Stepbrother Demands

by Chloe Hawk

  My knee started jittering up and down.

  The silence in the kitchen was almost deafening, the only sound the sizzle of the chicken as it hit the hot pan.

  “How do you make stir fry?” I asked, because I had to say something. The silence was excruciating.

  “Come here,” Cole said. “I’ll show you.”

  I stood up, but then I hesitated. We were alone. Again. Except this time, there were no employees on the other side of the door to stop us from doing whatever we wanted. And even though Cole had fucked with me earlier, even though he’d brought me right to the brink and then stopped, it somehow made me want him more.

  I was wound up good and tight, and I needed a release.

  Find some random guy to fuck you then, Avery, I told myself. Or take care of yourself later in the shower. And stop thinking about Cole.

  “The trick is to use the right spices.” Cole reached over and grabbed a few bottles of seasoning off the rack on the counter. He handed one to me, and our hands brushed.

  “Go ahead,” he said.

  “Go ahead?” I repeated.

  “Go ahead and add it.”

  He was looking at me like I was crazy, so I turned toward the wok and began sprinkling the spice in slowly.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he breathed, and suddenly he was behind me, his chest against my back, his arms encircling my waist. “Just go for it.”

  His voice was again laced with double entendre and my breath hitched as he reached out and took my hand, helping me as I shook the spices into the pan. When I was done, he went to grab another spice, but I turned around and ducked away from him and scooted over.

  “Where you going?” he asked playfully. But I could see the lust burning in his eyes.

  “I don’t think I’m much of a cook.”

  “You’re a great cook.”

  He moved over to me, putting an arm on either side of my body and resting his hands behind me on the counter, effectively pinning me in.

  “Avery,” he breathed. He reached up and pushed my hair back from my face, his fingertips tracing a searing line over my cheek, down my jaw, over my neck and onto my collarbone.

  He moved his face closer to mine, and closed his eyes. I could see his lashes brushing against the top of his cheeks, and I could tell he was going to kiss me.

  I closed my eyes and waited. I wanted his mouth on mine, loved the way it felt for him to have me pinned against the counter like this, unable to move, powerless to resist him.

  But a second later, his phone rang, breaking the spell.

  He reached into his pocket and pulled it out.

  “Cole Buchanan,” he barked into the phone. He took a couple of steps away from me, listening to whoever was on the line. His face darkened. “ When?” He shook his head. “Is he looking for money?”

  When he said this last part, my blood ran cold. If someone was looking for money, it must have been Gordon.

  “Thank you, Charles,” Cole said.

  He hung up the phone and stared at it for a moment.

  “Who was that?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer me, instead crossing the kitchen to the stove and picking up the pan of stir fry that was still sitting on the burner. He picked it up and tossed the whole thing into the trash.

  “What are you doing?” I asked. “Why’d you throw that out?”

  “We’re going out,” he said. “Get dressed.”

  “What?” I shook my head, confused. “Who was that on the phone?”

  He leaned down, bracing himself on the counter, his face filled with fury. I watched as he took in a deep breath, then picked up a glass that was sitting on the table and threw it on the floor. It broke into a million pieces, and I jumped.

  “Cole,” I said, crossing the kitchen to him. I put my hand on his upper arm, but he shrugged me off. “Cole, what’s wrong? Who was that?”

  “That was my manager. Apparently my father is now shopping a story around to the tabloids claiming I trashed his house, and that I have you brainwashed and am holding you against your will.”

  “What? But that’s insane. No one’s going to believe it. Besides, we already talked to the police.”

  “They’ll believe it,” he said. “Trust me, they’ll believe it. And it’s not good. My company’s about to go public, and any kind of bad publicity could hurt my IPO.”

  “I have to go home,” I said.

  He turned to me. “What?”

  “I can’t stay here.” I walked out of the kitchen and headed for the hallway, moving toward the guestroom. I heard Cole’s footsteps behind me as he started following me.

  “Avery, stop.”

  “No,” I said. “I have to go home, Cole. If I don’t, Gordon’s going to just keep telling lies.” I hated that I’d put Cole in this position, hated that I’d forced him to take care of me. I was old enough to be able to take care of myself. Cole had made his choice – he’d left home, he’d gotten away from our family. Why should he have to pay because I’d chosen to stay?

  He was behind me in a second, his long strides able to keep up with me easily. He grabbed me around the waist, swung me around so I was facing him. “You’re staying with me,” he said.

  “No.” I shook my head. “I won’t. I can’t.”

  “You will.”

  “Cole, I can’t. Your dad won’t stop harassing you. You finally got free of him and he…”

  “No.” Cole shook his head. “You’re not safe there, Avery. If you go home now, he’s going to be really angry. He was trying to punish you by having your mom tell you not to come home, even though he obviously wants you there. If you go home, he’s going to make you pay.”

  “But Cole –”

  “No.” He shook his head. “You can’t. Besides, it’s better if you stay here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Now that Gordon’s saying these things, we have to show that his story has no merit.”

  “And how do we do that?”

  “By being seen together. We need to show everyone that you’re not brainwashed, that you just came to the city to work as my new assistant.”

