Handle With Care (Shacking Up 5)

“Don’t ever bring up Amalie or Imogen again with me. Ever.” His face is turning red, so I loosen my grip enough that he sucks in another gasping breath. “As for Wren, if you say anything like that about her again, or you so much as look at her the wrong way, I will not hesitate to use your balls for golf practice and your dick as the flag. Am I understood?”

I release his tie. He rolls to his side and curls into a ball.

“Don’t make me repeat myself, Armstrong.”

“Yeah,” he coughs. “Yes. Understood. Christ, calm down.” He pulls himself into a sitting position. “You can’t tell me you haven’t thought about what it would be like to stop her incessant nagging by plugging her mouth with your—”

I grab him by the throat and haul him to his feet, cutting off the end of the sentence. Then, I punch him in the junk and let him go.

He crumples again, cupping himself this time.

“The fact that you’ve created another human being is a travesty. Thank God, Imogen was smart enough to file for full custody.” I leave him lying on the floor in our father’s sex room. I also take the bin Armstrong filled with the wine and champagne because my brother deserves nothing, and I need a damn drink.CHAPTER 12THE PULLLINCOLNIt’s early evening by the time I get home. My head is spinning, and all I want to do is call Wren, but my phone is dead and my charger is at the office, where I left it. I would search the penthouse for a spare, or go out and get another one, but the need to drown the things I’ve seen out with alcohol is a bigger priority.

So I uncork a bottle of the white I took from my father’s sex pad and down half of it straight from the bottle. It’s good, but it’s not strong enough, so I grab the scotch and pour myself a very generous glass. I’m about to fire up my laptop when I realize that it, too, is at the office. “Dammit,” I say to the sculpture on the side table.

I shrug out of my suit jacket and drop it on the floor, my tie follows, shoes go next, then I unbutton the cuffs on my shirt. I get lazy and decide that’s as far as I’m willing to go in the quest for comfort.

I expel a loud expletive. Today has sucked, and the one person I’d like to talk to, who might have some kind of information I can trust, I can’t get a hold of. And then I remember Griffin is old school and he still has a landline. My excitement deflates when I realize I have no idea what Wren’s phone number is because it’s programmed in my dead, useless cell.

I almost toss it across the room, but breaking something expensive isn’t going to make it better, so I toss it on the couch beside me and go back to chugging my scotch.

I’m in the middle of debating how hammered I plan to get when the door swings open. I know it’s Wren before I see her, based on the way she slams the door and the clip of her heels on the hardwood.

She rounds the corner and props her fists on her hips. It’s her go-to pose when she’s angry. Her eyes are on fire. Her lipstick is fucking red. I hate it so much. But her skirt is so pretty, the palest gray, with a lacy overlay. Her blouse is white, and it looks so soft, the fabric has a sheer quality to it, so I can see the pale camisole underneath. Her heels are hot pink, which makes me hate that stupid red lipstick even more because it doesn’t even match.

I want to kiss that lipstick off and peel the clothes from her body. Then I want to fuck her against the softest available surface. I would like to claim her as mine. I would like to ensure that my brother has no reason to ever fantasize about her again because the only thing he’ll be able to imagine is me all over her.

Instead of verbalizing any of these things, which are highly inappropriate and also unlikely with how pissed off she looks, I say, in a tone that matches her expression, “What’re you doing here?”

Her jaw twitches. “Excuse me?”

“You let yourself in without even knocking. Again. What if I had company?” I regret the words as they leave my mouth. There’s no way I would have company here tonight, or any other night, because Wren is the star of every single one of my damn fantasies. But she doesn’t know that, and I’m not sure how she’ll react if I issue such an admission. Also, I might be feeling the scotch already since the last meal I ate was breakfast, so I try to backtrack. “What if I were naked?”