Falling For The Forbidden

by Hawkins, Jessica

  Josh leans against the bookshelf and crosses one ankle over the other, the very picture of casual disinterest. I know my brother well enough to see right through his exterior. Unfortunately he also knows me well enough to see through mine. “What’s up?”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t go out tonight.”

  “And skip Hassan’s bachelor party? He would never forgive us. I would never forgive us either. We haven’t had a break in weeks.”

  “She said she wasn’t feeling well.”

  He frowns. “Samantha?”

  “No fever. No cough. I could call Dr. Foster.”

  “Is it the tour?”

  I make a growl. “Maybe. It’s a hell of a lot of pressure. She wants us to think she’s all grown-up, but an eighteen-year-old has a lot of growing up to do.”

  “We enlisted when we were eighteen,” he says.

  “And I’d take a battle zone over Carnegie Hall any day.”

  “She’s more mature than you were at eighteen.” He pauses. “Well, maybe not. You were an old fucking soul even as a kid. But so is she. You have that in common.”

  The press will be all over every conference. Press with interview questions about her father? Red carpets. Meet and greets with VIP guests who are heads of state and A-list actors. And then there’s Harry March, the celebrity tenor headlining the tour, known for being volatile.

  I hate that I can’t protect her from any of it. “There’s no way I can make her stop the tour. She’s got her heart set on it.”

  “And you can never say no to Samantha.”

  That makes me scowl. “I said no to concerts if they interrupted school for the past six years. She deserves to make her own choices now.”

  “Not to mention she’ll be eighteen by then.”

  My heart thumps against my chest in useless protest, but I make sure not to show any sign of it to my brother. Christ. I ignore the way my pulse thrums. It would be too easy to rise to the bait. Too easy to take the stairs two at a time and prove to myself that Samantha’s still there, if only for a short time more. “Kiss my ass.”

  “You’re really worried about her.”

  “Is there actually a reason why you’re here, or do you just love to annoy me?”

  “Annoying you is reason enough, in my opinion, but I do actually have something work related. The Red Team has gone dark.” He stands almost at attention, as if we were both still in the navy.

  That makes me pause. Three highly trained operatives could handle themselves in the frozen tundra. There were reasons they might go dark in order to maintain cover. “How long?”

  “A week.”

  Of course. For all that Josh acts like he doesn’t give a shit, he manages the daily operations of North Security with sharp intelligence.

  He wouldn’t have brought me this unless it was serious.

  “What did their last report say?”

  “I’m sending you the full file now, starting with the last entry, but it doesn’t indicate a problem. We have their coordinates to the south of the Ural Mountains. No injuries or major setbacks.”

  “And the target?”

  “Local intelligence indicated he might be hiding in the wilderness.”

  That left a lot of terrain to cover, but that’s why I sent the Red Team. They’re the best. Efficient. Skilled. And goddamn discreet, though that is really a job requirement here.

  I stand and pace across the marble floor, something I do when I’m faced with a problem. It would be better if there were music being played by a world-class musician, but she’s not feeling well. Why isn’t she feeling well? Focus, North. “What’s your read on the situation?” I ask because Josh has been with me through a hell of a lot of campaigns.

  Those blue eyes are a little darker today. “It’s a long time for what should have been a straightforward task, but they know the stakes.”

  The stakes, meaning detection by the local law enforcement agencies. Identify a traitor to the United States with enough survivalist tendencies to last ten years in the forest. All while remaining invisible to Russia’s police and military. Straightforward? Yes, that’s one way to describe it. Fucking dangerous, too. That’s what we do.

  “The Red Team is the best,” I say, sitting down again. “We trust them. And if they went dark to stay off the grid, sending in another team could risk the entire operation.”

  Josh nods, looking about two percent relieved. He’s a genius at operations, but it takes something different to be in command. The hard truth is that it takes heartlessness. I care about the men and women under me, but I still send them into the line of fire. I still risk their lives so we can all make a few bucks.

  That’s the cold and utterly honest reason why I’m the one sitting in this chair.

  Neither of us mention that our brother Elijah leads the Red Team.

  The three of us are related by blood, but it would be a stretch to call us a family after our upbringing. I’m the one who founded North Security, but I gave both my brothers a stake when they joined the company. Elijah insists on leading the Red Team, with its dangerous missions and its near-constant deployment.

  “Oh, and Josh?” I say as he turns to leave. “Put the other men on standby.”

  I’m responsible for their lives, which means I’m also responsible for their deaths. It might be a bullet from the traitor or even local military taking umbrage to American mercenaries. It might be tomorrow or in five years, but whenever it happens, their blood will be on my hands.

  Chapter Six

  A violinist burns about one hundred seventy calories per hour, almost twice as much as masturbating

  SAMANTHA

  Zero. That’s how many times I’ve stopped practice early.

  I’ve never been someone overly interested in breaking the rules. A people pleaser, that’s me. Especially if the person is a hard-ass. My dad wanted me to play the violin perfectly to impress his diplomat friends? I did that. He wanted me to clean our little apartment and cook dinner? I could make roast chicken with a side of green beans by the time I turned five. He wanted me to follow him around the world without uttering a single complaint. Done.

