Chapter 7

Max

I t’s the familiar jeering of the blue jays in the oak tree outside my childhood bedroom that wake me up, but before I open my eyes, I’m enveloped in the scent of ripe strawberries and the warmth of the girl wrapped in my arms. Everything else ceases to exist for a second.

Winnie Wainwright, hugging my right arm in her sleep, a smile playing on her lips. My morning semi is already eager for attention, especially when she shifts, pushing gently against my cock with her gorgeous naked ass. She sighs softly, and settles back into a serene sleep, her worries from yesterday clearly forgotten.

Dropping the barest kiss on her shoulder, I slide out of bed for my morning piss. I head to my bathroom, though I’m tempted to linger in bed with her - hell, I want to stay in bed with this girl for the rest of my life; make her my breakfast, lunch, dinner, and every snack in between. God, she’s incredible. But there will be hell to pay with Mason.

I’m already dreading what’s in store for me .

Big Max.

It’s hard to worry about the collective wrath from my brothers when I think of my girl in the kitchen after dark, wanting some from me – wanting it all from me – and it makes me feel like a god. Not to mention, the thought that she mistook my twin for me and called him Big Max, makes me laugh my ass off.

My mirth is short-lived, because the conversation with Winnie last night and the knowledge that she actually wants me to fuck her, whips through my filthy mind. I need to take care of a few things before I leave the bathroom… namely my dick, which is in full salute now.

I turn on the shower and drop my boxers into the hamper, letting the real Big Max spring free. With the memory of the taste of her, the feel of her pushing herself down on my fingers, on my tongue… fuck, it doesn’t take more than a few pumps into my soapy fist before I’m releasing my load in thick streaks.

Winnie is still fast asleep when I get out, so I throw on a pair of loose-fitting jeans and a t-shirt and head downstairs to make some breakfast. I’m not sure yet what I will say to Mason when I see him. He’s bound to bring it up before I can open my mouth. But I need to get to him before the others are awake, explain how Winnie and I are…

Fuck. We didn’t exactly define the relationship while my head was buried between her thighs.

The wolfish grin spreads across my face, unstoppable. I feel unstoppable.

I take the steps two at a time and swing into the living room .

The room is stunning, really. My dad was the guy who taught us everything we know, and built Mom the living room of her dreams. It has wall-to-wall bookshelves that stretch long and high enough for a sliding ladder, large and luxurious furniture, big enough for a family of our size to spread out. Everything is perfect, down to the last of my mom’s homey details. Perfect except for the small addition of my nine brothers, reclining on the sofa, the love seat, the stool by the fireplace, all glaring at me.

Mason’s glare is fiercest of all. Well, shit.

We don’t have the kind of twin telepathy you hear about–thank god–but I shoot daggers at his forehead anyway.

You couldn’t come to me first, bro?

He’s sharing Mom’s favorite green armchair with Gunnar, sitting on the arm. Mom would be seriously pissed to see him sitting there, weakening the arm of the chair when there’s plenty of space beside Cruz and Theo on the sofa. I don’t bother bringing it up right now.

“Uh… hey,” I say, just delusional enough after what happened last night to hope that maybe they’re collectively pissed at me about something that has nothing to do with Winnie. “Anyone had breakfast yet? I’m making. Waffles, eggs, bacon. Who wants what?”

I start towards the kitchen.

“We’re not hungry, Big Max ,” Mason says the second my back is to him. I wince.

“Is she still sleeping?” Jack asks.

I scrub my hands over my face before turning back to face them .

“Is she still sleeping?” Jack repeats. He and Gavin are both on the loveseat, and they might not be blood brothers but the look on their faces as they glower at me from across the room are identical.

Lifting my chin, I say, “Yeah. She’s still sleeping.”

“Good. Join us. Seems like you have quite a bit to catch us up on.” Jack has a mug of coffee. Takes a sip, his steel eyes never breaking contact.

I stay put as I glance at Mace. “You couldn’t get my side of the story before you told the world?”

“What is your side of the story then, man?” Gavin interrupts. There’s a fire in his eyes I’ve never seen before. His nostrils flare. I’m surprised lava isn’t pouring out of his mouth instead of words.

Raking my hands through my hair, I wonder not what’s going to appease my brothers, but what Winnie would want me to say. What she would want me to keep private.

Before I can say anything, Mace speaks up. “After she came onto me in the kitchen… well, came onto you in the kitchen, I went up to her room. You know, just to make sure she got back to bed safely, because clearly I’m a fool, because I’d actually believed she was sleepwalking–”

“But she wasn’t in her bed,” Gunnar takes over.

“Want to tell us where she was?” Gavin leans back, folding his arms across his chest.

God, he’s pissed.

“No.” Theo, from the sofa, holds up a hand to silence me before I’ve even had time to begin putting a response together. “You don’t have to. ”

“Because as Mason was coming out of Winnie’s room, I was coming out of mine,” Leo picks up.

He’s leaning against the wall, and I swear my neck is getting a workout as I try to keep up with them all. It’s like they’ve got me surrounded.

