4

Chase

Indescribable as it is for a kid who grew up wrong side of the lake in a little Minnesota town to own a thirty-million-dollar brownstone overlooking Central Park on the Upper East Side, something about the townhouse makes me claustrophobic. Maybe it’s the hemmed-in feel of sharing walls with the neighbors on all seven floors. Maybe it’s the dark tones of all the furniture, natural woodwork, and modern art.

Or maybe it’s the faint smell of cigar lingering like a ghost.

Whatever it is, I decide I prefer the office at 3 AM. I own several—offices in New York, that is—but tonight I’m drawn back to Crunchy.

Best part of owning a grocery store—unlimited midnight snack options. Maybe I’ll buy a condom company next.

On second thought, that’s like buying a sports car. Looks like you’re compensating.

The security guards on the first floor leap to their feet when I walk in. You wouldn’t know it from the outside, but this building is worth its weight in gold. Crunchy’s more than your standard organic grocery store.

It’s also a successful experiment in growing food in the city. There are six floors of vegetables planted, tended, harvested, packaged, and shipped out to our local stores here every day. Security is non-negotiable.

I nod to the guards. “Evening, gentlemen. How’s night watch?”

They share a look. “Good,” the first says while the second trips over himself to get out, “All quiet and normal, sir.”

I didn’t squander my youth being a hellion to not see through the lies. I could fire them on the spot, but that kind of power isn’t my thing.

I’d rather get the rush of the game before I decide their fate. “Excellent. Carry on.”

The building is quiet tonight, except for a hiccup echoing down the hall.

Odd.

Even odder, and most unwelcome?

Ambrosia May Berger is standing in the elevator bank, peering up at the numbers. She hiccups again. I stop beside her and watch her eyes go wide, then narrow, then cross. Mirrored elevator doors are possibly the second greatest invention known to man.

First, of course, is the internet.

I stare at Bro in the door mirror.

She stares back.

For all the shit she gave me growing up, I always respected her spine. As much as one can respect something that infuriating. She got away with everything. Even when she was reckless.

I can honestly say no woman I’ve been with since her has ever tried to make a break for it in the Bratwurst Wagon.

As long as I block out the month that followed, I can think of the Bratwurst Wagon with a smile.

“Working late or coming in early?” I ask.

“The hogs are mating again,” she replies.

The world believes this woman to be a sane, competent adult. Mind-boggling.

“Do you always wait in elevator banks for women you want to harass?” she asks.

“Only when I’ve gotten bored staking out the bathrooms.” I reach over and hit the up button, because she hasn’t. “Do you always assume the elevators can read your mind?”

“They were doing better than you. I didn’t want to go up.”

“And you’re standing here because…?”

“It’s my thinking spot.”

“It’s 3 AM on a Wednesday morning.”

“Do you see me judging you on wanting to use an elevator at 3 AM on a Wednesday morning? No, you don’t. So why do you have to judge me for wanting to think in an elevator bank at 3 AM? Hmmmmmm?” The hum trills up on the end, right in time with her swiveling to face me. She squints one eye, then the other, before scrunching her face, pointing her index finger at my nose, and making pew, pew noises.

If this is what the security guards were worried I’d find, I’m rather disappointed.

“Drinking on the job again?” I ask.

“Again implies I’ve done it before. Which I have not, unless you count that time the guava kale juice fermented, which I don’t, because it only counts as drinking if I enjoy the alcohol. Also, all whisky was consumed off-premise.”

“So you’re drunk.”

“I’m not drunk. I’m barely buzzed enough to be able to tolerate you.”

I eye her and decide she’s telling the truth. Her eyes are too focused and her tongue’s too sharp for her to be drunk. I can’t even smell anything on her. Tired, maybe, but not drunk.

“Was it organic?” I ask dryly.

“It’s whisky, dickhead.”

Christ, that mouth. I want to lick it and tape it shut all at the same time. “You shouldn’t call your superiors names.”

