Wanting It All: A Naked Men Novel

by Christi Barth

  Lots of other people who knew about his wealth—hell, most other people besides the ones who lived with him—always expected him to pick up the check. To spring for an expensive bottle of wine for the table. To pay for the taxi at a conference. Knox was a generous guy who didn’t mind, most of the time. But how Madison kept going out of her way to not spend his money was incredibly refreshing. Weirdly, it made him want to shower her with gifts even more. But what did you give the woman who didn’t seem to want anything…besides a husband?

  “If you enjoy it, there’s no waste. And I guarantee I’ll enjoy licking the taste of it from your lips.”

  Madison came in a few more steps. Ran her hand across the back of the brown leather club chair in a suggestive way that made him want to beg her to touch him like that. Except he knew he didn’t need to beg. Madison seemed to crave the feel of his skin as much as Knox did hers. He loved how well their passion meshed. How similar they were in their enjoyment of each other’s bodies. She licked her cupid’s bow, slicked a pale pink tonight. “In that case, crack out the good stuff. Maybe it’ll end up a few other places besides my lips.”

  “Much as I like that idea, it probably shouldn’t go down in here. The room’s temperature is controlled to an optimal fifty-four degrees. Perfect for Cabernets and Syrahs. Less so for a hot fuck with my hot woman.” Grabbing the decanter and two goblets, he closed the door and the iron gate behind them.

  “You’ve got, what…five floors to this place? I think we’ll find an option preferable to a walk-in fridge. Although you seem to forget I’m from Alaska.” She swished the skirt of her yellow sundress, lifted it high above her knees. “Fifty-four degrees is bikini weather to me.”

  “Did you bring one? We can hit the hot tub later. Even better if you forgot one…” Knox waggled his eyebrows as he led her into the game room.

  “You live with a butler and three other men.”

  “Four, actually. When he misses hot showers and cold beer enough, Logan will come back. Eventually.” Knox made a mental note to devote some time on Monday to tracking him down. Again.

  “All the more reason that skinny-dipping doesn’t sound like a great idea.” Her eyebrows came together into a frown. “Unless you’re into sharing.”

  “No. Definitely not.” The words rocketed out of him more harshly than he’d intended. But the thought of anyone else, even one of the ACSs, sharing the delights of Madison’s beautiful body and unbridled laughter bothered Knox. A lot.

  A surge of possessiveness rocked him back on his heels. That he’d even had that feeling made him almost drop the decanter. Was this jealousy? Where the hell had that come from? Knox never got jealous. He didn’t need to. If he wanted something, someone, he got it. And he had Madison, for now. That should be enough.

  He gestured for her to take a seat on the black leather sectional. “Dinner will be ready in half an hour. These should tide us over until then.” Knox pointed at the tray of grilled crostini with prosciutto and mozzarella on the wide wooden coffee table. “I hope it’s okay that Jerry bought our steaks at Whole Foods. You know, instead of letting you go out on the prairie and get a fresh steer for us.”

  Madison tapped her index finger on her lips, giving him a hard stare. “You’re hassling me about going shooting with Griff, aren’t you?”

  “You bet I am.”

  “Before you take an ethical stand for the wrong reason, let me be clear: I don’t hunt. Not for sport or pleasure. I keep up my gun skills to protect myself.”

  Exactly what gave him the creeps. “Promise you won’t whip it out if I wake you up getting a glass of water at three in the morning. I shouldn’t be scared to take a leak in my own house.”

  Madison scooted to the edge of the cushion. There was a hard glint in her usually warm golden brown eyes that warned Knox he’d pushed the wrong button. “First of all, I didn’t bring my gun with me. A refurbished rectory owned by my boyfriend didn’t strike me as a danger zone. Secondly, did you give Griffin that speech about his service piece?”

  Uh-oh. So that was the wrong button. And what do you know—completely justified. Christ, what an idiot he’d been. Knox rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. Then he huffed out a long breath. “No. Of course not.”

  “Then retract the condescending question, will you? I know what I’m doing.”

