Dirty Wicked Lust: A Stepbrother Romance (7 page)

He grabbed me then, no longer content to paw or pinch but pressing me close to him, so close I could feel the outline of his raging hard-on pressing tight against my quivering belly. I glanced up to watch his face leer down at me, eyes hard and cruel as he sputtered, “I don’t think, baby, I know. I want you here,” he said, pressing me tighter for effect. “I want you now,” he added, squeezing even tighter. Then leering down at me cruelly, his eyes hard as ice and no longer seeming quite so drunk or vulnerable anymore, his final words chilled me to the bone. “And I’ll have you, too.”

He was dragging me, tougher than he looked at first, stronger, too. His fingers dug into the meat of my arms, his breath smelling like cheap whiskey as he huffed and puffed along the curb in front of the club. I kicked and squirmed but all those margaritas had caught up with me – stealing my coordination along with my radar for clear and present danger.

“No,” I growled, managing to elude his grasp for a quick, sudden moment where I remained frozen in place – and he did, too. “NO!”

His face was a mask of rage. Gone was the soft, stubbly prettiness I’d admired in the neon-lit night club. Suddenly, inexplicably and quite cruelly, it had been replaced with a sheer wall of anger, nostrils flared, eyes slate black and cold, lips thin and hard set as he reared back a hand, larger than I remembered, to swing and silence me with a slap – or even worse.

In an instant, everything changed. Time seemed to slow and the air thickened as a figure appeared, massive and rapid. It was just a blur at first until, as a wall of hard muscle came into focus, I shouted out his name: “Ryan!”

He immediately had the asshole from the bar up against the wall, one large hand pinning Randy-Rex’s arms above his head while Ryan’s right hand gripped the stranger’s throat, strong fingers digging in as his victim squirmed helplessly, kicking out with thin, frail, impotent legs as my stepbrother stood, impassive and hardly batting an eye as he restrained my would-be attacker with vengeance and ease.

“Get. Off. Of. Me,” Randy-Rex somehow managed to gurgle as Ryan sneered at him, nostrils flaring as his eyes filled with glee.

“Now you know how it feels to be abused, asshole!” he said before kneeing Randy-Rex in the groin so viciously I almost felt it between my own legs!

Randy-Rex crumpled against the wall at his back, and sensing defeat, Ryan let him sag to the ground, a heap of whimpering manhood. Hah! My heart hammered as my stepbrother turned to me, his eyes full of protective rage, and his chest swollen with effort.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” he asked, tugging me away before I could dance on Randy-Rex’s whimpering body.

“Me?” I asked, arm in Ryan’s vice-like grip as he dragged me to a vehicle that looked suspiciously like my own car. “That guy almost raped me!”

“Yeah, almost,” Ryan huffed, opening the passenger door and all but tossing me inside as he stood triumphantly just outside the passenger door. “And would have, too, if I hadn’t been here to save your ass!”

It
was
my car, down to the Yankee Candle air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror and the fresh bottle of winter berry hand sanitizer in the cup holder. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

“Saving your ass, apparently,” he huffed, climbing into the driver’s seat and turning the engine over as we left the club – and my would-be attacker – in the dust. “I can’t believe how reckless you are, Heather. If I hadn’t been there, you know what could have happened to you?”

I ignored his harsh judgments and tried to focus on the blurry digital readout above the radio. Could it really be three in the morning? “Where… where did you come from?” I asked as he drove through an unfamiliar part of town. I vaguely remembered driving through it myself earlier that evening to get to the nightclub. Much, much earlier. Oddly enough, it felt like only a minute ago–and a lifetime ago as well. My heart pounded as the reality of what I’d done–and what had almost been done to me– sank home.

“You called me earlier, but when I answered the phone all I could hear was the mumbled conversation and piss poor country music blaring in the background. Worried me something might have been wrong, and when I finally got the call to disconnect and I called back, you never answered. So I called a cab and came looking for you,” he said, steering toward a strip of all-night convenience stores and fast-food chains open late.

I pulled my cell phone from my purse and checked the call log to confirm his story, and sure enough, I ass dialed the bastard. Ugh! Bet he’s wondering why his number was even at the top of the call log list! “But how did you know where I was? Did you do some black-ops military tracking on my phone?” I questioned, seriously. The adrenaline from the attack leaving my body as I sagged against the chair, suddenly realizing just how buzzed I was.

