Rascal (King Brothers #3), page 1
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Rascal Copyright © 2019 by K.D. Elizabeth
All rights reserved. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission in any form is a theft of the author's intellectual property and not permitted. If you would like permission to use material from the book (except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews), please contact the author at kdewrites@gmail.com. Thank you for supporting indie authors.
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First Edition: April 2019
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ISBN:
ISBN-13: (paperback)
Proofreading: Margarita Martinez
Cover Design: K.D. Elizabeth
Print and E-book Formatting: K.D. Elizabeth
Also by K.D. Elizabeth
Construct My Heart Series
Miss InstaPrincess
Miss ManKiller
The Bright Series
The Christmas Cadeau
The Season Bright
Christmas of White
The King Brothers
Monster
Devil
Rascal
The King Cousins
Lush
About the Author
K.D. Elizabeth is the author of steamy contemporary romance novels in the small town, holiday, and suspense sub-genres. Before writing full-time, she worked in finance in Boston. She splits her time between New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, is fluent in French, and has traveled to over twenty countries. When not writing, you can find her skiing, scuba diving, traveling (although not this year!), enjoying great food, crocheting, and painting.
Check out her work here.
Click the icon below to follow K.D. on the social media platform of your choice.
Acknowledgments
I’ve managed a third book in two months! This is insanity, but it’s a good type of goal.
Thank you again, Margarita, for proofreading.
Thanks to everyone who agreed to review this book before it released.
Thank you so, so much to my readers. I’ll see people read it and it’s the crazy thing, I swear! Send me an email with your thoughts. :)
With love,
K.D. Elizabeth
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue
Chapter One
I’m the good brother. The one you go to when you need help moving. The person who’ll pick you up at the airport when you land at two in the morning—even if it’s an hour away. The guy you ask to help with your tax returns even though I’m not even an accountant.
I’m essentially the golden boy. I even have the platinum blond hair to match my squeaky clean personality. If you need something from me, I’ll pretty much never say no.
Not because I can’t tell people no, mind you, but because it would be rude to decline. Griffin King is not, and will never be, rude.
You’re probably thinking that this aspect of my personality often leads people to take advantage of me. That’s not an incorrect assessment.
The thing, though, is that I’m tired of it. Really fucking tired. Be good for too long, and it’s all anyone ever expects of you. Perfect behavior, proper manners, careful consideration. It becomes your purview, your specialty, your life. You can never be in a bad mood, never snappish, never selfish.
It’s fucking exhausting.
I’ve been the good guy, the nice brother, for so long, I just don’t know how to stop. It’s not like I want to become a super villain, but I’d like to be a little bad, too.
Like the rest of them. It’s in the King bloodline, that’s for sure. But being the third of six, when two are twins, one’s a complete miscreant, and the remaining two usually instigate the madness? Well, someone’s got to be the sane one. I totally suffer from middle-kid syndrome. The only way I ever got any attention was by being the do-gooder of the family.
I’m pretty sure my perpetual altruism stems from the fact that I was the closest to Mom. She must have tamed me, just a little. The rest of my brothers were totally Dad’s creation. I mean, I was too, but I’d actually, you know, help my mother out on occasion, instead of just fucking shit up like the rest of them.
But now I want to fuck shit up. Have a little fun. My life-long modus operandi just isn’t cutting it anymore. Sure, I’ve got a comfortable and fulfilling job; I own my own house; the entire community respects me. That’s all great. A testament to my own hard work and the fact that I was raised right. Really, I’d have nothing to complain about except this one little inconvenience.
I haven’t gotten laid in eight months.
Eight FUCKING months. Not. One. Screw. It’s gone way past the point of ridiculousness and ventured into truly pathetic territory. It’s not like I’m incapable of finding a woman. I have game. But it seems like everyone in Ovid has decided to get some horrible disease, break an arm, or do something else to require medical attention in the first months since I’ve taken over Dr. Smith’s old practice.
I decided to do my residency with him instead of a large hospital, knowing I wanted to stay here in Ovid for my career. But I never thought the day I finished my residency Dr. Smith would up and retire to the Caribbean, leaving me my own practice the day I became a fully-fledged doctor. It’s a great honor, and I know Dr. Smith desperately needed his retirement, but when you’re the only physician in a small town, you better believe that it’s going to be you getting up at three in the morning to deliver that baby when the mother isn’t going to make it to the actual hospital three towns over.
I’ve been absolutely slammed—and not in the good way. The only person who’s not getting their physical needs attended to in this town is me. Well, and also Cassie, thank God.
