Charged: A Stepbrother Romance Novel (With FREE Bonus Novel Heated!)

by Stephanie Brother

  If he was here or she were there, they’d fuck.

  She’d make him hold her throat like last time and fuck her hard. She’d make him come inside her deeply, pull out and do it all over again. She’d suck his cock, indulge herself completely in his body, massage that perfect skin and run her hands through his tousled hair and over his bulging muscles. She’d make him show her he owned her. That she belonged to him.

  Again, she rubs her belly. A boy like him or a girl like me?

  Before she heads back inside, she checks her phone for the fiftieth time today. There are messages from Abbey asking her where she’s gone, a reminder of an upcoming time-change to her dance class, an invitation to a friend’s party, a whole host of spam and junk-mail, but nothing at all from Dante. Not a single message to say where he is, what he’s doing or when he’s likely to be home.

  Sash heads back inside. She flops down on the sofa and clicks on the oversized flat-screen TV. She’s been to local cinemas with viewing screens that haven’t been quite as big as this, and after a while the vibrancy of the image begins to give her a headache. She flicks from channel to channel, each one seemingly more of the same. Holidays, soap romances, bad news and drug commercials. Eventually she turns it off, already bored and unable to be distracted. She turns over, stretches out legs that don’t even reach the arm of the sofa, and looks up towards the ceiling.

  A million new dresses are just not the same, and three years has already been long enough. She needs her stepbrother back.

  Chapter 19

  Shopping bags cover almost every available space below the table and on it. Half of them have been opened, while the other half have been looked at briefly and pushed to the side. There is wrapping paper bundled up carelessly, some of which still litters the floor by their feet.

  Oliver lies on the ground, absorbed in one of several new and very expensive toys. From time to time he goes to Dante either to gain approval or to ask him to explain how something works.

  Dante is affectionate with the boy. He tries to lift him up and put him on his lap, but Oliver prefers to maintain his distance. He’s deferential but cautious, as though Dante hasn’t quite gained his trust yet. It’s a sentiment the boy shares with his mother. Tess looks from Oliver up to Dante. She can see so much of Dante in their boy it almost worries her. Aside from the dark skin he’s inherited from his mother, this is Dante’s child through and through.

  She wonders whether he’ll grow up with the cold and calculating attitude of his father, or inherit her own fiery, but fiercely protective nature. In short, she wonders whether he’ll ever find himself in this situation, twenty years from now, looking across the table at the mother of a child he hardly ever sees. She hopes not. She’s going to do everything in her power to ensure he doesn’t too.

  “You know his birthday was two months ago, right?”

  “I saw your message.”

  “I thought you might have called. I tried to get hold of you then, but, you know-.”

  Tess cuts her own sentence short, tired of sounding like a broken record. “He wanted to see you.”

  “I’ve been busy, Tess. I couldn’t get away from work.”

  “You never could. That was part of the problem.”

  “I didn’t come here to talk about that, Tess. I came here to see you, to see Oliver. He looks good. He’s growing up.”

  They both take a moment to regard him. He’s a gorgeous little boy and happy too. Dante feels inordinately proud of him, although has no desire to see him any more than he already does. Just knowing he exists seems to be sufficient enough for him.

  “That’s what they do”, Tess says, as though Dante had never taken a moment to even consider it. “They grow up. Most parents notice it on a daily basis, you know.”

  “Let’s not start that again, please. I’m here Tess. I’m giving you my time.”

  “He needs his father, Dante.”

  “I did alright without one.”

  Tess is shocked to hear him say it. She pauses a moment before she composes an answer.

  “Are you punishing your own child because of what happened to you?”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  Tess shakes her head. “You’re something else, you know that?”

  “You and I have moved on.”

  “You and I never-. We never were.”

  “What do you want from me, Tess?”

  “I want you to give this boy a proper life.”

  “I’m giving him as much of a proper life as I can. He’s got everything he needs. I pay for the house, his education, your health care. He’s got toys, clothes, safety and security. You wouldn’t be able to provide any of that for him on your own.”

  “He doesn’t have a father”, Tess says, as though the point is so obvious she shouldn’t have to mention it to him.

  “That’s not my role anymore.”

  Tess is shocked. “Not your role? That’s your two year old boy lying there on the ground in front of you and you’re telling me that’s not your role. Please.”

  “It’s not my role.”

  “Why are you here then? To say goodbye?”

  “No. I don’t want that.”

  “Then what? You can’t have your cake and eat it, Dante.”

  “I’ve moved on Tess, I think you should too.”

  “This is a goodbye isn’t it?”

  “It’s not a goodbye.”

  “Six months ago, when I last saw you, you said things were going to change. You said you’d make more time. You said, you’d be here for him.”

  “I am here for him.”

  “Here, Dante”, Tess says, raising her voice now. “Here in LA. Here by his side. Here like a father should be.”

