Secret: A Military Stepbrother Romance (41 page)

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A B O U T   T H E   A U T H O R

Aubrey Irons enjoys writing about bold, sassy, and intelligent women and the dominant, cocky, and quite typically forbidden alpha males who love and lust for them; gripping stories, happy endings, and enough heat to keep things extra steamy! In the real world, Aubrey is kept plenty entertained by her own tattooed Marine husband, their precocious and adorable three year old, and one
very
ill-behaved puppy.

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What a DICK!

I can feel my heart practically jump out of my chest as I slam on the brakes, narrowly missing the motorcycle that cuts me off at the foot of my own driveway. The guy on the bike only slows down enough to flip me off though, before he roars off.

My pulse thumping a mile a minute, my hands tight on the steering wheel at their ten-and-two position, and my foot still jamming the brake pedal to the floor. But mostly I’m just
confused
as I watch in shock as the biker goes tearing up the driveway to my father’s estate.

Who the heck is that?

I mean, I know they say most accidents happen within a mile from home, but “the mailbox” is
kind of
pushing it! On top of that, there’s the embarrassment that, as totally cautious a driver as I normally am, I
know
I wasn’t paying attention back there. 

The other distractions of the day go tumbling through my head as I frown and start to follow the biker up the curving wooded drive to the main house. The dull, nagging whine in my head about my father wanting to have an “important talk” with me after my piano lessons today about Amanda, the woman he’s been seeing, comes thudding back to the forefront. Amanda, the mysterious woman I’ve only met once, even if I know they’ve been dating for more than six months now. And whatever, it’s fine that he’s dating. Heck, a guy like my dad
should
have been back in the field the day after my mom took off, the way she did.

So yeah, my dad dating is
fine
, but there’s something weird about dating the widow of one of his top foremen that’s a little weird. And a little
classless
, if you ask me.

But whatever.

At the top of the drive, it’s my turn to stick my finger out the window and flip off the guy on the bike, who’s now kicking back the stand and swinging his leg back over it. I slam the car into park and yank the keys out as I step out into the dry Texas heat.

Alright mister, you and I are gonna have word-

Oh
.

The guy’s back is to me as he shrugs his leather jacket off, and slips the helmet off his head. His hand comes up as he stretches, the fingers raking through his short dark hair and the sleeve of his white t-shirt straining tight over the defined muscles of his bicep. A half-sleeve of tattoos curves around that arm, swirling around those muscles, and I find myself blushing a little as I
stare
.

He’s ignoring me and my brake-screeching driveway entrance, his back still to me as he turns his head just a bit to bring a pack of cigarettes up to his mouth and draw one out with his lips. His very perfect, very sexy lips there on his very perfect,
very
defined jaw.

Um, wow.

I’m taking a step forward when two things happen. At the top of the curving stone steps, the front door to the house opens and my dad steps out with a blonde woman on his arm. 

And then the mysterious and sexy biker in my driveway turns around, looks right at me, and suddenly starts grinning.

Oh you have got to be kidding me
.

Stranger? Well, yes, but not really. Because I know him. Well, I’ve at least had the displeasure of
meeting him

He’s the boy from the open mic songwriters show the night before last at the Music Hall. The show I most certainly wasn’t supposed to be at, and the show my father thinks I was at Megan’s house studying during. The open mic show where I don’t play the Mozart and the Tchaikovsky from my lessons, I play and sing
my own
songs.

Oh my God, what is HE
doing here?!

He’s the boy who loudly shushed his buddies when they started to cat-call me on stage. The boy who met me right off the stage with a grin and a look that promised all
sorts
of bad decisions and offered to buy me a drink. A drink I, of course, declined seeing as I’m underage. The boy who leaned close and asked when I was playing next as he ran his finger through a stray lock of my wild red hair and tucked it behind me ear. The boy who had me absolutely tongue-tied and hanging off of his words until…well, until he got
quite
crude with them and I marched away, wishing I’d slapped him.

And of course, the boy who’s been in my thoughts ever since then, in ways he definitely shouldn’t be, because he’s so obviously
trouble
.

And here he is grinning at me and lighting a cigarette next to his motorcycle in my father’s driveway.

Seriously,
what
is happening here?

My dad beams at me as he walks down the stairs with the woman I now recognize as Amanda, my dad’s girlfriend. Somewhere in my head, an alarm bell starts to go off quietly.

“Ah, good! You’re both here!”

The alarm bell is joined by a second, and they start to get louder.

“Paige,” He smiles widely at me; “You remember Amanda. Well, we were going to wait, but we’ve got some
very
exciting news for you.” He looks towards Mr. Trouble; “Both of you!”

The wailing of the alarm bells starts to crescendo inside my head.

“Paige,
this
is Knox, Amanda’s son.”

The driveway starts to spin under my feet as the warning bells reach a cacophony, and my dad and Amanda are just standing there smiling.

“Knox already heard, but Paige, we wanted to be here together to tell you that Amanda and I have decided-”

Oh please no, please God don’t say it-

“We’ve decided to get married this fall!”

The world goes silent, and it’s in slow motion as my jaw drops and I turn to stare in horror at the dangerous, tattooed, muscled bad-boy standing there grinning at me.

“So Paige, meet Knox, your new stepbrother.”

My tongue turns to lead in my mouth and I just stand there
staring
at him in shock as the takes the cigarette out of his mouth, crosses those lean muscle arms over his chest and just grins at me. His eyes roam quite freely over my body as he opens those perfectly devilish lips; “Well, well,
well
.”

Oh this is not good.

There’s a beat, and then a moment of clarity as I suddenly recognize the fiery-haired, angry chick standing in front of me. And then my jaw about drops to the ground. 

Holy shit
.

There’s no way this is the girl from that night. She’s got glasses on now, and she’s wearing her hair up in this old-lady librarian bun, with this ridiculous collared shirt tucked into pleated
mom-
khakis - fucking
khakis
. Like, who the hell even wears khakis anymore?

My brain says there’s no way this can be the same girl, but the longer I just stare at her, not saying anything like some kind of weirdo, it all comes together. She had her hair down then, her red hair wild and streaming out from under a cowboy hat.
This
was the girl in the knee-high boots, with that slinky shirt that you could kind of see her bra through. 

The girl who sang her fuckin’ heart out on that stage, so much so that even the assholes like me who were only at that bar to begin with because of their loose carding policy shut the fuck up and listened. 

The girl who was all sass and vinegar when I tried to buy her a drink after, and the girl who took off the second I tried to make a move on her. OK, scratch that; the girl that looked at me like I had three heads when I suggested that we go get to know each other better in the men’s room.

Yeah, OK, so not exactly my finest moment.

She looks like a deer caught in headlights right now as her dad just fucking spills the news like that. And honestly, my face would probably look a just like it if I was hearing it for the first time on the steps of my house with - surprise! - my new family right there. As it stands, it’s exactly how my face looked
yesterday
when my mom broke the news to me. I mean, shit, I’m still nursing the hangover from processing that little nugget of news. 

Paige is staring at the two of them, slowly shaking her head. Jesus, she looks like she was even less ready for this than I was. And here I was thinking that it was Amanda who was the world’s most secretive parent, what with this whole surprise relationship. At least Paige looks just as fucking confused as I did last night, which I know is a weird sort of comfort, but at least I’m not the only one walking blind into this.  I mean I guess I’d know my mom had a boyfriend, but hearing the “fiancé” bomb was a slap in the fucking face. Oh, and we’re moving in with him?
Fantastic
.