Secret: A Military Stepbrother Romance (28 page)

Holy shit, she’s being serious.

That’s when the other shoe drops: Hunter has a girlfriend, and that hot, dirty sex I just had with him just got a whole lot dirtier, and
not
in a good way. It’s more in the ‘I’m the other woman’ kind of way; in the
cheating
way. 

That
fucking
asshole. What was I, the side piece? The girl he couldn’t have so he took anyways?

“I’d call it being pissed at being played into being your little side dish.”

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

I want to
hit
myself for falling or his bullshit charm and his cocky, cavalier,
bad boy
attitude. I want to hit myself for swallowing all those outright
lies
of his.

That’s not the only thing you swallowed
. 

My face burns in shame at the little voice in my head.

“Madame President, your cabinet meeting starts in fifteen minutes,” one of my mother’s security detail says quietly, leaning forward from behind her.

She turns and makes a face at Anya, “Oh, dear, I lost track of time.”

“Oh, that’s
fine
, Eleanor, I’ll be in town all week!” She tosses her hair back, “Well, maybe a bit longer, actually.”

Eleanor? Oh fuck off
, I growl to myself, feeling my hands tighten into fists at my side.

Anya turns and smiles this big plastic smile at me. “
Lovely
to meet you, hon.”

“Charmed,” I say sweetly, forcing the same plastic-y grin to my face that slowly drops into a grimace as a Secret Service agent escorts her away.

Suddenly, the agents around us stiffen, their fingers all on their earpieces. One of them suddenly mutters “code nine,” and they all reach for their guns. And my heart jumps up into my throat.

“Ma’am, I need you to come with us,” one of them says evenly, his face stern and frozen as he addresses my mother. “Both of you, if you would.”

My mother scowls. “Oh what is it?”

“Security threat in your office, ma’am.”

She rolls her eyes. “Is it ticking? Covered with white powder?”

“Ma’am, I’m not at liberty to—”

My mother sighs, “Oh, give me that,” she holds her hand out and, with a quick dart of his eyes to the other agents, the man hands her his side radio.

“This is President Adams,” she says authoritatively into the radio. “What exactly is in my office?”

She frowns as the earpiece she holds to her ear squawks, and then she’s rolling her eyes and pursing her lips. 

“We’re fine,” she says, raising her brow to the other agents. “Let’s get to that cabinet meeting, shall we?”

I frown. “Mom?”

“Oh,” my mother’s cheeks flush a little as she makes a dismissive gesture with her hand. “I appears your stepbrother and his lady friend…” She trails off and chuckles. “It appears I need to talk with him about what’s
appropriate
behavior in this place, and
where
.”

“Huh?”

My mother’s shakes her head and purses her lips. “Apparently the Service just found a pair of Ms. Carle’s, well,
undergarments
in my damn office.”

Oh my God.

She wants to talk with Hunter about “what’s appropriate”? What’s
appropriate?
Because what the two of us just did in that office is most certainly
not
appropriate, and now my
panties
are in Federal custody. My fucking ripped
thong
is probably now in an anti-terror evidence lab being analyzed by the Goddamn CIA or something.

Yeah, we left
appropriate
behind a long freaking time ago, and we are now officially in free fall.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

What the…

I frown as I try and push open the secret door into Maddie’s room via the bookshelf, only to confirm that it’s just not opening. I narrow my eyes at it and try shoving with my shoulder, but the damned thing is fucking
not
moving, like it’s accidentally locked or something. Of course, that’s not true, because I happen to know it doesn’t lock. And that can only mean there’s something holding it shut, and something suddenly tells me that there’s nothing
accidental
about it.

Which means she’s purposefully keeping me out.

Well, shit
.

I stop pushing at the door and sit there fuming in the dark with my cock half-hard in my pants and my plans of burying it deep inside Maddie’s pussy vanishing in the air around me.

It’s been six hours, tops, since the explosive afternoon in the Oval Office. I’m trying to wrack my brain about anything stupid or out of line I may have said or done since then, but I actually haven’t even
seen
her since then.

What, did she want me to send fucking flowers or some shit?

I let out a long sigh as I frown once more at the closed door before I shake my head and go back to my room. 

*****

There’s something strange about seeing the President of the United States in a bathrobe. It’s like seeing your teachers outside of class as a kid, or watching the Santa Claus in the mall take his fake beard off to light a cigarette. It’s a little weird.

I’ve been at the breakfast table with Eleanor and my dad before, but that was before this was all public. I mean, I’m sure people had their hunches and their guesses, but dad and her still made a point of keeping things as professional as possible, which, I have to say, I can get behind.

