The Winslow Brothers

Chapter One

Remy

Charlotte rises up on her toes and pushes a kiss to my mouth, and my brothers erupt into chaos from the car parked at the curb.

“Come on, Rem! You’re not going off to war, for shit’s sake!” Jude yells boisterously. “Say goodnight!”

I sink my hand into Charlotte’s hair and kiss her harder, and she laughs against my mouth.

As the fiancée of a man with three rowdy brothers, she’s used to this kind of nonsense. The teasing, the taunting, the absolutely relentless shit-talking. In a way, with our little sister Winnie in college, Charlotte has become the token sacrificial woman of our antics.

I pull back and lean my forehead against hers, and out of the corner of my eye, I see Ty climb up onto the sill of the car window, the whole upper half of his body hanging out across the sidewalk. He looks like the epitome of his history—a rugby player at Harvard University with full, perfectly coiffed light-brown hair, a bright white smile, and sparkling light-green eyes. He graduated a couple years ago, but he’s still every bit of the frat-boy-looking grinner he was back then.

“Get in the damn car, you love-sick bastard!”

Flynn is the only one with the decency to keep his mouth shut, but the truth is, Flynn rarely opens it up to say much anyway. He may be the most even-tempered, rational brother of all, but with his dark eyes, dark hair, and olive skin, he’s always had a bit of a mysterious edge about him.

As he sits in front of my building, behind the wheel of his Ford Bronco, messing with the radio, it’s obvious the momentous occasion of tonight has done nothing to change that.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” I say against Charlotte’s mouth, her lips curling up at the sides and making her nose twitch.

“I know,” she replies with a laugh, putting a small hand to my chest and shoving. “Go. Have fun! It’s your bachelor party, Remy!” I smile, and she taps my chest with a finger. “In less than a week, you’ll be tied down forever to a pretty spiffy ball and chain. Enjoy it while you can.”

“Please!” Jude yells again, clearly having heard her. “Listen to the woman. I implore you!”

I groan. “Maybe I should just stay here with you. It feels weird going out for my bachelor party without you going out for your bachelorette.”

“Remington Winslow,” she chastises with a roll of her eyes and a laugh. “I have to finish prepping and give my big presentation for the group in California tonight anyway, and I’m going out with the girls tomorrow night. Go . I don’t want you here.” She punctuates her words with a wink, and finally, I relent.

“All right. Fine. I’m going.”

“Hallelujah!” Ty shouts, dropping back into the front seat of the Bronco and turning around to high-five Jude in the back.

I’m slightly terrified of what they have planned, but I know that’s just my survival instinct talking. The amount of shit my brothers and I have gotten into over the years would make a nun curse. With five children, four of whom are boys, spanning ten years in age, it’s a miracle our mother, Wendy, survived raising us. I didn’t really understand it when I was younger—shit, I probably put my mom through more hell than the rest of her kids combined—but now that I’m twenty-nine and about to start a family of my own, I can see the error of my wild ways.

I lean forward, grab Charlotte by the jaw, and kiss her one more time with everything I have. The warmth of her mouth matches the temperature of the air, and it’s enough to make my fucking head spin. We connect deeply, entwining our tongues and melding our bodies together like we’ll never be separate beings again.

When I finally pull away, we’re both breathless in a way that even makes it hard to hear my brothers complaining.

“Love you.”

Charlotte smiles again. “I love you too. Now, go .”

I turn around and jog the short distance from the front steps to the sidewalk and open the front door to claim my rightful spot.

Ty waggles his eyebrows with a taunt, but when I give him a solid punch to the shoulder, he climbs back over the center console into the back seat and frees up the front for me, leaving only a yelp in his wake.

He’s obviously fine, though, because it’s not long before laughter pours out of the back seat as my two youngest brothers cut up with each other.

I shut the door, and Flynn fires up the engine, puts the old girl into gear, and pulls away from the curb.

I hold up my hand out the open window, and Charlotte shakes her head with a smile, crossing her arms over her chest to watch us go, her cutoff shorts, white tank top, and pink-tipped bare toes visible in the streetlight.

Damn, she looks good standing in front of my building.

