by Kate Hunt
CASH
Big Hot Alphas Book 4
Kate Hunt
Copyright © 2020 by Kate Hunt
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All rights reserved.
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No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Contents
Prologue - Cash
1. Cash
2. Dani
3. Cash
4. Dani
5. Cash
6. Dani
7. Epilogue – Cash
About the Author
Prologue - Cash
10 Years Ago
This is going to suck.
The thought echoes in my head as I dismount my bicycle and drop it on the top of the grassy slope. Dani’s bike is already here, her sticker-covered frame lying on its side beside a patch of wildflowers.
Normally I’m happy to see her bike, since it means she’s already arrived. But today, given the circumstances, the sight of it heightens my dread.
As if I wasn’t dreading this enough already.
“Finally!” Dani’s voice calls out. “Took you long enough!”
I spot her at the bottom of the slope, somehow looking even prettier than usual. She’s wearing cut-off shorts that show off her curvy thighs and a raspberry pink tank top that her bra straps are peeking out from. As she flashes me a grin, my heartbeat starts to feel painful.
This is really going to suck.
I descend the slope, gravity pulling me down faster than my feet want to go. I’ve probably walked down this hill a thousand times, but today it feels steeper than normal.
“Hey,” I say, reaching her. “Sorry I’m late.”
“S’okay,” she says, giving me a quick kiss. “Just so you know, though, I can’t stay too long. I have to finish writing that stupid English essay tonight.”
“Still gotta finish mine, too.”
“Slacker,” she says, giving me a flirty smile.
I laugh. It doesn’t do a whole lot to relieve the anguish in my chest, though.
“You okay?” she asks, studying me.
Tell her now. Tell her now.
“Uh huh,” I say.
For fuck’s sake.
Dani nods and her gaze drifts away from me. I try to work up the nerve to say what I need to say. But as soon as I open my mouth to speak, Dani beats me to it.
“Look!” she says, pointing. I turn and see what she’s looking at. A large bird swoops down and lands in one of the trees in the field.
“Is that a hawk?” I say.
“I think so,” she says. She pulls on my wrist and starts walking. “Come on.”
We cross the field together. The hawk is still perched in the tree when we near it. I gotta admit, it is pretty cool to see.
But I would appreciate it a whole lot more if I didn’t have other things on my mind.
Dani quietly lowers herself to the grass, pulling my wrist so that I’ll sit down too. For a while, we just sit there, side by side, watching the hawk.
Then it takes flight, and Dani sighs, watching it go.
“Hey,” I say, looking over at her.
When she turns and smiles that pretty smile of hers, my stomach sinks. I’m going to miss her so damn much.
“That was cool, wasn’t it?” she says.
I nod. “Yeah. It was.”
“Think it’ll come back?”
Just do it, dude.
“I have to tell you something, Dani,” I say.
“Okay,” she says, giving me a quizzical smile. “What’s up?”
I knead the back of my neck. Fuck. I knew having this conversation was going to be painful, but it feels like someone’s ripping my heart out.
My mind drifts back to thirty minutes ago, when my parents sat my sister and I down at the dining room table and told us the news.
“So you know how the company my dad works for has offices all over?” I say.
“Yeah?” Dani says slowly.
“Well…he’s being transferred to San Diego. I just found out before coming here. We’re moving at the end of the month.”
Dani is silent for several seconds.
“What?” she finally says. “Are you serious?”
I nod.
“That’s…” She frowns, then presses her lips together. “Shit. That sucks.” Her voice cracks on the last word and she turns her face away from me.
I wrestle with what to say next. I want to tell her that it’s not going to change anything between us. I want to say that maybe somehow it will all fall through. Most of all, though, I want to say the thing I’ve been trying to work up the nerve to say to her for weeks now: that I love her.
But I’m pretty sure telling her that is just going to make this even more gut-wrenching than it already is.
“Maybe I can talk my parents into letting me stay,” I say. It’s a dumb thing to suggest, but I have to say something.
Dani finally looks at me. She smirks through her sorrow. “Oh, yeah, I’m sure they’ll love that idea. I’m sure they’ll be totally up for renting their seventeen-year-old son his very own bachelor apartment.”
“Or you could hide me in your room.”
She laughs, then shakes her head. “You’re nuts, Cash.”
“I’m nuts?” I tackle her, pinning her hands against the grass and grinning down at her as she laughs and squirms beneath me. “You sure about that?”
“I take it back!” she shrieks, still laughing. “You’re not nuts. You’re—”
I cut her off with a kiss. When our lips meet, every kiss we’ve ever shared rushes through my head: all those endless, aching kisses, each one driving me crazy with desire for her, all the way back to our first nervous kiss at that random kid’s party a year ago. I’d never kissed a girl before then, but as soon as it happened with Dani, I knew I’d never feel the same way with anybody else.
