Cold Vineyard rain falls in a steady grey drizzle, carrying the scent of wet pine, old money, and leather seat polish. I sit in the passenger seat of the black Escalade, watching the Gulfstream G650 taxi through the downpour. Water beads on the plane’s skin, almost as if it’s nervous. Once the wheels are chocked, the handler drives me closer. I step out, snap open a large black umbrella, and open the rear doors. Cold rain touches the back of my neck and slips under my collar.

The handler and flight crew unload the food coolers and luggage. The Wallaces travel light. Eleanor is the first off the plane, clutching her yappy little dog to her chest like a shield. Her eyes scan me the way security checks a room: quick, professional, already deciding if I’m a problem. She gives a curt nod and heads for the car without a word.

Marion Wallace follows. She’s forty-five, surgically perfected, wrapped in a cashmere coat already darkening with rain. Her gaze moves slowly up my body, pausing on my chest before meeting my eyes. I read her instantly: bored, restless, and looking for trouble that could ruin someone’s life. Mine included if I’m careless.

“Pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Wallace,” I say, keeping my tone steady as I help her inside with a firm grip under her elbow. She doesn’t reply, but once she’s in the back seat, I notice her and Eleanor already whispering, their eyes flicking toward me.

Before I can close the door, a lighter voice breaks through the rain.

“Who put this mountain in my way?”

I look down.

Lila Wallace stands there with a devilish, curious expression. Rain glistens on her skin. Twenty-two. Large almond-colored eyes that catch the light like they’re sizing me up for trouble, blonde hair darkening from the rain, oversized grey sweatshirt slipping off one smooth shoulder, tight black leggings clinging to long, thick legs. The fabric stretches across full, heavy tits with no bra underneath — nipples already tight and visible against the cotton. Tiny waist. Voluptuous hips. An ass built to be gripped hard.

She tilts her head, examining me like she’s already decided I’m interesting.

“I bet you’re a wild one,” she says in French, voice subdued and knowing.

I spent enough time in Paris to understand her perfectly. I don’t answer with words. I just wink.

Her cheeks flush instantly, but the smirk she gives me says she’s pleased I understood — and maybe a little surprised I didn’t play dumb.

Her eyes drag up the breadth of my chest, catching the Grim Reaper tattoos showing from under my rolled sleeves, then lock onto my electric blue eyes. A visible shiver runs through her that has nothing to do with the cold. I feel it echo low in my gut.

“The quiet ones are always the most trouble,” she says, flashing an expression that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. There’s a question underneath it, as if she’s testing whether I’m just another one of her father’s employees or someone who might actually push back.

“Lila, get in the car before you catch a chill,” Marion snaps from inside.

Lila doesn’t move for three heavy heartbeats. Rain traces a trail down her collarbone and disappears beneath the slipped sweatshirt.

Then she steps closer and holds out her little hand, palm down. I take it, my much larger one engulfing her slender fingers. She uses the contact to steady herself as she climbs in — but she takes her time. Her fingertips deliberately brush over the rough calluses on my palm and graze the healing cut on my hand.

The touch hits like an electric shock straight to my cock.

Warmth. Rain. And the rich woody-jasmine fragrance of Baccarat Rouge 540 was floating from her wet skin. My cock twitches hard against my jeans. She notices. I see it in the manner her eyes flick downward for half a second before lifting back to mine. Her pink tongue flits over her lower lip.

“Thank you for being a gentleman… Hunter,” she whispers, using my real name as a secret she’s already decided to keep. Her thick hips roll as she settles into the seat, the movement intentional enough that I have to look away before I do something stupid.

“Callahan!”

Donovan Wallace’s voice cuts through the rain like grit under boots. He’s sixty, thick like an old wrestler gone soft around the middle, wearing a vintage 70s-style leather jacket stretched across broad, square shoulders. He looks more like a mob enforcer than a Hollywood producer, the kind of man who’d smile while he ruined you. I met him with the umbrella held high, rain beating on the fabric.

“My boy,” he says, craning his neck to look up at me. “Bryan wasn’t kidding about the security standards. You’ll do.” He claps me on the upper arm like we’re already old friends. These are the ones you watch, the too-friendly ones. Glad-handing can be a warning sign dressed up as charm.

I get him into the car, then switch with the handler and take the wheel. We crawl through traffic, leaving the small airport. I keep my mouth shut and my focus on the road.

Rule one: observe.

Donovan cleans his glasses with a handkerchief that has his initials on it. The three women are talking in the back. Eleanor keeps glancing at me in the rearview mirror, trying to figure me out. Lila has shifted to the middle seat and is watching me as well.

