PROLOGUE
IGNITION
Liam
A NAKED COUPLE bangs enthusiastically behind the rhododendrons by the pool, ignoring the pile of people conducting an orgy on my front lawn. God bless California’s outstanding nighttime weather. I tend to skirt the group sex thing. Not because I’m prudish but because if I get too close, I’ll join in and I shouldn’t have sex tonight. Mostly because when I drink this much, I black out and then I do the filthiest, half-remembered things that I completely hate myself for. My Napa sex parties may be popular with the Silicon Valley elite who make the two-hour drive north from San Francisco, and my guest list may boast more start-up founders and CEOs than a venture capital fund, but certain people on a certain board don’t like them. I’ve been spanked and told to stop and apologize for past bad behavior—or else.
I haven’t taken orders since earning my first billion dollars, and I’m definitely not apologizing for anything. Turning over a new, reformed leaf is also not part of my plans for tonight. Instead, I head for the music and lights of the nearby big top. The enormous tent wasn’t included with my purchase of the ten-thousand-square-foot château, although there’s more than enough room for it between the French-style formal gardens and the acres of grapevines. Tonight’s party theme is Fun Under the Big Top and I’ve imported an entire circus and midway, complete with a Ferris wheel, naughty arcade games and a three-ring show of sex acts. Waiters pass champagne and carnival food, but the snacks aren’t the focus of attention. That would be the acrobats building a complicated pyramid of naked bodies in a showy display of minuscule loincloths, sequins, muscles, tits and asses. I work up some applause and devote myself to draining the remainder of my bourbon.
This is where the night starts to blur and jump thanks to what I’ve knocked back from the bottle of ridiculously expensive bourbon in my hand. Drunk me time-travels in tiny hops, skipping from one moment to the next so that I can gloss over the boring parts, like how I’ve got from a tent of naked people to the base of the Ferris wheel. I’m not blackout drunk, not yet, but I’m close. The ride spins in a dizzying circle, spokes flashing past me as the riders shriek.
I’m thinking I do want sex. Dirty, filthy, anonymous sex. The kind that makes you hate yourself in the morning for what you were willing to do or let be done. The kind of sex that hurts and leaves a mark.
So of course that’s when I spot the girl. Woman. She stands out, a quality about her, a hot, magnetic pull between us that gets my dick hard. Mostly, I want to fuck her, to drag her down to my level, but she has to say she wants this, too. That’s the one rule of my nasty game. You have to admit your secret wants out loud.
She’s one of my few guests who hasn’t raided the adult aisle of the Halloween store for her costume. I mentally mark her up for that because she’s stunning anyhow, even all covered up. A black-and-white-striped dress bells out from the curve of her waist to mid-thigh, the hem decorated with a row of pom-poms. It’s more cute than sexy until I get to the red-and-white stockings in a naughty pair of red fuck-me heels. And as if she hasn’t hit all my hot buttons already, she wears fingerless gloves and carries a tiny black umbrella that she twirls as she tips her head back to watch first the Ferris wheel and then me.
“Are you taken?” She grins at me, face still upside-down, her voice soft and irrepressibly mischievous. A black velvet mask conceals most of her features but strawberry-blond hair spills down her back in an unruly ponytail.
“By you.” It’s cheesy, but entirely true. Right now, right here, I’m all hers and she’s welcome to do whatever she wants with me.
She’s so completely covered up, I want to strip her bare, brush my mouth over the column of her throat and then move lower. I could fist her hair as I drive into her and make her scream with pleasure. Her eyes laugh at me, happy, pleased to be here.
I really shouldn’t go near her.
So of course I do.
I stride right over until my shoulder is brushing hers when she straightens.
As soon as I touch her, as soon as I pull on the ties of the mask until they sag in my hand, I realize that there’s an obstacle to my hookup plan. My little strawberry blonde isn’t a beautiful stranger. She’s a gate-crasher.
Hana Valentine.
My best friend’s sweetheart of a little sister. It’s too late to put her mask back on, so I shove it into my pocket.
Twenty-three now, but still way too nice and far too innocent for my kind of game.
“I didn’t invite you.” Drunk truth at its finest.
She grins at me. “I borrowed Jax’s invitation.”
“Felonies are frowned upon, Ms. Valentine.” I wait for her to look guilty, but she just stands there staring at me and my brain cells have clearly been replaced with bourbon because I stare right back. Sixteen-year-old A.H. Hirsch doesn’t lend itself to logical decision-making. So I give in and do what I want—I’ll feel bad about it in the morning, which was the plan all along, right?—rather than calling for security like I should. Her hair feels so soft beneath my fingers, and she doesn’t protest at all when I wrap its length around my fist and gently draw her backward. Instead, her eyes flare with excitement, making me think she has a hidden submissive side.
Her hair...her hair is something else, fresh-smelling, like cucumbers and herbs, summer and the outdoors. Or maybe those are just the memories of our Berkeley summers. She grew up in the house next door and I used to see her all the time. I shove those thoughts in a box and toss the box into my mental dumpster. It’s not as if I care about her hair. Or her. In my world, my ladies wear whichever scent I like best. The last thing I want to admit is that she could be special.
I pull her tighter against me and she comes willingly, still sweetly submissive, her body melting into mine. Her back cradles my front and I’ve missed a few important memos about Hana Valentine. Firstly, she’s grown up since we met as kids in Berkeley. I wait a beat, absorbing the sexy, soft give of her body. I don’t want to feel this, not with her, but the longer I hold her, the less I can fight the feeling. Because secondly, something has shifted between us from when I spotted her and when drunk me decided it was okay to touch her because it would feel good now and I’d thoroughly regret it later.
Time skips again.
Now she rides my thigh as I press it between hers, and I can barely register the searing heat of her because I’m back to trying to figure out when she grew up on me. She’s more pocket-sized than tall, although I’m a big bastard, so she shouldn’t have the upper hand. Bourbon. I blame the bourbon. I feel her gaze move over my face as she tilts her head against my shoulder, the better to watch me.
I’m totally letting her do this.
This is my choice to allow her to take control, to lead.
I am such a liar.