Secret: A Military Stepbrother Romance (24 page)

I’m off the Service that night.
That’s
how quickly things move after the announcement. That very night, I’m debriefed by the director, and with Eleanor and my dad present, I’m given an award commending me for my service to my country and the office.

As if I’ve done
anything
to deserve it. The job is the sword and shield of the Presidential office. There are guys that take bullets, or dive on grenades for this job and for the office it protects. Me? I fooled around with my fucking stepsister basically the whole time I was on duty. Draw my gun? Yeah, all I did was take my dick out.

Sean and Darren start texting and calling me to give me shit about keeping them in the dark almost the second I leave the stage, but I know they get it. At least, I hope they do. When it all changes, I’m suddenly tossed into the same maddening, cage-like existence that Maddie’s been in since day one, and I have to say, it gives me a little perspective being there with her.

No more personal phone, no more moving freely about, and no more shooting pool or pounding beers with my buddies down at the bar.

Because everything’s changed now.

On the upside, I
do
get to move rooms to Presidential suites after that. Hilariously, I get moved literally across the hall from the Maddie’s Lincoln Bedroom suite, but if I initially have any ideas about how much fun
that’s
going to be, they’re quickly dashed away in the madness of the next week.

Because madness is what it is, and leaving the Service and having my phone taken away is the
least
of it.

I give press interviews, I’m quoted in newspapers, and I start shaking hands with Senators and lobbyists for photo ops. My war record is suddenly
literally
front page news, even though I’m no different than any of the other thousands of Marines who went to fight for our country over there. But suddenly
I’m
special, all because of who my father is marrying.

Unfair doesn’t seem to cover it.

I’m on CNN, smiling at the cameras and talking from the script about what a great mom-figure Eleanor is, and how awesome it’s going to be to be a family again. And it’s not that the words are bullshit or anything — she
really
is great, and I’m glad for her and for my dad — but it’s the principle of it that grates on me. It’s the fact that I’ve got to sit there and parrot someone else’s scripted, packaged, pasteurized and sanitized words that gets my blood boiling. 

And so it goes like that for a week; a blur of days where I’m crashing into bed every night wondering if I’m ever going to actually
see
Maddie again now that we’re family.

*****

“Mr. Ryan! Mr. Ryan!” The White House press secretary nods at the man in the third row waving his pen in the air. This is the fourth one of these fucking things I’ve done in as many days, and I’d like to think I’m getting to be pretty good at them. Still, having Irving there is a Goddamn life-saver.

Not to mention, the fact that Maddie’s hanging out just off-stage after finishing her own press Q&A. It’s a nice little addition, considering I’ve barely gotten a chance to say
hi
to her over the last few days with the way things have been.

Of course, not getting a chance to say “hi” to her isn’t what’s been keeping me up the last four nights in my room across from her. Not having a chance to “catch up” or “see how she’s doing” is
not
the reason I jerked off twice last night before I could fall asleep.

It’s being this close to her and having
less
of a
chance at getting into those panties of hers. It has me on edge. Yet, despite the cameras and the madness around us right now, it
is
nice to just be near her for the first time in days.

“Uh, yes?” I squint through the flashbulbs as the man with the waving pen stands.

“Mr. Ryan, how do feel your new circumstances affect your engagement to Ms. Carle?”

It’s like a slug to the gut and I feel the wind knock right out of me.

Oh you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.

Ms. Carle, otherwise known as Anya.

Otherwise known as my psycho ex-girlfriend, who’s apparently decided to outdo herself with her gold-digging, social-climbing, manipulative
bullshit
.

I start to open my mouth and say something that will probably make Irving cringe, when something out of the corner of my eye catches my attention. I turn,
just
in time to see Maddie shoot this
look
— eyes narrowed, her mouth pursed shut — before she whirls and marches away.

Fuck
.

I want to chase her. I want to run right after her, grab her by the arm, spin her around, and tell her it’s all bullshit. Except I know I can’t do that, even if I feel my whole body tense telling me to. 

Yeah, I can just imagine that headline:
New First Son Chases After His Stepsister After She Runs Off In An Obviously Jealous Rage Over Remarks About His Ex-Girlfriend

Okay, I supposed there’s a reason I’m not in publishing, but still, I’m pretty sure every cameraman and interviewer in this room could draw their own conclusions from that.

Instead, my knuckles go white as I grip the podium and turn back to the man, wishing death and destruction on him as I smile thinly. “I’m currently unaware of any such rumors about any type of relationship between me and Ms. Carle, Mister…?”

“Leland, with the Weekend Post, and Mr. Ryan, I’m not going off rumors, I’m going off the statement Ms. Carle herself made just twenty minutes ago.”

I almost want to be impressed with Anya’s tenacity to pull something like this, especially since last I heard she was off in Europe somewhere involved with a Grand Prix racer or something. 

Amazing how fast she managed to get back to D.C. and cook up a nice big pot of bullshit for a shot at some camera time.

“Well, then Ms. Carle is mistaken.”

“Would you call this a lover’s quarrel, Mr. Ryan?” Another reporter stands and quickly blurts out.

“I’d call it bullshit, actually,” I say with a smile, as Irving cringes beside me and a titter runs through the crowd of journalists. “Anyways, I think we’re done here.” 

I’m already marching offstage, my eyes searching the backstage area for Maddie as I hear Irving take over and step up to stem the rushing flood of questions that pour after me.

