The Mr and Mrs Mistake (Steele Brothers of Starlight Cove #3)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

LINCOLN

It was barely ten thirty on a Wednesday night, and I’d already served a dozen screaming orgasms, dodged a swinging tentacle vibrator, and had a woman tell me my ass was juicy enough to start a riot.

Honestly? Not even the weirdest compliment I’d gotten today.

This was pretty much a normal evening at One Night Stan’s.

The vibe at our family-owned bar was mellow, for the most part.

A few regulars sat nursing their drinks.

Two tables of flirty twentysomethings tried to get free shots with bad pickup lines.

And Mabel, Starlight Cove’s horny, elderly menace in a bedazzled tracksuit, was waving an alien dick and loudly discussing the merits of toys that featured both clitoral and G-spot stimulation.

She didn’t have to sell me that truth. I was already a believer.

Everything was completely normal. Well…everything except me.

I’d been restless for weeks. Months, even. Uneasy in a way that had nothing to do with caffeine or tequila. I was unsettled deep in my bones and frayed at the edges.

And the worst part was, I didn’t know why.

I had no idea what the hell my problem was.

I was living the life I’d always wanted—running the bar how I saw fit.

Well, mostly. Sleeping in and working late and flirting like it was my job because it was.

Once I was done for the night, I’d head upstairs to my apartment with more numbers for women than I could reasonably entertain in a week.

Not that I’d been doing much—or really any—of that.

And then I’d do it all over again the next day.

But it still felt…off, somehow.

Like I was fine with what I had, but I wanted something else. Something more.

More than filling in for anyone who called out. More than fixing the bar’s POS system for the third time in a month. More than being the brother everyone called for a laugh or a good time.

I just wanted something more fulfilling than being the best bartender in New England and the guy known as the unofficial emotional support himbo of Starlight Cove.

I shook off the thought and got back to work because morose bartenders didn’t get good tips. I closed out a group’s tab. Flirted with Mabel when she asked for another round for her table. Refilled someone’s gin and tonic and shot them a smile that had worked for me as long as I could remember.

And then the door opened, and I did a double take at the person standing there.

Willa Jameson. Former partner in crime, current sparring opponent, best friend’s little sister—if eight minutes counted as little.

She walked in like she had a vendetta against my sanity and self-control, and she had no problem challenging both.

Dark hair pulled back in a messy braid with wisps framing her face, those lush curves hidden beneath a pair of faded overalls that would be my undoing, and boots that had seen some shit.

Topping it all off was a faint flush on her cheeks and a pinch between her brows that meant she was tired, irritated, in pain, and trying like hell not to show any of that.

It wasn’t the first time she’d come to the bar this late. Wasn’t even the first time she’d looked like she wanted to murder everyone in her path.

But what made tonight different?

Willa was drunk. Not tipsy, not buzzed. Drunk.

I clocked it immediately. She moved slower than she usually did, even on a high pain day.

Like her bones were too weary to hold herself up.

She usually kept those kinds of tells locked up tight.

Which meant, if I could see them from across the room, she was disarmed.

Off duty in a way she never allowed herself to be. Not around anyone.

Sure as hell not around me.

She didn’t stroll up to the bar. Didn’t even glance my way. She just dropped into a booth in the back and waved down Lisa, who’d once served an entire bottle of merlot in a margarita pitcher because she didn’t believe in limits.

As I grabbed a refill for someone at the bar, I narrowed my eyes on Willa, trying to get a deeper read on her. Something was definitely up. Because even with all our antagonism, she still came straight to me to order, every time. And usually delivered her order with a side of fuck you.

She didn’t come to me tonight, though.

If I had to put money on why, I’d say it was because she knew I’d notice exactly what state she was in. That I’d never serve her past her limit. That I’d ask what was wrong and she’d dodge my question with a scathing response, and then I’d walk her home anyway.

So whatever the hell was going on with her wasn’t normal.

After Lisa dropped off her drink, Willa pulled an old paperback out of her tote bag, opened it, and leaned back into the booth. Settling in like she wasn’t clearly falling apart. Like maybe no one would notice a fissure had already formed in her foundation. But I did.

I noticed everything about Willa Jameson.

In between other customers, I kept an eye on her, clocking when she started to droop a bit more, laugh a little too loud, and had trouble locating her straw.

She didn’t flinch when a group of guys stumbled past her booth, loud and obnoxious, shoulder-checking one another like a bunch of fucking middle schoolers. One bumped her table hard enough to slosh her water glass, but she didn’t even glance their way. Like she hadn’t noticed.

Okay. That was it.

I handed the bar off to Tasha—my right-hand woman—grabbed a cold bottle of water, and made my way toward the booth like I wasn’t strolling up to a ticking bomb I had no idea how to disarm.

“Evening, hellcat,” I said, keeping my voice light and easy, waiting for the inevitable bite-my-head-off greeting I’d come to expect from her.

It took Willa a second to glance my way.

Her eyes were glassy, her cheeks flushed, and her braid had started to unravel.

She wore one of her dad’s old, threadbare flannels—the same one she always threw on at the end of a really long day.

That in itself was telling enough, but the smile she shot my way was entirely unexpected and nearly knocked me on my ass.

It was wide, vibrant. Unguarded in a way that Willa never was around me. Not anymore.

It was a smile she hadn’t sent in my direction in years.

“Linc,” she breathed. Linc. Not Lincoln.

Not jackass. Yeah, this was definitely not the girl who’d hated me for years.

This was the girl I’d been best friends with most of my childhood.

The one I’d shared secrets, scraped knees, and inside jokes with.

