The hospital where Mom lived was small and made me claustrophobic. The ceilings were too low and the lights too bright. It felt as if I were suddenly a tiny insect under a microscope being picked apart and examined.
Then there was the smell. If death had a smell, this was certainly it. Antiseptic mixed with cold, harsh metal and the lingering stench of decay and rot was not how I wanted to go. I wanted to smell the breeze and watch the sun slide over my legs in my own bed when I died. I had decided that while sitting next to Mom and watching her chest rise and fall as the monitor kept careful record of each heartbeat.
A knock sounded on the doorframe. I raised my head from my hands, expecting another nurse to ask me if I needed anything at all and if Mom had lifted a finger or twitched an eyelash. When I glanced, bleary-eyed at the doorway, I didn’t recognize Bastian at first. He was alien in this element, all hard cut lines of jaw and cheekbone, skin bleached by the punishing lights. But those blue eyes hadn’t changed a bit.
“How are you holding up?” he asked softly. Randy had been in here most of the time, but had just gone to get some coffee saying that he was about to pass out from exhaustion. I had told him to attempt to get some sleep, but he had just shrugged and gotten up anyway.
Somehow, this had drawn us all a bit closer. I no longer felt alienated from Randy as he had held my mother’s hand, tracing the shape of the diamond he had placed on her finger. “I love her,” he had told me. I had been holding tightly onto her other hand and had looked up in surprise.
“What?”
“I love her more than I have ever loved anything walking this earth, save my son. Your mother is a very special woman, Isabelle.”
“I know,” I said mutedly. “My dad said the same thing.”
He had looked up at me then, eyes tired and bloodshot. “I’m not trying to replace him,” he said after a considerable pause. “I hope you know that.”
“I do,” I said. “Thank you.”
There had been silence after that, but it had impressed me that he was man enough to say that. Most boyfriends would simply ignore the daughter of the first marriage and pretend that she didn’t exist unless she could be of some use to them. That’s how my dorm mate said it went, anyhow. She had been wrong about Randy, at least.
“I think that we’ll be a good family,” I said eventually.
Randy glanced back up at me. “You think?”
“Yeah.” The smile he gave me couldn’t compete with dad’s, but it gave me a small sense of relief and hope. A spark that maybe something good could come out of this strange arrangement, whatever it was.
Now, I blinked a few times at Bastian. “Okay, I guess. As okay as I’ll be.”
“Your Mom’s going to be fine,” he said, coming into the room and taking his father’s vacant seat. He didn’t reach out and touch her in any way, but he looked at her face for a long while. It was peaceful in sleep, more peaceful and unlined than I had seen it in years. “The nurses say that she should wake up anytime.”
I smiled at him. “You don’t need to comfort me, they told me the same thing.”
He raised an eyebrow, but it looked half-hearted. “Who said I was comforting anybody?”
“You’d be a bad brother if you didn’t,” I joked. It sounded strained and weird in this place of death and dying. I winced at my own voice and subsided, gripping Mom’s hand again.
“You look like hell,” Bastian said, and I immediately wound up to snap something back at him, but he cut me off before I could utter a single syllable. “Let me take you home. Randy will call us when she wakes up and then you can get back. But I haven’t seen you eat since breakfast, and you need to sleep.”
I sighed. He was right. I couldn’t keep running on fumes like this until I dropped and then I’d be in a bed right next to Mom. “Okay.”
“You must really be out of it. You didn’t give me a single iota of fight.”
“Iota? Do you even know what that means?”
He pushed my shoulder playfully, and I shoved him back. This was how normal siblings were supposed to act, wasn’t it? I felt the same confusion I had for the past week roaring up like a dragon inside of me, stronger than ever before. I fell quiet and we didn’t speak again until we got to the car.
I slid into the seat of the Porsche, which warmed me up quickly despite the cold of the outside. The heated seats were a plus, I had to say, but I would still insult his car at every chance I got.
