Redeemed Book 1: A Military Stepbrother Romance

by Snow, Lucy

  Which made him teasing me like this way more difficult to deal with. Clearly we weren’t talking about what happened last night.

  “I don’t have anything yet. Wanna do something?”

  The way he put that was just so casual, I almost couldn’t stand it. What did that mean, do something? Did he want to hang out and watch a movie? Grab a burger? Have more hot sex?

  Nothing in the way he spoke or looked told me anything! Argh, Harrison was so frustrating. Why did guys have to be like this all the time?

  What else could I do, though? I could stay here and read a book, but really spend all my time thinking about Harrison, or I could suck it up and actually spend time with him and see where it went.

  One path promised to be fraught with drama and self doubt. The other…might end up without clothes on? That settled it for sure.

  “Yeah. Something sounds good.”

  “Got anything in mind?” Harrison turned it right back around on me. I hated that, putting me on the spot all the time.

  “Nope.”

  “We’ll figure it out. At least let’s get out of the house.”

  Hmmm, that meant he probably didn’t want a repeat of last night. Was he regretting what we did? I mean, it wasn’t much, but if he’d changed his mind about us already…

  Us.

  That word again. Two little letters, one big meaning. I mean, if I was honest with myself, there was no Us yet. All we’d done was a little fooling around after a traumatic night. But Harrison had said some things, somethings he couldn’t take back.

  But now it looked like, or seemed like, he wanted to.

  That was gonna be a bitter pill to swallow indeed.

  At this point, though, the only thing I could do was now with it and see where we ended up. “OK, yeah.” I stood up, brushing myself off and hoping I still looked good after an hour of lounging about and staying out of sight. “Let me just freshen up a bit and we can go somewhere?”

  Harrison looked me up and down, sucking in a deep breath. Ugh. Looking at him wasn’t fair; it was like cheating at the game of…whatever you wanted to call this game we were playing, I couldn’t figure it out anymore, and I was already tired of trying.

  Harrison could wear me out with a look.

  “You look fine, but I could probably use a quick shower myself.”

  I found myself staring at his chest again. I took a deep breath, shaking my head. “Yeah, sounds good. How about we leave in 30 minutes?”

  “Perfect. See you then.” Harrison turned and walked away, out of the room and toward the hallway, heading upstairs. I watched him go, admiring every long muscle in his body as he retreated.

  You know what they say, “I hate to see you go, but I love to watch you leave?” That was Harrison in spades. The trails of his sweat running down his strong and broad back made my mouth water.

  It really was unfair.

  “Oh yeah,” Harrison called out. As quickly as I could I shifted my gaze back toward his eyes, knowing I’d been caught. Harrison stood on the stair case looking at me. “Dress warm. There’s a path we can walk that looks beautiful in the winter.”

  “Got it.” I smiled. Harrison continued up the stairs and I waited before starting after him. As much as I wanted to see him peel off that second skin of a shirt, I simply didn’t know how to act around him and couldn’t trust myself at this point.

  When I’d waited what I thought was enough time, I made my way upstairs, taking each step tentatively at first, straining my ears to hear above the creaking stairs of the older house. Our parents had had some work done on the place over the years, but it was still clear after a few minutes that the house was old and felt lived in.

  The sounds beneath my feet made it clear I was coming up the stairs, so Harrison would have time to get out of the way.

  Or to show off to me; whatever he wanted. Despite thoughts of his sexy body running through my head I couldn’t tell which I wanted more. All of a sudden he made me so nervous.

  When I reached the top of the stairs I looked around, back and forth, making sure the coast was clear. Nothing from either side.

  Emboldened, I walked to the door to my room. I stopped before entering, holding my breath, one hand on the doorknob, not exhaling till I heard the sound of Harrison making noises in his room behind me.

  Whew.

  Once I was in my room, I shut the door behind me and leaned against it, breathing heavily. I hated how strong Harrison resonated within me, good and bad. When he was around I wanted him to touch me just as much as I wanted him to go away so I could feel normal again.

  I looked in my closet for something to wear - luckily finding warm clothing for being outside the winter was much easier than finding a dress for a family dinner. Within a couple minutes I’d found something that would keep me from freezing to death.

  Unfortunately that meant it wasn’t exactly the most shapely thing in the world. I couldn’t really show anything off to Harrison if I wanted to stay alive and functional.

  The eternal conflict of women’s fashion!

