by Diana Seere
Too nervous to look at any of them closely, she strode up and gestured at the door. “Excuse me.”
Their conversation didn’t falter. A tall, lanky guy with a full beard was telling a story, and apparently it was hilarious, because when he finished, they all broke out laughing.
“Excuse me,” she said again, more loudly. “I have an appointment.”
Their smiles faded. One by one, they turned and stared at her.
“With Professor Lethbridge,” Jess said, attempting a smile.
“She’s busy,” the bearded guy said. His voice reminded her of someone. Maybe it was just the accent. Faintly Midwestern.
“Are you waiting for her too?” she asked, suddenly alarmed at the idea of having to wait out here with these people. Some professors were notoriously oblivious about time. Professor Lethbridge could be running hours behind.
“We’re not waiting,” Beard said, flashing a grin. “We’re working.” He put an arm around a brunette who sported a dragon tattoo on her flat abdomen, visible because she was only wearing a jog bra under her unzipped hoodie. He bent down and licked her temple.
The group laughed again, but the brunette stomped on his instep to free herself and put her arm around the guy to her left. The others only laughed harder.
The door flung open. Professor Lethbridge stood there in a black pantsuit, waves of black hair loose around her face, a turquoise scarf around her neck. “For God’s sake, children, keep it down. The grown-ups are trying to think.” She saw Jess and pointed a finger at her. “Jessica?”
She put on her best game face. “Everyone calls me Jess.”
“I’m not everyone,” the professor said. “Come on in.”
The others barreled through the door, but Jess hung back, unsure if she was supposed to wait or join the crowd.
“Chop-chop, Jessica,” Professor Lethbridge called out from inside. “No time to waste. I’ll be on the Today show tomorrow. As much as I prefer my maturing face to be au naturel, Middle America doesn’t. I’m getting my eyebrows threaded in half an hour.”
Jess entered the cluttered office, lined with bookshelves and paintings of Renaissance nudes, and took the chair the professor indicated. Unfortunately, the gang of other students made themselves at home, crowding together on the small sofa, pouring themselves coffee from a pot in the corner, adjusting the thermostat. It was as if they lived there.
“Jessica.” Professor Lethbridge sat on the edge of her desk and crossed her long, lean legs. “I would love to participate in the evolution and blossoming of an Extension School student. I’m nothing if not open-minded.”
“Extension?” a voice queried behind her. Jess could feel the sneer without seeing it.
“How about you, Jessica,” the professor continued. “Are you open-minded?”
Jess sensed a trap. “It depends.”
“On what?”
“On how cute he is,” a woman whispered.
More laughter.
“Honestly, children. If you can’t shut up, you’ll have to leave.” But Professor Lethbridge didn’t look angry, only amused. She obviously enjoyed being the center of attention.
“It depends on the situation,” Jess said.
“What kind of personal sexual boundaries do you have?” the professor asked. “Pardon me for asking, but if you can’t discuss sex here in the friendly environment of your peers, I won’t be able to use you.”
“My sexual boundaries are that I won’t discuss my sexual boundaries,” Jess said. She’d had a lot of experience telling people to leave her alone about her nonexistent sex life. Just because she’d had one night with Derry didn’t mean she was suddenly a different person. They hadn’t even had sex, not really.
Unless she counted her dreams last night.
She hoped the professor attributed her flush to the excessive warmth in the room. The furnace was blasting out of a vent over her head.
“Is that what you tell your partners?” Professor Lethbridge asked. “That you won’t talk about sex?”
She suddenly realized how absurd it was that she, perennial virgin, was applying for a research position with this woman. She’d assumed it would be mostly photocopying and emails, not this.
There would be other jobs. This was obviously not going to help her fit in with the rest of the student body—quite the opposite. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’m right for this position after all,” she said, getting to her feet. “Thank you for your time. I think I should be going.” Without making eye contact with any of the others, she walked to the door.
