Stoned: A Billionaire Stepbrother With Benefits Romance (My Brother's Keeper Book 1) (2 page)

And maybe, just a bit, part of her hadn’t
been in a rush either.

“We’re not, but I have to represent our firm
at an industry convention in Vegas and fly out at dawn tomorrow. I
have been so busy with the Schmidt’s disaster that I don’t even
know my full itinerary yet.”

“Then you definitely need some snuggling,”
Cassidy said, even if her tone was a bit short. “I’ll see you soon,
and feel free to bring me back something tacky from Sin City.”

“Deal.”

“You look drained,” Thomas said, slipping his
glasses off of his nose and eying her as she walked into their
bedroom. “Did the big meeting did go that badly?”

“I’m back on my least favorite account.”

Her fiancé flinched at that. “More pizza
weasels?”

“Basically. I had heard the rumors but
Schmidt’s definitely got poached by freaking Robert Stone. Anyway,
it’s been a long, horrible day, and I think having a couple shots
of Jack on an empty stomach was a terrible idea.”

Her fiancé stood and wrapped both arms around
her from behind. Thomas was taller than she was, who wasn’t? He was
tall with unruly dark hair that always fell in his face and bright
green eyes. Those had been what had attracted her first deep down
in the bowels of the New York City public library. He was already
in grad school, cramming for his comps and she’d just needed a
quiet place for junior year finals at NYU. Those frozen emeralds
were mesmerizing.

They still were.

He leaned lower and kissed her neck. “Is
there anything I can do to help relieve your stress?”

She sighed and shook her head. “I feel
terrible, and then tomorrow I have to be out of here and to La
Guardia by six. I’m afraid I’m not the best company right now.”

“You’re great company. Besides,” he said,
teasing at her ear lobe. “That’s alright. I have something I need
to get done for my English 101 class anyway. Still, if you need
anything,” he said, punctuated his statement by kissing the top of
her nose. “I can help.”

Allison blushed and pulled away from him.
She’d always been a bit sensitive about her nose. It was longer and
more angular than most girls but Tom swore he loved it, and he was
always giving it extra attention. It made her a little
self-conscious but it made him happy so she’d never complained
about it. “I’ll think that offer over. It’s definitely intriguing,
but for right now you go back to Poe.”

“Ravens and lost loves aren’t as entertaining
as you,” he rumbled but still slipped back to his desk. “When I
finally close tenure, I swear the hours will be terrible but not as
insanely terrible as they are right now. I promise.”

“Hope so,” she replied, smiling back at him
and heading back to their room. Maybe a hot bath would have to
suffice. Hell, it seemed to be most of what she did these long days
after work. Sometimes, she felt old and married and she hadn’t even
said the vows yet. Shaking her head, Allison sat down on the bed
and started pulling off her suit jacket.

She startled as her cellphone blared out.

The theme it played was The Imperial Death
March from Star Wars.

Her father.

“Daddy,” she said, forcing herself to be
perky. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her dad. She did. He just
expected so much, and the last thing she wanted to was let him know
that her job---Hell, her whole firm---was in trouble. “How are you?
How’s Monaco?”

Gabriel Shepard laughed on the other end.
“The town’s the same as always,” he said, his usual nonplussed tone
greeting her. “There’s the tables, and the shopping and all the
yachts.”

“Yes, I can’t imagine how that would get
boring, although you must be if you’re in the land of luxury and
yet up at five a.m.”

“Actually,” he started. He was caught off a
bit by a woman’s high-pitched squeal in the background.

“Gabriel, come back to bed.”

Allison’s eyes widened on the other end. Her
mother had died when she was eight, and it had been she and her
father ever since. That was a good and a bad thing. While she knew
her father loved her and had doted on her through the years, that
meant she was, as an only child, also the sole focus of his
attention and scrutiny. A lot of that meant that while he’d, as he
called it, “indulged her” in her freedom, her dad was still
desperate for her to come and work under him as the Vice President
of Shepard Communications.

She’d just never had any interest in
corporate life like that.

What she did at Vision Marketing, Inc. gave
her a chance to be creative, to harness her art and creativity. If
she ever went to work with her father, she’d end up staring at
spreadsheets all day and using terrible buzzwords like “synergy”
and “dynamic.”

If only her father could understand that.

Although, it was entirely possible her father
had been abducted and replaced by a space alien. He’d never been
smooth with women, and even his wealth hadn’t been able to
compensate for his bumbling nature. Still, he’d never dated anyone
seriously over the last almost twenty years, and he’d certainly
never been sloppy enough to call her in flagrante.

“Dad? Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yes, honey,” he said. “I just was having
such a good time here.”

Another squeal in the background.

“Oh I bet you are,” she chirped, rolling her
eyes. “Serious, Daddy, is something wrong? I mean, it doesn’t sound
like it, but nothing’s on fire is it?”

“No, but I knew I hadn’t checked in since I
landed and that you might be worrying.”

She chuckled. Now she’d be traumatized for
life, but at least she knew her dad had made it to Europe okay. It
figured. He’d never been cool about social cues either. “I’m good.
Thank you for, uh, letting me know, but you sound busy so I’m just
going to say good night or, um, morning.”

“Sure, night sweetie, but are you sure you’re
okay? You sound down?”

“No, it’s nothing that won’t be better in the
morning.”

“Damn it!” Oliver Jenkins cursed as the shot
sailed true and hit the bull’s eye. “I was going to win this
round.”

Robert Stone laughed and set his longbow down
at his feet. “We’ve done this for over a decade.”

“Only because you talked me into taking up
archery to begin with,” his friend said, scowling. “I’m beginning
to believe you did it just so you’d have someone to beat.”

“I have plenty of people I can beat, but it’s
somehow sweeter when it’s a friend.”

“Great, glad I can be your punching bag,”
Oliver drawled even as he walked over to the target and collected
his arrows. “Nothing says friendship like making the other guy feel
inferior.”

Robert smirked. It wasn’t his fault that he
made others feel inferior. He’d had one of his mentors at his
former firm (the one he’d bought out) tell him once that “people
often have inferiority complexes because they are.” Overall, his
best friend and former frat brother was a great ally, but he
couldn’t shoot for shit. Even if he hadn’t earned the nickname
“Arrow” for his incredible aim and talent, he’d have been able to
cream Oliver on the archery field.

Hell, he’d have been able to do it
blindfolded.

“You’re here, then we’ll go back to my
penthouse, get some Dom, and enjoy the flight out to Vegas. You
know you love the lovely ladies of the Hard Rock as much as I
do.”

“No one enjoys them as much as you do,” his
friend replied, laughing.

“True, but somehow even Vegas isn’t thrilling
me as much as it should be. I feel just incredibly bored.”

Oliver laughed. “I don’t know how someone as
busy as you could ever get bored. If you’re not working, you can go
anywhere you want. Hell, even DiCaprio is jealous of the life you
lead.”

“Yes,” Robert said, lining up his shot and
feeling the bow string pull taught in his grasp.

He’d always adored archery. It wasn’t just
the thrill of victory or even the practice it took to hone his
skills to match his bow’s own actions and reactions. No, it was all
about control, about the ability to calm his breathing, steady his
hand, and wait for just the right moment. After all, control was
something he prized above all things.

“How is Irina working out?” Oliver asked,
offering a wry smirk.

The bastard knew a comment about his previous
submissive would distract him. Things with Irina had not ended
well. She’d frankly come to bore him. It wasn’t that she wasn’t
willing, wasn’t that she didn’t have a set of collected talents.
No. It was more that Irina was just like every other submissive
he’d had, so ready to bow down to him, but also clearly hoping she
could satiate him long enough to be more than his weekend
entertainment. He wasn’t looking for a wedding ceremony or for the
gold digger that she’d always been.

He needed a real challenge with a woman as
well as a potential sub, who wouldn’t be so obnoxiously greedy.

Robert cursed as his shot went wide, hitting
the far left side of the target. It had been a miracle with
Oliver’s well-timed question that he hadn’t shot completely through
a window and out into the air over Manhattan. “Fucking
perfect!”

“Oh I know, and so it is going that well,
huh?”

Robert rubbed a hand over his chin and the
slight dimple there. It was a nervous habit he’d cultivated while
he still had a goatee in college, and he’d never outgrown such a
tell. “She turned out to be only interest in my bank account.”

“That’s the beauty of it, ‘Arrow,’” his
friend said, referring to his nickname. “The women from the
lifestyle are into you for a bit of fun and maybe a parting gift
from Tiffany’s, and then there’s no commitment on the other end. It
really is a beautiful system, man.”

Robert considered that as he retrieved his
arrows and put them back in his quiver, his passion for the usual
long contest between him and Oliver extinguished. “Maybe, but do
you ever think there might be something more to it? Irina turned
out to be so frustrating underneath.”

“And who cares about underneath as long as up
top is curvy in all the right ways?”

Robert gave his friend a tight smile, as he
continued past him and toward the bar he’d had built at the side of
his private range. Staring down eighty-eight stories at the people
scurrying like ants, he began to wonder what happened. Maybe he was
changing too; maybe there was something about the usual conquests
and pleasures that after over a decade had become too commonplace.
He just wasn’t quite sure what to do about it.

“Come on,” Oliver said as he joined him at
the giant bay window overlooking the greatest skyline in the world.
“You can’t give me all the silent treatment now, that’s not how
this works. I mean, after all man, I couldn’t possibly have
offended you. It’s not like you have delicate sensibilities to
offend.”

“It’s not that,” Robert said, even as he set
down his quiver and bow as he started to fish into his locker.
“Maybe it’s that ennui that comes from so much success. I don’t
even know. All I do know is that I have the empire I want, even if
I’m currently musing over new acquisitions. I have a good family
and friends, but I might need something of more substance for
fun.”

“Well, shit, we’ll hit up a club after Vegas,
some place where we can find you a girl worth your time.”

“Maybe I need someone different from the
usual club obsessives, from women who have been subs for years. I
feel like it’s all the same from month to month. Like this year
will be just like last year and next year will be more of the
same.”

“It’s unlikely you’ll find someone vanilla
and just break her in,” he replied, grabbing his own wallet and
towel from the small blue wooden box. “Get real, you just need to
have a good time in Vegas, find an Irina chaser, and get back on
with everything else.”

“So find a new horse, if you were,” Robert
asked, gathering up his keys. When his friend’s back was turned as
Oliver finished gathering his belongings, Robert just rolled his
eyes. Sometimes he wasn’t sure Oliver even understood sarcasm. Or
propriety. Once upon a time, that had been fun, but now it was just
so passé.

“If you want, that’s your kink, man.”

He snorted and slapped his friend on the back
of the head. “Maybe yours, some Hee-Haw thing.”

“Ouch, see and he comes out swinging.”

“No, not really. There just has to be
something coming over the horizon. I only have to find it.”

His penthouse was lovely.

That was too small a word. From where he sat
in his armchair, looking out of the massive wall of windows, Robert
could look out and spy his city spiraling out before him. While
sometimes, he spent his nights gazing at the lights of Manhattan;
tonight he preferred to look down at Central Park. Lord knows he’d
paid enough for the view.

It was only dusk and the sun was setting,
casting glows of ochre, gold, and rose across the clouds. He saw
one couple jogging together, and he had to snicker at the matching
headbands and fit bits---bright neon yellow, really---that they
wore.

There was a second, older couple, slightly
hunched with age. The thin, frail old man was supported by his wife
as they toddled slowly through the park. At that rate, it might
take them all evening, but they seemed so happy to be in each
other’s company. For all Robert knew, this was one night like any
other over forty years and, yet, there she was supporting him and
helping him along with infinite patience.

There was something to be said for those
connections.

It was nothing he’d ever tried before. In
college, he’d been too busy working his ass off; desperate to get
the internship that eventually set him on the path to his current
success. He’d had little time to sleep, let alone date. There were
a few one-night stands at the Deke House on campus because he was a
fraternity brother and not a monk, but he’d never made time for a
girlfriend. Then, after graduation, as a Young Turk on out the
city, Oliver had brought him into the lifestyle, showing him the
most raucous underground clubs in the city.