Chapter 8
***Aggie***
I nodded off while putting Gracie to bed.
It’d been the most aggravating day I’d ever had and I was exhausted from not losing my mind.
When I woke up, I saw only a few minutes had passed, but Gracie had fallen asleep with me.
She was curled around an impressive collection of teddy bears and had her thumb planted firmly in her mouth.
I quietly and slowly stood up and walked out of her room, leaving the door cracked the way the guys had so helpfully lectured me about.
The power nap had recharged my batteries and I was going through the day in my head, getting angrier by the moment.
I slowly made my way downstairs, planning on getting ice for my knee before finding the guys.
Something had to change. The day had been hell.
It’d been bad before the fall, but after?
I wanted to actually murder them. I’d never been so angry in my life.
Not even Monroe had managed to invoke a reaction like the one the Graves brothers raised in me.
They’d hovered the rest of the day. They’d watched every moment of my interactions with Gracie, commenting and critiquing them the entire time.
I didn’t tell her to sit to eat her lunch in the right place.
I didn’t make her nap fast enough. I was too nice when she didn’t want to nap.
I was too this, too that, not enough this or that.
It was like they’d glued themselves to my back to try to make me quit.
I felt like my blood pressure had reached record highs throughout the day and my ego had taken a beating like no other.
I was thoroughly convinced that I wasn’t made for dealing with children, and it pissed me off even more that they’d managed to cut me down so far.
They were reinforcing my stance to not have children with each remark they made.
It was clear that we didn’t like each other, but if they were going to continue being assholes, I’d have to do something drastic. Like drown them all in the pool.
I grabbed a premade bag of ice that Mary had left for me.
She’d been disgusted and disgruntled by my bloody mess, but she’d still made sure to leave supplies for me before going home for the night.
I grabbed a popsicle and opened it over the sink.
The house was huge and I figured a snack for the trip to find the guys would be nice.
Limping through the first floor, I ate the popsicle and looked around, running through calming techniques in my head.
When I heard muffled voices coming from behind a closed door at the far side of the house, I was almost calm from my long walk and the delicious pineapple popsicle.
Rich people’s popsicles were made differently, I realized while biting off another chunk.
Knocking on the door, I waited to hear a muffled command to enter before pushing it open.
The three brothers were all settled around a coffee table on low couches in the middle of a library unlike any I’d ever seen outside of movies.
Dark wood encased what had to be thousands of books and there was even a massive wooden desk at the back of the room that called to me.
The work that could be done at that desk made my mouth water.
The deep leather couches the three brothers sat on complemented the masculine feel of the room and made the men sitting on them look even more distinguished somehow.
Whiskey glasses were in different states of being emptied and there was a cigar resting on an ash tray in the middle of the coffee table.
“To what do we owe this pleasure?” Knight’s dry question went ignored as I limped to the closest wall of books.
I whistled to myself and shook my head. The sheer impressiveness of the library had stolen my attention and anger. “This is amazing.”
Kyrin gripped my arm, surprising me, and tugged me towards the couches. “You have the ice in your hand. It’s not going to do shit unless you put it on your knee.”
I grunted as he pushed me down next to Zander. “You do realize that I can walk and sit down all by myself? Or maybe you don’t, judging by how you treated me today.”
Kyrin glared at me even as he lifted my leg onto the couch, resting my foot and ankle across Zander’s lap. When I tried to pull back, he grabbed my calf and stopped me. “You’re putting ice on this knee. You let me help like this or I’ll dunk your ass in an ice bath.”
I bit off a chunk of popsicle angrily and glared at him. “Fine.”
Zander cupped the bottom of my foot and leaned forward, letting my toes press into his hard abs.
It wasn’t a move that should’ve made my body flutter, but it did.
He looked at my knee and clicked his tongue.
“For a problem solver, you sure did find yourself in several problems today. Ones that could’ve been avoided.
Easily. I think today counts as one of your tests. ”
I gritted my teeth as Kyrin settled the ice over my knee.
It helped me stay relatively calm in the face of Zander’s bullshit high-handedness, though.
I even managed to finish my popsicle before responding.
“Has anyone ever told you that you have a personality that would make the devil pray for mercy?”
Kyrin settled on his couch next to Knight and grunted. “A few people have.”
Zander pressed his thumb into the arch of my foot and smirked when my eyes fluttered at the sensation. “There’s plenty more than personality to a man, Miss Young.”
I licked my lips and nodded. “And yet I can’t get past your personality. This isn’t what I came to talk about, though.”
He continued rubbing my foot like it was nothing for his hands to be on my body. “Then enlighten us.”
“You’re all horrible assholes.” I gasped when he rubbed a spot that made my back arch with pleasure.
As soon as he moved from the spot, I cleared my throat and tried to salvage my point.
“I know you don’t think very highly of me.
It’s blatantly obvious. If this is how this month is going to go, I can tell you’re not going to give me a fair chance to prove myself. So there’s no point to my being here.”
“You mean, besides a hefty paycheck?” Knight held his whiskey glass to his lips and hesitated before drinking. “The point, Aggie, is that our niece wants you here.”
