Hostile Takeover Sneak Peek

Hostile Takeover is over 90k words of revenge romance with plenty of heat and tenderness. This book might appeal to you if you like any of the following: billionaires, workplace romance, enemies-to-lovers, dares, revenge, quickies in a closet, longies in Only One Bed, late-bi-awakening, longing, that cheek-cupping and thumb swipe under the eye move, dick, the unexpected, and happy tears. Grey and Ellison are one of my favorite couples, and it all starts with this scene…

Prologue – Ellison

“Ponder and deliberate before you make a move.” 

~ Sun Tzu, The Art of War 

“… or not.”

~ Ellison York

“Okay, York, here’s the dare.” Kirby Heath’s eyes were a little cloudy from drinking too many shots with dirty names and a little mean from being born into the kind of wealth and privilege most people only dreamed of. “The next server who comes into the room gets the Ellison York treatment in the storage closet. You up for it?”

“Uh… What’s the Ellison York treatment exactly?” I asked, stalling for time. 

Already, Drake Lou and Will Dinsmore had taken their turns, bringing back some cute tennis girl’s pink panties and a lipstick kiss in Corinne Knight’s signature red lip color right above his belly button, respectively. And now, apparently, it was time for me to uphold the honor of the York family name by taking mine.

Nothing good ever starts with a drunken dare. I was just sober enough to know that much. 

But the final night of the father/son golf tournament at the Crosbie Golf and Country Club in Greenwich, Connecticut, wasn’t known for being a time when intelligent decisions were made. It was known for being a time when fathers passed down their tendency to overdrink, tell blatant lies about conquests on and off the golf course, and salivate over the bar bunnies in the member-only area of the clubhouse.

It also happened to have coincided with my very overdue, very public dumping by my long-term girlfriend, Nessa, who felt that senior year of college meant moving on from relationships that were “outdated” and “not representative of who we were now” or whatever.

“Dude, I should not have to spell this out for you,” Kirby said with an eye roll. “You take this person in the closet, you do a dirty deed, and you bring back proof.”

“Photographic or physical proof,” Drake clarified, lifting his shot of tequila. “We won’t take your word for it.” 

The drunken guys around me—men I’d called my friends since elementary school, through our years at Choate, and at Yale, too, for a couple of them—laughed out loud at the very idea of taking someone’s word for something. If there was one thing our fathers taught us at a young age, it was that honor was mostly for the middle class. 

I was starting to think Nessa had a point about outgrowing certain relationships, because the pretentious snobbery of the people around me had started getting old years ago.

The familiar clack of the billiard balls punctuated the indrawn breath Drake took when the fiery tequila hit his throat. In the nearby dining room, I could hear the low rumble of voices from our various fathers and grandfathers as they shared drunken recollections of particularly good shots from the day’s golf championship.

“Stop overthinking shit. You should be thanking us,” Will said. “This is a total gimme. Did you see the body on that server with the red hair? Mm. Besides, she’s been eyeing you all night.”

I thought of the server who’d brought our last round of beer. She was gorgeous. Thick red hair pulled back in a braid that nearly hung down to her ass and a figure that totally did it for me. She’d flirted with me in the past when I’d been here with Nessa, so maybe she’d be fine pressing a kiss to my stomach for fun. 

Kirby handed me another shot—my fourth Buttery Nipple in an hour—which meant I was well past buzzed and on my way to sloshed, but I slammed it back anyway, repressing a shudder at the butterscotch flavor. It was easier just going along sometimes. 

“Never be the man who ruins another man’s good time, son.” My father had told me this on multiple occasions. 

It definitely didn’t pay to ruin Warren York’s good time. One didn’t argue with my father unless one wanted to be punished severely. He was a ruthless, egotistical businessman who’d inherited the wealth acquired by hundreds of years of Yorks who came before him but acted like he’d earned it all himself. 

