by B. B. Hamel
I unpacked and lay around my bedroom, glad to be home. As much as I was dreading it, as soon as I walked into the familiar foyer, I felt instantly better. There was just something about home that could make things a bit better.
As much as I wanted to deny it, Lacey was right. I was in a rut, but I was also still hung up on him. I probably could have found a faster way to get divorced, but I just didn’t feel all that motivated. Sure, I went out and met people all semester, but nobody felt right, not since Cole.
I just couldn’t stop thinking about the first time I met him.
It was night at the resort, and Lacey had already disappeared with her lawyer guy, or maybe he was a movie producer. Either way, I decided to walk down the beach.
The moon was bright and full, which should have helped with my visibility. Instead, I was too busy looking up at the beautiful view to notice the huge rock down at my feet.
As I hit the sand face-first, he appeared.
Cole. Tall, covered in tattoos, grinning this knowing smile like he could tell what I was thinking about him. He appeared at my side, his strong hands on my arm.
“Are you okay?” he grunted in my ear.
“What? Oh, yeah, totally fine,” I stuttered as I got to my feet.
I was so fucking embarrassed. When was the last time I had actually tripped on something? It was like out of some horrible romance novel where the girl was just a dumb, empty klutz and was obsessed with her shiny boyfriend. It took me a second before I really got a good look at him, but when I did, he took my breath away.
“Careful out here,” he said softly. “Those rocks are vicious.”
“Uh, yeah. Sorry.” Why was I apologizing?
Probably because he made me feel like I couldn’t speak in complete sentences. His cut jaw and laughing blue eyes were enough to send me into spasms, but his tall, muscular frame and tattoos just made him all the more delicious.
It was completely unreal.
“What are you doing out here alone?” he asked.
“Friend ditched me, so I’m going for a walk.”
“Mind if I join you?”
“Yes.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Okay then.”
“I mean,” I said quickly, “yes, please join me.”
He laughed and offered me his arm. “For protection from large rocks.”
I smiled and slipped my hand around his ripped bicep. Holy shit, is it the ocean or am I already soaked? I thought.
“I’m Cole,” he said as we started to walk.
“Alexa.”
“Do you make it a habit to walk alone on strange beaches?”
“Ah, it’s not a strange beach. We’re in a resort.”
“True. Still, you managed to land face-first.”
I could feel myself blushing. “I’m really not a klutz.”
“I bet.”
“It’s just this place,” I said quickly. “It’s really beautiful.”
I could feel his eyes staring into me. “Yes. It really is.”
I couldn’t remember anymore what we talked about after that, but we did talk for a while. Eventually we ended up in this little outcropping of trees on a hammock, our bodies shoved together.
I didn’t think I’d ever felt more tension in my body before or since. And of course it was right around the moment when I was about to throw myself at him that Lacey found us and dragged me off.
But after that first night, I kept seeing him around. It seemed like everyone was his friend, everyone knew Cole.
And then after everything that had happened between us, he disappeared into thin air. My husband, the stranger.
I sighed, stretching, when suddenly I heard the front door open.
“Great. Show time,” I muttered to myself.”
“Honey?” Dad’s voice called out. “Are you home?”
I opened my door and headed downstairs. “Hey, Dad!” I called out.
“Alexa.” He smiled hugely and hugged me as soon as I found him in the kitchen. “Glad you’re home.”
“Me, too, Dad.”
Once he let me go, I saw her standing over by the table, smiling. I recognized her from the pictures, but she was even more stunning in person. Cindy had long blond hair, bright blue eyes, and was dressed expensively but conservatively.
She didn’t look like Dad’s usual type. She was age appropriate, for one, and she wasn’t showing more skin than she was covering. Instead, she exuded grace and poise, even from the very first second we met.
“Alexa,” Dad said, “this is Cindy.”
“My new stepmom,” I said.
Cindy laughed. “Just Cindy, please. It’s really good to meet you. I’ve heard lots of good things.”
We shook hands and I instantly forgot about all the negative things I had read about her in the press. Maybe she was the Ice Queen, the dominating woman warrior, but I didn’t care. In my kitchen, she seemed like just a regular person.
“I’m so happy you two could finally meet,” Dad said.
“Me too,” she added, nodding.
“Well, it’s about time I meet my dad’s new wife.”
She laughed, a little embarrassed. “We are sorry about that, Alexa. We could have invited you.”
“I know,” I said. “I’m just giving Dad here a hard time.”
He frowned. “We really are sorry, honey. It’s just, after Cindy’s company bought mine, things happened fast. And the press hasn’t exactly been kind to our relationship.”
I caught a dark look cross Cindy’s face, but it quickly vanished. I knew what Dad was talking about, though. I’d read some rumors about the two of them, rumors that he was kept around only because he was Cindy’s new “boy toy” or something like that. Apparently, them getting married was a pretty huge deal and had the potential to screw the whole merger up.
Fortunately, so far things had worked out. But I could tell that Dad was stressed, even from seeing him for just a few minutes. Not as stressed as he usually was, but still. There were lines around his eyes, and he looked like he hadn’t been sleeping enough.
