Instead, I saw the only light on at this hour was in the kitchen window of… Apartment 3-C. I paused, my emotions at war with themselves. I should have been mad at him—incensed, even. The asshole had thrown a vase at my head! Then, of course, I understood why. It still didn’t excuse his behavior, but it allowed me to forgive him long enough to at least show up and hear an apology.
That is, if that’s what he intended to do. With no clue what the night might hold, I felt the pull toward the address he’d texted me grow stronger and stronger the more I resisted it.
So I climbed the outer steps, my soft sandals whispering on spotted concrete, the hem of my favorite orange crinkle skirt brushing against my knees, my arms bare and chilly in my black halter top.
I tapped gently on the door only to find it open. Literally—it swung open on the third knock to reveal a small, humble but charming apartment lit entirely by candles. Jar candles, votives, candlesticks, flickering sconces. They all illuminated Ryan, standing in the living room beckoning me forward with soft, gentle eyes and a sad, chagrined smile.
He was dressed casually like I was—camouflage cargo pants and a rust colored tank top, clinging to his manly torso, smile less crooked than annoyed across his face. “God,” he said, no doubt breaking from some carefully constructed script he’d practiced all night. “It’s so good to see you.”
His voice cracked just so, as did mine when I said, “I never thought I’d see you again.”
“How could I stay away?” he croaked, opening his arms to embrace me. After a brief—very brief—pause where I quickly considered being standoffish, I ran into them, like lovers in some romantic movie, feeling his heart pounding against his chest as he smothered me with big, muscled arms. “I missed you like crazy, Heather,” he murmured, squeezing me tight and showing me just how much he missed me as well as telling me.
Somehow I managed to push away, shoving my cell phone in his face mock-angrily. For some reason, after all he’d done to me, and hadn’t done, I just couldn’t stay angry at Ryan for very long.
“You have some way of showing it,” I huffed, tossing it on the couch behind him. “I texted you, like, 1,001 times, Ryan. Not a single text back until tonight. Three. Days. Later!”
He peered at the phone for a long time as if it held the answer to the questions I was asking. “I felt horrible,” he finally said, sagging down on top of the nearest arm of the couch. “I acted like an asshole. I never thought you’d speak to me again.”
“That’s why I texted you so much!” I said, waving my arms as I stood in front of him, almost knee to knee. “That’s why I rushed over here in the middle of the night the minute you called!”
He smirked up at me, one leg on either side of the couch’s armrest as if he was sitting on a weight bench at the gym. “I’m glad you did,” he murmured, his hands big and fidgety on his lap.
“Me too,” I confessed, peering around at the small but candlelit apartment before glancing back at him. “So remind me again why I’m here?”
“I wanted to apologize in person,” he said, reaching a hand around each hip to drag me gently on top of his knee. As if it had a mind of its own, my skirt blossomed open so all that separated me from the muscly heat of his strong, lean thigh was… nothing.
He sensed it, raising his thigh to meet the slick, desperate folds of my juicy cunt and gently, but quite purposefully, held it there. My warm, wet pussy against hard thigh muscle. The thrill was instantaneous and deliberate, making me realize now there had never been a choice about answering Ryan’s text or not. If this was why he’d lured me over, then I was his—all his. Every ounce, every inch of me. We’d work the rest out later.
“Rushed out without putting on your panties?” he asked, arching one thick, black eyebrow as the heat of our skin melted into one another, making me savor the flesh beneath my own.
“Didn’t bother putting them on,” I sighed, sinking down lower so that my throbbing bud glanced against his firm, strong leg. “I guess, somewhere in the back of my mind, I hoped I wouldn’t need them.”
“What if I was still acting like a jerk?” he murmured, flexing his thigh muscles so that they caressed my throbbing clit like fingers, lifting me up and down so that my breath caught in my throat and my belly quivered, alive with butterflies.
“I still would have fucked you one last time, Ryan,” I confessed, tugging off my blouse to reveal bare breasts, my nipples already stiff, peaked and sore, just begging for his attention. “Just for old time’s sake.”
