Bastard Stepbrother (Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance) Read online

  Bastard Stepbrother

  Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance

  Amy Faye

  Published by Heartthrob Publishing

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  Here’s a preview of the sexy love story you’re about to read…

  "What do you want me to do," he says. His voice is rough.

  "Whatever you want," I tell him, my breath still ragged in my chest.

  Fingers wrap around my wrist, strong and insistent but not demanding. Firm, but not rough. And he guides my hand to his hardness. It makes an outline against the fine fabric of his trousers, but nothing prepares me for the feeling of my fingers as they wrap a little way around it, as much as I can through the clothing.

  It's big. I don't have a long list of dicks I've seen, but this one is big by any comparison point I can make. Part of me wonders how it's going to fit inside me. I already know the answer, though. Deliciously.

  "Take it out," he says softly. My hands go to work undoing his belt, unzipping the fly on his trousers. The clothing is well-made and comes undone easily. His hardness springs out at me automatically, as soon as it's freed from the clothing.

  My hands find the hem of his boxers next, and pull them down until he's loose of them as well, his manhood standing straight and proud. It looks bigger than it felt, and it felt large. A shiver runs down my spine. I've always liked a challenge, but this is entirely different from anything I've ever had to combat before.

  My hand wraps around it. The flesh is soft, and yet it's only a thin layer of softness over something that feels impossibly hard. My mind is racing at a million miles an hour, and I can't stop myself from giving it an experimental tug.

  The soft flesh along his length moves with my hand, and his breathing gets a little louder, a little more ragged, just for an instant before Eric can get control of himself again. I move more smoothly this time, a little slower.

  His eyes drift shut as my hand falls into a rhythm, massaging his shaft and watching the expressions on his face. How his mood shifts when I do it faster, or when I focus more on the head.

  His hand reaches down and stills mine. "Your mouth, too," he says.

  As simple as that, and then he lets me continue. My pace, with instruction.

  I sit up. I don't know how much I'll be able to fit in my mouth, but I don't feel as if he wants to hear my excuses, or my rationale, or my worrying. Something deep down inside me suspects that has nothing to do with what he wants.

  My tongue comes out for an experimental lick along the shaft, one that meets with his vocal approval. A little shiver runs through me. I did alright so far.

  He fills my mouth when I take him between my lips. I'm a little bit disappointed in myself when I can only take the first couple of inches. I move my head though, doing what I can. I can already feel my jaw loosening up, can already feel the gag reflex slowly dissipating.

  He can feel it, too. The way that his fingers dig into my hair, the way that he can't quite still his hips from moving to meet my mouth.

  I move faster, my fingers wrapping around him where my mouth can't reach. I don't know what kind of a slut I must look like. Probably a big one. Even still, I'm not going to stop. Can't stop.

  His hips are moving, now, a thrust meeting me every time I bob my head forward. I can't suppress the choking sound it pulls out. And I can tell that he's getting close. I don't know how close until he growls out 'fuck' and misses a thrust.

  His fingers tighten in my hair and his cock thrusts deep into my throat, as deep as it can go, and he holds me there, his cock spasming as he shoots cum straight down my throat and into my belly.

  Part of me wants to be annoyed that I didn't get a warning. Another part, a much bigger part, wants him between my legs yesterday.

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  Chapter One

  Sometimes, people ask what my earliest childhood memory is. I lie.

  I should have earlier memories. I should have memories of when I was really little, of my time in elementary school. Of what my life was like when I was really little, of getting to know my family.

  My most powerful memory, the first one that comes to mind when I think, wasn't until I was fourteen years old. I don't know what is wrong with me. I know most people remember plenty before they were fourteen. Not me.

  I just remember two things about that day. I remember watching Eric step through the door, his broad shoulders framed in the outside light, the house still dark. I'd gotten up to get a drink of water before I went back to sleep.

  I remember watching him, not being able to say anything because I'd wake everyone up, and I remember being terrified that I would get yelled at if I did. He didn't look back, and he didn't see me standing there.

  Which was a good metaphor for our entire relationship, because the other thing that I remember is that I was hopelessly in love with him at the time.

  I don't know how old I was when his Dad married my Mom. Mom has told me so many different ages that I don't know which to believe. Some time between ninety-five and ninety-seven. Probably closer to ninety-five. They had a short relationship before they were married.

  I think Eric's Dad thought he needed a mother. Mom… well, I don't have to guess, but I shouldn't think such awful things about her, either. I'm sure that she doesn't realize what she's doing until it's too late, but she's never been in any relationship that wasn't "serious."

  I was fourteen years old, and at the same time I knew that I wasn't supposed to be thinking about my brother like that. Blood-related or not, he was completely off-limits. Like. Not even part of the conversation. You don't tell your friends "well, there's this one guy, he's my brother."

  So I don't think he knew, and I know I sure as hell didn't talk to anyone about it, not so you'd know who I was talking about.