Sadly for my mother, my sister, Gigi, and me, he wasn’t any better at home than he was in the office. My father’s favorite brand of punishment involved tightening the purse strings, not on the offender, but on someone the offender loved. When I upset my father, he punished Gigi or my mother.

And there was nothing my father cared about more than keeping up appearances.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “I’ll do it.” 

Suddenly the room went oddly quiet. I glanced up and noticed a server had, in fact, entered the room. But it wasn’t the redhead.

It was Grey Blackwood.

The kid from the projects who’d caddied at the country club for years. 

The business student prodigy who’d landed himself a full ride to Yale. 

The guy in my calculus class last semester who’d leaned over and asked to borrow my graphing calculator, and whose unique scent—coffee and limes or some shit—had made my dick move when it had never, ever moved for a guy before.

The gorgeous man I’d low-key been obsessing over every day since then, which accounted for all the times I’d hung out at the country club this summer, hoping to catch a glimpse from afar, and for all the soul-searching I’d been doing about my sexuality.

My heart beat so fast I thought I might faint right there. 

Grey strode over to one of the high-top tables on the far side of an empty pool table and began loading dirty glasses onto a tray. When one of the guys made a crass comment about one of the female servers, Grey’s jaw tightened. I wondered if he felt as uncomfortable here as I did, as frustrated by the pretentious bullshit as I was.

I felt everyone’s eyes on me as I watched Grey focus on his task. As soon as he left the room again, the guys around me burst into noisy chatter all at once. 

“Dude, obviously we meant a chick,” Drake said with a laugh. 

“What?” I asked, still trying to shake off the haze I seemed to get when I was around Grey Blackwood.

Someone slapped the back of Drake’s head. “Don’t be a homophobe. What’s wrong with the dude? It’s just a kiss in the closet, for fuck’s sake. C’mon, York. You got game either way, right?”

Several of the guys hooted and high-fived, but Drake seemed upset about it. “For real, guys. I meant a girl. Obviously.”

Tanner Young rolled his eyes. “You saying there’s something wrong with kissing a guy? Do we need to have a conversation right now?”

Tanner had been out of the closet since our last days of Little League. Or at least it had seemed that way. Drake’s foot was fully in his mouth. He looked at me in slight panic. “Not what I’m saying at all. It’s just—”

“It’s fine,” I said as nonchalantly as possible. Inside, I was a nervous wreck. Somehow, I’d agreed to kiss Grey Blackwood in a closet on a dare? Was I dreaming? “I’ll do it. No big deal.”

Maybe it was the liquor speaking, or maybe it was the bi-curious asshole in my head, who seemed to have taken over my better judgment. Either way, I wasn’t one to shirk a dare, even if I hadn’t known exactly what I was agreeing to. 

Besides, this was like permission from the universe to do the thing I’d been dreaming about for weeks. The perfect excuse had just been handed to me on a silver platter.

Someone asked Kirby, “Isn’t that the scholarship kid who’s going to work for your dad after graduation? They doing charity work now or something?” Several other guys laughed.

“Yeah, dude, but supposedly he’s hella smart,” Kirby said. “Better him than me. I’d rather earn my money the old-fashioned way, you know?”

A chorus of voices sang, “Inheriting it,” before breaking into laughter again.

I ignored them and slid off the stool, barely catching myself before stumbling. Great. If I could find Grey and then find the storage closet, I’d be golden. “Be right back, yeah?” I said, once again trying my hardest to act not-drunk and not-overly-interested in the dare.

Everyone cheered me on and slapped me on the back as I made my way out the open doorway and into the hall. I glanced toward the dining room, hoping like hell Grey wasn’t in the process of serving drinks to my father.

“You lost?”

I whipped my head around in the other direction and saw the man I’d been looking for.

“Yeah, um. No? I mean… no?” Super. This was off to a stellar start.

Grey’s eyebrows lowered. “You okay, man? Need the men’s room?”

I met his eyes. They were fucking gorgeous. Clear blue-green and intense as shit. “Um.” I swallowed. “No. No, I need…”

You. This. Us.