“I told you, I heard the piss poor country music. Small town, ain’t too many hole in the wall joints for a girl like you to venture off to,” Ryan chuckled, softer now, quieter, slower as well, as if he, too, was suffering from adrenaline withdrawals after his blitzkrieg attack on poor Randy-Rex. “You can’t just go off to clubs and pick up random strangers. It’s dangerous.”

“Look who’s talking,” I huffed, crossing my arms over my chest as he turned into a Burger in the Box and pulled up to the gaily lighted drive-thru menu.

“Waddaya mean?” he asked after placing an order for two Burger in the Box specials and pulling around to the window to pay for them.

“Haven’t you been doing that very thing every night since our parents left?” I asked as he paid for and picked up our order.

The smell of fried meat was both savory and sickening, my head spinning with the combination of eight or more margaritas and Ryan’s sudden appearance outside the club, thwarting a would-be attack that, regretfully, I’d put myself square in the middle of. I guess I’d had more to drink – and acted way stupider – than I thought.

“Yeah, but… that’s different,” Ryan said, ignoring the bag of burgers as I slid them into the back seat. I knew I would want them later, when I sobered up a bit, but for now, I was content to stare out the passenger side window, watching the streetlights blur into lemon yellow strings of taffy in the dark and listen to Ryan’s voice lecture me protectively all the way home.

“Why different?” I murmured, eyelids growing sleepy now that I was safe from harm and on the way home, my big, strong stepbrother taking the wheel – literally
and
figuratively.

“Because, Heather,” he said, voice soothing as my eyes finally shut on the whirring, spinning, melting lights outside my window. “I’m a man. I can protect myself.”

I nodded, silently, my head spinning even with my eyes closed, breathing heavily as sleep drew me close before Ryan’s voice staved off for one more minute or two.

“And if you’ll let me, Heather,” Ryan said, reaching over as he gently dragged a lock of hair away from my forehead. “I’d like to protect you, too.”

I wanted to reply, to nod and murmur and thank him for rescuing me, but instead I found the drone of his voice and his soft, gentle touch so soothing I fell asleep before I could do any of that…

Chapter Nine

I woke with a jolt, eyes blurry and head throbbing as I blinked at the bright lights staring me in the face. My head was pounding, the lights bright enough to make me think I was in the path of an oncoming eighteen wheeler!

“Whuzzhuzzzitz?” I mumbled, rubbing my face with both palms as if they were an imaginary washcloth, as if to erase the blur from my groggy eyes and wipe the brightness from my eyes.

“Jesus, you really
were
lit, weren’t you?”

I shook my head, Ryan’s face swimming in the driver’s seat of my car as the hazy details came, blurrily, back to life. “What’s it to you?” I blurted, our warm and fuzzy moment in the dive bar parking lot long cooled off on the winding drive home.

He rolled his eyes, scowling petulantly – big brother style – as the motion sense lights attached to the four-car garage illuminated us as if it was the middle of the day.

“Nothing, I guess,” he grumbled, sliding from the car and dancing around the front end as if on cat’s feet. For a muscular guy, Ryan truly was light on his feet, lithe and strong in equal measure as the harsh garage lighting made him swim in sexy shadows.

“Come on,” he grunted, opening my door and reaching in to drag me from the car. “Let’s get you upstairs and into bed.”

“I thought you’d never ask,” I teased, enjoying the machinations of Ryan’s large, thick fingers as they fiddled with my seatbelt and I inhaled the manly, musky scent of his cologne. As he fiddled with the seatbelt a flash of light caught my eye, then the rasp of metal on flesh as I noticed for the first time a pair of dog tags swinging from a chain around his neck.

“I meant,” he scolded, finally sliding me from the seat as if pouring me into the driveway in front of our parents’ opulent home, “the sooner you get to bed and sleep this off, the shorter your hangover will be tomorrow morning. Trust me, Heather, you’ll literally thank me in the morning for what I’m doing for you tonight.”

I was semi-sober as we stumbled toward the back pool gate, both Ryan and I’s preferred method of entrance to the house, but I didn’t want him to know that just yet. I was enjoying playing the drunken stepsister, up for anything and able to blame it all on the booze the next day. “You know what else shortens a hangover the next morning?” I teased, hip checking him on purpose as we shambled toward the wooden gate.

