by Adair Rymer
“Why start now?” I laughed. I couldn't contain my massive grin. I was so excited. The last piece of the puzzle had finally snapped into place. I had the perfect family, an amazing, rewarding job where I could help people all over the world, and now this. It was impossible for me to be any happier.
I couldn't imagine myself as that scared introvert, all alone in her crappy New York apartment desperately trying to forget about her even crappier ex-boyfriend. My only concerns were to survive my terrible boss and to finish school.
It was amazing what can change in such a short amount of time. When I graduated college, I thought the best I could do was a coordinator for a community-outreach program and now I was the CEO of massive foundation.
That was a little generous, actually. I was still a CEO-in-training. Although Bianca had her hands full with the parent company she was always willing to train me. Between her and my staff, I was getting a crazy amount of practical real world experience. I was far from perfect but I was no longer intimidated by it all. One day soon I was going to be a force to be reckoned with.
I've had help along the way, but in my heart I knew that I earned this chance and that I deserved this position. If I could go back in time I would tell myself only one thing.
Keep an open heart and just hang on.
Hope takes all forms. One of those forms might even be a hastily scrawled note on your fridge telling you to be ready at six p.m.
END
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Getting Mine has a new, never released chapter with some of the hottest sex in the whole book!
Getting Mine
A Stepbrother Romance Novel
Adair Rymer
I'm Valentine Dawson.
You might recognize me from that crazy-popular movie trilogy I star in,
but if you think that's drama, you haven't met my stepbrother...
Arsen Constantine is many things. Dangerous. Unpredictable.
Damaged. And ever girl's secret fantasy.
When someone attacks my family,
guess who shows back up to protect me?
Now he thinks that I'm his property, and after one sweaty, heart-
stopping mistake, I almost was! He doesn't care that we're related
now. Nothing will stop him from making me beg.
One wrong move and I lose everything.
Copyright © 2015 Adair Rymer
All rights reserved.
Getting Mine is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. They are not to be construed in any way. Resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Special Thanks to Amanda and Danni
Editor Julie Ahern (resident smart-ass) julieahern.com
Chapter 1
Valentine
“Valentine!”
“Valentine, is it true that your family is under attack?”
“Valentine, can I get a quote from you about your father's condition? Valentine?
Hotel security clears a path for me as I push through the throng of questions and camera flashes. The ravenous press howls all around me like a pack of hungry wolves. The hotel doors close and I let out a quick sigh of relief.
Valentine. It was amazing how much I’d come to loathe my own full first name. Had I ever liked it? The people who shouted it at me were either awestruck or wanted something from me. Or, in the case of my father, perpetually disappointed.
There was only ever one set of lips that could make my name excite me, make wish to never stop hearing it. But that was a lifetime ago. And those lips were a world away.
I texted my stepmother to let her know I was in the lobby. She gave me the scoop about my father early this morning over the phone. I was hoping it would stop at that, but no. My presence was requested, she said that my father insisted. My father was alright of course, he's too mean and bitter to be anything else.
We're not close. This visit was just a formality, appearances for the press. 'We are what the public perceives we are', he'd always remind me. And that perception was the first family of film. An 'Acting dynasty in the making, the Dawson Legacy,' he'd say.
The term made me a little queasy, but I swallowed it. I was a good little girl, after all...
“Valentine!” I froze for a moment, then hustled to the elevator without turning back. In here, like most of the high end places we stayed, I was Miss Dawson, not simply Valentine.
“Valentine!” The man behind me hollered. “Just a few words for the Observing Enquirer!” It was no surprise a reporter from that company made it inside, of all the press I'd ever dealt with they were by far the most aggressive. In truth, they made me very nervous.
I hustled away faster, my heels clicking loudly off the immaculate marble flooring. There were shouts from security, but they sounded even farther away. A well dressed concierge in a red vest held the elevator door open for me, I just needed to get there, to escape.
I shouldn't have worn these damn heels!
A hand grabbed my arm and jerked me around. I saw the microphone before the man holding it, as it was almost shoved into my mouth. An exhalation of cigarette breath and wafting cheap cologne hit me like a slap. “Just a few words, Valentine—”
As quick as the scent hit me, it was gone. It was replaced by the smell of a memory that I couldn't immediately recall. The reporter was violently thrown up against a nearby stone column. My first thought was that security finally caught up, but the guy who had the reporter pinned didn't look like any hotel employee I'd ever seen.
I could only see my savior's broad, muscular back. He wore a black baseball cap over top short-cropped black hair; a button down shirt that was left open, untucked, and with the sleeves rolled up. Both his chiseled arms were covered in tattoos and his jeans had non-designer oil and paint stains. Definitely not a security guard, at least not for this place.
The man was a mass of muscle and action, that made my heart race. He had to be some sort of athlete that just happened to be staying here, a football player or something. I caught myself smiling despite the rush of adrenaline. It made me think of a boy I used to know, a boy who had stolen my heart, then abandoned me.