I cleared my throat. “I want…”

He frowned and approached me, reaching out to clasp my elbow. “Come with me. I’ll get you a glass of water.”

Good. That was good.

“Can we… can we go somewhere private?” I asked, forgetting about the guys and thinking only of Grey Blackwood and finding out what it would be like to be alone with him for only a minute. My head spun with images of what it would be like to kiss him, to touch him. Belatedly, I remembered this was his workplace. “I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

He chuckled. “My supervisor’s smoking weed outside. You’re good.”

Within seconds, he’d pulled me down the hallway to a closed door. Once he opened it, I saw the storage room everyone talked about. Shelving reached all the way to the ceiling, and most of it was covered in pristine club hand towels folded into neat stacks. A large ice machine hummed in the corner, and right next to it was an old-fashioned water cooler. 

Grey grabbed a paper water cup shaped like a cone from the stack on top of the water cooler and filled it before handing it to me. I sucked it down greedily, if only to get that godforsaken butterscotch flavor out of my mouth.

“Thanks,” I mumbled before moving forward to refill the cone. I brushed my shoulder against his chest as I stepped past him. Suddenly, the room seemed much smaller than it had before. The scent of coffee and laundry detergent surrounded me, but it was overlaid with the barest hint of apple shampoo.

I turned my head to see if that smell was coming from him, but at the same moment, he turned his head toward me to ask me something. The words died on his tongue as we found ourselves nose-to-nose. From this close, I could see his hair was hundreds of different shades of blond. A hank of it had fallen down over one eyebrow. It made him look vulnerable, unlike the proud man who seemed to have his shit together on the golf course and in class.

“Hi,” I breathed.

“What are you doing?” he asked in a weary voice. The air between us was thick and heavy. If I’d been any more sober, I would have chickened the fuck out and run out with my tail between my legs.

But I wasn’t sober.

“I just… I…”

“Ellison.” He spoke my name like a warning.

“You’re smart as shit,” I said stupidly.

“I know,” he replied, meeting my eyes in challenge.

“Why do you work here with all these rich assholes around you? It’s unbearable.”

His face widened in a reluctant grin. “Spoken by one of the selfsame rich assholes.”

I frowned, and Grey’s eyes followed the movement of my lips. My cock liked that. A lot.

“Why?” I repeated breathlessly.

“Good money, better connections. I want to be an investment banker, and the only way to do it well is to work for one of those rich assholes one day. The men in that room control eighty percent of the country’s investment capital. I want a piece of it.”

“But—”

He cut me off with the barest brush of his lips against mine. It was so light, so nothing, he could have written it off as an accident, but it was enough of a spark to light the whole damned stack of fireworks between us.

I lunged for him with both hands, grabbing his face and smashing my mouth against his. He grunted at the impact, but then Grey’s arms came around to hold me tight while he kissed me back.

He kissed me back.

I could barely breathe. It wasn’t enough. My heart hammered in my chest with something like panic. What if he stopped? What if this all stopped and I couldn’t have it anymore? This awkward, grappling kiss was everything. Everything. And I knew right away it was only the beginning. 

I wanted more. I wanted him. I wanted to be naked and ready for whatever came next. My dick was out of fucking control right now, and I couldn’t even figure out how to go about getting off. I just knew I wanted to get off with him. With Grey.

“Whoa, whoa. Slow down,” he said, pulling back a little. I grabbed his shirt and fisted it to keep him from pulling away. 

“No. Stay,” I begged, not giving a shit how desperate I sounded. “Please.”

He studied my face for a moment before bringing his hand up and running a thumb across my cheek. “Fucking gorgeous,” he murmured before leaning in for another drugging kiss. He pulled back again and met my eyes. “You’re drunk.”

My brain spun with all the things I wanted to do to him, with him. “Let me suck your dick,” I blurted. The words floated fat and weird between us. Finally, he smiled. It was kind and held an uncomfortable amount of pity.

