Taming Val

  Taming Val

  Trevion Burns

  TAMING VAL

  Copyright © 2014 by Trevion Michelle Burns

  All rights reserved. The reproduction, transmission or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without written permission.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  To Sham

  One

  “You have to get out of my apartment right now. If my brothers find out you’re in bed with me, they’ll kill you.”

  Reggie King laughed, while languidly sliding his dark, muscled arms into his t-shirt, which he’d found strewn across her bedside lamp. His dark eyes shrank with amusement as Zoey Black stumbled across her bedroom like a madwoman, throwing on any random article of clothing she could get her hands on, her big brown eyes wide with anxiety. Reggie moved to the edge of her bed. “You mean they’ll give me a talk about how to treat their baby sister, wag their finger in my face, and tell me where the pistols are hidden…”

  “No, you don’t understand.” She came to an abrupt halt, interrupting him. “They will kill you.”

  Reggie’s smile fell when the weight of the situation finally seemed to hit him. He moved coolly to her bedroom window, the one that gave him an unbridled view of her building’s front door, peeking discreetly out of the blinds. “Hold on. All I see is four white dudes.”

  “Yeah, those are my brothers.” She pulled an oversize beige sweater frantically over her head, and fanned her long black curls out from under it. They landed at the middle of her back as she stepped into her jean shorts, which exposed the majority of her dark brown thighs. “Well, technically, they’re not really my brothers. Not by blood, not even by marriage, and I guess not by law, either.”

  “So, in what way are these four huge white guys at your door… your actual brothers?”

  She sighed. “Their parents took me in when I was fourteen and had no place to go. I was basically bulldozed into their lives with no warning, and they could have made the entire experience a living hell, but they didn’t. They accepted me. Protected me. So, I call them my brothers, because that’s what they are to me. And they definitely see me as their little sister, whom they are fiercely, fiercely protective of. Have I mentioned that they will kill you if they see you up here?”

  As the CEO of the online real estate company that was in talks of acquiring her brother’s entire empire, Reggie King should have been her biggest enemy by default. It was downright dangerous that he was in her apartment.

  The awful things she’d heard her brothers say about this man at Sunday dinner every week would make even the foulest mouths in the world clutch their pearls in shock.

  She still wasn’t sure why she’d allowed herself to fall into bed with him, and make drunken love under her sheets. She vaguely remembered meeting him at a club the night before, the Patron induced freak dancing, and the laughter. She hadn’t laughed with a man as much as she had Reggie in ages, and there was nothing that turned her on more than a man who could make her laugh. It also didn’t hurt that he was tall, chocolaty, and handsome as hell. Watching him at that moment, she was no longer confused about why she’d fallen into bed with him, but that didn’t change the fact that it could never happen again.

  Her heart objected to that thought almost instantly. She liked him, but she knew she wasn’t allowed to.

  And he was still dressing far too slowly for her liking.

  “Seriously?” she asked, as he stepped gingerly into his jeans, pulling them up with all the speed of a three-toothed sloth. “Hurry the fuck up.” She’d always had a foul mouth, but that mouth went downright filthy when she was afraid.

  And she was afraid. For Reggie’s life, that is.

  He seemed to be going out of his way to illustrate that he wasn’t taking her words at face value, and she couldn’t blame him. Maybe she was being a little dramatic. Her brothers probably wouldn’t kill him if they knew he’d spent the night with her, but they wouldn’t stand by idly, either.

  Val would be more hurt than the others. He was the founder and CEO of Novsky, the online real estate company that he’d launched eight years earlier, which had exploded overnight. Literally. Exploded. That was how Zoey told Val’s story whenever someone asked her.

  “So Zoey, just how the hell DID Val get so rich, so fast?”

  “Well, you see, one night, six years ago, Val went to bed the son of a cop and a homemaker, just another lowly student slash real estate broker trying to eat in New York, and woke up a millionaire.”

  The end. That was Val’s story. It’d happened that quickly.

  The less dramatic version was, while working on a bachelors in computer programming at Cornell, Val started a real estate website in his dorm room, and in doing so, managed to wiggle his way into the digital revolution at just the right moment. It was all luck, really. He was a millionaire due to blind luck, and excellent timing. He’d taken his beloved brothers with him, giving them all key roles at Novsky, but the company was truly Val’s.

  Val had also been kind enough to give Zoey a lowly graphic design position at Novsky, which she imagined was one of the many subtle tactics he used to demonstrate, yet again, just what a burden she was to him. She had no doubt that, if she made enough noise about it, he’d toss her a position in upper management just to shut her up, but Zoey wasn’t looking for handouts.

  Not from anyone.

  But that was another story.

  The only story that mattered to her now was that Reggie King was still in her apartment, and he needed to be out of it, like, yesterday.

  By freshman year high school she’d learned never to tell her brothers when she was dating a new guy. Reggie was wrong for her in every way, but she really did like him. On that same note, she knew if her brothers found out about him, she would lose him forever.

