Redemption: A British Stepbrother Romance (26 page)

I
t’s her
.

She must have tracked me down. I never gave her my name, but my photo was on the law firm website. She must have looked up every lawyer in D.C. until she found me. I had myself a stalker.

A beautiful stalker.

A beautiful stalker who’d been the best sex I’d ever had.

April stood there in a skirt and blouse exactly as she’d done that night at the networking event eight months ago. She looked professional--like a law student dressing as an attorney--but I knew what lay underneath that blouse and skirt.

The blouse was tight enough to show the outline of her chest, but it didn’t do justice to what lie beneath. I could still picture those perfect, small--but firm--breasts in my mind as clearly as the night I had held them and sucked greedily on the teats.

It had been a damn good night, I couldn’t deny that. But I still hadn’t gone back for more. I never went back. One night only, that was the rule. If you gave a woman more than one night of pleasure then before you knew it they were leaving a toothbrush at your apartment and you were shopping at Bed, Bath, & Beyond together on the weekends.

I knew from experience that women often wanted more than one night with me, but the feeling was rarely mutual. In fact, it had never been mutual.

But April had been… special. I’d been tempted to look her up; it wouldn’t have been difficult to find her, but that way lay commitment.

“What are you doing here?” I asked sternly. “This is a law firm, you can’t just show up in my office.”

“Are you kidding me? You made me come here.”

“This isn’t a joke. You can’t be here.”

If you are going to be here you could at least do me the honor of bending over my desk so I can get another go on that tight pussy
.

“I was told to come to your office,” she snapped. “You must have summoned me here. What’s the matter? One night wasn’t enough for you?”

I shook my head to clear my thoughts. I’d had similar conversations with women before, but usually it was the other way around.

I glanced over at my monitor and saw an incoming email from Mom.
I’ve just arranged for a candidate for a summer associate position to pop by your office. I want you to interview her to make sure she’s appropriate for the position
.

I already knew exactly what positions April was appropriate for.

“Sit down,” I snapped. “It sounds like you’re here for an interview.”

“I might as well just leave,” she replied. “Clearly this isn’t going to happen.”

“Stop being stubborn and sit down.”
Or stay standing up so I can check out your ass if you prefer. Either way is fine with me.

April pouted, but eventually sat down opposite me, brushing her hair behind her ear in that cute way she had done eight months ago. She was nervous.

I was going to enjoy this.

“Let’s get started shall we,” I said. “I only have fifteen minutes, although we both know I can achieve a lot in fifteen minutes.”

“Twenty,” April muttered, as if that made much of a difference.

“If you say so. Why do you want to work here?”

April sighed, and then blurted out a clearly rehearsed answer in a bored sounding voice. “The firm works with large clients, and I want to be a part of deals that make the national news, even though I appreciate my role with be small.”

I hoped she’d been a little more enthusiastic when interviewing with the partners.

“What about the attorneys here? What do you think of them?”

She pursed her lips and exhaled loudly through her nose. I stared at her and just about managed not to smile.

“The attorneys here have all been hugely successful. It would be an honor to learn from them.”

“You certainly learned a lot from me already. Do you remember what I taught you eight months ago?”

“Yes,” she replied. “Never invite an arrogant asshole back to your apartment. It will only end in disappointment.”

Now I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

“The only disappointment was when you woke up the next morning and found me gone.”

“You’re right,” she admitted. I raised an eyebrow, slightly surprised that she had given in so easily. I’d expected her to deny it; to fight against how much she wanted me. “I
was
disappointed. You stole my underwear.”

Ah yes, the panties. They were still tucked away in a drawer in my apartment. There was nothing special about them, not to look at anyway. But the smell--oh God, the smell of her sex had been addictive. Every day for a week after we’d fucked, I’d pulled those panties out of the drawer and smelled the crotch, hoping to draw out her scent for one more day. Finally the scent disappeared, and I was left with just a used pair of white cotton panties.

I still looked at them all the time. There was something mesmerizing about them. They contained memories of that night. I could still remember slipping them off her legs before I tasted the wetness between her thighs. The panties were all I had to remind me. Until now, that is.

I often took a pair of panties as a souvenir from women I’d fucked, although they usually just got thrown in a drawer and never saw the light of day again. That hadn’t been the case with April’s but I had no idea why. What was so special about her? The panties themselves were bland and boring, but she hadn’t been. Definitely not. She was far kinkier than initial appearances had led me to believe. Perhaps she would even be up for a repeat performance right here on the desk? Perhaps not. She looked pretty pissed at me right now.

