Wright together, p.1
Wright Together, page 1
Wright Together
K.A. Linde
Wright Together
Copyright © 2023 by K.A. Linde
All rights reserved.
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Visit my website at
www.kalinde.com
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Cover Designer: Okay Creations,
www.okaycreations.com
Photography: Wander Aguiar,
www.wanderaguiar.com
Editor: Unforeseen Editing,
www.unforeseenediting.com
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No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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ISBN-13: 978-1948427852
Contents
Also By K.A. Linde
I. Peonies
1. Whitton
2. Eve
3. Whitton
4. Eve
5. Whitton
6. Eve
II. Dream Catcher
7. Whitton
8. Eve
9. Whitton
10. Eve
11. Whitton
12. Eve
13. Eve
14. Whitton
III. Be Here Now
15. Eve
16. Whitton
17. Eve
18. Whitton
19. Whitton
20. Eve
IV. Cherry Blossoms
21. Whitton
22. Eve
23. Eve
24. Whitton
25. Eve
26. Eve
27. Whitton
V. Crescent Moons
28. Eve
29. Whitton
30. Eve
31. Whitton
32. Eve
33. Whitton
34. Eve
35. Whitton
Epilogue
Wright Kind of Trouble
Also By K.A. Linde
Acknowledgments
About the Author
A L S O B Y K. A. L I N D E
WRIGHT
The Wright Brother (FREE!)
The Wright Boss
The Wright Mistake
The Wright Secret
The Wright Love
The Wright One
A Wright Christmas
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WRIGHT VINEYARD
One Wright Stand (FREE!)
Wright with Benefits (FREE!)
Serves Me Wright
Wright Rival
Wright that Got Away
All the Wright Moves
Wright Together
Wright Kind of Trouble
Part I
Peonies
1
Whitton
My hand flattened on the surface of my new desk. Perhaps it was egotistical to have always wanted this dream to become a reality so that I could bring a woman up here and fuck her against the glass panes. Brown hair so dark that it streamed through my fingers like an oil stain. I curled my hand into a fist, picturing the curve of her neck as I tugged the strands backward. The pant from her pert red lips as her back arched and ass pressed against me.
I exhaled and released the image.
Eve.
I’d been imagining Eve again. The enigma of a woman still confounded me, wrapping around my subconscious and burrowing down into my daydreams. I’d gone home for the summer, and those inscrutable emerald eyes still haunted me.
Now, I was back in dry, dusty Lubbock with a promotion in hand and my dream corner office. It had the massive mahogany desk, stocked bookshelves against one wall, and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the local university. Who knew all I had to do to land the dream job was move to middle of nowhere, Texas?
Lubbock had never been on my radar, and somehow, it felt more like home than Seattle ever had. The only thing that misty, shadowed city had going for it was Mom still lived there. But after visiting with Harley this summer, I was glad to be back in Lubbock. The promotion sure didn’t hurt.
The only thing it was missing was the girl bent over the desk.
A throat cleared behind me. “Well, what do you think?”
Jordan leaned against the doorframe. He was dressed impeccably in a black tailored suit, his hair sleek, and his command, as ever, unparalleled. Sometimes, it still made me falter when I thought about him being my brother. Half-brother technically, but my siblings and I had dropped the half part. Our father had had an affair, and we were the result—me, Weston, and Harley. We’d only found out a few years back that he had another family and two sons—Jordan and Julian. It was West’s crazy scheme that had gotten us all to move here to get to know them. I’d gotten a job at Wright Construction, the company of our namesake, and now, here I was, hitting every milestone I’d set for myself before thirty.
Sometimes, life threw you on a crash course to get you to where you belonged.
“It’s even better than I imagined,” I confessed, straightening and buttoning the top button of my charcoal suit.
“You earned it.”
“Thank you,” I said with all sincerity. The last job I’d had felt like banging my head against a wall repeatedly. Every ounce that I put into it was given credit to my superior, and still, I’d wavered about whether or not to make the jump and work at Wright. Best decision of my life.
“Morgan wants to throw a promotion party,” Jordan said.
I barely managed to hide my cringe. “If that’s what she wants. She’s the CEO.”
Jordan laughed. “Good save. I can nix it.”
I could schmooze with the best of them, but I’d never been one to want to draw attention to myself. I had a five- and ten-year plan. My upward trajectory was finally moving on the slope I’d always envisioned. Still, every small achievement felt just that…small. I’d celebrate when I reached the top.