  Since age fourteen, anytime her brothers got wind of an eligible man displaying the slightest bit of interest in Zoey, that man was guaranteed to receive a “nice visit” within the week. These “nice visits” had consisted of all four brothers meeting the object of her affection outside of class, throwing him into the back of their car, visiting him at his home, or cornering him under the gym bleachers. They’d proceed to go on a “nice drive,” or have a “nice talk,” both of which were anything but nice.

  Nine times out of ten, whenever her brothers got their claws into a man she was dating, she never saw him again. She had no idea what was said during these “nice talks”, but she could only imagine the kind of threats and vitriol that went flying. She loved her brothers, deep down she loved that they were so protective of her, but she feared they were putting her on the fast track to spinsterhood.

  If, by some miracle, things actually worked out with Reggie, she was sure her brothers would get over it. But if that was going to happen, she’d have to ease them in, and today wasn’t the day.

  A banging on her front door rang all the way into her bedroom, followed by a furious ringing of the doorbell.

  “Shit!” Her eyes widened in Reggie’s, who was finally dressed. “It’s too late to get you out of here. You have to hide.”

  “You’re not serious.” He smiled, showing two rows of perfect white teeth.

  Zoey almost sighed, because he was lovely, but there was no time. She charged over to him. “As a heart attack, now get in the closet--” As she went to grab him, her watch caught on his s
weater, and she cried out, bracing herself to rip it away.

  “Don’t even think it,” Reggie seethed, leaning to follow her wrist as she moved, desperate not to destroy his sweater. “This is cashmere.”

  “Whelp, there goes my hard on. You sound like a damn woman.” Her face went dead. “Tell me you didn’t actually say those words.”

  Another knock, louder this time--more of a bang, really. She knew her brothers were only knocking as a courtesy. They each had a copy of her key, and weren’t shy about using it. It was only a matter of time before one of them lost patience and let himself in, followed closely by the others. It was a habit she’d been trying to break them of since she’d gotten her own place, to no avail.

  “I have a pair of scissors in the hallway,” she said, taking baby steps out of her room, with Reggie’s big body bent over as close to her snagged watch as possible, doing everything he could not to rip his sweater.

  “You’re the CEO of the largest online real estate empire in the country.” Her eyes flew to her front door as she snatched a pair of scissors off the small table in her hallway. “It’s not like you can’t afford a new cashmere sweater.”

  “My grandmother bought me this--”

  She suddenly dropped the scissors. They clattered to the floor, missing her bare feet by mere inches, just as she clapped a hand over Reggie’s mouth.

  Keys.

  Her brothers were coming in.

  “Fuck,” she breathed, before crying out, “Closet!”

  “Say wha—whoa!” Reggie lost his footing as Zoey launched them into the hall’s only closet, slamming the door closed, and drowning them in darkness.

  “You better not have ripped my sweater, I know that—”

  “Shush.”

  “We’re in a closet, Zoey.”

  “Shhhhhhhhhh!”

  “This is beyond ridiculous.”

  “My brothers are the Romanovskys, okay?”

  “I’m sor… Romanovsky? As in Val Romanovsky? Of Novsky.com?”

  “Yes, as in the second largest online real estate corporation in the country. As in your direct competitors, and arch rivals.” She didn’t miss the way he was finally giving her the silence she’d been begging for. The professional rivalry between Reggie and her brothers had been going six years strong, and his silence spoke volumes. “They cannot. Know. You’re here,” she whispered, more slowly this time, just as the sound of her front door opening rang out from outside the closet. “Now will you please shut the fuck up?”

  Reggie’s silence was answer enough.

  They stood quietly in the dark closet, and Zoey held her breath as she heard her brothers talking to each other so clearly that she felt like she was standing right next to them. She could even hear their shoes as they pitter-pattered into her foyer, across her cherry wood floors.

  The weighty stomp of combat boots. That was Leo.

  Air Jordans squeaking against the wood. Gary.

  The click-clack of expensive loafers. Roman.

  And, of course, the deafening silence of those rundown suede oxfords he never left home without. Val.

  They were all here, and her breathing hitched as her nerves got the better of her.

  As they began speaking to each other, she silently made a note to have someone come in and check the sturdiness of her walls. She could hear every word they were saying with such clarity that it was a wonder how the thin walls of that apartment hadn’t collapsed in on her completely.

  She was grateful that Reggie hadn’t made a peep, and reached for him in the darkness. She found his arm, hearing him scoff the moment she touched him.

  Yep, he was pissed, but she didn’t give a fuck. As long as he kept his mouth shut.

  “I know they’re in here, I saw that fucking asshole’s penis truck parked right in front of the building,” Leo clipped.

  “Maybe he’s visiting someone else in the building and just parked there because it was the only open space,” Gary reasoned.

  Zoey felt her heart melt. At 24, she and Gary were the same age, and they’d been partners in crime back in their younger days, always getting each other’s back when going head to head with the older brothers. Touched tears wet her eyes when she realized Gary still made it a point to see the best in her, even when she wasn’t around to witness it.