“Do you want to stop and get some food or are we good raiding the fridge?”
“I’ll be fine with leftovers.”
“Cheap.”
“Champagne taste, Bash.”
“I hate that name,” Bastian sighed as we pulled out of the parking lot. I turned to look at him, smiling for the first time in a long while. It felt stiff, as if I hadn’t smiled in years, though it had only been hours in reality.
“Well then, I’ll keep it in mind. Blackmail, darling,” I said, waggling my eyebrows at him. He laughed, a deep low laugh that sent a shiver down my spine and electric bolts of pleasure through my blood.
Jesus, I told myself. You are ten kinds of fucked up. Your mother’s in the hospital and you want to screw your stepbrother right now in a moving car. I glanced over at Bastian in discomfort. He had his eyes on the road, but I knew that he could feel me looking at him. He never seemed to miss those small things like that. It must have been from being a business man for so long, he had learned to pick up the subtle nuances of every movement a person made in his general vicinity.
“Are we going to talk about what happened in the garage?” Bastian drawled lazily. “I know that you girls are prone to chick flick moments when you’re in emotional distress.”
“Shut up,” I told him. “But yes, we should talk about the garage.”
“I’m not going to apologize,” Bastian said. “Ever since I laid eyes on you, I wanted to shove you against a wall and kiss those pretty lips of yours. And then you had to stroll around nearly naked. What’s a man supposed to do?”
“That was unintentional,” I said pointedly. “I sleep in shirts because pants are uncomfortable. If I had it my way, I’d just go pantless all the time.”
“I’d enjoy the sight.” His voice was just that side of sexy, which made more tingles go through my body. I was suddenly hot, wanting, needing.
I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t find anything logical to say, so I simply closed it again. The rest of the ride was spent in silence, as I tried to crush my rising desire and get a handle on myself.
By the time we’d reached the door I gave up and dragged Bastian inside. “I don’t care if this is wrong,” I told him, unbuttoning his coat—which he had actually decided to wear this time—and roughly pushing it off of his shoulders. I could already see that he was hard, ready, and I wasted no further time. We didn’t even make it to the kitchen before we were clawing each other like wild animals, scrabbling over clothes and attempting to take them off. I think we left a trail up the stairs, but I didn’t mind, because by the time he shoved me down on my bed, I was more animal craving his touch than logical human being.
He devoured my lips and tongue much as he had the first time, demanding and almost rough. Many sounds that I would regret later were coaxed out of me by force from the sheer pleasure just his mouth created as it dipped across my jaw, down my neck and ate away at my collarbone. He licked between the hills of my breasts, teasing the expanse of my stomach with teeth and tongue. By the time he had gotten to my pants, I was a writhing mass of pure desire, needing him. He stripped my pants and panties off with a nearly inhuman speed.
“Do you want this?” he breathed against my ear, sliding his body up alongside mine. I could feel him at my entrance, and with a shudder of pure desire, I titled my legs open and my hips upward in response.
“Isabelle,” he whispered, brushing his fingers over my face as he entered me. Internally, I cried yes! This is what I have been waiting for my entire life! It was as if I had been em
pty, wanting for something that I didn’t even fathom for my entire life, and the Moment he was immersed in my flesh, I had found the last piece of the puzzle. My entire being just clicked into place, and I knew that there was no way that this was wrong. Nothing wrong should have felt this good.
My fingernails gripped his shifting shoulder blades, heavy with muscle as he began hitting that place that felt just right and I tilted my head back to capture his lips more. He paused his thrusting long enough to kiss me and he murmured my name into my neck as he resumed, and I could feel the pleasure beginning to build deep in my core.
“Isabelle,” he murmured.
“I’m here,” I whispered, drawing him closer to me. “I’m not leaving. I’m here.” Before I could hear his response, I felt myself reach that edge of pleasure, like the top of a waterfall, and then I was spiraling down, down, down into the depths of pure bliss that I hadn’t even known existed. He said my name once more and then Bastian joined me, heavy muscles jerking and clamping underneath my hands and against bare skin.