She blows a raspberry. The sight of her ripe pink tongue makes my cock leap to attention.

“Looking for disciplinary action?” I murmur.

“Oh, don’t you wish.” The elevator dings, and she lists inside. I’d try to catch her, but frankly, I wouldn’t mind seeing her crash to the ground.

She comes to a solid stop at the railing along the back paneled wall. “And you’re not my superior,” she says.

“I write your paycheck.”

“Not yet you haven’t.” Spittle shouldn’t be sexy, but her second raspberry gives me a longer look at her tongue. I remember that tongue. Long as a lizard’s, hot as a volcano, talented as a porn star.

That’s as complimentary as I get where Bro Berger is concerned.

“So Mr. Liver-bellied Bratwurst-runner-away-er,” she says, “wouldn’t you be happier owning a grocery store that I don’t work for? Because I’m sure we can find another zagillionaire to take your place.”

I punch the button to the eighteenth floor—where the fresh greens for tomorrow are being picked and packed right now, if all’s on schedule—and give her my worst smile. “Aw, Bro, your inflated opinion of my bank account is touching.”

“You could be a mega-ka-billion-trillionaire, and you still wouldn’t have enough money to buy a soul.”

I’m relatively new to the ranks of the ten-figure club, but it’s still been years since anyone has insulted me to my face.

Her blatant hatred is oddly erotic. “Who needs a soul when I have the power to sack tempestuous employees?”

“Go ahead. I dare you.” She bangs the button for the fourth floor. Then the third, fifth, seventh, ninth, and every odd number to the top. With a frown, she draws her hand down the row of even numbers until every single floor is lit, and if I’d still thought this was alcohol motivating her, the sharp, devious intention in her cold eyes removes any doubt.

She’s fully in control and she’s intentionally trying to bait me.

Heat creeps over my scalp. It’s working.

She’s making this elevator stop on Every. Single. Fucking. Floor.

I whip out my cell phone—security can override her little prank—but as the doors close, my signal dies.

She does the MC Hammer dance, and her breasts jiggle under her swishy spring dress in a way even a celibate Tibetan monk couldn’t resist. There’s no fucking way she’s wearing a bra.

My cock twitches harder.

How did a woman so insanely evil land the world’s most perfect tits?

“Go on, rich boy.” She switches to the Lawnmower, and now her hips are rocking it too. “Buy your way out of that.”

Good Chase, the businessman, the gaming tech genius, the face I show the world, the smarter part of my brain, hops off when the doors open on the second floor, because he appreciates stairs and getting the hell away from this deranged woman.

Bad Chase, though, has possessed my body and keeps me in the elevator.

I wave goodbye to rational thought and better judgment—who needs those bitches anyway?—and turn to Bro with a growl.

She’s wiggling her sweet curvy ass at me now, arms circling, stirring the batter. “It’s my birthday, happy birthday, it’s my birth—oomph!”

Huh. Emergency stop button works, but it’s a little choppy on the execution. Better have maintenance look at that tomorrow.

I take one large, purposeful step toward Bro.

She fists her hands on her hips and calls me an asshole with her dark, heavy-lidded, fuck-me bedroom eyes.

Yeah.

She’s feeling it too.

That pull. That hate. That inexplicable force of rage that can only be satiated with a hard, hot fuck.

“I fucking hate bok choy,” I growl.

“Then you shouldn’t have bought a fucking organic grocery store,” she growls back in a perfect mockery of me.

I’ve always detested her ability to do that. I take another step, and we’re toe-to-toe. The lead pipe in my pants is poking her belly. My sanity has fled the building. Maybe the whole city. Hell, it’s just skyrocketed out of the fucking atmosphere.

This woman drives me mad. She’s obnoxious as toe fungus and pathologically self-righteous. I want to crush her. I want to ruin her. I want to own her.

“Not enough bratwurst for one day?” she hisses. “You had to put a crooked one in your pocket too?” Her eyes are obsidian ringed in gold, pillowy lips parted, her hands fisted in my sweatshirt.

