by Lia Lee
“Don’t worry a bit about them, ma’am,” said Annette reassuringly. “You’ll get them back after the ceremony.”
She bid them a fond goodbye, and then she was alone in the room. She took several deep breaths, and now she could feel the love that always existed between her and Donovan swell up around her. She was going to be married to the man she loved today, but in the end, the wedding was just a pretty ceremony, a piece of paper. The real bond, the one she shared with her four beautiful children and her husband, was invisible and eternal.
The first strains of music started, and Carly took her place. She knew that at the end of the aisle was the happily-ever-after she had always wished for, even if she never thought it possible before. She walked out into the grand hall, and her eyes flew over all the people assembled until she found the one whose heart made hers beat in time with his. Donovan watched her with a gaze that was so full of love that her heart ached.
Ireland blessed her with her husband, and now she knew that blessing would be hers for the rest of her days.
She began her walk down the aisle.
THE END
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Pregnant by my Brother’s Friend
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Pregnant by my Brother’s Friend
By Leona Lee and Lia Lee
All Rights Reserved. Copyright 2017 Leona Lee and Lia Lee.
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Chapter One
Brett
When I was ten years old, my mother and I moved to Chicago with nothing but the clothes on our backs and a fistful of bills that one of her friends in Indiana had stuffed in her hand before we left. We’d left in the middle of night because we were late on rent. I wasn’t supposed to know why we left, but I did. It wasn’t the first time it had happened, but as luck would have it, it was the last.
Mom had to work three jobs to make sure that it never happened again, but she never once complained.
On my first day at my new school, some of the kids picked on me for my ratty sweater and holey jeans. I’d been about to put my fist into one of their faces when an almighty scream rang out behind me. I spun around to see a little girl with the bluest eyes I’d ever seen, wailing and pointing at the guy who’d been making fun of me.
Another boy came running, and his fist collided into the bully’s cheekbone with a loud crack. After a brief tussle, a teacher had broken up the fight and sent us all off with a warning. The boy who’d punched the guy in my defense looked over at me, his dark hair pointing in every direction and a trickle of blood running from his nose. He grunted, “We’re gonna miss lunch if we don’t hurry. Come on.”
Nineteen years later, that same boy was sitting beside me in the booth of an upscale bar on Logan Square, celebrating my latest deal.
Mark Love. My best goddamned friend in the world. He smacked me on the back with a thump of his fist. I couldn’t hear it over the music that was blaring from large speakers lining the walls, and he grinned like the madman he was.
“Congratulations, brother,” he said. “I’m really fucking proud of you.” He hailed a passing waitress. “Three shots of Patron and three beers, please.”
“Sure thing, coming right up.” The waitress winked and flashed him a smile, but Mark’s eyes were already out on the dance floor.
“Actually, better make that four of everything,” he told her, sighing as he slumped back in his seat. “Sophia’s gonna be parched when she comes off the floor.”
Shawn, another one of our friends, followed Mark’s eyes, and he let out a low whistle. “She’s looking pretty damn good tonight, isn’t she?”
Mark and I both turned to glower at him. Mark because he was super overprotective of his little sister, and me because I generally just didn’t like the idea of Shawn staring at Sophia. He threw his hands up in mock surrender, his lips twitching into a cocky smile.
“Stand down, Not-her-dad One and Not-her-dad Two. Just stating the facts, is all. She looks good. Can either of you deny it?”
“Yes,” Mark snapped. “Keep your eyes off my sister, asshole.”
Shawn’s bright green eyes darted to mine. “Come on, back me up here, Brett. Sophia’s legit hot. I know she’s like a little sister to you, too, but you know she’s not actually related to you, right? That means you can back me up without it being creepy.”
“I know she’s not related to me.” I glanced at Mark, who was waiting for me to continue with a scowl and a challenge in his dark blue eyes. “But she might as well have been. So nope. Not hot.”
It was a total lie, of course.
But it was one I would keep telling until my dying fucking day.
As it turned out, the blue-eyed girl whose shriek had summoned Mark on that fateful day was his sister, Sophia Love. Three years younger than us, Sophia had had some trouble with same bullies over the summer, but she hadn’t known who they were.
Ever the protector, Mark had told her to scream if she saw them at school so that he could, in his in juvenile words, teach them a lesson.
And scream she did.
Every once in a while, Mark and I joked that it was the scream that could be heard around the world. That scream had changed my life when it catapulted the man who would become like a brother to me into it.
Only Sophia wasn’t a seven-year-old girl anymore, and it was getting harder and harder not to notice that fact, despite what I’d just told Shawn. She’d always been pretty. Even as a kid, I remembered that I used to think that she looked like one of the porcelain dolls my mom collected.
In high school, as her body filled out and morphed into that of a woman, she was beautiful. Not that I’d ever actually noticed it back then, not in any other way than agreeing with the whispers in the locker room. Okay, and once when I’d been fall-down drunk, and I’d thought that she looked like a dark, fallen angel when her face had loomed over my semi-passed out self. The next morning, I pretended that I couldn’t remember that I’d told her I thought she was “the most beautiful girl in the world.”