  Dante takes a moment to sip his coffee. Tess hasn’t carried motherhood well and in the harsh artificial light of the coffee shop, he notices it now. She’s still beautiful, of course, but she looks tired, as though exhausted just by her daily life requirements. Dante finds himself thinking about Sash. He knows what she is doing, because he’s paid someone to watch her. He knows how much she’s spending, and what she’s spending it on, because every evening in his hotel room, he double checks the account. Everything is under control, and that pleases him greatly. She’s passing the test. She’s proving she’s capable of fulfilling her role. If Oliver had her genes, he’d be even more handsome than he is now. He’d be theirs.

  “Are you dating?” Dante asks.

  “Dating? Are you serious?”

  “I can’t be the person you want me to be, Tess. I love Oliver and I want to be part of his life, but I can’t be here with you, not in the way you want me to.”

  “I’m giving you a chance, Dante. I’m giving you an opportunity to make amends, before he gets too old and before you regret it.”

  Dante sighs. “And you and me?”

  “We had something, we still can.”

  “We had a month together. Not even that. You said it yourself, we were never together properly.”

  “I still have feelings for you. We can make it work.”

  “I’ve moved on, Tess. I thought you knew that.”

  “From your boy? From your own flesh and blood?”

  They pause while a waiter picks an inappropriate moment to clear the empty cups and saucers from the table, taking a ridiculously long time to do so. When he has finally finished, taking specific care to ask if they might care for anything else while they are here, listing today’s specials as per the requirement of his job, Tess sits back in her seat, exhausted by the conversation.

  When she looks over to the floor again, Oliver is no longer lying there. She panics, her heart leaping in her chest, as she twists in her seat to scan the cafe, desperate to find him. Unable to see him, she rises quickly and calls out.

  “Oliver!”

  “Tess.”

  “Oliver!”

  Bemused dinners watch her with suspicious concern. She goes to the counter to look behind it. She drops to her
knees to check under the tables. She rushes to the restrooms and pushes the cubicle doors and finally, when she still hasn’t located him, she runs outside and stands in the middle of the pavement, looking hurriedly left and right.

  When she gets back to her table, ready to phone the police, Oliver is there and in Dante’s arms. She breathes a huge sigh of relief, and then can’t help but break down into tears. She sweeps the boys hair from his eyes and kisses his forehead. Oliver has no idea what’s just happened. In his hands, he plays with an expensive toy car, trying to open the doors and get inside it.

  “Where was he?”

  Tess sounds like she is accusing Dante of hiding him in the first place.

  “Behind my chair apparently”, Dante says calmly. “I guess he was playing a game.”

  Tess sits down with the boy and hugs him tightly. “Losing a child is not a game.”

  “Tess, calm down. He’s here now. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Never hide from Mommy”, Tess says to the boy. “Do you understand? Mommy was worried, she didn’t know where you were.”

  Oliver nods, the look on his face an indication he knows he’s done something wrong.

  Dante wants to say something but he thinks better of it. When Tess’s pulse has slowed sufficiently, she regards Dante again.

  “I’ll fight you Dante, you know I will. You turn your back on him now, don’t expect to be able to come back whenever you feel like it.”

  “You think that’s necessary, Tess?”

  “I’m not the one doing it, you are. I’m giving you a chance to be part of this boy’s life. It’s all or nothing.”

  “All or nothing?”

  “He deserves better, and you don’t deserve him at all.”

  “That’s not for you to decide.”

  “No? I guess we’ll see won’t we, when someone else comes along and that person fits so perfectly into our lives that Oliver forgets about who his real father is. What are you going to do then, huh? Because there is no way I’m letting you sweep in like this and expect to see him at a moment’s notice. Over my dead body.”

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  “I should never have come.”

  “Why did you?”

  “For Oliver, why do you think?”

  “Yeah, right. This isn’t a goodbye for you? Well maybe it is for me.”

  “You think that’s what Oliver wants?”

  “Don’t emotionally blackmail me. I’ve had enough of it.”

  “The clothes, the presents, the house, the car, the insurance, the medical bills, the holidays.”

  Dante counts it out on his fingers.

  “I never asked for any of that”, Tess points out. “The only thing I ever did ask for, was something you’ve still failed to give me.”

  She’s already gathering up her things. Dante sighs. There is nothing more he can do here. Tess is powerless to cut him out of Oliver’s life and they both know it. If it went to the courts she’d lose, simply because she doesn’t have enough money to win. This is just a desperate stance to make him feel guilty about something that happened as a reaction to Sash’s inability to satisfy him sexually, all those years ago. He was just unlucky that it ended up like this. A two year old boy and a clingy, unsatisfied mother.

  With Oliver in her arms, and the stroller unfolded and ready to go, Tess makes a last ditch attempt to win him over.

  “You could be happy with us, Dante. We could make a family together. Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?”

  “Tess.”

  The tone of his voice tells her everything she needs to know. Enough is enough. Even though Oliver explodes in a fit of ear-splitting wailing when he realizes that they are leaving his brand new toys behind, she has no intention of letting Dante get his way by taking them along with her. She also has no intention of letting Dante say goodbye to the boy she now considers solely her own.

  “If you thought for once about someone else but yourself, none of us would be in this mess.”

