The Elite: The Complete Series of Boomer and Player (With Bonus) (42 page)

“What the fuck does that even mean?”

She cringed. “He bought me. I got into some financial trouble a few years ago. He bailed me out, in exchange for my…services.”

“And at some point he decided he wanted you to
service
me? You told me that night, when we met at the bar, you didn’t know who I was. Was that a lie?”

She hesitated long enough to answer my question without a word.

I pounded back the rest of my beer. “God, you must have really thought I was an idiot, huh?”

She sighed and raked her hair out of her face. “No! I didn’t, Aaron. I know it doesn’t matter now, but I really like you.”

“How touching.” I shook my head. “That’s a real sad story, Talia, but it doesn’t excuse what you tried to do. You played me like I was a fucking game. I mean what the fuck was all that? Were you trying to make me fall in love with you? Is that what he told you to do?”

The notion was laughable.

Aaron Rosen didn’t fall for anything.

“Henry thought that if I could get you to care for me, then when we were at the museum, I was supposed to switch, and act like he beat me or something. He wanted you to want to save me. That way, when he offered me to you in exchange for the plane, you’d take the deal.”

“But he didn’t want the plane, Talia. He wants the whole goddamned museum.”

“I know.” She nodded. “The plane was just the first step in his plan. A way to get into the room, so to speak. I don’t think he anticipated you being as stubborn…”

I shrugged off her comment. I’d been called worse. “And what’s the rest then?”

“After he got the plane, he’d pitch you the idea of buying the museum.”

“Why? I don’t buy his whole
I’m into aviation
bullshit.”

Talia shook her head. “I just figured that out. That’s why I wanted to see you.”

She had my attention. I set down the fresh beer that Stacy had brought me, and turned to face her. “What is it?”

Talia sighed. “He can’t get permits to build the high rise he wants to build. So, he needs a large piece of land to build it. And, where the museum is located, would be the perfect spot. The view is the best in the whole town anyways. He’d probably make even more money.” She shook her head in obvious disgust. “Once you signed the contracts, he was going to bulldoze the museum and your house, and build the resort there—keeping the airstrip. His lawyers would have crafted a convenient loophole into the contract. That way, all he’s out is your initial lump sum, which, to be honest, is chump change for him.”

Rage boiled up inside me, spilling into my veins, and seizing every muscle. “Holy shit.”

“Yeah. When I found out that part, I told him I was done.”

I shifted my eyes to hers. “So, what happens now? With your deal?”

“I have to pay him back for breaching our contract if I want to avoid a legal battle. Obviously in the contract, it doesn’t state what my actual…position was…so he can basically say whatever he wants. Either way, I’m screwed, but…that day, in your office, things changed for me. It was this moment of clarity, where I saw how little he actually cared for me, even after the years we spent together. I never cared that he had other mistresses and girlfriends. We traveled together, he bought me nice things, and kept me happy. Most of the time. But, I saw in that moment, how much of myself that I’d lost in all that…stuff.”

The picture she painted was grim, and I could understand her feeling trapped, but it didn’t excuse her lies and the ways she had tried to use and manipulate me into joining Henry’s game.

“Well, luckily for us, we’re both free. I didn’t sign his bogus contract, and you’re on your own too.” I clinked the tip of my bottle to her glass of ice water. “Cheers to that.”

“Aaron, do you think we could…” she floundered for a moment, trying to find the words. “Do you think we could start over? I’d like to get to know you. You know, outside of all that.”

I chuckled and finished the beer. I signaled to Stacy to bring me my check, and then returned my gaze to Talia. “I don’t play games, Talia.”

“I don’t—”

I pushed off my stool and her excuse died on her pretty lips. She was still one of the sexiest women I’d ever seen in my life, and I knew there was no chance in hell I’d forget about her anytime soon, but I also knew that she was trouble and not worth one more night of steam between the sheets.

“I’d say see ya around, but I really hope I don’t.”

I crossed the room and didn’t look back as I made my way to the pool table, where the blonde and the geek were finishing up. From the looks of it, she’d kicked his ass. I set a stack of quarters on the edge of the table. The blonde looked up from lining up her final shot, and grinned.

“I got winner,” I said, returning her seductive smile.

“You’re on,” she said, returning her eye to the cue ball, her breasts shifting under her thin dress.

As she took her shot, I glanced over my shoulder and saw that Talia’s place at the bar was now occupied by a new ass, and a strange mix of relief and sadness rippled through me.

I felt sorry for her, she’d clearly tangled with the wrong man, gotten in over her head, and had seen me as a ticket out of the madness. But, I wasn’t that kind of guy. I’d thought I’d made that pretty clear, but it didn’t take the sting away from pitying her situation.

I shook it off and loosened my shoulders before selecting a stick from the display on the wall. I chalked the tip and congratulated the blonde, as the eight ball sunk into her declared pocket. The geeky guy took the hint that he’d been cut from the conversation, and moved on, mumbling something to the blonde in passing.

From the look on her face, she hadn’t even heard him.

Her bright blue eyes were locked on mine, and I knew by the end of our game, she’d be in my car, headed back to my place, and I’d be stripping her of much more than just the twenty-dollar bill she’d laid on the table.

Like I said...they didn’t call me Player for nothing…

Continued in Player - The Elite Part Two!
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Player - The Elite

Part Two

By

KB Winters

Copyright © 2016 BookBoyfriends Publishing LLC

Published By: BookBoyfriends Publishing LLC

Copyright and Disclaimer

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination and have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Copyright ©2016 BookBoyfriends Publishing LLC

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of the trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the brave men and women of our armed services who put their life on the line everyday to protect our freedom.

Thank you for your service.

~ KB

Chapter One

“Hey handsome, thanks for the good time.”

I grinned at the message scrawled across my bathroom mirror in pink lipstick. “I like your style,” I mused, rubbing a hand down my stubble coated jaw. I’d woken up minutes before, surprised to find an empty place in the tangled sheets beside me. The night before had been spent with a very…enthusiastic…blonde named Kimberly. I’d picked her up at a bar over a game of pool, and had her screaming my name before my buzz had fully evaporated. Afterward, I’d crashed out across the mattress before I could figure out the right exit strategy to get her in a cab back to her car. Wherever the hell it had been parked.

Apparently, she didn’t need any prodding.

With a grin still on my face, I got into the shower, and relived the highlight reel from the hot night.
Those tits, damn. A man could get lost…

I stepped out, toweled off, and paused at the sink long enough to use the steam from the shower to scrub away the lipstick message with the corner of the towel in my hand. I stalked—bare ass naked—out into the bedroom, not caring that the blinds were up on the large picture windows, and went to my dresser. I dug through my drawers, and threw on the same damn thing I wore everyday. Jeans, tee, and my black leather jacket. It was comfortable, familiar, and worked to amplify my bad ass persona. I slid my work boots on and headed out the door.

A few minutes later, I was next door at the warehouse that occupied the majority of my property. The Rosen Air Museum. My inheritance. My business. My life. I strolled through the warehouse as everyone rushed around to open for another busy Saturday, nodding as my employees called out their morning hellos as I passed by.

“There you are!” Lana, my assistant, raced up to my side.

I glanced down at her clunky shoes, and for a brief moment, wondered if they were doctor ordered, or she just had a thing for big ass, grandma shoes. I thought about asking, but then thought again. I knew it’d be too cruel. Lana had a not-so-secret crush on me, and while I wasn’t even in the same realm of feelings, she was a good worker and I wouldn’t want to lose her over a crass joke about her fashion sense.

Or lack of.

“Damn girl, A crisis already? I haven’t even had my coffee.” I rolled my eyes.

“No, no. Nothing like that,” she assured me, batting her eye lashes up at me as she took two steps for every one of mine to keep pace with my long strides. “The F-4 is here!”

“Shit! Already?” How had I forgotten? Oh yeah, I remembered. Blonde. Tits. Ass made for spankin’…

Lana nodded furiously. “I called you earlier…”

My hand automatically went to pat the back pocket of my jeans.
Shit
. I’d left it over at the house. Or at the bar. Who knew? After the night I’d had, I was lucky I wasn’t reeling from a hangover. I’d thrown back a few more beers than I normally would have after my unsettling meeting with Talia.

“Do you think we could start over? I’d like to get to know you…”

Talia’s words came back to me and an uneasy feeling turned in the pit of my stomach. In hindsight, I’d been somewhat of an ass, and although I was still angry with her for her role in the O’Keefe scheme, I knew she wasn’t really the one I should be taking issue with. After all, without her warning, I would’ve walked into that meeting blindly. Even though I knew I wouldn’t have taken the deal, it was a big help to have the upper hand from the get go.

She wasn’t the real villain.

No, that honor lay with the pompous asshole Henry O’Keefe and his little band of spoiled cronies who wouldn’t take no for an answer and were more than willing to bend the rules until they broke—in their pursuit of whoever or whatever they had their eyes on.

In this case, my father’s museum.

My museum.

“They have some paperwork that needs to be signed,” Lana continued, her tone starting to grate on me.

“I’ll be out in the hangar in five,” I told her, cutting in before she could rattle off the rest of my to-do list for the day. I wasn’t ready for it all to be dumped on me just yet. I had just barely taken a sip of my first cup of coffee. “I need to go back to the house and get my phone.”

She sputtered a rebuttal, but I set my cup down and took off at an easy jog, out the front doors, and back across the gravel drive that separated my house from the museum. The property overlooked the Pacific Ocean from a bluff high above the coast, and down the steep ravine lay Holiday Cove, the sleepy little beach town that had become my home since the day my father passed away and left me in charge of the big ass estate.

I ran inside the bungalow style house, took the stairs two at a time, and searched my bedroom. I tore through the sheets and rummaged through the drawer of my bedside table. No phone. With a growl of frustration, I ran back through the memories of the night before, and with a laugh, I remembered that my antics with Kimberly hadn’t started in the bedroom…

I raced back down the stairs and found my discarded pile of clothes littering the living room floor where Kimberly had stripped them off. We’d crashed through the front door, ready to rock and roll, and ended up on the couch before making our way upstairs, both of us already naked as fuck. A rush of sensations crashed over me like high tidal waves when I remembered the sounds she’d made when I’d plowed into her against the wall next to the fireplace. Her thighs had gripped my hips tighter with each thrust and she’d torn my back up with her long fingernails.