The one I hadn’t seen in almost two decades. “Why are there two of you?”

“Jesus Christ,” I muttered, bracing one hand on the back of her booth and the other on her table. Leaning toward her, I darted my gaze over her face. “How’d you get here?”

She lifted a single shoulder in a shrug. “Arthur.”

Starlight Cove’s one and only non-Uber driver who was older than dirt. But better him than herself—I was surprised she’d been able to walk across the room let alone drive.

“How much have you had to drink tonight, hellcat?”

She pursed her lips and squinted one eye. “Mmm…maybe one or two?”

I snorted. “The only thing you’ve had one or two of is entire damn bottles, and I wouldn’t put it past you. That means it’s about time to get you out of here.”

“But I was reading.” She pouted—actually pouted.

The girl who’d once broken a guy’s nose for calling her sweetheart and told her brother to get over himself when he’d fallen out of a tree and broken his arm when we were twelve.

“And the farm’s so far away. Can’t I just sleep here? The booth is cozy.”

“You’re not going to the farm. And you’re sure as hell not sleeping in the bar. You’re going upstairs to my place. You can keep reading when you get there.”

She squinted up at me, trying to figure out if I was telling the truth, before finally nodding. “Okay, but you have to promise me, Linc. I just got to the good stuff,” she stage-whispered, not at all discreetly.

I glanced at the well-worn cover featuring a half-naked man with lots of lube—er, oil—covering his chest and grinned. “Deal. Now, let’s make sure you don’t fall on your ass.”

Willa stood from the booth, a bit off-kilter but cooperative as she leaned into me.

I grabbed her bag off the seat and tucked her well-loved paperback inside, all without her putting up a fight.

Oh yeah. She was definitely shit-faced. I hadn’t yet encountered anything at all in her presence where she hadn’t put up a fight with me.

“All right, hellcat.” I steered her toward the back stairs that led to my apartment, ignoring how soft she was and how good she smelled and how perfectly she fit right under my arm. “Time to go.”

Tasha caught my eye, one dark brow raised, her afro bobbing as she tilted her head to study us. “Need any help?”

“Nah. I’ve got her.”

“Yeah, he does. He’s so strong.” Willa sent Tasha a dopey smile and leaned into me, running her hand all over my chest and down to my stomach. “He’s definitely got me.”

I huffed out a laugh as Tasha’s brows flew up her forehead, nearly disappearing into her dark, fluffy curls.

She glanced at me with wide eyes, her expression very clearly broadcasting, Oh shit, has she been body snatched?

I could understand the confusion since the only thing my little hellcat usually hurled my way were insults, death glares, and threats of murder.

Willa was going to absolutely lose her shit if she ever found out her streak of public hate against me had been broken.

By the time we made it upstairs and into my apartment, she was barely standing.

She tried to sink down onto the couch, but I guided her toward my bed instead.

No way was she sleeping on the sofa and fucking up her back even more than it already was.

She’d been wrecked ever since that hayloft fall years ago—and the Great Tractor Incident last summer sure as hell hadn’t helped—so I had no intention of letting her suffer more than she already did.

“Not that I think I’ll get much out of you now, but you wanna tell me what tonight is all about?” I crouched in front of her while she sat on my bed, glancing up as I unlaced her boots before tugging them off.

She blew out a heavy sigh, her shoulder slumping, and shook her head. “Grant…”

My gaze snapped to hers, my entire body flushing with a burst of anger, thanks to the mention of someone I was apparently going to have to kill.

“Who the fuck is Grant, and what the fuck did he do to you?” I asked, voice low and deceptively calm. Because I sure as hell felt anything but.

Instead of answering me, she tipped sideways on the bed, curling her knees up to her chest and sinking into my pillow with a satisfied sigh. “I’m so tired, Linc. And this pillow is so soft and smells so good…”

If she hadn’t just dropped a bomb on me, I would’ve laughed at her reaction. As it was, I had too many questions and not enough answers.

And unfortunately, that was how it was going to stay. At least for the foreseeable future.

Willa was snoring softly before I’d even pulled the blanket over her, her face relaxed and peaceful for the first time in a long time. Like the weight she’d been carrying on her shoulders for years—grief, pain, pressure, control—had finally eased.

I set a bottle of water and some ibuprofen on the nightstand before slipping into the bathroom and changing into sweats. After grabbing an extra pillow and blanket, I flopped down on the couch with her worn paperback and flipped it open to the earmarked page.

“Don’t stop,” Mara breathed, her hips bucking back to meet each of his thrusts. “Come inside me.”

Silas growled and fucked her harder, sinking deeper into her, working them both toward their peaks. “You think I’d waste a single drop outside your sweet heat, mate? This body was made to take my seed.”

My brows rose as I scanned the rest of the page, and they hit my hairline when I got to the part where Silas shoved his come back inside his mate.

This wasn’t my first rodeo in the spicy romance department—wasn’t anywhere near close to the spiciest I’d read, actually.

But somehow, knowing my little hellcat read this?

Read and very obviously loved, based on the cracked spine and soft pages?

Well.

That definitely should not have made me hard enough that my dick was trying to fight its way out of my sweatpants. But I couldn’t deny that was exactly what happened.

I adjusted myself, knowing I was in for a long night of absolutely zero relief while my visitor was here. But I flipped to the front of the book anyway and started from the beginning.

Maybe reading this would give me some clues into Willa’s mind. Because fuck knew that girl hadn’t told me anything for years.

But one thing was for sure—tomorrow morning, she’d be telling me what the hell was going on. Starting with just who the fuck Grant was and where I could find the dead man walking.