Burned: A Stepbrother Romance

by Kade, Teagan

  Burned:

  A Stepbrother Romance

  Teagan Kade

  * * * * *

  Published by Teagan Kade

  Copyright © 2015 by Teagan Kade

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

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  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  ###

  CHAPTER ONE

  I slam my hand down on the bonnet of the car. “What the fuck, pal?!”

  It’s dark and the car is barely more than a silhouette, but I’m already getting the sinking feeling I’ve seen it before. I squint my eyes (the precise opposite of what you should do if you want to see better in the dark), and yep, it’s him alright—my prick of a stepbrother, the one and only Brock.

  The asshole actually has the nerve to give me a little wave before continuing to drive on, forcing me out of the way. I’m left standing in the middle of the road with my nerves on end and the handle of the grocery bag biting into my fingers. Fucker.

  I walk around the corner to home. His car’s parked there in the driveway. Great.

  It’s been what? Two, three years since he was around? It’s been a peaceful two or three years. Guess he’s not dead after all.

  I come crashing into the living room of the main house and sling the groceries onto the bench.

  Brock’s on the other side with beer in hand. “Hey, Maddy. Long time no see. You look good.”

  I roll my eyes. “You almost ran me over with that piece of shit, you know.”

  “It’s a 1969 Camaro, a classic,” my dad corrects, my stepmother knitting idly beside him on the couch. She obviously doesn’t seem too excited by the whole return-of-the-prodigal-son thing. Even I was starting to think he might show up in a body bag rather than that cursed black beast of his.

  “Mom didn’t tell you I was coming home?” He’s smiling at me, that leery, cockeyed grin of his all the girls in high school used to go loopy over.

  No, she did not, not that my stepmother often clues me in on family going-ons. We’ve always had a nice, respectful relationship like that. No need or no fuss for anything else. No need for information.

  I cross my arms in front of myself. “Why are you even here?”

  He throws his hands up. “Whoa, hostile much? Nice to see you too, you know.”

  My stepmother, Michelle, speaks up with the obvious. “Brock’s back in the neighborhood for a little while.”

  It’s now I realize they’ve spoken very recently, come to some sort of arrangement I am clearly no part of. Brock’s short on money, lost his place… whatever the excuse is. And here he is looking for a handout so he can blow it on cars and girls and whatever vice is in at the moment.

  I sigh. “Whatever. I’m going to bed.”

  I start to make my way to the back door and the granny flat down back I call home when there’s a rapid-fire “Maddy” from my father.

  I spin around and can read him like a book. It’s the face of ‘Hate to tell you this, but…’

  He sighs before speaking knowing this isn’t going to go down well. “You’re going to have to clear that second room out down there, hon.”

  “Why?”

  It hits me like a blunt hammer to the head. I look to Brock and he just grins on back.

  “Oh hell no.”

  *

  I’m still seething my Dad and Michelle have concocted this rescue scheme for my wayward stepbrother behind my back. We’re both twenty-one. Why should I be forced to suffer because he can’t get his shit together? The flat is my place, my sanctuary. I don’t want him greasing it up with all his car parts and stripper friends. I’m thinking so hard on a way to get him out my head hurts.

  I shouldn’t even be living at home any more. I should have an apartment of my own, a trendy girlfriend to share gossip with, but the academy wasn’t cheap. Nothing in this country seems to be these days.

  “Collins, you with us?”

  I stand up a little straighter, uniform starchy. “Sorry, sir.”

  The captain continues on, surveying the other officers. “You’ve been called here because you’re some of the brightest officers in the force. You can think outside the box, and that’s just what we need for this special case.

  “Case, sir?” queries Lewis, a hard-boiled forty-something with hair the color of a copper bell. Poor guy.

  The captain nods. I can smell his coffee breath from here. “Nothing about this is to leave the room. Am I understood?”

  We all nod, the excitement growing this might be a way out of general duties, from having to herd drunken idiots downtown.

  The captain picks up a remote, the screen on the wall coming to life. It shows the latest haul from the DEA, bricks and bricks of the stuff. Lego ice, AKA methamphetamine.

  The captain points his finger at the screen. “Street value of forty-million Yankee dollars and right on our doorstep. This is just the tip of the iceberg, pardon the pun. This shit was going to fuck up a lot of lives and it’s got to stop. But you want to know what the clincher is, the real head-fuck?”

  I’m almost about to reply when I realize it’s a rhetorical question.

  “This shit being brought in isn’t being distributed by the cartels or the MC boys. No, this is all street racers, my friends. Welcome to the fast and the fucked.”

  The girl next to me cracks up. “Like the movies?”

