Player!: A Walker Brothers Novel (The Walker Brothers Book 2) Read online

  Player!

  A Walker Brothers Novel

  Copyright 2016 by J.S. Scott

  All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission.

  Cover Design by Stacey Chappell

  ISBN: 978-1-939962-91-1 (E-Book)

  ISBN: 978-1-939962-92-8 (Paperback)

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1 Sebastian

  CHAPTER 2 Paige

  CHAPTER 3 Paige

  CHAPTER 4 Sebastian

  CHAPTER 5 Paige

  CHAPTER 6 Paige

  CHAPTER 7 Sebastian

  CHAPTER 8 Paige

  CHAPTER 9 Paige

  CHAPTER 10 Paige

  CHAPTER 11 Paige

  CHAPTER 12 Sebastian

  CHAPTER 13 Paige

  CHAPTER 14 Paige

  CHAPTER 15 Sebastian

  CHAPTER 16 Paige

  CHAPTER 17 Sebastian

  CHAPTER 18 Paige

  CHAPTER 19 Paige

  CHAPTER 20 Paige

  CHAPTER 21 Paige

  CHAPTER 22 Paige

  CHAPTER 23 Paige

  CHAPTER 24 Sebastian

  EPILOGUE Paige

  CHAPTER 1

  Sebastian

  I knew the moment that we both stepped into the elevator on the ground floor of Walker Enterprises that I wanted her—and I didn’t even know her name.

  It happened just that quickly, my underused dick was as hard as a rock within moments, which hadn’t happened at all in the last year or so.

  And that reaction got my full attention. It was unusual for me. I just wasn’t made that way.

  Okay. Yeah. During my party days it was non-stop drinking, getting high, and hot females who wanted to get laid. I have to admit, I definitely accommodated them back then.

  But things were different for me now. I took my position at Walker Enterprises seriously, and I’d never been so content with my life as I had during the last year.

  I fit.

  I belonged.

  I felt like I was finally in control of my own damn destiny and individual success.

  I had a purpose, and it felt pretty damn good.

  I didn’t need booze. I didn’t need weed. I didn’t need…

  Oh hell, I couldn’t exactly say I didn’t need women anymore, but my desire to forge my place in Walker had far exceeded my desire to get laid.

  Until now. Right now. This woman, this elevator, and this instant hard-on.

  It wasn’t exactly something I wanted right now—but on the question of whether I needed women? My dick was suddenly in control of my brain.

  It was morning, the beginning of the workday, and every elevator was packed. I stepped back into the corner next to her so I could inhale her tantalizing, light floral scent. It was subtle—just like her. But she was a female I noticed the minute I was elbow-to-elbow with the first woman who had stirred any kind of lustful interest from my body since I’d moved to Denver from Texas and joined my brother at Walker.

  Not that she was actually trying to get my attention—or any other male glances for that matter. My senses noticed her, even though she seemed to prefer the exact opposite—being invisible. There was something about the fact that I was the only guy who seemed to recognize that underneath that prim, gray pencil skirt, white blouse, and matching jacket was a female worth watching amused me.

  She was hiding, haunted about something that made her want distance from the world. I should know. I’d been there.

  I sensed that almost immediately. But it didn’t matter. For some reason, I could see right through her camouflage and imagine her naked, writhing in ecstasy as I banged her up against the wall of the elevator.

  And dammit, I was curious to know exactly what secrets she didn’t want anyone to know. She was curvy, but one wouldn’t notice from the way her shapeless jacket covered her breasts and the majority of what I already knew was a shapely ass.

  Her ebony hair was long, thick and sexy as hell. I could tell from the massive bun that formed behind her head. And damn, she was a stunner who needed very little makeup with her creamy, unblemished skin.

  She’d done everything to downplay her physical assets. However, I still seemed to do nothing but fantasize about every single one of them.

  I was blatantly staring at her, but she ignored me completely, clutching her briefcase and looking straight ahead, like she never even knew I was standing right next to her.

  What the hell? Women had always noticed me, regardless of whether or not I wanted the attention.

  Maybe the fact that she didn’t acknowledge my presence was what really had my cock trying to burst through the crotch of my pants. I was operating on a primitive level at the moment, and damned if I didn’t want to give chase and conquer her, make her notice me.

  She was different, and I liked that. Her attention was focused on something far more important to her than anybody who was riding the elevator at the moment.

  What is she thinking about?

  Her behavior certainly had me interested to know where her brain was at right now, because she definitely didn’t seem to be surveying the people around her.

  I get that most people try not to appear like they’re checking out their fellow passengers; it’s something we do covertly. But not her. She was entirely in her own universe.

  I watched as people filtered out every time the elevator stopped while we slowly crawled to the top of the building. The lift halted at every floor as we crept toward the last few stops, which were all executive offices.

  I knew this because my office is on the very top floor.

  Let me be quite honest and admit that it had been a while since a woman had entirely discounted my presence. Especially when they found out that I was Sebastian Walker, co-owner and billionaire partner—along with my brother, Trace—of Walker Enterprises.

