Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
HEL
"Are you sure about this, bro?" Fade Mitchell tossed his keys on the stand beside the door and turned to confront me. "She looks like nothing but trouble to me."
I pushed past him. "You didn't give a shit when you were there with your comments about coming." He'd been trying to get a reaction out of her, but it hadn't worked. I hadn't expected it to. His 'ray of sunshine' routine wasn't going to rattle a woman like her.
"Just having some fun with her." He followed me to my office and invited himself to sit in the leather chair on the opposite side of the desk from mine. Sat back and crossed his legs at his knees. His dangling foot jiggled.
I was surprised he didn't sit in my chair and pretend he owned the place.
"Fade might have a point." Oak stepped inside with a glass of some green liquid in his hand. He took a sip and didn't grimace at the taste like a normal person. Then again, if it was green and healthy, he'd put it in his body. And give us looks for not doing the same.
Weird fuck.
“Coming from the guy who keeps reliving that almost-fuck with her over and over in his mind." Fade swiveled to look at him. "Glad you took the time to wipe the drool off your chin."
Oak didn't rise to the bait. Instead, he lowered himself into the chair beside Fade.
"You really think a girl like her is going to do what we want her to?" His blonde hair fell over his forehead, but he didn't push it back. It rested there, half-covering one of his eyes.
"If she doesn't, she doesn't get paid." I opened my laptop and started to look through my emails.
Nothing that couldn't wait until morning.
Or next week. I deleted the spam. I didn't need to read anything from a bot claiming they could upgrade my website.
It was already the best money could buy.
If they bothered to look, they'd know that.
"You know there's women who'd do this for free, right?" Fade grabbed the drink from Oak's hand and took a sip. No one would accuse him of being normal, but he did make a face before he shoved it back at Oak.
"Bro, that's disgusting." He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
"I don't want another woman." I glanced at the angry message from my mother in my messenger app before ignoring it and shutting down the laptop. She'd already sent the exact same message to my phone. I'd ignored that as well. "I want Theodora Ward.”
She was the only one I was interested in since I first saw her a year ago. From that moment on, I'd been watching her. Always from a distance, always trying to figure out the best way to claim her. Some way to tie her to me so she couldn't walk away.
Yes, I was obsessed. I owned it and didn’t give a shit. After all my planning, I was so fucking close.
Now these two clowns were trying to talk me out of it? They both should know me better than that. I never quit.
"She's cute, and I bet she sounds incredible when she comes…" Oak said slowly.
I slammed my hand down on the desk. He needed to stop talking about fucking my woman.
I needed to be the first. Me. Not Oak and not Fade. If they thought I was going to let them touch her before I did, they needed to fuck all the way off.
If he wasn't like a brother to me, I might have Oak’s balls cut off for being alone with her in the parking lot in the first place. His bones would be bleaching on a remote beach somewhere.
She was mine. I saw her first. The fact he didn't know who she was at the time didn't matter. I knew. At some point, he was going to pay for that, but it wasn't tonight. Not while I needed him.
"She's signed the contract. It's done," I said. "She'll be moving in here tomorrow with us. By the time the year is up…"
"She could hate all of us,” Oak finished for me. Not that I was going to finish that way. I was about to say she'd be ours forever. If not ours, then mine. Fully and forever.
In addition, I might not say as much, but the idea of saving Loams was appealing as well.
The place was an institution in Saltgrave Cove.
In spite of the way I was going about things, I had some admiration for her fathers.
They were good men. Of course they were; they raised her.
Fortunately, helping them would put them on my side.
I might need them as backup at some point.
I wasn't above using them or anyone else to get what I wanted. I never had been and I never would.
"Who cares if she hates us?" Fade said. "I want to get my cock into that pussy. Or her mouth. I don't give a fuck which." One side of his mouth drew up in a smile, smug because he knew he'd get a rise out of us.
Oak and I both glared at him.
"She's more than just a pussy," Oak said, his voice soft but dangerous. He was starting to sound as obsessed as I was.
Fade snorted. "You two have got it bad. That's why I'm the one who's going to be fucking her the most. You guys are too intense." He flapped a hand at us both. "Any woman with a couple of brain cells to spare would keep a close eye on you two."
"You don't know what you're talking about," Oak muttered.
"Maybe not," Fade said, "but once she gets a taste of my cock, she'll never look back." He laced his fingers behind his head and smirked. "She had a feel of you and didn't seem interested in round two. Why is that, exactly? She found out you weren't big enough to climb like an oak tree?"