  On the one hand, that was exactly what he’d been tempted to say to her every time Madison poked at him about his company. On the other hand…“You’re right. And I’m sorry. That was uncalled for and sexist.”

  “True.”

  Why had he said it? Knox ran through his thought process. It didn’t take long. “I’m used to being the one who calls all the shots, the master of my domain. I don’t know anything about guns. I guess lack of knowledge made me uncomfortable. Idiotic.”

  “Thank you for your honesty. I truly do promise not to clip you. I like the way you look too much to mar any of that hunky body.”

  “How about I make it up to you—marginally—by letting you choose the movie?”

  Madison laughed uproariously. “Sweetie, I was always going to do that. But I’ll take an apologetic foot rub.”

  “Sold. How about you move to the other side of the couch for optimal rubbing?”

  Madison got up. Started to sit down again, but froze halfway, one arm on the back of the couch, the other touching a framed photo on the console table behind it. She stared for a long moment, and then snatched it up.

  The table held photos of the ACSs from their first high school soccer win together, to vacations and major life events. Just your average jumble of guys mugging for the camera. Knox couldn’t imagine what had caught her eye. “If that’s the photo of all of us white-water rafting, don’t bother laughing at me in the orange life vest. It was a rule, not a fashion choice.”

  She flipped the frame around. It was actually a shot from the last inaugural ball. Those things were a feeding frenzy for hookups, no matter which party you actually voted for. They always went to at least a few. Madison pointed at the dark-haired man in the middle, tapping the glass like a woodpecker on crack.

  In a shaking voice, she asked, “Why do you have pictures of my brother in your house?”

  Chapter 14

  Knox popped a crostini in his mouth. He couldn’t wait to tell the guys what Madison had said. It cracked all of them up whenever they got “recognized” as someone famous. Over the years they’d figured out that the recognition was just a half-forgotten familiarity from coverage of the accident in the Alps. But when you removed context, people couldn’t place them. So they made up their own context.

  If they were recognized in workout gear and it was an Olympic year, they invariably got asked to show their medals. Casual clothes—sports stars, mostly hockey and baseball. When in suits, they went straight to not just movie stars, but superheroes.

  But this was a first. Nobody had ever given them a plain old Are you my brother? Kind of lacked imagination. Disappointing. He would’ve expected Madison to be better than that. “Trust me, that’s not your imaginary brother.”

  “My brother’s real.”

  Huh…what? Knox sat up straighter. “All that stuff about you and your mom moving around the bush, going it alone…there was no brother in those stories.”

  Madison gave a faint nod. “Because it was just the two of us, then. But I do have a brother. And I think he looks just like this man.” More uncontrolled tapping at the glass. Coupled with a slightly unhinged sparkle in her eyes he’d never seen before. “So will you please, Knox, tell me who he is and how you know him?”

  If this was headed where it seemed to be, this night was going to take a U-turn into Suckville. But…it was impossible. It had to be a mistake. Knox stood up. Brushed off his hands. Walked around to stand behind the console table. One at a time, he pointed at each frame.

  “Graduation from Roosevelt Prep. Griff’s graduation from the Coast Guard Academy. The day I got to ring the bell at the Stock Exchange. Every phot
o on this table is just us. The ACSs. Nobody else. Me, Griffin, Josh, Riley, and Logan.”

  She bounced a little. “Logan Marsh?”

  “Yeah. Which is one of a half-dozen reasons, Madison Abbott,” he stressed her very different last name, “that I’m sure he’s not your brother.”

  “Except that I think he is. I mean, I’m not sure, but I really, really think he is. Oh, Knox, you found him for me!” She dropped the frame, raced around the couch, and launched herself at him in a tackle hug.

  Holy shitballs. It couldn’t be true. Even as his arms automatically tightened—because Madison pressed up against him was never something to be ignored—a part of Knox wanted to back out of the room. Before he heard any more. Because if he heard any more, if through some twisted fucking coincidence Logan Marsh was actually her brother? That would change everything.