We lay there for several minutes after we have both come down from our high, neither speaking, just basking in the after-sex glow. My head was resting against his chest, and I listened to his heart slow. His hand reached around my waist and pulled me closer to him, the other stroking my hair.
“What are we going to tell them?” he asked eventually. I looked up in surprise. I hadn’t expected him to talk the serious talk so soon after. Most guys were content to just fall asleep and let me do all the thinking and worrying. I smiled at him. He really was a business man.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I know that this won’t be accepted by a lot of people, but because you’re so damn famous, it’ll be pretty hard to have a secret affair. That’d be too messy for me, anyways.”
“I don’t want to keep you a secret.”
“I’d like to see you try.”
He laughed and stroked his hand through my hair once again. “I mean, I want to show you to the world. I want to be proud of you, not having some sort of illicit affair somewhere in the shadows while our parents get to be happy. I think that we should all be happy,” he said thoughtfully.
“I used to think that you were a dumb rich kid who mooched off of his parents,” I said in wonder, running a hand over his chest. He had a tattoo over his heart, a Celtic cross. I traced the edges of the ink with the barest hint of fingernail. He shivered under my touch.
“That’s what I wanted you to think,” he said kissing the top of my head. “My mother, as well. She had left us, and every time she saw my face on the news for the senator’s daughter I’d ruined, I wanted her to be ashamed. I wanted her to regret leaving us and taking my money.”
“Well,” I said wryly. “Please tell me you won’t do that now.”
Bastian pulled my head up to meet his electric blue eyes. They were soul-searching, like in the garage, but ten times more intense because of what we had just done. “I would never hurt you like that,” he said with conviction. “I love you.”
I blinked at the admission. Sure, I had way too many feelings for him for my own good, but I had assumed that he kept his heart more closely guarded than that. Then I smiled. Did I care? I believed him. “Back at’cha,” I said, and flicked his nose with my pinkie.
He grinned at me and opened his mouth to say something else when his cellphone buzzed from his pants pocket. I turned and went to the bathroom while I listened to him talk, standing in the doorway.
He flipped the phone shut after a few words, and grinned at me again. “She’s awake.”
I went over and kissed him once more. “Let me go get dressed, and we’ll go back.”
“What about sleep?”
“You ruined any chance of that, Mr. Playboy,” I said, turning around and going into the bathroom before he could ask how the hell I’d come up with that name.
I grinned as I pulled the curtain closed over the shower. This was going to be a fun ride, indeed.
THE END
© Copyright 2015 by Maya Grey - All rights reserved.
In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved.
Respective authors own all copyrights not held by the publisher.
Forbidden Military Hero
by Maya Grey
As I stood in the airport, holding a sign that I hadn’t even decorated, I felt false. People were giving me smiles that were full of warmth and compassion, and a woman even came up to me with tears in her eyes and said, “God bless your brother for what he has done, and God bless you for having the courage to be the one to bring him home.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell her that my stepbrother had been sent to the military as a punishment of sorts about three years ago when he had gotten kicked out of college. I had been eighteen at the time, and found the entire thing incredibly hilarious, and now that I had to be the one to welcome him home, no humor remained in the situation. I was only there because Linda had gotten caught in a city where you couldn’t see two feet in front of you due to the heavy snow, and Dad was busy with a client that he almost had a breakthrough on that would change the entire outcome of the case. He had told me so much over the phone and begged me to leave the comfort of my one-bedroom and my cat Lewis purring at my feet to drive in the thirty degree weather to meet a guy who was supposed to be my brother. Lawyers are always over-dramatic, and I think that the evidence could have waited.
One of my weaknesses is saying no. This is why I was standing here, holding the glittery and utterly ridiculous sign and a bouquet of roses for the one person I truly hate.