“Archie, don’t let her out of the room,” Professor Lethbridge said.
To Jess’s surprise, the bearded guy jumped and got to the door before she did.
“I’m intrigued by her,” the professor continued, speaking with a voice that could reach the back row of the largest lecture hall. “She’s obviously repressed. None of you can offer that perspective. Jessica may be unique.”
The guy blocking the door grinned at her. Something about the hard glint in his green eyes triggered another memory. A large house, a party, loud music, laughter—
Archie.
Oh my fucking God. It was Archibald Rumsey. The senator’s son, from one of those far off, western states. She hadn’t recognized him behind the beard.
The bastard. The evil, scum-sucking bastard.
“Get out of my way,” she said, “or I’ll kick your balls into your throat.”
Archie drew back and looked at the others with shocked amusement. “Did you hear what she said?”
She clenched her teeth. “I’m not joking.”
“Somebody’s a little tense,” he said, still pretending to be afraid.
“Somebody’s a shitstain who needs to get the fuck out of my way,” Jess said.
For the first time, he looked at her, really looked at her. “Do I know you?”
He didn’t even recognize her. But why would a binge-drinking frat boy like him remember anything from two years ago? Why remember a young woman you had humiliated? Why carry that guilt around with you when it might spoil the unlimited good times you were entitled to?
“No,” Jess said. “You don’t know me.” It was the truth. Two years ago, he’d only seen her as an object to be paraded around for fun.
Fun. His fun, and those of his sadistic, privileged, sociopathic cronies. For her, that one night had brought unforgettable humiliation and pain.
She’d been in her first year at community college, planning to transfer the next term to a four-year university. She’d been working the register at Trader Joe’s, a job she’d loved because of the fun, playful atmosphere, when a cute guy with a basket overflowing with junk food asked if she was busy that night.
Because she’d been stupid enough to think a handsome Harvard student would find a plus-sized local girl attractive enough to invite to a party, she’d agreed to go. A few hours later, wearing her sexiest dress, she’d rung the doorbell of the house he’d told her about. The throbbing music from the stereo and the shouts and laughter of the party were spilling out onto the street, making her smile, ready to have the time of her life.
Instead, she’d learned what a “pig party” was.
The challenge: find the ugliest girl you could. The “pig.” Convince her you really liked her. Bring her to the party. Vote on the ugliest “pig.” The winner got—what? Jess never found out.
Not that it mattered.
Shame washed over her, flooding her with hot rage. Remembering the way she’d flushed with pleasure at his invitation, flattered by his attention, she wanted to vomit. She shouldered past him, pushed open the door, and marched out into the hallway, not caring if she’d made a bad impression on the professor. That wasn’t the kind of life she wanted to lead, the kind of people she wanted to work with, the kind of medicine she wanted to practice. If she became a clinician, and private research was looking more and more appealing every day, she would treat her patients with respect. Discretion. Kindness.
What was wrong with wanting a little privacy? What was wrong with being reserved?
Nothing.
Besides, she wasn’t repressed. She was careful. For good reason.
Archibald Rumsey was one of those reasons. The world was full of men like that. Worthless, selfish shitstains like that. Men who took and took, consumed, and spit out whatever was left. Men who never thought about anything but their own pleasure, their own amusement. Privileged, good-looking men who never had to worry about the pain they caused, about the broken hearts they left in their wake.
Men like Derry Stanton.
Fool me once, shame on Derry.
Fool me twice, blame his older brother.
Gavin’s penthouse was becoming a tiresome destination these days, only because it seemed to be the first place Derry thought of when he experienced the overwhelming sense of debilitation that this single-minded need for Jessica Damn Her Murphy generated in him.
Last night had confirmed so much.
Last night he’d tasted the sweet nectar at the fountain of her.
And that taste would never be enough. Ten years between her legs, beneath her, above her, behind her—in proximity of her blinding beauty and the wet wonderland of her body still wouldn’t be enough.