  It seemed, though, that Harrison wasn’t interested in picking up where we left off last night. If he had been, why would he be taking me somewhere outdoors? Did he pick up some sort of public sex fetish in the military?

  Maybe that was it. Would I be OK with that?

  Or maybe it was much simpler - maybe he regretted what we did last night and didn’t want to keep going, and wanted to set the record straight outdoors, where I wouldn’t make a scene and we couldn’t start making mistakes again all over. That definitely made a lot more sense than him wanting to press me up against a tree and do terrible things to me.

  Of course…that also didn’t sound so bad.

  I shook my head, smiling all the while. Leave it to me to come up with crazy weird scenarios for everything. I’d heard enough of my stepbrother having sex through the creaky thin and old walls of our house to take a guess at the random things he liked. Hearing the girls take instruction from him and moan his name gave me a pretty good idea, at least until I’d invested in a bag of disposable ear plugs for when our parents were out of town and he and whichever random girl he’d had over could really make some noise.

  I got dressed, making as little noise as I could, before checking my face in the mirror. I’d wiped off the party makeup from before, but I dabbed a little bit back on now, just to spruce myself up. Harrison had seen me for years with no makeup on, but I didn’t want to go back to those old ways.

  He needed to see the new and more mature me. The woman in full, someone ready to take care of herself, look out for herself. Sometimes it was just a front, but I needed to stop faking it and start making it as soon as I possibly could.

  A knock at the door. “You ready?” Harrison’s voice through the thin door sounded even and without any pressure. I was sure that was tough for him. He was used to getting his way after all, especially with women.

  “Yeah, almost,” I called out, not looking at the door. “Give me a minute.”

  “Don’t take too long.”

  I took one last look at myself in the mirror, and smiled. This wasn’t exactly the face of a girl prepared to have her stepbrother let her down after a passionate fooling around session the night before…but I wasn’t sure there were any makeup tutorials on Youtube for how to best achieve that look.

  In any case, I hadn’t checked if there were. Maybe next time I would, so I could be prepared?

  Nah. This wasn’t something your really wanted to prepare for.

  “OK, OK, I’m ready, geez, relax.” I said, out of nowhere. I didn’t actually hear Harrison say anything else but I wanted to handle that possibility too.

  I stepped to the door, reminding myself to add my winter jacket hanging in the closet downstairs to the ensemble before we left.

  I opened the door and started to step out…

  Only to collide with Harrison standing right on the other side.

  “Ooof!” I exclaimed as I barreled in
to Harrison’s chest, which oddly enough reminded me of stout barrels. I felt his arms wrap around my back and I couldn’t help but sigh with pleasure, loudly until I realized what was going on and toned it down a bit.

  Normally I’d have expected his strong muscles to catch me, and I was prepared for that pleasure, but this time Harrison already had his navy blue winter jacket on, so my face met with soft down instead of sexy muscle. I stayed there as long as I could, while trying not to smudge my makeup at all.

  If Harrison recoiled in horror I’d have known I wasn’t successful. When I pulled my face back I looked up at Harrison’s grinning face, and couldn’t detect any slipping of the smile - so success on the makeup in place part!

  “There you are,” we both said at the same time, before laughing. Harrison unwrapped his arms from around me and I pressed myself forward a bit just to keep the feeling of our touching alive for a little longer.

  When his left hand came back around I saw he had my coat hanging off his arm. “I brought you this,” he said, pushing the coat toward me, “I wanted to make sure we got out of here before it got dark. You know how the seasons are these days.”

  I did. While getting here yesterday it had already started to get darker in mid afternoon. Wacky seasons indeed.

  “Thanks.” I took the coat, but at the last moment Harrison wouldn’t let it go. He let it fall then gripped each shoulder in his big hands, holding it out toward me, front first.

  It took me a second to realize that he was holding it so I could slip it on easily. “Uh…thanks?!” I said as I pushed my arms through the sleeves.

  Why was it so strange to have Harrison do anything nice for me? I felt like someone so starved for food that they questioned every single morsel that appeared in front of them, like it would all end up being a series of mirages or a dream, a fantasy. Like I’d soon wake up and Harrison would be the same as ever and would laugh in my face for even thinking for a moment that he could ever be nice to me.

  Or could ever love me. I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was all some sort of long con he was playing. A cruel joke designed to lure me off my game.

  But why would he do that? Harrison seemed so nice now, so in control of his life. Of course, all I’d seen was the last 24 hours, and to be fair he’d been in and out of the picture even then. In total we’d spent a good…hour together?