I scanned the crowd. There were other signs, none as elaborate or eccentric as mine, and it stuck out like a sore thumb. Many people took second—and third—glances at it to see if it was really that glittery, and then gave me a sympathetic stare. I would give them a tight smile back as if to say, what can you do about it?
The flight attendant opened the doors that led from the plane, and I took in a deep breath of relief. About frickin’ time. I had things to do and places to be, I thought irritably. While it wasn’t true, I would most definitely tell Lucas that the moment I saw him.
The passengers began filing out of the plane a few moments later, and I began bouncing on the balls of my feet in the anticipation of being able to leave soon. That was, of course if he didn’t check his bags.
At first, my brother wasn’t recognizable. I admired him for all of two seconds before I reached the icy green eyes and realized, holy shit, this is Lucas. I had lingered on the wide shoulders and lean stomach, but it was quickly blown away with the revelation that this wasn’t a random man who got off of the plane.
With a strong, lean body that looked utterly ripped, there was nothing in this man that reminded me of the nerdy brother that had been booted off to military camp. He had grown perhaps another four inches, making him tower over my barely five and a half foot height. He didn’t recognize me either, instead began reading the signs.
When he reached mine, he grimaced and took a second look at the face, and frowned. He adjusted the shoulder on his bag and walked slowly towards me. I suppose he was attempting to make an awesome impression for the people around him, but I was utterly unimpressed.
When he reached me, we simply sized each other up. The couple next to us was embracing each other with enough love to make up for our lack of it, but I had to put on a good show for everyone who was watching, didn’t I?
I tried a smile. It seemed strained. “You’ve gotten taller, Lucas,” I said, having to crane my neck up to meet his gaze. Damn him.
He smirked down at me. “And you’ve gotten smaller.” His smirk widened, and he replicated my tone. “Katy.”
Fifty pounds lighter, two runs a day and eating nothing but carrots and cele
ry, and all he could say was that I was ‘smaller.’ Jesus this man knew how to understate. I narrowed my eyes at him and nodded.
“Yes, I have.” People were staring at us, so I thrust the flowers out at him. “Take them and pretend like you’re happy to see me,” I ground out from between my smile.
He blinked. “What if I am happy to see you?” He took the flowers all the same, and then grinned at me, leaning forward and crushing me in a hug. My nerdy, Dungeons and Dragons obsessed, X-box playing douchebag brother who had never stepped into a gym in his life, had biceps, and he was using them quite effectively to murder my air supply. As he drew back I gave him a glare.
“I highly doubt you are. I am not happy to see you.” It was the truth. Now that he was back, there would be the drama between my dad and stepmom once again about what we would do with him.
“Then why are you here, holding a big, glittery and very pink sign that professes your utter and complete love for me and happiness that I am home?” his eyes smoldered with an intensity that I had never seen from Lucas before he left. I frowned.
“Dad made me come, and your mother is caught in a city halfway around the world where it’s snowing cats and dogs,” I said.
“Raining,” Lucas corrected.
“No, it’s snowing,” I snapped.
Lucas smiled. Oh, he had worked on that smile, too. It had been all crooked teeth with overbearing braces that matched perfectly with his round Harry Potter style glasses. Now it was just a quick quirk of the lips on one side. “The correct terminology is it’s raining cats and dogs,” he said. Well damn, his time playing war games hadn’t done a single thing to make him stop spouting encyclopedias.
“Yeah, whatever,” I said, waving him off. “Let’s just leave so that I can get back to my room and as far away from you as humanly possible.” He smiled again, and this time it was with teeth. I don’t know what he must have done to get his teeth that white, but from the braces, they were perfectly straight. He had the smile of a movie star, and that pissed me off even more because I found it attractive.
Romance: JADEN: An MMA Fighter Romance (Bad Boy Tattoo Romance) (New Adult Pregnancy Short Stories) Page 16