  I acknowledged that without conceit. It’s just fact. When a guy has as much money as I do, and hasn’t yet hit the age of thirty, most women looked at me as a potential, eligible male. It’s been happening since I turned eighteen, almost ten years ago.

  However, since I’ve now worked at Walker with my brother, Trace, for nearly a year, most of the females who worked in our main offices here in Denver knew my reputation—or maybe I should say my past behavior. It caused many of them to keep their distance, which was fine with me.

  Honestly, I think the ones who didn’t try to snag me anymore were pretty smart. I wasn’t exactly a relationship type of guy.

  I was a player, the party guy who had never taken work seriously until I had to man up and put my money into this business with Trace. Now that I had bought back into my deceased father’s corporation, I was fully committed, dedicated heart and soul to Walker. Unfortunately, my reputation preceded me, and very few people had yet to figure out that I was now reformed.

  Well…okay…maybe reformed wasn’t exactly the right word to sum up my transformation. I’m still the same rich guy who has never seen poverty, and really doesn’t know what it’s like to be a normal person. But I gave up getting high, and being a professional partier. Hell, I very rarely even had a drink anymore, which makes me downright boring to many women. But I’m too damn busy, which is exactly why I’m really not a player anymore. During the last year or so, not a s
ingle woman has pulled my interest away from business since I’d partnered in Walker with Trace…until today.

  I had to prove myself, carve out my place in the company, but I was good with that. I had a purpose, and it was to be an asset to Walker, and take some of the load off my elder brother, Trace. I also wanted to carve out my own niche in the company and become a valuable asset to the conglomerate. Trace had finally settled down and gotten married to a woman who really loved him. Eva had been the best thing that ever happened to my older sibling, and he deserved to slow his ass down for a while.

  Luckily, I’d also become obsessed with my job, which meant I didn’t miss my days of being high and drunk. Okay. Yeah. Maybe I did miss getting laid more often, but I hadn’t really thought about it until she walked into the same elevator as me this morning. My dick was now in an all-out revolt from lack of use, and I had to loosen the tie on my custom, power suit because the small space was getting warm, even though people were filing out on every floor.

  “Would you mind moving over?” the woman suddenly asked politely, but firmly, as she put an elbow lightly into my ribs.

  Damn! Her voice was just as serious as her old-lady suit. But it was a husky alto that sounded pretty fucking sexy, even if she was shrugging me off.

  Maybe I was a little too close to her—considering we were the last ones left in the lift.

  I moved to the other side of our small space, able to watch her better as I leaned against the opposite wall. “Still going up?”

  “Yes,” she answered brusquely, finally looking over at me with a pair of beautiful blue eyes that were almost completely devoid of emotion, and as cool as a winter’s day in Colorado.

  She didn’t give me flirtatious looks.

  She didn’t appear to check me out.

  If anything, she may have had a brief flash of loathing before she wiped any semblance of emotion from her face.

  Her lack of expression didn’t surprise me. I was fairly certain the look came from plenty of practice.

  There wasn’t a whole lot left above this floor except the executive offices. I had to wonder where she was going. “You work here?”

  She shot me a glance that inferred that I was asking a stupid question. Maybe it was a little ignorant since the whole building belonged to Walker, and she most definitely looked like she was on her way to work.

  “Yes. First day here,” she answered blandly.

  She certainly wasn’t chatty, but I’d already suspected that.

  “Ah. That’s why I don’t know you.” I shot her my most charming smile, one I hadn’t used in quite some time. “Sebastian Walker,” I said politely, and held out my hand.

  For some sad, unknown reason, I wanted her to be impressed that I was one of the two owners of Walker Enterprises.

  She hesitated before she placed her delicate fingers in mine and shook firmly as she replied in a professional tone, “I recognized you from your picture in the lobby. Paige Rutledge. And I’m sure it would be impossible for you to be acquainted with every employee in the building.”

  No, I wasn’t. It actually would be impossible for me to know every soul who worked here at Walker. But I at least knew most of the faces I saw often, which was pretty much the people on the upper floors.

  “You’re somebody’s executive secretary?” Judging by the bland suit and sensible shoes, she looked like a new hire trying to impress her boss.

  She snorted. “Not exactly.”

  I grinned, liking her spunky attitude and mysterious demeanor. My eyes darted to the two floors still lit up on the panel. The top floor was mine. The other had offices right beneath the penthouse floor. “Legal?”

  Hell, she had to be a legal secretary. I hadn’t quite reached my twenty-eighth birthday, and even though she had the composure and style of someone older, she didn’t look a day over twenty-five.

  “Yes,” she confirmed, not adding anything further.

  “Legal secretary.” I nodded, knowing I had to be right. We had an entire floor made up of lawyers and their clerical staff.