Fuck, did they rehearse this?

“What is this?” I say, rolling my eyes. “An intervention?”

“A Wintervention,” Jack shoots back dryly.

Diesel, sitting by the fireplace, snorts into his guitar. Some of the other guys have to keep straight faces, too, and I hope Jack’s quip will break the tension, as he usually does.

No such luck.

“Mason told me what happened,” Leo plows on. “We decided we should look around for her, make sure she didn’t sleepwalk into the damn pool to skinny dip with Joe Jonas.”

“It was Harry Styles,” Mace murmurs.

“What-the-fuck-ever.” Leo slams his left fist into his right open hand. “When I walked by your room, it became pretty fucking obvious where Win was.” He looks down, diverting his eyes away from me. His voice is thick with betrayal. “I heard some very interesting sounds. Moaning, groaning, her crying out your name.”

“Okay, yeah, I’m sorry you found out that way–”

Jack sits up straight. His mug hits the coffee table with a thud, sloshing some of the liquid onto the wood. “We agreed, Max. Every last damn one of us agreed .”

The triplets have been silent, so I shift my gaze in their direction, hoping one of them will inject some semblance of… reason… into this conversation. Come on, Axel, at least you?

From the looks on their faces, they’re ready for a brawl. Never do the triplets look more identical than they do when they’re about to lose their tempers.

Well, shit.

“We made a pact,” Cruz says. He looks disappointed in me. Even though he’s the one still in his pajamas, eating sugary cereal. And with bedhead to boot.

I press my lips together. What can I say? I wanted Winnie, she wanted me, deal with it? You snooze, you lose?

Over the years, we’ve all had more-than-friends feelings for Winnie at one time or another. So it made sense, eight years ago, when we were all in our late teens and early twenties, when we were embarking on a career in reality television where we knew it would be imperative we all stick together and, above all else, stay a team… We made a pact that none of us would get romantically involved with Winnie. Period.

Cruz is now looking down into the cereal in his lap. “We all saw how her father treated her, dude. We vowed to be her army of soldiers, to protect her no matter what, not to ever risk being someone who broke her heart.”

I was just about to say that the pact was childish and stupid, but well. That part wasn’t childish or stupid.

“We all agreed that romance makes things messy and that none of us ever wanted to do anything to mess up our friendship with her,” Diesel adds .

Axel, on the sofa next to Cruz, says nothing, but his knee is bouncing and his jaw is working and that says a lot.

Fuck.

“We agreed that if we all couldn’t have her, none of us could,” I point out. “But we didn’t consider what she might want.”

No one is looking at me now.

“Are you two official?” Jack gets up from the loveseat and saunters over to me. “Is it a serious relationship?”

I don’t know how the fuck to answer that.

“No, it isn’t like that, but–”

“So you’re just fuck buddies?” Axel finally speaks and I kind of want to punch him in the mouth. He shakes his head. Gets to his feet.

“Axel–” Diesel begins.

Axel holds up his hand, palm out, as if to say don’t, man . He heads out the door to the back patio, letting it slam behind him.

We all flinch.

“Whatever you are, I assume this has been going on for a while,” Jack says after a long minute. “It wasn’t right of you to not divulge this information to us when we were offered the spin-off, Max.”

Now I really want to punch Jack in the mouth. What a massive load of steaming crap .

I jab a finger at him. “You wanted nothing to do with that spin-off, or being on TV anymore. So don’t give me that bullshit.”

“This thing between you and Win,” Mace begins. “Whatever it is. Which one of you initiated it?”

I remember last Thanksgiving. She had on these shorty-shorts and a pajama top so thin my mouth still waters when I remember. When I saw her in the kitchen, she was the only delectable thing I saw. It was either kiss her or starve.

There’s no point in lying now.

“I did.”

“Of-fucking-course,” he mutters under his breath.

“We unanimously agreed to turn down the spin-off because of the pact, Max,” Gavin says, stretching his legs into the empty space Jack left behind on the loveseat. He looks relaxed but his jaw is tight. “Because of all the reasons we made the pact.”

“Would it have made a difference, if you had known about me and Winnie? Would you have wanted to do the show, then?”

I wait on them to all say no, that of course they wouldn’t have, because that damn spin-off would’ve torn us apart.

But Jack shocks me when glares at me and fiercely says, “I would have at least wanted to tell Winnie about the opportunity. See what she thought.”

I hope that none of my brothers can see how hard his words hit, but I feel like an idiot .

I hadn’t ever considered that if given the chance, if I hadn’t pursued her first, would Winnie have even picked me at all? Would she have preferred Axel’s boy-next-door charm? I already know she likes his glasses because she’s complimented them enough times. Or maybe Gavin’s piercings are more her thing? Or would she have preferred Jack, because he’s always been the one who makes her laugh the most…?

“What opportunity?” a soft voice asks.

We all turn our heads to see Winnie, standing in the doorway, biting her bottom lip and studying each of us with her curious blue eyes.

Well, shit .