“Yeah?” he asked, distracted by the gate door as he propped me on the side of the house to fiddle with the latch. “What’s that?”

“Having sex all night long,” I purred, striking a provocative pose in my tiny black dress and kinky blonde hair, feeling just buzzed enough to flirt despite the danger I’d faced earlier that very night.

“Please,” he said, ignoring me as he rolled his eyes and swung the gate wide, reaching for my hand as he inched forward into the back pool area. “You’re drunk, Heather. You don’t know what you’re saying right now, and if you’re lucky, won’t even remember it tomorrow.”

“All the better for you,” I promised, taking his hand and swinging it wide as we plodded across the lawn, Ryan directing me around the maze of expensive potted palms that dotted our path. “When you regret what we did all night tomorrow morning, you can blame it all on my state of inebriation and the fact that you just couldn’t resist your slutty stepsister throwing herself at you the night before.”

“That would be fine,” he chuckled, playing along as we approached the neon-lit pool area, “if I were drunk too.”

“So what’s stopping you?” I asked, shoving him playfully as we stood by the pool. Or, at least, I
thought
I was being playful. Maybe I wasn’t as sober as I thought – or perhaps didn’t know my own strength – because Ryan stumbled as if launched from a canon. I chuckled, amused at the big lug stumbling awkwardly around the big pool deck.

“You little brat!” he said, apparently none too eager to be shown up by a mere girl as he pivoted, hands extended, to return the favor and push me back. When he did, I felt myself launch up, out and back, suddenly aloft and hovering in mid-air for a moment.

I remained there, as if frozen in time, peering back at Ryan as his eyes grew wide with surprise and eventually, concern. His mouth formed a raw, wide “O” shape as he reached for me in vain, but by the time his long, thick fingers brushed the hem of my dress it was too late.

The moment was gone and in its place came the splash of water and the rush of waves as I landed in the pool, still wearing my fuck-me pumps, little black dress, and even littler black panties. The water wasn’t cold, but in my overheated state, it was certainly a slap in the face, figuratively and literally.

I sank quickly to the bottom of the pool and then, suddenly sober and wide awake, I emerged shaking my mane of long, blonde hair and spitting out water between chuckles and gushes of excitement.

“You asshole!” I gasped, splashing wildly as Ryan began to laugh – and laugh and laugh and laugh. “You. Ass. Hole!” I repeated myself, in between giggles of my own, that is.

As I stood there in the pool, halfway between the shallow and the deep end, the warm water caressing my skin, Ryan’s tank top and blue jeans splashed with water, suddenly sober and even hornier than before, I could feel the night… change… into something different and far more opportunistic.

Gone was the nearly averted tragedy of the nightclub and the long, winding, endless drive home from the parking lot. Gone was the wizened, weasely face of Randy-Rex and whatever he might have done to me. Now, the warm water caressing my skin, Ryan’s gaze warm and adoring upon me, and mine upon his, I could only feel the deep seated lust that had been simmering come to a long, low, roiling boil that threatened to consume me.

Yes, I’d been reckless, but couldn’t he see why? I never drank that much, or went to clubs alone, or acted so recklessly. It was all for Ryan, to seduce or silence him, to impress or challenge him. I hadn’t been able to sleep a wink since he’d returned home, and for once, I was glad for the sudden change in my all-too-bland lifestyle.

And just as suddenly, change was no longer enough.

I could only imagine what I looked like, standing there sopping wet in the pool, but however I looked, Ryan couldn’t seem to look away from the hot, sloppy mess that was his randy stepsister. His eyes drank me in hungrily, inch by inch, as he stood there, silent for the first time all evening. When he did speak, his voice was tentative and unconvincing as he tried in vain to play the part of the older, responsible stepbrother.

“Here,” he said, kneeling down to extend a hand. “Let me help you out.”

I merely shook my head, wriggling a wet, dripping finger as I backed gently out of reach. “Uh huh,” I teased breathily, purring as I inched away in the warm, sultry water. “I’d rather you join me.”

He shook his head “no” but at the same time, made no move to leave. If anything, he peered closer, the pregnant pause heavy and obvious in the air as he alternately ogled, studied, and beseeched me. Our eyes eventually locked and I could feel the heat, the curiosity, and the forbidden desire overwhelm us both so that he had to blink and look away from it.