“She doesn't seem to want to talk to you, pal,” the athlete wrenched the man's arm over with the skill and ease of a professional fighter. The reporter was flipped onto his back like a sack of old produce. At first he whined with threats, now it was just pain he whined with. “Now leave, before you lose the use of your legs.”
That voice, though... Where did I know that voice from? It was driving me crazy! The athlete released the man into the care of the building's actual security. When he stood and turned to face me, all the color seemed to drain from the room.
“Hey, Val.” His a mischievous smirk held hints of danger. I would never forget those fierce brown eyes, but it was the way he looked at me that was unmistakable. It was confident and careless, yet intense. “Long time.”
Suddenly I was seventeen all over again. It was like the last six years never happened.
“Arsen?” I asked, in a daze.
Arsen Constantine was a dream given form. He had moved to our high school at the beginning of senior year. He was mysterious and so-gorgeous, every girl fell at his feet. But it was me that he spent most of that year with. It was impossible to look at him and not think of our incredible prom night together, it was nearly overwhelming.
God, he looked so different now. He was so...manly!
My wonderment was quickly replaced by the flash of heat from old wounds, the kind that only came after
a severe burn. I didn't know if Arsen expected a hug, but he sure as hell didn't expect to be slapped across the face.
Chapter 2
Arsen
Past
“That looks like it hurt. You a'right?” I extend a hand to the quarterback that I just laid out with a monster tackle. The poor kid's splayed out on his back like a stoned turtle, too dazed to even grab my hand.
“That's how it's done, bitch!” Marcus, our team's tight end, collides with me in celebration. That was their last down, we just won. “Shit, Arsen, you're a monster! What is that like nine sacks...”
He kept talking, but I tuned it out. I focused on catching my breath. I closed my eyes. The late fall wind chilled the sweat and heat that radiated off of me. When I opened them, I found myself staring at half full stands. My eyes were drawn to one girl in particular, a girl I’d seen every day since school started.
She had brown hair with bangs that covered half her face, porcelain skin that could use a day at the beach. And despite how much she tried to cover it with loose dark clothing, I could tell she had a bangin' body.
She lived down the road from me and walked past my house to get to school every morning. I hadn't met her yet, she kept to herself mostly and didn't seem to have many friends. She wasn't the type I usually hung around with, but I'd been thinking about her a lot lately, usually while I was fucking around with some other girl.
Was it just because this girl was forbidden fruit?
She didn't look like a girl that was into sports. But there she was, hoodie pulled tight, trying to disappear into the bleachers. She seemed to wilt whenever I looked directly at her. Something about her timidity really turned me on. My mind started drifting to what it'd be like to peel her bulky layers off one by one. I had to adjust my jock to hide my hardening cock. Did she come to the game just for me?
I sure as hell hoped so.
“Marcus.” I cut short his insults to the other team. “What do you know about that girl up there. Bleachers, top left.”
Marcus whirled around and smiled. He pointed at the row of girls that hadn't taken their eyes off me the whole game. “Her?” he lets the word linger, then grunts like he just tasted the world's sweetest pie. “I'll forgive you because you're new. That piece of heavenly ass is the future prom queen, and every senior's wet dream.”
What? That didn't sound right at all. The girl I was looking at was cute, but I could tell right away that a wallflower like her wasn't going to be a prom queen.
“Stacy is the hottest, most popular girl in school. I think her mom's a senator or something.”
“What?” Stacy? That wasn't right, she didn't look like a 'Stacy'. The blonde girl that Marcus was talking about winked and blew a kiss at me. “Nah, man. The one on the far left.”
Marcus squinted at the seats. “Who? Valentine?”
That name somehow sounded more appropriate. Valentine was only a row or two over from Stacy, but the fact that Marcus had trouble finding her was a testament to how easily the girl blended in. She liked to hide, even when she was out in the open.
I nodded.
“She's nobody.” Marcus made a dismissing noise. “But her dad's Hugh Dawson.”
“The famous actor?”
“I shit you not. Look, man, that apple fell pretty far from the tree. Forget her, she'll just hurt your rep.” Marcus threw an arm over my shoulder and spread his other arm wide toward the girls that were watching me play. “'Sides it looks like you got your own fan club already.” He pulled away laughing and slapped me on the back. “You goin' up for varsity wrestling too?”
“Depends,” I say. All the girls up there are waving and making eyes at us, but I look past them all to the girl with the hood pulled tight. I can just barely make out her oval, porcelain face and her piercing, icy blue eyes. She has the eyes of a celebrity that you'd hang on your wall.
I thought about getting in her way tomorrow morning during her walk to school, but I decided against it. My dad moved us around so often with the Marines that getting attached to someone isn't an option. I got maybe a year here and then we'll be somewhere else.
