapped my temple, “how about you go talk to old man Malcolm instead of trying to marry me off to his daughter, the devil?”
Wilhelmina rolled her eyes. “First of all, she’s not the devil, Tyler. And secondly, you don’t think I’ve tried to arrange a meeting? The old geezer won’t return a single one of my calls.”
“Why the hell not?”
“You know exactly why. He hates me by proxy to your grandfather.”
For some reason, that reality really pissed me off. A feud started more than fifty years ago couldn’t possibly still be going on. Could it? “That’s fucking ridiculous,” I told her, my voice dripping ice in a way that helped calm my nerves.
“Well, it’s true. And besides, Paris is a very lovely woman and much more reasonable than her father.”
A dark laughter roared from my throat. “You really are deranged. Haven’t you seen the headlines lately? Her and some super rich gigolo are all the rage with the party circuit in L.A.”
Gran-gran shook her head. “Tyler, come on, you know first-hand how the press likes to embellish. The guy’s rich with estranged family issues. Of course it’s going to make the news. And honestly, you shouldn’t believe everything you read.”
Did she know something I didn’t?
“Whatever,” I said, refusing to ask. “In love or not, she’s still a hot mess,” I added, because the photos of her partying with the rich French dude were all the evidence I needed of that.
That penciled-in eyebrow arched. “Sure, Tyler, she likes to have her fun, but that doesn’t mean she’s not good at her job. You do know she left that big-wig marketing firm she was working for in L.A. to work at Highway 128?”
I blinked, surprised. “No.” I kept it short.
“Well, she did. And I’ve done my research. She’s running Highway 128 and from what I can tell, she’s the only reason her father’s company is still in business. That club and tasting room of hers has done wonders. Come to think of it, she could be the female version of you, Tyler. So what’s the problem?”