I back her into the corner, my dick doing all the talking. “You want my long, thick cock, and you know it.”

“I want to break it in two and feed it to maggots.”

“You want to bite it. And suck on it. And ride it.”

“I fucking hate you.”

I fucking hate her too, but I have a fistful of her hair, and I’m suddenly doing the only thing I know to do to shut her the fuck up.

I’m shoving my tongue down her throat. As far as it’ll go. Gliding into that hot, wet, silky mouth where my joystick wants to be.

She sinks her nails into my ass and yanks me tighter against her, matching me thrust for thrust with her lizard tongue while she grunts incoherent insults.

I jerk my hips against her, rubbing my cock against her tight body. That’s for costing me my two best friends.

She wraps her long giraffe legs around my hips and rides me like she doesn’t know how to stay on the bull. I twist and shove her against the back wall, yank her skirt up, and dry-hump her like a freak. She’s drenched, soaking through her thong and coating my pants.

I take my tongue out of her mouth and bite her shoulder. She rakes her claws up my back under my shirt. “You are such an asshole,” she says.

“Save it for someone who cares, Bro.”

She bucks harder against me, and I silence her again, diving into her mouth like I’d like to dive into her pussy.

Licking. Sucking. Eating.

Mine. Mine to command. Mine to conquer. Mine to ruin for life.

Because she’ll never get dick like I can give. No one else knows her. They don’t know her dark side. Her evil side. Her carnal side.

I slide a finger under her panties and run it over her smooth seam. She moans in my mouth and rides my hand, twisting, demanding, as if she thinks she can give the orders.

In her dreams.

I pull my hand away.

“That’s right, fucker,” she hisses. “You can’t handle my pussy.”

I shove my hand between us again, and this time, I go straight for the kill. Thumb to her clit, all four fingers sliding up into her creamy channel.

She comes so hard, clenching around me so tight, I feel every spasm all the way to my elbow. Head thrown back, legs straight out, eyes rolling out of her head like a camel having a seizure while she rides my hand through the waves. Her high-pitched cry, “You diiiiiiiiiiick,” echoes in the elevator, and the room wobbles in the shaft.

That’s right, Bro.

Zero to sixty in four-point-three seconds. Good luck getting that with one of your crunchy, free-range, organic toadstool boyfriends.

And we haven’t even gotten to the main event.

I consider dropping her on her ass while she’s a pile of rotten jelly in my arms, but instead wait until her eyes focus again. Fucking gentleman of the year, that’s me.

When she blinks at me, I give her another moment to remember she hates me. It’s remarkable, watching the transformation. One minute, she almost looks human, and the next she’s a screaming harpy with horns and vampire teeth.

“Two-point-one,” she says.

“Seconds to make you come?” I breathe. “You’re easy.”

“I didn’t come,” she lies. “That was my body recoiling in horror, and you get a two-point-one a scale of zero to one hundred.”

I chuckle. “We both know better, Bro. Now suck my dick.”

“Suck your own dick.”

I suck her juices off my fingers, and her breathing goes shallow. She licks her lips, and her greedy hands plunge into my pants to grab my aching cock.

I know she’s trying to strangle it, but sweet Christ, there’s pain, and then there’s pleasure, and fuck if I’ll let her know she’s mastered the art of riding that line.

With superhuman strength, I force myself to affect a bored eye roll. “Oh. Ow. Stop. That hurts.” I give enough of a thrust in her grip to tell her if she stops, I’ll fucking jack myself off in front of her, and she squeezes harder.

Fuck, that’s good.

Her fist yanks me like she’s a virgin milkmaid, and I’m blinded by a white-hot streak of furious lust. I’m enraged. I’m engorged. I’m—

She grabs me by the balls, scraping my sack, and that color behind my eyeballs goes iridescent. Beyond white. I can’t think. I can’t talk. I can barely keep my knees from giving out.