“You can have the panties back if you like,” I said. “Just come back to my apartment. You might have to dig through my collection to find them though.” That was a lie; they were right on top and had been for eight months.

“Just keep them,” she muttered. “Are we done here?”

“No, Ms. Rhodes, we are not done here.” I put my serious lawyer face back on. “What’s your favorite position.”

“Fuck you,” she snapped.

Damn, this girl had a temper on her. I liked that.

“I meant, what position would you like to work at in the firm of course. M&A, corporate, tax, and employment law are our main areas of expertise. It was an honest enough question, Ms. Rhodes. You must have a really dirty mind.”

“M&A,” she replied, each syllable taking all her effort to speak aloud.

“Okay, I’ll make a note of that. You will have to be flexible though. Are you flexible, Ms. Rhodes?”

“Yes, very.”

“Good, good. I value a flexible lawyer. One minute I might want you doing one thing, and then the next I will want you to turn around completely and do something different.”

“I’m happy with the lawyers here putting me in whatever position they like,” April replied. “In fact, I’ve met a few today that I would very much like to get to know better.”

Ouch. Who would she have met? Hopefully she was referring to Adam. He was the only guy who could even come close to me in raw sex appeal, but he was happily married and would never stray.

Was I jealous? I suppose I did like the idea of fucking her again. I’d certainly rather it be me making her come than someone else. It had been eight months since the last time so I didn’t think that should count as going back for seconds. As long as we didn’t do anything stupid like go on a date it should be fine.

“I’m afraid you’d be working with me a lot if you got the job,” I said, sitting back in my chair and trying my best not to stare down at her tits. If I closed my eyes I could picture them, but I didn’t want a mental image. I wanted to see them in the flesh. I wanted to suck on them again. To make her whimper, half in pain, half in pleasure when I took the nipples between my teeth and bit down hard.

“Aren’t you a bit important to be working with a summer associate?” April asked.

“Yes, I like to think so, but I’m also a damn good lawyer. One of the best here, so they’ll want you to learn from me.”

“Sure you’re not too busy doing managing partner things to keep an eye on me?”

“Managing partner things? I’m not the managing partner.”

“But I thought… you’re Foster Arrington right? The firm’s name is Arrington & Hedges.”

“Christ, how old do you think I am?”

No doubt having the name Arrington helped me get taken seriously in the early days, but I was a few years off being a partner and managing partner was a least a decade away.

“I just assumed… never mind.”

“My mom is the managing partner,” I explained. “And her dad was the founder of the firm.”

“Oh.”

I smiled, and took in the look of embarrassment on her face. She truly was stunning to look at. I’d seen her angry, embarrassed, horny, and upset. She was always beautiful.

“I take it things didn’t work out at Cooper & Cooper?” I asked.

“No,” she snapped, looking angry again now. “Of course not. Something to do with an associate getting punched and pushed down the stairs.”

“Ah yes,” I said, thinking back to the look on Zach’s face when I’d decked him. Happy days. “That was fun. I never pushed him down the stairs though. I punched him and he fell.”

“The distinction appears to have been lost on his dad, the managing partner of the firm.”

“Oops. Be honest though, you don’t regret me punching him do you.”

April pouted, but she broke into a smile. A wonderful smile. “No, I suppose not.”

“Good.” An alarm notification popped up on my screen. I wanted to carry on this conversation all day, but duty called. “I have to go. Important meeting.”

“Sure,” April said, standing up. “There’s not much point in this carrying on anyway. Obviously I can’t work here with you.”

“Don’t trust yourself around me?” I joked.

“Think that if you want.”

I let her storm out of the office, leaving another mental image of her ass in my mind. That girl could certainly pull off formal office wear.

She was right though, this wouldn’t work. I couldn’t let her spend the summer here. We might have a lot of fun working late and getting freaky in the office, but I didn’t trust her not to fall for me. She might be mad at me now, but that would soon change and then I’d have to break her heart. I never enjoyed doing that, but it was a necessary evil for someone who looked as good as I did.

I emailed Mom and told her that April wouldn’t be suitable. I knew I was potentially messing up her career as a lawyer before it had even begun, but I couldn’t risk having a distraction like her around all summer.

The next few months were important. I had a couple of huge projects that demanded all my attention, and if April was sat just across the hall I would be constantly distracted.

I didn’t trust her not to fall for me, but it wasn’t just that. I didn’t trust myself either.

And
that
thought truly terrified me.

