Hard: A Step-Brother Romance

by Sosie Frost

  She hesitated, and I saw the wheels turning. She wondered if she could get away with saying something insulting. Her relationship with her father was no mystery, but I said nothing about my mother during our night together. She left the dead relatives out of our fight.

  “So…are you just some big pervert then?” She asked.

  “Pervert?”

  “We had…” Shay covered her eyes. “Sweet Jesus, we might have committed a felony. I don’t even know if what we did was legal. You’re really sick, you know that?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “We slept together.”

  Best night of my life. “Yeah, so?”

  “So?” Her voice shrilled. She clenched her fists. “Did you know?”

  “Know what?”

  Her kissable lips pouted. She had no idea how sexy she was, even when poised to attack.

  “Did you know that our parents got married?” She didn’t let me answer. “Did you know I was your step-sister? Was this just some sick, twisted game?”

  “It’s not a game.”

  “Great. I’m a fetish then. You son of a bitch. You should come with a warning.” She drew an imaginary square around my face. “You could be the poster child for the sexual predator list.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I held my hands up. “I’m no predator.”

  “Then what was the other night? You deliberately found me. Don’t tell me I was some random notch on your bedpost.”

  I chuckled. “Baby, you broke my bedpost.”

  “Screw. You.”

  And she was off again. I stepped in front of her before she made it to the door, careful to keep my namesake out of range of her kick.

  “Do you want to know what I was thinking that night?” I asked.

  Shay really wasn’t in a conversational mood, but she wasn’t holding anything sharp. No clear and present danger. Unfortunately, the most passionate woman I ever met was armed, locked, and loaded with her sights aimed for our family jewels or the space between my eyes.

  “I came to the bar and saw a beautiful woman who looked upset and alone,” I said. “I thought someone stood you up. I really only hoped I’d grab your number.”

  Her arched eyebrow said more than she revealed, but at least I could imagine her unspoken words were polite. She crossed her arms.

  “Can you look me in the eyes and say you didn’t know I was your step-sister?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Oh, don’t sass me. I’m not in the mood.”

  “Shay, I didn’t realize you were my sister. Not until…”

  I didn’t mean to say that, but I stumbled headfirst into the enemy trenches. She bristled.

  “Until…?”

  I flashed the dimples. “…Until I was balls deep in you. But who in their right mind would stop then?”

  She didn’t implode on the spot. A good sign.

  “That is exactly my point.” Shay poked at my chest. I was sure she imagined the abs she accidentally stroked beneath. “Who in their right mind would…would…” Her hands covered her face again. “Oh my god, I had sex with my brother.”

  “Step-brother.”

  “I’ll let you do the talking when we’re crashing outside the pearly gates.”

  I sighed. “Come on, Shay. Harmless mistake.”

  “Which time?”

  Uh-oh. “Which time what?”

  “You and Sergeant Hard were balls deep plenty of times that night. When did you realize who I was?”

  Once, I navigated through hostile territory with no radio communication, ammunition, or GPS while under heavy fire. That was less dangerous than her question. I rubbed my head.

  “Uh.” No sense lying. “The first time.”

  “The first—the first time?” Shay fell silent. Her eyes—the most perfect mocha darkness—stared at me, wide-eyed. “You…we…spent all night together! And you didn’t tell me! You didn’t even try. God, you’re a pig! I can’t believe I ever let you touch me.”

  She moved to escape. I made the reckless decision to grab her hand. She spun to slap, but I took that hand too, pulling her close.

  Today, she smelled of lilacs. Another lock of ebony hair slipped from her pony tail and caressed her soft cheek. She fumed, practically shaking from anger, but the heat pooling in me transferred to her. I leaned in and lowered my lips to hers so that I might have whispered an apology or stolen another sin.

  “A piece of paper says we’re family,” I said. “Just a stupid marriage license. You’re still you, I’m still me. We had a good time. Don’t ruin it with guilt.”

  “I’m not guilty, I’m pissed.”

  “Don’t be pissed either. We had fun.”

  She didn’t believe me, but, Christ, did I want to prove it to her. It’d be too easy for me to haul her up, wrap her legs around my waist, and slam her against the wall.

  And she’d love it. Beneath the anger? I recognized a girl more ashamed of her sexual inhibition than anything a marriage certificate dictated about our formal relationship. Her hint of shame—the embarrassment of a good girl who never went home with strangers, never let them kiss and lick and fuck her, never believed she’d have the night of her life grinding against a cock harder than steel—that drove me fucking wild.

  I wanted that Shay back. I wanted the voracious, passionate, beautiful woman who wasn’t afraid to tell me where to touch, how hard to thrust, and how deep to push.

  But she wasn’t playing.

  “Let go of me.” Shay shook free of my grasp. “You can’t call it fun anymore. You can’t call it anything. What we did was wrong.” She shoved away before she leaned any closer to my lips. “What you did was wrong. You should have told me who you were.”

  “It wouldn’t have mattered.”

  “You stand to inherit half of my father’s fortune. Half, and I don’t even know you. You are a complete and total stranger to me, and, somehow, you managed to steal from me, from my family, and from the memory of my father. You’re a monster.”

  “Not fair.”

  “You’re right. It isn’t fair.” Shay returned to William’s desk and grabbed both sets of keys. She pocketed them both and scowled. “If you think you’re getting anything from me, you’re wrong. Enjoy the memory of that night, Zach, because the next time I fuck you over? You won’t like it so much.”

  “At least there’ll be a next time,” I grinned.

  “Not going to happen, Zach. This is the last time you ever see me.”

  I wasn’t a betting man, but I’d stake all my newly inherited fortune on her being wrong. I’d give her the money, park the cars, and never set foot in the estate if it meant I’d have another shot to get back with her.

  One night wasn’t enough. Sex with Shay was a religious conversion, and I was a zealot without a temple.

  No need pissing her off. I surrendered, my hands in the air.

  “You stay,” I said. “You and William probably have a lot to discuss.”

  I winked at her, heading to the door. The attorney could email me whatever papers I had to initial. For a chance at Shay, I was prepared to sign my life, soul, and cock away.

  Shay fumed, but I laughed, imagining those pouty lips used for something so much better than a frown.

  “I’ll see you around, sis.”

  Thirty-five thousand square feet.

  What in the hell was my father going to do with thirty-five thousand square feet of space in his house?

  Two wings from the main house. Nine bedrooms.

  Eleven freaking bathrooms.

  I couldn’t begin to process how ridiculous it was to have eleven bathrooms. He had each room finished with a different imported Italian tile, showcasing bathtubs large enough for Olympic training. I half expected a synchronized swimming team to pop out of the Jacuzzi bubbles and start scrubbing the vanities.

  This mansion was nothing like where we lived growing up. When company came over to Momma’s two bedroom apartment, we could only set out the good soap. The
kind that smelled like mint-raspberry and was carved into ocean animals even though Momma never saw a starfish in her life.

  Sure it was humble, but it was our life. While Momma was proud to provide premium toilet paper—triple ply with decals—for our visiting friends, my father painted the walls of his guest bathroom with flecks of real gold.

  Even the camel trying to fit through the needle in Jerusalem would have taken a detour through the sauna attached to the master bath.

  I toured through the house on tippy-toes, as if the real owner would follow me to the conservatory and knock me out for trespassing. They’d find me dead in the library, a candelabra to the head Professor Plum style. But no one murdered me while I explored the dining room behind the second sitting parlor. At least, it looked like a dining room—the kind from fancy story books and European castles and movies with Anne Hathaway.

  This wasn’t a home. It was a maze. My father stuffed it full of relics and statues and overstuffed, Victorian furniture. It wasn’t me. Then again, college was more bean bags and body pillows, not wingbacks and pedestals.

  What was he planning on doing with all of this?