Soon-to-be our building that houses our apartment.

Once we get back from our honeymoon, my Charlotte will officially move in with me, and we’ll be husband and wife for the rest of our glorious days.

Oh yeah, the future is bright and beautiful, my friends.

Reaching forward, I rotate the knob to turn up the volume on AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” and slap my hand against the top of the door to the beat of the music.

Flynn smiles from the driver’s seat, balancing one casual wrist at the top of the wheel as he drives through the busy Manhattan streets.

I don’t know where we’re going, or why Flynn insisted on getting his old Bronco out of storage rather than taking the subway, but I can’t help but admit I’m enjoying it.

If it weren’t for the sounds of horns and crowded sidewalks, I could almost convince myself we’d found a backroad to cruise.

Jude and Ty slap fight in the back seat like a couple of kids, and it’s far from the first time I realize what they say about the differences between a boy’s and a girl’s timeline to maturity really is true.

Charlotte is a year younger than Jude and three years younger than Ty, but she has more adulthood in the tip of one pinkie finger than the two of them combined.

Frankly, on several occasions, she’s the more level-headed of the two of us, and I’m seven years her senior.

It isn’t until we make the turn to take the Holland Tunnel out of New York that I start to get nervous about what my stupid brothers have up their sleeves for tonight.

“Where are we going?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jude says from the relative safety of his spot directly behind me. He’s a smartass all the time, but I can guarantee he wouldn’t be saying it with so much attitude if I didn’t have to be a goddamn contortionist to hit him in the balls.

“Flynn,” I say instead of giving Jude the attention he so desperately craves. “Tell me where we’re going.”

“A strip club,” Flynn answers matter-of-factly.

I groan and sink my head into my hands. “You’re kidding me, right?”

Flynn looks over, and in the lights of the tunnel, I can see his response written plainly on his face. Do I look like I’m kidding?

Jude and Ty snicker in the back. I don’t bother trying to convince them not to go, and I don’t bother asking why. Both would be nothing more than a fool’s effort.

What I do ask, however, is logistical in nature. “Okay, then. Can someone tell me why the fuck we’re not just going to one in New York?”

“Because I have it on good authority that the talent at this club is the best, Remington ,” Jude insists. “And I’m not going to be known as some titty-licker who’ll go just anywhere, especially not on the special occasion that is your bachelor party.”

I roll my eyes. “Good authority, huh? Don’t tell me, it’s your friend Kyle .”

“I don’t know why you’re saying his name like that, bro,” Jude protests. “He is nothing if not a strip club connoisseur.”

“He should make sure he puts that on his resume,” Ty says with a snort, and at the ungodly noise, all four of us laugh.

Jude has known Kyle since high school, and let’s just say, he’s the kind of guy the FBI comes looking for. Literally . He was out with his friends— not Jude, thank God —one night in Central Park, and he stabbed himself in the leg with a seven-inch K bar knife he was carrying around just for fun at seventeen years old. The FBI closed their investigation on everything after they realized he and his friends had been playing some weird version of “Commando Games” that led to a real-life freak accident when he tripped and fell, but his dad shipped him off to military school after that.

That helped a little, but he’s still not the kind of guy I’d go to for any kind of advice.

“When you get through the tunnel, turn around,” I tell Flynn seriously, sending the occupants of the back seat into an all-out uproar.

I talk over them as they complain. “We can go to a strip club. I’ll give you that much, but I’m not setting foot in any place that kid recommended.”

“Fine,” Jude says with a pout in his voice. I know he wants to say more, but he’s also smart enough to know that I’m already compromising by going to a strip club in the first place. This isn’t a battle he wants to pick.

Needless to say, it takes a little bit of time for Flynn to find a place to turn around and even more to fight our way back through Manhattan traffic, so by the time we park on a side street just a couple blocks away from the new club, I’m more than happy to go inside, just to get something to fucking drink.

My mouth is like a sandy pit of dehydration, and my head is only a few minutes away from starting to pound.

All four of us climb out of the car and start walking at the same time, but it looks very different on some of us. Jude and Ty are so full of endless energy, they practically circle Flynn and me every half a block. Flynn and I are twin pillars of a casual stroll. But instead of getting annoyed, I try my best to let their good time soak into me through my skin.

The truth is, before I met Charlotte, I probably would have been running laps on the sidewalk with them. Jude shuffles to my side, his big, permanent white-toothed smile growing while he waggles blond-hair-veiled blue eyes at me, and I give him a quick shove in the shoulder that makes him run into the brick wall of the building we’re passing. He laughs, and I feel a smile start to creep onto my face.

My brothers really are fun to be around, and after next weekend, it won’t have the same feel ever again. I’ll have a new family of my own to look after.

Resolute, I loosen my shoulders and shake my head. Just enjoy tonight.

I can see across the crosswalk that the line to get into the club is backed up twenty people deep, and my dry mouth calls out to me like a wounded wanderer in the desert.

Thankfully, Taco Bell beckons across the street.

I stutter-step and turn left, ready to cross the street, but Jude catches me by the back of my shirt and stops my momentum.

“Where the hell are you going?” he asks, outraged that I’m changing the plan again, so close to the finish line.

“I’m thirsty. It’s going to be at least half an hour before we get in there. I’m going to get something to fucking drink. You can get in line.”

“No way,” Jude says resolutely. I roll my eyes.

“Jude—”

“No,” he snaps again, turning me around and shoving me out in front of him to bypass the line.

Everyone we walk past pays us little mind—all the way up until the point that we don’t keep walking, but instead stop and watch as Jude strides right up to the bouncer and whispers something in his ear.

He nods, unbelievably, and waves the group of us forward, much to the waiting line’s chagrin.

“Yo, what the fuck?” one guy in front yells, outraged.

I don’t bother to meet his eyes as the bouncer moves the rope and we slide inside.

The music is loud, and the lights are low everywhere but up on the stages. Spotlights sweep and neon lasers strobe as three different women swing around the poles at the ends of their stages, their feet extended out toward the crowd.

They’re all well into the routine, obviously, as their tits are out and bare, their abandoned clothing scattered all over the floor.

Jude and Ty each grab me by one arm, dragging me toward the stage in the center and sitting me down on a chair front and center before occupying the ones right next to me themselves.

Jude’s baby-blue eyes are wide and round like an excited little puppy, and I can’t help but laugh.

“What in the hell did you say to get us in here in front of everyone?” I ask.

“Yeah, that was some shit,” Ty agrees from the other side.

Jude shakes his head and waves me off, never taking his eyes off the stage as the blond woman spins around the pole upside down until her hands hit the floor. She transitions into a handstand, and I have to admit, I’m finding it hard not to watch.

Half naked or not, she’s really fucking athletic.

“Jude, come on. What did you say?” I push.

“Nothing, dude,” he denies again, and while I might have let it go after the first denial, I’m now officially on edge. He’s up to something.

Something cold and hard hits me in the shoulder, and I turn around to find Flynn holding a beer there. Thank God.

“Thanks, man.”

Flynn nods and takes the seat behind me, leaning into the back of it and resting his foot on the back of Ty’s chair like he doesn’t have a care in the world.

He’s easygoing—I know that about him—but sometimes his ability to compartmentalize his surroundings truly astounds me.

“Pour Some Sugar on Me” hits its final notes as the women onstage crawl around to gather the dollar bills men have placed there in offering. Jude holds a five-dollar bill between his teeth and leans all the way into the edge of the stage as the blonde in front of us crawls toward him.

I have to put my hands on either side of my head to keep it from exploding as she rolls onto her back, leans her head over the edge, and encourages him to place the bill between her bare breasts with his mouth.

Dear God, Jude Winslow is too fucking cute for his own good. Mix that with his happy-go-lucky attitude, and women fucking swoon for him.

I only wish the ridiculousness ended there.

The voice of the emcee comes over the sound system, closing out the dance and inviting Sunshine, Legs, and Heaven to leave the stage.

The woman I can only assume is Sunshine winks at Jude and scoops up the scraps of clothing she’s shed before leaving the stage on a seductive swing of her hips.

I take a deep sigh, but before I can finish, all the available air in the room escapes me.