“
T
hey’ll be here
any minute, Foster,” Mom yelled from downstairs. “Put some clothes on. I don’t want you to meet Pierce in just your underpants.”

I swore under my breath, and got changed into a pair of jeans and a shirt. This was not how I liked spending my Saturdays. Usually by this point I would just be recovering from last night’s drinking and sexual escapades, and getting ready to prepare for another night.

Not this weekend. At Mom’s insistence, I’d come home to upstate New York on Friday night, in preparation for the visit of Mom’s new boyfriend for lunch on Saturday.

Mom had been through a few boyfriends since Dad died, but this was the first one she’d introduced me to. It must be serious. She’d already given me the whole spiel about him not replacing Dad, and that even though she loved this new man, she still loved Dad, blah, blah, blah.

I didn’t care about any of that. What I cared about was Mom getting screwed over, and that’s almost certainly what was happening here.

Mom hadn’t told me a lot about Pierce, but what she had told me I didn’t like. He had a job, but not a good one and by the sounds of it he barely earned enough to support himself and his daughter who was at college.

No doubt after a few months, Mom would start sending him money and paying for vacations. Before you knew it, he would have moved in and be living it up while she worked her ass off running a prestigious law firm. She had a hard enough time of it trying to manage the D.C. and New York offices. She didn’t need a lazy bum scrounging off her as well.

I strolled downstairs and gave Mom some help setting the table for lunch. Mom had never been a traditional housewife. While Dad had been alive, the most she’d ever cooked was pasta with a sauce straight from a jar. And she’d burned that.

“The food smells good,” I remarked, as the scent of a spicy sauce wafted in from the kitchen. “You have someone deliver?”

“No,” she snapped. “I cooked it if you must know.”

“Oh.”

“You don’t need to sound so concerned. I’ve been practicing.”

“Why?”

“Because Pierce enjoys cooking. We do it together.”

I carried on putting out the cutlery as a cheesy image of Mom and this Pierce guy cooking together came into my mind. They probably flicked sauce at each other and all that soppy stuff.

“You’ve only set three places,” Mom remarked when I’d finished putting everything out. Or thought I’d finished anyway.

“There’s only three of us eating. Or do you have two boyfriends coming over.”

“No, I only date one person at a time,” she replied. “Unlike some people I know.” She gave me a playful slap on the back of the head. She hated that I was a player and often scolded me for what she considered “unprofessional behavior.” It’s not like I was doing it with clients. Not recently anyway.

“To be fair, Mom, I don’t
date
multiple women, we just--”

“I’m happy not knowing, son. Anyway, set another place at the table, please.”

“Who for?”

“Pierce is bringing his daughter along as well.”

“Oh great,” I moaned. “I thought she was away at college.”

“Me too, but she’s come back for the weekend to support her father and to meet us. And she’s not at college--she’s at law school, so you two will have something in common.”

I gripped the fork in my hand hard enough to bend the silver. Law students. I’d had more than enough of them while I was at law school.

“You know the one thing I hate more than lawyers?” I said. “Law students.”

“I’m sure she’s lovely. Just play nice and try to get through lunch.”

Mom kissed me on the cheek and smiled, but when the doorbell rang she instantly started fretting and checking herself out in the mirror.

“I’ll get the door, shall I?” I joked. It felt so weird watching my mom panic like she was on a first date.

I opened the door and came eye-to-eye with the man who had got my mother so worked up. He wore similar clothes to me, except his entire outfit looked like it cost less than my belt.

“Hi, you must be Foster,” the man said holding out his hand. “I’m Pierce. Pierce Rhodes.”

“Hi, Pierce,” I said shaking his hand. The man had a decent handshake at least.

Wait, what did he say his last name was? Pierce
Rhodes
.
Rhodes
. Surely not. That wasn’t possible.

“Well don’t just stand there,” Mom said, appearing behind me. “Let him in. Where’s April?”

“She’s just coming,” Pierce said, turning to look at the girl walking up the path to our house.

April. April Rhodes. Oh shit. Oh fucking shit
.

“You,” I said, as she looked up, seeing me standing in the doorway for the first time.

“What are you… I don’t…”

“Surprise,” Mom exclaimed. “I said the two of you had something in common. But no talking about work today. Come on, let’s eat, I’m starving.”

“Come in, April,” I said cheerfully, forcing a smile even though I still hadn’t processed all this. “I must admit I have quite the appetite as well now. I’m desperate to get my lips around something sweet and tasty.”

