Break Me: A Stepbrother Romance (10 page)

“Yeah,” I said as she squirmed lower, lower. “Nice girls aren’t supposed to do this stuff, you know? I think I might be concerned.”

“Too bad. I’m not sorry,” she said. She ran her tongue down my cock, then pressed her face between my legs and licked my balls, sucking them into her mouth. She told me they tasted salty.

I didn’t remember much after that. The conversation stopped, though. It turns out you can’t argue with a woman who has sucked your balls into her mouth. You learn something new every day.

That’s how it was, with her and me. Edgy and hot and dark and painful and perfect. Fucking perfect.

Until it ended in fire, as I’d always known it would.

S
ummer

I
didn’t feel
like myself anymore. During that wild, crazy week that my dad was away, something happened—something irreversible. It felt like I had jumped off the edge of a cliff and was falling, without knowing where I would land for the first time in my life. And I liked it.

It wasn’t just the sex. God, the sex… Okay, it was partly the sex.

But as wild and incredible as those long nights were, I didn’t
just
have sex that week. I also lived my life, and it felt different. I stopped taking any shit from my suppliers. I took a drive around a few of Terre Mills’ downtown neighborhoods, thinking about finding a better space to rent for my store. I went through the books and reconsidered my marketing plan. And I dropped by the local community college and picked up a stack of course calendars, perusing them during the quiet moments when there were no customers in the shop. Thinking about what courses I might like to take.

I liked to think that I would have done all of those things without Bram—without the way he somehow made me feel like a queen, even when he was holding me down and growling dirty things in my ear. I wasn’t doing it to please him, since I didn’t even tell him about most of it. It wasn’t about getting his approval. It somehow had to do with the fact that I already
had
his approval, and just knowing that changed me.

“We should tell Dad,” I said to Bram on the last night. “When he gets home. We should tell him.”

“Tell him what?” Bram said. We were in my bed, cooling off. He’d just fucked me for the first time that night—that first orgasm that took the edge off. I had pulled on his t-shirt—which came halfway down my thighs and smelled deliciously, overwhelmingly of him—and was sitting cross-legged. Bram was naked, propped against the headboard, his big body relaxed, the sheet pooled low on his waist. I let my eyes travel the tasty line of hair that led from his taut stomach down beneath the covers.

“About us,” I said. “He’s going to figure it out sooner or later, don’t you think?”

Bram raised his hands and locked them behind his head, thinking. His gaze was far away, and he had no idea that the posture made me light-headed, watching the flex of his arms. “Maybe,” he said. “But you need to think about whether there is an
us.
”

I hadn’t thought about it. “Well, obviously there’s… something,” I said, motioning to him and me, naked on the bed we’d just messed up when we nearly attacked each other. “I think that’s kind of obvious.”

“Yeah, but what is it exactly?” Bram said. “You’re Nate’s daughter. He’s going to want to know. He’s been good to me, but there’s a difference between being nice to a guy and choosing an ex-con for your daughter.”

I looked at him in surprise. I thought that Bram and my dad got along pretty well. “You think Dad is going to kill you?”

“I would if I were him,” Bram replied.

I sighed. “Look, Bram, just relax. I’m not talking about dragging you down the aisle. I’m just saying we should come clean.”

“So you’re gonna go to your dad and say, ‘Hey, Dad, just thought you should know, Bram is fucking me like crazy every night?’” He cocked an eyebrow at me.

I unfolded one of my legs from beneath the t-shirt and kicked him gently. “You really don’t know anything about having parents, do you? No, I won’t say that. I’ll say that we’re dating, that’s all.”

“Dating?” He dropped his arms from behind his head and stared at me. “You can’t say that.”

“Why not?”

“Because then we’ll have to start dating.”

“Would that be so bad?” He was starting to make me angry. “I’m not a total bore, you know. People
have
gone on dates with me and enjoyed themselves.” Or so they’d said.

Bram’s voice lowered, and I knew he was getting angry, too. “I didn’t say that. Don’t put words in my mouth.”

“Fine, then. What’s the problem?”

He actually looked worried. “Summer, I just got out of six years in prison. I have no fucking clue how to take a woman on a date.”

“Oh. Well, what you usually do is go out to dinner. You sit across from each other and eat a meal. That’s about it.” I shrugged. “See?”

“Be serious. Can you see me in a fancy restaurant?”

I couldn’t, and I didn’t want to. I had a quick flash of Bram at the wedding of his mother and my dad, wearing a suit. He’d looked insanely hot in it, but he’d also looked miserable. He was a t-shirt and jeans kind of guy. “It doesn’t have to be a fancy restaurant. We can go somewhere casual. Like, for Chinese.”

He was getting angrier. “What kind of guy takes a woman out for Chinese as a date? That’s shitty. See? I’m already failing at this, and we haven’t even had a date yet.”

I rubbed my forehead. He was being an ass—I didn’t care about Chinese—but he genuinely thought he would fuck it up if we went on a date. I had to remember that he’d only rejoined the world a few weeks ago, and it couldn’t exactly be easy for him. “We went to breakfast that time,” I said. “Remember? That was easy. It could just be like that.”

“That doesn’t count,” he argued. “That was breakfast after we fucked. Totally different.”

“Then we can fuck first, and go out to dinner afterward,” I said. “How’s that?”

He stared at me, his dark eyes blazing into me, and realized I’d surprised him so completely that he wasn’t sure if I was making fun of him. “Are you serious?”

“Of course I am,” I said. I was. If I had to sit across from Bram over dinner, I’d want to fuck him anyway. I always did. Including right now. “There’s no rule about what order we do things in, you know. We can do whatever we want.”

His gaze didn’t leave me, but his expression slowly went hot. “You know,” he said, “You’re weird for a chick, Summer, but I like it. I think that might be the best offer any guy has ever had in the history of the world.”

I started to laugh. It was true. Only Bram had the ability to turn me in circles, make me angry, call me weird, and somehow end up getting laid. It was like his superpower. His sex superpower.

“So I fuck you, and then we have dinner,” he said, pushing the sheet down and coming toward me over the bed. “That’s the deal?”

I ran my gaze down that insanely gorgeous cock of his, my heart pounding. “Does that mean you’re taking me up on it?”

“No.” He grabbed my waist in his big hands and pressed me down on my back, pushing his t-shirt up and opening my legs. His dark gaze dropped to my pussy, open to him and starting to throb. “I’m going to do this first, and then we’ll make grilled cheese sandwiches. We’re not dating, Summer. We’re not leaving this apartment until we have to.”

I dropped my head back. I was lying over the edge of the bed, and when I let my head fall I could see nothing but my bedroom wall. I felt his breath on my pussy, and I pressed upward until he stroked me open and put his tongue on me. “Okay,” I panted.

But when my dad came home and sanity returned, I realized Bram was at least partly right. What, exactly, were we doing? What did I
want
us to be doing? Did I want us to be a couple? Did I want that with anyone? Did he? Maybe he’d been trying to tell me that he didn’t want a relationship right now. Maybe he’d just needed to get laid after six years, and he wasn’t capable of more than sex. Maybe he
was
capable of more, but the idea terrified him. Or maybe it was me that wasn’t capable of more.

Why did everything have to be so complicated?

Though Dad’s week away was supposed to relax him, it didn’t seem to work. He looked just as haggard and tired as he had before he left. I felt sure he was hiding something from me, and a nagging worry started in the back of my mind over his health. What if there was something wrong with him that he didn’t want to tell me about? I couldn’t face life without my dad. I couldn’t.

The idea stuck in my mind so much that I left the shop one day and paid an unscheduled visit to the body shop. I thought maybe I’d get Dad alone and question him, but when I got to the shop, Dad wasn’t there. But as I stood in the empty glassed-in office, feeling unsatisfied, Bram came to the door, wiping his hands on a rag.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

I decided not to beat around the bush. “I’m worried about Dad,” I said. “Aren’t you?”

He seemed to take a moment to decide how to react, but then he nodded his head. “Yeah.”

“The week away didn’t help,” I said. “He’s worse than ever. His leg doesn’t seem to be healing.”

