by Hawk, Chloe
STEPBROTHER COMMANDS (His Twisted Game, Book Seven)
By Chloe Hawk
Copyright 2015, Chloe Hawk, all rights reserved. This book is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All characters depicted in this book are eighteen years of age or older.
AVERY
My hands were shaking as I began unfolding the pages. I knew what I was doing was a gross invasion of Cole’s privacy. If he’d wanted me to see these papers, he would have shown them to me. Just the fact that he’d stolen them from Gordon’s office deemed them important and secretive.
I hesitated. He was my stepbrother. He’d been taking care of me. If he didn’t want me to see these papers, it was probably because he was trying to protect me.
But I was sick of being protected. I wasn’t a child.
Still.
To betray Cole’s trust like that…
Then I thought about that note.
The one I’d found in the bathroom.
Thanks for letting me come over this afternoon. It was amazing. ~L
Lucy had been here. Lucy, Cole’s ex-fiancé who he’d never even thought to mention to me. Lucy, who apparently still felt close enough to him to sign letters with just her initial.
What was it she’d said to me at the photo shoot? I’m going to get him back, no matter what. She was flawless, perfect. It was hard to imagine any world, any situation where Cole would choose me over her.
But he’s with you. He could have been with Lucy if he’d wanted to. She was here, he could have been with her.
Maybe he had been. Maybe he’d done all the same things with Lucy that he’d done with me. I remembered his cock in my face, the way he’d come all over my lips, my cheeks, how he’d snapped a picture of me covered with his cum. I loved the way it had made me feel, to be taken that way, for him to do such dirty things to me.
Thinking about him doing those same things with Lucy made my stomach turn.
I opened the papers.
On top was a typed letter.
It was dated seven years ago, and it was addressed to Cole.
Dear Cole Buchanan,
Thank you for your inquiry to The Department of Children and Families. Unfortunately, all records kept by our agency are sealed at the time cases are closed. We are unable to honor your request for copies of the documents regarding Case Number NY4555226.
If you require further assistance, please call the eight hundred number provided at the bottom of this letter or visit our website.
Sincerely,
Hattie Winters, LCSW
I frowned. Why would Cole have written to the Department of Children and Families? And why would this response letter be in Gordon’s office? Had something happened to us when we were younger that involved DCF?
I racked my brain, trying to remember. But all I could come up with was the usual – social workers might show up once and a while, but as long as we didn’t have any visible bruisers and there was food in the refrigerator, they didn’t bother with us too much. I didn’t blame the system for letting me and Cole slip through the cracks – I knew there were kids in far worse situations than us. And as horrible as things had been at home, the thought of being placed in a foster home had filled me with fear. It would have meant leaving my mom. It would have meant Cole and I being split up. I hated Gordon, but I loved the rest of my family.
I took a deep breath and flipped to the next page in the stack.
This, too, was a letter, written on the letterhead of the Department of Children and Families. But while the first letter had read almost like a form letter, this one was much more intimate, more direct.
Dear Cole Buchanan,
I have been alerted to a situation involving you and The Department of Children and Families by my employee, Hattie Winters. I must insist that you cease all communications with the Department of Children and Families. If you continue your assault on both my agency and Ms. Winters, I will be forced to take further action. Please consider this your final warning. Do not reply to this letter. If my office or Ms. Winters receive any more correspondence from you, I will not hesitate to involve the authorities.
Sincerely,
Arthur Hannigan, Director, Department of Children and Families
My heart rate accelerated. But it wasn’t from panic -- it was more just a curiosity, a burning need to find out what was going on. Why was Cole so intent on getting information from DCF? If it had just been something as simple as a case being opened on us, then why was he so insistent to find out the details?
We’d lived the details, every day. We knew what it was like growing up in a house with an alcoholic father who was prone to bouts of verbal and physical abuse, what it felt like to have a mother who didn’t care.
So what was this case, this thing that Cole felt so strongly about that it sounded like he’d been harassing the Department of Children and Families, and this caseworker, Hattie Winters?
I double-checked the dates. The letters had been sent right after Cole had turned eighteen, and they’d been sent to our house, because that’s where Cole had been living at the time.
But why did Gordon have them? Had he stolen them?
The possibilities swirled around my mind, tangling together in a tight knot.
I started to turn the page and read the next document, but the door to the room opened before I could.
Cole appeared, takeout bags in his hands. His eyes locked on mine as he took me standing there by the bed, the papers in my hands.
“What are you doing?” he asked, setting the bags down on the desk. His tone and his movements were measured, even, with no sign of anger in his voice. Something about his control made me more anxious than if he’d been screaming.
“What are these, Cole?” I asked, indicating the papers in my hands.
“You mean my personal property that you apparently decided it was okay to go through?”
“Why were you writing to the Department of Children and Families?” I asked, deciding to ignore his accusation.