"Because you two fucks interrupted us," Oak said, not quite snapping. He didn't do snapping or yelling. Apparently, those were 'bad for his blood pressure.' His preferred method of being annoyed was to seethe, which I didn't think was good for him either, but I didn't bother to point that out.
"If you hadn't, we could have gotten to know each other better," Oak added. "I was about to ask her out."
Before or after he fucked her? If we hadn't interrupted, he would have. Fade was right about him making bad decisions. His cock had been in too many places it shouldn't have gone. If he'd go to fucking therapy like I told him to…
"Lucky you didn't, or she would have walked the minute she saw us on that Zoom call." Fade told him. "She would have seen your real personality and run a mile away. Not to mention your real face."
"Fuck off," Oak grumbled. He actually looked like he might launch himself at Fade. If they killed each other, they'd get rid of one problem for me, but they'd create a whole lot more. Fortunately for everyone concerned, he flipped Fade off instead.
"Enough," I said. "What may or may not have happened doesn't matter. The only thing that does is following through with our plans."
I took a long, slow breath before I lost my shit with both of them.
"We all have work in the morning. Get out of here." I jerked my chin toward the door.
They didn't stop glaring at each other, but they left my office, one headed one direction, the other stomping off in the other.
Knowing those two, the conversation would be all but forgotten in the morning.
Oak would remember Fade lived to push other people's buttons, and Fade would get bored of trying to push Oak's and go looking for someone else's buttons to push.
As long as he didn't try to push mine, I didn't give a shit.
I rubbed a hand over the back of my head and glanced around the office. The curtains were open, bracketing the view of the ocean, the waves illuminated by the lights from houses along the waterfront.
The office itself was decorated with dark wood and deep colors. Dark blue wallpaper, walnut chair rail. I needed to get it redecorated, it was too coastal for my taste. Less wood and more black. Slick and sophisticated. More me.
According to the agent who sold me the place, the people who owned the house before I bought it met with a messy end. The man did, at least. He was shot by someone no one would name, not even when I offered money for them to remember.
Whatever, it left one of the oldest, grandest homes in Saltgrave without an owner. I'd snapped it up before anyone else could. Me and my friends, my brothers, moved in shortly after. Oak and Fade, where I could keep an eye on them.
I closed the office door behind me and headed up the staircase that was original to the house.
At some point, the wood was sanded down and re-stained, but it still held its original character.
The bannisters, worn from a hundred years of hands rubbing up and down.
Here and there were nicks in the wood. One bigger chunk looked a lot like someone tried to take a bite out of it.
Whatever the story behind that was, I'd probably never know, but it caught my gaze every time I made the journey upstairs to my bedroom.
I kept the top floor to myself; a big primary bedroom, bathroom, and another room I used as a sitting room until recently.
A couple of weeks ago, I'd had it redecorated with a bed and everything Theodora— Teddie needed to be comfortable. And close to me.
I stopped in the doorway to her room, my hands on the door frame to either side of me. I imagined her lying on the bed, her hair spread out around her. Her body bare, knees bent and apart, waiting for me to climb in and lie over her. She'd look me in the eyes and beg me to fill her with my cock.
I'd take my time with her, teasing her, pushing her close to the edge before pulling her back away again. Working her until she was begging for me. Until her body was aching with the need for me to fuck her.
I undid the front of my jeans and pushed them and my boxers down until my cock sprang free. I imagined her on her knees, at the edge of the bed, her ass in the air, pussy slick, ready for me to slide inside.
I closed my eyes and wrapped my fingers around my cock. Nice and tight, like her pussy would be. I stroked myself, imagining her insides doing that instead. She'd be warm and wet, so wet for me.
I pumped myself harder, hearing her begging for more.
"That's it," I whispered. "Beg like a good girl. Beg me."
"Please." Her voice echoed in my mind. "Please, Hel, fuck me harder."
I pumped harder, my hips rolling. With a grunt, I came, shooting out a string of cum onto my hand and the threshold that led into her room.
It lay glistening on the floor, a puddle of release.
I wished she was there to see it. Wished she'd kneel on the floor and lap it up, enjoying the taste of me on her tongue.
I let my cock go, left it to swing between my thighs as I pushed my pants off the rest of the way and walked half-naked to my bedroom. I'd leave the puddle of cum for Shannon, our cleaner, to deal with. I didn't give a shit what she'd think when she found it there.
It was the beginning of the things she was going to see on this level of my house. She was going to have to get used to changing Teddie's sheets daily because I intended to leave them covered in cum every night.
Fade and Oak probably had the same expectation.
The next time anyone spilled their release into Teddie's body, it was going to be me. I'd make her beg for me, then I'd make her scream my name.