“I’ve been taking him to the doctor on schedule,” Bram said.

“I know.” The idea that I’d ever thought Bram unreliable seemed like a long-ago argument in a distant universe. “But he’s hiding something from me. And don’t tell me he isn’t, because I know he is.” I looked at the guarded expression on Bram’s face and said, “What is it? What do you know that I don’t?”

He sighed. “Not much. But that confession to get me out of the police station was just for show. Nate doesn’t gamble his money on the races any more than you do.”

I ran my fingers through my hair. “I never thought that explanation made any sense. Dad has his faults maybe, but he’s never been a gambler in his life. So where the hell did that money go? Did he tell you?”

“No. But I’m starting to think it has something to do with Evan Tanner.”

It took a minute for the name to sink into my memory. “Wait a minute. Evan Tanner, Mayor Rob Tanner’s son?”

“He was just here half an hour ago,” Bram said. “I’ve seen him in the shop a few times. Nate left just after he did, and he looked upset.”

I remembered back to the night I’d had dinner at my dad’s house with Bram. Dad and me sitting on the couch, watching the news on TV. Dad saying,
That kid is into some terrible things. If you see him, Summer, don’t go near him. His father is a crook, too.
“You can’t mean…” I dropped into the office chair, my legs going weak, and put a hand to my mouth. “You don’t think Dad is into something with Evan Tanner, do you? Something that could get him in trouble?” Just the idea made my hand tremble. Dad had been on the straight path for over twenty years. What would make him risk everything now?

Bram’s gaze went dark. “I don’t know, Summer. I don’t know what’s going on. But I’m going to find out.”

I tried to get a grip. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to question him. Tonight. And he’s not getting away until he tells me what I want to know.”

I nodded. If Dad was into something, I would help him deal with it. We could handle whatever it was as long as it was out in the open. “I’ll come over.”

“No,” Bram said. “If he’s into some shit, he isn’t going to want to admit it to you. He’ll be more likely to admit it to me.”

Because I’m a fellow ex-con.
Bram didn’t say the words, but they hung in the air between us. It had been a week since we’d had the conversation about confessing to my dad, and neither of us had done it. I looked at Bram, taking in his unshaven jaw and his gorgeous mouth, his strong, tattooed body beneath his shirt. He was watching me steadily. We’d both had the opportunity to tell my dad everything about us, and we hadn’t. Because he was an ex-con, and I wasn’t? Was that why we didn’t want to go public? Because there was no way it would work?

“Do you think…” I swallowed, forced the words out. “Do you think that if Dad is into… something… that you can help him get out of it?”

His gaze went hard and bitter. “Because I know so many criminals from being in prison, is that it? Because I know how the criminal underworld works?”

“I didn’t mean that,” I said. “I just mean that you understand his position better than anyone. You understand what the risk is, of getting caught. Of going back.”

“Sure.” His face was still hard, cynical as he looked at me. “Sure I do. I understand completely.”

“Bram.” I was hurting him somehow, and I didn’t know how. “I’m just trying—”

“You know what the cops told me?” he said. He was cold as ice now, the man who had kissed me and teased me in the darkness of my bedroom long gone. “He told me that no matter what I do for the rest of my life, I’m fucked. That sooner or later, I’m going to lose. That it’s inevitable.” He stuffed the rag in his pocket and put his hand on the doorframe. “I’m starting to see that he was right. I think maybe I’ve always seen it. I think maybe every con who gets out sees the same thing.”

I stared at him, silent, tears stinging the backs of my eyes.

“You should go back to your shop,” he said to me. “Let me take care of Nate. This has nothing to do with you, Summer. It never has. You have a good life. You should stay as far away as possible from the mess we’ve made of everything. Because sooner or later, one of us is going to end up back inside.”

He turned and left, and I didn’t say anything. I was too shocked and too upset. But later, I regretted that. I really wished I’d said something to Bram before he’d walked away from me.

I wished I’d at least had the chance to say goodbye.

B
ram

N
ate didn’t come back
to the shop that afternoon. I locked up and set the alarm, then went back to the house to wait for him. I tried eating something, but could manage only toast and orange juice. I tried turning the TV on, but turned it off again in disgust after five minutes. I ended up pacing the house, wondering where the hell Nate was.

By nine o’clock, I was starting to worry. I tried Nate’s cell phone for the tenth time, but got nothing. His phone was off.

I was standing at the front window, looking out over the darkened front yard, when it crossed my mind to go back to the body shop. If for some reason Nate didn’t want to come home, I knew that was where he’d go. The more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that I was in the wrong place. I needed to get to the shop.

There was one light on when I pulled into the shop’s parking lot, and Nate’s pickup truck—borrowed from a buddy because it had an automatic transmission, which he could drive with one leg in a cast—was there. But the sight didn’t make me feel any relief. Instead, I felt even more tense, as if something had happened. I’d wasted too much time at the house. I should have stayed here all along.

I strode through the front door and found the alarm had been disabled. The shop’s single light was coming from the back office, the desk lamplight shining through the glass half-walls.

“Nate?” I called.

There was no answer. I nearly ran through the deserted shop to the office. I stopped in the doorway.

Nate was behind the desk, on the floor. His nose was broken, and someone had hit him so hard he’d split the skin on his cheekbone. His eyes were half-open and he was breathing shallowly. He gave a low moan when he heard me. Above him, the office safe stood open, the inside empty.

“
Fuck!
” I shouted. I flung the office chair aside and dropped to the floor next to Nate. “Nate. What happened? I’m calling an ambulance.”

“Bram,” Nate managed to say through his bloodied mouth. “Bram. It’s all right. I’ll be fine.”

“You won’t be fine, you old shit,” I said. I was so panicked I had to insult him. I fumbled for the phone from my pocket and dropped it in a smear of his blood on the floor. “Who did this to you? Who?”

“No police,” Nate said. He reached up and tried to swat the phone from my hand. “I can’t. He said he’d go after Summer.”

At the mention of Summer’s name, I went cold. “Who said that?” I said, but I had the feeling I already knew the answer. “Evan Tanner? He took your money and threatened Summer if you call the police? Is that it?”

Nate closed his eyes for a minute. “I should have told you from the first,” he said. “I didn’t want to get you involved. Tanner… He says he has evidence that we’ve been running stolen cars through the body shop. We haven’t. But he says he has proof he can take to the police anytime, unless I do what he says.”

I had picked up my phone again, but I stared at him, dumbstruck. “He’s been
blackmailing
you?” I said. “Is that what all of this has been about? The missing money, the safe going empty? You lying about being a gambler? He’s been squeezing you for money?”

“I have a record, Bram,” Nate said. He was shaking a little. “You know how it is. Tanner is the mayor’s son. One word from him to the chief of police, and it’s over for me. You think I’d win when it’s his word against mine? I’d go back inside. It would be the end of the shop, my life with Summer. Everything.”

I stared at him, and inside me a black rage awoke, something so big and so angry that it was nearly terrifying. That rich punk kid had been threatening this man—this good man, who was a good neighbour and a good businessman and a good father—with the ruin of his life over payments of a few thousand bucks. My rage actually choked me, and I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t speak. I only froze silent, staring down at Nate’s bloody face as everything inside me was doused with gasoline and set on fire.

“And tonight?” I managed in a choked voice. “What happened tonight?”

“I told him no,” Nate said. “Earlier today, when he was here. I told him I’d fight his evidence in court and prove my innocence if I had to. It isn’t the money. It was never the money. I decided I wanted my dignity back.” Nate winced, and I glanced down at the rest of him, hoping there weren’t any broken bones. My thumb hovered over the keypad on my cell phone. “I went out, but when I got back here he came for me. We had an argument. He got his money anyway. So much for my dignity.”

“That fucker beat you up?” Oh, yes, the rage was alive and well now. It was black and pulsing inside me. “He beat up a man with a broken fucking leg?”

Nate gave a bitter laugh through his bloody teeth, and suddenly I had a horrifying premonition of what he was about to say. “Bram,” he said. “Who do you think broke my leg in the first place?”

