Mister dick, p.1
Mister Dick, page 1
Mister Dick
Juliana Stone
Juliana Stone Publishing
Copyright © 2019 by Juliana Stone
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
* * *
Cover designed exclusively by Sara Eirew www.saraeirew.com
Created with Vellum
1
Echo
The fact that I’d spoiled New Year’s Eve didn’t surprise one single soul. The fact that every second of it was documented by a rabid pack of paparazzi didn’t surprise me. They’d been on my ass the moment I left my hotel for the bar, and after that, my night had pretty much gone in the toilet.
It’s never a question of if I’d screw up, but when I’d screw up. I know it and they know it. They’re always in my face, yelling and jostling, flashing their cameras like strobe lights on steroids. They don’t give a crap about me, and the more upset I was, the better. Even when my heart was bleeding pain faster than a drunk sucking back a bottle of JD. Even then.
Welcome to my life.
The paps swarm, they push, they punch each other, looking for that one photo to make their week or month or even their year. And I’d given it to them. Of course I had. Echo Mansfield never fails to deliver. Heck, up until now, I believed that good press is good, but bad press is gold. This time, it was bad, and I didn’t stick around for the fireworks. This time, I’d cut and run because, even for me, the night had gone way off the rails.
Which is why I found myself in the middle of a snowstorm, out in the Catskills, trying to force open a door to my dad’s cabin that was frozen stuck.
It was four in the morning. I had one bag of clothes with me, and hell if I knew it was enough. I’d packed so fast, I was pretty sure it wasn’t. And now this stupid door. I swore and looked over my shoulder. I would have called the car service to come back and get me, but my cell was dead, which meant I was pretty much screwed. And since I’d slipped past my security guys to get here, I didn’t have them to bail me out of another one of my bad choices.
“Jesus, you’ve done it this time,” I muttered, teetering on silver four-inch heels that were totally inappropriate for winter. To be honest, they were totally inappropriate for just about everything except prowling the clubs looking for a hookup. Or maybe swinging from a stripper’s pole.
I hadn’t bothered to change and wished I had. I wore a small leather jacket, a barely there black top, and a skirt that just covered my ass. When I say barely there, I mean the top was sparkly and cropped and showed a generous amount of under boob. As for the skirt? At least I was wearing underwear.
“Shit.” I looked around, shivering, tired, and miserable. Could this night get any worse?
The main house of the bed-and-breakfast was in darkness and most likely locked up tighter than Fort Knox. My dad owned the place, something he bought on a whim years ago when he’d come for a weekend with one of his girlfriends, and the cabin I stood in front of was his own private space. Not many people knew about it, which is why it was my go-to when things got rough. I could hide out for a week or so until the shit storm I’d created died down, and then go home.
Home.
Tears spiked the corners of my eyes, and I scrubbed at my face. I was angry (at myself) and upset (with the world). Would Harmony forgive me? I sniffled. It wasn’t as if I’d actually screwed my sister’s boyfriend. I was just looking for a distraction, something to take my mind off the fact that my boyfriend, Aiden, had screwed someone else. I was looking for payback, and her guy, Douchebag Drake, was the answer.
If anything, I’d done Harmony a favor because Drake was totally down for some skin on skin. Hell, he’d almost gotten his wish too. I shuddered at the thought of his hands pawing up my skirt. His mouth on mine. If not for one very well-placed knee to his junk, the night would have turned out differently. We would have had sex. And not because I wanted it.
I rubbed my hand across my forehead. How did I always land in the middle of a crap-covered landmine? Harmony had walked in on me and her asshole boyfriend, and we’d gotten into the biggest catfight ever. I touched my neck, still raw from Harmony’s claws, and winced. Lucky for me, she hadn’t gouged my eyes out. The girl could throw down like no one’s business. I’d be surprised if the pics hadn’t already hit TMZ or the Daily Mail.
A brisk wind ran along the porch and rattled my bones, bringing with it a wave of ice pellets. Great. Freezing rain. This is where I would die. Alone. The black sheep of the Mansfield family. A half-dressed frozen popsicle. A drunken dumbass who’d hurt her sister so badly, Harmony would probably never talk to me again.
Or come to my funeral.
Geez. Fucking. Louise. I could tap my toe and hum a song to go along with the pity party I was having. This wasn’t me. This isn’t me.
I kicked the door and swore a mean streak as pain radiated up my leg. “Fuck.” I shouted, slamming my fist against the damn thing. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.” Breathing hard, I rested my forehead against it. What the hell was I going to do? The other cabins were dark, with no vehicles that I could see. I couldn’t remember if there were any more homes nearby. Maybe? A couple of miles away? I tried not to cry as another shudder racked my body. How in hell was I supposed to walk one hundred feet in this snow wearing the ridiculous shoes that had cost me a fortune?
“Fuck,” I yelled again.
“You got something against that door?”
My head whipped around so fast, I got dizzy. A man stood on the porch of a cabin up the hill. It was about twenty feet away, and I couldn’t see his features clearly, but certain things stood out.
