Wilde Forever (Wilde Women Book 1) (27 page)

When Jax had dropped her at the train station for the short ride into the city, he’d kissed her possessively and given her a hilariously stern warning to stay alert to her surroundings. She’d stammered like a silly teenage twit when she sheepishly asked if he’d let her snap a selfie of the two of them. He seemed surprised at the request and asked why.

She’d rolled her eyes and fidgeted until he laughed out loud. “I’m visiting my sister and since Amy has already told her she’d dusted you for fingerprints and found mine all over, well…Rhiann will be expecting a visual. That’s all. No big deal.”

“Hell yeah, it’s a big deal,” he barked at her in amusement. “Give me the damn phone,” he teased. “My arms are longer than yours. Now move in close and smile real big.”

She did as he directed with all the seriousness of a professional photo shoot but let out a giggling squeal when he’d managed to reach down and grab her ass at the perfect moment.

When it was time to make her way to the train, he kissed her again and this time swatted her butt for good measure making Brynn jolt. Her poor bum was certainly getting its fair share of attention. She felt the aftermath of the randy spanking he’d laid down on her ass the entire damn day. “Bring this back in one piece, okay?”

“I’ll be back on Monday,” she told him. “Have a meeting set up with the network first thing in the morning. I’d like to catch the train back in the afternoon before the daily commute starts.”

“Text me, and I’ll pick you up. Better yet, text when you get there too so I know you arrived safely and if you girls get in any trouble just give me a call and I’ll come riding to the rescue.”

Brynn waited until he’d turned and walked away to quickly snap another picture. “A.F.T.R.,” she muttered as she quickly checked to make sure she got the shot she wanted. “Yep,” she snorted with wry delight. “Amazing From the Rear. Rhiann will be so pleased.”

The minute she stepped off the train after the short trip to New York, her sister literally came out of nowhere and launched herself at Brynn, wrapping her in a tremendous bear hug.

“Oh my God Brynnie. I’ve missed you soooooooo much.” Brynn didn’t miss the heavy emotion in her sister’s voice. Maybe the excitement and challenge of life in the big city really was passing its expiration date where Rhi was concerned.

Making their way through the crowds, Rhiann whistled a taxi to the curb with all the aplomb of a seasoned New Yorker. Seeing her sister like this, looking every inch an ass-kicking marketing executive for a respected high fashion magazine, warmed her heart. Rhi had high hopes and dreams as a young girl about building a career in the world of fashion when she moved to New York. It was her thing, always had been. Even so, just under the surface now something else was lurking that made Brynn wonder what was really going on.

They’d relaxed at Rhi’s postage stamp size apartment in the Village and gossiped like high school girls. Next thing Brynn knew, she was being forced to try on nearly everything in her sister’s closet so they could go out on the town.

“Oh shit, Rhi.
No!
Come on. I look ridiculous,” Brynn whined as she turned this way and that in front of the full-length mirror inside the door to the apartment.

“You do not. Stop hiding those curves and that ass in boring jeans and sweaters. You don’t want to come off as some country bumpkin, do you?”

“Well, no. Of course not. But a bandage dress? Really? It’s like wearing a second skin, sweetie. There’s very little left to the imagination if you know what I mean. And what the hell kind of underwear works with a dress like this? It’s so tight I swear you can make out the crack of my ass.”

Rhiann smirked and giggled then pulled a Victoria’s Secret bag from the depths of her closet. “Was saving this for a rainy day but you need it way more than me.” Reaching into the bag she pulled out a mass of tissue paper and unwrapped several itty bitty thongs that were little more than dental floss for the crotch.

“Uh, no,” Brynn announced. “Absolutely no fucking way. Would be better off going commando than trying to pretend four inches of satin and some strategically placed elastic was enough to cover up my girly bits.”

“Speaking of your girly bits, sis…you seem to be wearing something that looks suspiciously like a dude’s handprint on your left cheek. Care to elaborate?”

“What?” Brynn squeaked when she was in the middle of peeling the outrageously sexy skin tight dress off making her frantically turn around to check out her backside in the mirror. “Aw, shit,” she muttered.

Rhi’s cackling hoot of laughter reverberated off the walls of the tiny apartment. “Brynnie’s getting laid. Brynnie’s getting laid,” her sister sang. “I guess Amy was right about the sexy man in black getting his hands in your knickers!”

“Shut the hell up Rhiann. Unless of course you’re ready to spill the beans about your new boss, h
mmmm
?”