Ah yes. I’ll probably have to back up a bit. I’ve confused you. That’s fair. Cassandra Diane Taylor is my childhood friend, receptionist at my clinic, and the world’s best baker. Seriously. She makes the best red velvet cupcakes this side of the Mississippi—and the other, too. No joke.
I’d marry her in a hot second, but every time I ask she says the risk of ruining our friendship isn’t worth it. Talk about a boner killer. But Cassie’s always been cautious; I just need to help her take that first step out of the friend zone.
So I’m going nuclear. Namely, with spaghetti. I know, I know. So pedestrian. Well, this is no ordinary spaghetti. This is my homemade spaghetti with noodles that I learned to make after I studied abroad in Florence during college. They’re way legit. And you better believe the sauce is homemade as well. It’s been cooking for two days, simmering along on my stove in flagrant disregard to good sense and the fire code.
Cassie might be a sinfully good baker, but I’m a god-like chef. People actually line up for my spaghetti bolognese when I make it for the summer fair every July. Yes, it’s that good. It’s special. Three bites and Cassie will be moaning for another, better kind of nibbling.
I just have to—wait. Are those headlights streaming through my bedroom curtains? She can’t be here already. Cassie’s never early. Half an hour late? That’s more her speed.
Well, if she wants to show up early, then she’s going to have to deal with the consequences. Namely, my shirtless self. Let her take a good long look at this visual feast.
I practically sprint across the house and rip open the front door. Unfortunately, it’s not Cassie in the drive, but my older brother, Jackson. Now where the hell is his shirt?
Wait, he’s not alone. I squint, trying to make out the person in the passenger seat. That’s not … Yep, that’s Rory Larson all right, Jackson’s old flame from college who also happens to despise him.
“Jackson? What are you doing here?” I say, pausing on the porch as I try to assess the situation.
This is not good. This is terribly bad, actually. I have no idea why these two are here. Let me amend that statement. Jackson and Rory loathe each other, so I have no idea why they’re cohabitating within the same breathing space. But what I do know is that they’ll get into some fight, and it’ll take five years to resolve.
Then Cassie’ll show up, and Jackson will immediately invite himself for dinner so he can grill me. He pretends he isn’t, but Jackson’s a huge gossip. He’ll vehemently deny it until the last peach falls off the tree limb on our family’s peach farm, but I have his number. The last thing I need is for any of my brothers to watch me try to seduce Cassie. I don’t need that kind of performance anxiety.
“Put a shirt on, Griffin!”
Sure, bro. I was just about to, before you suddenly barged in on my very important Friday evening.
Then my eyes land on Rory’s arm, streaming blood all over her work shirt. “Oh shit.”
“‘Oh shit’ is right,” Jackson says, lifting Rory into his arms.
Yeah, bud, like that’s going to go over well.
“Put me down!”
Bingo. Plus one observational point for Griffin.
Rory’s clearly pissed, but she still gets distracted by Jackson’s naked chest. Those weirdos. For the love of God, they need to just bang already. It would lower the anxiety level of the entire town by thirty percent.
Not to mention it would get them off my property.
I step back to hold the door open so they can continue bickering clear into the kitchen. I head for my medical bag and also a different shirt. I would have worn my favorite shirt, but that’s definitely not happening now. Rory is good people, but I have no desire for her blood to put my beloved shirt in an early grave.
“So what happened?” I say, entering the kitchen. Rory is sitting on the table, trying to ignore the fact that Jackson’s obviously concerned about her welfare. That girl really needs to get a clue. Not that I’ll ever tell her that. It would be rude.
“Sliced it on a tractor,” she says.
Jackson starts babbling something about how it was worse than that—probably true—but I’m not paying attention. I’m already thinking about possible complications. Infection, definitely. Tetanus, possibly. That tractor of hers is a dump. To be honest, I’m glad it’s out of now commission. I’ve been dreading the inevitable emergency call when someone gets injured by the rust bucket. It’s terrible that the tractor hurt Rory when it broke down, but the debacle could have been way worse.
I gently shove Jackson away to get a closer look and notice his shirt wrapped around her wound. So that’s where it went. Probably kept it from bleeding worse. I peel the shirt away to examine the wound.
Oh good. Not too deep. This isn’t going to require a hike to the emergency room. I can fix it up right here and then kick them out without feeling like I’ve violated the Hippocratic Oath. Perfect.
Now for the fun part. I’m kind of being serious. Sewing people up is fun. I shouldn’t like suturing, but there’s something enormously satisfying about fixing someone. Nothing is better than giving a patient an official bill of good health.