Yeah, I’m going to get an earful for this one.

*****

It’s Maddie that bumps into me, actually, about five minutes later as I round a quiet corner of the West Wing looking for her. She gasps as she crashes into me, her hands going to my chest before she scowls up and pushes me away.

“
Fiancé?!
” She hisses, her cheeks pink and her eyes wild and accusatory as she glares at me.

I roll my eyes. “What do
you
think?”

“I think you’re a dog and a manwhore, and that I have
zero
interest in being part of your stable of booty calls,
actually
.”

“Stable of booty calls?” I grin at her.

“Oh fuck off, you know what I mean.”

“Will you relax? At what point when I was around you something like eighteen hours a day when I was still your detail did you get the impression I had time for anyone else?”

“Someone like your
ex
or
fiancé,
or whatever the fuck she is?” she says heatedly, her hands balling into fists at her sides, her pouty pink lips pursing together.

I smirk at her. “You know, you’re pretty cute when you’re jealous.”

She barks out a cold laugh. “You
wish
I was.”

“And what would you call this little display then?”

She narrows her seething eyes at me. “I’d call it being pissed at being played into being your little
side
dish.”

“Where do you
get
these terms, by the way?” 

Maddie groans, exasperated, and goes to push past me, but I grab her by the wrists and yank her against me. 

“You’re not my
side
anything, doll. Anya’s full of shit, she’s like that.”

“Yeah I’ll have to take that into serious consideration,” she says angrily, fighting my grip on her wrists. 

I don’t let go.

“Maddie, I’m telling the truth and you know it, despite this little jealousy act.”

“I am
not
jealous!”

“Bullshit,” I growl, pulling her close. It’s been
days
since I had her this close. Days since my fingers were inside her slick pussy making her come, and days of me dreaming about it every single moment — waking and sleeping. 

Damn,
she feels
good
pressed against me like this. The scent of her hair teases me, and the heat from her body seeping through my shirt has me gritting my teeth and suppressing the growl in my throat. 

Her pink lips are still pursed together like she’s angry at me, but if she’s trying to get me to fuck off with that look, it
ain’t
working. Those lips are just a fucking temptation, even — shit,
especially
— when they’re pursed together and looking pissy like that. Those lips are like a
challenge
to me, and I want to take them. I want to claim her mouth with my own and feel those lips
yield
to me.

I suddenly imagine her lips slowly parting as she looks up at me, and picture the softly pouty wetness of them sliding over the head of my cock while she’s there on her knees.

Fuck
. I haven’t been this close to her in days, and now it’s like a hit of drug crashing through my system all at once. It’s four days of pent-up denial in the face of temptation hitting me full in the face.

“Let go of me,” she says softly, and I blink back to the present as I stare into those wild green eyes.

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

I
do
growl then, as I pull her squirming body tight against me, loving the way she gasps feeling my cock
throb
in my pants. 

“I said
no,
princess,” I husk out.

And —God help me — she
whimpers
.

It’s not loud, and it’s actually barely indistinguishable from a whispered gasp, but I
know
what it is when I hear it.

That’s the straw that breaks this camel’s back.

Her mouth is as eager as mine as I crush my lips to hers, pushing her back against the closed door behind her, growling into the kiss. She moans, her hands clutching at me and grappling at my shirt as I hold her face in my hands and kiss her hard enough to bruise.

I want this girl,
now
. I want
all
of her, right now, come hell or whatever consequences. Because I’m through teasing, and I’m through with the games. I’m through with anything that isn’t feeling her slide onto my cock and listening to her cry out when she comes for me.

I grab the door handle behind us, twisting it open, falling inside with her still desperately kissing me.

And it’s only when we tumble inside the room that we suddenly freeze and then away from each other in shock.

“Um—”

We’re in the Oval Office.

I don’t know how I managed to not realize where the fuck we were when I bumped into her in the hallway, but we’ve just fallen through the small side door right into the middle of the most famous office on the planet.

It’s empty, of course, seeing as Eleanor is actually up in New York meeting with the U.N. General Assembly, but there’s still a sense of power and authority here.

Yeah, you know what?
Fuck it.

I grab her and pull her back against me as I kiss her, pushing her back until her ass bumps into the fucking Presidential desk. Like I said, come hell or consequence, I’m not waiting another second to taste this girl; to feel her moan and writhe as I slide every inch of my cock inside of her.

She pulls away from my lips with wide eyes. “Are you
kidding
me?”

I grind my thick erection into her thigh. “You tell me.”

She blushes, her breath catching. “No, I mean,
here?
”

“Princess,” I say, reaching up to cup her jaw in my hand as my eyes flash into hers. “It’s going to take a fucking army to stop me from doing this
right
here,
right now
.”

Her breath comes out in a gasp, and then she’s falling into me as I sear my lips to hers and push her back against the desk.

She’s still wearing one of those ridiculous prim and proper skirt-suits her stylists keep insisting on putting her in for public events, like she’s Jackie O or Nancy Reagan or something. It
shouldn’t
be hot, with that sensible knee-length skirt, those modest pumps, and that damned blouse buttoned up to her fucking chin.

Except fuck-all if it doesn’t get my cock harder than Goddamn iron. And maybe it’s because I
know
what those perfect, soft tits of hers look like underneath that blouse, or because I
know
that the cream-white hose on her legs are actually the sexiest fucking thigh-highs you can imagine, because I know she hates pantyhose.