  When he died, some part of the twelve-year-old girl thought it had to be my fault. My mother was from Indonesia. She met my father when he lived there—and she died a long time ago. My older brother had no interest in coming back to take care of me.

  It was Liam North who stepped up to do that duty.

  I knew, without anyone telling me, that I couldn’t mess this up. We weren’t even related by blood. He was friends with my father. Or as he’d said to the reporter, I felt it was my civic responsibility to step in. I was just a kid, but even kids understand basic math.

  There was no one left on this earth to care about me.

  I took every independent thought, even the tiniest shred of rebellion through my teenage years, and poured them into my music. Something safe.

  Suddenly it’s not enough.

  I want to do something wild and crazy like go skinny dipping in the lake down the hill. I want to ride in fast cars and parachute out of a plane. I want to do something shocking.

  My room looks the way I left it this morning, everything neat and orderly, my books in alphabetical order. Alphabetical order! I can’t even blame that on my quasi-military surroundings. Liam North does not require this kind of precision from me. Well, he also doesn’t really read anything that isn’t a classified brief, but that’s beside the point.

  I pull out A Concise History of Western Music with its worn spine and shove it next to The Rose That Grew from Concrete.

  And then clench my hands into fists to keep from moving it back.

  “Such a rebel,” I mutter to myself. “You’re the actual worst at this.” It’s going to take a lot more than unalphabetized books to fix this ache inside me, and I can’t even manage to do that much.

  Rest, Liam told me.

  He’s right about a lot of things. Maybe he’s right about this. I climb onto the coo
l pink sheets, hoping that a nap will suddenly make me content with this quiet little life.

  Even though I know it won’t.

  Besides, I’m too wired to actually sleep. The white lace coverlet is both delicate and comfy. It’s actually what I would have picked out for myself, except I didn’t pick it out. I’ve been incapable of picking anything, of choosing anything, of deciding anything as part of some deep-seated fear that I’ll be abandoned.

  The coverlet, like everything else in my life, simply appeared.

  And the person responsible for its appearance? Liam North.

  I climb under the blanket and stare at the ceiling. My body feels overly warm, but it still feels good to be tucked into the blankets. The blankets he picked out for me.

  It’s really so wrong to think of him in a sexual way. He’s my guardian, literally. Legally. And he has never done anything to make me think he sees me in a sexual way.

  This is it. This is the answer.

  I don’t need to go skinny dipping in the lake down the hill. Thinking about Liam North in a sexual way is my fast car. My parachute out of a plane.

  My eyes squeeze shut.

  That’s all it takes to see Liam’s stern expression, those fathomless green eyes and the glint of dark blond whiskers that are always there by late afternoon. And then there’s the way he touched me. My forehead, sure, but it’s more than he’s done before. That broad palm on my sensitive skin.

  My thighs press together. They want something between them, and I give them a pillow. Even the way I masturbate is small and timid, never making a sound, barely moving at all, but I can’t change it now. I can’t moan or throw back my head even for the sake of rebellion.

  But I can push my hips against the pillow, rocking my whole body as I imagine Liam doing more than touching my forehead. He would trail his hand down my cheek, my neck, my shoulder.

  Repressed. I’m so repressed it’s hard to imagine more than that.

  I make myself do it, make myself trail my hand down between my breasts, where it’s warm and velvety soft, where I imagine Liam would know exactly how to touch me.

  You’re so beautiful, he would say. Your breasts are perfect.

  Because Imaginary Liam wouldn’t care about big breasts. He would like them small and soft with pale nipples. That would be the absolute perfect pair of breasts for him.

  And he would probably do something obscene and rude. Like lick them.

  My hips press against the pillow, almost pushing it down to the mattress, rocking and rocking. There’s not anything sexy or graceful about what I’m doing. It’s pure instinct. Pure need.

  The beginning of a climax wraps itself around me. Claws sink into my skin. There’s almost certain death, and I’m fighting, fighting, fighting for it with the pillow clenched hard.

  “Oh fuck.”

  The words come soft enough someone else might not hear them. They’re more exhalation of breath, the consonants a faint break in the sound. I have excellent hearing. Ridiculous, crazy good hearing that had me tuning instruments before I could ride a bike.

  My eyes snap open, and there’s Liam, standing there, frozen. Those green eyes locked on mine. His body clenched tight only three feet away from me. He doesn’t come closer, but he doesn’t leave.

  Orgasm breaks me apart, and I cry out in surprise and denial and relief. “Liam.”

  It goes on and on, the terrible pleasure of it. The wrenching embarrassment of coming while looking into the eyes of the man who raised me for the past six years.

  My hips pump against the mattress, pulling out the last few pulses between my legs.

  And then I’m lying there, wrapped tight around a pillow, unable to move, panting.

  I’ve never seen Liam looking anything other than calm and cool and capable. He can handle anything with a command that’s almost terrifying in its competency. Right now he looks at a loss.

  His voice is low and rough. “We should talk about this.”