  No. No. It didn’t matter what Madison thought. She was mixed up. He’d known Logan forever. They were brothers, roommates. Knox knew about the trick floorboard in Logan’s room where underneath he used to hide beers. He knew Logan had such a fear of spiders that he took a knapsack of bug bombs on his first disaster recovery mission. And he knew, knew for a fact, that Logan’s mom had almost died giving birth, so the Marshes never had any more kids.

  She’d reminded Logan of this fact every time he brought home a report card with a C on it, and when he crashed the Corvette, and even last year when he hadn’t made it back for Thanksgiving due to a horrific rock slide that buried a village in Chile. Mrs. Marsh had standards that nobody could meet. Yet she seemed certain that whatever child she would’ve had after Logan would’ve been Captain America and Indiana Jones and President Lincoln all wrapped up in one body. Knox’s mom couldn’t stand her, and had unofficially adopted Logan as her own in protest at his treatment.

  “Look, Madison—”

  Wearing a smile that could light up Times Square, Madison stepped back. “Where is he, Knox? Will you tell me? I mean, I was waiting for him to reach out, but I really just want to know.”

  “What I’m trying to tell you is that I know everything about Logan Marsh. I swear he’s an only child. I’m sorry that you seem so excited about this, but facts are facts.”

  She layered her hands to pat her chest, right over the bow that barely held her breasts in. “He’s my half-brother. I only found out a few months ago. The quick-and-dirty version is that my father left not long after I was born, and never kept in touch. I guess he never told Logan—never told either of us.”

  It didn’t make any sense. Because for all the ways Logan’s mom saw him as a disappointment, his dad reveled in everything his son did. “Why would Adrian Marsh keep that a secret?”

  She grimaced. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, what did he say about it?”

  The grimace morphed into cool disinterest. “I haven’t talked to him.”

  Madison was curious about everything. She’d even tried to pepper him with questions about all the things he couldn’t tell her regarding the top-secret drone software. Nothing about this added up. “So a guy you’ve never heard of or spoken to drops this bombshell into your life and you don’t ask any questions?”

  “He didn’t want to know about me for twenty-four years. I’m just following his example.”

  Fair enough. But it fell into cutting-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face territory. “I get there’s like an eternity of resentment to be worked out in therapy about this, but don’t you at least want the whole story? Don’t you deserve it?”

  “I don’t want to speak to that man. Ever.” She walked the length of the room, in between the pool table and air hockey table and ending up by the pinball machines in the corner before turning to face him. “I realize you probably know him. Maybe even like him a lot. If so, I’m glad he’s been nice to you and Logan. But I can’t be objective. I can’t let bygones be bygones. My entire life’s been spent wishing I had a whole family.” Her hands lifted again, this time to weakly hover, palms up, at her waist. “Wondering what was so wrong with me that he wouldn’t want to stay. How I wasn’t good enough to be a part of his family. He left an…an emptiness in me.”

  Knox did like Adrian Marsh. Or he had, right up until this moment. Now he wanted to rip the guy apart with his bare hands. The excuse didn’t matter. Love affair turned sour, a ripped condom—whatever the deal with Madison’s mom didn’t matter. He should’ve stepped up and taken care of his kid. Period. To knowingly do this to Madison made him a monster. Did he know the kind of itinerant life she’d led? The hardships? Didn’t he have the common fucking sense to know that his daughter needed him?

  A few fast strides took him to Madison. He grabbed her hand. “Let’s go.”

  “What? Where?”

  “Bethesda.” Knox pulled her toward the door. “I’m going to beat him to a bloody pulp while you watch. While you ask him how he could be such an asshole to his own flesh and blood.”

  “Knox, no. No.” She dug her heels in, pulling at his elbow to stop his forced march to the stairs. “He’s not worth it.”

  That wasn’t the point at all. Knox cupped her hand in his, and lifted it to press a kiss against her knuckles. Staring into those golden brown eyes, he said, “You’re worth it, Madison.”

  It was silent for a minute. A long minute. So silent Knox could hear the white-noise hum of the Xbox they never bothered to turn off.

  “Thank you,” she finally said in a very small voice. “Truly. I think that’s the nicest thing you could ever offer to do for me. The nicest thing anyone’s ever done.”

  “It’s a standing offer, Madison. Forever. Just say the word.”