  “Okay…” I said, dubiously. My heat was pounding. I was going to have to stay here. Work for Cole. Do what he wanted. It was thrilling and terrifying at the same time.

  “Get dressed. We have a party to go to.”

  ***

  An hour later, I was freshly showered, my hair blown dry and smooth around my shoulders. My wrist was feeling better, and I’d thankfully been able to handle showering by myself. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what would have happened if Cole had had to help me.

  The clothes Kalia had bought for me had been hung up in the guestroom closet, probably by some housekeeper who’d been here while we were gone. It was weird, knowing people had been touching my things while I was at Cole’s office, but then I realized it was bizarre to even think of them as my things. They were just clothes that had been given to me, clothes I hadn’t even worn before.

  I’d chosen a black cocktail dress and black stilettos. I’d had makeup in my purse, and I’d kept it simple, choosing a neutral smoky eye and a pale red lip. The dress felt foreign on my body – not just because it wasn’t mine, but because it was expensive. The fabric was beautifully constructed, the lining silky and smooth against my skin, the cut and stitching of the highest quality. Like everything else Kalia had brought, it was a little too small for me, but it made my stomach look flat and hugged my curves in all the right places.

  There had been a tiny plastic bag of earrings attached to the hanger of the dress – simple and elegant silver hoops. The fact that they’d come with the outfit made me think Kalia hadn’t picked everything out herself – there was no way she could have done all that so quickly. More likely she’d gone to some department store and ordered up pre-put-together outfits from a personal shopper. I couldn’t even imagine what something like that had cost.

  I took one final look at myself in the mirror, smoothed
my dress over my hips, and walked to the living room where Cole was waiting.

  He looked effortlessly put-together and in control, his jaw chiseled, his shoulders broad. I remembered how close he’d come to kissing me in the kitchen, and I tried to push the thought out of my head. But I couldn’t. It was all I could think about.

  And then he turned around, and his eyes took me in, his gaze starting at my feet and sliding up my body.

  “Oh my God,” he breathed.

  “What?” I asked. “Is it too much? I’m sorry, but there isn’t really anything else that –”

  “You look beautiful,” he said, and I flushed.

  “Thank you,” I said. “You look nice, too.”

  He crossed the room to me, and I took a step back.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “It’s…” I cleared my throat. “Cole, if I’m going to stay here, what happened in your office earlier…that can’t happen again.”

  “I know.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes.” He nodded, his face serious. “I’m sorry, Avery, I shouldn’t have done that. It was wrong.”

  “Yes,” I said, “it was.” I was agreeing with him, but inside I was disappointed. I wanted him to tell me he wasn’t sorry it happened, wanted him to pull me toward him, to run his hands over my body, pull my dress down and kiss me until I was breathless.

  “But I want you to know,” he said, “that it’s going to be very hard for me to keep my hands off you.” He took another step toward me. “Especially when you’re wearing dresses like this.” He reached out and grazed my hip with his hand, and I moved back.

  “We can’t.” I shook my head. “It’s not good. If your dad ever found out, he’d have a field day selling that story to the tabloids. And besides, it’s…”

  “It’s all kinds of fucked up.”

  “Yes.”

  “Because you’re my stepsister.”

  “Yes.” I hesitated, wondering if I should say the other part out loud, the part that I’d been secretly thinking ever since he’d made me strip for him in his office. That the reason it was so hard to stay away from him was because he was gorgeous yes, but also because I got off on the fact that he was so demanding with me. And he liked telling me what to do, dominating me. It was twisted.

  But before I could say anything, his face turned back to stone, and he moved away from me, grabbing his suit jacket and sliding it on.

  “The car should be here in a couple of minutes.”

  “The car?”

  “Yes, our town car. It will take us to the party so we don’t have to walk or take the subway.”

  I nodded, like I was used to riding in a town car, even though I obviously wasn’t. I don’t think I’d ever been in a town car my life. “What about your car?” I asked.

  “Too much of a pain in the ass to drive it,” he said, and I marveled once again at the kind of money he had, the kind of money that allowed you to have a beautiful, expensive car that you just parked in a garage, choosing not to drive it just because it would be an inconvenience. In my world, cars were the kind of thing you spent months saving up for, just so you could buy a junker and wind up having to spend hundreds of dollars to get it fixed when it inevitably broke down a couple weeks later.

  We took the elevator downstairs, nodding to the doorman before stepping out onto the street.

  There was a shiny black car waiting for us, and a driver in a black hat opened the back door.

  We slid inside.

  Cole sat next to me, his leg pushed up against mine. Heat radiated from within me, and I tried my best to calm the butterflies in my stomach.

  “So you’ll be attending this party as my assistant,” he said.

  “Of course.” I nodded. Obviously I wasn’t going to the party as Cole’s date. That would be incredibly strange and inappropriate. “Whose party is this anyway?”

  “Connor Raskin. He’s an investor who owns a huge share of stock in my company. Every so often he throws parties for no reason other than to rent out a huge ballroom and splash his money around. Everything starts out extravagantly, but by the end of the night, people are doing blow in the bathroom, and everyone’s drunk.” He glanced over at me. “We’ll be gone before then.”

