A Royal Pain (Montrovia Royals Book 1)

by Kit Kyndall

  It might have been eleven years, but I still remembered how to find my old room, and to my surprise, it hadn’t been turned in to anything else. Oh, someone had remodeled it into a bland, nondescript guestroom, but it wasn’t a game room or perhaps a torture den to meet Dirk’s sadistic needs. Of course, he’d never been overt about his dark side around his daughter and my mother.

  “I hope this will do for you, Paxton. I’m sorry all your old things are gone.”

  I turned to her with a charming grin, determined to ignore the mewling little wuss inside me that wanted to curl into a ball after having faced Dirk Gaithway, though we hadn’t exchanged a single word. Hooking a thumb in my belt loop, which I knew dragged my jeans down a good two inches, I was gratified to see her gaze slip to my navel and drift lower.

  I wondered what she’d do if I dropped trou and whipped it out for her. I’d known a lot of skanky girls over the years, and some of the groupies had made my former clients seem like well-bred ladies, but I couldn’t imagine her reacting the same way as them. Most of those girls would drop to their knees and beg for the gift of my cock in their mouth, but I had a feeling she would probably knee me in the balls instead.

  With a blink, I forced my attention back to the topic at hand. “Dang. You mean my Bourbon Crow and Devourment posters are all gone? What about the Divinity Destroyed CDs? Please tell me you at least kept my Symphony In Peril signed T-shirt? They disbanded the year after I got that.” I grinned at her. I couldn’t care less about shit that was gone that I hadn’t seen or needed in eleven years. However, I cared a great deal about seeing my mom, and that thought instantly changed my mood from flirtatious to somber.

  As though she’d read my mind, she stepped up beside me, threading her arm through mine casually, as though we were actually siblings who were close, rather than stepsiblings who hadn’t seen each other in eleven years. “Come on, I’ll take you to your mom.”

  She led me down the hall, past the master bedroom, to my surprise. I darted a glance at the door and sent her a questioning look.

  Her face looked a little tight, and she seemed embarrassed. “My dad decided Laura would be more comfortable in a room of her own.”

  “And the selfish fucker made her move out of the master bedroom instead of moving his ass down the hall?”

  Mia’s arm dropped out of mine, and she withdrew slightly, looking defensive. “You don’t have to be so mean.”

  I snorted. “Honey, I’m not the one who’s the mean fucker kicking an invalid out of her room.” Or terrorizing a thirteen-year-old boy for four years before I’d had enough and ran away from this hellhole, but I didn’t add that. It was none of her business, and I certainly had no intention of sharing the ugly past.

  A moment later, she tapped on the door a few rooms away from Dirk’s, and then stepped back to allow me to pass. I entered slowly, hesitating. I wanted to see my mother, but I was also afraid. I was afraid of her reaction, and of the pain I was no doubt going to see on her face. I had disappeared eleven years ago and hadn’t bothered to get in touch with her even one time.

  She didn’t understand, and she would never know why, if I could shield her from the truth. As far as I knew, she still thought Dirk Gaithway was the best fucking thing that had ever happened to us. Of course, a lot could change in eleven years, and maybe, just maybe, he’d done something to open her eyes. Knowing I couldn’t stand there all day, and I’d come seventeen hundred miles to be here, and she didn’t have a whole lot of time left, I summoned the same kind of courage it took to step into the octagon and approached her.

  Damn, she looked awful. She’d once had the same chestnut-brown hair as me, lush and full, but now only a few strands clung tenaciously to her balding head. What was left had gone straw-yellow mixed with gray. Her skin was sallow, with large purplish-black smudges under her eyes. Her lips had cracked to the point of bleeding, and I turned to glare at my stepsister. “Who’s taking care of her? They’re slacking off.”

  Again, she looked defensive. “I’ve been taking care of Laura a lot, and she has nurses.”

  “Why the fuck are her lips like that? How many people work with her, and how many of you are just overlooking her problem because it’s not yours?”

