Secret: A Military Stepbrother Romance (43 page)

Nope, he goes for Chloe fucking Caulfield’s
mom
.

Surprise, your old pop is getting married again, and guess who your new stepsister is? I mean it was a long time ago, but it’s still too fucking weird. 

Okay, so it’s also a teeny bit interesting, if I’m being honest. 

Chloe Caulfield. I haven't seen her since that senior year exchange trip. Rigid, bookish, uptight, and one might even say
bitch
if one were being crude. And yet, things sure got interesting back then. Interesting like three days of sleepless nights, three days of sneaking around to make out late into the night. Three days of pressing myself against her, seeing how far she’d let my hands go before pushing them away. Three days and nights of wanting so much more that an uptight virgin like her was going to give, even if I knew it wasn’t going to happen.

Well, until it almost did.

“Ever been properly kissed?”

She darts her eyes to the floor, her cheeks going this flushed red color. “Of course I have.”

“Naw, sweetheart, I mean real proper kissed.”

She wrinkles her nose, “What, like frenching?”

I have to grin. “If it’s 1985, sure.”

But whatever, she’s here, even if it’s apparently only for a few months until she goes back to school.
“Taking a break”
I think is how my dad phrased it. Yeah, right; heard that one before.

She was a pain in the ass back then, and I can’t imagine that’s done more than grow in the five years since. 

She was also temptation on a fuckin’ stick.

I’m suddenly wondering if that’s grown too. Four months might not be long, but it’s going to be an eternity if we’re anything like we were back then. I barely survived four
days
of that girl before.

Four months? Yikes.

But whatever, I wouldn't have time for this shit even if she
wasn’t
going to be my stepsister. I’m
way
too busy with the restaurant. Fuckin’ ‘ell, I’ve been “chef” for three weeks and it already feels like forever. Three fuckin’ weeks since dad fired Martin and stuck me in his place. Martin of the two stars, and now me with zero of them.

Hey, no pressure.

Every day a fucking battle to make sure they respect that in there. A kitchen is a war zone; it’s a military regiment that needs the discipline of a damn army to run efficiently. I’m not talking a burger joint kitchen here either.
Jolie
is the fucking
big leagues
. This is 200 quid a head dinners, and that price
demands
the type of discipline from a kitchen that you rarely find outside of the Queen’s guard. And if you’re the type of utter idiot like me who wants to be at the top of
that?
Congratulations, you’re the general. Now, act like the toughest motherfucker in a room full of guys who willingly spend the majority of their waking hours in an insanely stressful environment involving sharp knives, open flame, and close quarters for a living.

And I have to
run that
with an iron fist.

So like I said, I’m a
tad
busy, and a
touch
high-strung at the moment, and hanging around Heathrow waiting for the girl I don’t want here
anyways
is pushing all my buttons. 

But whatever, at least I’ll be so busy with
Jolie
the next few months that I’ll probably never see her anyways.

“Dad,” I glance at my watch, “I’m seriously pushing it on time. I’ve gotta get back. Look I’ll just take my own taxi or the Piccadilly train or something.”

“Oy, cool it boy-o, they’ll be fine at the kitchen. We’re closed Mondays anyways.”

“No, they won’t be, and I’ve
still
got shit to do, you know.”

“Ah!” He says cheerily, completely ignoring me. He points to the gate flashing their plane’s call numbers. “Looks like they’re here!”

Wonderful.

He turns to me, “Besides, you ought to wait for Chloe anyways before you go back.”

I groan, checking my watch and wondering how fast I can bribe a taxi driver to go on the M4 today; “Why?”

The gate opens, and suddenly, there they are. I can see Mrs. Caulfield -
Laura
- beaming as she sees my dad. And he’s grinning too as he starts to move towards her.

God, ‘Mrs.
Caulfield’
? Fuck, do I have to call her step-mum now?

The throng of travelers and loved ones milling around the exit ramp begins to part, and then there
she
is. 

And she’s staring right at me. 

Our eyes meet across the crowd of people reuniting. All around people are hugging and kissing and shaking hands and generally glad to see each other. Which puts us
distinctly
out of place, because one look at each other and it’s clear neither of us is glad to see the other.

But fuckin’ hell, any hope I had of her losing her hair or putting on eight-hundred pounds or something since the last time I saw goes fluttering away the second my eyes land on her. 

Shit.

She’s wearing jeans, a long-sleeve t-shirt, and rain-boots, but she might as well be in a fuckin’ red-carpet
gown
. Or fuck,
lingerie
or something.