“I want you, Cash,” Dani whispers between more kisses. “I want you so much.”
I understand what she’s saying. And, believe me, I want her like that too. The very thought of doing that with her makes me feel…fuck. I can’t even describe it.
But we can’t. If we do, it’ll make it so much harder to leave her. So we can’t.
I pull back and she blinks at me with her bright hazel eyes.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
“Nothing,” I say. Reluctantly, I roll off her and flatten onto my back, lacing my fingers behind my head. “I just can’t believe I have to leave.”
She doesn’t say anything for a while.
Then, finally, she says, “I can’t believe it, either.”
She nestles her head against me and traces a finger over the letters on my shirt. Her touch vibrates through me and pain rises up in the back of my throat.
We continue to lie there for a while without speaking. The sun keeps shining down on us. The wispy clouds keep drifting overhead. Eventually, though, we have to leave. We get up, cross the field, and climb back up the slope. We pick up our bikes and wheel them out to the road.
“Call me later?” Dani says as she gets onto hers, like she does every time we part ways.
“I will,” I promise, like I always do.
But we both know ev
erything’s about to change.
Chapter One
Cash
Present Day
“Thanks a lot, asshole,” my sister grumbles as she hauls herself back onto the jet ski. I grin over my shoulder at her.
“I told you to hold on,” I say.
“Yeah, right before you turned!” she shoots back at me.
I can’t help but laugh at how grumpy she is about it. “Sorry, sis.”
Felicity and I may be adults now, and the three years between us may not feel nearly as significant anymore, but I’ll always think of her as my little sister. Even when we’re old and wrinkly, I’m still going to be doing shit like this.
Well, maybe not on a jet ski. But you get the idea.
“Apology rejected,” she says, settling back onto the seat behind me. She quickly wrings out her hair before grabbing ahold of the back of my life jacket. “Well? Are we just going to sit here or what?”
“Nope,” I say, and engage the throttle. Soon we’re flying again, skimming over the crystalline water. Spotting our parents on another tandem jet ski off in the distance, I steer ours toward them.
It’s day five of our ten-day-long family vacation in Hawaii. Our parents honeymooned here way back in the day, but we’ve never vacationed here together as a family. Between exploring the island, snorkeling, attending a luau, and just chilling out and spending time together, it’s been a pretty damn amazing vacation.
Flying past our parents’ jet ski, I yell out, “Hang on, Flea!” giving my sister more warning this time. Felicity tightens her grip and lets out a scream as I do another one-eighty spin.
“Atta girl,” I call over my shoulder.
“No more!” she protests.
“What’s that? You want more?” I call back.
“Damn it, Cash!” she hisses.
I laugh and ease up on the throttle as we meet up with our parents. We ride along with them for a while until my dad checks his watch and calls out that we need to return our rentals.
Back at the dock, we get off the jet skis, hand over our life jackets, and grab the stuff we previously stashed in the storage lockers.
“You guys have fun?” I ask our parents.
“We did,” our mom says, smiling as she slips on her flip-flops. “Looked like you were having the most fun, though, son.”
“Ugh,” says Felicity. “There’s no way I’m getting on a jet ski with him again, Mom. Not unless I’m the one driving.”
“All right. Who’s ready for lunch?” says our dad.
After a brief debate, we agree on going back to a restaurant we had a great meal at a few days before. It’s only a few blocks from where we currently are. As we walk, I scan the beach, taking in the paradise around us.
And that’s when my eyes land on her.
She’s a ways down the beach, facing the other way as she pulls clothes on over her swimsuit, shimmying her lusciously thick hips into a pair of shorts. I don’t know if it’s those sexy curves of hers or the way she’s moving or what, but it’s like I’m instantly drawn under her spell.
Inwardly, I laugh at my bad luck. I’ve spent my whole adult life not feeling this way about anybody, and then I fall in love at first sight with a woman when I’m two thousand fucking miles from home.
Figures.
I look over at her again and stifle a moan at how gorgeous she is.
Then she turns around, and my heart stalls.
Holy shit.
Is that…Dani Harlow?
I’d be lying if I said I haven’t thought about Dani over the past decade. Being forced to say goodbye to her the summer before our senior year of high school was one of the shittiest events of my life. After our family moved to California, I forced myself to focus on meeting new people and making new friends. I had to.
But I never fully got over Dani.
“Hey, I’ll catch up with you guys, okay?” I tell my family.
“Catch up with us?” my mom says, confused.
“I think I see someone I know.”
“We’ll wait for you, then.”
“No, you guys should go on ahead.” I look across the beach again. “I might be a while.”