  Her eyes met mine, and I was startled by the disapproval in her gaze. Paige moved forward as the elevator stopped on her floor. When the doors swung open, she exited. Without turning around, she answered my question. “Wrong, Mr. Walker. I’m the new attorney,” she answered haughtily, her wool-clad hips swaying slightly as she moved away from the elevator.

  I watched her as she neared her offices until the metal doors slammed shut in front of my face.

  “She never even turned around,” I said to myself in a puzzled tone. “What person does that when they’re in the presence of one of the two top guys in their new company?”

  In truth, I wasn’t pissed off. I was intrigued, and her behavior brought up more questions than answers for me. Paige Rutledge looked focused, determined, and ready to conquer the world. She didn’t think she needed to impress me by fawning all over me. She’d been coolly polite, but definitely disinterested. I hadn’t been the one who had hired her. Dan Hurst, the Chief Council of the company, did his own hiring. Trace and I left the hiring to the department heads unless they were our executives.

  I tried to forget thinking about the strange encounter as my dick started to deflate. Her scent lingered in my memory, but I determinedly tried to switch my mindset to work mode.

  My mood changed as I exited on the floor where Trace and I had our offices. I felt the same burst of energy as I’d been feeling for over a year, every time I walked into the executive suites, my mind shifting to my projects.

  Since I was an engineer by education, and a businessman by nature, I was pretty excited about the alternative energy projects we were beginning to collect and build. Solar and wind energy had always been my passion, and I was finally able to put my skills to work in a big way. Walker hadn’t done much in those progressive fields before I got here, but I was determined to put us over the top in technology and manufacturing. The U.S. was behind other countries on solar, and in my opinion, we should be leading the pack. We had so many untapped resources that would create so many jobs, it seemed almost criminal that we hadn’t developed our technology and taken over as the leader in the industry. Untapped resources that were infinite, and we weren’t leading the way to being energy independent?

  Damn shame.

  But I was going to change all that over time. During the last year, my gut hadn’t steered me wrong, and Walker was slowly becoming even wealthier than it had been a year ago.

  It had taken a lot of investment and trust from my brother and partner to get our alternative energy division moving, and I was determined not to make him regret the changes I’d talked him into. So far, he didn’t.

  I was surprised when I passed Trace’s office and he was already behind his desk. These days, he came in late, probably because he had a loving wife that made him reluctant to get out of bed.

  I didn’t have that particular issue. I shot out of bed every single morning, ready to start another work day. Part of my job was to acquire solar properties for technology, manufacturing, and massive solar farms. Right now, I was planning one of the largest solar operations in the country, but I’d run into a wall on getting the thousands of acres of property I wanted to collect, manufacture, and develop even better technology. This particular company facility required a lot of space in a sunny area, and I had the perfect location. I just needed to convince the buyer to sell at a reasonable price. Problem was, I was pretty sure he knew what I was doing, and he wanted a piece of the future profits.

  Ducking quickly into Trace’s office, I said jokingly, “You’re here already? Eva must have abandoned you early this morning.”

  Trace look up from his computer and grinned sheepishly. “She had an eight o’clock class.”

  Trace’s wife was now in culinary school, and kicking ass. She was already an amazing cook. I could only imagine what she would turn
out once she finished her formal training. “Must have been rough,” I answered with very little sympathy.

  So what if he missed his morning wakeup sex.

  My brother was rarely early to work anymore, and the bastard probably got some action nearly every damn morning. I assumed more than once a day by the sense of humor he’d developed lately. My poor dick hadn’t seen the light of day—other than when I was alone in the shower—for well over a year. I didn’t feel sorry for Trace because he missed out this morning. One morning wasn’t going to kill him. I wanted him to be happy, but damn, it wasn’t like he was deprived.

  “It was rough,” Trace grumbled good-naturedly. “But Eva is loving her courses, so I guess I’ll live.”

  I dropped into a comfortable chair in front of his desk. “I think you’ll make it until tonight.” Jesus! He’d see his woman later today. While I was glad he was in love with the right woman, and I adored Eva, my brother was more than a little obsessed with his wife.

  “How’s the New Mexico project going?” Trace asked as he leaned back in his chair, his dark eyes now focused on me.

  “In a holding pattern. I should get some word today whether or not our offer was accepted.” I was more than a little excited at the thought of getting the property at a reasonable price so we could start building all we had planned for the site.

  Trace shook his head as he locked his hands behind his neck. “I still can’t get over how much you’ve changed. You never told me that you were doing research on alternative energy, or how much you loved solar and wind technology.”

  It wasn’t the first time my older brother had brought up this particular subject. I usually brushed it off. Today, I didn’t. “Hell, I couldn’t spend every hour of the day getting high. I haven’t changed all that much. Yeah, I don’t drink much, and quitting the weed wasn’t all that difficult. I’ve always wanted to know where I belonged. It just took me a while to get here.”

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me about the research you were doing between parties?”

  I shrugged. “Would it have mattered? I was still fucked up.”

  “It would have made a difference to me,” Trace answered emphatically. “We could have figured everything out sooner.”