Deep, husky voice. An accent I couldn’t quite place, as if the dude was from everywhere. Tall. Broad shoulders. Long muscular legs. His bare chest glistened from the muted lighting that spilled from inside his cabin, and his loose pants hung low on his hips.
Relief flooded me. I wouldn’t die. I would be saved and warm and the world was not so bad after all. “I…” My tongue was fuzzy, and it took a bit to get the words out. “I can’t get in. The door’s stuck.”
“I don’t want to sound like an asshole, but this is private property. Do you have the key?”
Okay. My knight in shining armour wasn’t exactly chivalrous. “Of course I have the key. I’m not an idiot. I’ve got it unlocked. It’s frozen.” Annoyed, I glared at him.
“Where’d you get it?”
“Where did I…” I took two steps forward and damn near landed on my ass when my heels hit a patch of ice. If I hadn’t been so busy trying not to fall, I might have heard him swear like a trucker. I might have known that he’d recognized me. “What does it matter to you where I got the key?”
“Answer the question, sweetheart.” The way he said sweetheart was the exact opposite of how it should be said. It came across as an insult. It rang a bell, and my heart took off like a rocket. This couldn’t be happening. No fucking way could this be happening.
He took a step forward, and suddenly, the shadows disappeared, revealing a face I hadn’t seen in years. Wait. Hold on. We’d had a moment three years ago, but it didn’t count. Still, it was face I knew well. Intense dark eyes. High cheekbones. Chiseled chin. Sensual mouth. My eyes dropped to his impressive body. To the tribal tattoo on his shoulder. To the one snaking across his lower abdomen. Like, way low. To the thin line of dark hair that disappeared beneath his pants. Huh. Some things never changed. If anything, the man was more gorgeous than I remembered, and that kind of sucked.
Boyd Appleton.
My stepbrother. No. That would be wrong. Our parents divorced about six months after they got hitched. He was my ex-stepbrother. He was also the guy who’d taken my virginity along with my heart when I was sixteen, and I hated him more than anyone on the planet.
He glared at me from across the way, his anger like a slap to the face. I guess he felt the same.
Yeah. Welcome to my life.
2
Boyd
Un-fucking-believable.
Echo Mansfield. Here. In the Catskills. She was one woman I had no desire to tangle with and a distraction I didn’t need. Not when I was trying to get my shit together. Not when I had to get my shit together or the record wouldn’t be delivered on time. Like, what the hell? Had Axel known she’d be here when he’d offered up his place? Her father could be a real son of a bitch, no question there. But I wasn’t so sure he wanted his daughter around me. He’d made that crystal clear a long time ago.
Mood dark, I watched her closely. Saw a bag at her feet. By the looks of it, she wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. The girl was trouble with a capital T. It followed her everywhere. Hell, you’d have to be a monk stranded on an island in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere not to know it. She was always in the tabloids. Always in the middle of whatever the hell was going on. She went through men like candy, and trust me, I knew she had a sweet tooth. She was still as wild and unpredictable as she’d been when I’d first met her.
And from what I could see, still as hot as hell.
“What are you doing here?” I ground out.
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“Jesus, Echo. Can you can just answer the damn question?”
“Not happy to see me, Boyd?”
“What do you think?” The last time I’d seen her, she’d tossed a full glass of Cristal in my face.
Our history was volatile. Sexual. Intense. And she’d been way too young to handle any of it. It was one of the reasons I broke things off. The first one being that her father had threatened to kill me. And the second was an inconvenient girlfriend back home. I thought I was doing the right thing.
“You don’t want to know what I think,” she practically purred.
Ignoring the bait, I looked behind her. “Where’s your car?”
“I don’t have one.” Her chin jutted out. Which caused her chest to puff out…which inadvertently drew my gaze to all that soft, creamy skin on display. The girl was half-naked, and I felt two things. The first? My dick sprang to life. I had an excuse for that one. It had been a dry three months. The second? An overwhelming urge to cover her up because A) that might help out the dick situation and B) she was way too fucking distracting.
We had a past. Not much of it good. But some of it had been hot as hell.
I spied tire tracks that were rapidly disappearing from the snow and ice and figured she’d been dropped off. She rattled the door again and swore. Then hiccupped. Then swore again.
“Hold on,” I said gruffly. I took the stairs and plowed through the snow, shoving past her so that I could try the door. She took at least three steps back, which for some reason irritated me. “I don’t bite.”
“I call bullshit on that.”
She had me there. Aggressive sex was something I enjoyed. A smile sliced across my face. From what I remembered, so did she.
I tried the door. Tugged on the handle. And nothing.
“I already told you it’s frozen.”
Ignoring Echo, I put my shoulder into it with force, but it didn’t give. My skin was slick with melted snow, and I rubbed my hands on the front of my track pants. With one more heave, the door gave way, splintering and shuddering open. I walked inside and flicked on the switch I knew was located to the left, but nothing happened.
Faint light from outside fell into the room, and I headed for the kitchen and looked around. The water was turned off and so was the hydro. This wasn’t good. Mr. Davis, the man who ran the bed-and-breakfast, was long gone and wouldn’t be back for at least a week. He’d stuck around long enough to let me into my cabin and then split. I didn’t have keys to the main house, and this cabin wasn’t liveable until he got back.