“Flaccid,” she whispers. “And still crooked. You should see a doctor about that.”

“If you don’t like it, you could quit touching it.” If she quits touching me, I’m going to fucking die. “I can barely tell your hand is there anyway.”

“It’s a mercy stroke. I’m generous like that. And you’re a lying fuck-face.”

“Beg all you want. I’m not giving you a pity fuck.”

“I don’t want a pity fuck. It’s all I can do to not barf while I’m looking at you.”

I pry my eyelids open, and see by the way her eyes have gone round that we’re thinking the same thing.

I’m picturing her ass in the air, those two perfect globes in my hands while my dick fills and stretches her hot, weeping pussy, and I almost come all over her dress. She still has a handful of my balls, an iron grip on my cock, and I’m so fucking turned on I might blow a new hole out of my nut sack.

This woman does abnormal, not-right things to my brain. And my body. And my mouth.

“Bend over, cabbage face,” I order.

“Why? You couldn’t find my g-spot with a flashlight and a guide.”

“Fine. Look me in the eye while I go spelunking.” I finger the strap of her thong, thrusting into her grip on my cock, praying this is a bad dream.

“I really fucking hate you.” She tosses her dress over her head, and oh sweet Christ in a pickup truck, all she’s wearing is the thong. Her cherry nipples point to high heaven, her waist curves into sweet honey hips, and all that’s between me and the promised land is a strip of black lace.

If she were any other woman, I’d bite that off her and spend the next two hours with my face buried between her legs.

But this is Bro, and I will not shoot my shit before I’m buried in her pussy or I’ll never fucking live this down, so I grab with both hands and split the lace in two.

And—god help me—she’s bare as a hairless cat.

Before I can inspect further, she has her head in the corner, ass in the air, and I’m fumbling—fucking fumbling—to remember what to do with my dick. I lean over and bite one cheek. She shudders and wiggles her ass.

“Knew you couldn’t find—”

Her last word is lost in a gasp as I dive into that slick, pink home between her thighs and keep gliding until my balls slap her skin. And then I pump. And thrust. I grab her hips and gyrate, filling her, taking her, riding her, owning her, over and over and over.

She’s wet and tight and everything a woman should be and nothing Bro should be, because this isn’t sex. This is a game. This is power. This is about winning. About showing her she’s nothing to me. About getting off. And I’m almost there. One more thrust, one more—

She arches her back and thrusts her ass into me until she’s squishing my tight balls, the spasms coming hot and fast and glorious around my dick, and I’m done. I come like I’ve never come in my life. Not the night I lost my virginity, not the night she pissed me off so bad we hate-fucked in the ride-on bratwurst, not with any of the actresses or musicians who’ve wanted to bang a billionaire.

And I keep coming. She keeps coming. It’s one endless orgasm, her clenching around me, me spilling everything I have until I’m pretty sure I’m coming blood.

Or at least brain cells.

Because why the fuck am I fucking Bro Berger in a fucking elevator at three in the morning?

I jerk back and yank my pants up. She melts to the floor, panting, and that’s when I realize my second mistake.

We didn’t use a condom.

We didn’t fucking use a condom.

“Get up,” I order.

She’s still breathing heavy, knees spread wide, hand to her heart, but she spares a minute to flip me off.

“Fucking get up,” I say. “Why didn’t you have a fucking condom?”

Her body stills. Slowly, so slowly I’m not sure she’s moving, she lifts her head to look at me. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t have to. It’s written all over her face.

Checkmate.

Delicately covering her breasts, she slides her legs around as if she can find some modesty now. She lifts her head to the ceiling, blows a kiss and a smirk to the round black orb that tells me the fucking security guards are watching, and the elevator jerks to life again.

Her dress is still falling to cover her ass as she steps off the elevator on the third floor. “Better luck next time, Jett. Keep the panties. Last souvenir you’ll ever have.”

I’m a billionaire, and I’ve just been schooled by a woman who once stole the Bratwurst Wagon.

I’m fucked.