Snowed in with Them (The Series 4 Book Collection)

Chapter One

Adrienne

“You know what you need? A spanking, a plugging, a nice young seven-to-eight-inch cock, and nine back-to-back orgasms. In that order.”

Adrienne Palmer, standing with her back ramrod straight and holding the stem of a glass of Dom Perignon between her fingers as if it were her lifeline glared good-naturedly at her business partner and friend, Miriam Haddock.

“I’m going to be twenty-seven in a few months so no, I don’t need a spanking, Mariam. I don’t need a cock, young or otherwise, either. And besides, orgasms on their own were messy, so surely an orgasm in front of someone else was even messier. I stand by that theory.”

The bright red-haired fifty-eight-year-old, Miriam, dressed effortlessly in a flowing designer gown with her signature chunky jewelry, probably weighing as much as two bars of gold, glared right back at Adrienne.

“You need sex, my dear. Lots of it,”

Miriam said with the same tone she would have used were they talking about a new pair of shoes. The woman had zero filters and adhered even less to societal rules. But she’d earned the right to be a free spirit years ago, she always said.

Adrienne didn’t need sex, though, not that she had a raging sex life to begin with, or a raging sex life at all. That wasn’t to say she was a shrinking virgin. Not all at. Her circumstances were just a little different considering she’d remained a virgin during an entire three-year marriage. Her divorce was finalized just a week ago.

“Let me tell you. I have this pool guy—”

Miriam said, her eyes glazing over as she spoke about her new acquisition or conquest––with Miriam, it was one or the other.

“Is he the same as your car guy?”

Adrienne teased to lift her mood, which was slowly sinking into a dark, empty pit. She really would have preferred to be home.

“No. Rico lets me whip his ass and then curls up, sucking his thumb at my feet. Sweet baby boy. But Jonny, he’s my new pool guy. Every Thursday, he comes to clean my pool—he does an excellent job—and then he cleans my pool. With his mouth. The man has a tongue as long as his anaconda cock, and let me tell you, he knows how to use both. I should lend him to you. It’ll do you good to get a good tongue fucking.”

“Miriam!”

Adrienne admonished as she glanced around the banquet hall. The glitter of jewels and gems, from the chandeliers above their heads to the extravagant jewelry dripping from the guests, cast silver shadows across the opulently decorated hall.

Cassie Brundt’s charity auctions were always the most ostentatious. Adrienne fully believed Cassie did them more for fame and not for the cause she presented itself. But twice a year, she hosted the lavish event at a five-star hotel, where patrons bid on potential dates for a night. They were given keys to a hotel suite where a Michelin-starred chef prepared a seven-course dinner for them. What happened afterward was anyone’s guess and no one’s business.

The offers started at a hundred thousand dollars. All funds raised this time around went toward animal welfare. The last auction was to raise funds for after-school childcare. All good causes, but if Miriam hadn’t dragged her along, Adrienne would have gladly stayed in her pajamas and written a check like she always did.

Feeling unusually restless, Adrienne’s gaze continued to glide around the grandiosely decorated room. If it weren’t one extravagant charity ball after another, it was something else that required her to dress up.

Not that she didn’t like dressing up. The gown she was wearing, an orange organza floor-length Chanel piece, was designed for simplicity and elegance but because it didn’t have even a hint of frivolity, she hoped it was enough to keep everyone away from her.

Still, it was going to be her favorite dress, except she would never wear it again. It went with her status. She’d taken over her father’s small company and turned it into a titan enterprise all on her own, her will borne from sheer, powerful determination to succeed in a man’s world where she was just “tits and ass.”

Her mother’s words. As a functioning alcoholic, Rebecca Palmer knew how to strike her daughter down with just a few vulgar words.

But clothes gave Adrienne a sense of stability. It concealed who she really was. And it never let her down, either.

“Are you even listening to me?”

Miriam asked, her lips dipping into a pout.

“Honestly, I stopped at the part when you started.”

“Cheeky bitch,”

Miriam laughed.

“Be sarcastic all you want. You still need some dick. It’ll loosen you up a little, you know? What have you got to lose?”

“Time. Beauty sleep. The ability not to be annoyed. My state of peace. Clean sheets. And I hate the horrendous act of cuddling, talking, and being nice afterward.”

“You really are a cold one, aren’t you? Marriage ruined you, sweetie, but you can’t keep punishing yourself for making a rookie mistake.”

Miriam touched her cheek and gave her a fierce look.

“You need cock. You need many cocks,”

Miriam said then sighed.

“Okay, see you in a bit. I’m going to hunt down that waiter and see if he wants to be in my harem,”

Miriam winked, then took Adrienne’s glass.

“And I’ll get you a fresh drink as well,”

she added, then sailed away.

Miriam wasn’t completely right about marriage ruining her. She’d always been that way. Cold. Her deceased father and Miriam were the only two people she loved in the whole world. The rest she kept outside her realm. When her own mother betrayed her, trusting anyone else seemed stupid. Adrienne was going to die alone. And she was okay with that.

But her father was also the only reason she married Desmond Morton, a man twice her age with a leering glint in his eyes that made her skin crawl. She didn’t think it was possible to hate another human being as much as she hated Desmond. But the man was rotting in prison and would be for a while to come. She took immense comfort from that.