  But when he left, I just remember feeling like my heart was getting ripped out of my chest.

  Nothing before that feels like a real memory. Just little flashes, but nothing that makes good sense. Nothing with real context. A few teachers' faces. I don't know their names. Can't put them in order. Couldn't tell you something I learned from them.

  But that image of Eric walking out my Mom's front door, the morning sun just hitting the horizon and shooting pink-colored lights around him, that I remember well.

  More than that, I remember how, when everyone else was up—I couldn't go back to sleep after that, could I?—I couldn't get anyone to tell me what had happened.

  It wasn't something that they wanted to talk to me about.

  There are things I know now, that I didn't know then. Things I understand that I didn't understand at the time. That's how it always is, really. There's always something that you don't know until it's too late.

  I learned that just because two people say they love each other, that doesn't mean that they're going to be together forever.

  Mom had assured me a thousand times over that she loved Dad. That wasn't how it worked out. In fact, after Eric left, it seemed like it was only a matter of time. Something had changed, however small, and then it just got bigger as time went on, until they couldn't ignore it any more.

  I learned that Mom was prone to mistakes. Later, I learned that I'd been the one making a mistake—Mom's mistakes were always the sort of mistakes you can avoid with the radical technique of 'not looking for trouble.'

  I learned that fairy tale romances aren't real. My Mom taught me about everything anyone could ever want to know, and I guess for all that I think
about her, I guess I have to thank her for that.

  Without her little lessons, I wouldn't have toughened up. I wouldn't have the understanding I do now, of the world and of how to get by in it. I wouldn't be where I am today.

  So it doesn't change how I feel, but she's right about one thing. I should feel bad for her. She didn't want to be a walking disaster, and she didn't want to chase every man in her life away.

  She didn't want to chase the only man in my young, fourteen-year-old world away.

  It was just how she was. The question then became, how far was I willing to carry that anger, and when you put it that way, the answer became much clearer.

  She wasn't. No reason to suffer for nothing, just to be self-righteous. Mom would get what she deserved, or she wouldn't.

  But I'm not going to carry a torch for it. The damage is already done, and I learned an important lesson in the process. Don't put yourself in positions to get hurt. Don't trust anyone unless you know how to get yourself out of the situation.

  Look at the details. Think about solutions, rather than problems. My solution is right in my hands. A letter of recommendation, stacked on top of a resume that is as good as any can be, coming straight out of school.

  So I should probably have earlier memories of my life. I should probably have lots of things.

  I should probably have a real Mom. I should probably have some faith in Dad. He's doing his best. I'm sure that Eric's dad did, too.

  I should probably have an apartment in the city, if I'm going to be working here. I should probably have a metro pass.

  But I don't. I have an older sister that I have to take care of on occasion. It's a reality I have to deal with.

  Dad's going to keep the relationship going as long as he can. He's been working hard at it for the past five years, and he's got the patience of a saint. Even a saint has to break at some point, and Mom has a unique gift for breaking folks.

  Apartments are expensive, and I would never admit it out loud but I have no idea where I'm supposed to buy a metro pass. Which I guess covers everything.

  I swallow hard. I've got the interview in the bag. It's not going to be a problem. The letter of recommendation should do a lot. The fact that I've got a special interview, that I was introduced and I'll be speaking to the head Partner, rather than some HR department goon…

  Those things are all acting in my favor. So there's nothing to freak out about.

  But my oldest memory is one of having my entire world shattered, and since then, I've had to get used to one thing:

  No matter how bad things seem, they can always get worse. Be prepared to be disappointed, because you always will be.

  I flip through my papers one more time. As if they will have gotten themselves out of order in the past five minutes, since I sat down. They're all in order.

  A woman's head pops out from the other side of the door. She's got silky-smooth red hair that mirrors my own. It's rare that I run into red-heads, but he's got one working as his secretary.

  I'm not above letting a man hire me because he thinks I'm attractive. Another bonus.

  "Miss Logan?"

  "Yes?"

  She smiles and steps through the door. She's got a nice body. I feel a little jealousy simmering, as if there were some sort of 'law of the jungle' that said no woman could be any better-looking than I am. "Mr. Warren will see you now."

  Chapter Two

  I don't know what I was expecting when she came in. Len had a solid head on his shoulders, and he had a wit that couldn't be beat. He'd have made a great trial lawyer if that had been what he'd wanted.

  Hell, maybe he had been a great trial lawyer, once. It's difficult to say, because as long as I've known him, he's been teaching.

  The other thing I know is about his weakness for attractive women. A particular weakness, and particularly strong in him.

  So when someone named "Autumn" came across my desk, it was hard to know if I was getting Len, the legal genius, the argumentative son of a bitch who wouldn't give an inch even past the point where the argument was belabored, or if I was getting Len who regularly slept with available young women who needed a solid GPA more than they needed a solid reputation.

  Somewhere in the back of my mind, of course, the idea wasn't totally foreign. Autumn isn't a common name, after all. How many 'Autumn's are there in the world? A hundred thousand? How many in the country?