Rhi crinkled her nose and smirked as she tossed her hair over one shoulder. “Will need an epic amount of alcohol before we get into that, but I suppose it’s the subject du jour. Well, that and the rather possessive brand on your ass.”

Hours later after spending an inordinate amount of time getting ready, they headed out along with what seemed like every other twenty and thirty-something professional in the city for a Saturday night of amazing food, the latest in celebrity DJs, and as predicted, an epic fuck ton of booze.

By the time they’d eaten and laughed till their faces hurt, the two sisters made their way to a trendy nightspot where they scoped out a table and set up camp while music pumped out of the bass-driven audio system and bodies writhed and shimmied on the dance floor. Their outrageously handsome waiter, a model type who went by the name ‘Payter’, because apparently Peter was just too mundane, suggested they try out a
Harry Potter
themed cocktail called the Goblet of Fire. It was one part vodka, two parts sweet & sour, one part Blue Curacao, a healthy splash of Bacardi 151, a dash of cinnamon, and arrived at their table in a fancy mini-goblet that Payter set aflame and all but had them on the floor shrieking with laughter. Only took a couple of those outrageous cocktails to put the sisters on the road to a wild case of drunken frivolity.

After a turn on the dance floor that seemed to attract men to their sides like bees buzzing the honey pot, they stumbled arm in arm back to their table. It had been ages and ages since Brynn had been single and on the loose in the big city.

“Hey,” she boomed at Rhi in order to be heard over the music. “Wanna see what’s connected to the rest of that handprint?”

“Huh?” her sister croaked, looking at her in a drunken fog made all the funnier because Brynn was in the same boat.

“You know. The butt handprint!”

Rhiann slapped her drink on the table and clapped her hands with glee. “Ehrmygawd. Really? Lemme see, sis,” she stammered.

Brynn had to stop and focus on what she was doing as she scrolled through the pics on her phone until she found the selfie Jax had taken at the train station.

Nodding her head in a goofy conspiratorial way, she arched her eyebrows as she pushed the phone in Rhi’s face and slurred, “Right?”

Rhiann quickly snatched the phone and held it close to her face. “Holy fuckballz Brynnie. That’s him? The Butt Whacker?”

Brynn almost fell off her chair as laughter erupted in her throat. “Butt Whacker!” she snorted with glee.

“Ehrmygawd,” Rhi wheezed. “Honey, that’s a grown up M-A-N. Jesus, Mary, and um…that other guy. He’s hot as fuck.”

Like magic, Payter appeared with another round of flaming drinks that they quickly used to initiate a giggling, pun-filled toast.

“To my sister’s very own Goblet of Fire. The sexy man in black. Mr. Butt Whacker. May he be as yummy and hot as this drink and slide down your throat just as easily. Cheers!” Their laughter was almost as loud as the booming music filling the packed club overflowing with a rowdy weekend patrons.

“Oh wait,” Brynn chirped. “Got another one. An
A.F.T.R
. shot. Lemme find it.”

“Hmmm.
A.F.T.R
. What’s that? I remember that
B.F.A.D.
is
better from a distance.”

They snorted and barked out laughter at their sisterly silliness.

“Okay, found it,” Brynn announced with a slight edge of booze-fueled slurring. “This, my dear, is what
Amazing From the Rear
looks like in the flesh.”

Took Rhi a minute to focus, but when she did, she looked back quickly at Brynn with wide-eyed wonder. “Seriously Brynnie. Oh. My. GOD! This? This is the guy Dad sent you? Why the hell hasn’t he ever sent me a piece of man ass who looks like that? Fuck Brynn. I guess that old saying is true…Dad likes you best.”

Brynn chuckled and took another look at Jax’s ass. “Actually sweetie, I think the line is Mom always liked you best but yeah. That’s Jackson Merrill. Goes by Jax,” she hiccupped. “His father and Dad were college chums—same fraternity.”

“Mmmm, Jax. Sexy name. So you’re sleeping with this Butt Whacker, huh? That’s so cool Brynnie. Really happy for you. Roger was such a turd and you took his douchebaggery too serious…but this Jax fella. Wowza! You hit the testosterone jackpot. Tell me everything. And don’t leave out a single detail. Think of it as helping me with research.”

Swaying to the beat of the music, Brynn laughed off pretty much everything that came out of her sister’s mouth. The alcohol buzz was making her more than a tad goofy and talking about Jax only made her bum throb. Funny how just thinking about him got a physical reaction. She wondered if he’d put her over his knee again when he found out she and Rhiann had gone out on the town dressed like the fucking Kardashian sisters and sucked up a barrel of booze along the way.

She’d texted him when the train pulled into the station to let him know she’d arrived safely. There wasn’t a single instance in her memory when she could recall her former husband ever checking up on her safety or paying attention at all to her comings and goings.

Looking at Rhi she realized the girl was still babbling. What had she asked Brynn? To tell her everything, all the details. For research purposes? What the hell did that mean? Maybe she was drunker than she thought.

“Rhi, Rhi,” she garbled with an awkward snap of her fingers. “What did you say about research? You wanna research my sex life?”

“Uh, what? Is that what I said? Must be the booze,” Rhiann joked with a dismissive shrug.

Brynn’s eyes narrowed and she slumped back into her chair and gave her sister the best once-over she could pull off with so much vodka sloshing about in her system. Yeah, right. Once again that overwhelming intuition that something was up pierced the thickening alcohol fuzz in her brain.

“You’re up to something little sister. What is it? I can always tell when someone’s trying to pull a fast one.”

Rhi barked a laugh and gave her a saucy wink. “It’s not me who’s doing you dirty Brynnie. I made Mom tell me what Nana was up to after we talked the other day. What in fucking fuck is she thinking? I mean, Seth? Seth Colton? He’ll tear down Wilde House in a heartbeat just to be a perverse fuck.”

“Ugh. I know,” Brynn wailed.

“Well, if it helps any I did pick up one very important piece of info that’ll set your mind at ease. Remember all that hysteria around New Year’s when the whole family got worked up into a frenzy over Nana having a heart attack?”

“Of course I remember. That’s what started all this insanity. She’s such a tough old bird I’m sure she’ll live to a hundred but the hospital scare set the wheels in motion.”

“Exactly,” Rhiann drawled. “But guess the fuck what?”

It occurred to Brynn that the more inebriated they got the more they bandied about the ‘fuck’ word. It was bad enough that they used it rather liberally to begin with, but pour some flaming liquor on top and it became a noun, a verb, a comma, and an exclamation point.

“What?”

“I have it on good authority,” she coughed and choked out the word ‘mom’, “that it was mostly bullshit and there was nothing as serious as a heart attack involved.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Brynn shrieked.

“I shit you not. And no way would Mom let that cat out of the bag if she wasn’t seriously pissed at the way Nana was making everyone jump through a hoop.”

Was steam coming out of her ears? Brynn thought there might be, she was so damn mad. All this time thinking Nana was creeping up to the pearly gates had scared her half to death and made all the uncharitable feelings she had about the whole changing of the will thing seem like the musings of a selfish bitch.

She twisted around in her chair and waved her hand until Payter looked her way. Signaling with two fingers to let him know they wanted another round of drinks, he nodded and gave her the ‘be right there’ hand sign.

When he trotted over with two more flaming Goblets of Fire, she grabbed hers and quickly extinguished the fire with the conveniently provided fire lid, downing the whole thing in one gulp. Before Payter danced away she grabbed him by the arm and slurred, “Fuck the flaming goblets, bring us two Iced Sambuca Shooters plus two Vodka ‘n Gingers with lotsa lemons and a ton of ice.”

“Oooohhhh, she’s mad now,” Rhiann giggled. “More booze,” she hollered as she pounded her hand on the table. “And dancers. Bring us two hot dancing boys, stat!”

Everything became one huge blur after that. They drank. Danced. Giggled. Danced some more and drank some more. Neither Rhiann nor Brynn was a stranger to a drunken night of excess and somewhere along the way had tipped good ‘ol Payter a sizeable sum to make sure when the time came they made it safely to a cab. The way he chuckled and reassured them that he’d take care of it let Brynn know this was a scenario he was probably used to. Plus, it was a damn good way to make a pile of cash for just being a good guy and doing the right thing.

Sometime after midnight, Brynn’s phone buzzed and she focused long enough to see that it was a text from Jax asking if she was being good. Oh fuck. She was new to this good girl bad girl stuff. Plus, she was truly drunk as shit.

“Rhi,” she stammered.
“WhadamIgonnado
?” Thank God he hadn’t called because there was no way she was making much sense. Not with her tongue on vacation and her lips almost numb from the drinking.