Hott and Handled (The Hott Brothers Book 3) Read online

  Judging by her reaction to my intensity and then the kiss, I gathered the dickwad baby daddy didn’t have a clue how to keep his woman satisfied.

  Thank fuck. Farron’s ex was a moron, no doubt about it, but I still had to weave my magic on Farron slowly and carefully. I promised not to push her and that was still the plan.

  The sooner she trusted me, the quicker I got to have her under me.

  Naked and moaning my name.

  FARRON

  The drive to the Triple H was spent trying to answer every question Dillion had for me, with answers I didn’t really have.

  Did Nixx, because that’s what Dillion was calling him now, have Kawasaki motorbikes or Yamahas? Will there be helmets and gloves for him to use? Will Nixx have some food? And so the questions went until we pulled into the drive beneath the elaborate fancy gateway to the property. Then Dillion changed his mind and decided Nixx and his family were rich, and suddenly the atmosphere in the car changed from excitement to nervousness.

  I, too, felt the anxiety of what was waiting for us beyond the long, long, really long driveway. In my old life, a long drive meant money, and fancy gates signalled stuck up money. The description didn’t fit in with the Hott members I had met so far, Lenoxx, Hendrixx and their wives and, of course, Nixx and his mum, not recalling if I had met his father or not.

  “Geez, Mum, are you sure this is the right place?” Dillion whistled loudly when a huge stone and wood homestead came into view. The house, or mansion, had to be bigger than my restaurant, house and the whole block they sat on. Framing the stone and wood dwelling was a wrap-around verandah painted in an antique white that set off the dark bluestone blocks and light Oregon wood. Rose bushes lined the circular drive that led to the house and a perfectly trimmed hedge skirted the outside boundary of the house plot.

  The whole place was stunning, amazingly beautiful and very tasteful. It shouted money, but not in your face bragging.

  Classic.

  Homey.

  Welcoming.

  A pang of jealousy clawed at me. This was all I ever wanted for Dillion. Not the house so much, but the feelings the view evoked. We were yet to get out of the car and go inside, but the feeling of family pulled at me.

  “Hey, Mum, there is Nixx!” Dillion called out, pointing wildly at the windscreen and the man and horse standing outside a fenced paddock looking structure. Turning the steering wheel, I directed the car away from the beautiful house and up a gravel drive.

  “Funny how Nixx wears a ball cap and not the same as his brother Hendrixx, hey Mum?” Dillion noted as we drew closer to Nixx and the horse he had on a lead rope, his fists curled tightly as he held onto the large animal.

  “Maybe we should just stop here, bud,” I suggested, quickly parking the car noting the horse was dancing around nervously as soon as my car approached. “The horse doesn’t look happy with the car being so close.”

  “Weird coloured horse,” Dillion laughed, “ he is light brown with white patches all over him. What do you call that colour, Mum?”

  “Why don’t you add that to the list of questions you have and ask Nixx because I have no idea, bud. I’m from the city like you are in case you forgot,” I drawled, unclipping my belt and took a deep calming breath. Seeing Nixx again so soon after last night was giving me just a little of the knee-knocking, sweaty palms and clenching vaginal muscles kind of reactions I had to admit. All I did today was walk around in circles fretting on the agreement we came to in-between dancing and kissing.

  Why, oh why, did I let him kiss me? My life might not be perfect by some standards, but my business was bringing in enough money to pay the bank every month and leave enough for essentials. My son was thriving in school, had heaps of friends, and so far had not experienced any adverse effects from his parents being divorced. In fact, Dillion was pretty much the most perfect thing I had ever done. I dated once in a blue moon, nothing heavy or intimate, just fun conversation over an adult dinner that didn’t consist of pizza, then Nixx Hott asked me to dance and kissed me, bringing a fair few rows of my brick wall crumbling to the ground.

  “Hey, Nixx, great horse!” Dillion yelled, snapping me into mum mode as soon as I heard him shout.