“Even after all I did to you?” he asked, hands gently drifting from my waist to lightly trace up and down my rib cage. “Blowing up at you like that? Throwing that vase? Storming out?”
I nodded, biting my lower lip to keep from gasping with delight. “I trust you, Ryan,” I murmured, shaking the desire from my mind as I focused on forgiveness for a moment. “I know you’re a good man, and even better stepbrother. If you felt that way, there had to be a reason. I knew, in time, you’d tell me, and in time, I’d understand.”
He nodded, glancing the tip of his tongue off first one nipple, then the other, all the while gently bouncing me up and down on his thigh as I grabbed his shoulders to keep from sliding off. Meanwhile his hands crept higher, squeezing each breast in turn and holding them in place as he licked and sucked them in alternating sweeps of his deft, expert tongue and thick, thirsty lips.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized first once, then again, pausing with his lips around each breast so that I could feel the heat of his breath slather each stiff, wet nipple. “So… so… so sorry.”
“I know,” I murmured, forcing myself to press gently away from him so that he could see—and hear—my forgiveness. “Besides,” I added, finding his eyes and forcing him to peer back at me. “Your father already told me about the rose garden. I didn’t… I had no idea…”
“It’s my fault,” he said, pausing in his seduction momentarily to offer a sincere apology. “I should have told you, and even if I hadn’t, shouldn’t have blamed you for something you didn’t know you were even doing. I just get… emotional… about my mother.”
I nodded, squeezing his shoulders reassuringly as my thighs gently gripped his own. “You can talk to me, you know?” I promised him. “I’m here for you, good, bad or ugly, okay?”
He sighed, inching closer to meet my lips with his own. The movement reignited the fire between my legs. I melted on top of him, drizzling and wet where my swollen clit met his thigh. “Right now,” he murmured, drifting from my lips back to my nipples and alternating between licking and sucking them as he explained, “the only talking I want to do involves body language!”
He was as good as his word, enlisting his hands in his sensual assault on my breasts as he alternated between each breast, tweaking then sucking, pinching then licking, all while he rolled my greedy pussy around on top of his thigh as if he knew just what it was doing to my throbbing, pulsing clit.
The combination left me helpless against his advances. All anger, sorrow, fear, and blame drifted away as I panted, hitched, bucked and came, passionately, eagerly, again and again and again.
I was powerless against Ryan’s expert seduction: his fingertips at once so gentle and insistent, his lips equally so and his thigh alternating between pressing flat against my entire pussy and rolling, slightly, first to one side, then the other. When at last my throat was hoarse from squealing, I pushed myself up and away, standing on trembling legs as I tugged at the button of his shorts and yanked on his zipper while he pulled off his tank top in response to my own eager advances.
He went to stand, but I said, definitively, “Stay. Right. There.”
Yanking off his pants and boxers, I found his cock magnificently stiff and splattered with his pre-come, the tip glistening amidst the flickering candlelight as I stroked and sucked it to a ripe, quivering perfection. He felt and tasted so familiar, I thought, watching him writhe and thrust so predictably, in and out of my wet mouth.
; How can this be wrong?
I made love to Ryan’s cock with my mouth and fingers, treating it so tenderly it nearly burst with every stroke. Even then I knew it wasn’t just the sex that had us so hot and bothered. It was…us…each other. It was Ryan, and not just because it was taboo to sleep with him. I would have come a dozen times with Ryan if he was just a blind date or boyfriend. He was special, straight up, and I’d do whatever I had to do to be with him, even if it meant sneaking around and keeping the world’s biggest secret from our parents.
As much as I cared about my mother, and more, Ryan’s father, they would just have to understand—or we’d have to get better at keeping what we were doing a secret. Either way, all I wanted at that moment, all I needed, was to taste, touch, and tease my lover—and so I did.
The flames flickered around the tiny apartment as I knelt between my stepbrother’s legs. He was so strong and supple, his thighs spread wide as I gripped the inside of his left one with my hand while stroking and sucking his big, fat dick with the other. He gripped the side of the couch with one hand while gently holding my long, blonde hair to the side with the other, as if wanting to watch every time I slid my lips up and down his stiff prick. He murmured and nodded with approval, thrusting in and out, fucking my mouth. I welcomed him eagerly, wanting him ready by the time I climbed up on him for a big, climactic finish.
I enjoyed the journey, savoring every drop as our juices mingled, my tight lips leaving a glossy sheen of desire behind each slurp and suck. I moved my right hand from the base of his swollen staff to his thick balls, tugging them gently as I sucked and slathered his rod. He responded with deeper thrusts—my lips clinging to the thick tip as I heightened his pleasure to damn near bursting. I could feel him threatening to explode like a geyser with every rasp of my tongue, every clamp of my lips, every stroke of my feverish fingers. His breathing increased to a near pant, his fingers tightening in the pile of my hair he still clung to, desperately, as if holding on for dear life. His belly, merely inches from my face, clenched and clamped as he struggled to maintain control even as I worked hard to make him leave it all behind.
Only when he was finally ready to burst did I climb on top of him, sliding down his ramrod prick with a familiar perfection that found him filling me, inch by inch, as his hands gently clasped around my ass.
Even when I was in control, sitting on top of him, Ryan used those strong, thick hands to drag me up and down his steely prick. My thighs wrapped around his waist, ankles crossed and my toes curled as he thrust in and out of my welcoming pussy like a piston seeking oil—pumping, drilling, and then finding, faster and deeper. I clung to him, my arms across his shoulders, hands clasped behind his neck, dripping with sweat and more as he gradually turned makeup sex into an exotic art form!
I panted and quivered, the breath rushing out of me with each forceful thrust as he fucked me with an intensity I’d never felt from him–or any other man–before. Faster and faster he pumped, our bodies fitting together like puzzle pieces, sweat dripping, lips glancing against one another’s, bodies tight against each other as I felt the explosion rising quickly to the surface.
When at last he came, thickly and explosively, I did, too. We melted into each other, our pelvises slick, wet, and fluid as he gently writhed beneath me and I on top of him, mining his rock hard waist for one last climax before I collapsed, spent and sticky against his chest, both of us gasping for breath.
We sat there like that for some time, him still straddling the armrest of his poor couch, bodies quivering with delight, chests heaving, mouths panting, skin flushed and sweaty until, threatening to overheat from the crotch outward. I gently peeled myself off of him and collapsed, naked, splayed, shameless and sticky, on the couch beside him.
“Move over,” he grunted and smirked, slapping his thigh playfully, I did. He sank onto the cushion next to me, our thighs side by side as we sank into the worn, buttery leather beneath us.
As my mind reeled with happiness, I blinked away the sweat that stung my eyes to peer around the apartment. Now that what I’d come for was over—hot, passionate, body slapping sex—I could focus on my surroundings.
The walls of the apartment were beige and bare as if he hadn’t had time to hang any wall art yet. The furnishings were limited. In fact, other than the couch we’d just fucked on and a coffee table or two, the living room was empty, every available surface covered with cheap jar candles from Value Mart.
An open bedroom door just beyond featured a bare mattress, on the floor, a pile of laundry heaped high in its middle. Other than that, the only other furniture in the apartment was a small kitchen table in a smaller breakfast nook, both so close to the kitchen they might as well have been a part of it.
I wondered if it was his place, or if he was just borrowing it from a friend. Is this what he did for the last three days? I wondered as I sat, splayed out on the couch next to him, my cunt still throbbing from his erotic acrobatics only moments earlier. House or, at least, apartment hunting? Is this why he hadn’t answered my texts? He’s too busy shopping at furniture stores to reply?
I shrugged. A man like Ryan might always be a mystery to me, and I realized—perhaps for the first time—I was okay with that. More than okay with that. Maybe Ryan’s aloof nature, his dark nooks and crannies, his scars and tattoos, his wounds and secrets, were what drew me to him in the first place, and once captivated—kept me guessing every twist and turn of our ride together.
