Stepbrother Protects (His Twisted Game Book Six) (2 page)

But even so, I picked a butcher knife up
off the kitchen floor and went through the apartment room by room, making sure
I was really alone.
 
The whole
place had been trashed.
 
Cole’s bed
had been stripped and the mattress had been slit with a knife.
 
Most of the clothes in Cole’s closet
had been ripped into shreds.
 
My
clothes had been ripped as well, the expensive fabrics hanging in tatters from
the hangers in my closet.

But it was Cole’s office that had gotten
it the worst.

His file cabinets had been completely
emptied, folders and pages scattered and thrown around the room until it looked
like there had been a paper blizzard.

It was the last room I checked, and when
I was done, I fell to my knees.
 
Now that I knew no one was here, that I wasn’t in any immediate danger,
the adrenaline that had kicked in and kept me moving had started to
dissipate.
 
I curled up on the
floor, putting my head in my hands as grief and terror flowed through me.

I wasn’t a stranger to robberies or
stealing – growing up where I had, you always had to be on alert for
someone trying to take what was yours.
 
Or, conversely, you could find yourself on the other side of it, when
your friends decided they wanted to stop in and rob a house on their way out to
the club, just so they could score some extra money at the pawn shop on the
outskirts of town, the one that would buy whatever you brought in, no questions
asked.

But this -- what had happened at Cole’s
house, this kind of malicious destruction -
-
 
this
was more than just someone
coming into your house and taking your laptop or grabbing your emergency money
out of the freezer where you’d thought it would be safe.

No, whoever had broken into Cole’s
apartment had come here looking for something specific.
 
And when they couldn’t find it, or
maybe even in the process of looking for it, they decided to wreck anything and
everything they could get their hands on.
 
They were doing it to send a message.

I didn’t realize I was breathing so
heavily until I had trouble taking a breath.
 
My chest felt like someone was sitting on it, and I
laid
down on the floor of Cole’s office, forcing myself to concentrate
on a part of an abstract painting that hung on the wall.
 
I listened to my breathing, trying to
calm my mind and waiting for my heart rate to return to normal.

I laid there, on the floor, for over an
hour.

I couldn’t stop thinking about him.

Cole.

Even with everything that was going on
right now, my body ached for him. It was all kinds of fucked up, but it was
almost like the crazier things got, the more I wanted him, the more I needed
him.

The fact that he’d protected me, that
he’d risked everything for me, that he’d been able to control himself until
someone had messed with me, made me feel close and connected to him.

And every time I felt close and connected
to him, I wanted to feel his hands all over my body.
 
His strength and power, the way he was so sure of himself,
the way he demanded things of me… a shiver ran up my spine, thinking about how
he’d made me strip in his office, how he’d taken me in that closet the other
night, how he’d tied my hands with his shirt and slid his cock into me, my
pussy spreading out around his thickness.

I started to get wet thinking about his
mouth on me, his tongue sliding past my lips, his arms wrapping around my
waist.
 
I slid my hand down over my
stomach and into my panties, spreading my pussy lips and pretending it was Cole
touching me, that it was his hand moving over my clit.
 
I thought about him coming inside of
me, how it had felt to have his hard dick thrusting inside of me as he filled
me with warmth.

I imagined him pushing me to the ground,
making me choke on his cock before taking me to bed and being gentle with me,
making love to me slowly and sensually until I came all over him while he
looked into my eyes.

I moved my fingers faster until I made
myself come, my orgasm rushing through me.

But instead of satisfying a need, all it
did was intensify my desire for him.
 
I’d always been addicted to my stepbrother – but the hurt I’d felt
when he’d first left me all those years ago had overwhelmed those feelings and
allowed me to push my want for him deep into the depths of my soul.

But now he was back, and I was getting
even more addicted.
 
Every second
away from him felt like torture.
 
Now that I’d had sex with him, his touch, his kiss, his hands, his
mouth, his fingers,
his
cock… they were all I could
think about.
 

The phone rang.

Cole.

I sprung up from the floor and ran to the
kitchen to grab the cordless.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Ms. Buchanan?
 
This is Graham from downstairs.
 
Sorry to call your phone, but no one
was answering the buzzer.”
 

I glanced over to where the buzzer had
been ripped out of the wall, its wires cut with scissors.
 
“Yes, um, the buzzer is…
malfunctioning.”

“Shall I send someone up to fix it?”

“No!
 
I mean, no, that’s okay.
 
I’ll just have Cole take care of it when he gets home.”

“Okay.
 
I wanted to call and let you know that your mother is here
to see you.”

“My mother?”
 
That made no sense.
 
My mom wouldn’t have come here.
 
I’d just left her at home with Gordon.
 
She was probably getting her punishment, either that or
making a statement to the cops, telling them how horrible Cole was for breaking
into their house and getting violent with a police officer who’d done nothing
to him.

“Yes.
 
She’s requesting to come up.
 
Shall I send her?”

“I don’t… I’m
sorry,
I’m just a little confused.
 
I’m
not sure my mother would be here.”
 
I frowned, thinking about the man who’d tried to gain access to Cole’s
apartment the other night, the man who’d been turned away, the one who’d
followed me.
 