I actually couldn’t see for a minute. My vision went blank with nothing but pure anger. “He threatened Summer?”

“That’s how he got me to open the safe,” Nate said. He was breathing hard now. “Otherwise I would have just let him beat me.”

My blood was pounding hard in my ears, but I managed to dial 9-1-1 and get on the phone with a dispatcher. I calmly told her that Nate had been beaten and robbed and gave her the address. Then I hung up the call and dialed Summer.

“Bram?” she said when she answered, as if she already suspected this wasn’t a social call.

“It’s your father,” I said, watching as Nate’s eyes drifted closed. “He’s in the office at the body shop. Somebody beat him up and stole the money from the safe.”

“Oh my God!” I heard a shuffle of white noise on the other end of the line, which I assumed was Summer getting up from wherever she was and running for the door of her apartment. “Is he all right?”

“He’s conscious, or he was until a few seconds ago. He’s bloodied up, but I can’t see anything broken. I haven’t moved him. I’ve called an ambulance.”

“Oh no, oh no, oh no.” It was a wail of distress. She was already out of breath, and her voice echoed weirdly, so I knew she was in the stairwell of her building, running down to the front lobby. “I’m on my way. Tell him I’m on my way. Is the ambulance coming?”

I could hear sirens in the faint distance. “Yes. One minute, maybe two.”

“They can’t leave without me. Tell them I’m coming! Bram, how did this happen?”

“Worry about that later,” I said. “Just get here.” I ended the call and looked down at Nate. He’d passed out, but he was still breathing, and I could see his eyes rolling behind his eyelids. The sirens were loud now. I didn’t have much time.

“Thank you,” I said to him, though I knew he couldn’t hear me. “For everything. And I’m sorry.”

Then I got up and ran out the door.

I
t wasn’t
hard to find Evan Tanner. Terre Mills wasn’t a very big place, and I’d heard a lot of gossip in the body shop, from customers and employees alike. Everyone knew the mayor lived in a big old Colonial house in the center of downtown, and that his son lived in the guest house on the estate. Everyone had heard the rumors that Evan was lazy and spoiled. But it seemed most people didn’t know what he actually was.

I left my car a few blocks away and circled around the back of the estate. The house was surrounded by a high wrought iron fence, but I didn’t see any electricity or any security cameras. No dogs, either. It was a quiet summer weeknight in the town of Terre Mills, where the mayor had no need for high-level security. I shook my head. This was too easy.

I scaled the fence pretty easily, using the branches of an overhanging tree as extra cover in case anyone walked by on the service road. No one did. I dropped to the other side of the fence and made my way through the shadows to the guest house, which was pretty luxurious. It was basically a second house on the property, tucked behind the first house.

There was a light on inside, and loud music was playing. The front door was locked, but it was flimsy, and in two good kicks I blasted it open.

The place was at least three times as big as Summer’s apartment, and probably cost a thousand times as much. It was all white tile, white walls, and stark black decoration. At the end of the hall I could see a bright white kitchen with stainless steel appliances. To my right was a living room, and that was where I found Evan Tanner, wearing a pair of sweatpants and a faded Coldplay t-shirt, standing in the middle of the room, holding the TV remote.

He blanched when he saw me. “Hey, man,” he said, his voice going up an octave in fear. “You can’t come in here!”

He was almost my height, and he had a gym body, carefully sculpted. His longish brown hair was brushed back from his forehead and tucked behind his ears. On one bicep was a tattoo, still red and recent. He was a poser shithead, but I knew in a glance that he’d fight me.

In prison, I’d learned one rule early. It was the rule that had gotten me through without getting my teeth kicked out or my knees broken. It was the golden rule of lockup, and the sooner you learned it, the better off you were:
Hit first.
If you knew a guy was going to come at you, the best thing was not to give him the chance. Act first, act fast, and he’s disarmed before he can start. But you have to do it right. And you have to hit hard.

