PULSE
A STEPBROTHER ROMANCE
D.G. WHISKEY
COPYRIGHT © 2015 D.G. WHISKEY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Cover Design—Mayhem Cover Creations
Editing—Wyrmwood Editing
DESCRIPTION
Leah Allen
The last thing I needed was another bad boy.
Hard muscles. Handsome. Hot tattoos. He had a dangerous, I don't give a fuck attitude that made him irresistible.
It was supposed to be a one-night stand, but when Dad introduced Chris as my new stepbrother, I knew I was in trouble. His world of gangs and violence would destroy me. I needed to stay away.
Why do I find that impossible?
Chris Belzer
Drugs, fights, death. A typical Wednesday. Meeting Leah changed everything—music coursed through my veins when we fucked. I knew she would be the key to escaping the quicksand I'd been mired in for ten years.
I shouldn't want her. I couldn't resist her. Breaking out of the crime and blood and into a new life would be impossible without her.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ONE – LEAH
TWO – CHRIS
THREE – LEAH
FOUR – CHRIS
FIVE – LEAH
SIX – CHRIS
SEVEN – LEAH
EIGHT – CHRIS
NINE – LEAH
TEN – CHRIS
ELEVEN – LEAH
TWELVE – CHRIS
THIRTEEN – LEAH
FOURTEEN – CHRIS
FIFTEEN – LEAH
SIXTEEN – CHRIS
SEVENTEEN – LEAH
EIGHTEEN – CHRIS
NINETEEN – LEAH
TWENTY – CHRIS
TWENTY-ONE – LEAH
TWENTY-TWO – CHRIS
TWENTY-THREE – LEAH
TWENTY-FOUR – CHRIS
TWENTY-FIVE – LEAH
TWENTY-SIX – CHRIS
TWENTY-SEVEN – LEAH
TWENTY-EIGHT – CHRIS
TWENTY-NINE – LEAH
THIRTY – CHRIS
THIRTY-ONE – LEAH
THIRTY-TWO – CHRIS
THIRTY-THREE – LEAH
THIRTY-FOUR – CHRIS
THIRTY-FIVE – LEAH
THIRTY-SIX – CHRIS
THIRTY-SEVEN – LEAH
THIRTY-EIGHT – CHRIS
THIRTY-NINE – LEAH
FORTY – CHRIS
FORTY-ONE – LEAH
FORTY-TWO – CHRIS
FORTY-THREE – LEAH
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First two gunshots, then screams split the night.
Two men came running, sprinting away from the source as if the Devil himself chased them. I backed against the building when I noticed the handguns they carried. My heart beat against my chest in a frenzied tattoo. They passed me without a second look.
I hesitated, breathless. The men were already around a corner and out of sight. The screams had quieted down a little.
As a rule, it was never a good idea to involve yourself in the aftermath of a shooting.
I was never good at following rules.
Besides, the men came from the direction I was already heading.
It didn’t take long to get to the scene—it was only a block away and around a corner, outside a bar called O’Malley’s. A knot of people gathered around dark forms on the ground, and I joined the periphery of the group.
The victim lay in a spreading pool of blood. It was clear he was already dead.
Another man knelt beside him, the knees of his jeans stained the color of rust. Tattoos crept out from his t-shirt like they could not be contained. His eyes, dark and stormy, held an intensity impossible to break.
He looked up and his eyes caught mine.
It was as though I’d been seized and couldn’t move. The character and passion in his face swept all other thoughts from my mind. My heart thudded in my chest, my pulse quickening.
Someone talked to the man and he looked away, breaking the spell. I didn’t even hear what they said.
I need to get out of here.
My boyfriend’s apartment was a few blocks away. The image of those dark eyes and the way they held me captive occupied me the entire walk.
Careful, Leah.
I had a habit of developing a fixation on the wrong men. The hard jaw and tattoos suggested this one was no different. I made a mental note to avoid him if I ever saw him again—no sense courting danger.
Besides, you have a boyfriend.
It was late—later than I would have liked to be walking through the streets alone. New York wasn’t as dangerous as it used to be, but as a young woman, it still wasn’t the most comfortable to be out by myself.
I let my anticipation wash away the sadness I’d just seen. Jeff didn’t know that I had planned on practicing lines at the studio tonight, and he definitely didn’t know that I planned on swinging by afterward. He’d complained that I spent too much time on my school work to have enough time together, and I was looking forward to waking him up with my mouth and blowing his mind.
That will get his attention.
The brownstone was quiet as I walked up—not a surprise this late on a Wednesday. Jeff lived in the top apartment, and I unlocked the door and snuck up the stairs as quietly as I could. He was a light sleeper, and it would ruin the surprise if he woke up before I got to bed.
Especially if he thinks I’m an intruder and takes me out. That would be bad.
I paused as a rhythmic sound came to my ears. It was a steady beat, and there were two parts to it—a thump and a squeak.
Oh my God! Are the neighbors having sex?
Once recognized, the source of the sound became obvious. The squeaks and thumps lined up perfectly with an imagined thrusting pattern, and…
Yes, right there!
A woman’s moans carried above the other two sounds.
Damn, that’s hot.