Was it possible that
this new person, this woman, was someone else who was trying to gain access to
Cole?
 
“Can you describe her,
Graham?” I asked.

“Certainly, Ms. Buchanan.
 
She has short, dirty blonde hair, and
she’s wearing jeans and a navy blue fleece.”
 
It certainly sounded like my mother.
 
And she did have a navy blue
fleece.
 
Graham lowered his
voice.
 
“She appears to be in some
distress.”

“Distress?”

“Yes.
 
She seems to have an injury to her lip.”

That was definitely my mother.
 
But what the hell was she doing
here?
 
“That’s her,” I said.
 
“Send her up.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

 
“Thank you, Graham.”
 
I hung up the phone and stared at it in disbelief.
 
What the
hell
was my mother doing here?
 
Was it possible she’d finally come to
her senses, that she’d realized after what happened tonight that it was time to
leave Gordon?
 
Had she figured out
that he really was no good for her, that she could form a life without him?

Maybe she’d come here to ask for help.
Cole would help her
,
I knew it
.
 
He’d let her stay
here,
he’d give her money until she could get back on her feet.
 
Cole had never understood why I
wouldn’t leave home, why I wanted to protect my mom, but the only problem he’d
ever really had with her was the fact that she’d let Gordon walk all over us.

But now that she was leaving, he’d have no
reason to be upset with her.

I gave myself a second – one tiny
little second – to let the hope bloom in my chest.
 
It was so overwhelming, the thought
that maybe this nightmare would be over for our family, that maybe me and my
mom would both get away from Gordon and start new lives in the city, that I
felt short of breath again.

I shouldn’t have done it.
 
I shouldn’t have let myself have any
hope, not even for a moment.
 
Because a second later the doorknob turned and my mom walked in without even
knocking.
 

I suddenly realized I’d told Graham to
send my mom up without taking into account the fact that Cole’s apartment was a
complete disaster area.
 

Her eyes took in the scene in front of her
coldly, running over the ruined television, the vandalized kitchen,
the
fact that I was still clutching a butcher knife in one
hand.

I set the knife down on the counter.

“Well,” she said.
 
“I see your brother is still hanging
with the same crowd.”

And then I knew.
 
She hadn’t come here because she wanted
to get away.
 
She’d come here to
yell at me, to try to get me on her side.
  
Disappointment washed over me, swallowing up the tiny
bit of hope I’d started to feel and replacing it with anger.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“That’s not a very nice way to talk to
your mother.”
 
She didn’t sound
shocked,
even though it was one of the first times I’d ever
taken a tone with her.

“Yeah, well, I’m not in a very nice
mood,” I said.
 

I saw the first tiny flicker of surprise
flash across her face.
 
Her lip
looked even worse than it had before – I wasn’t sure if it was the
lighting or what, but it seemed like it was getting worse.

“Mom,” I said softly, suddenly feeling
bad for being short with her.
 
“You
should really see a doctor for your lip.
 
You might need stitches.”

She waved me off, and I knew it was
useless to argue with her.
 
I’d
been trying for years to get her to see a doctor when Gordon had hurt her, but
of course she never would.
 
Doctors
would lead to questions, which would lead to cops, which would lead to more
questions and maybe even an arrest.
 
And obviously my mom couldn’t have that.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.
 

She hesitated, looked around at the
Cole’s ransacked apartment.
 
“Avery,” she said.
 
“You
need to come home.”

I almost laughed out loud.
 
“Come home?
 
You’re kidding, right?”

“No.
 
You’re not safe here, with Cole.”

“I’m not safe at home,” I countered.

“You’re safe at home, Avery.
 
I’ve talked with Gordon, and he’s
agreed to let you come back, no questions asked, provided you agree not to have
any more contact with Cole.”

“No.”
 
I shook my head.
 
“What Gordon did tonight was fucked up, Mom.
 
He got that cop to intentionally provoke Cole, and then when
Cole wouldn’t, the cop came after me.
 
You do know that, right?”

My mom swallowed, and I saw her shoulders
slump just a tiny bit.
 
I could
tell she was tired – dark circles lined her eyes, and her face had lost a
certain crispness that she used to have.
 
“You know Gordon doesn’t mean the things he does.
 
He’s had a hard life, Avery.”

I wanted to point out that we’d all had
hard lives, mostly because of living with Gordon all these years.
 
But I knew it would be wasted
words.
 
I still had to try, though.
 
“Mom, you don’t have to stay with him.
 
You could come here and stay with
Cole.
 
We could get away from
him.
 
I have a job now, we could
use the money to –”

“You have a job now?” she asked,
frowning, the wrinkles between her eyes becoming more pronounced.
 
“What kind of job?”

“Working for Cole,” I said.
 
“I’m his assistant.
 
At Buchanan Enterprises.”
 
I
name dropped
the company just for effect.
 

“Avery,” she said, her eyes
darkening.
 
She took in a deep
breath and reached out, grabbing the side of Cole’s granite countertop so hard
that I saw her knuckles turning white.
 
“You need to come home with me.”