  “Dillion! Don’t shout around the horse unless Nixx—”

  “It’s okay Farron, Hercules here is pretty chill now thanks to Blake and her gift,” Nixx replied, smiling at Dillion. “G’day mate, want to give him a scratch? Herc loves a good scratch under his mane. Best way to get him to follow you around like a bad smell.”

  I stood to the side and watched Nixx and Dillion both take a side of the horse and begin to massage the pretty horse under his fawn coloured mane. Chuckling when the horse dropped his head and nudged Dillion in the hip as if to say ‘keep going, mate’.

  “How are you doin’ today, baby?” Nixx suddenly asked me, my head whipping from looking at my son to Nixx. My eyes were wide in shock hearing him call me the pet name in front of my son, then sucked in a lungful of air when I was met with hooded, piercing blue eyes laced with desire.

  Oh, Mother Mary, give me the strength to survive this man.

  Quickly peering back at Dillion, I saw his smirk, his cheek sucked in, and mouth pursed, pretending to be taken with the horse and not hearing his mother being called baby. Alec never once used a pet name when speaking to me, not that I could recall. Whereas Nixx seemed to like calling me several different names. Maybe he was trying them on, you know, to see what suits me. Buggered if I knew, this kind of treatment from a man was sadly all too new to me.

  Mentally giving myself a shake to concentrate on where I was and not in the past, I pasted a smile on my face before I answered Nixx.

  “Fine, got through the lunch hour without any drama. Picked up Dillion from school and now I am here,” I told him, shrugging my shoulders and waving my hands around like the idiot I am.

  “I’m glad you are,” Nixx said in a gentle tone, but his eyes heated up as they travelled down my body, taking in my tight jeans that had intentional and very expensive rips at the knees and on the thighs. Today my t-shirt sprouted that I was a diva and deserved the applause of my subjects. It was tighter than I would usually go with, but I had to admit it had been a deliberate choice to wear it here today—the deep V-neck showing a hint of my cleavage without looking tacky in the eyes of my son.

  Shuffling my feet in the gravel, uncomfortable and yet pleased with the intense scrutiny from Nixx’s blue eyes, I looked around me and took in the stables and workers bustling in and out of the various buildings.

  “We aren’t keeping you from your work, I hope.”

  “Nah, I started pretty early this morning, so I could take off when you arrived. I just have to get this guy back to his stall then go feed Lancelot his daily sugar treat before Blake starts texting me, demanding to know if I did her bidding.” Nixx flicked his wrist around the rope once, twice then clicked his tongue.

  “Come on Herc, time for some feed.”

  Intending to step out of the way so Nixx could go ahead of me, he surprised me by grabbing my hand with his free one and pulled me gently along with him. His fingers laced with mine, instantly warming me, not only inside but my face too. I was really going to have to get my blushing under control, Nixx obviously liked to touch no matter the location or who else was around him. If we were going to see where this attraction between us was going, I was either going to get on board or put a stop to the PDA. The thought of stopping them stirred an ache in my chest, the pain tangible and real and unlike anything I’d ever experienced.

  Then, there was our age gap. Fenixx might not see a problem with it, insisting our four year difference hardly a problem, but that wasn’t all that worried me. Nixx had never been married; I was divorced. I had a kid; he was yet to start that part of his life. He was a sexy cowboy with lots of sexual experience. My pussy had never had a man’s tongue anywhere near it, nor had my vagina clenched and tightened in orgasm around a man’s … cock.

  “Think
ing about something interesting, baby?” Nixx enquired all of a sudden, his deep voice adding fuel to the fire, not only spreading across my cheeks but the inferno between my legs.

  When did just the word cock become a core clenching aphrodisiac? And why couldn’t I stop blushing?

  Nixx squeezed my fingers, a deep low chuckle left his lips, making me grunt at him in annoyance. I needed some hand with Nixx, some advantage where I could turn the tables and give him a hard time, maybe get him blushing for a change.