Because, fuck me sideways, she’s even hotter than I remember. Those searing blue eyes like cold rain, that dark brown hair like a wave of silk down over her shoulder, that defiant way she’s holding her head up high and her shoulders back.

That
perfect
rack and an ass that gets my cock hard
right there
standing in the middle of Heathrow Airport.

This
is going to be bloody problem.

Whatever,
I tell myself.
You’ll barely see her. She can deal with this whole situation however she wants to.
 

But suddenly, the last thing my dad said to me pings and resonates inside my head.

 “Dad,” I grab his coat before he takes another step through the crowd; “What do you mean I should ‘wait for her’.” 

I narrow my eyes at him as he turns back and throws me a quick questioning look. “Oh, bugger, didn’t I tell you?” He’s smiling away, as if none of this is at all blowing apart my whole world.

“Tell me
what
?”

They’re getting closer now as they push their way through the crowd; the smiling bride-to-be and her scowling, sexy as fuckin’ sin daughter. My dad shakes his head, “Must’ve slipped my mind with all this happening so fast. She’s a baker you know.”

“So?”

Oh, fuck.

And instantly, I’m seeing where this is going, and I’m slowly shaking my head even before my dad can open his mouth. 

“I hired her. She’s your new pastry cook.”

And then they’re right in front of us, and my dad and Mrs. Caulfield are laughing and hugging, and I’m just standing there, staring at Chloe with our eyes locked.

Yeah, this is going to be a right bloody fuckin’ problem.

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Heat

Soldiers of Fortune: Book 1

Aubrey Irons

Five years ago, that cocky, egotistical a**hole played me like a fool and broke my heart.

Hudson Banks; the dominant, tattooed, womanizing, ex-Marine-turned-billionaire who runs God-knows-what at my late father’s company.

Oh, and he’s sexy as all f**k, and he damn well knows it.

He’s like a gasoline fire; a scorchingly hot disaster, and if I’m not careful, I’m going to get burned. 

I’m on track to be the youngest New York State Senator ever elected; the bright, gutsy, good-girl media darling. Except my campaign funding just went dry, and it looks like the only solution is coming from the last person on Earth I’d ever want to take anything from. Oh, and it turns out bad-boy, tough-guy Hudson will be shadowing me 24/7 after he makes it clear that he’s in charge of “protecting the investment."”

Yeah, just perfect; a reckless, irresistible d*ck like Hudson Banks is the
last
person I need being “in charge” of anything to do with me.
 

Especially when I still can’t forget the taste of his lips or  the feeling of that
massive
hardness I know he’s packing between his legs. It’s not fair that he’s even hotter now than he was back then. It’s not fair that those smoldering, arrogant eyes and that cocky, panty-melting grin still make me warm in places they shouldn’t. And it’s definitely not fair that five years later, I still can’t get him out of my head.

So it looks like I’ve got two races on my hands: the one for election, and the one against the burning heat threatening to tear us both apart. But on the sprint to the finish line, what happens when the man who has everything comes up against the one thing he can’t have? 

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Epilogue

Chapter One

“They’re fucking
what?!
” I almost drop the glass of champagne in my hand as I feel the floor practically drop out from beneath my feet. My campaign manager Donald’s face is impassive and steely - pretty much like it always is even in crisis meltdown situations like this - with his bushy grey eyebrows furrowing slightly like they do when he’s got news for me neither of us want to hear.

“They’re pulling out, Reagan; entirely.” I see him reach out of habit for the phantom pack of cigarettes in his shirt pocket that hasn’t been there for five years; the frown in his eyebrows deepening.

“
All
of it?”

He sticks a pen between his lips instead of his old vice and glowers at me; “Every damn penny.”

I swear fiercely under my breath, clenching my hand tight and digging my nails into my palm as the reality of the situation hits me like a wet blanket; “How fucked are we?”

Donald tenses his face; he hates when I swear, especially in public and
especially
in public when there are cameras
everywhere
. “Lower your
voice
, Reagan” He mutters through the pen in his teeth, looking at me like I’m an ill-behaved child in that way that drives me
crazy
. In the movie version of my life, Donald is the kind and sagely grandfatherly type who guides me along a path of adorable metaphors and teary-eyed life lessons to victory. In reality, he’s cold, calculating, and robotically efficient at keeping me in line with his battle plans. But then again, kindly grandfatherly types doling out anachronisms like they were candy don’t win elections; robots do.