  “For now, could you just let me know where Logan is? There has to be a reason why he won’t return my email. Connecting with him is the other reason I moved to D.C.”

  God. His head was still spinning with visions of how he’d like to slice and dice Adrian Marsh. Thanks to decades of playing gory fantasy video games, there were even a few options that he’d have to do under a different gravitational field and possibly a different dimension. Didn’t mean they weren’t satisfying to contemplate.

  But now Logan had been shoved back into the conversation. Shit. His best friend. The one who always came to his defense, first and fastest. The one who’d taught him how to tie a real bow tie. The one who told him to laugh at the guys who made fun of him for writing a video game manual, since someday Knox would be richer than all of them because of it. Logan had been right. Logan always had his back.

  How had Knox repaid him? By screwing his sister.

  Unfuckingbelievable.

  When Madison told him she was on the fast track to marriage, he’d labeled her as off-limits. It’d been the sensible, noble thing, the right thing to do, since he was on an even faster track to avoiding matrimony for the rest of his life. Sure, she’d talked him into sticking around. But part of the fun was that deep down, Knox knew she was still off-limits. Wrong. Dangerous, in ways he hadn’t even imagined.

  But this? This was a whole other level of off-limits. Like comparing grape juice to Châteauneuf-du-Pape. A scooter to a Harley-Davidson. An abacus to a super computer. A pair of two-dollar shower flip-flops to a pair of thousand-dollar Prada cap toe double-monk shoes. A…shit. Shit. He was spiraling out, in total panic mode, while Madison still stood there, all full of hope and excitement and waiting for him to say something.

  Knox poured the wine. Didn’t bother waiting for it to breathe properly. Just poured two glasses, wordlessly handed one to Madison, and then drank half of his in two big gulps. “Okay. If Logan’s really your brother—”

  “Half-brother, to be exact.”

  “Right. Gotta be specific when I’m thrust into a freaking family soap opera. Did his dad spill the beans to Logan? About you? For sure?”

  Her eyes slid sideways. “I don’t know.”

  “Right. Because of the no-asking-questions thing.” He definitely wasn’t computing at full power. Clearly more wine was needed. Knox drained his glas
s. Poured another. “So you’ve got no clue if Logan actually knows about you.”

  “I told him. I emailed him, once I got here. The day after I met you, as a matter of fact. I found his email on his dad’s company website, right under a picture of him almost identical to the way he looks in this one.” Madison lunged over the couch to pick the frame back up. Clutched it to her chest. “I told him that I’m his sister, and I live here now and I’d like to meet him. But that was twenty-two days ago. He hasn’t replied yet. And…I guess I thought he’d be as excited to find out about me as I was about him. So it’s, um, uncomfortable.” Her gaze dropped to the thick black carpet.

  Knox couldn’t make up for her dad’s abandonment. Couldn’t fix that bone-deep pain. But he could make her lower lip stop trembling as far as Logan was concerned. “Here’s the good news,” he said swiftly. “Logan’s missing.”

  Her eyelids flew open. “That’s good news?”

  “Sure. He does it all the time. Goes off the grid. It isn’t personal. He probably hasn’t even seen your email. We’ve all been trying to get a hold of him for a couple of months.”

  “Aren’t you worried about him?”

  At this point? Hell, yes.

  Which was the last thing Madison needed to hear.

  “Nah.” He swatted the word—and her worries—away with his hand. “Like I said, he goes deep into some pretty primitive places. Cell service sucks. His phone gets dropped in the mud and he can’t get a new one for another month with the next shipment of non-emergency supplies. He’s not exactly a letter writer, your brother. More a live-in-the-moment kind of guy. Logan throws himself into whatever rescue he’s on, twenty-four/seven. And then, to shake it out of his system, he’ll go off on a bender of beaches, babes, and beer. Clears his head of all the death and destruction he witnessed at the last disaster site.”

  “Oh. Okay. Hearing that definitely helps me not take it personally. Thank you.” Madison sipped her wine. Smiled appreciatively. “On a sidebar, this is amazingly delicious. I’ll need you to teach me what I’m tasting in here.”