  A wave of guilt ran through her. If Gary only knew who she was crunched into the closet with, surely he wouldn’t be so quick to defend her.

  “You know his truck is parked outside because he’s plugging Zo. Be for real, please,” Val’s voice broke out.

  Just as soon as Zoey’s heart was warmed by Gary’s voice, it was frozen solid by Val’s. The brother she had the most confusing relationship with. He was protective over her, like all the others, and had gone to bat for her too many times to count, but he never went out of his way to speak to her one on one. The only time they ever really interacted was when the whole family was together. On the rare occasion that they did find themselves alone, Val always found the nearest exit. It hadn’t always been that way with Val, which was what confused Zoey. Her confusion quickly morphed to frustration whenever she was near him, which only served in helping make the wall that had always existed between them that much higher.

  “She’s definitely in here,” Leo’s voice rang out. “That disgusting lasagna she makes is still warm in the oven.”

  Zoey’s mouth dropped in horror. The hand she still had on Reggie’s arm tightened with involuntary fury. They’d always said they loved her lasagna!

  “God, please get it out of my sight.” Disgust laced Val’s voice. “My stomach is flipping just looking at it.”

  “I really don’t think she’s here,” Gary said. “She definitely would’ve stormed out by now, after hearing you guys trash her lasagna.”

  “Stop protecting her,” Val chided.

  “Somebody has to.”

  A stiff silence passed, the way it sometimes did with Val and Gary.

  “Be real, Gary. You know you hate her lasagna, too,” Leo chided.

  Zoey was officially pouting. She still couldn’t believe they hated her lasagna. It was her signature dish! She could feel her lip jutting out in the dark closet. See if she ever cooked for them again.

  Her brothers laughed together, vocalizing Leo’s success in lightening the mood with his I-just-don’t-give-a-fuck attitude, once again. Leo’s best quality was his keen awareness that most things in life were simply not that serious, and you’d be hard pressed to change his mind. Zoey envied his blasé attitude; it must have made life so much more tolerable.

  Reggie went to say something—she could tell because he suddenly moved for the first time in minutes—and she searched for his face in the darkness, hitting his nose, and his teeth, before finally slapping her hand over his mouth. If they could hear her brother’s conversation this clearly, surely her brothers would be able to hear them clearly, as well.

  “I just can’t accept that she would sleep with our biggest rival. I can’t accept that. She’s our sister, she wouldn’t do it.” Roman jumped into the conversation for the first time, his voice soft and smooth like butter. At 29, he was the oldest Romanovsky, the strong silent type, and the perpetual voice of reason. Roman didn’t use words in vain. He only spoke when spoken to, or when he really had something to say.

  “She’s not our sister,” Val’s voice rang out.

  Zoey’s heart crackled to ice cold temperatures once more.

  “Don’t start man,” Gary said. “Can we go? She’s not here, and I’m starving.”

  “Have some lasagna,” Leo said, in a joking voice.

  “Yum. Give me some,” Gary accepted.

  Zoey pouted happily. So Gary really did love her lasagna.

  “Nah, just playing, get it away from me,” he laughed. “Seriously, let’s go get some real food, please.”

  Zoey and Reggie waited until they heard the door to her apartment close before they both sighed in relief.

  “Man, they reall
y hate your lasagna, don’t they?” Reggie asked, as they came out of the closet. He bent down with her as she swiped the scissors up from the floor and successfully cut his sweater away from her watch, leaving little to no damage. “It’s not that bad.”

  She shot him a look. “Not that bad? Two hours ago you were raving about how much you loved it. You were telling me to apply for the next season of Top Chef. Now it’s not that bad?”

  He could only shrug. The look on his face screamed I was trying to hit. She could’ve served him up a pile of mud, and he would’ve still told her it was delicious, all for the faraway promise of what she had between her legs.

  Zoey didn’t press him any further. “You should get out of here before one of them comes back. You heard them. If they find out I slept with you, they’ll never forgive me.” After hearing that conversation, she’d come to the sad conclusion that no matter how much time passed, or how long they had to get used to it, her brothers would never accept her dating Reggie King.

  Ever.

  He hesitated, and then gave her a soft kiss.

  It felt like goodbye.

  “Whoa buddy!” She took his arm when he started heading for the front door, stopping him. “Fire escape, just in case. Take the long way around to your car, and tell them you were visiting a colleague if they happen to see you out there.”

  “You’re really going to these lengths not to hurt a bunch of grown men’s feelings?”

  “Yes. Because they would do the same for me.”

  ***

  Zoey stepped out of her shower an hour later, wrapping herself in a white terry cloth towel that was way too small to do the job. It hit her just above mid thigh, and left very little to the imagination through the large gaping hole that was left in the middle. All of her larger towels were dirty, so this one would have to do. She reminded herself to do laundry as she made her way into her bedroom, stopping cold when she realized she could still smell Reggie’s cologne.

  It was a shame that she could never see him, again. The man smelled like heaven.