“Next, we’ve got a special treat, a bachelor here to celebrate his last night of freedom.”

All the men in the room boo, and I whip my head toward an animated version of the corpse formerly known as my youngest brother.

“Jude, what did you do?”

“You can thank me later,” he says excitedly, just as two women appear at my sides and take me by the hands, pull me around to the side of the stage, and lead me up the stairs.

Oh, sweet Jesus.

“Let’s show him a really good time, girls,” the emcee continues, making the women laugh as Sunshine brings a chair out from backstage, sets it in the center of the platform, and shoves me down into it by the shoulder.

I can barely see my brothers at the edge of the stage thanks to the spotlight pointed in my eyes, but I’ve got to imagine both Jude and Ty are losing their minds.

When the first notes of “Cherry Pie” start up, though, I know I’m really in trouble. There’s not a strip club in existence that doesn’t use this song to its full advantage.

Sunshine is the first to straddle my lap and grab my shoulders as she swings her body back and forth. The other two women dance behind me, so I can’t see them, but I can feel the gyration of their bodies as they press up against me. I put my hands to my face, both in embarrassment and to keep them from accidentally touching anything, but Sunshine shakes her head in reprimand before licking her lips.

I can hear Ty’s holler despite the music. He’s that excited.

Leaning back, Sunshine wraps her legs around me and flips all the way to the floor to do some sort of walkover that ends in a split right in front of my brothers, and I almost breathe a sigh of relief. But another woman, this one a brunette, drops down in her place and takes my chin in her hand, and then pushes her breasts to my face before I get the chance.

I fight to breathe in the air pocket in between them, the smell of coconut body spray all but choking me.

My immediate feeling is one of guilt, for betraying my fiancée in some sick way, but I quickly quiet that to a dull roar by rationalizing that it is in no way my choice to be here, in this club, on this stage right now.

In fact, if someone weren’t tying my hands up behind my back at this very moment, I’d be making my getaway.

As it is, I’m attached to the chair now as the three of them work together to drag me toward the pole and set me up against it.

Sunshine uses my legs to climb, before jumping up to grab the pole and straddling her legs right in front of me. The tiny scrap of bright white fabric covering her vagina is like an airport beacon light, spinning around to alert the approaching traffic.

The brunette drops to her knees on the floor and pushes my legs apart, working to unbutton my pants.

“No, no,” I protest. “That’s okay—”

But the jolt of my zipper hitting its bottom end is all the punctuation I need to tell me I’m on this ride whether I want to be or not—and my baby brother Jude is the one who strapped me in.

How long can my mother really cry if I kill him? A month? Two, tops?

The brunette tugs my pants down over my hips while Sunshine and her other friend work together to put as many boobs in front of my face as humanly possible. Panic sets in when the climax of “Cherry Pie” builds, and the brunette grabs my boxer briefs, pulls them away from my body, and shoves the goddamn spike of her heel right through them, ripping them in two .

Holy. Shit.

I need to get out of here. Right. Now.

The crowd erupts again, and this time, it’s not even close to limited to my brothers. Everyone in the place is losing their fucking shit, and I’m trying not to have a stroke before the age of thirty. I’m also really fucking thankful that somehow the scraps of my boxers manage to keep my dick under wraps. Not to mention, that whole it-almost-got-impaled-by-a-stripper’s-heel thing.

Yeah. That too.

God help me.

Quickly, my hands are undone, but before I can make a move, Sunshine flips my chair down onto its back in time with the close of the song, ripping off her top in dramatic fashion as she stands over me, straddling my head in a symbolic gesture of defeat.

And, in a way, I understand it. My “freedom” has been sufficiently killed. Because I have never been more eager to run down the aisle with Charlotte and never fucking look back.

Only a sadist would see this experience any other way, but by the expressions on Ty’s and Jude’s faces, it’s evident I’m directly related to at least two of them.

I swear, they both look like they would have bartered their own balls to be in my position right now.

Personally, I can’t pull up my jeans and tuck the shreds of my underwear inside quick enough.

I also can’t get out of there soon enough. I need to eat. I need to breathe. And I really need to figure out a way not to fucking slice my baby brother’s throat open.