“Why the hell isn’t the light working?” Her voice was just as I remembered. Way too husky for a girl, like whiskey over ice.
“You can’t stay here.”
Moonlight enhanced her sultry features and those big eyes of hers settled on me, the expression a cut above dismissal, but not by much.
“I’ll stay where I damn well please.” Echo walked past me and tossed her bag onto the kitchen counter. She still had that attitude. The one that needed adjusting.
“The hydro’s off.” The good guy in me couldn’t give up that easy.
“I don’t care. I’ll build a fire.”
I moved quickly and saw the surprise that lit up her eyes as I came to within a few inches of her. She was small. I’d forgotten that detail. In her heels, she barely reached my shoulder. Her long blonde hair hung in messy waves that reached halfway down her back. I’m sure she’d spent a small fortune to get them to look that way. Perfect makeup emphasized a cute-as-hell upturned nose, full, bowed lips, and killer cheekbones. Hazel eyes that were more golden than green watched me warily.
She was stunning. And she knew it. I saw the subtle shift in her eyes. The way they widened and then narrowed. No way was I getting caught up in her games again. Echo and I were like oil and water. We didn’t mix. For a lot of reasons.
“There’s no running water.” I tried to be the good guy again.
“I can melt snow.”
She was still prickly as fuck. “What about food?”
“I don’t need your help, Boyd. In fact, if you were the last man on the planet and I was dying, I wouldn’t need your help.” She arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow. “Once morning comes, I’m gone.”
“You sure about that, sweetheart?” Her nostrils flared. I knew she hated it when I called her that.
“Why are you here?” she asked instead.
“Why are you?” I shot back, suddenly more than willing to stick around and hear her answer. She tugged on the small leather jacket she wore and pulled it closed over her breasts.
Her eyes fell away, and her teeth started to chatter. “Can you just leave? I’m too tired to fight.”
“You’re going to spend the night in a cabin with no heat or electricity or water.” It wasn’t a question.
“Sure am.”
“You’re crazy.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
Okay. This girl was starting to get under my skin. “You could freeze to death. You do realize that, right?”
She shrugged. “It’s better than the alternative.”
“What’s that exactly?”
“Spending the night with you.”
I stared at her, momentarily without words. “You haven’t changed at all. You’re still the spoiled little bitch who would rather do what’s wrong to prove some ridiculous point than do the adult thing.”
“Sticks and stones, Boyd.” She looked insolent. “How’re the new songs coming along? A little birdy told me your record company was thinking of dropping you.”
That was bull, but I’d play along. “The fact that you know that warms my heart,” I replied. “Didn’t know you still kept tabs on me.”
“Oh, I don’t keep tabs. I just listen in when I’m around industry folks. Toss in a bottle of tequila, and they sure like to talk. Kind of brightens my day.” She offered a wicked smile. “Is it exhausting? Being a fuckup? I mean, really. That Vegas thing was a little over-the-top, don’t you think?”
A burn erupted in my gut, and a smoldering fire became a full-on blaze. It turned me into a cold bastard. The kind of bastard who could walk out on a girl and leave her in a situation that wasn’t ideal.
Not my finest moment, but there you have it. Echo Mansfield had just pulled my trigger.
“Sweet dreams, sweetheart.”
I strode past her and left before she could reply. The door didn’t close properly and rattled behind me, but I didn’t give a shit. I walked into my cabin and grabbed a bottle of JD off the counter, then sank into the overstuffed chair directly in front of the fireplace. I took a good long pull and felt the kiss of the fire on my skin. The wind rattled and hummed outside, shaking the windowpanes and buffeting the door something fierce.
I was warm after a couple of swigs of Jack did their job, and unlike Echo, I’d sleep like a baby. I settled back and smiled.
I had not one single regret.
3
Echo
I stared at the door for at least five minutes. Shivering. Miserable. My wine and champagne buzz long gone. I waited for that sense of satisfaction to wash over me. The one that gave a “hell yeah” for telling off Boyd Appleton. Because, trust me, I’d thought about it a lot over the last seven years, and my run-in with him a few years back didn’t count.
But it wasn’t satisfaction I felt. Nope. I felt…ashamed. Sort of. Which got me thinking. How was that possible? How could I feel bad for throwing darts at Boyd? He’d thought nothing of stomping on my heart and throwing it away when I was sixteen. Hell, I was still waiting to find it.
Maybe he still has it.
Okay. That thought freaked me out. It got my blood pumping and my body moving. My eyes adjusted to the gloom, and I grabbed my bag off the counter in the kitchen. Warm clothes would go a long way in making this better. I opened the large Louis Vuitton satchel and pulled out…
My gym clothes. Oh. My. God.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I groaned, rifling through the bag. Looking for some secret compartment that would magically produce the warm flannel leggings, the oversized hoodie, the hat and mittens I’d tossed on my bed back in NYC.
Shit. I left in such a hurry, I’d forgotten to unpack the satchel and fill it with the clothes I needed. I blinked away more tears and stared down at the bag for a long time. So long, my legs cramped and my vision blurred. I was well and truly screwed.