She laughed with her mother in the backseat, but whenever their conversation paused, her smile faded a little too quickly. I noticed it in the rearview mirror. She was putting on an act. I wondered who it was for.

Marion’s cold stare is harder to understand. Maybe she already dislikes me, or maybe she’s playing a game I haven’t figured out yet.

“Hunter,” Eleanor says in that condescending tone. “Curious name. Is it real?”

“Yes.”

“Did you grow up on the island?”

“I did.”

“Sounds like an island name. What did you do before this?”

I already interviewed for this job. Now I’m on stage with a live audience. I feel the air thicken. In the rearview, three pairs of eyes watch me. Lila’s stare is the most intense, as if she’s trying to pick a lock inside my head.

“Consulting,” I answer calmly.

Donovan chuckles next to me. “You’ve done more than that from what I’ve heard.”

I tense. This must be what he was alluding to on the phone yesterday.

“What do you mean, sir?”

He laughs to himself like he already knows the punchline.

“You don’t remember? Sid Lawrence.”

The name lands like a rock in my gut.

Sid Lawrence. Movie producer. Got caught with coke and pictures of him being pegged by some gimp in full latex. I was the one who took those photos. For his wife.

Lila leans forward between the front seats, her breath soft against my ear, carrying expensive perfume and something sweeter underneath. She doesn’t ask what happened. She already knows. Of course she does. This world is her arena.

“What did you do, Hunter?” she murmurs, voice subdued and teasing. “Were you the one wrapped in latex?”

She giggles. Eleanor joins in. Marion stays silent, watching my reaction like she’s taking notes.

“I was Charlie Hudson’s stuntman on Sid’s last picture,” I say evenly.

“Before his wife took everything in the divorce.”

Lila’s body shifts closer. Her breast touches my shoulder as she leans in.

“Wow. A real stuntman,” she says, her voice sinking into something nearly intimate. “I like men who take risks.”

There’s a flash in her eyes, half challenge and half surprise, when my jaw tightens and my grip on the wheel goes white-knuckled. It’s like she just realized the mountain she’s poking might actually push back.

She recovers instantly, flashing that devilish smile again, but I catch the quick swallow, the slight quickening of her breath. Good. She should be a little scared.

“Why did you leave the business?” Eleanor asks.

“It was time.”

Lila’s voice cuts in again. “Daddy, can Hunter drop me at the pool before you all go to the main house?”

“Even in this weather?” he asks. She looks tired.

“Yes! Days like today are perfect for the hot tub.” Her voice drops, meant only for me. “Don’t you agree, Hunter?”

I grip the wheel tighter. Kristen was right about Lila loving the hot tub. Good thing I made sure there was nothing left floating in it from last night.

We reach the gated property. I stop at the pool area and step out into the rain again. Eleanor and Lila exit with me.

“Would you mind taking the cooler bags to the kitchen, Hunter?” Eleanor says. “I want to check the pool bar.”

“I stocked everything as requested.”

She gives me a low-lidded look. “I’m sure you did.”

I watch Lila walk toward the covered pool area in the side mirror, hips rolling with that natural sway that makes the leggings look painted on.

But that earlier trace of exhaustion in her eyes stays with me. She’s not just testing boundaries. She’s carrying something heavier.

Back at the main house, I kill the engine.

“We’re here.”

I hop out and open the doors. Donovan grunts approval as he climbs out. Marion gives me one final lingering look, the kind that promises complications if I’m ever stupid enough to take the bait.

But my mind is already on Lila.

A peach with a hard core. Clearly testing how far she can push before something breaks.

The kind of variable that could crack my carefully built cover wide open.

And something in her eyes told me she knows it.

And might just enjoy watching it happen.

Some nights the rain feels like it’s washing away every good intention you ever had.

I came here to stay invisible.

Instead, I’ve got Lila Wallace looking at me like I’m the most interesting thing she’s seen in years… and I’m already fighting the urge to give her exactly what that look is asking for.

If you want the real version of what happens when I reach the pool house — when the rain is pouring down, the hot tub is steaming, and Lila decides clothes are optional — you’ll find it on Patreon.

This one gets filthy.

You’ll hear every wet sound, every teasing whisper, every time her confident little smirk falters the second she realizes just how intense I can get. And the best part?

You don’t just read it.

You download it.

My voice — low, rough, gravel-and-whiskey — reading every dirty word straight into your ears. Keep the file forever. Listen to it again and again. In bed. In the dark. Whenever you want to feel exactly how dangerous this is about to get between me and the boss’s daughter.

The full uncensored hot tub scene is waiting.

See you inside,

~ Hunter

https://www.patreon.com/MythicInkAudio