Chapter Two
Dani
I’m aware of the man approaching me as I finish gathering up my stuff. It’s impossible to completely ignore someone of that size. But my gut tells me he’s not a threat, so I just keep gathering up my things, not bothering to look up at him until he’s a few feet away from me.
To my shock, I realize I know the guy.
“Cash?” I say, my jaw unhinging.
My shock is two-fold. For starters, it’s startling to see anyone I know right now; I’m here on vacation. But to see Cash especially blows my mind. I haven’t seen him in…let’s see…ten years? Yeah. Jesus. It’s been a whole decade.
I honestly never expected to see Cash again. Not with all those miles between us. Yet here he is, standing before me, within arm’s reach.
And, damn, does he look good.
He was good-looking back in high school, but it was different back then. He was cute. Now, he’s fucking hot. His body is pure muscle. He emanates strength and dominance. He still has those boyish good looks he’s always had, but now his body is all man.
“Dani Harlow,” he says, my name warm as it falls from his lips.
The next thing I know, we’re embracing in a hug.
“I can’t believe it,” I say, pulling back to look at him. The longer I stare at him, the more I’m flabbergasted by how hot he is. And how big he is. His shirt is stretched tightly across his muscular chest. “How are you?”
“Good,” he says. “You?”
“I’m good, too,” I say.
We look at each other for another full second, absorbing the fact that we’ve just run into each other.
“You here with anyone?” he asks.
I detect a flicker of possessiveness in his eyes, which both surprises and amuses me.
“Nope,” I say. “It’s just me. On a vacation for one.” I pause. “You?”
“I’m here with my folks and my sister,” he says.
I’m sharply aware of how relieved I feel when he doesn’t add and my girlfriend.
Or, God forbid, and my wife.
“Listen, we were just going to grab some lunch,” he says. “Why don’t you join us?”
“Oh, I couldn’t,” I say. “You’re here with your family. I wouldn’t want to intrude.”
“We’ve spent the last five days with each other. Trust me, you aren’t intruding.”
I spend another second taking him all in—his disheveled hair, his insistent eyes, his perfect smile.
“Only if you really don’t think they’ll mind,” I say.
“Promise they won’t,” he says.
A few minutes later, when we show up at the restaurant that his parents and sister are already seated at, they all greet me warmly. I’ve always liked his family, and it doesn’t feel awkward to sit with them; in fact, it’s actually really nice. Cash’s mom asks me what I’ve been up to since high school, and I tell them about the men’s loungewear brand I’m a photo shoot producer for.
“Oh my God, that sounds like my dream job,” says Felicity. “You ever date any of the models?”
I smile. “No. Can’t say I ever have.”
“Damn, girl. How do you resist?”
I laugh and shrug. When I glance over at Cash, I see that flicker of possessiveness again in his eyes.
“So…what do you do?” I ask him.
“Voice-over work,” he says.
“Really? What kind of projects do you work on?”
“A little bit of everything. Corporate stuff. Commercials. Audiobooks.”
“Cash, that’s awesome.”
And the more I think about it, the more it seems perfect for him. He does have a great voice, after all—a soothing, commanding, sexy voice. I could listen to him talk forever.
The conversation keeps flowing as the meal goe
s on and night falls. As the meal is wrapping up, Cash leans over to me and asks if I want to keep hanging out for a while. I smile and nod. A few minutes later, when we’re all standing up and getting ready to leave, Cash announces that the two of us are going to grab a drink.
“Thanks so much for letting me join you for dinner,” I tell his family.
“Oh, of course, honey,” his mom says, smiling at us in a way that reminds me of the way she smiled at us when Cash and I went to our junior prom. “You two have fun.”
Cash and I find a tiki bar a short walk away from the restaurant and grab seats on two rattan stools. Lights are strung all around the bar, and soft ukulele music is playing overhead. After the bartender mixes our drinks, he gives us a little nod and steps away to busy himself at the other end of the bar.
“So tell me more about the voice-over stuff,” I say. “How does that work? Do you record in a studio?”
“I’ve got a setup in my apartment, actually,” says Cash. “It’s not ideal, but it gets the job done. If I ever buy a house, I’ll build something more robust.”
“Yeah? Are you house-hunting?”
“Not actively. I’ll look at listings every now and then.”
“Same here.” I spin the umbrella in my drink. “It’s fun to see what’s out there. Well, and a little depressing, when I see how much they’re selling for.” Suddenly, remembering something, I clap my hands together. “Oh! Guess what? The ghost house finally got torn down.”
Cash immediately knows what I’m referring to: an ancient, creepy house the two of us used to speed past on our bikes. “No shit?”
I nod. “Yup. Now there’s this huge new house in its place. Honestly, it’s almost uglier than the old one.”
