ARROGANT BASTARD Read online

  COPYRIGHT 2015 WINTER RENSHAW

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission from the publisher or author. If you are reading this book and you have not purchased it or received an advanced copy directly from the author, this book has been pirated.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or, if an actual place, are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  COVER DESIGN—Louisa Maggio, LM Creations

  PROOF READING—Wyrmwood Editing

  DEDICATION

  For my husband. This book would not have been possible without you. Thanks for putting up with a bright laptop screen in your bed until 2am, even on your work nights.

  xoxo

  -W

  OTHER BOOKS BY WINTER RENSHAW

  Never Kiss a Stranger (Never Series #1)

  Never Is a Promise (Never Series #2)

  Never Say Never (Never Series #3)

  Arrogant Master—Coming Soon!

  Dark Paradise—Coming Fall 2015!

  DESCRIPTION

  The last time my father beat me to a bloody pulp was the night he walked in on me banging my step-mother in his bed.

  To be fair, she seduced me. And to be honest, I liked it. But to CPS, I was a victim.

  They shipped me to Utah where my estranged mother lived with her husband and two sister-wives. And that’s when I met her. My innocent, wholesome, perfect step-sister. Well, one of many. But Waverly stood out because just like me, we’d been fighting a losing battle our entire lives.

  Falling for her was a mistake, but shit, it’s not like I ever made good decisions.

  Fuck being “family.” I must have Waverly Miller, and I won’t stop until she’s mine.

  LETTER FROM THE AUTHOR

  Dear Readers,

  Although this book deals with modern polygamy (think Big Love or Sister Wives) and mentions certain polygamous subsets of the Mormon religion, it is intended to be read purely for entertainment. None of the opinions or details mentioned in this book, in regards to any mentioned religious groups, are meant to be offensive, attacking, or controversial. This is, after all, a work of fiction.

  So sit back, relax, and step foot inside the modern polygamous world I’ve created. ;-)

  xoxo,

  Winter

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE - JENSEN

  ONE - JENSEN

  TWO - WAVERLY

  THREE - JENSEN

  FOUR - WAVERLY

  FIVE - JENSEN

  SIX - WAVERLY

  SEVEN - JENSEN

  EIGHT - WAVERLY

  NINE - JENSEN

  TEN - WAVERLY

  ELEVEN - JENSEN

  TWELVE - WAVERLY

  THIRTEEN - JENSEN

  FOURTEEN - WAVERLY

  FIFTEEN - JENSEN

  SIXTEEN - WAVERLY

  SEVENTEEN - JENSON

  EIGHTEEN - WAVERLY

  NINETEEN - JENSEN

  TWENTY - WAVERLY

  TWENTY-ONE - JENSEN

  TWENTY-TWO - WAVERLY

  TWENTY-THREE - JENSEN

  TWENTY-FOUR - JENSEN

  TWENTY-FIVE - WAVERLY

  TWENTY-SIX - JENSEN

  TWENTY-SEVEN - WAVERLY

  TWENTY-EIGHT - JENSEN

  TWENTY-NINE - WAVERLY

  THIRTY - JENSEN

  THIRTY-ONE - WAVERLY

  THIRTY-TWO - JENSEN

  EPILOGUE - WAVERLY

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  COMING SOON

  PROLOGUE

  Two days ago

  It was a dirty job, but somebody had to do it.

  “Oh, my God, Jensen.” My stepmother moaned as she wrapped her long legs around my hips. She tangled her fingers in the dark mess of hair that covered my head as she gripped a fistful of the sheets that wrapped my parents’ marital bed in the other hand. “Don’t stop, don’t stop, yes, yes, oh, yeah…”

  I pushed my cock deep inside her, each deliberate thrust making her moan louder than the one before. It was never about the sex for me.

  This one’s for the black eye he gave me after I disagreed with his sermon.

  This one’s for the busted lip he said I earned after he caught me flirting with a girl at a church supper.