“Avery,” he said, his voice stern. “Leave it.” He opened the plastic bags that were sitting on the desk and began unpacking clear containers of fresh-looking food. Salads and sandwiches, bags of sea salt potato chips, and soft chocolate chip cookies. “Do you want to watch a movie?” he asked, seemingly dismissing my questions. He crossed the room to the kitchen area and returned with two copper-colored square plates, which he began loading with food for us.
I hesitated. Part of me was tempted to do as Cole said and just leave it. Whatever those letters were referring to didn’t have anything to do with what was happing right now. They couldn’t change anything that had happened in the past. And Cole was right – I shouldn’t have been snooping through his things.
I thought about how it would feel to curl up on the couch with him, to eat the food he was fixing for me, to cuddle up against his warm, strong body as we watched a movie. The night wasn’t ruined. I could diffuse the tension, we could laugh and joke around and have fun. And didn’t we deserve that? To have just one night where the two of us could pretend we were a normal couple without having to worry about our crazy parents, or Jeffrey, or Lucy?
Lucy.
The situation with DCF and Cole’s private documents might not have been any of my business. But Lucy being here was, especially after what Cole and I had just done in the hot tub.
“Cole,” I said.
He sighed and closed his eyes for a quick moment, like I was trying his patience. “Avery. Please. It’s been a long night.”
I set the papers back in his suitcase and walked
over to him, watched as he finished fixing my plate. “Cole, what was Lucy doing here?”
Finally, I got a reaction out of him. His eyes flinched just a tiny bit, his jaw twitching. “How did you know Lucy was here?”
The post-it was still in my hand, and I held it out to him. “I found this.”
He took it, read it, then crumpled it up and tossed it into the wastebasket under the desk. “She was here,” he said like it was nothing. “She came to see me.”
He picked up the two plates and walked over to the sleek cream-colored leather couch that was pushed up against one wall. He sat down and then set the plates on the matching leather ottoman.
He grabbed the remote and turned on the TV.
I walked across the room and sat down next to him on the couch.
“What was she doing here?” I asked, not willing to let it go.
“She wanted to talk.”
“About what?”
“She’s having a hard time with the break-up.” He shrugged, like his ex-fiancé being in his hotel room without me knowing was no big deal.
“Were you… did you invite her here?”
“Avery, nothing happened.”
“I don’t…” I twisted my hands together in my lap. I was trying not to sound like a jealous girlfriend, but part of me felt like I had every right to sound like a jealous girlfriend. “Did you invite her here?”
“She asked if we could talk after the photo shoot. She was upset.”
“Upset about what?”
“I told you, she’s having a hard time with the break-up.”
“What kind of hard time?”
He sighed and tilted his head back, rolled his shoulders like he was trying to work out some tension. “She’s sad.”
“And you had to comfort her?”
“She wanted to talk,” he repeated.
“About?”
“About the reasons we broke up.”
“And what are the reasons?” I tried to keep my voice steady, like I was asking from a place of sincere curiosity, and not trying to interrogate him. But it didn’t work.
“You’re jealous.”
“I’m not!”
“Then why can’t you just let it go?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Cole, maybe because she was your fiancé, a fiancé I knew nothing about until yesterday!” My voice was raising, and I could feel myself losing control of my emotions, my grip on them slipping out of my grasp little by little.
“Why do we have to get into the past?” He demanded, frustrated.
“Because the past can change everything.” I was getting choked up and I tried to swallow around the lump in my throat, but it didn’t work.
“No.” Cole reached for my hand and intertwined his fingers with mine. His hand was big, strong, safe. “The past means nothing. The only thing that matters is right now.”
His words were meant to give me comfort, but they didn’t. What about the future? If all that mattered was right now, then how could I ever feel safe with him, feel secure that his feelings for me were real and not just some fleeting thing?
And besides, the past did matter.
“The past does matter, Cole,” I said. I lifted my chin in the air, daring him to refute me. “You obviously still have some kind of relationship with Lucy, and I have a right to know exactly what’s going on.”
He grinned, and his fingers wandered over my wrist, making me shiver. “Like I said, you’re jealous.”
“No.”
“Yes, you are.” His voice was husky, deep, and his eyes got that hooded, lustful look I was beginning to recognize.
“No.” I shook my head and tried to pull away from him. I didn’t want this to turn into sex. I wanted answers, wanted to know why Lucy had been here, what the exact reasons were that they broke up. The past was the past, but Lucy was obviously still a part of his present. Otherwise why would she be in his hotel suite with him?
But Cole didn’t let go of my wrist. He held me tighter, then pushed me down on the couch and laid on top of me, his weight pressing against my body.
I felt the first stirrings of desire starting in my belly, like tiny little flames licking together, feeding on each other as they grew. “No,” I said. “Cole, I want to talk about this.”
“Why?” He lowered his head and licked my collarbone, smooth and slow. His lips moved up my skin, toward my ear, soft and warm and oh my god it felt good. “Because you’re jealous?”