Evan Tanner was still staring at me, expecting me to say something. I gave him no warning to change his mind. I launched myself at him and punched him once on the jaw, the impact cracking my knuckles, and when his head flew back I unbalanced him and sent him hard to the floor. I landed on his back and twisted one arm up behind him, so far I knew it hurt like a motherfucker.

He gave a howl that was loud, but not loud enough to be heard in the main house. “What the fuck!”

“Where’s the money?” I said.

He struggled beneath me, but for all his muscles, he could barely move. I kept his arm in place so the pain would be overwhelming.

“What are you talking about, man?” he said finally, his voice strangled where his mouth pressed against the carpet.

“Where’s the money?” I said again. “I want it back. Every fucking dollar.”

“I know you.” Tanner was getting his wits back now, working the angles. “You’re that con who works in Nate Friesen’s body shop. You are so finished, motherfucker. When I call the cops and tell them you broke in here and assaulted me, it’s all over.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “You can’t make a phone call if your fingers are broken and so is your jaw. Where is the money, you little shit?”

“I don’t have to tell you anything,” he said.

I couldn’t help it—I was angry. So I said, “Why the hell did you take it? A nice guest house like this, you have everything. What the fuck would possess you to break a guy’s leg for money?”

“You think I own this place?” Tanner said. “My father owns everything. I don’t have shit. He gives me an allowance. How am I supposed to live on that? I got expenses, man.”

I looked at his pasty skin, his dilated pupils. “Looks to me like your expenses go up your nose.”

“Yeah, well, I like to party, all right? I needed cash. I know a guy who works at the shop. He told me about the safe one day. I owed my dealers, so I cooked up some evidence that would fly with the cops. I gave the old man a little scare, broke his leg for him.”

I swallowed. He’d done it to Nate because he wanted to get high, that was all. I had the urge to jerk his arm all the way back, rip it from its socket. But I stayed still.

“It was easy money after that,” Tanner said. “Cash, regular. Like magic. Even today, man. He tried to bullshit me, so I had to escalate things. I had to mention that hot daughter of his, the one who’s asking for it. After that, it’s like I said. Easy money.”

I’d known guys like this in prison. They weren’t guys who robbed because they needed food, or clothes for their kids. They were guys who did what they did because they saw an opportunity and they couldn’t say no. Whatever they had, whatever they’d been given, they wanted more, and they didn’t want to work for it. They did it because they could.

“You listen to me,” I said to him, leaning down and twisting his arm higher, making him howl. “Nate Friesen may be afraid of you, but I sure as fuck am not. I met a lot of guys on the inside, and those guys are connected to a lot of guys on the outside. Guys who can fuck you up and burn down this nice little house of yours with you inside—though they’ll make you eat your own balls first. It doesn’t matter what you tell the cops about me—it doesn’t matter whether I’m inside or outside, whether I’m locked up or not. There are people who are going to come and make what I’m doing right now seem as pleasant as a blow job from a hooker unless you give me that money back. Now tell me where the fuck it is.”

He was still for a minute. I knew I’d pegged him: a tough guy who wasn’t so tough. “I don’t have it, man,” he said in sort of a whine. “I told you, I spent it.”

“Then I’ll take what you’ve got.”

I twisted his arm harder, and he let out a little scream. “I only have a few thousand bucks!”

It wasn’t the money, not really. Unless this punk was taught a lesson, he wouldn’t quit, and Nate would never be free. Neither would Summer. I had to teach him, make sure he understood deep in his brain. I had to make it so he hadn’t gotten away with anything. If he thought he’d gotten away with it, he’d do it again. And I wasn’t going to be around to protect Nate and Summer next time.

That thought gave me a spear of splitting pain, but I gritted my teeth and pushed it down.

Tanner spit some of his blood onto the floor. “There’s some money under the kitchen sink. That’s all.”

I twisted his arm higher. Much more, and it would snap. His elbow would be so ruined it would need surgery and it would never be the same again. “Are you lying?”

“No!” he howled. He had tears of pain running down his face, snot running from his nose. “No!”

“I don’t believe you,” I said. “I hope you’ve said your prayers. Good night.” I lifted him from the floor and cracked his head downward, just hard enough to knock him out. He went out cold, and I dropped him.