I
quickly ruled
out a paranoid theory that April had known about this all along. Pierce and Mom had been dating for a year, but they hadn’t ‘come out’ until six months ago. Neither of us could have known when we’d slept together.

Judging by the look of surprise on April’s face, she’d found out at the same time I had. She didn’t look at all pleased by the news either, but she did her best to appear polite and keep up the conversation like a good little girl.

Pierce had obviously made Mom offer April the interview at the firm, which was why she’d turned up at my office at such short notice. Clearly this man had power over Mom. I didn’t like that one bit.

“How’s the food?” Mom asked.

“Delicious, Kathleen,” Pierce said.

“Lovely, thank you, Mrs. Arrington,” April said politely.

“Yes, it’s great Mom. I haven’t eaten anything so delicious in… oh about eight months.”

April narrowed her eye and glared at me, but everyone else kept eating. I smiled and, when our parents weren’t looking, I stuck my tongue out at her and slowly moved it up and down just as I had when my head had been between her legs. She looked down at her plate, but I caught a slight shiver run through her body.

April wanted me. That was natural enough. What did that prove? She wasn’t blind. The weird bit was, I wanted her as well.

“How did the interview go?” Mom asked, although I couldn’t tell who she was directly the question to.

“I sent you my comments in an email,” I replied.

“Ah yes, I remember.”

“Thank you for giving me the opportunity to interview,” April said. “But I understand why I didn’t get the job.”

“Never mind,” I said. “You’ll find something. I’m sure a girl with your talents will find a position somewhere. Not everyone can be as good a lawyer as me.”

“Foster, don’t be so rude,” Mom scolded.

“That’s okay,” April said. “Some people are just better suited to recording their time in six minute increments, aren’t they Foster?”

“Hey, if six minutes is all I need to accomplish my goals then so be it. The client never complains.”

“I bet you don’t get many
clients
coming back for repeat work though,” April said.

“April,” Pierce exclaimed. “Now you’re being rude.”

“Sorry,” April said sheepishly.

I grinned. She had a temper on her this one. All polite and ‘daddy’s little girl’ one minute and then cheeky and rude the next. I liked it.

“We would love to have you at the firm,” Mom said. “In fact, you should find an acceptance letter at your apartment when you get home.”

“I will?”

“She will?”

April and I spoke in shocked unison.

“Yes,” Mom said. “Everyone she interviewed with gave a rave review?”

“
Everyone
?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “Are you sure?”

“Positive,” Mom said, not looking me in the eye.

“Thank you, Mrs. Arrington.”

“You really must call me Kathleen, dear. We’re going to be family soon, after all.”

“What?” I asked, my fork screeching to a halt in front of my mouth.

Mom cringed and shared a look with Pierce who just laughed and rolled his eyes. “So much for the big official announcement,” Pierce said.

“Sorry,” Mom said. “It just slipped out.”

Pierce placed his hand on Mom’s, and looked up and April and me. “We were going to save the news for after lunch, but apparently lawyers aren’t as good at keeping secrets as I had assumed.”

He looked over at Mom and smiled. She looked embarrassed, like a kid who’d been caught kissing her boyfriend by her parents. It would be cute if I didn’t know exactly where this conversation was going.

“Pierce and I are getting married,” Mom said excitedly. “Any chance you’re both happy for us?”

April reacted before I did. “Of course. Congratulations.” Mom and April shared an awkward hug.

“You got your feet under the table pretty quick, didn’t you,” I said to Pierce. “Here was me thinking you’d wait a few more months before you started mooching off Mom.”

“Foster!” Mom exclaimed.

“It’s okay,” Pierce said, remaining calm. “Foster, I’m not here to--”

“Save it,” I snapped. “Mom, you’re an adult, you can do what you want. Just don’t expect my fucking support while you give away everything you’ve worked so hard for. Enjoy your dessert.”

I stormed out without looking back at April. It was too soon for Mom to get married. She’d only known Pierce for a year. She’d dated Dad for five years before they got engaged. What was the rush?

And to top it all off, I would no doubt have to babysit April all summer at work. I wanted to fuck her, not hand her assignments. If I was going to punish her, I wanted it to be with a firm hand to her ass, not a load of redlines on a memo. I wanted to spend the night inside her, not pouring over client files together.

Well, I couldn’t stop Mom getting married, but I could damn sure stop April having a good time this summer. I had too much money riding on these next few months. My clients were far more important than some piece of ass—however tasty—that I’d already fucked once anyway.

Oh, and she would soon be my stepsister.

April would be begging for the summer to end by the time I’d finished with her.