  The captain approaches her, laughing quietly to himself. “This is nothing like the movies, Turner. Vin Diesel isn’t going to show up and save the day. He’s not going to go down on you. You’re not going to blow Paul Walker, but I do need someone to go undercover.” He paces back to the screen. “Don’t be fooled either. It might seem like all these guys care about is cars and looking pretty in them, but they’re deep, deep into the dark scum of this city. They’re shit-peddlers like everyone else and getting real good at it. If we don’t stop them now we’re lining ourselves up for an ass-fucking of Jurassic proportions. Forget lube. Forget foreplay. We are fucked. So, who’s in?”

  I’ve been waiting for this moment, this opportunity for months. I desperately want to make my mark, to show I’ve got what it takes to make it in the cops and finally prove my folks wrong. The competitive streak comes out in me straight away, my hand shooting to the roo
f so fast my arm almost pops free. “I’ll do it, sir.”

  “Collins? A little keen, aren’t we?”

  “I can do it, sir, I promise. I won’t let you down.”

  “You don’t even know what is that needs doing yet.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  The captain rolls his eyes and pans around the room. “There’s only one spot here, folks. Anyone else?”

  I’m surprised no one else is leaping at this chance, but they’ve all got their heads down or eyes focused on a growing bubble inside the water cooler.

  “Sold,” says the captain. “Collins, hang here. The rest of you are dismissed, and if I find a single word about this op leaked you can all consider yourselves on litter duty for the next six months.

  When the room’s cleared, the captain approaches me, the insta-coffee leaking from his pores. He hands over a folder. I flip it open and stop dead. My jaw drops—literally.

  “What is it, Collins?”

  I’m looking at Brock, at a glossy black-and-white of his high cheekbones and panty-dropper features, hair swept back in a perfect wave.

  “It’s, uh-” I stumble.

  The captain jams his finger into the photo. “This prick. He’s your in. Find an angle, gain his trust and gather intel. I’ll be running point on this one personally, fat wallet, whatever you need.”

  How can they not know we’re related, or do they? Brock has always kept my stepmother’s name, hasn’t even been around for years. Since that night I’ve tried my best to forget him, done everything in my power to disconnect us, but here he is infiltrating every area of my life again.

  I’m about to claw my way out of this, confess we’re family, when the captain dips his head and looks up into my face. “I want someone who’s on their game, Collins, not a fucking mute. Can you handle this?”

  And it’s now I know I cannot let the captain down. This could make my career, my future, and it would save a lot of lives. If Brock really is involved in all this, and it’s very likely, am I not in the best possible position to keep an eye on him? But if he’s done, he’ll go away for a long time. Good, I muse.

  Surely they know we have a connection, but then again I remind myself this is the police, the kind of institution where one hand’s not always communicating with the other. It could have slipped by, easy as that.

  My spine stiffens and I raise my head. I snap the folder closed. “I’m in, captain. I’m your man.”

  The captain looks down to my cleavage. “Hardly, but put those puppies to use and you might just get somewhere.”

  He starts to walk to the door, continuing to speak. “Full briefing in an hour.”

  Just before he reaches the door, he spins around. “Oh, and Collins?”

  A push a kind of semi-smile onto my face. “Yes, sir.”

  “Just one more thing.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  It’s almost dark when I get back home, the clouds smoky cigars above. I’m still thinking over the captain’s final words. I should have confessed right then and there, saved myself the future drama.

  I’m walking down to the granny flat when a girl in short short-shorts passes me, shirt tied under her tits like a Dixie Chick reject. She gives me a little wave. “Hi.”

  Brock, you fucker.

  I storm in to find him, shirt off, sitting on my couch with my bowl and my spoon and my Cheerios all over the bench. He looks like he’s sixteen. I can probably expect to find a semen-stained tube sock under his pillow. Dixie Chick probably saw to that end of things already. ‘Ew,’ my internal Disgust replies.

  I throw my bag down and he finally looks up as if everything is well in the world.

  I kick his feet off the coffee table. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Relaxing. What does it look like?”

  “It looks like you’re eating my Cheerios and kicking back after running through ol’ Duke Of Hazzard I passed on the driveway.”

  He waves his hand in the air like he’s trying to clear a smell. “Linda? She’s just a friend.”

  “Well, you’re not allowed any,” I put my fingers up in inverted commas, “‘friends’ here, okay?”

  “Says who?”

  I give him ‘the look.’

  “Fine, fine,” he mutters, but my temperature continues to rise.

  “If you’re going to stay down here, there are going to be rules.”

  He laughs, like I am the ridiculous one. “Rules? What is this? Junior High?”

  “You’re a child, so it makes perfect sense.”

  “I am no such thing. I am an educated man of the world.”

  I almost step out of my skin in shock. “Educated?! Man of the world? Give me a fucking break.”

  I can’t help but notice through the red mist of my anger he’s actually looking pretty good, tessellated abs, bulging biceps. Had plenty of time for it in prison or wherever the fuck he was probably.