  I snuck into the grand foyer, his museum of marble staircases and crystal chandeliers. The house had a hundred places to sit in every material and comfort level imaginable—including a chair that looked too much like real zebra. I plunked down on the stairs instead.

  This was ridiculous.

  The house. The funeral. The almost-wedding. The secret marriage.

  Zach.

  I was used to being abandoned, but I was never used before. Did he have sex with me to get lucky, or had he deliberately indulged in something perverted to steal his inheritance?

  Whatever his game, it wasn’t sexy. It was sad. Disturbing.

  And it had felt so real.

  Our night was passionate. It forged a solid, absolute connection that made the other two lovers I experienced seem like little more than a flick of my fingers. I never came like that. I never acted like that. I never thought I’d meet someone who made me feel so…desired.

  What an ass, both of us. It served me right. I went looking for a quick and easy pleasure to muffle the guilt for not feeling miserable enough. What did I think would happen when I slept with a man who called himself Hard?

  A clang echoed in the halls.

  I jumped up. It wasn’t the air-conditioning or a bag of money thunking against the floor.

  I pawed through my pockets for my cellphone and readied to dial.

  Another thud. My heart stopped then tried to crack out of my ribs.

  Who was in my house? How would someone even get in? We dismissed the serving staff while the estate settled, the community was gated, and I thought the alarm system was set.

  Or maybe it wasn’t? The damn system went off the instant I walked inside, and the security company calling my cellphone was not happy that I didn’t know my paternal grandmother’s maiden name. Apparently My Dad ran out on me turn this freaking siren off haven’t I suffered enough! was not in their set of passwords.

  I needed something to defend myself. Fortunately, whoever Dad hired to decorate the mansion loved tucking vases in arbitrary places. I snagged a crystal centerpiece on the way to the kitchen, raised it over my head, and braced for an attack.

  I peeled the corner.

  The vase ripped from my hands.

  And Zach laughed.

  Especially as the chrysanthemums exploded in a plume of white petals and showered me with blossoms and water.

  I shrieked, mainly from terror but also because I couldn’t think of a profanity strong enough for my outrage.

  “Easy there, sis.” Zach pushed the vase onto the counter. “Death by peonies is not a good obituary for a SEAL.”

  I stared.

  Didn’t mean to.

  Couldn’t help it.

  How the hell did Zach get into my house?

  And where were his clothes?

  Zach strutted in my kitchen wearing nothing but dripping-wet swim trunks. They clung to his trim and deliciously toned waist by virtue of his self-declared best feature. His body rippled hard, muscle over muscle. The scars shone over his skin, but whatever was once injured had been stitched back together. Something terrible happened to him. I knew better than to ask. Hell, I wasn’t even going to look.

  No matter how badly I wanted to peek.

  I turned, spinning from the magnificently sculpted form flexing his way to the fridge. He removed a Gatorade and chugged the bottle, crushing the plastic in his hand.

  Why was he drinking from my fridge?

  Wait...who even stocked the damn thing?

  “What the hell are you doing?” I probably shouted too loudly.

  “I’m thirsty.”

  I had no response. I sputtered over too many questions and unreasonable demands. Zach didn’t care. I choked on my words and stewed in silence.

  He tossed the empty bottle in the recycling. I glanced over him again. Scars upon scars. Just…everywhere. Not only that, he favored his left arm, even if he didn’t outwardly show it. Something nearly crippled and broke him.

  He said he was on leave. I guessed I believed him, but why would a Navy SEAL want to live in a Versailles inspired mansion north of Atlanta when he could be out saving the world from extremists, dictators, and the computer nerds who hosted websites that pirated movies?

  “How did you get in here?” I demanded.

  Zach caught me looking at him. He grinned. “Through the patio.”

  He did it on purpose. “Not into the kitchen, smart-ass. Into the house!”

  “The underground garage.”

  I’d pitch the nearest mixing bowl at his head. I spun to face him, wishing he’d put on a shirt and regretting once licking every taut muscle on his chest.