  This one’s for all the times he told me how worthless I was, and for every time he reminded me that the day I was born was the worst day of his life.

  The muscles of her thirty-eight-year-old pussy clenched around my throbbing cock, coaxing me closer to the edge with each buck of our hips on that glorious Saturday morning in May. I stared at the wall behind the headboard. A gold cross hung strong and unapologetic. In an ironic twist of fate, my father had run out to counsel a couple at the church. They were having marital problems.

  “He’s going to be home soon, Juliette,” I whispered, urging her to hurry up and come. I twisted my fingers around the pearl necklace she wore on Sunday mornings as she did her due diligence as the preacher’s wife. With a smile as fake as his wife’s tits, my father pretended not to care when people checked her out. I was certain he loved the fact that even her Sunday best didn’t do a damn thing to hide her hourglass curves.

  Juliette tended to take her time when we fucked, enjoying each and every second of being devoured by the one person she wasn’t supposed to. She was all kinds of fucked up. My father always claimed he’d found her outside of a strip club, then he helped her to “find God,” which was code for brainwashing her into believing everything that came out of his mouth while keeping her under his thumb.

  For a man of the cloth, his heart was the blackest of blacks, tarnished by years of lies, self-loathing, and hypocrisy.

  “I wish we could do this all day long,” she breathed, her face twisted in ecstasy. She bit her lip, which I’d learned early on was her way of signaling she was ready for me to blow my load inside her. Juliette always loved it when we came at the same time. She said it was the only time she ever felt connected to another human being.

  “Fuuuuuuuck,” I groaned.

  An explosion of hot cum caused a ripple through my body so intense I couldn’t see straight. And the last thing I remembered before what would be the very the last time I ever came inside my stepmother, was the way he said my name.

  “Jensen.” His voice embodied the throaty, animalistic warning of a lion about to annihilate his prey.

  Juliette scrambled beneath me, pushing me off her as a look of fear in her eyes clashed with the orgasmic flush that colored her cheeks. We’d imagined this scenario a hundred times before, but talking about it was different than playing it out in real life. It was a lot funnier in our minds, probably because he was such an asshole. Maybe I deserved some of it, but she sure as fuck didn’t.

  And if fucking her emotionally depraved stepson made her feel better about her pathetic little puppy-on-a-leash life, than who was I to judge? She was hot as sin and scarcely old enough to be my mother. I had no problem plunging my cock inside her on a weekly basis. I’d been doing it since the year I got my driver’s license.

  Juliette had been moaning my name for the last thirty minutes, but now all she could scream was, “No, no, no, no!”

  I didn’t realize I was within an inch of my life until my father’s fingers curled around my neck. I couldn’t breathe. He slammed my back against the wall. I was naked. I didn’t remember being pulled off the bed, bu
t all of a sudden I was on the other side of the room, face-to-face with the man who’d brought me into this world. He was two seconds from ripping my balls off and shoving them down my throat.

  How long had he been watching us?

  “You arrogant little bastard!” he seethed, his nostrils flaring as venomous spit accompanied his words.

  I couldn’t breathe, but damn if my lips didn’t twist into a smile. He called me “little.” I towered over that son of a bitch, and he knew it. Plus, according to my stepmother, height wasn’t the only way in which I outsized my father.

  He clenched his hand harder around my throat, pressing against my windpipe as I gasped for air. Within seconds the room began to darken, and Juliette’s hysterical shrieks echoed off the walls.

  “Josiah, stop! You’re going to kill him!”

  CHAPTER 1

  The social worker’s state-owned Suburban pulls to a gentle stop, waking me from my Codeine-induced, six-hour nap. I wipe the drool from my mouth and glance out the window. My eyes are still black and blue and they hurt when I squint, but I’ve learned over the years to ignore the pain; eventually, it goes away.

