Nowhere to Hide (Masked Men Novellas)

Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Archer

From where I sit at the table, I can see Kennedy putting some steaks on the grill and Tai throwing together some sides at the outdoor kitchen, even though almost everything is pre-made. I promised them I wouldn’t work anymore today, but we have dreamed of the launch of our website, Wild Steps, for years. We’ve rubbed shoulders, made friends in high places, and even screwed our way to the top of some social circles. This needs to go off without a hitch. We own a club which has proven the idea can work. Sure, it’s basically a sex club, but a very successful one and Wild Steps has been our baby. We wanted to bring a person’s fantasies to life... the kind they may not want to connect in person for. We will come to them. Well, not we per se, but rather our vetted staff, who have been cleared, tested, and trained in their special fields.

Our requests have piled up since the launch of the website, and I thought I turned off the option to accept more. I’ve been opening them as they come in and deny those who are not a good fit. I read through the latest application and pause at the photo of the woman.

Fuck, shit, fuck, shit .

“Guys, we have a problem.”

Both Tai and Kennedy turn to face me and Kennedy frowns at the sight of my computer, which he hadn’t noticed until now.

“Don’t start,” I warn. “A new request came in because I forgot to turn them off before we left.”

“So, what’s the problem? Turn it off now and put that thing away. We have worked seven days a week for years. We all agreed to step back this week.”

Kennedy is the one to keep me in check, so I don’t work myself to the bone. Tai is more like a puppy, and he’ll follow Kennedy and me blindly.

“I did, but this is our problem.” I turn the screen, and it shows them Riley’s picture.

“Oh, fuck no,” Kennedy snaps. “Delete that shit.”

That had been my first thought, too, but after seeing her in her barely there bikini with her ass cheeks hanging out, I realized we don’t need to protect her. “She isn’t a kid anymore.”

“She’s fucking twenty.”

“Only until tomorrow, actually,” Tai chimes in.

“Have you two lost your goddamn minds? If Braidy found out we set his sister up to”—Kennedy pauses and steps up to my laptop to read over her information—“get chased through the woods and be fucked in the dirt, I really don’t think he’d approve. And who would you put on her? Jasper? Can you sit there and say you would be okay with that?”

Jasper is one of our guys who fulfills the masked-man kink. He’s a good guy, but I know what Kennedy means. Sending someone to dick down our best friend’s little sister doesn’t seem right.

“Before you make your decision, when I spoke to her earlier, she admitted she is almost scared of sex. From what she said, her ex made her feel fat and gross. And she even said she hasn’t had sex since because it wasn’t good.”

“Who the fuck doesn’t make sex feel good for a woman? And fat?! I’m not blind—Riley is anything but fat.”

I can see Kennedy’s cogs ticking over as he talks. Tai hit his sore spot; he is a huge believer in sex being good for the woman. I blame his damn book club. Yes, big scary Kennedy joined a book club in college. I think he planned to meet women easily there, but it turned out instead he learned a lot about women’s lack of orgasms. He brought Tai and me into their little club—even though Tai doesn’t read anything he isn’t forced to, and I prefer nonfiction—and we all found a passion for bringing women safe pleasure, and here we are today.

“If we did it, who would it be? It’s a fucking dangerous game to play. You know how big her crush was on us, and if she found out one of us was behind the mask, could we deal with the fallout?”

“We rock, paper, scissor?” Tai suggests.

“What are we doing?” Riley asks, as she steps out onto the deck.

“Deciding who should cook the steaks,” I rattle out, covering our asses.

“Oh, that’s easy,” Riley says, taking a seat beside Tai. “Kennedy is the best on the grill. We all know it. I’m sorry, but unless something has changed in the last four years, Tai can’t cook anything but breakfast, and Archer, you should stick to desserts—your mom’s homemade apple pie is your specialty.”

“Nothing has changed,” Kennedy grumbles. He gives me a look as if to say we will talk about this later. And you bet we will.

We rarely mix business and pleasure anymore, let alone when it comes to someone we consider family, but I will be damned if I let Riley believe sex isn’t good. We could always ask Cass. He’s sweet and normally sticks to the tamer fantasies; he’s a favorite with the older women who want a younger man to seduce them.

“How do you like working for your brother?” I ask Riley in an attempt to steer the conversation well clear of dangerous territory. But as she smiles at me, I have to rein in my wicked thoughts of chasing her through the wilderness like she asked for on her form. Hunting her like she’s my next meal and sinking my hard, thick cock inside her. Turning her away could do more harm than good; a night of pleasure could change the way she perceives sex forever. Isn’t that what our business is all about? She would never need to know it was one of us.

“Mostly it’s good. Though he can be a pain in the ass when his past comes back to bite him in his. We are preparing for the big reveal.”

“Ah, the girlfriend. I never in a million years thought he would settle down, not after all the pus... stories I have heard,” Tai adds, and Riley cringes.

“La, la, la. I do not need to hear about my brother’s sexcapades. I have cleaned up so many of those messes and seen things I should never have had to see. You would be amazed how many pictures he gets daily. I have never seen so many fucking vaginas in my life, and I have one I see daily.”

Kennedy snorts. “Some of us are living the life.”

I shake my head at the asshole. She will think he means the pussies Braidy is being sent, but I know him, and he hates unsolicited pictures. He is talking about her pussy.