  With that, and the attention of all the other diners, who first watch her leave and then look sympathetically over to the man she’s left behind, sat there alone amongst a stack of bags and toys, she turns the stroller, holds her wailing boy to her chest and storms off with no intention of ever looking back.

  Chapter 20

  In a derelict warehouse in a forgotten part of the city, a young man sits on a chair, his legs and arms bound, and his head covered by a brown, hessian sack. He is watched by someone else, who regards him in the same way a fisherman might a recently landed catch, while it gasps at the air pointlessly, clinging desperately onto the final seconds of life.

  From his jacket pocket the man takes out a cell phone, speed dials an already inputted number and waits for the call to connect.

  Still in the cafe surrounded by bags of toys, sipping at a recently ordered latte, Dante takes the ringing phone out of his pocket.

  “Dante Hix.”

  He smiles at a pretty young girl sat alone at a table near him, who catches his eye and then looks away quickly again as though she’s been caught doing something she shouldn’t. Dante watches crimson flush to her cheeks, a tingle of pleasure cascading through his body.

  “We have him.”

  “Well that’s only taken you a week, hasn’t it? Are you sure it’s him?”

  “Jason Walker”, the man says, reading his hostage’s driving license. “It’s him.”

  “Can I talk to him?”

  In all this time, he hasn’t taken his eyes off the girl in front of him. She knows he’s looking too, it’s the reason she’s still flushed with embarrassment.

  “Sure. Hold on a minute.”

  He puts the phone on his seat while he removes the sack from Jason’s head. There is electrical tape sealing his mouth shut, which he removes with a skin tearing rip.

  “What the fuck?”, Jason complains, as soon as he’s able to. “Who are you? What do you want?”

  Dante waits patiently while his colleague holds the phone to Jason’s ear.

  “Jason Walker?”

  “Hello? What’s this about? Who are you?”

  “Jason my name is Dante Hix, do you know who I am?”

  “Dante who?”

  “Dante Hix.”

  “No”, Jason says, shaking his head for emphasis. “I have no idea who you are.”

  “Do you know who Sash Cooper is?”

  “Sash who?”

  Dante passes the phone from one ear to the other. He plays leisurely with Oliver’s toy car and winks at the girl on the table in front of him when she looks up.

  “Sash Cooper. About five three, a hundred and fifteen pounds, big, beautiful eyes. She has a scar about five centimeters long, just below her hip bone. She might have shown you that.”

  He words are slow and carefully measured, as though ordering necessary but uninteresting items.

  “I’ve met a lot of girls. She doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “Oh, you’d remember this one. Lived on Mapleforth Avenue. Drove an old sky blue Toyota Corolla. Loved to dance.

  “What did you say her name was again?”

  “Sash Cooper.”

  Just the words alone make his cock tingle.

  “Sash the dancer?” Jason guesses. “Oh man, I remember her. I haven’t seen her for like, I don’t know, three years. We were in dance class together. We maybe hung out once or twice.”

  “Did you fuck her?”

  The girl sat on the table in front of him desperately wants to look up, but knows he’ll see her if she does. Instead she just lets her eyes go wide and continues to read.

  “Look, who is this? What’s this all about?”

  “Just answer the question.”

  “Are you going to let me go if I do?”

  Jason’s voice is heavy with fear at what the response might be.

  “If you answer the question, I will.”

  “Yes. I fucked her. Like a handful of times,
nothing more. I dropped out of dance class and we fell out of touch.”

  Dante passes the phone back to the other ear. He sips his coffee, licking the latte foam off his lips when he’s done.

  “Was she a virgin?”

  Now the girl from the other table does look up at him. Dante smiles at her and she quickly looks away. She doesn’t know why but this man is turning her on. She can feel her pussy tingle just listening to the lilt of his voice. He’s course and arrogant and full of himself, but she can’t help but be drawn to him, as though he’s got some kind of incredible, magnetic power.

  “What?”

  Jason is unsure if he’s heard the question correctly.

  “Was she a virgin? Answer the question.”

  “Yes. She was a virgin. We both were. Fuck man, what is this all about?”

  “Thank you, Jason, you’ve been most helpful.”

  Dante’s colleague takes the phone away again. He takes two paces into the shadows of the warehouse, far enough away to be out of earshot.

  “Take care of it”, Dante says and ends the call.

  When the girl looks up again, unable to avoid it, Dante decides it’s the perfect time to go over.

  Chapter 21

  As soon as she’s half way into the room, Abbey drops her bag in shock, only to stare goggle-eyed and open mouthed while she tries to touch everything as quickly as possible.

  “Get the fuck out of here! Dante is paying for this?”

  Sash giggles as she watches from the sofa.

  “He said he wanted to apologize for what happened last week.”

  “No shit he does.”

  She moves from room to room shocked at the sheer size and elegance of it. She goes to the terrace, kicks her feet in the warm swimming pool water and then leans over the balcony to scream at the city.

  “I need a stepbrother like yours.”

  She comes back into the room again to join Sash on the sofa. “Does he not have the word subtle in his vocabulary?”

  “I told you, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah but this is like-.”