“We’ve gotten a lot of bad press,” Cindy added. “But it’s been worth it.”
I smiled as she kissed my father.
“Okay, enough of that,” I said, laughing.
Dad beamed, his new bride on his arm.
Things seemed like they were going to be okay. I had been so nervous for this meeting, so torn up about it, but Cindy seemed perfectly lovely.
“You know,” she said, “my son should be here soon.” She checked her watch. “But he’s late, as usual.”
“Honey, you were in Thailand, right?”
“Dad, you know I was. You paid for the whole thing.”
“Well, that’s where her son’s been for the last year. You two can bond over that.”
I shrugged. “I was only in that resort. I barely saw the country.”
Cindy waved her hand. “He’s been in the jungle or something equally crazy, so I doubt he knows much more than you do.”
I raised an eyebrow. “What was he doing there?”
“Training, I think. He’s a mixed martial arts fighter.”
“Wow, that’s pretty amazing,” I said.
“I suppose.”
As if on cue, the sound of a loud motorcycle roaring down the street filtered in through the open windows.
“Speak of the devil,” Cindy said. “I bet that’s him.”
Just as the noise of the engine peaked, it suddenly cut off. I followed Cindy and Dad over to the front door. We stepped outside onto the front stoop.
I’d never had a brother or a sister before. I had to admit, I was looking forward to meeting him. I hadn’t realized that Cindy had kids since nobody mentioned him in the press, but it wasn’t surprising. I knew Dad wasn’t her first marriage.
I watched as a tall, muscular man stepped off a black-and-chrome bike. He reached up and pulled the dark helmet off.
My eyes widened and I took a step back.
> That night almost a year ago came rushing back. The moonlight through his hair, the cocky grin as he walked down the beach with me.
“Alexa,” Cindy was saying, “this is Cole, my son.”
I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t even move.
It was him. It was my stranger, my husband.
My stepbrother.
I was horrified. I couldn’t move.
“Alexa,” he said, grinning hugely and walking up the stoop toward me. “Good to meet you.”
There was something playful in his eyes, something knowing. He definitely recognized me, there was no doubt about it, but he was pretending for our parents’ sake.
“Uh, sure,” I said, shaking his hand. I hadn’t gotten myself together enough for more.
Everything about him was so familiar. All those moments came rushing back to me. The ache of my body, our limbs stretched out together, the warm sand under my feet as he laughed and threw seashells into the waves.
My husband was back.
I was so damn close. I was so damn close to getting away from him.
“I look forward to getting to know you better, stepsister,” he whispered.
I could only stare at him, wide-eyed in terror.
2
Cole
It was humid as hell the first night I saw her. I was sweating in my button-down shirt and shorts as I made my way down to the beach, bored of the drunk tourists.
Thailand wasn’t a vacation for me, even though I was staying at a resort. It was my last hurrah before the next year, a final week to blow off steam before I went into hardcore training mode.
My two main goals were pussy and alcohol, not necessarily in that order. I knew I was going to have to abstain from everything when the real work began, but I was going to indulge as much as I could all week first.
It wouldn’t be easy for me to go a while year without pussy, but it was the sort of sacrifice I knew I needed to make to take my career to the next level.
As I made my way toward the water, there she was. More specifically, I watched as she tripped and landed face-first in the sand.
My initial instinct was to laugh. Yeah, I admit it, I was an asshole. But you’d want to laugh, too, if you saw someone trip on a seemingly perfectly flat beach.
Instead, I walked over to her and made sure she was okay.
Sometimes, I wished I hadn’t done that. In the next few weeks, in the dead of night when I was being eaten alive by fucking bugs and I couldn’t get her body out of my mind, I’d almost regret it.
But I’m not the type to have regrets, not really. I wanted to fight hard and fuck harder. That’s all I cared about in life.
Except there she was, this sexy as fuck girl slowly getting to her feet.
I knew I needed her. I knew I needed to posses her, fuck her, make her come on my big cock until she couldn’t think of anything other than my dick and my body against hers. I was completely sucked into her, and I knew I’d do whatever to have her.
And at first, it was exactly like that. Her pussy was like fire for my mouth as I tongued her little clit in the middle of the afternoon, making her back arch. It was incredible, my fingers exploring every inch of her, and yet still she held back. I wanted more, always more, but she wasn’t ready to let me have it all.
I couldn’t get that last night out of my head. We’d just done on this stupid fake marriage ceremony, for some dumb reason. It was funny and lame, but for some reason I felt like it almost meant something. Later, back in my room, I slipped her panties down her smooth, tanned skin and pressed my mouth up against her pussy.
“Who are you?” she gasped as I began to tongue her clit.
“Just someone who loves to taste you,” I said in between mouthfuls of her sweet cunt.
“Shit,” she gasped, grabbing my hair. “Seriously. Where did you learn all this?”
“You pick things up when you live as hard as I do.”
I slipped a finger deep inside her and watched her eyes close in ecstasy.