  Her blue eyes snapped with fire, and I could see the defensiveness fading to anger. “You’re such an arrogant asshole. You haven’t been here for eleven years, and you wouldn’t be here now if I hadn’t moved the fucking world to track you down, and then the first thing you do is criticize how well I’m taking care of Laura? It should be your job.” She poked me in the chest.

  “Yours and my dad’s, but neither one of you were here for her, so I’m doing my best.” Her voice softened, and her shoulders slumped. “The cracks are from the chemo, just like the ulcers inside her mouth. They don’t heal. If you had bothered to listen to anything I told you, or looked up even a cursory amount of information about treatment for breast cancer, you might have known that.”

  Before she could poke me again, I grabbed her hand in mine, cradling it gently as I folded our hands together. “I’m sorry. You’re right, Mia. It was just startling to see her like this, and I’m sorry I overreacted and jumped on you.” There’d been a heavy dose of guilt in my reaction, and I’d unleashed on her without thinking. To my relief, she squeezed my hand in a reassuring fashion before taking hers away gently.

  Forcing myself to man up, I turned away from her, and the false sense of comfort her touch provided, to face my dying mother. She appeared to be sleeping, but as I sat in the chair beside her bed and lifted her hand, her eyes opened slowly. Her expression was confused, and her eyes appeared unfocused for a long moment as they looked in my direction.

  Slowly, as I watched, I thought I saw recognition, and a moment later, her hand clutched mine. I brought it to my mouth and pressed a kiss to the dry knuckles, covered by paper-thin white skin. When I’d run away, my mother had been the picture of health and vitality. I couldn’t reconcile the memory of what she’s been with what she was for a long moment.

  My eyes burned with unshed tears, and I forced them back. I didn’t want her to see me cry, because I was here to be strong for her, not to have her comfort me in her current state.

  For all I knew, she might not want to comfort for me at all. It could be Mom might want to slug me in the face and tell me to never come back. Somehow, I didn’t think so from the soft expression she wore and the single tear trailing down her face. “Hey, Mom.” I was an eloquent bastard when I wanted to be.

  Her lips trembled softly, and her hands shook as she squeezed mine. “My baby boy.” She turned her head slightly, clearly looking at Mia standing over my shoulder. With a small smile, she said, “Thank you so much for finding him, honey.”

  Mia cleared her throat before she muttered a soft sound of acknowledgment. Her hand at the back of my neck made me shiver slightly when she brushed against it softly. I looked up at her, a question in my eyes that she answered without me asking.

  “I’m going to give you guys some privacy, but if you need me, my room is still in the same old place.”

  I nodded and watched her leave for a moment, remembering her room was next to mine. I’d never had any reason to seek her out there before, back when I lived at home. We’d been seven years apart and not particularly close, and she sure couldn’t have shielded me from the horror of Dirk Gaithway. Maybe I had shielded her instead, though he was always a doting father around the sweet little princess. I guessed I was glad for that, because I hated the idea of her being hurt or twisted by that sadistic fucker.

  Forcing away thoughts of Dirk Gaithway, I turned back to my mom and basked in the moment, knowing there wouldn’t be many more like it. As I held her hand and talked to her gently, the rage and resentment I felt for Dirk swelled to an all-new high, and I had the urge to beat him to a bloodied pulp. I’d just have to settle for the punching bag at the gym later.

  Chapter Two

  Mia

  Wow, he certainly had ch
anged. I still remembered the somewhat-scrawny thirteen-year-old boy he’d been that I had met shortly before our parents got married. I’d thought he was a fun older brother, but he’d pretty much regarded me as a pest. Shortly after he’d moved in, he stopped putting up with me in a nice way and just turned into a solemn brat. My dad had told me it was just hormones, and that I should steer clear of my stepbrother until he’d learned some manners.

  That had been our relationship, and it had set the tone. Honestly, when he ran away, I had barely noticed. I’d been ten years old, spoiled and self-absorbed, and it had taken me a while to realize my stepmother was heartbroken her son had left without a word or explanation. Somehow, it had brought us closer together though, and she had started to feel just like my mom.