Riley is beautiful, she always has been. But the issue has always been the age gap between us, and the fact that she is Braidy’s little sister. However, she is a woman now, and that is dangerous. We noticed her when she was sixteen and off-limits, and it’s why we made excuses and avoided family gatherings. It’s not like we are pigs who cannot control our urges, but she was a young, impressionable child and needed to get over her crush on us. There was no way it could have worked—her picking only one of us to start with, then her brother is another issue, and finally our business. Not a lot of women could deal with knowing their man is seeing other women naked daily, and that is the reality of our job.

“I’m sure you’re not lacking in seeing vaginas if that is what you’re into, or penis... What is plural for penis? Who cares—you get my point,” Riley stumbles out.

Tai snorts. He also knows what Kennedy really meant.

Kennedy narrows his eyes at Riley. There is no way she could know that he and Tai have a situationship. I wouldn’t class it as a relationship, but there has always been a spark between them. Neither of them is my type; I like boobs way too much to swing the other way.

“Of course I’m not lacking in any area, Rye Bear. Not when it comes to pussy or cock.”

Riley’s face goes bright red. “Who wants a drink?” Riley asks, standing from her chair. We all reply in the affirmative, and she scurries inside.

Tai gets up and walks over to where Kennedy stands at the grill, then slaps him on the back of the head. “Way to go, dickhead. Simply tell the girl you want to see her pussy next time. Now she thinks you’re a whore.”

“He is a whore,” I add. “I’m sending her that contract. We can fight over the semantics later. It’s embarrassing to see her blush over the word pussy.”

Kennedy points the tongs at me threateningly. “When Braidy finds out about this, it’s your head on the chopping block. Flirting with her is one thing, but fucking her... he is rich enough to make our bodies disappear.”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Tai drawls. “Now she’s an adult, so I think he won’t care so much. Our biggest issue is the fact that we all like her—it’s partly why we stopped coming around before she turned eighteen.” He fixes me with a pointed look. “I still remember you punching Kennedy in the face for joking about her virginity.”

“Who’s virginity?” Riley asks as she walks back outside carrying three beers and a Smirnoff Ice for herself.

“Just reminiscing about our high school days,” I say, once again covering our asses.

“Ugh, keeping my virginity was overrated. I waited so long for the right guy, and I still ended up giving it up to Mr. Wrong. Being overweight in high school, it’s not like the guys were lining up back then. And when I lost weight and dropped out of college, well, I thought Mike was sophisticated, but our relationship was doomed from the start. I’ve now sworn off relationships for the foreseeable future—no dick is worth the self-esteem hit I took.”

Riley rambles a lot, she always has, and she overthinks a lot of situations. Like this guy, Mike. He is obviously a major dick. That one experience shouldn’t define her, but she has no other history to base her decision on. She was never overweight. Sure, she wasn’t a size six back then, and she still isn’t. In high school, a lot of boys were superficial because they thought it was cool to date the thinnest girls, but it didn’t mean Riley wasn’t attractive.

“Riley Bear, you understand how beautiful you are, right? I can’t sit here and not tell you that when some dipstick made you feel less than perfect simply because you are not what society deems as thin. Whoever you choose next will be a lucky man. You are beautiful, smart, funny, clumsy?—”

We interrupt Tai’s monologue with our laughter when he says clumsy; Riley was always tripping over her own feet.

“Hey, I am not clumsy. That was all you guys. Every time you were around, I forgot how to use my damn legs. And thank you, Tai. I appreciate what you’re saying, but I have a lot more work to do to see all that when I look in the mirror.”

I side-eye Kennedy. She needs him to say it in order to believe it. Tai and I always tried to tell her how beautiful she was every time she would come home from school and someone had called her fat, or another disgusting name about her weight. But Kennedy is the sort that tells it like it is, so the idiot offered to go running with her to be proactive and that only made her feel worse about herself because the Kennedy Carter agreed with the kids at school.

He rolls his eyes at me out of her line of sight. “Tai is right,” he says as he brings the steaks over to the table. “I’m surprised you don’t have men tripping over themselves to fuck you.”

Now it’s my turn to roll my eyes. Way to go, Kennedy, make her feel like all she is worth is her body.

She snorts. “Yeah, okay, guess I better eat quickly so I can line them all up and fuck them.”

My drink goes down the wrong pipe, causing me to choke, and Riley reaches over and pats my back.

“How about we all eat now? No more talk about my sex life or lack thereof. If you really want to talk about something, why don’t we focus on you?”

She looks at us one by one, and of course Tai takes the bait. “There was this one girl a few months ago who put her finger in my ass, but she had long nails and scratched me. It hurt for weeks.”

Riley throws her head back and laughs. “I missed you guys a lot. Though I know you’re Braidy’s friends, you were always around, and when you stopped coming by, it was hard. I’d really love it if we could be friends again.”

“Do male and female friendships ever really work out? Normally someone wants to bang the other,” Kennedy says.

“Then this is perfect,” Riley says. “I used to want to bang you—shit, the dreams I once had—but now that is out of the way. So can we be friends?”

“Friends,” I say before Kennedy can open his big fat mouth again.

Riley’s entire face lights up and I feel like an asshole for not thinking about how us not coming around would have affected her. She’s right—we were always at her house and on holidays with their family, right up until Braidy got famous and we started our business. We should have added her on our socials, but we thought a clean break would help her get over her crush on us. Friends is a good place to start, and I hope the others feel the same way.