“Yes. The usual people. Some clients, some friends.” East stroked Wilson’s head once more and rose, glancing at his heavy gold watch. In a moment, he’d be striding toward his fancy ass sedan, and Patrick would be stuck holding the bag. “So can you do it or not?”
“Two years in a row,” Patrick said, cocking his head as he noticed the shifty expression in East’s brown eyes. Though they were twins, there were differences if people knew where to look. East’s eyes were lighter, as was his brown hair. His almost verged on dark blond. Personality wise, they weren’t night and day, but damn close to it. Easton lived and breathed his real estate business. He wheeled and dealed with the best of them, while Patrick preferred sweaty, manual labor and keeping his own hours.
He also preferred East’s sexy-as-hell assistant, but he didn’t know where his brother stood with her. He also suspected she believed she’d slept with—fucked, more accurately—her boss last Halloween, not his grunt worker brother.
At first, he’d been sure she realized it was him. The way she’d flirted hadn’t fit her usual treatment of her boss. Then she’d shot his hopes to hell with one well-placed “Mr. Nolan.” After that he hadn’t been sure of anything beyond how sweet and hot her pussy felt around his cock.
Maybe he’d been kidding himself. Nik and East spoke the same language, one that seemed to revolve around dollar signs and fancy houses with more rooms than he’d ever need. Real estate was in their blood.
Nikki even had a hot shot architect/developer cousin, Blake Carson, who was in all the magazines. The first time she’d pointed out an article about him, Patrick had figured she was kidding. Nope. Some of Nikki’s roots were moneyed enough to make even East jealous.
“Two years in a row what?” East’s voice held his typical impatience. He didn’t take a lot of time to sniff the roses. Or the blacktop. “This is my annual party. You know that.”
“Yes, your annual party. Yours. Not mine. So why have you skipped out two years running and left me to schmooze the masses?”
Patrick barely resisted a snarl. Last year, he’d been stuck in East’s Gregorian monk outfit. What would it be this year? Maybe a mummy costume?
“They’re hardly masses.” Easton smirked. “I invite thirty people, max.”
“Last year I counted sixty-two.”
Easton laughed, shaking his head. “Dude, you’re nuts. Who the hell counts the number of people at a party?”
Me, when I’m trying not to snatch your assistant’s arm and drag her off to a corner and fuck her blind.
Which he had anyway. If not blind, she’d been at least visually impaired, judging from her moans. She hadn’t held them back either. She’d given them all freely, as if she didn’t care one whit someone might be able to hear.
Patrick’s cock jumped against his fly at the memory. Damn, he liked Nikki Carson. He liked that she always drank raspberry lattes with two sugars, not artificial sweeteners. He liked that her hair seemed to curl in every direction at once, regardless of the clip she used to try to restrain it. He also liked that she’d seemed to love every minute of him taking her hard and fast.
Now if only he could do it again…
But he wasn’t going tonight to get lucky with Nikki. Not when he figured she had a hero worship thing going with his brother and barely spared Patrick a glance. God, if he heard her say, “Yes, sir,” in her prim little voice one more time, he was going to punch something.
She hadn’t mentioned that night in the past year. He’d spent most of it in North Carolina, but he’d been around lately. Actually, he’d made sure to stop by when she was working at least once every couple weeks. Why, he didn’t know. She hadn’t given any indication at all she even remembered last Halloween. Not even a flirty wink or a teasing glimpse of cleavage. Either she was embarrassed and ashamed over what they’d done or, more likely, she didn’t think she had anything to discuss with him. She probably thought she’d been impaled by the staff of greatness and that was that.
He should’ve made sure she knew it was him at the time. That would’ve been the honorable thing to do. But her little heart-shaped ass twitching in satin hot pants as part of her genie costume had undone any honor he’d had left in him.
At least East and Nikki weren’t dating. They hadn’t slept together either from what Patrick could
tell. Because if East put a single hand on her…
He released a long breath and scooped Wilson into his arms. She probably wouldn’t be there tonight. She didn’t seem like much of a partier. Worst part was, he didn’t know if that made him happy or disappointed.
Liar.
“So you’re not going to tell me where you’re off to again this year, huh?” Patrick asked, nuzzling Wilson’s downy cheek.
“I’m not off to anywhere in particular. I have another engagement.”
The furrow of East’s brow made Patrick grin. Holy shit, did his virtuous baby brother have a secret woman?
Then his grin faded. Who was she?
“What about Nikki?” he blurted, not caring how it seemed. He needed to know if they’d hooked up. Needed to know if he’d have to cause the biggest scene of his life and tell her she’d screwed him last fall, not the man with the golden wand.
Easton blinked. “What about Nicole?”
Nicole. Never Nikki. “Will she be there tonight?”