  Actually, better than my mom, because my mom lived in Albuquerque in an artists’ commune and wanted nothing to do with me. Motherhood stifled her creativity, or some shit like that.

  When Laura had asked me a couple of weeks ago to see if I could find Paxton, I had applied myself diligently to the search. A private detective had provided some leads for me, at least enough for me to learn UFC fighter Paxton LeChance had started life as Paxton Marsh. Then had begun the interminable process of actually trying to get a message to him or speak to him directly. He had a lot of people between him and me, but I had persisted, driven by Laura’s need to see her son again before she died.

  Now he was here, and I should have been flush with excitement that I had fulfilled my mission and granted her dying wish. I was happy to see him, but I hadn’t expected just how happy I would be. Sure, I’d realize how hot he had become over the years, and when you looked at his fight poster from his recent round, posted on his website and the UFC match site, it was enough to make any girl’s panties damp.

  Still, I had hoped it was just a reaction to the staging of the photo shot, rather than the man himself. I guess I’d somehow hoped he would have lost forty pounds of muscle, shrank six inches, and maybe turned kind of bald in the three days since I had talked to him and his arrival here at the estate. No such luck, and I was overwhelmingly attracted to my brother.

  No, my stepbrother. Hell, he was barely that. We hadn’t seen each other in eleven years, and we’d never been anything closer than friends, at best, when he’d still lived at home. I had no idea why he’d run away or stayed gone for eleven years, though my dad said he’d been involved in drugs.

  I guess it was possible, especially considering he was a professional fighter. Steroids or something had probably played a role in that, hadn’t they? It was enough to make me feel sad, and I knew I wanted no part of dating someone involved with drugs, so it should have made it easier to kill any physical interest in him.

  It didn’t, as I discovered as soon as I was exposed to him again a few hours later. He knocked on my door and leaned his head in, looking weary. “Hey, do you want to grab a bite to eat?”

  I looked at the clock, finding it was almost eleven p.m. The cook had left for the day, and I could have offered to rustle up something in the kitchen, but culinary skills weren’t high on my list of talents. “Sure. There’s a little cantina not too far from here that has the best margaritas, and their Chile Verde sauce is amazing.”

  He scrubbed a hand on his face, looking exhausted. “I could use about ten margaritas right now.”

  I hopped off the bed, hoping he was joking, even as I wondered if chemical addictions continued to plague him. Maybe I could find out subtly in the coming days, and if at all possible, I could help him. It seemed presumptuous to think that a man seven years older than me, sort of famous, at least in fight circles, and as handsome as he was could ever need my help, but I’d give it if I could.

  As I followed him out of my room and down the stairs, my eyes naturally drifted to his taut backside, firmly encased by the sinfully tight jeans. As I wondered if my hands would fit in the pockets, or if there is even enough room for that, I realized I would do a lot of things for Paxton. Or maybe even to him, if I had the chance.

  Man, I was in trouble.

  Chapter Three

  Paxton

  No doubt about it, I was drunk. A lot more so than I had planned to be, and a lot more than I’d expected from four margaritas. I leaned against Mia, who was helpfully holding me up even as she lurched a bit too. I think she was as drunk as I was, since we’d both decided to drown our sorrows in strawberry margaritas to see if José Cuervo held the answers to life.

  Apparently, his only answer was to drink more, and we had complied. I’d had four, and I think Princess had downed at least three. We’d also had some food, but I guess I’d gone too long without eating before that, or maybe just the stress of the last few days was catching up with me, and the alcohol was knocking me on my ass.

  We were trying to be quiet, and I could feel her stifling a giggle as we crept up the stairs, arms around each other in a mockery of support. I had a mental image of missing the step and dragging her down with me. I supposed I should let her go, but I liked holding her, and I liked having the illusion we were sustaining each other.

  Somehow, we made it up the landing and to my room, where she opened the door, or maybe I did. I was a little fuzzy on that, but either way, we were soon across the threshold. I closed the door behind me, locking it without thought. There was no way I was going to sleep in the same house as Dirk without my room locked. It was a childish reaction born of fear and experience. I even had the urge to move the dresser in front of the door to block his entry.