We sat silently for a moment, a long, comfortable, quiet moment. Aside from our breathing and the sound of late night traffic outside the open window across the room, the room was still and golden with flickering hues of light. When I’d finally caught my breath, I leaned my head against his shoulder and said, “So, that was makeup sex, huh?”
“You’ve never had it before?” he asked, tilting his head to rest against mine.
“I never cared about anyone long enough to makeup with them,” I confessed, cringing at the long lines of frogs I’d kissed before I’d finally met my prince—even if he did happen to be my stepbrother. My older, scary, sexy, badass stepbrother.
“Me either,” he sighed, making me glad we were sitting side by side so he couldn’t see the warm, triumphant smile cross my face.
Chapter Nineteen
“Red or white?” he asked, holding onto the refrigerator door with one hand as he scratched his beautiful bare ass with the other. The dim light in the otherwise dark kitchen reminded me it was still the middle of the night, a fact that hardly mattered seeing as I’d never felt more alive—more vitally alive—in my entire life.
I pictured a bottle of wine, dry and crisp, on top of the coffee table beside us as we sat across from each other, knees up like at summer camp. “Red,” I sighed contentedly, understanding his knowing smirk moments later when he returned from the kitchen, a can of beer in each hand.
In reply to the questioning expression on my face, Ryan handed me one of them, pointing out to the color of the label. “You asked for red,” he pointed out, sinking on the couch next to me and cracking his open.
I smirked at the label of a beer called “Summer Ale,” the label featuring both red and white. I recognized it from one of my many trips to the local Stop ‘N’ Go across from campus with April. “I guess I would have gotten a beer no matter what my answer was, huh?” I teased, taking a long sip.
“You were expecting wine, perhaps?” he teased, his lips frothy with cheap beer foam as he covered himself with an equally cheap throw pillow. I followed suit, sitting up across from him at the other end of the couch, resting the beer on top of a throw pillow on my lap.
“I didn’t know what to expect when I showed up here tonight,” I confessed, the beer an afterthought as the very sight of him, naked and glistening from a recent romp, was more intoxicating than mere alcohol.
“Except makeup sex, right?” he reminded me.
“Well, a girl can dream, can’t she?”
Our eyes met, his alive with th
e reflection of a dozen or more flickering candles glowing throughout the room. His hair was scruffy, his face scruffier in the room’s amber glow. “A guy can too, you know?”
I smiled, my heart leaping to think he’d been dreaming of this moment as well. “You never have to dream with me, player,” I assured him, reaching out one foot to glance along his shin. “I’m always up for makeup sex with you.”
His face grew concerned, a soft shadow crossing over it as if perhaps a cloud had momentarily covered the candlelight’s glow. “Minus the fighting, I hope.”
I shrugged. “I don’t mind the fighting as long as it’s fair, Ryan,” I assured him. “You’re a strong man with strong opinions and a tragic past. You’re bound to have… flare-ups… from time to time. I get that. You just have to let me in so I can understand what you’re going through, and why you act the way you do.”
“I do have a past,” he said. “Losing my mom, the way I did, when I did, broke something inside of me…”
His voice drifted off, soft and low like the candlelight, his beer forgotten as he searched for the words to complete his thought. “I thought becoming a man might help,” he continued, finally, moments later. I sipped my beer, relief flooding me as I sensed a breakthrough moment in him—in us. “That’s why I joined the Marines the minute I turned eighteen. I didn’t care about school. I was skipping classes, getting high with a bad group of kids. I was about to get kicked out anyway, so why not go somewhere I could really challenge myself, right?”
I nodded, though he wasn’t really looking for an answer. His eyes, in fact, swam past me, glancing somewhere over my shoulder. Perhaps out the open window at my back. “Plus, being in the military kept me busy. I could bury the grief every day, in boot camp, then training, then more training, by just wearing myself out. But then more grief came as I went overseas and saw, firsthand, the power and destruction of war. I realized that being busy could only help so much, especially if I was busy… killing.”
Dirty Wicked Lust: A Stepbrother Romance Page 12