  I can’t think of anything in the world I’d rather do less. “Or we could just…” I hate that I still somehow sound breathy and turned on. There are little quivers in my thighs. “Pretend this never happened?”

  “Come downstairs when you’re—”

  The sentence hangs between us, leaving me to fill in the blank. Come downstairs when you’re done fucking yourself in the bed I bought for you. Come downstairs when you’re done humiliating yourself.

  He gives a short nod, as if the unspoken answer is the right one.

  Then he turns, an about-face appropriate to any military ceremony.

  Alone in the room I have no choice but to face the mechanics of untangling myself. Unclenching my fists from the pillow. Pulling apart my legs. Acknowledging the dampness between my thighs.

  “Please be a dream,” I whisper, but my face is too hot. Burning up. This is real.

  On shaky legs I stand up from the bed and cross to the bathroom, where I wash my hands. Then my face. Then brush my teeth. I’m going into battle downstairs, and apparently good hygiene is my armor.

  Or maybe I’m just delaying the inevitable.

  Chapter Seven

  Harvard University found that early training in the violin improves memory

  LIAM

  FUBAR. That’s military speak for fucked up beyond all recognition. I’ve seen a lot of situations where the term applies, but none as fucked up as this one. As seeing a sexy woman hump a goddamn pillow while moaning my name, her soulful brown eyes locked on mine. Jesus.

  And the worst part, the truly terrible fucking part, is how my cock is iron hard.

  It’s like walking around with a goddamn club between my legs. It would be way too big and angry to put inside a woman right now, especially one as delicate, as innocent as Samantha Brooks. So it’s a real good thing that it’s never going to happen. We’re not a regular man and woman. This isn’t a casual fuck. This is a person I’m responsible for raising. My ward.

  I press the heel of my hand against my cock, willing it to go down. For someone with a ridiculous amount of control over his body, I’m acting like a horny teenager who’s just seen a pair of tits for the first time.

  Samantha appears at the door of my office, her cheeks an adorable shade of pink.

  “Have a seat,” I tell her, wondering if I should have had this conversation in the living room or maybe the conservatory. Where do normal families talk about the birds and the bees? Then again, we’re about the furthest fucking thing from a normal family.

  She crosses her ankles and folds her hands together, the picture of a good little student. Even though her little cunt must still be soft from orgasm, the folds still damp with arousal. It would be so easy to make her climax again, already warm and set and ready for me.

  I lean back against the desk, trying not to think about how those hands looked clutching the pillow. “First of all, I’m sorry for walking in on you. I was worried and didn’t think… well, you have a right to privacy, and I want you to know that.”

  Her flush deepens to red. “Please, sir—”

  “Liam. We’ve talked about this.” At the beginning I didn’t want her to call me sir because she shouldn’t have to do that. Lately there’s a different reason. Because of the way my cock jerks every time she says the word. God, she’s almost begging. Please, sir. That’s how she would sound if I spread her wide on her bed, tasting her little pussy.

  She coughs. “Can we just… is there any way we can pretend that never happened?”

  Christ. The memory of her sweet little body writhing on the bed is forever burned into my brain. I see it every time I close my eyes. I can’t imagine that changing any time soon. “Look, I should have talked to you about sex a long time ago.”

  “What?” The word comes out as a squeak.

  “It’s part of my responsibility as your guardian.” And it’s not my responsibility to demonstrate any of this personally—not, not, not. I can’t touch her, but I can make sure she’s educated about it.


  “I’m almost eighteen years old.”

  “Which is why I should have done this a long time ago. It isn’t right that I let my own… discomfort get in the way of your sexual education. I hired tutors for math and science and history, but I neglected this subject entirely.”

  She looks dubious. “You’re going to hire a sex tutor?”

  The thought of teaching her what she needs to know makes my blood run fast and hot. I swallow around the knot in my throat. I would show her where to put her hands, her tongue; I would give her so much pleasure, until tears leaked down her cheeks. “I don’t think that will be necessary, but you still should know some elementary facts before you—”

  Before she does what? Has sex? Who the hell is she going to have sex with when the only people she comes into contact with are military bastards employed by North Security?

  As soon as the thought comes into my head, it’s all I can think about. What if she wants to have sex with someone who works for me? How will I keep from killing him? Where will I bury the body?

  Then an even worse thought occurs to me. “You haven’t already had sex, have you?”

  She looks stricken. “No, sir.”

  I’m screwing this up. I don’t know what normal families do, what a healthy, supportive conversation about sex would look like, but it probably isn’t this. “I wouldn’t be angry if the answer were yes, Samantha. It’s your body. You get to make the decisions.”

  Of course I don’t mention that if a man under my command took advantage of her, I would have some very inventive ways to teach him a lesson. Never mind that I’ve recently become obsessed with taking advantage of her myself. I haven’t touched her—and that can’t change. I can’t kiss her or lick her or… bite her. God, I want to bite her.

  Her uncertain expression makes her look so young. “I’m the one who should be apologizing. Doing that in the middle of the day… saying your name… thinking about you when I do that.”