I took to the steps again, hurrying even faster. If I got to Jeff before the neighbors finished, then maybe we could play dueling bedsprings.
And there’s my exhibitionist side coming to play.
Eager now, I rushed up to the apartment door and entered. I frowned. The sounds were a lot louder now. The moans came from the next room. In this apartment. And I could hear the man’s grunts, too. They sounded familiar.
“Oh, hell no!”
The bottom dropped out of my stomach and I charged forward before it could faze me.
His bedroom door wasn’t fully closed. I kicked it and it slammed against the wall.
The two figures moving in the bed didn’t even notice at first.
Jeff lay back, his hands gripping the slim waist of the girl on top of him. She had both hands on his chest and her eyes closed as she focused on moving her hips.
He looked over first, the puzzlement in his face turning to shock and surprise when his eyes met mine.
“Leah!”
The girl on top of him snapped her head around to look.
“Kat?” My best friend was the last person I expected to see riding my boyfriend.
“Leah? Oh, God, Leah. I’m so sorry!” She rolled off Jeff and covered her breasts with her arm. “You weren’t supposed to be here tonight!”
I stared at her. Rage should have been boiling my blood, but shock kept everything distant. Did I even know her at all? “That’s your excuse? Sneaking around my back is fine, so long as I don’t walk in on it?”
“Leah,” Jeff said, sitting up in bed a little, “why don’t you sit down and we can talk about it? You know how we’ve been talking about being more adventurous in the bedroom. Maybe this situat
ion is a good start.” He looked between me and Kat.
What a fucking asshole.
I knew going in that Jeff wasn’t going to be The One, but I thought he had more respect for me than that. His chauvinism was the catalyst for my onrushing temper.
“I don’t even care about you,” I said, pointing to Jeff. “We’re done. Period.” I turned to Kat. “But you, Kat, how could you do this? We’ve been best friends since first year of school!”
“I know, Leah. I know.” Tears came to her eyes. “It wasn’t anything at first, but it sort of happened one night, and then I couldn’t resist keeping it going even though I know it’s the worst thing.”
My eyes were dry; I was beyond tears. A ball of anger blazed in my core. “I don’t want to see either of you again.”
I turned on my heel and walked away.
“Wait, Leah!” Kat ran to the hallway behind me. “Leah, we can talk through this!”
I kept walking until I got to the front door of the apartment. I slammed it as hard as I could, satisfied at the reverberations that echoed in the still night.
Derek raised his glass, and a field of drinks answered him.
“To Recker. He was a bit of a tool, but no one deserves to get gunned down like that for no damn reason.”
Silence fell as those present drank.
The harsh taste of whisky rolled down my throat, burning in familiar fashion. Once I hadn’t been able to drink the stuff, long enough ago that the memory was foggy.
“I can’t believe you didn’t get those bastards that shot him,” Tim said. “I would’ve torn their heads off for doing that to Recker.”
That was almost cordial for Tim. He’d never liked me, thought I was too high and mighty because I’d finished high school and could have gone to college. In return, I’d never spared him a second of my time.
“Fuck off, Tim,” Derek said. “Chris had to watch Recker die. What would you’ve done, gone after them and gotten popped?”
“I would’ve brought my piece to the bar, obviously,” Tim said. “You don’t go out to O’Malley’s without your gun, everyone knows that. If they’re smart, anyway.”
The tendons in my hand hurt. It was clenched into a fist so hard it shook.
Or maybe it’s the whiskey. We’d been drinking for a few hours, mourning Recker’s death, helping each other get through the pain.
Even now, there was more numbness inside than actual grief. A man I’d known for years and who I’d spent a good part of my life as friends with lay in the morgue, and I couldn’t even pretend that I was barely keeping it together.
Derek topped off his own glass, and then mine.
“Let’s do another. I don’t know about you lot, but I know Recker would have wanted us to drink to him in style.”
The crew was a rough group. Most of us worked at a warehouse near the docks—dirty, dim work that didn’t need a high school education.
Derek was the self-proclaimed leader. He had done nothing to earn the title beyond claiming it for his own, but that was enough. Until he’d done it, no one figured we needed a leader.
A half dozen men who worked by day in the warehouse and spent most of their time together afterwards. Whether it was ease or sheer lack of imagination, it dragged on me. Seeing the same faces day in and day out made the monotony of life that much less appealing.
I won’t be seeing one face anymore.
Recker hadn’t been the first man from the crew to die, and he wouldn’t be the last. The men were uneducated and proud of it. Shit disturbers, as some called them.
I needed out.
“Hey, Chris, hit a line.” Derek passed me a mirror.
A rolled up dollar bill sat on the plate, along with a small pile of white powder, some of it cut into lines of the fine stuff.
“I’ll pass tonight,” I said. “I’m not feeling it. Recker just died last night, you know?”
“Chris, just shut the fuck up and do a line.” He stared at me.
There was no reason to listen to him. Drugs and violence, wasting time by wasting away. It wasn’t the life I wanted to lead. I’d had little choice, but I could make a change.
“Chill, Derek. I don’t want to.”
It had gotten quieter as the others looked at us.