“I don’t care about the money. I have savings I could live off for a while.
I can go to a bigger city and get work easily.
As far as Gracie goes, I like her. I want to be able to keep her happy for the month.
At the end of the day, however, I’m not a nanny and I have no interest in playing house with your niece for a month if the three of you are going to act like you did today.
When it's so clear that you think I’m absolute garbage, I can’t pretend like I have a real chance to work for your company.
That’s the reason I’m here. A job at The Graves Company. ”
“I thought we made it clear that we have no interest in hiring Blake’s girlfriend.” Zander narrowed his eyes, even as he continued massaging my foot. “You’re only ever going to play nanny for us.”
I tried to kick him, but he didn’t let my foot go. Instead, I settled on stretching forward and grabbing his whiskey glass. I threw back the contents and pointed at him with the glass in my hand. “I am no one’s girlfriend. I am my own woman and you’re a fool for not seeing that.”
He took the glass from me and set it down roughly on the table. “We don’t believe you.”
In a move that was pure emotion and no thought, I knocked the ice off my knee and sat up to glare at him. I angrily swatted his hands away from my foot and pulled it under me. “What do I have to do to get it through your thick skull that I’m not some secret spy for Monroe?”
He grabbed my waist and pulled me into his lap, his grip bruising. Keeping me at the edge of his knees, he dropped his hand to my thigh and looked my knee over. “It doesn’t matter what you do. You sat pretty by Blake’s side for half a decade. You can’t be trusted.”
I pushed his hand away. “Don’t touch me.”
“Why? Your boyfriend wouldn’t like it?” He rested his arms on the couch behind him as he smirked at me.
I felt my control slipping and growled under my breath. “I’ll prove it to you, asshole.”
Ignoring the pain in my knee, I grabbed his collar in my hands and yanked him closer.
My anger crested as I met his fiery gaze just before crushing my mouth into his.
I had control of the kiss for maybe half a second before I lost it and realized that my impulsiveness might’ve gotten me in trouble again.
Zander gripped the hair at the back of my head and used it to tug my head where he wanted me.
He stroked his tongue over mine and bit my lip before kissing me deep again.
His hand didn’t cup the side of my face or even drop to my breasts like I expected.
Instead, he settled his palm over my throat and wrapped his fingers around my neck, holding me in a way I’d never been held.
I went still, my body naturally pausing to see what he’d do next.
My pulse raced against his hand and I knew he could feel it.
He kissed my parted lips, sucked my lower lip between his teeth, and bit down until I whimpered.
When he spoke, it was against my open mouth. “You think women with boyfriends don’t kiss other men?”
My eyes fluttered open and I met his honey gaze. “Not me. I was as loyal as an old hunting dog, even when he wasn’t.”
From behind me, I heard Knight stand up. “Is that what this is about? Poor little girlfriend got cheated on and now she’s lashing out?”
When I tried to turn a glare on Knight, Zander kept his grip on my throat and hair. His eyes burned into mine. “You keep your eyes on me.”
“I don’t care that he cheated on me. I care that he stole my career, all because I wouldn’t play egg incubator for him!” I swallowed nervously and felt myself unraveling under the force of Zander’s intensity. “It doesn’t matter. I told you I’m not his girlfriend and now I’ve shown you.”
Warmth breath kissed the base of my neck as Kyrin spoke from directly behind me.
“You think that Zander will trust you now? Because he tasted this hot mouth? None of us believe you aren’t still under Blake’s thumb.
I will say I’m impressed at how he got you to act so normal and sane in public at those events, though. ”
I tried to elbow Kyrin, but he caught my arm and held it against his chest. “You’re an asshole!”
The sensation of his teeth dragging across my shoulder scorched through my body. I rocked my hips forward, desperate to get any bit of relief for the need I felt building in me.
“You seemed like such a good girl while you posed next to Blake. Did he know what was hiding under the surface? Did you let him feel you wild and desperate?” Kyrin bit my ear and gripped my hips, pulling them away from any relief I might’ve found.
When I moaned, he sucked at the sensitive skin at the back of my neck.
“You didn’t, did you? Blake never tasted your fire, did he? ”
Zander ran his tongue over my lips and then turned my head to face Knight. “What do you think, Knight? Think she pretended to be a good girl for Blake?”
Knight puffed at the cigar before putting it out and looking me over. “It would’ve had to be pretend, because I’ve never seen a good girl pant for three brothers at the same time before.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. “I’m...not.”
He arched an eyebrow and moved closer. “Baby. You’re wearing Zander’s hands like a necklace and Kyrin is leaving marks on the back of your neck that are going to make it look like you were fucked like a dog from behind while your man held on by his teeth.
All the while, your hips are dancing to get to Zander’s dick. You are not a good girl.”
My body shuddered as a desperate need crashed into me. I felt myself slipping into something that I didn’t understand, but I didn’t want to stop it. I lifted my chin as much as I could and held Knight’s stare. I decided to let my surliness direct my actions. “And?”