Jackson’ll beat my ass if my work leaves Rory with an ugly scar, so I’m going to add a couple extra stitches. Sew it up real carefully. My brother suddenly disappears, heading into my bedroom. That leaves me alone with Rory—the perfect time to snoop.
“I have to say, I’m a little surprised to see the two of you together.”
Rory shrugs a little, not taking my huge wriggling worm of a bait.
“What really happened between you two?”
Rory makes some noise about how Jackson’s a dick. Sure, she might be right, but she never saw the poor guy the summer after he graduated college.
Absolutely wrecked.
And judging by that squeaking floorboard, Jackson is shamelessly eavesdropping on this conversation. Poor guy still doesn’t know what the hell he did to her, if anything at all.
I try to say that there must just be a big misunderstanding, but she doesn’t buy it. I give a mental shrug. I tried, bro.
Rory and I fall silent and a moment later I’m definitely sure Jackson was eavesdropping because he bustles into the kitchen like he’s suddenly gained three hundred pounds. No one on this planet walks that loudly unless they’re desperately trying to convince someone they haven’t already been there the whole time.
Then I realize that Jackson has put on a shirt. Namely, my favorite one. For the love of God. I don’t deserve this kind of abuse. “Really? You had to pick that one?”
Jackson goes on and on about how my shirt is shitty, but the dick is just jealous. We both went to that concert, and he’s still pissy he never got the T-shirt even though it’s been like seventeen years.
These idiots need to leave. I only have seven minutes to make the pasta. I start shoving Jackson toward the door, making sure to give him hell for stealing my shirt.
But like any nosy older brother, Jackson realizes I want them to scram and tries to wrangle an explanation out of me. I’d sooner cut off my own balls and eat them with this pasta than tell him I’m having Cassie over for dinner. I’d never hear the end of it. He and the rest of my brothers have been ragging on me for ages to, as they put it, “taste that cookie.”
By the time I throw them off my property, five minutes remain to boil the damn water. I practically run to the kitchen and turn on the stove, then glance down at my body. I should probably take another shower. My hands reek of latex from the gloves and knowing my luck, there’s probably a blood spot somewhere on my shirt.
I should definitely take another shower.
And for the first time in, well, ever, I’m actually thankful for Jackson butting into my life, because as I’m in the shower, the doorbell rings.
And now I’m presented with interesting possibilities.
I’m going to spell this out so that I’m absolutely certain we’re on the same page. I don’t do nudity. I mean, obviously, fucking a woman requires delicious nakedness. But I don’t just throw it around. Seeing my naked form is earned, not given. And Cassie? She’s earned it—and then some. Earned it with kind smiles and selfless aid, hard work and dedication.
And cupcakes. Lots and lots of red velvet cupcakes.
Old Griffin would never answer the door wrapped in only a towel. New Griffin? You bet your ass he would. I was planning on doing it shirtless thirty minutes ago; I might as well go full-ham now. I wrap my towel as low on my waist as possible without it falling to the floor—not that that would be a terrible idea—and march my still-wet self right over to the front door.
Here’s the thing. I’ve known Cassie since kindergarten. She’s the quintessential girl next door, from class bake sales to prom queen. Soccer practice to debate class. Everyone liked her, because she was always nice to everyone, and never got involved in any drama.
She’s a good girl.
And I’m a good boy.
But her face when I open the door practically naked? Definitely, definitely not good.
Chapter Two
Cassie stands on my porch, her mouth opening and closing soundlessly. She’s petrified. Did I just basilisk her? She hasn’t moved. If she doesn’t soon, I might actually have a problem.
Damn, I was really hoping to enter her chamber of secrets.
But as her face goes from red to concerning, my inner physician kicks in and I fear she’s asphyxiating.
“Cassie? Are you okay? Can you—”
“I made lemon cupcakes!” she cries, shoving the container directly in front of her face as if to block my body from view. Well, okay then. Kick a guy when he’s bared his soul—er, his body, I mean—why don’t you?
Still, lemon cupcakes. They’re not her red velvet ones, but like me and my pasta, Cassie only breaks those out for very special occasions. You have to be a very good boy to snag some.
Christ, the lemon smell is already making my mouth water. I groan, snatching the container from her like the feral animal I become whenever she puts baked goods under my nose. Oh God, they’re still warm. But not so warm that the icing melts all over the place. Perfection.
“Marry me,” I say, my eyes snapping to hers. “Marry me, and let me taste your sweets every day.”