Somewhere around college, though, I had to admit that she was hot, even if it was only to myself. Now at twenty-six, Sophia wasn’t just hot anymore. She was fucking devastating.
And I knew it, along with any other man and probably half the women in the club. But I would never, ever admit it out loud.
Mark smirked beside me, raising his fist for me to bump. “Good man. You see, Shawn? That’s what real friends do. They don’t check out each other’s sisters.”
Shawn rolled his eyes, draining the last bit of beer from the bottle in front of him. “Whatever. Just being honest.”
The waitress arrived with our drinks, grabbing Mark’s attention as she started flirting with him. It afforded me the opportunity to check out the potential talent on the dance floor. Not Sophia, of course. The other talent.
My company had hit a huge milestone that afternoon. The deal was worth billions, and my personal net worth now exceeded one billion dollars. Not bad for a guy who came from nothing and nowhere.
I was out to celebrate with Mark, Sophia, and Shawn, but I also fully intended on finding a celebratory fuck.
The last few months, I’d been burning the midnight oil to get this deal done, and I hadn’t wanted any distractions, so I’d kept my dick in my pants. But the deal was done, which meant that my self-imposed celibacy was over, and I couldn’t wait to get back in the game.
My eyes roamed over the crowded dancefloor, but they kept coming back to the petite brunette right at the very center of it. Her mahogany-colored hair shone under the flashing strobe lights, sailing around her beautiful face as she moved to the rhythm of the
music. It was cut to fall right above her shoulders, and it framed her face so perfectly that it was almost like she’d been drawn by a cartoon artist and brought to life.
Slender curves that just wouldn’t quit were encased in a black leather skirt that showed off miles of toned legs, and a tight white tank top revealed the perfect swell of her breasts. Her tiny feet were wearing heels that had been designed to kill me.
And I didn’t even have a foot fetish. It was just easy to imagine fucking her wearing only those goddamn heels.
She was the only girl on the dance floor that made my dick rock hard, and images of all the dirty, filthy things that I wanted to do to her swam around my head on repeat. But she was also the only girl out there I couldn’t have.
Because she was Sophia. Which meant that my dick needed to chill the fuck out and find someone else that interested it.
“Dude, who are you salivating over?” Mark asked, his beer bottle raised in front of his lips as he squinted out at the dance floor. The waitress was gone, and I hadn’t even noticed.
I shrugged, pointing out a random blonde near where Sophia was dancing. “That chick looks like she could be fun.”
He nodded enthusiastically, elbowing me in the ribs. Unfortunately, because I was an idiot, I’d told Mark about my period of abstinence. The night I’d found out that I had a shot at closing the deal, we celebrated the end of my voluntary dry spell by drinking a shitload of Scotch.
“Do try to last long enough to make the poor girl come at least once,” Mark said, laughing.
I glared at him so hard that I thought my eyes were going to pop. No matter how much I willed it to happen, his head didn’t explode. Rolling my eyes, I raised the shot of Patron that the waitress had delivered, and I smirked. “I’ll get her to call in the morning to tell you that she came so hard that she couldn’t see for a full minute. Now drink up.”
“Who’s coming for a full minute?” Sophia asked behind me suddenly, her voice slightly slurred, but her curiosity was definitely piqued.
When I turned to face her, she blinked and looked around the booth, her eyes moving a little shower than usual. You wouldn’t be able to see it if you didn’t know her well, but I did. She’d excused herself earlier to go dance, claiming the tequila we’d been pounding all night was going to her head and that she needed to sweat it out.
It clearly hadn’t worked itself out of her system yet.
“Jesus,” Mark said. “I’m not having this conversation with you.” He stood up from the booth, brushed the creases from his jeans, and glanced at me pointedly. “I’m going to piss. Shawn’s going… somewhere, because he isn’t hearing this, either. Fix it.”
Shawn looked between the two of us, shrugged, and moved his towering frame to the dance floor, where a bunch of girls wearing tiaras and one with a sash that read “Bachelorette” descended on him. He wouldn’t be back anytime soon, which left me alone with Sophia, who was still looking at me expectantly.
She slid into the booth beside me, not stopping until she was pressed to my side. God, she must’ve been drunker than I thought.
Her gaze fell the shot of Patron that was still waiting for her, and she slammed it back. Her tiny pink tongue darted out of her mouth to lick her lips quickly. “Yum.”
My eyes fell to that tongue for just a split second, but she caught me. Our gazes met and locked. Her lips parted as she sucked in a breath.
“Congratulations on your deal,” she said finally, her voice a touch breathier than usual. “And you never answered my question. Who’s coming for a full minute?”
Damn. I was hoping she’d forgotten about that. “No one. And thanks, but you already congratulated me earlier.”
“I know,” she said with a wave of her hand. “But you deserved to hear it again.”
Sophia leaned in closer, like she wanted to whisper in my ear. I bent my head slightly, but it snapped back as soon as I heard what she had to say.
“You know, I wouldn’t mind being the one that you make come for a full minute.”