“Look at this guy, doesn’t want to honor his friend by having a good time,” Tim said. “Or is he a pansy?”
I gritted my teeth. “Shut up, Tim. I’m sick of your shit. Just because you’re a cokehead doesn’t mean that the rest of us have to be.”
The mirror in front of me didn’t move. It still hung there in Derek’s hand, waiting for me to take it.
The others chipped in.
“Come on, Chris. Just let go, man.”
“Hit a line and let’s go out. We need to do it for Recker.”
“Do it, Chris.”
My determination took a beating. These were all of my friends in the world, and they wanted me to become just like them. What else was there for me?
Derek smirked as I took the plate from him and set it on the table in front of me. I rolled the bill a little tighter and lined up my pass. Holding one nostril closed, I put the end of the bill in the other and sucked in deeply as I watched the powder get vacuumed up the makeshift straw and made sure I missed none of the fine stuff.
I sat back and gave a few more sniffs so none of the expensive drug would go to waste.
It didn’t take long to hit. The familiar wave of alertness washed away some of the alcoholic haze, and I sat up straighter.
“Better?” Derek asked.
It felt superb. Why would I want to abandon this feeling?
“Better,” I agreed with a nod.
“Good. Let’s head out to the bar. I think we should check out O’Malley’s and see if we can’t just find those pieces of scum that took out Recker.” Derek patted his waist where he always kept his gun tucked. “This time it’ll turn out differently for them.”
There was a frenetic energy to the crew as we stood and readied ourselves before hitting the street: part alcohol, part cocaine, and part bloodlust.
I let the group pull away from me a little as we walked. Derek’s apartment was a handful of blocks away from O’Malley’s, and we would get there soon.
This doesn’t feel right. I don’t want this. The thought of confronting the men who had shot Recker and getting justice made my stomach turn. I mean, they deserve it, but that doesn’t mean I want any part in it.
We got close to another busy bar: Swim. It was supposed to be clever since it had a section with pool tables. I always thought it was pretentious. There was a line of girls filing in the door as we walked up. The one at the front gave me pause.
Those eyes…
The others hadn’t noticed that I had fallen behind yet. Standing on the street in front of Swim, I decided.
No more death tonight.
It was almost enough to convince myself that the real reason wasn’t the girl who had walked into the bar moments before with the piercingly beautiful eyes. I had seen them last night.
“Come on, Leah. You haven’t had enough shots yet,” Tyra yelled over the electronic music as she grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the bar.
I let myself be pulled. It had been a long time since I’d drank this much, and there wasn’t any reason I shouldn’t keep it going. I had both a relationship and a friendship to mourn.
“Two liquid cocaines!” Tyra shouted at the bartender.
I shuddered. “Hey, you promised you’d never make me drink one of those again!” The sugary cinnamon liquor and Jägermeister combo always spelled trouble for me.
“I lied!” she said as though she couldn’t be happier about it. “Loosen up, Leah. You’re a free woman now! You need to check out the men in here and size them up for a nice rebound bang.”
The bartender pushed the shots across the bar and took the bill Tyra slid to him.
Still not happy about the situation, I clinked glasses with my friend and took th
e shot back. It burned all the way down. The cinnamon was intense.
We put our backs to the bar to look over the crowd. It was the busy night for Swim, with cheap pool and a house DJ to blare electronic dance music over the crowded floor. Bodies gyrated to the deep bass and there were even lasers and smoke machines to make the bar feel more like a club.
“Ooh, what about him?” Tyra asked. She pointed at a group of guys standing off to the side. One of them had a chiseled face and well-kept hair. It looked like he was well-built under a buttoned-up shirt with a popped collar.
“Oh, God, no,” I said. “He looks way too douchey. I feel like if I slept with him he would look at himself in the mirror the whole time.”
Tyra laughed. “That’s the whole point of a rebound bang! You want to grab the hottest guy you can, it doesn’t matter if he’s a tool. You won’t be keeping him around for any longer than tonight. What about him?”
Another model-esque physique straining the tight shirt he wore. Tyra's type was becoming clear.
“Jesus, Ty. If you want him, then help yourself.”
“Hmm, I might just,” she said, making eyes at the man as he walked by. “I’ll be right back. You better have picked out a target by the time I get back!”
“Oh, go on,” I said. “I said nothing about wanting or needing to pick up a guy tonight. I wanted to get things off my mind. You do you.”
Her attention was already on the tall hunk who had set up at the bar a few spots over.
“Well, that’s no surprise,” I muttered to myself. Tyra’s preoccupation with the relentless chasing of dick wasn’t new, but I was usually in a relationship and more reserved. It didn’t feel right that I could do the same thing if I wanted to. Not that I would. That wasn’t me.
A man came up to the bar to my right. “Mind if I grab a drink here?”
“No, not at all, go…” I trailed off when I saw his face. “You!”
“Me,” he agreed, nodding. The bartender came to take his order. “Pint of Sam Adams. You want anything?”
I froze. The man I saw on the street the night before actually stood right beside me and was offering to buy me a drink. He still looked like trouble, a man I shouldn’t let anywhere near me.
Pulse: A Stepbrother Romance Page 1