“I’m not jealous.”
“You don’t have to be jealous, baby girl.” His teeth nipped the bottom of my ear, sending shock waves through my body. “You are so fucking sexy, Avery. You drive me insane. I cannot keep my hands off you.”
He sat up in one fluid motion so that he was straddling me, then took his hands and moved them down my body, grabbing at my breasts through my thin t-shirt.
I knew exactly what he was doing – trying to distract me by playing with me. And it was working. I was helpless to resist him. As much as I wanted to know about him and Lucy, as much as I wanted to press him on her and what those papers meant, I was at his mercy.
He pulled at my shirt, twisting the fabric in his hand and sliding it up until my breasts were exposed. He stared down at me for a long moment, just drinking in the sight of me topless. I felt his cock harden against me, and then he lowered his mouth to my tits, sucking one, then the other, back and forth until I was dizzy.
Finally his mouth met mine, our tongues tangling together in a frenzy. He kissed me until I was breathless, kissed me until my lips were swollen and my chin was raw from brushing against his stubble.
“More,” I begged, trying to grind my pelvis against his. But he stayed still on top of me, teasing me, playing with my tits, kissing me, not taking it any further. He was in charge, and he was going to mess with me until I couldn’t take it anymore.
“More what?” he asked wickedly, his hands wandering over my stomach.
“More of you.”
“I thought I told you I wanted you naked at all times,” he growled, grabbing the drawstring of my pants and pulling it back before letting it go so that the waistband snapped against my skin.
“You did.”
He slid his body down a bit until he got to my stomach, then began kissing my abdomen as he pulled on my pants gently, slipping them further, further down…
There was a knock on the door, hard and insistent.
I began to sit up, panicked, yanking my shirt down over my breasts.
“Relax,” Cole said, seemingly amused at my reaction. “The door is locked.”
He grabbed my hips and yanked me back down onto the couch. But the knock came again, louder this time.
“Cole?” a voice called. “Cole? Are you there?”
It was a woman’s voice.
Lucy.
She knocked again, apparently not caring that she was showing up here so early in the morning that it was practically the middle of the night.
She’s having trouble with the break-up.
I’m going to get him back, no matter what it takes.
I gave Cole a pointed look, a leave-her-out-there-or-else kind of look. But he wasn’t even looking at me.
Instead he was standing up, crossing the room to the door.
He flung it open and there she was, Lucy, standing there in the tiniest little dress I’d ever seen. It was red and threaded through with sparkly strands so that she seemed to shimmer when she walked. Her hair was tousled around her shoulders sexily, like she’d been wearing it up and then just pulled her hair tie out, letting her loose curls fall.
Her shoulders were covered with a faux fur stole that was blinding white, a stark contrast to her dark red dress and dark lips. Her eye makeup was smudged sexily, like she’s spent the night out partying or making out with someone in a corner of a club.
I hoped she’d been spending the night making out with someone in a club. But from the way she was looking at Cole, I doubted she’d been making out with anyone.
“Hey,” she said to Cole. She breezed into the room with a certain familiarity, but she sounded tense and stressed.
When she saw me standing there, she looked startled. But not in a bad way – it was a genuine look of surprise, with nothing else underneath it, no ulterior motive.
“Oh!” she said. “Avery, hi. I didn’t realize you were here.” If she was annoyed that she’d found me here with Cole, she didn’t show it.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m here.”
“I didn’t wake you guys up, did I?” She bit her bottom lip, and it turned an even darker red than it already was.
“No,” Cole said. “What’s wrong?”
“I just…” She glanced at me, looked me up and down, apparently trying to see if I could be trusted. Cole gave a slight nod of his head, like it was okay.
I tried not to show my annoyance. Why was Lucy here, and why did she have to act like her and Cole were this private little unit? It was irritating. I knew logically that I couldn’t really blame her – she thought I was Cole’s stepsister, not his girlfriend. But she wasn’t Cole’s girlfriend either.
“I was just at Crave,” she said, naming one of the hottest clubs in the city. “And we ran into Jeffrey and his friends.”
At the mention of Jeffrey’s name, the hair on the back of my neck stood up, and goose bumps broke out on my arms.
This is what girls like you do, this is your life now, baby.
“And?” Cole prompted.
“They were drunk, of course,” Lucy said. “And doing blow right in front of everyone.” She crossed the room to the kitchen, her dress shimmering under the lights. She opened the refrigerator and pulled a bottle of sparkling lemon water off the shelf, undid the cap and took a long sip. Everything about her was tiny and delicate, even the way she drank water.
Her nails were manicured in a red and silver chevron pattern, and she played with the bottle cap, turning it over and over between her fingers as she talked. “He started talking loud, you know, getting going like he does. And he said tomorrow there’s going to be a huge announcement, that his app is going paid.”