  “Of course.”

  “There’s always a few photographers there, so hopefully someone will get a picture of you looking happy and normal.”

  I nodded.

  “If anyone asks what you’re doing there, tell them you just got hired, and that you’re looking forward to the networking opportunities.”

  “Okay. Um, but won’t you be with me?”

  “Yes, but not the whole time.”

  Panic shot through me at the thought of being at some swanky party without Cole by my side.

  “Hey,” he said, obviously noticing my discomfort. “You’ll be fine. There might even be some people there you know.”

  “Like who?”

  “Shawn Carter and Jake Brooks,” he said. “You remember them from high school, right?”

  I nodded. Shawn and Jake were Cole’s friends, and they’d always been nice to me. They were the ones Cole had gone off to New York with when he moved here. “They work with you?”

  “Not anymore.” He shook his head. “They sold their shares in the company and used the money to start their own.”

  “Oh.” And then I remembered something. Something I’d been trying to forget ever since it happened. “And Jeffrey Adams?” I asked, trying to keep my voice light. “Will Jeffrey Adams be there?”

  Cole shook his head. “No. Jeffrey sold his shares too, and no one’s heard from him since.”

  I breathed out a sigh of relief. Jeffrey Adams was the one person I never wanted to see again as long as I lived, the one person I never even wanted to think about. He’d gone to New York with Cole, too, but I hadn’t heard much about him since, and I was glad to hear he wouldn’t be there tonight.

  The car was slowing, and as it pulled up to the curb, Cole reached over and opened the door, then helped me out onto the sidewalk.

  “You ready?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Ready.”

  We walked into the lobby of the Grand Meridien, and its elegance was almost blinding. Everything was shiny and new and sparkling, from the chandeliers hanging from the ceiling to the black marble of the check-in desk. The party was being held in the Diamante Ballroom, and Cole walked toward it, his strides long, his gait fast.

  “We’ll be able to get out of here soon,” he said. “It’s all about making an appearance.”

  I nodded, quickening my pace to keep up with him, even though the idea of getting all dressed up and taking a car to a fancy hotel just to stay for a little while seemed like a waste of time to me.

  Once we were in the ballroom, Cole headed right to the bar, and I followed him. He ordered me a diet coke, and himself a bourbon.

  “I want rum in my diet coke,” I said to the bartender, but Cole shook his head.

  “No,” he said. “You’re not having any alcohol.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I said so.”

  “Because you said so?”

  “Yes, Avery, because I said so.” He spotted someone across the room, and turned to me. “I’ll be right back. Stay here and don’t move.”

  “Wasn’t planning on it,” I mumbled under my breath as he walked away.

  “Ah, go ahead and have some rum,” a voice on the other side of me said, and I turned to see a man standing there. He was about thirty, with sandy blonde hair and sparkling green eyes. “You got to have a little fun, right, sweetheart?”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “No problem.” He held his hand out. “Connor Raskin, Raskin Technologies.”

  “Oh,” I said, suddenly tongue-tied. It was his party. What had Cole said? That he was some kind of important investor? Shit, Avery, get it together and don’t embarrass yourself. “Mr. Raskin, I didn’t realize…”

  “Pleas
e, call me Connor,” he said. “You’re here with Cole Buchanan?”

  I nodded. “Yes. I’m Avery, his new assistant. Well, second assistant.” I was babbling, and I forced myself to take a breath.

  “That can’t be a fun job.” Connor motioned to the bartender. “A little rum for this girl’s diet coke.”

  The bartender poured a shot in my glass, and I hesitated.

  You’re not having any alcohol.

  Because I said so.

  But Cole wouldn’t want me to go against Connor Raskin, would he? That would make me look bad, giving the host of the party a hard time. So I took a sip, enjoying the feel of the run as it burned my throat.

  “It’s been okay so far,” I said, hoping he wasn’t going to ask me about my duties. “Today’s my first day. I’m his stepsister. So he’s doing me a favor by giving me this job.”

  “Still.” Connor shook his head. “Your brother can be one tough SOB.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  He laughed, like this was the funniest joke he’d ever heard.

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out his card. “I have to go,” he said. “It’s my party, so I’m expected to mingle. But call me sometime.”

  I watched as he disappeared into the crowd, admiring the easy way he moved. “What the fuck was that?” Cole asked, suddenly appearing behind me.

  “Connor Raskin,” I said, holding up his card.

  “He gave you his card?” Cole said.

  “Yeah.”

  Cole took it from me and ripped it in half, then dropped it on the bar.

  “Hey!” I said. “Why’d you do that?”

  But he didn’t answer me. Instead, he picked up my drink and took a sip. “I told you no alcohol.”

  “He made me.”

  “He made you?” This seemed to enrage him, and the next thing I knew, he’d grabbed me by my elbow and was leading me through the party back through the lobby. He pulled me into a side room, then turned around and locked the door. It took me a second to realize we were in some kind of coatroom.

  “What he hell are you doing?” I demanded.

  “I don’t want you talking to him.”

  “Excuse me?”