  “That isn’t what I mean…” My rage blitzed into a sharp huff. “There’s an underground parking garage?”

  “Two levels. Only one’s underground. But the elevator takes you to the roof where the tennis courts are.”

  I stared at him. He arched an eyebrow. Tennis courts?

  For as much as I wanted to squeal in delight for my newfound palace, Zach Harden was still half-naked and dripping in my brand new kitchen.

  Well, one of my kitchens. But I liked this one. I’d probably use it the most. Which meant I preferred it puddleless.

  “Why are you here?” I tossed a tea-towel at him. It hardly covered his palm let alone the rest of his six-foot-four, monstrous bulk. “How’d you get in?”

  “I have a key.”

  “Impossible.”

  He brushed the towel over his muscles. His tempting, sea-foam eyes studied me, made greener only by the stacks of cash that insulated the walls of my new house. “My name is on the deed too. I live here.”

  “You do not.”

  “Just moved in.”

  I heard a fizzle. I hoped it was the last shred of my patience burning up and not a snap of an aneurysm.

  “You can’t move in here,” I said. “I told you. You are not welcome in my house.”

  He shrugged and foraged in my fridge. “You don’t have to invite me in if I have a key code. I’m not a vampire.”

  Not a vampire? He’d bit me enough during our night together. A couple discreet hickeys proved otherwise. I slammed the refrigerator shut and leaned against the steel doors. Zach only smiled. I began to loathe those dimples.

  “This is ridiculous,” I said. “You didn’t even know my father. You can’t live in his house.”

  He shrugged. “Actually, I did know him.”

  “You…did?”

  “I met him a couple times. Nice guy. We had a bit in common. He was in the service. Marines.”

  I didn’t know that. It didn’t matter.

  “One conversation doesn’t entitle you to half of his life. This isn’t your house. You’re inheriting money that…that…”

  “Belongs to you?”

  Oh, Christ, he made me sound like a money-hungry go
ld-digger. It wasn’t like that at all. Dad took care of me in material ways, and Momma taught me resilience and strength. I didn’t need billions to make me happy.

  I didn’t even know what I needed.

  Why the hell didn’t Dad ever tell me he was in the service?

  Why didn’t he tell me he had a secret family with a lady he married a month before he died? Then again, would I have even listened to a word he said?

  “Look,” I sighed. “You know this is wrong. My dad updated his will, but he didn’t think he’d die so soon. This is a mistake.”

  “He signed it, witnessed it by his attorney, and had it notarized. It’s hard to argue it.”

  Well, I was trying, wasn’t I? “Why are you wet?”

  He liked that I studied his muscles, glistening with water droplets. “Swimming. There’s a great pool out back.”

  A pool. Fantastic. And he had been in it. Exercising in the clear pool. Letting the sun warm his lightly bronzing skin. I imagined him diving through the water as it caressed a body so powerful and fierce he’d cut through the ripples like a sword through silk.

  Momma was too terrified of water to let me swim. Now all I could imagine was slipping beneath the surface with a skilled military man who probably worked better under the waves than above them.

  But those thoughts were wrong. A well of anger rushed over me, drowning me in unspoken words that thickened over a tongue which could still taste every inch of his body. I ground my teeth.

  Step-brother.

  He was my step-brother.

  And he didn’t tell me before seducing me. He didn’t warn me before he took half of my inheritance. And now he ate a cold pepperoni pizza from the fridge. Where the hell did he even get a pizza?

  “This is ridiculous.” I crossed my arms. “You have ten seconds to get out of my house.”

  “Our house.”

  “Ten. Nine. Eight.”

  “Shay, I have every right to be here.”

  “Seven. Six. Five.”

  “God damn, you’re cute when you’re angry.”

  Ignition. “Fourthreetwoone.”

  “Easy.” Zach sucked a bit of pizza sauce from his finger. I stared only at his lips. “I’m just messing with you. You’re wound pretty tight, you know?”

  “I get that way when strangers trespass in my house.”