C2 2

Mackenzie~

I knew I was in trouble the second I got home. Good.

My pulse hummed in my ears, my skin prickling with the unknown of what might happen there that night. My core tightened as I jammed the key in the lock, ignoring Justin’s honk in the long driveway behind me and the squeal of his tires as he drove off frustrated, pouting like the little boy he was, and probably nursing a serious case of blue balls.

Also good.

I wasn’t going to put out for a whiny jerk like Justin Carson. I never was going to, even if I’d let him take me out that night. But going out with the rude, douchey quarterback from the local college that night hadn’t been because Iwanted to go out with him, it’d been because I’d pretty much exhausted every single other idea I’d had.

…It was because I’d already done everything else to try and push the man — or, really, if I was even ready to admit to myself yet, the men— I’d been lusting over for over a month into doing something.

Anything.

I’d never been like that before he’d opened the front door that day a month before. I’d never lusted over a guy before. Actually, I’d barely ever been interested in any guys before. Because guys my age were dicks. Or nervous, stammering wimps. Or petulant, immature, handsy, clumsy assholes.

Or all of the above, mostly.

I knew there’d been times when I could have just “gotten it over with.” I’d considered it — just going to one of the asshole jocks in school, or even one of the fumbling awkward guys and just getting it out of the way so it wouldn’t be hanging over me like this big neon “virgin” sign. But I never did. I’d made out with two guys — horrible experiences both of them. One of them had tried to get a hand up my skirt, but that’d stopped pretty quickly once I’d decked him in the face.

I’d spent most of high school fending for myself anyways — finding my own food, and clothes, and money any way I could, since Dad and Stephanie were basically MIA most of the time. I hadn’t had time to get all goo-goo over boys like other girls might’ve, because I was too busy making a counterfeit cafeteria card to get a second lunch to sneak home for dinner, or too busy stealing tampons from the drug store. Or, somehow, studying and working my ass off so that I could actually get into the college that Nana had apparently set up a trust for me to attend.

But, all that had changed when my father and Stephanie decided to up the ante and go full Bonny and Clyde. I’d just graduated, and I was just about to turn eighteen when CPS had showed up with the cops and taken me away. I wasn’t sad to leave — I’d already done that part, over and over and over again, over the years of my dad basically pretending I didn’t exist.

The CPS lady had told me to pack a bag, and then we’d jumped in a car and driven eight hours straight, to here. Stephanie had a brother, apparently, and he was apparently rich. The CPS lady hadn’t said much, aside from that he’d been in the military and that he’d owned some sort of company that worked with the Government.

Wilder Banks.

I’d rolled my eyes — he sounded so boring, and I imagined some weird, nerdy-looking accountant type shut away in some big house like a weirdo. And the place we’d finally pulled up to eight hours later hadn’t helped my impression very much. I mean, it was beautiful— this castle-like stone mansion surrounded by gardens and a forest. But still, all I imagined was the weirdo cooped up inside I was about to live with until college started.

…And then he’d opened the front door, and everything changed. Wilder Banks wasn’t some nerdy, pasty, agoraphobic weirdo. Wilder Banks was a fucking hunk.

He was gorgeous— like, movie-star gorgeous, with dark eyes, dark hair with just a hint of silver at the temples, and a chiseled jaw covered in dark scruff. His crisp white button-up shirt was open at the neck and rolled up over his forearms, pulled tight across bulging, rippling, tanned muscles and gorgeous swirls and lines of tattoo ink.

And he was huge. I mean, I was pretty tall for my age, and for being a girl, but Wilder towered over me — his broad shoulders stretching that shirt tight. His eyes had trailed over me, his jaw had clenched, and his hand had tightened fast on the doorknob. And something fiercehad flashed behind those dark eyes. Something hungry.

It’d lasted one second, and then suddenly, it was gone, and he’d spent the next month pretending it’d never happened. But I remembered.

God did I remember.

Wilder wasn’t the only surprise that day. My heart racing and my whole body tingling with the very real, very adult feelings raging through me, I followed this insanely gorgeous man into his insanely gorgeous home. And then I’d met him.

Sandy-brown hair, piercing blue eyes, a clean-shaven, squared jaw like some sort of cowboy, and a look of pure heat on his face the second I’d stepped into the living room. But then, just like with Wilder, it was gone — blanked from his face as if it’d never been there, even though I knew what I’d seen.

He was just as tall, and just as perfectly built as Wilder, too. Broad, muscled shoulders, a hardened chest, and thick biceps that bulged at the corners of the plain black t-shirt he wore. Tattoo ink swirled down one arm, and I felt an exact repeat of the thrilling sensation I’d just felt at the front door slam through me all over again.

“Mackenzie, this is Lincoln Reece, my business partner and best friend. He’s staying in my guest quarters over the summer while they work on his house. Ms. Smith, I believe your offices have already okay-ed the arrangement based off his credentials.”

The CPS agent had just beamed at this insanely attractive man and nodded, blinking quickly as she fawned all over him and told him that yes, of course, CPS was already aware of Mr. Reece living on the premises and saw no trouble with the arrangement.

Holy shit.

Yeah, there were two of them. One the uncle who wasn’t really my uncle, and the other his equally and absurdly good looking friend. And I was going to spend the next three months living here with them.

Somehow, CPS had decided that a ragingly hormonal, extremely curious, and red-blooded eighteen year old girl was totally fine living with two extremely good looking, extremely single, extremely not-related-to-her men was a good idea.

…I was not about to correct their thought process on that. And then she’d gone, and suddenly, this was my world — living with two staggeringly good looking, rough, sexy ass in men for the next three months.

The sass —my sass — had started almost immediately, even if I wasn’t even really sure why I was doing it. It would have been so easy to just be normal around Wilder and Lincoln, or at least it should have been easy to. But somehow, it was impossible for me to be “normal” around them. I mean, Jesus, how the hell was I supposed to be normal around that?

So instead, I’d put up my walls and my armor, and retreated into my back-talking, question-authority attitude. They’d taken it in stride — I mean, I guess they both knew my backstory. And I guess we would have spent the next three months in that little stand off, if it hadn’t been for that day— the day I’d told them I was going out, but then hadn’t.…The day everything changed for me.