“I fight for a living, babe. I put my body on the line for fun. I’ve figured out what I like and how to get it.”
“But why me?” she gasped as I began to kiss her neck, pistoning my fingers deep inside her the way I knew she loved.
It was a good question. Why her? I could have been fucking a new girl every night. It wasn’t like it was hard, especially in fucking paradise.
But for some insane reason, the second I got a taste of her, I needed more. I couldn’t stop myself from getting her off again and again and again. I loved the way sweat rolled down her chest as I worked her body hard and rough, my mouth and fingers all over her, not caring how loud she was.
“Because that’s what I want, and I get what I want,” I whispered to her, pressing my tongue harder against her spot.
Weeks later, in the dead of night, I’d remember the gasp she made as I nibbled her slightly and slipped another finger deep inside her.
Alexa. I’d remember that name when things got rough. It was torture sometimes, remembering that sweet pussy, knowing I’d never see it again. I knew that I just needed to get back to civilization to forget about her, move on to some new stranger.
But despite that, I kept thinking, wondering, where my fake wife was. And if I’d ever get to taste that pussy again.
Still, I was in Thailand for a reason. After the vacation was over, I took a bus out into the countryside, out into the fucking jungle, to meet with one of the greatest Muay Thai fighters in the whole country.
It was the opportunity of a lifetime. Skad was legendary in the fighting community, and he took only three students every year for an intensive training course. Every one of his students had gone on to do special things, and so I knew that I could catapult my career into stardom if I could get his training.
I was lucky. He must have watched the tape I sent him, because I was invited out only a few weeks after I sent it. I wasn’t sure what he saw in me, but I figured I was about to find out.
And it was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. The word “intensive” didn’t do it justice. We lived, breathed, ate, fucked, and shit fighting. Learning Skad’s techniques, training under his tutelage, was the air we breathed and the food we ate. There were no cellphones, no Internet, no television, nothing.
There was only violence and hard work.
And I fucking thrived on it.
I was a hard man before I met Skad. I grew up in the octagon, training from a young age. I used to get in street fights just to test my skills. I was undefeated and had a reputation for violent aggression, a reputation I loved and built lovingly for myself.
But I was nothing compared to the man Skad made me. Before I was all untapped potential. I had so much more inside me but couldn’t get to it. Skad refined my edges, made me faster and more dangerous. Skad changed me from a talented fighter to a deadly killer.
All it cost me was a single year of my life.
* * *
I thought I was ready to come back to civilization. Compared to the deep silence of the jungle, though, the airport was like a chaotic mess of sights and sounds and noises.
There were people everywhere. I hadn’t seen more than a handful of people my entire time out in the jungle, and suddenly I was shoved into a crowd of total strangers.
But it was my time, and I knew it. As soon as Skad said I was ready, I got back on that bus and got my ass to civilization.
There was only so much time I could spend in the jungle before I completely lost my fucking mind.
Still, the crowds of cow-eyed people annoyed the shit out of me as I made my way across the terminal and toward baggage claim. I was meeting my mother, or at least my mother’s driver, out front. I was running a little late already, which was of course going to be blamed on me and not on the airline.
My mother was a hard ass. We got along if you considered not talking often as getting along. When we did talk, it was mainly about her work since she basically ignored my fighting career.
Fine by me. I didn’t need or particularly want my mother’s approval.
Once I found the driver, I gave him directions to my storage unit just outside the city. He gave me a look like it was the last thing he wanted to do, but I slipped him a twenty and hopped into the back.
Apparently, that was enough. We were on the road, heading toward my destination.
The plan was simple. I had a bunch of shit kept at the storage unit, the most important of which was my motorcycle. I’d drop my bag off there and take the bike over to my mother’s new husband’s place, pay my respects, and then be done with that.
The sooner I got it over with, the sooner I could find a cheap room and get back in the fighting game.
We made it to the unit with no problem, and I had the driver drop me off. He clearly had instructions to drag me to Cindy himself, but I wasn’t some kid he could just order around. I gave him a nod and walked into the storage facility, leaving him stuck outside.
The unit was right where I left it. I unlocked the door and found everything exactly as I wanted it to be.
I smiled to myself and took a deep breath. It was finally feeling like home.
I didn’t have much time to waste, though. I got changed and looked over my bike, satisfied that it was in pretty good condition despite having sat around for the better part of a year.
I hopped on and kicked it started, moving slowly out toward the exit. The bike made a deep hum as I rode it through traffic. I was running a little late, but that couldn’t be helped. I passed a few slow cars in the right lane and wove my way over to the left, dodging in and out, loving the feeling of the speed and the power between my legs. The only things better were fighting and fucking.
Finally, I pulled up outside an expensive-looking brownstone, the sort of thing only millionaires could afford in San Francisco. That made sense, since I couldn’t imagine Cindy marrying anyone with less than a few million in the bank. She wasn’t a gold digger, not at all. She had her own money. Rather, she was attracted to power, and money brought power, at least according to people like her.
I knew better than that. Real power came from training your body, pushing it to its limits. Real power was mastering yourself and your opponents.