But the cat’s out the bag now, the media is devouring the story, and honestly, I’m not sure I’ve seen my dad this happy in a long fucking time. They’re
both
in bathrobes, actually, drinking coffee, reading the
Post
, and generally acting like a couple. I’m even about to say something nice about it, when Maddie walks in looking like the ice-queen herself.

She doesn’t even glare at me, or shoot me a look, or say
shit
to me. She flat out ignores me, which is even more obnoxious since I still don’t know what the fuck crawled up her ass. 

She grabs a mug of coffee and drags a section of the paper over to the far end of the counter, where she slumps onto a stool.

I give it about three whole seconds before I roll my eyes and move down towards her.

“Suddenly a Nationals fan?” 

She looks up with a scowl on her face as I grin and nod at the sports section in her hand. 

“Not a great season to jump on that bandwagon, you know.”

She sighs and snatches the paper away from me, turning her back to me.

Ooookay.

“Look, were you expecting flowers or something?” I hiss into her ear, glancing towards our parents who are lost in some sappy grinning conversation on the other side of the kitchen.

“I was
expecting
the impossible, so, jokes on me,” she mutters under her breath, sneering at me.

“Gonna have to translate that one for me, doll.”

“No problem, how about ‘you’re a fucking shithead’? You get that okay?” 

“Yo comprendo,” I mutter back, furrowing my brow at her. “Look what’s your fucking problem?”

“
You
, Hunter;
you’re
my fucking problem.” She snatches up her coffee mug, scoots the stool back, and breezes out of the room.

“Oh, are you a Nationals fan, Hunter?” I jerk my head up to see Eleanor smiling at me in her bathrobe as she pours more coffee into her mug. “Terrible season, isn’t it?”

*****

I corner her at the top of the stairs by the doors to both our rooms, and she jerks her arm back when I grab her.

“
What
, Hunter?”

“You better not have anything on under those PJs, you know.”

She rolls her eyes, but this time, it’s not that cute little embarrassed flirty eye roll. It’s a ‘fuck off’ eye roll. 

“Go away, Hunter.”

I frown, but as she turns to open her door, I grab her arm again and pull her close. 

“How about we put that big bed of yours to the test, princess,” I growl into her ear. “And you can show me
exactly
what I hope you really slee—”

“Hunter,
fuck off
,” she says with a snarl as she yanks her arm back and shoves her door open. She turns back to glare at me as she steps inside, giving me just the slightest shake of the head, her jaw set, before she slams the door shut.

So, that’s where we’re at, apparently. I’ve gone from “Oh God, I’m going to come, Hunter” to “you’re a fucking shithead, Hunter.”

Fuck me, huh?

Part of me wonders if it has to do with the announcement, as if somehow that reality has finally caught up with her and now she’s shutting down with me. It’s like now that things are out in the open — well, relatively speaking — she wants nothing to do with me. Like the publicity surrounding our parents makes it all too real.

Or possibly it’s because of what happened yesterday; maybe us actually fucking again jarred her later on or something, or embarrassed her.

Except that’s fucking ridiculous. 

In any case, Maddie’s shutting me out, and if I have any pride or sense, I’ll do the same with her. If she wants nothing to do with me, or if she’s pissed about what happened, I should do the same. Self-preservation or some shit.

And besides, what the hell
is
it between us? So we had this sort of crazy, pent up attraction, and we acted on it. Big fucking deal, it’s not like it makes us boyfriend and girlfriend or anything like that. And it’s not like there aren’t a hundred other women out there I could be and
should
be fucking. I mean, war vet? Wounded in battle? And now I’m the fucking President’s stepson? Yeah, getting laid was
not
a problem before, but it’s going to be like fishing with dynamite now.

Except the idea of going out and fucking someone new just does
not
appeal to me, at all.

I growl as I shut the door to my room and lean back against the door, frowning at the floor. What the
fuck
is wrong with me? I try and push her out of my head — to forget her like I’ve done with a hundred other women — but I fucking
can’t
.

Because all I can think of is her sitting there in the kitchen just now; disheveled hair, pajamas, sipping coffee with that cute little scowl on her face. She’s not some dolled-up club girl, or a Senate intern with a wardrobe from daddy’s credit card, she’s just
her
; plain, perfect, sitting-at-the-breakfast-table-in-pjs
her
.

And it’s sexy as fucking sin.

Sexy, untouchable, sin.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN