PULSE: A Stepbrother Romance (30 page)

PRESTON

We
were so fucked.

My father wasn’t the type of guy who’d
just call up his son and his soon-to-be stepdaughter and invite them over for
dinner and drinks. Hell, my father wasn’t the type of guy who did that for
anyone but his favorite clients, and even that was an awfully short list. If he
wanted to see both me and Maddy, that meant that something was wrong, and I
couldn’t help but wonder if it had anything to do with what we’d done last
night.

But that was crazy. He’d have no way of
knowing that I slept with her. We’d been completely alone. It wasn’t like he’d
bug my office, or anything. Right?

My father was a resourceful man, but as
far as I knew, I’d given him no cause to feel that drastic measure like that
were necessary. Yet the fact remained: he wanted something from both of us. If
that wasn’t the reason, then what was?

“Maybe it’s my mom,” Maddy said. She was
still sitting on my bed, though she’d wrapped herself in the sheets now to
cover up. I guessed that in my own way, I was doing the same thing. We were
both distancing ourselves and we knew it, but neither of us seemed ready to
talk about why. “Maybe they want to go over the wedding or honeymoon plans.”

I felt my insides untwist a little. I
nodded slowly. “That’s possible.” But the wedding was months away. What could
they possibly want to consult us about at this stage?

Whatever it was, I knew there was no
avoiding it. Maddy and I would have to show up, which meant that we were also
going to have to discuss what had happened between us last night.

I looked over at her on my bed. God, she
was beautiful. She had one of the most incredible bodies I’d ever seen. She was
naturally gorgeous, organic in ways I’d not experienced in a woman… well, ever.
All the girls I dated were always plastic Barbie dolls shaped by the most
skilled surgeons on the planet into the ideal image men desired most. They were
like modern art while Maddy was a classic. Even the freckles across the bridge
of her nose gave me the shivers.

And yet she was my stepsister, or she
would be soon enough. That meant she ought to be off-limits. We’d already been
playing the part of siblings… or had we? Had I misread both our emotions all
this time? Had my closeness to Maddy been fueled not by familial affection, but
by raw, primal, sexual attraction?

I’d never felt this way about a woman
before, so it was hard to tell. The only thing I knew for sure was that I wanted
her, no matter what. But if our parents got married, that would be impossible,
or at the very least something we’d forever have to hide. What if she wanted a
family? What if I did? Then where would we be? Could I ask her to give up the
future she deserved just to be with me?

I hesitated, rubbing the back of my neck
as I stood before her in nothing but my underwear. “You should get dressed,” I
told her softly. I didn’t want to come off cruel, but for the time being, I
wasn’t sure what else I could say. “We’ve got work to do before we head over
there this evening.”

“Sure,” Maddy said, though her voice
sounded chilled and hollow. “I’ll get right on it, Mr. Harvey.”

It felt like a slap in the face, but at
this point, I wasn’t completely sure that I didn’t deserve it.

The rest of the day passed by in total
silence. Maddy busied herself with the tasks that kept her far away from me,
and I hid in my office trying to forget the taste of my stepsister’s skin, the
warmth of her as I sank in, the way she’d gasped and moaned and writhed beneath
my weight. Every time I blinked I saw a flash of the way I’d slid my dick up to
the hilt inside of her, and that only made distracting myself from those
thoughts a more arduous task than it had been before.

When she’d gone to lunch, I had tried a
little self-soothing meditation, and when that’d failed, I spent half an hour
running hard on the treadmill in the corner of my office. Nothing worked. All I
could think about was her, and that was making it hard to walk around without
making that fact exceptionally obvious in my dress slacks.

By the time we had to leave for our
family dinner, I was struggling to keep from getting hard every time she walked
in front of me. The rhythmic sway of her ass sheathed only in the thin material
of the skirt she’d picked up from her apartment had me completely entranced.

I opened the car door for her. When she
swept under my arm with a soft, “Thanks,” the scent of her perfume antagonized
me. I couldn’t take it anymore.

With a grunt, I grabbed Maddy by the arm
and turned her, pinning her between my body and the car. I searched her eyes
and found only wanting there. Helplessly I pressed my mouth against hers,
ravaging her with my tongue, drawing her against me by the small of her back.

Maddy resisted only a moment. Then she
moaned. She fit so perfectly in my arms, and I never wanted to let her go.

“I can’t do this,” I told her. “I can’t
pretend like last night never happened. I need you, Madison, and not in the way
that a brother needs his sister.”

I pressed my thrumming cock against her
through her skirt. She gasped. I began lifting up the hem, revealing the creamy
white tops of her thighs inch by inch until finally, I caught a glimpse of her
underwear.

I pulled my dick out and nestled it
against her crotch. I felt my balls seize and I snarled in her ear. “I could
blow my load right here, Maddy. I could soak these panties before dinner, and
your mother and my father wouldn’t know a thing. You’d spend the whole night
with my cum staining your panties. That’s what you do to me. You make me want
to do the nastiest things to you.”

Maddy shivered and looked up at me with
hooded eyes. “Preston… Jesus, we can’t. What we did last night was wrong. I
wanted it… We wanted it… But you know it can’t happen again.”

I pulled her panties
open, letting the tip of my dick violate the space between them and her sweet,
soaking wet lips. I thrust, overwhelmed by the sensation of being so near to
her, of feeling my bulging head slip around in her honeyed nectar. “It has to,”
I whispered. “Every time I look at you, all I want to do is get inside you
again.”

I was so close. But
Madison gently, yet firmly took me by the wrist. I could see lust in her eyes,
but there was something else too. Maybe it was self-restraint, but it sure as
hell looked like regret.

“We can’t,” she
repeated, and this time there was no “maybe” in her tone. I withdrew and she
let her fingers brush mine. “I’m sorry, Preston, but think of what could happen
if we got caught…”

I nodded. As
frustrated as I was, she made sense. But dammit, I didn’t want her to. All I
wanted was to throw caution to the wind and bury myself in my darling little
stepsister.

She fixed her skirt
as I stuffed my dick back inside my pants. “Let’s hope there’s wine tonight,” I
said as she slid into her seat. “I think I’m going to need it.”

“You and me both,”
Maddy agreed as I closed her door.

MADISON

It
was so strange not having Preston’s driver
take us to our parents’ house. For the most part, he took us everywhere, and
I’d grown accustomed to sitting in the back with my stepbrother and sipping
sparkling water or sometimes champagne as Mr. Fletcher whisked us to our
destination. Somehow sitting in the front seat with Preston felt more intimate
to me, almost like we were a couple.

I looked over at him
as the sunset painted his handsome face with warm, Technicolor hues. I wondered
if, had circumstances not been what they were, I could have been with him. We
probably never would have even met, had it not been for my mom, but if we had…

My heart threatened
to break as I realized that I really could see myself with this man. We were
like Romeo and Juliet, if they’d been practically related instead of just from
warring households.

Yet our progression
toward our parents’ home felt like an oncoming war. It would be a battle,
certainly. My mother would see to that. One way or another, she would find
fault. I almost wished I could tell her Preston and I had slept together. The
look on her face might have been well worth it.

“I’m sorry,” Preston
said beside me. I looked over and saw his lips drawn into a grim line. “If I
crossed a line back there.”

I shook my head,
resisting the urge to place my hand on top of his. “We both did,” I told him.
And if I was being honest with myself, I wished we could again.

As we pulled up to
the gate in front of Preston’s father’s house, I stared up at the magnificent
estate looming just beyond. Preston’s grandfather had custom built it right
after World War II as a present to his wife. I couldn’t imagine gifting someone
an entire mansion, but life was different for people like the Harveys, even in
those days.

I’d been here before,
yet I still felt distant, like this place wasn’t really meant for me. Being at
Preston’s side made me feel a little better, but knowing that I’d have to
contend with my mother soon kept the hairs on my nape raised, regardless.

“Are you ready?” he
asked me as we stood just outside the massive front doors. They reminded me a
lot of the ones outside his office-slash-second-home.

“As I’ll ever be,” I
affirmed, taking a deep breath before Preston reached up and knocked heavily on
the door.

I heard the sound of
heels clattering across marble, and a moment later, my mother’s face appeared
as she pulled one of the doors wide to greet us.

“Well, Maddy, you’ve
managed to get here on time. You must be growing up.” I bristled as she turned
her gaze on Preston. “It was so kind of you to bring her. You must be exerting
a positive influence.”

He smiled tersely.
“Good evening, Vivian,” he said. It was obvious from his tone that he was
trying to remind her to show some goddamn manners.

But my mother didn’t
take the hint. Her diamond earrings sparkled in the fading light as she turned
back to me. “It was nice of Preston to take pity on you like this. I hope
you’ve thanked him.”

“Oh, trust me,” I
said, fixing a grin on my face, “I most certainly have.” Preston nearly giggled
at that. I thought his eyes were going to bulge right out of their sockets.

“Well, come in,” she
sighed, as though burdened by my mere presence. She’d been doing a lot of that
lately since she and Preston’s father had announced they were getting hitched.
“Dinner’s almost ready. I really have no idea what takes this damn cook so long
just to prepare a meal. It’s not like we expect her to catch and kill the
chickens herself, or anything…”

She walked toward the
formal dining room while we let ourselves in. As he closed the door behind us,
Preston raised an eyebrow at me and said, “I thought you were ashamed of what
we’d done?”

I shrugged. “If
anything will get me through this evening, Preston, it will be the knowledge
that if my mother ever found out about us, she’d have a stroke right there in
her French onion soup.”

This time, both of my
stepbrother’s eyebrows raised. “Does that mean there
is
an ‘us?’ ”

“Let’s just get
dinner over and done with,” I suggested, trying desperately to weasel out of
having to answer. “If we survive, then we can have that talk.”

“Your wish is my
command,” Preston replied, escorting me to the dining room where our parents
were waiting. I bet he said that to every single girl he wanted to fuck…

The table was set
with the kind of care and exactness that almost seemed compulsive. Preston was
nice enough to pull out a chair for me, but as I sat down, I couldn’t even
figure out where to put my hands. I didn’t want to ruin the delicate flower
that had been somehow magically crafted from an ordinary cloth napkin, and God
help me if I moved one of the pieces of silverware. They were placed at an
exact distance from the edge of the table, each one gleaming as if it had never
been used…

And knowing where I
was, it probably hadn’t.