  “So,” I growled, giving him the stink eye, “how many horses do you have here?” I asked, desperate to get his and my mind on a safer subject, with Dillion walking only a few feet ahead of us, this was not the time for my lady bits to come to life.

  “Okay, baby, we will play it your way,” Nixx agreed, with a knowing smile.

  “We are primarily a cattle farm, but we have an equine breeding program, and Blake takes in broken horses and heals them.”

  “Heals them?”

  “Yeah, Blake is the head breaker around here and a horse whisperer. She has had the gift since I can remember. In fact, this guy here,” Nixx pointed at Hercules, “is one of her success stories, as is Lancelot, hers and Hendrixx’s stallion.”

  “A horse whisperer. I didn’t know that was a real thing other than in the movies,” I admitted, hoping I didn’t sounding like a first-class city slicker.

  “It really is. Blake’s dad had the gift too. He taught Blake how to break and train horses and she taught herself how to heal them. Every healer has their own method, and Blake’s is softer and more hands on, literally whispering to them.”

  “Blake is nice from what I know so far when she comes into the restaurant.”

  “Yeah, Blakey is something alright. When her old man died, her care went to my parents. She is like a sister to us, well Lenoxx and me. Drixx never saw her that way, obviously,” he added with a smirk and a roll of his eyes, laughing.

  “Obviously,” I agreed, feeling the tension I felt in the car and since roll off my shoulders.

  “See,” Nixx leaned over and whispered in my ear, “this is us just getting to know each other. The first step to making us–an us.” Warm breath tickled my ear, and hot lips brushed my skin.

  Thankfully, Dillion’s excited shout stopped me from moaning needily and offering Nixx my body right there.

  And another layer of bricks tumbled, replacing them with more hope that I was making the right choice with Nixx.

  “Dillion is loving this Nixx, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to show us around you home,” I said again for the second time in ten minutes. Sitting in the front passenger seat of a golf cart with Nixx driving, we followed Dillion, who was in front of us on a dirt bike. Even over the sound of the 125cc motor, I could hear his shouts of excitement.

  Any joy my son experienced, I did too.

  “Baby, you don’t have to thank me, really. There is nothing I want to do more than spend time with you,” Nixx answered, with the same honesty the first time I had thanked him.

  “Plus, this gives me the perfect chance to see where his skill level is at before we put him on a bigger bike. Safety is a priority on the HHH; showing off doesn’t impress us here.”

  “This is only the second time I have seen him on a bike actually. When he goes to his mates, I am usually at the restaurant getting ready for the dinner trade.”

  I didn’t like the hours a business like mine offered in the way of time with Dillion after he got out of school for the day, but so far, he and I were making it work.

  “That must be hard on you both. My brothers and I were lucky in many ways growing up the way we did. Mum was a stay at home mum from day one, we didn’t see a lot of Dad in the early years, but once the farm started making decent money, he handed over some control to his farm manager, came in at a reasonable hour to have dinner with us and help us with our homework.”

  “Did you have chores?” I asked, interested in him but keeping my eyes on Dillion. As a mother of a teenage son, I resigned myself to the fact that he would want to try dangerous sports like dirt biking and football. Luckily, football wasn’t played in the summer months in Australia, but I knew come March next year, he was going to pull on the guernsey again and make me watch him get flung around a football field by boys twice his size. Again.

  “We sure did. Dad was from the tough-love school of thought. There wasn’t a soft bone in his body, except when it came to Mum.”

  “She is special,” I agreed, thinking back to my last encounter with her.

  “She rules the Triple H dressed in her pearls and bedazzled gumboots,” he chuckled, making me laugh too.

  “Bedazzled?”

  “Yeah, the woman is a walking talking glamour model from the old days. You should see her when she comes out to help spread bales of hay in the paddocks. Not a hair out of place and a full face of make-up. But she can swear like a sailor and make a grown man shake with fear with just one look, trust me.”