And ten years was a blink of the eye for Derry’s kind.
Fuck Gavin. Fuck him and his smarmy smirk and flared-nostril, overprotective, fake brother crap when it came to being an obstacle in Derry’s way as he pursued Jess.
If Gavin thought he could prevent Derry from being with Jess, it was time to set the record straight. No one could stop him.
No one.
Manny pulled the limo into the exclusive garage entrance, and before the wheels were at a full stop, Derry was out the door and in the elevator, foot tapping with impatience as the silver box took him toward a confrontation he was itching to start.
Between Eva and her judgmental, overly involved, pseudo-maternal treatment of him and Gavin’s puffed-up bad-boy routine, Derry was sick of his network of friends and family.
Time to stop avoiding conflict.
And start a little.
As the elevator doors opened, Derry burst into Gavin’s penthouse, ready to go for the jugular, his long, thick legs carrying him fast through the enormous, glass-lined living room. Heart hammering, sending blood everywhere it needed to go for the pumped-up verbal thrashing he was about to deliver, Derry came to a dead halt as he heard:
“Oh, my God, Gavin! Again! Again! Right there! Ooooooooooohhhhhhhh.”
Instinct made him turn toward the delectable female voice.
Decency made him turn away.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Gavin shouted from the kitchen, where Lilah was, apparently, his lunch. Sprawled before his brother on the kitchen counter, she was a study in creamy flesh, ripe, full breasts like divine, warm mountains, her blonde hair like spun sugar in ribbons across the dark countertop. Gavin’s nude form was a muscled study in Greek sculpture, though Derry knew his own body was considerably more aesthetically pleasing, of course. Gavin was a bit scrawny next to him.
“These open-concept apartments really do have their downsides,” Derry muttered, eyes averted, though his nose told him everything he needed to know. Lilah’s scent created a war within him, her feral, yet delicate musk mingling with Gavin’s wolf scent, the two as layered and intriguing from the perspective of smell as an original Monet on exhibit is a visual wonder.
And Derry was, after all, a mammal. His body responded to the scent whether he liked it or not, his mind choosing the fortress of safe images.
Jess.
Gavin reached for a kitchen towel and covered Lilah’s breasts. The gesture was as effective as using a matchbook to cover Derry’s cock.
“Get the hell out of here!” Gavin shouted.
Frozen in place, amused and horrified, pulsing for the fight he’d come here to win, Derry didn’t respond. Couldn’t respond.
With anything other than laughter.
Wrong response.
Gavin pulled out of Lilah, who began to giggle, and grabbed the nearest piece of cloth he could find, whipping the bright-red apron around his waist.
It read:
My Meat is Hand Pulled
All the fight drained out of Derry and was replaced by a hysterical, boisterous sound that grounded him. He heard Lilah join him and turned to find her wrapped in a couch throw, staring at Gavin’s crotch.
“I—gave that to—Gavin as a—joke last week,” she gasped.
“He doesn’t cook!” Derry hooted.
“I know!” she answered, the two of them in convulsive fits as Gavin glowered, marching away from them both in disgust, ass muscles lean and stark against the ridiculous red fabric.
SLAM!
A bedroom door announced Gavin’s reaction.
“I am so, so sorry, Lilah,” Derry said in earnest. His face burned with an embarrassment he didn’t think he was capable of experiencing. “I barged in here, unthinking, and need to remember that this is your home now. Your and Gavin’s home.”
“It’s fine, Derry.”
“It is anything but fine.”
Silence greeted him. He caught her eye and realized that she had read a message in his words he’d never meant.
“No, no, Lilah, you’re fine. You are more than fine. In fact, I can see exactly why Gavin finds you so attractive.”
One eyebrow arched up, and Lilah clutched the throw a little tighter around her body.
“Jesus Christ, Derry!” he heard Gavin call out from afar.