My cock sprang to attention, straining against my zipper. I shoved a hand into my hair, sliding over on the bench to put a good few inches between us. Like things should be. “Why the fuck would you say that to me?” I asked.
Sophia shrugged, her blue eyes wide and her pupils dilated when they met mine. “Why not? It’s true. I happen to think you’re fucking hot.”
“Jesus,” I said. “You must be drunker that I realized.”
I broke eye contact to relieve the intense sexual tension that was building between us, crackling in the air like someone had lit a match.
“I’m not—” Sophia started to protest, but Mark was back and sliding into the booth beside her.
“I hope you’ve moved on from Brett’s idiotic comment.” His gaze alternated between the two of us. “What feels weird here?”
“Nothing’s weird,” Sophia said, going to thump his shoulder but missing by a mile. “You’re weird.”
Her eyes were all glassy, and her speech was definitely slurred now. It seemed that last shot of tequila had been the cactus that broke the camel’s back.
Mark must’ve noticed the same thing I did, because he tipped back his beer and saluted me, gently pulling Sophia to her feet with him. “I’d better get her home. She’s pretty wasted.”
“Yeah, I guess she is,” I agreed, lifting my chin in farewell to Mark. “Bye Soph. Feel better.”
Sophia’s full lips curled into a lopsided smile, and she teetered slightly on her heels. “Bye, Brett. See you soon.”
When she met my gaze for the last time, her eyes shone with something that looked a lot like an offer I wished I could take her up on, but never would.
Chapter Two
Sophia
Brett’s mouth was on mine. He was kissing me in a way that told me he no longer saw me as Mark’s annoying little sister, the tag-along baby with a slight lisp that only disappeared when I reached high school.
No. This was a real kiss. The kind a man gave a woman that he wanted more than anything else. His erection pressed hot into my stomach, and he had me caged between his muscular arms. The very same arms that had been haunting my dreams since I was sixteen and saw them wrapped around some cheerleader in my parents’ pool.
Jealously had burnt through my body, an ugly green monster that wanted to rip her out of those arms and feel them around my waist instead.
But I didn’t have to be jealous anymore, because now, I was the one in his arms. I was the one enveloped by his delicious, athletic build. His lips pressed to my neck, and his hand worked its way under the tight leather skirt I’d worn in the hopes of him finally realizing that I wasn’t just Mark’s little sister or his lifelong friend.
And it had worked.
His hand kept working its way up until he was cupping my mound over my drenched panties. He groaned when he felt my wet, aching heat. “Christ, Soph. You’re so fucking wet for me. Why didn’t I see it before?”
“All that matters is that you know now,” I moaned, my hands threading into the thick, espresso-colored strands of his perfectly messy hair that sometimes fell over his eyes when he laughed.
When I tugged at it, his breathing hitched, and when I rolled my hips against his, he let out a low hiss.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said.
His eyes, gray like smoke with tones of dark blue, almost like a cloud floating in the sky just before dusk, locked on mine as he waited for my answer. The hunger in them begged for me say yes.
So, I gave him what he wanted and nodded once. “Let’s get out of here.”
A slow, sexy grin curled on his full lips, causing one of his cheeks to dent where his dimples sat. Those dimples were going to be the death of me one day. I was sure of it.
As a young boy, the dimples had been cute, hinting at the playful troublemaker that he could be. As a man, they were anything but boyish or cute. They were rugged, manly, and they didn’t come out to play nearly often enough anymor
e.
The scene changed quickly, and we were in Brett’s bedroom. I’d only been in there once, shortly after he’d bought his new place and was giving me a tour of the house. But each detail of it was perfectly etched into my brain.
I was naked on his king-sized bed, my hands grasping at his smooth, white sheets. Lake Michigan winked at me from beyond his bedroom windows. A full moon hung in the sky, reflected in the small ripples that broke the surface of the lake from the breeze outside.
Brett’s bed had a heavy, dark wooden frame that knocked lightly into wall each time that he thrust into me, his rock-hard length sliding into me over and over with a perfect rhythm that never broke. Tension was already knotting in my lower stomach, and I knew the orgasm he was building inside me would be nothing like the mediocre ones I gave myself every so often.
He was whispering into my ear. Dirty things and sweet things, telling me how good I felt around his cock and how I was the most beautiful girl in the world, just like he had that night back in high school. But this time, he wasn’t drunk.
He told me now that he’d wanted me for as long as I’d wanted him. His words and his body took me higher and higher. The muscles in his back bunched under my palms when he moved, and his thighs quivered when mine started shaking.
When he reached down between us, his fingers found my clit, and I cried out.
Close. So damn close. My neck arched into the pillow, and Brett caught my mouth for another searing hot kiss, owning every part of me.
My sex clamped down on his dick, and then, just when I was about to come, a loud moan escaped.
I started awake at the sound of it.
I blinked wildly against the beams of early morning sunlight that were wreaking havoc on my eyes and causing my head to pound from the aftereffects of the enormous amounts of tequila I’d consumed hours before. The crushing weight of disappointment crashed into me when I realized I was alone.