  And grown women too, I thought but didn’t voice it. I had not shared with Nixx the topic of conversation Lillian and I had sitting on the hay bale and most likely would never tell him.

  “You seem like you are very close with her,” I pried as gently as I could, knowing where a mother sat in a son’s life could make a potential girlfriend’s life a lot less stressful. My own relationship with my child was strong and perfectly bonded, so this was good practice for the future when Dillion eventually brought a girl home to meet me.

  “We are all close with her, but I have an extra bond with her because of my illness when I was a kid,” Nixx said, catching me off guard with the word illness. The man was as healthy as I had ever seen. Muscular, toned and downright sexy … in my opinion, if that meant anything at all.

  “Illness?” I asked, then held my breath when Dillion took a corner on the homemade track a little too fast, the back end of the bike kicking out and nearly knocking him off.

  A loud squeak erupted from my lips, my heart rate kicking up, but Dillion righted himself just in time.

  “Oh, my lord, boy, watch what you are doing,” I grumbled, patting my hand on my chest.

  “He has good reflexes baby, the bike he is on is a petrol motor, not a two-stroke. They are a lot more powerful and harder to right in the same situation. Once I see he is more controlled, then we can step him up,” Nixx assured me, reaching out and taking my hand in his and laying it in his lap, but not before he lifted it to his lips and pressed a kiss to my knuckles sending a shiver of pleasure to every sensor point in my body.

  “Okay Nixx, I trust you will go slow with him, let him progress when you think it’s right.” The golf cart suddenly stopped a shrill whistle from Nixx loud enough to get Dillion’s attention, who slowed the motorbike to a stop and looked over his shoulder to see what was happening.

  Nixx held up his pointer finger at my son in a signal to wait a minute then turned his attention to me. My face had to have had a surprised and confused look because he turned in his seat, and with a serious expression, he sighed then dropped his head until his chin resting on his chest.

  What happened? Did I say something wrong?

  Cautiously, reaching out with a shaky hand, I laid it on his jean-clad thigh, trying not to react to how the material stretched tightly over his muscular leg or the way the muscle tensed under my touch.

  Nixx let out a hiss, and I immediately went to lift my hand away, thinking he didn’t want me to touch him, but instead of shoving my hand away, Nixx enveloped my hand with his. His fingers curled around my much smaller hand pressing it hard against his denim-covered flesh.

  “No, don’t.” His voice was deep and strained. Desperate.

  Keeping my eyes on our combined hands, the intensity of the simple display of affection not lost on me. Fenixx Hott intrigued me as much as he turned me on, he was not like any other man I had ever known, romantically or otherwise. Most guys played it cool, played down their feelings, opting to show a tougher side. N
ixx was the exact opposite, he wasn’t afraid to show his heart and emotions.

  I liked it—a lot.

  “Is everything okay, Nixx? I didn’t say anything did I, about Dillion—”

  “No. No, you didn’t,” Nixx rushed out, turning in his seat to look at me front on, his blue eyes piercing their way into my soul. It was uncomfortable, but not in a bad way.

  The way Nixx looked at me was so new and so different for me to get a grip on, to—handle.

  “The fact that you are trusting me with your boy, allowing me to take care of his safety. The easy way you agreed to my ways, trusting that I know what is best for him. Means the fucking world to me baby.”

  I sat statue still, absorbing his declaration, not sure where to start with my reply. Did I trust him? In the short time we had spent together, Nixx had managed to burrow underneath my skin and penetrate the walls I had installed after Alec’s betrayal. Abandoning Dillion and myself so easily, the heartless and cruel parting words he spat at me before he walked out still rang in my ears. Blaming me for him turning to other women for sex because of my inability to make him feel like a man. I’d felt those words heavy on my shoulders every day for the last four years, believing the blame for our failed marriage had to be my fault, that I didn’t have the worth a woman needed to possess in order to turn on a man and keep him interested. To keep him loyal.

  Nixx might be the one to change my way of thinking.