Bourbon & Secrets (The Bourbon Boys, #2)

by Victoria Wilder

“Look out, Fiasco, Rosie Gold is ready to turn heads and bulge pants tonight!”

Suck, fuck, rinse, repeat.

I study the way she stares into that field, resting her chin on her knees. “Did you like it?” “Parts of it,” she says. “That if you believe in something, listen to your gut, it’ll work out in the end.”

Everyone who has a pulse feels his confidence and more than recognizes that he’s the prettiest Foxx.

right now, in dad-mode and pissed off, he’s disturbingly sexy.

“You’re trespassing,” I clap back. They’re the same words I said to him five years ago in that cornfield. He doesn’t miss it by the narrowing of his eyes.

“Those two little girls are my entire world. A decent set of tits and perky ass doesn’t mean I’ll forget that you’re not the kind of person I want anywhere near them.”

“Her nails looked like daggers.” “Probably uses them as weapons, too,” I mutter under my breath.

“She has a matching beauty mark.” Lily points to the right apple of her cheek. “It’s like we’re soulmates.”

It was a ridiculous thing to say: Every woman a Foxx loved ended up dying. But bringing it up around my kids wasn’t going to go unanswered.

“No more skipping school, even if it’s to see the pretty new neighbor.” “See? You just called her pretty,” Lily retorts with a giggle. Dammit.

Grant opens the front door to his place. There are only three things that make my baby brother smile like that: my sister-in-law, making barrels, and my girls.

would have thought you’d know that since you three are all up each other's asses.” “Is that new territory for you, baby brother?” I lower my voice so my girls won’t hear. “You having trouble being up your wife’s ass? Need me to step in for some pointers?”

I watch in my rearview as she rubs her thumb and pointer finger together up high and mouths out, Middle fingers are ten bucks, Dad! I should have never agreed to a curse purse.

Looking down, I spot something wrapped around her thigh. “Is that a knife strapped to your leg?” She quirks an eyebrow. “Did you just think I was happy to see you, Foxx?”

I push my glasses up the bridge of my nose and wipe my hand along my jaw and across my mouth.

Love a glasses daddy

She rolls her eyes. “Nice.” Her gaze flicks to Lincoln and then back to me. “You’re here less than a week and already under a man. Maybe you’re more like mom after all.”

It isn’t right, but most of what men got away with in this town wasn’t. Everyone knows not to piss off Wheeler Finch and the King brothers, Waz and Tullis. And now one of them was on our farmhouse floor, choking on his blood.

I just buried a body along with the life I had planned for myself with it.

Watching them mourn Olivia was, and still is, enough sadness to witness for a lifetime. I wouldn’t give them something else to love and lose. “We’re good. Just the three of us.”

“You don’t want a nice girl right now, Foxx.” “What do I want, then, hmm?” A small moan crawls up her throat as she says, “You want someone to tell you to be a good boy and do what you’re told.”

“You sound so pretty when you’re pissed off and moaning for me.” I can feel her smile before I see it.

“You’re pretty when you’re pissed off too, Foxx. Too bad I couldn’t get you to moan for me this time.”

And now, once again, I’m replaying the finger-bang from the sexy, seemingly irresistible single dad I blackmailed years ago.

Jesus, what is it about a man like that in glasses?

The ones that I can’t help but pause on are the selfies with the three of them crammed into the screen. There’s no faking love like this—seeing

“Believe me when I say that I’ve tried to forget. But those sounds you made . . . The way you came so beautifully for me . . .” He lets out a small laugh, and my stomach swoops. “That’s not something a man forgets.” When he moves a few inches closer, I have to suppress a shiver. “So no, I didn’t forget your name. You’re making that really fucking hard for me.”

Your girls dropped off the final payment a few days ago.” Eyes wide and chest tight, I turn my head slowly toward my girls. “You bought a cow.”

“How did you pay for this?” I ask quietly. It’s the even tone that tells my girls I’m about to flip my shit. “Curse purse,” they respond in unison. What. The. Fuck.

“Dad, we’re Foxxes. We can figure anything out.” Touché. My eyes close for a moment as I tilt my head back. “Using my own hype words against me should be against the law.” I point at her with a quirked eyebrow.

Lark side-eyes Lily. “No.” I point between the two of them. “Nooo. Nope. What’s that look?” I know this look—it means there’s more.

I rest my head along the back seat—it would be so much easier if Liv were here. Doing this parent thing alone is really fucking hard sometimes. It’s the first time I’ve let myself think about having someone who’d do this with me. Laugh after a parenting fail and figure out a way to avoid this happening again. Listen to me freak out about how smart my girls are—they just swindled me, for fuck’s sake.

I give my best friend a glance. “Didn’t get asked to go for a ride?” “Not the kind of ride I want.”

“My grandsons might know a thing or two about bourbon, but they don’t seem to know what chemistry looks like . . .” Maybe not what it looks like, but I know exactly what it feels like. I haven’t been able to shake it since she’s been back.

I am absolutely fucking the fire chief . . .” Then she lowers her voice. “And his newest recruit.” I raise my eyebrows. “Do they both know that?” “They know.” She nods, grinning. “Oh, believe me, they know.” “Dang, girl,”

“What are you doing here?” As I keep moving forward, she steps backwards. “Pretty obvious I was out with your brother.” She lifts her chin in a challenge. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had a good ride.” The innuendo is loud and clear.

“Your girls are lucky to know what it feels like to be loved by their dad,” she says softly. Hearing that from her warms my chest. The idea that my love for them is visible to a practical stranger has me feeling like I’m doing something right.

I don’t understand how we can so quickly go

from anger and frustration to a sweet vulnerability to a heat that we’re both too damn smart to ignore. It’s reckless.

I give her the only truth that really matters. “I don’t trust you.” Her breath hitches as my thumb runs along her jaw toward her mouth. “But you want to,” she says, her eyes never leaving my mouth. “Just like I want to hate you.”

“I didn’t think you were actually on a date with Cortez the other night.” “It wasn’t a date,” I respond with a shake of my head. I won’t tell him what I was doing with Cortez at the bar. As far as Lincoln is concerned, my job is purely that of a burlesque dancer. “I thought that was clear when it was your fingers I ended up riding,”

The science of it, what happens before it ever touches American toasted oak, is what makes me hard. I shift my body—apparently, not as hard as Faye Calloway makes me.

I wanted her both in my bed and out of my sight.

“You call me Peach like I’m sweet, but Foxx, you know better. I’m the furthest thing from sweet.” “See, that’s where you’re wrong.” I yank her hips forward. The move jerks her closer and forces her chest to press into mine. “I’ve never tasted anything as sweet as what you dripped all over my fingers.”

“He’s the greatest dad in the world,” she says, tilting her chin up, but I see the way it wobbles just a little. “We don’t need anybody else.”

The crack of cartilage on the second punch, coupled with the spray of blood, should make Waz go down, but cockroaches are stronger than they appear.

“To bourbon and secrets.”

I open my mouth just as he wraps his lips around the bottle of bourbon. He drinks from it, shifts over my waiting mouth, and then spits. He doesn’t let me savor it. He barely lets me swallow before his lips capture mine again.

“There’s something about kissing this perfect mouth of yours that drives me wild.”

With his lips slick with my arousal and a bourbon chaser, he kisses me again. Fuck, I want more.