AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 1
Jude
The normal quiet hum of the health club is interrupted by a loud shout, pulling my attention down the hall as I head towards the pool. My jaw tightens instantly when I see a security guard with his hand wrapped tightly around a woman’s arm, dragging her somewhere. Every nerve ending in my body is firing rapidly, fury pounding through me imagining of some asshole trying to do the same to my sisters, and I stalk straight towards them, as she tells the man to let her go.
His laugh as I reach them makes my eyes darken further, narrowing at the asshole when he tells the woman to shut her fucking mouth. Her body tenses further, a pained gasp falling from her lips as he pushes her into the wall, his free paw grabbing at her breast, and I don’t hesitate. My hand snaps around the asshole’s wrist, twisting hard until he releases the woman.
I move between them as I push the jerk’s arm further around, while my other hand grabs his neck as hard as he had hold of the woman.
“What thefuckdo you think you’re doing?” I demand when he sputters at me to let him go.
“She was bothering a member,” the ass claims and I tighten my hand on his neck, shoving him against the wall as his free hand moves up to try and get me off him.
“I don’t give a shit if she was supposedly beating him with a fucking bat. You don’t grab women likethat!” I seethe, letting go of his arm before I let loose with an elbow to the face, then land a knee to his nuts. “You have two minutes to get the fuck out of here and never come back. If you’re smart, you’ll get the hell out of town as well before I ruin you entirely.”
“You can’t fire me,” he grouses as I jerk his name badge and keys off his belt.
“The fuck I can’t with shit like that,” I return, taking the company issued cell from him as well. The fucker tries to fight it, and I’m done with this ass. I slam my fist into his face, dropping him to the ground out cold. The fury running through my body doesn’t ease one bit and I call the office to tell them to come get the piece of shit and get him out of here before I do more damage.
All it takes is one mention of my name for them to stop their questioning, and I shove the guy’s shit into my pocket, before turning to face the woman I can still feel behind me.
My breath stalls seeing the furious plump lips trembling slightly as she breathes hard, and her gorgeous green eyes hold me hostage for an extra moment. They blink, forcing me to drag in a breath, willing my body to listen to me as it wakes, boldly. Shit I’ve never had this sort of reaction to a woman before. Sure, I’ve been with more than my fair share of them, but not a single one has ever shaken me to my core with just one look.
“Come on, let’s get you out of here,” I state, offering her my hand while praying she doesn’t look down, because there’s no hiding my hard-on. Definitely not in the swim trunks I’m wearing with nothing else beyond some slides for my feet.
“I’m fine,” she says but there’s a quiver in her voice, and it’s plain she can hear it as well as her eyes shut again.
“You are, but I don’t want you anywhere near this ass when he comes to, and I don’t want whoever he was trying to get you away from to come after you either,” I add, pulling her eyes open and there’s a hint of anger and fury racing through them, rather than the fright from a moment before, which I’ll take anytime.
“Okay,” she agrees, and I take her hand to lead us down the hallway, back towards the changing room so I can grab my stuff before we go to the office to handle the shit with the jackass security guard.
The feeling of her hand in mine sends waves of pleasure throughout my body and I know I’m screwed. I mean for fuck’s sake, it’s just her hand in mine and I’m about ready to unload my balls. I don’t feel shit like this for random women. Sure, I’ve been attracted to them quickly, but not like this. Half the time it takes me too long to come to start with, and by the time it finally happens, I’m completely over them. But this girl…the fuck if I don’t want to sink into her for days on end.
Her breath hitches when my hand wraps around hers, and my eyes meet hers, seeing the spark of anger in them flame out as desire and hunger fill them. I shouldn’t be doing this, but I can’t resist, not even seeing that she’s younger than I anticipated when I spied her curves from a distance. She’s over eighteen if she’s in here though. No one under eighteen is allowed in—a rule I established when I bought out the place that was about to sink. It’s also why I know no one will argue with me firing that asshole. Not once they know the manager is simply that and not the new owner as most suspected when the buyout happened.
I brush her long baby blonde strands of hair back behind her ear, a smile slipping on my lips as a little shiver races through her, her eyes closing once more for a long moment. I lean into her, feathering my lips over hers, and her taste is magical. She’s sweet as hell and I want more—need more. A lot fucking more.
“Come with me, I promise you’re safe,” I state when her eyes flicker open, a tiny hint of wariness in them.
“You promise?” she says, her brow furling in disbelief, and I feather a soft kiss on her lips once more, then add one to her forehead, as I slip my hand behind her head.
“Always—you’ll always be safe with me,” I assure her, and at her little nod, we move away from the still out asshole and back towards the changing room.
She breathes in sharply as she takes in the space when I stop at my locker in the private changing room. Only a handful of lockers are in here and most of the men that have spots in it aren’t likely to be in during the middle of the day during the week. I only am because I needed a break from my real job, not to mention my family members I work with that are all in baby and kids and spouses la-la land.
I love my nieces and nephews, love my siblings and their spouses as well, but some days there seems to be more hearts and flowers shit discussed in our meetings than actual work products. It doesn’t help that my brother Johnnie and his wife Carly just had their third baby. Their twins Ollie and Eddie are two and little Ruthie is seven weeks old now. I mean, love him and shit, but he was way too fucking happy about being able to have sex with his wife again for me to get through the rest of the day listening to him whistling.
Our offices are next door to one another, which I normally don’t have an issue with. We’re under two years apart in age and then our brother Jesse is a year younger than I am, so the three of us are friends on top of being brothers and coworkers. I’m the Chief Operating Officer for our family’s business, Cartwright Construction, while Johnnie is the Chief Financial Officer, and Jesse if the Chief Executive Officer of Operations while our oldest sister Julie is Chief Executive Officer of Construction Projects.
There was way too much to oversee for us to have just one CEO as the company continued to grow, moving us further and further away from being solely a construction company and on into all aspects of building, residential and commercial, plus handling real estate investments, and expanding our design departments. Our brother Joe is one of the in-house architects, while another brother, Jamison is now designing furnishings, and Julie’s wife Serena runs our most popular home décor line in addition to creating interior designs for clients. It’s definitely a family business.
Our dad started it and then found our mom many years later thanks to our Uncle Aaron working for him. Our oldest sister Julie was a cranky baby and didn’t like anyone except Dad until Mom came into their lives. He took one look at Mom and wanted to keep her, was furious to think that Uncle Aaron was out on a date with her, and once he knew that wasn’t the case, he wasn’t about to let her go. They were married less than two months after they met, pregnant with our sister Jennie already, and Dad being Dad, was willing to give Mom whatever she wanted. Which turned out to be a huge family—the one she never had.
Uncle Aaron is sixteen years older than her, but unlike our family it was just Mom and Uncle Aaron with their mom. We never met our grandmother but after everything we learnt about her, had no desire to either. She went through men like crazy and was bringing home guys closer to Mom’s age than hers when Mom was eighteen. She got a scholarship to school out here and took it, although that wasn’t the life she really wanted.
So, when Dad learnt what Mom wanted more than anything was lots of babies and to stay home with them, he was more than happy to help her out with it. Apparently the first day they met Mom told him she wanted a dozen kids, and on Dad’s sixtieth birthday, our baby sister Jillian was born, the thirteenth of us including Julie.
Johnnie used to agree with me that we weren’t about to have big families, but now that he has Carly—well, she’s a fucking lot more like Mom than any of our sisters, other than Jackie. She’s more baby happy than Jesse’s wife Maddie even. I swear Dad cursed him when he promised Mom that he’d find someone just like her, after he learnt Carly was nineteen just like Mom was when they met.
