Static came over the line because the connection was weak, but his words were strong. “It’s forty-eight hours, Fender.”
“Doesn’t fucking matter.”
“That’s how we treat our partnerships? I’ve verified that his story is true, that the hit was real, that he even lost his wife and eldest son. Your response isn’t just cold, but maniacal.”
“We have our rules.”
“No one has to know—”
“People talk, Magnus. They’ll know we’re soft.”
“I think it’s better to appear soft than fucking insane. It’s bad for business. Charles has been our partner for years, has always paid us on time, and to ignore that is disloyal. We would lose more respect doing it your way instead of mine.”
“There is no your way. It’s my way. I’m in charge here—not you.”
He turned quiet for a while. “My job is to make you see clearly, to see past your anger and stubbornness and make the best decision for yourself as well as the business. I will do that job whether you like it or not.”
I clenched my jaw so hard my gums ached. “If you were anyone else, I’d kill you. Personally.”
“Trust me, I feel the same way.”
I sat in the sitting area in my bedroom, looking at the TV above the fireplace, nursing my anger with a glass of scotch. The screen was showing a replay of the game, but I didn’t pay attention to it.
Fucking Magnus. He had a lot of goddamn nerve.
We disagreed on almost everything, from the business to personal ideologies. We were enemies in every way but blood. But that connection was so strong, so innate, that it conquered everything else.
I made threats I would never execute.
He did the same.
My own man went over my head and snitched to Magnus, and I should kill them both, even if they were right, but I couldn’t. All I could do was sit there and simmer, infuriated. My hands squeezed my glass so hard that I almost shattered it a couple times. But I’d learned my lesson from doing it so many times. A shard of glass in the hand was a bitch to get out, and Gilbert would lose his goddamn mind if the blood stained any of the furniture.
My bedroom door opened.
It was behind me on the other side of the room, but I knew exactly who it was. “Not tonight.” Her beauty wouldn’t pull me out of this mood. Her sweet voice wouldn’t make me think of the roses in the garden. My fury was unconquerable.
But she came to me anyway.
Wearing lingerie.
A black bodysuit covered in diamonds.
I stared at her, still angry, but a bit less. “I’m not in the mood.” I turned my gaze back to the TV and took a drink.
She remained next to the armrest, in sky-high heels, smooth legs, big hair. “What happened?”
I rested my arm over the back of the couch. “Doesn’t concern you.”
She studied me for a while before she moved to the couch and straddled my hips. Her fingers moved between her thighs and unclasped the bottom so it would open, her sex easily accessible.
My eyes were forced to look at her, to smell her, to feel the tension ebb away just from having her on top of me. Images of us together in front of the fireplace on the floor of her cabin came back to me, her body covered in sweat because she worked so hard to fuck me, to get the two of us off repeatedly.
When she pulled on my boxers, my hips automatically rose so she could get them off. My hand set the glass on the table beside me, and my dick went from soft and angry to hard and eager.
Her hand cupped my face, and she kissed me, her hair falling down around me and blanketing me in a curtain of her smell, and she directed me inside her as she slid down over my length, her pussy perfectly coated with arousal to take me without foreplay.
Like she’d been thinking about me all day.
I closed my eyes and moaned against her lips as she sheathed me with the best pussy of my life.
Her arms hooked around my neck as she kept her face close to mine, and she fucked me the way I liked, good and slow, rocking her hips exactly how I’d shown her.
All the bullshit with my brother went out the window as I enjoyed my woman. And fuck, did I enjoy her.
“You make me forget.” She breathed against my mouth as she continued to force