“I—” Smooth, suave McDermott Stanton had devolved into his twelve-year-old self. All he needed was a slight stammer, a tent in his pants, and the inability to make eye contact with her, and his regression would be complete.
Lilah frowned. “Apology accepted. I think.”
“That was no apology!” Gavin yelled, walking back into the kitchen in jeans, barefoot and shirtless, carrying a lovely robe for Lilah. “Turn away, you pig!” he ordered Derry.
“Bear,” Derry murmured.
“Asshole.”
“That’s more accurate,” he conceded.
“Why in the hell are you storming into my apartment—my apartment! not yours!—in the middle of the afternoon and interrupting me while I make love to my future wife?” Gavin demanded.
“How was I supposed to know you’d turned your kitchen counter into a sexual playground? Glad I got here before the chocolate sauce and whipped cream made its debut.”
“Bugger off! You could call. Text. Knock. Send a carrier pigeon.”
Gavin shooed Lilah into the bedroom to get dressed. Derry saw a flash of her worried, flushed face before she closed the bedroom door. She was right to be worried. Once the profanities started flying from his older brother’s mouth, he knew what would fly next.
Fists.
Gavin had a remarkable sense of control. Supernatural, almost. And yet once that line was crossed, watch out.
The grip on his arm was hot steel. “You bloody little shit!” Gavin hissed, gloves off as Lilah couldn’t hear them. “I’m balls deep in her, and you walk in and make jokes about her body?”
“That’s not what I was—”
The blow that hit his jaw was not entirely unexpected.
But thoroughly welcomed.
Days of repressed fury rippled through bone and sinew, and Derry was more than ready to let primal instinct kick in and kick his brother’s ass. The only danger was in shifting; if both changed into their animal form, Derry would likely kill Gavin in a true fight. While their father had encouraged such skirmishes when they were younger, to gain a feel for the animal world and the limits of physical power driven by instinct and feral drives, as fully mature adults, they could commit mortal damage upon each other.
Derry had the upper hand as a bear.
Gavin, however, got in an uppercut while he was distracted.
The punch dazed him, giving him a split second to registe
r the sound of Lilah screaming for them to stop, standing on the periphery of their circle of violence, Gavin muttering obscenities between pained grunts, Derry wondering if a good embrace of Gavin’s midsection combined with a tackle would make his pecker fall off.
Never fight fair, their father had said, unless you’re in a gentleman’s duel. Maintain the pretense of honor in public.
In private?
Fight dirty.
A shower of ice made Derry’s heart stop midbeat. Howls of rage poured into the space as Gavin crouched on the floor behind a chair, drenched, flecks of crushed ice resting in his hair like diamonds.
Lilah held a large container from the automatic ice dispenser.
“You two are ridiculous!” she screamed. Pointing the bucket at Gavin, she added, “I expected more from you!”
Derry had the presence of mind to be offended.
“And less of me?”
“The lesser man,” Gavin spat out, a bit of blood on the corner of his mouth.
Derry’s jaw set in anger, bile rising in his throat.
“You two come in here right now or I’ll call Sophia and have her figure this all out!”
“She’ll take my side!” Derry called out in triumph. Humph. If Lilah was going to join the family, she needed to learn to threaten with something far worse than—
“I’ll call Asher!” she declared.
Perhaps he’d misjudged her as much as she’d underestimated him. No one wanted their eldest brother Asher involved in this mess. No one.
United in their displeasure at that, Gavin and Derry stopped the fight and glared at each other.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Gavin asked reluctantly, gingerly touching his face to check for damage.
“To talk about Jess,” Derry blurted out, surprised by his own words. Lilah’s expression went from interest to shock to amusement.
“Why would you come here to talk to Gavin,” she said to Derry, “because you think she’s the One?”
“The One?” he and Gavin shouted in unison.
Lilah’s giggle made it clear she thought this was all a joke.
A bolt of energy shot from the base of Derry’s cock to the backs of his eyes.