“Appreciate that.”
Jordan dropped some paperwork on my desk. “I know it’s your first day back, but this is your new assignment.”
“I never stopped working, Jor,” I said, reaching for the documents. “I was remote while I was gone.”
“I know. I know. But this one will be more hands on.”
I flipped through the pages with a furrowed brow. “Midland?”
“It’s only two hours south of here.”
“I’ve never been.”
Jordan shrugged. He’d moved here a few years before me from Vancouver. That was how our dad had been able to have two families. The cities were just close enough to fool everyone. Jordan had adapted to Texas even easier than I had. It probably helped that he’d gotten married this spring to his spitfire doctor, Annie.
“Well, read through the assignment so you can fill in the new real estate agent when she gets here. You’re going to be working closely with her over the next month to get this off the ground.”
I snapped the paperwork shut. “What? I have a partner?”
“We wanted someone who was familiar with the area. You did just say that you’d never been there.”
He had me there.
“I see. And when will I meet this agent?”
Jordan checked the Rolex on his wrist and pursed his lips. “Hmm. She’s late. Should have been here already actually.”
It was my turn to be affronted. “It’s fifteen past. Was she supposed to be here top of the hour?”
He nodded. “Yes. Let me check in to see if something happened.”
“How unprofessional.”
Jordan shot me an amused look as he pulled his phone out and started typing away.
I returned to the paperwork Jordan had given me, unable to hide my frustration. It was common knowledge that I took my work seriously. Too seriously. West frequently called me Mr. Responsibility. Harley had laughed at me all summer when I spent the days in my bedroom, staring at a computer. But West was a rockstar in the biggest band in the world right now, and Harley was about to start her sophomore year in college. She might be a genius with a full ride and every intention of becoming an attorney, but things had always come to her easy. Neither of them understood my need for control.
A need that encompassed every part of my life. Home, office, and…in the bedroom.
“No luck,” Jordan said. “Let’s give her a few more minutes.”
“I don’t need a partner. I just thumbed through this. It doesn’t look all that different from what I’ve done in the past. I can do it alone.”
At least then I could guarantee that it was being done correctly.
“This is a big contract. We’re partnering with a local oil family. Do you know Dorset & King?”
The name sounded familiar. “I’ve heard of them. They’re in Midland?”
Jordan grinned. “Yeah, and you’ll need the help. The Kings are a prestigious family. They want the best. So, they came to us. We’re giving this to you because we know you’re good enough. Having a local to partner is a bonus.”
This was my first job after the promotion. I didn’t need someone getting in the way.
I opened my mouth to say that when a woman rushed off of the open elevator and hustled down the hall toward my office in sky-h
“Sorry!” she gasped. “So sorry I’m late. I had car trouble.”
Eve Houston stood in my doorway, her chest heaving in the white shirt she had underneath a black blazer. Her pencil skirt reached her knees with a small slit up the side. Just enough for my imagination to run wild. Her dark hair was down in waves, and she wore the red lipstick I’d just visualized on her.
My cock throbbed at the sight of her. The way her ample chest jiggled with the exertion from racing here. Those mysterious emerald eyes wide as she took in the room and finally landed on me. Her mouth formed an O, and that did things to me that were utterly inappropriate for the office.
It took everything in me not to adjust my lengthening cock.
“Eve.” I drew her name out across my tongue like I was reciting a prayer.
I hadn’t seen her in weeks, and somehow, she was even more striking than my filthy imagination.
“Oh, Whitt,” she said uncertainly. Her eyes shot between me and Jordan, as if she wasn’t sure who to address.
He wasn’t oblivious to the thick layer of tension in the room. In fact, by the gleam in his eyes, he might have set this whole thing up.
It was at his wedding that Eve and I had danced the night away after all. The night I thought we’d moved past our flirtation to something more. It just turned out that we had different ideas about what more meant.
After her last crash-and-burn relationship, Eve wanted a hookup. And I misread the entire situation and asked for more. I was a relationship guy, and she wasn’t ready for anything like that. No matter our attraction—the attraction I still very much felt—it had all crumbled.
“You were saying?” Jordan muttered in my direction.
“Never mind,” I said to him with a shake of my head. “This will do.”
Jordan laughed. “I thought you might say that.” He extended his hand toward Eve. “Welcome, Eve. It’s good to have you on board.”
She breathed a sigh of relief and put her hand in his. “Thanks, Jordan. I’m glad to be here.”