Val was weird and different. That's what made her so dammed dangerous. I couldn't fall for a girl like her. It'd only hurt that much more when I had to abandon her. I knew who and what I was. I turned away from the stands, and away from Valentine.
“That the sport that gets the most pussy around here?” I asked Marcus. I was the bad guy that didn't give a shit about anybody. It was easier that way.
Present
“My new what?” Val's face fell at hearing the news, then lifted with the tone of her own outrage. “I don't need him and I sure as hell don’t want him.”
It always got me a little hard when she got fired up like this, it was something in the way her light skin flared with redness. Does she get red like that when she comes too?
I pushed the dangerous thought out of my head, she's my stepsister now. I'm here to keep her safe, that's it. Six damn years should've killed all these cravings.
It's amazing that this was the same timid, flustered girl from high school. Gone were the bangs that covered half her face and the loose fitting layers of clothes that made her invisible to the popular kids.
The Valentine Dawson that stood before me was a very different woman. She had to be. After all, she was Hollywood's go-to actor for young-adult romance. Looking at her now, I could see why. She'd transformed into the jerk off material for every popular guy in high school that never gave her a second look.
Her brown hair was now dyed a dirty blond that was long, layered, and confidently brushed out of her face. She still dressed modestly, but no longer hid behind her clothes. Today she wore a knee length white cotton dress, belted at the waist with a full sleeved lace jacket thing over it.
Val's piercing blue eyes were the same, not even fame could dim or tarnish those.
Of all her movies, I'd only seen her first major one, and even then I didn't make it all the way through. I couldn't sit there and watch her fall in love with some wimpy, scrub co-star. I wasn't out of the theater for ten minutes, before I found a fist fight to vent some steam.
“You are getting a bodyguard, Valentine, we all are. At least until the threats stop coming.” Her father, the legendary hack, Hugh Dawson dismissed Val like she was a five year old. Then, with barely a pause, rapped his ring against his empty scotch glass and looked at my mother. “Pamela, be a dear?”
One look at Hugh and you knew that he had to be a famous actor. With his square jaw, handsomely rugged, yet completely refined body type and Madison Avenue fashion sense, he just looked the part. He wore a light, graying beard and perfectly styled hair at all times, which often meant a personal stylist traveled with him almost everywhere he went.
Aside from leaving Val behind, the thing that frustrated me the most was that Mom never left Hugh. I knew why, of course. It was because she was devout catholic, and didn't believe in divorce. That was probably how she was able to tolerate my father's career moving us all over the country when I was growing up.
Mom got up and made her way across the room to the plush armchair, before I stopped her. “Allow me, Mom.” I winked at her and took the glass from Hugh's expectant hand. “I am, after all an employee of the Dawson family.”
“I'm twenty-three years old, why can't I hire my own bodyguard?” Val protested, trying not to look at me. It reminded me of the furtive glances she used to give me when she thought I couldn't see her.
She could hide from everyone else, but she could never hide from me.
“Your stepbrother...” Hugh must know how much that term grated against me. He shot me the glance of someone who expected poison to be slipped into their drink. And here I was, all out of poison. “Has experience with these matters, as you've seen downstairs.”
You're damn right I do.
I filled Hugh's rocks glass to the brim with the insanely expensive top shelf scotch, then let the glass slip from my hand and smash against the
kitchen tile. Val's eyes flashed in disbelief that I would do something like that. Despite her anger that I was back, the hint of a smile raised the corner of her mouth. “Sorry, Hugh.” I shrugged. “Good thing you hired me to crack heads instead of pour drinks, right?”
Hugh narrowed his eyes at me over the cigar that he was lighting, then waved to the manservant waiting statuesque by the entrance of the hotel room. The man quickly moved in to clean it up and fetch Hugh another drink. I almost scoffed at the thought. Hotel room, more like hotel house. Hugh did everything lavishly, like rent the top floor of the most expensive hotel in Manhattan.
Slowly wiping the scotch off my hands and onto my jeans, I walked over to Val. She looked away, that cracked smile was gone. I hated that the sight of me made her eyes sparkle with old pain. I understood why. I did exactly what I said I'd do. I abandoned her.
“I don't trust Arsen.” She leveled a hateful stare at me that made my chest tighten. “How could I?”
I'm sorry, Val. But I knew an apology would never be enough. Was that why I really came back after all these years?
“I know you better than anyone, Val.” I may not be a good person, but I'd keep her safe. That's all that mattered. “Hate me all you want, but even Hugh knows that I'm your best shot at protection.”
“Valentine, you must think of the Dawson legacy.” Hugh tapped his cell phone then put it to his ear. He stood up to make a call that was obviously more important to him than discussing his daughter's safety. “Now calm yourself and accept it, before you embarrass us both.”
The manservant returned with his drink, but Hugh's hands were full with the phone and his cigar. As opposed to even mildly inconveniencing himself, Hugh simply waved two cigar clutching fingers for the man to follow him into the study. And with that, Hugh Dawson was done with us.