“You don’t want this. You’re just upset. I heard about your girlfriend.”

“Ex-girlfriend,” I corrected. “And I’m not upset. I’m horny. For you.” I let out a little laugh after that since the idea of being horny for this guy, for any guy, was a little crazy. But it was the truth.

His skepticism was clear as day. “You’re bi?” he asked.

“What? No,” I said without thinking.

His lips widened in that same grin, the one that went to my dick but also made me feel a little like an errant child.

“Then I guess we’re done here,” he teased. “Since you’re straight and all.” He deliberately shifted so his hip brushed against my straining cock. The noise that came out of me was embarrassingly desperate.

We continued to stare at each other.

“Please,” I breathed. Apparently, my ability to retain a single shred of dignity was gone. And, honestly, I didn’t much care in this moment. Part of me knew if I didn’t take this one chance to touch him, to experiment with this newfound desire of mine, I’d regret it forever.

“On your knees, then,” he said gruffly, calling my bluff.

I dropped to the ground before he took another breath, before he could change his mind.

His eyes lit up with shock, but I wasn’t sure which one of us was more surprised.

Grey grabbed me under the arms and yanked me up, shoving me against the wall and muttering something about being an idiot and going to hell for sure. My head spun, and my dick throbbed. Before I knew it, he’d opened my pants and fisted my cock.

“Oh fuck,” I said on a gasp. “God, please.”

He dropped to his knees and licked my cock, starting with the tip before slathering the shaft with saliva and then sucking the entire thing into his hot, wet mouth. 

I let out a long groan of disbelief and pleasure. This was… this was unbelievable. Incredible. Mind-fucking-blowing.

I grabbed his hair but tried not to pull. Nessa used to throw a fit if I dared pull her hair. But, god. This… this was so different. He wasn’t hesitant at all. Grey Blackwood knew exactly what he was doing.

I shoved my free hand into my mouth to keep from screaming. The whole thing was over in seconds. The incredible sensations had built and crested before I knew what was happening. I bit into my fist and choked on a scream, horrified at the possibility of drawing attention from the guys awaiting my report. 

This was way, way more than a dare.

And I would never tell a soul about it, no matter how much shit it earned me from Kirby and the other assholes.

I looked in his eyes, desperate to see… something in them. Pleasure? Approval? Satisfaction? But Grey was hard to read. His eyes were intense as hell, but I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

“Your turn,” I said, switching places with him and trying to act way braver than I felt. I wasn’t one for one-sided hookups, but I also didn’t want to humiliate myself in front of him by trying something new.

Sure enough, what came next was horribly humiliating. My fumbling at his belt, his endless patience, the sounds I made when I revealed his dick, the way my hands shook when I reached for it.

I glanced up at him as if asking for permission. The look in his eyes was oddly vulnerable, so unexpectedly exposed that I hesitated a beat before he quickly shuttered it.

“Suck me.”

I leaned in and tasted him, squeezing my eyes closed and trying to ignore the entire room spinning around me. His hand was gentle in my hair, caressing my head softly as if with affection. I hadn’t been expecting that. I’d assumed he’d grab me, control me with a strong, maybe even painful, grip.

But he treated me like brittle glass, as if the mishandling of this moment would result in disaster.

And it did.

“What the actual fuck?”

Everything happened so fast. The open door, the barked questions in multiple masculine voices, the bright light of a camera flash, the snickering laughs and singsong taunts, the feel of Grey’s hand as it brushed against my face before quickly tucking his dick back in his pants and zipping up.

The sound of my father’s stern voice promising to ruin Grey Blackwood for corrupting his son. The sound of Kirby Heath’s father revoking Grey’s job offer. The snickering of my supposed friends calling me the king of dares. The surprised squawk of someone promising Grey was no longer an employee of the Crosbie Golf and Country Club.

And the deafening sound of my drunken, confused self saying nothing at all.