  “We’re here, Jensen.” Her voice is annoyingly soft and sweet like cotton candy. Judging by all the photos on her work desk, she is one of those Mother Teresa types, only she’s married and she and her husband have adopted a whole orphanage-worth of system children. Brad and Angelina would be proud. Guess they didn’t have room for me. “Is that your mother?”

  Standing on the front steps of a picturesque yellow colonial is a woman who resembles my mother. She’s wearing jeans and a blue sweater, and her hair is long and pulled back. It’s still the same shade of shit-brown I vaguely remember.

  “Come on,” the social worker coaxes me with her voice, like it’s some kind of magical lullaby. It probably works on little kids, but not grown-ass eighteen-year-olds. “She’s excited to see you.”

  Bull-fucking-shit.

  I sit up, raking my hand through my dark hair and combing it into place. I don’t know much about my mother besides the fact that she left my father when I was seven, and she never came back for me. Dad told me all sorts of salacious stories, none of which I fully believed. None of what he said mattered, anyway. Her actions spoke for her.

  The social worker—who I think is named Mercy, or some shit like that—climbs out of the Suburban and waddles to my side, pulling open the door until I melt out like liquefied boredom.

  I glance up at my mom again. Her hands are clasped at her waist, and her mouth keeps dancing into a reserved smile, which fades and reappears like it’s on some kind of loop. She’s nervous. I just want to get this whole awkward reintroduction thing over with, be shown to my new room, and walk a straight line for the next few months.

  Then my life can finally fucking start.

  I just need to graduate from high school in a few weeks and crash here for the summer, and then there’s an apprenticeship waiting for me in Los Angeles with one of the best tattoo artists in the world. He called me himself the day he received my unsolicited drawings and told me there’s a spot for me in his shop this August.

  I amble up the sidewalk, the earth a little unsteady from my Codeine-stupor, and approach my mother for the first time in eleven years.

  “Hi, Kath,” Mercy says to her. They shake hands like they’re conducting a business deal and my mother gingerly approaches me. At least she’s willing to meet me in the middle, because this is awkward as hell.

  “Jensen.” She stares at me like she’s looking at a goddamned ghost. Her trembling hand rises to my cheek and grazes the spot where my father’s gaudy wedding ring cut into my flesh during the last beating. Kath pulls her hand back quickly and covers her mouth. Her eyes well.

  She cares.

  I think.

  “Oh, my goodness. That man is a monster.”

  “Shall we head inside?” Mercy eyes the front door and Kath scans around like someone’s watching. “It’s standard procedure. I just need to ask a few questions, make sure Jensen has his own room, gets acclimated, and then we’ll sign a few things and I’ll be out of your hair for the foreseeable future.”

  Kath releases a breath and nods. I’m willing to bet living with my father from age eighteen to twenty-five made her submissive and agreeable.

  We head inside where two tow-headed kids are zoned out to public television cartoons. They sit cross-legged in front of a small flat screen in the living room. The walls are decorated with crocheted art knitted into sayings like “Bless This House” and “Home Sweet Home.” Not a speck of dust resides on the floors, and judging by the lack of clutter, there’s an OCD-grade cleanliness thing going on—it’s almost the exact same way Juliette kept our house in Arizona.

  Must be another one of my father’s persuasions.

  “Welcome to our—my—home.” Kath’s words are robotic and carefully chosen, tinted with a slight tremor.

  What the fuck is she so scared of?

  It’s dusk now, and the curtain-covered windows let in little light. Maybe in the shadows I remind her of my father. I can only imagine the horrible shit she had to endure. I could cut her some slack.

  But then I remember she left me there to be raised by that monster and never looked back.

  She saved herself from a lifetime of hell and no one else. She deserves no slack.

  The three of us head toward the family room. Kath grabs a remote and turns down the volume on the cartoons. The white-haired Children of the Corn turn around with wide, brown eyes and slink up to the sofa next to her. Their stares freak me out. They look damn near identical, but one’s clearly a girl and the other a boy.