She forced herself to brush aside all thought of the evil man and his lecherous nature, her lips spreading into a broad smile as an old friend of hers started toward her.

“Adrienne, the picture of loveliness,”

Jackson Porter said, kissing both her cheeks.

“Porter, good to see you again. I didn’t think I would after I beat you at poker a month ago.”

“Ah, not only did you take all my money, but you also took my heart as well. I am a broken man.”

The older gentleman held a hand to his heart, his kind eyes twinkling with mischief. At eighty-two, he still sported a full head of hair and a charming charisma that never went out of style.

“And a liar,”

Adrienne said, smiling warmly at him. Porter laughed heartily.

“Never,”

Jackson said as if she’d hurt his feelings.

“Ah, Darien, over here,”

he said, calling out to a tall man who came toward them.

For a moment, Adrienne allowed herself to analyze the angular curve of his jaw and the sexy planes of his face. His dark, almost black hair was thick and silky and looked as if he’d run his fingers through the waves a few times already, giving his otherwise perfectly groomed just enough dishevelment to show he didn’t care one way or the other, but then again, his suit was bespoke, his shoes handmade.

“Please allow me to introduce you to my new friend, Darien Price. Darien is an upcoming entrepreneur. Darien, this is the ever-lovely Adrienne Palmer.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Palmer."

Startled, her gaze immediately collided with a pair of eyes so golden brown that she faltered. The lilt in his voice screamed seductive charm. His killer smile meant he expected women to fall at his feet, begging for his touch, the aura of his confident prowess meant he was never rejected either.

She couldn’t deny the fluttering of butterflies in her stomach, how her nipples pebbled against the sheerness of her dress, and the sudden uncharacteristic throb between her thighs. She struggled to swallow, and her breath became jagged.

What the hell?

No, she wasn’t attracted to him. She was just a little off her game, something seemed to be niggling at her and she didn’t know what it was. So no, the sight of the stranger had not evoked a sense of arousal in her at all. She didn’t know him and didn’t plan to know him.

She stopped short when Darien Price held out his large, calloused hand, decked with a series of veins that made her heart pound again. He wanted her to touch him. She so closely scrutinized his hand that she could glimpse the markings of what looked like a tattoo under his shirt and jacket, revealed by his outstretched arm. No, touching him would burn her.

“Mr. Price,”

she said instead, nodded, then excused herself only to bump into something rock-hard, her purse knocked from her hand, and her palms warming against a wall of muscle as she tried to balance herself.

“My apologies,”

she said stiffly, then stepped back when the warm rock wall turned out to be a human male who bent to retrieve her purse.

The residual effects of meeting Darien Price seemed to be rekindled, and she was now a raging inferno of unwanted bodily responses. More bizarrely, she could sense Darien Price still looking at her from where he stood. But now she could also feel the heavy hot gaze of someone else from across the room, searing her flesh wherever his gaze touched.

She shouldn’t have come out tonight.

“Austin Brown,”

the man before her said as he unfolded to his full height, forcing Adrienne to look up at his six-three, maybe six-four frame. Dazzling hazel eyes stared back at her, his lashes so profoundly long that they staggered her. She found herself drowning in his gaze, lured there by the promise of comfort and safety but also mind-blowing sensuality.

Her body grew hotter. Were her panties now damp?

This was crazy. She was being crazy. And that was not a trait she allowed herself to have. She wasn’t some giggling ditzy girl who fell for every hot and sexy man she came across. She was level-headed, supremely organized, and mature, dammit. Nothing caught her off guard. Ever.

She glared at her designer purse in his huge hand, then whipped her eyes up to him as she noticed he also had tattoos that were concealed under his perfectly fitted suit, accentuating every degree of his muscular body.

As carefully as she could, she ignored his introduction and took her purse from him.

“Thank you,”

she said, then turned away, but not without hearing his chuckle and feeling his gaze on her ass as she walked away.

With the sense of still being intimately observed from afar, she looked up and around her. Immediately, her eyes locked with a man standing across the room, leaning against a pillar, arms folded, looking directly at her.

Despite the distance between them, the incredible blue in his eyes drew her to him, as did the dominance in his jaw and the power in his body. His dark hair was short, like a military cut, but it just gave him an air of danger and deviance.

Her breath quickened, and her knees quivered. For one mad instant, she envisioned herself kneeling before this man, naked, hands behind her back. Impulsively, she looked to her right and gasped.

Standing in pretty much the same position as the blue-eyed man was Darien Price. His eyes fixed on her so thoroughly that she felt as if he were controlling her movements.

She quickly shifted her attention away from him, turning her head in the opposite direction. And there stood Austin Brown in exactly the same position as Blue Eyes and Darien Price.

Her breath was completely suspended as her gaze revolved around the three of them, standing at her sides and in front of her, surrounding her to the point where everyone else at the charity auction disappeared, and it was only her and them.

They watched her so intently that she felt as if they had peeled away her clothes, leaving her with nothing but her aching nipples and wet panties.

She drew in a deep breath and centered herself. Everything was in her head. Her restlessness, the unease in her bones, everything contributed to making her feel crazy. She just needed a few days away from it all. That was all she needed.