  Not many. Not as many as there are Sarahs, or Jackies, or Ellens. But plenty. So while the idea that it might be that Autumn had occurred to me the minute that he'd made the call, I'd dismissed it.

  Obviously it wasn't her. What were the odds, really? One-in-a-hundred or less.

  Then she walked through the door. Her hair was still the same fire-red, a loose braid pulled forward over one shoulder. There were differences, too. Very big differences. Two of them at least.

  Natural differences between a fourteen-year-old girl and a grown woman. She walks like a woman, and I can't help watching her do it.

  I wonder idly as she settles into the seat across from me whether or not to tell her I know who she is. Part of me wants to think that I knew before, but I didn't. The last name sealed the deal, it definitely wasn't her.

  "Nice to meet you, Miss Logan."

  "Mr. Warren. Beautiful day, isn't it?"

  She's looking out the window. It's large and behind me and it shines light in the face of whoever's sitting across from me, and I like it that way.

  "Absolutely beautiful. Len Carson tells me that you're his brightest student. His star pupil. Is that right?"

  She blushes at the praise, her pale skin darkening deep to a color almost approximating her hair.

  "I don't know about that…"

  I don't know if I'm frowning. It's been a long time since I've practiced any of these expressions in a mirror, but I give her my stoniest expression.

  "I don't need modesty, Miss Logan. I need talented people."

  "I have distinguished myself well. I don't think that any of my classmates would disagree that I've stood out."

  "Good."

  She's playing the professional. Of course, so did her mother, when she wanted to. She was all goodness and righteousness, when it was convenient for her. Yet, when it wasn't, or when she didn't want to fake it any more, she could become a completely different person.

  Maybe it's unfair to judge a woman by her mother. Maybe it's a natural consequence of the fact that people copy the folks around them. But he's going to do it anyways. If she's as good as Len says, she'll get over it.

  A pro knows that life isn't fair, and if she's going to be any use to him, she'd better be a pro.

  "So this is your first job, in the field?"

  "I assisted with a few cases, before I graduated."

  "Of course. Can you give me the details? Any court work, or just contract stuff?"

  "I helped prepare a brief for a patent violation suit. Jones v. Broadwell, I uh. I don't have the file. I'm sure that you understand. Not mine to give."

  "No, of course not. But I could call Randall Clark and he'd give me an opinion on how you did, is that right?"

  "Yes sir."

  "And he'd tell me…"

  "I imagine he'd tell you that I conducted myself in a professional manner."

  What he thought of her professionally would be one of the things Randy would tell me if I called him. He'd also be more than willing to give an opinion on her looks, if I didn't mention that we'd known each other previously.

  If I mentioned that I'd known her when she was fourteen years old, and she was my kid sister, then I'd get the most positive comments that I'd ever heard, even if she'd burned the case to the fucking ground.

  "Excellent. I will call him, then. Any other cases you felt I should look into?"

  "None as big as that one, but I did help draft several wills, things like that."

  "But no other court work?"

  "No, sir. I found most men and women working court trials to be staffed.
Few needed a student to hop on, even as an intern with paralegal training."

  "No, you're right about that."

  "I've also been in several mock-trials, and performed well enough in those."

  "There's a difference between that and the real thing, Miss Logan, but I'm sure you know that."

  "Of course. But I can only do what I can do, right?"

  "Of course. Look, I've got to make some calls, talk to some people, and make sure that it all checks out. But if you're half the assistant that Len Clark makes you out to be, I'll be giving you a call in a couple days, alright? We'll talk salary, when you can start, all that stuff, when I've checked you out."

  I'm already checking her out. Which I shouldn't be. The phrase 'kid sister' floats through my mind, as if it's going to make her less of a knockout. As if it means anything, after ten years of separation and a divorce. As if she's related to me at all, really.

  Kid step-sister was more accurate. But then again, men's brains are rarely accurate. When it's remembering a skinny fourteen year old who clung to his hip like she was attached to it, that's one thing.

  A twiggy fourteen-year-old girl who frankly was the most effective damn chastity belt I'd ever imagined. How many dates had she ruined? It was hard to say.

  'Kid sister' fit that Autumn. Too big an age difference to really get along. Too young to really have grown into any sort of a woman.

  This woman? 'Kid sister' was the furthest thing from what I'd use to describe her. Memory of how our time together ended, though, kept 'sister' in the picture. Maybe if it had been on good terms, I'd be ready to overlook it.

  Half the brain she seems to be would be good enough, if it came with a body like hers. Honestly, she'd making life hard for herself getting into the legal profession, when she could have a comfortable living letting people take her photo.

  But it hadn't been a separation on good terms. I'd gotten over it. Or so I thought. But as she closed the door behind herself, my teeth clicked together.

  Some hurts didn't heal quite as well as you thought they did, and I hadn't realized how sore the wound still was until she'd walked back into my life.