“Whitton was just saying how excited he was to have a partner for this new project.”
“Was he?” Eve said. She took a step into my office and held her hand out. “That doesn’t sound like you.”
Only Eve would call my bluff like that. The girl was as fearless as she was brash. For people she didn’t like, she could come off as abrasive. For her friends, she was as straightforward and loyal as they came.
“We didn’t know you had car trouble.”
I took her hand in mine, felt the calluses across her palm from weight lifting. A spark flared to life, and she extracted her hand quickly, as if worried she’d get burned.
“I had to take an Uber.” She turned to Jordan. “Thank you for this opportunity.”
“You earned it. You both did,” Jordan said with a smirk in my direction. “I’ll leave you to it.”
Then Jordan strode out of my office, leaving me alone with the girl I’d just envisioned having in this space. I’d been all indignant and prepared to trash whoever showed up late to our first meeting. Jordan had known it, too. He’d known all of it. And now, she was here, and there was nothing to do but gesture for her to take a seat.
“Why don’t we get started?”
Eve’s expression was neutral, but I could still see the defiance in her irises. She wouldn’t be quelled by the fact that she had to work with me.
She took the seat.
Good girl.
Maybe having a partner wouldn’t be so bad after all.
2
Eve
Well, fuck.
Whitt was supposed to be gone all summer. I hadn’t seen him in our mutual friend group since he’d left for Seattle, and I refused to show any signs that I was shaken by his appearance.
I couldn’t be shaken by anything. Because unlike Mr. Wright, I needed this job. I needed it more than life itself. This was it. This was my break. After barely treading water, holding my head up as I inhaled the murky water of poverty, I was going to get ahead of this.
So, I couldn’t leave.
Not even with Whitton Wright standing in front of me. My pulse beat a tattoo against my throat just at the sight of him. His voice was the same that it had always been—deep and throaty. Every single word causing my neurons to snap. And it was more than just his voice. It was the scent of him wrapping around me. A mix of citrus and spice that aroused ideas of him stepping straight out of a shower. It was his strong, freshly shaven jawline and too-blue eyes. The lines of his body so sharp that it might as well have been a Renaissance sculpture. His large hands curling around the edge of the desk. His typically short, dark hair had grown out just long enough to fall forward into his eyes as he looked down at me through his dark lashes.
He was exactly as delectable as I’d last seen him. The last time things had gone completely wrong between us.
“So…when did you get back?”
“Yesterday.” He leaned forward on the desk across from me.
The soft leather chair was cold against my ass as I sank into the cushion. I crossed my legs at the knee, my skirt riding up my thigh. His eyes flickered to the bare skin, a trace of the bottom of my dream catcher tattoo visible before I tugged the material over the ink.
He jerked his eyes back to mine. My throat closed at the heat that passed between us. The heat that had never evaporated in all these months.
My palms traced the arms of the chair. “Did you have a good summer?”
“It was…wet,” he said.
I choked on that word out of his mouth. His eyes moved to my lips, and desire shot through those baby-blues. I definitely hadn’t meant to vocalize that reaction.
I cleared my throat, hoping to salvage this conversation. “I thought you missed Seattle.”
He was silent for a moment too long as he visibly collected himself before taking a seat across from me. “I thought I did, too. Turns out, I just missed my mom.”
“Is she going to move down here?”
He chuckled. “No. She’s lived there her entire life, and she loves her work. But she was glad to have me and Harley there.”
“I bet.”
I had no idea what that would be like. My family was…complicated. To say the least. They were the real reason that I couldn’t seem to catch a break. It was hard to get ahead financially when half of every paycheck went home to make sure my little sister had a roof over her head and food in her stomach.
Real estate had seemed like a way to make some easy money. I’d only been doing it for eighteen months at the insistence of my now ex-boyfriend. When our relationship ended, my entire life went up in smoke. He’d fired me from his company, blacklisted my ass, and kicked me out of the apartment he had me in. No wonder I still wasn’t ready for a relationship. I couldn’t afford to lose everything again.
I’d finally managed to find another company that would take me in but building clientele had been a slow and painful slog. Even a year later, I had to take every new client that came my way. Steady work was hard to come by.
I wasn’t about to blow it with the Wrights.
“So, this job,” Whitt said. He rifled through a file on his desk. “I assume Jordan filled you in on it?”
“He hired me. We’re surveying a new build in Midland.”