  Fortunately, Mia distracted me from those thoughts as she aimed me toward my bed. I shuffled beside her and crashed down onto the soft mattress. Somehow, my hands refused to let go of her hips, and she ended up sprawled atop me.

  That insistent, aching urge in my groin burst into life, and I was instantly hard and ready for her. Her eyes widened as my erection pressed into her tummy, and I didn’t know whether to apologize, make an off-the-cuff remark, or say nothing.

  She didn’t speak either, but our gazes locked. I saw confusion in hers, along with a strong mix of desire. Shit. She wanted me too.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  I wasn’t a nice guy. Wasn’t into self self-denial or giving up things I wanted. I’d done enough of that shit in my life, so when I wanted something now, I got it if at all possible. That sounded badass, but mostly meant I just plunked down my credit card.

  Still, there was no way to just toss down a credit card to acquire a stepsister. Did I even want to acquire her? Sure, she had a smoking hot body, but it came with a barge full of baggage I didn’t want to examine. For one thing, we were sort of related, and worst of all, she had sprang from the loins of the worst fucking man in the world. What if she was even a bit like Dirk?

  On the other hand, she was soft and supple against me when she slowly relaxed. As she leaned a little closer to me, her nipples pushed against the thin fabric of my shirt, making me aware of the hard little buds pressing into my skin. I groaned softly, keeping my hands locked on her hips even as I wanted to move to her breasts, to pull off that short little T-shirt that had teased me all night, and see if she had a bra underneath.

  Judging from the hard little tips pressing against my chest, I would guess Mia had skipped one. Her breasts were small and pert enough she could get away with it, but it wasn’t the kind of knowledge that made a man do the right thing.

  Since when had I ever done the right thing? Maybe when I was younger, but I hadn’t for a long time. I didn’t give a shit about doing the right thing. Right then, I wanted oblivion, and she could provide it. Surrendering to my baser urges, I slid my hands up her body from her hips to her breasts, sliding under the hem of her T-shirt and finding bare skin, just as I had expected.

  She drew in a breath that turned to a gasp when I flicked my thumbs across her nipples, and the hard little points tightened even further. My cock twitched in response, and it was all I could do not to grab her, tear off those tiny little shorts, and drive my cock into her hot little puss
y. I had no doubts she’d be sopping wet for me.

  Testing my theory, I trailed one hand down her stomach to the waistband of her shorts. She bit her lip, looking like she wanted to protest, and I waited a second to allow her to do so. I might be a fucking bastard, but I’m no rapist. I don’t go that far in taking what I want. This had to be completely consensual, or it wasn’t happening.

  She didn’t say anything, and her eyes closed a second later as I caressed her skin with my thumb just under the waistband. She was soft and silky, and I imagined her mound would be even softer.

  Seconds later, I found out for myself as I wedged my fingers under the waistband and discovered my sweet little stepsister had also skipped underwear. I groaned again at the discovery, pre-cum leaking from my cock in copious amounts. She was trying to kill me, and she hadn’t even planned it.

  Her flesh was silky smooth and coated with her wetness as my fingers slipped lower, caressing the outside of her slit. She moaned softly when I pressed against her clitoris, but I denied her any further stimulation.

  She opened her eyes wide to stare down at me, clearly waiting for me to proceed. It was like that, huh? She expected me to do all the work, and then she could absolve herself of any of the guilt later. Fuck that. Guilt I had in spades, and I didn’t need anyone else’s.

  If Princess wanted this to happen, she would make it happen. It would be her choice, and her very clear, very explicit, and I hoped, incredibly dirty request. Her gaze still on me, I pulled my hand from her waistband and brought my fingers to my lips. I spent a moment inhaling her scent, savoring it, before I stuck my finger in my mouth.

  She let out a hissing gasp, and her cheeks flared with heat as I sucked on my finger. Her essence was on my tongue, and it was all I could do not to flip her over, take off those shorts, and bury my head in her snatch for a long midnight snack of stepsister cunt. Damn, I was a dirty bastard when I was horny.