  I tick my fingers off. “One, no visitors.”

  “Understood.”

  “Two, you want to eat something, you buy it yourself.”

  He nods. “I can live with that.”

  “This isn’t a negotiation, Brock.”

  He puts his hands up. “Continue.”

  “Three,” I huff, “under no circumstances are you to enter my room or the bathroom when I am inside.”

  “There’s only one bathroom in the flat.”

  “I know. If I’m in there, you can wait.”

  His eyes grow a little more defined, the quiet growing between us and something cooling. It’s a touchy subject, that of personal space between us, and he knows it. He puts his hand on his heart in a gesture that’s actually quite sincere. “You have my word, Maddy.”

  He stands, his jeans loose and a trail of hair running into the dark domain below. For a millisecond I think of what he’s hiding in there, actually picture his dick, and then I’m back. “Now, I have work to do.”

  I stomp my foot once, turn and march away.

  There’s a resigned flutter of syllables from my errant stepbrother, but I’m not in the mood to listen.

  I’ve already closed the door to my room and pressed myself against the back of it, a hot and certainly unwelcome tingle spreading from a tender spot between my legs that hasn’t seen life since Attila The Hun roamed the earth.

  I start an internal dialogue.

  Did you just stomp your foot, Maddy?

  So?

  That’s very childish.

  Shut up, Inner Voice. Shouldn’t you be cleaning up my memories or something? They sure as fuck could do with a good scrub-down.

  *

  Brock’s nowhere to be seen when I get up for work the next morning. I come into the living room and kitchen, unlock the doors as always. See, I have a bad habit of sleep-walking. I’m talking zombie-grade bullshit. If I don’t keep these doors locked I could happily walk my way to Chicago.

  I brew a coffee of nuclear proportions. I’m officially on the job now. He is my job, to be precise, but I’ve still got to go into the office and make appearances at least during the day when all these street racer teeny-bopper boys are sleeping or jerking off over their precious cars.

  It’s a glaringly bright day outside, the kind that turns the sky to glass.

  I make my way up past the main house to my weapon of choice parked against the curb—Champers, my 1995 champagne-colored Hyundai Excel with about as much muscle as a lawnmower. But Champers has served me well. He doesn’t get clingy. He doesn’t whine and leave his clothes around… just a bit of oil every now and then. He’s dependable, or at least he was.

  Champers decides today of all days is the day to pack it in. I turn the key over and over expecting by some voodoo magic Champers will kick into life, but nothing.

  Fuck. Fuckedy fuck fuck.

  I rush to the main house, hand raised to knock on the door when I remember no-one’s home. Dad and Michelle are staying in the city for their wedding anniversary.

  I look at my
watch, Mickey Mouse’s spindly arms telling me I’m very fucking late.

  There’s only one thing to do.

  I look up to the heavens, asking, “Why?”

  I knock twice on the door to Brock’s room, but there’s no response.

  “I’m coming in,” I announce, and open the door.

  It’s quite amazing how in just one day Brock has managed to turn the room completely upside down with refuse and clothes and all kinds of icky boy things. He really is a teenager. Worse, he’s sleeping commando, lying stomach down and the sheets only halfway up his white whale of an ass. It’s actually kind of adorable. There’s a large tat across his back I’ve never seen before. It reads ‘Midnight.’

  I clear my voice. “Brock?”

  When that has no effect, I kick the bed.

  He rolls over, the sheets sliding away and yep, everything on show.

  I look away, staring as hard as I can at a poster of a kitten in a pot I’ve had since I was six.

  “To what do I owe this pleasure?” comes his husky voice.

  “My car won’t start.”

  “I see.”

  The prick’s really going to make me beg for it. “I thought maybe you could take a look at it.”

  “What was it you called me last night? A child? I don’t think a child would have the necessary mental capacity to fix a car.”

  “Cut the bullshit. Can you help or not?”

  I can hear him lifting himself out of bed, a belt jangling around. “Fine, fine.”

  He brushes past me on his way out, still with no shirt. Maybe he doesn’t own any.

  “Enjoy the show?” he smirks, cupping his package.

  “Crayons aren’t really my style.”

  “I’ve forgotten how funny you are.”

  What’s under the bonnet of a car is a complete mystery to me. He tries, but Dad’s no better. But Brock’s dad? A different story. He used to be a NASCAR driver back in the day, a successful one too, but the fame did him in. Before long he was hooked on heroin. He cut his wrists having written just one letter on a Post-It. It was a ‘B.’

  Naturally, Brock’s never been big on talking about his father. It’s a touchy subject, but one night he opened up to me over a bottle of dirty tequila (never again). We took turns taking shots, each time delving deeper and deeper into each other’s past, our crushes, our fears. For a couple of teenagers it was some serious D&M action. That was the start of the connection, a connection that has long since been lost.