Despite my
discomfort, I did my best to settle in as I pondered the need for two different
forks. Food appeared in front of me almost as if by magic, flown to my table by
a man in the cleanest pair of white gloves I’d ever seen in my life. The plate
was a work of art. It would be a shame to tear it apart, but I was willing to
face the peril. My momentary bliss was only broken as my mother spoke up.

“So, Preston, how is
Madison working out for you?”

I rolled my eyes as
my mother glanced at Preston over the rim of her wine glass. I knew what she
was trying to do. She was hoping for some hesitation on Preston’s part, some
sign that I wasn’t very good at my job.

I had no clue what my
mother had against me, but whatever it was, she loved to take me down a peg at
every opportunity.

But Preston didn’t
hesitate. “She’s wonderful, really,” he answered as he cut his meat. We were
having some kind of chicken stuffed with dates and herbs. “Best PA I’ve ever
had.”

“Better than that
Jane girl?” his father asked. “I thought she was working out rather nicely. It
seemed to me that the two of you were… close.”

I looked at Mr.
Harvey across the table. He was damn near the spitting image of his son, though
with a touch of steel at his temples that made him seem more distinguished and
intimidating. He had hawkish, amber-colored eyes that never left his son’s for
one moment as he grilled him about his ex-assistant, and probably
ex-girlfriend.

Preston and I hadn’t
discussed Jane much in the wake of my arrival. I had a pretty good idea of what
had been going on between them, but ultimately, it was none of my business.
We’d not seen hide nor hair of her since the day she got fired, and neither of
us had thought to bring her up.

But now I understood
why Preston had entertained her for so long. Whether or not he was willing to
admit it, I got the distinct impression that gaining his father’s approval was
something he cared about very much despite how much he hated him. Families were
complicated like that, I supposed.

He answered, “It
didn’t work out,” and tried to leave it at that, but Mr. Harvey wasn’t having
it.

“I can’t see why.
Jane was a good match for you. When she was still around you very clearly
worked harder than you ever have. She certainly seemed competent enough to me.”

“Well, then I suppose
you didn’t really know her,” Preston snapped, taking a long draught of his
wine. As usual, things were dematerializing pretty quickly between all of us,
maybe even more so since Preston hadn’t shown up drunk this time. I cleared my
throat and interrupted their talk of all things Jane with what seemed like a
reasonable question.

“Was there something
you wanted to talk to us about this evening?”

Mr. Harvey didn’t
answer right away. He glanced from me to my mother, then back to Preston. For a
moment, I was sure he knew about us, about what we had done. Just as the knot
in my stomach grew too heavy to hold down anymore, he spoke.

“I heard about the
Verger deal.”

I let out a long
breath into my glass as I drank, swallowing both the red wine and the bile that
had risen into my throat. I had to stop being so on edge. There was absolutely
no way either of our parents could know what had happened, or might what
continuing happening between Preston and I.

Was I really
considering this? Was I really giving serious thought to continuing my affair
with my soon-to-be stepbrother?

The mention of the
Verger deal made me question myself even more. That was the client Preston had
been on the phone with last night, the one who wanted to tear down a homeless
shelter to put in a luxury condo development. It was infuriating. It was
absurd. It was unethical. And yet Preston’s father seemed almost proud of him
for it. I wondered how proud he would be when Preston called the whole thing
off.

“I take it you want
this to happen?” Preston said. He tried to play it cool, but I could hear the
note of anticipation in his voice clear as a bell.

Mr. Harvey nodded,
leaning back in his chair. “I’ll be honest, Preston: I wasn’t sure you’d have
it in you to make a bold move like that, especially without Jane around to give
you a little shove in the right direction. I thought maybe you’d gone soft on
me. Not everyone in your position would have the stones.” He chuckled softly.
“They’d be too afraid of going to hell.”

I couldn’t help but
scowl. It twisted across my face before I could stop it.

“Rightfully so,” I
muttered, knowing well the magnitude of the argument I was about to start.
“It’s disgusting. You’re talking about taking the one safe haven these homeless
people have and replacing it with a glorified apartment building for the
wealthy. You ought to be ashamed.”

Mr. Harvey seemed
taken aback at my little outburst, as if he wanted to reach across the table
and smack me for speaking out of turn and beyond my station, but before he
could say a word, my mother stepped in.

 
“Oh, Madison,” she sighed, amused by what
she might call my “misguided pluck.” I watched her nine-carat engagement ring
glitter under the prismatic spray of the chandelier above our heads. “You can’t
possibly think we’re responsible for their misfortune. It’s not our fault
they’re homeless.”

I met her gaze first,
then Preston’s. “It is now,” I said.

Though I doubted it
would make any difference, for once, nobody argued with me. The elder Harvey
just smirked as he chewed on a bite of his disgustingly beautiful food while
holding a silver fork that was probably worth more money than one of those poor
homeless people would come by all year…