  “Gretchen, Gideon,” Kath says, slipping her arms behind their backs, “this is your big brother, Jensen. Can you say hello to him before you go wash up for bed?”

  The kids say nothing. They’re small. Maybe five or six. Kath titters, twisting the gold cross around her neck. I don’t give a fuck. They don’t have to say hi. The girl can’t stop staring at my swollen eyes. I imagine I look scary as hell.

  “It’s all right.” I’d wink, but I can’t.

  Mercy and Kath make some kind of small talk. I tune them out, scanning my perimeter. This is my new home. There are doilies on the backs of the armchairs and a big, oak table in the dining room. I count twelve chairs. Why the fuck would she need twelve chairs?

  “Shall we go see Jensen’s room?” Mercy stands up, clutching her clipboard and clicking her pen.

  “Well,” Kath says. Her gaze shifts from mine to Mercy’s and back. “This was all short notice… a-and while it’s certainly a wonderful blessing… we… I’m not quite prepared…”

  Mercy nods. “Understandable. Does he have a bed? A place to sleep?”

  Kath leads us down a hall and up a set of stairs to the second level. “There’s an extra bed in Gideon’s room he can use for now… until we figure things out.”

  I don’t want to bunk with a six-year-old, but Mercy doesn’t pry, and it’s not like I have a choice.

  I check my reflection in a nearby mirror, cringing, and grip the railing as we file upstairs. A moment later, we’re standing in the middle of a kindergartener’s room, complete with dinosaur wallpaper and glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. Two twin beds rest opposite one another: one outfitted with dinosaur bedding and the other with a white comforter and a single, flat pillow. I assume that one’s for me.

  “I always wanted a room like this,” I say, monotone. It’s a dig at Kath, reminding her of the childhood I never had, but I don’t think she picks up on it. She’s flighty and oblivious, like a hummingbird. I wonder if my father made her that way.

  Mercy laughs. “This will do fine for now. This okay with you, Jensen?”

  I offer a tightlipped nod, favoring the side of me that doesn’t currently have a row of bruised ribs.

  The second we leave Dinosaurland, Kath points me toward a hall bathroom and shows me how the light switch is on the outside of the door, and th
en she mentions the linen closet is at the end of the hall. When we’re all downstairs again, Kath and Mercy linger at the door, talking like old friends. I’ve known Mercy a whopping twenty-four hours, but I’ve seen how she’s good with people like that. She has a way of making anyone comfortable, and I suppose that’s why she does what she does.

  Mercy, with her cotton-candy voice, chubby mom hands, and warm smile, reminds me not everyone is filled with darkness.

  “I better get going,” she says before sighing, as if she regrets having to leave. The smallest sliver of me doesn’t want her to go because now shit’s about to get real.

  Real awkward.

  “Feelings make you weak, boy.” My father’s words echo in my head. He raised me on toughened quotes mixed with scripture, which he conveniently twisted and turned to suit his lectures.

  Kath shows Mercy out and shuts the door. She turns and our eyes meet. The two kids have disappeared upstairs. It’s just us. No social worker. No bullshit niceties required. I expect her to let her guard down and morph into someone else entirely, but she doesn’t. She stands there, shifting from one foot to the other, her fingers intertwined like she’s knitting a goddamned sweater with her hands.

  “I remind you of him, don’t I?” I place a hand on my hip and cock my head, studying a face that hardly resembles mine. Her features are soft and bland, not hard and angled like Josiah’s and mine. Josiah’s hair is as dark as his heart, and I take after him in that regard as well. We’re built of muscle and brute, though I’m bigger than him. We wear our strength like a second skin.

  She brushes past me, heading toward the kitchen where she fills a teakettle with water and nestles it on the stove.

  “Tea?” she asks. She must want to talk. I’m not in the mood to hear her bullshit excuses as to why she abandoned me and walked away from her own flesh and blood. I’m not interested in hearing how sorry she is.