  And all of a sudden I was swooning. Really smooth, Laurel, way to be in control of your life and your emotions.

  I realized I was standing there, slowly zipping up my jacket, feeling and hearing the teeth of the zipper clasp together, with Harrison’s arms still clasped around my shoulders. My eyes were closed, and I was swaying back and forth a little, like a buoy in the ocean.

  Opening my eyes, I turned around to face him. Harrison looked at me with a mixture of sarcasm and genuine interest that I found impossibly alluring. “Where were you just now?” He asked, colored with excitement. “You were somewhere else.”

  “Oh, nowhere.” I had to keep myself a little more in check than that. I couldn’t just be nodding off into limbo at the drop of a hat or the zip of a jacket. “Let’s go!” I said, throwing up my hands in mock excitement.

  Harrison just shook his head, the smile still on his face. “You’re a little nuts, you know that?” he said has he walked down the hall toward the stairs, his heavy footfalls accenting each time they hit the floor. I followed behind, admiring the tapering of his back, still visible, though less sharp, under his heavy coat.

  I had no idea what was running through his head. I could guess, though, that it didn’t involve us fooling around again or anything else.

  I had no choice but to play it by ear. Harrison wasn’t the type, or at least he wasn’t before, to keep things hanging. Unlike me, he liked to confront things straight on and get them out in the open. Most of the time, at least to my memory, since he had nothing good to say, nothing I wanted to hear, that was a bad thing.

  Maybe now it would work in my favor and I wouldn’t be confused. Maybe Harrison was able to confess feelings to someone, make out with them, then ignore them the next day, but I wasn’t.

  As we made our way out of the house into the cold but bright waning December afternoon, steam coming out of our mouths as we breathed and walked toward Harrison’s car parked in the driveway, I knew one thing - I’d figure out what was going on soon enough.

  Well, at least I hoped I would.

  Chapter 13 - The Outdoors

  The car was freezing too. I couldn’t believe I got to ride in Harrison’s car twice in the space of a day. That was probably more than entire years back in high school. I felt like a kid in a candy store.

  A candy store with nothing to touch or eat.

  Harrison started the car and I immediately turned the heater up full blast, which…resulted in huge amounts of cold air being thrust in our faces.

  “Give it a little time, Speedy,” Harrison chided me, “or are you trying to freeze us both?”

  “I don’t need to try when the weather’s like this.”

  Harrison leaned forward and looked out the windshield as he flicked the wipers on. The light dusting of snow covering the glass let itself be pushed out of the way without much fuss. He looked wistful, like he was remembering something from long ago. “Days when we were on patrol I’d daydream about coming back to a winter like this.”

  I scoffed, long and loud. “Really? You daydreamed about this place? In December?”

  Harrison didn’t look at me, but his words were controlled. “You haven’t been out there. It’s…enough to make you wish for anything cooler. Even a freezer like this.”

  I left it there, not wanting to say anything. We’d never talked about Harrison’s time while deployed, and this didn’t seem like the place to do it. My father had told me Harrison had seen some combat, seen some friends killed in the line of duty serving their country.

  I didn’t know any other soldiers, hell, I barely knew the soldier right in front of me, so I didn’t feel like it was my place yet to ask him questions about his service. If Harrison wanted to tell me anything, he would in his own time.

  Harrison pulled out of his parking spot, his Charger raring to move forward faster like a dog itching to run free. I watched as he grinned, looking around, clearly wanting to give it a little more juice, but not wanting to scare any of the neighbors into calling the police.

  I wondered if he looked over his shoulder like that frequently. I’d never done anything that would involve the police in my life, so the very thought of living that way was foreign to me.

  “Sounds like the car still works,” I offered.

  “Yeah, I’ve been taking care of it whenever I had leave. Also had one of my buddies come around while I was gone, take it for a spin every few weeks, keep things lubed up and working.” He turned to me, the grin still on his face. “Never know when you might need your wheels.”

  “Riiiiiiight.” I changed the subject. “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see. You’re warm enough?”

  “Starting to get there, I think my toes have started to thaw out.”

  “I don’t think anyone complains about being cold as often as you.”

  “Well, you asked this time.”

  We drove on in silence for twenty minutes. Then Summitville began to give way to the next town over, with distinctive architecture and different street signs. There were several towns bordering Summitville, but we didn’t often venture out to them - in a weird way, despite its shortcomings, Summitville had all we needed in it.

  “It’s just a little while longer, up here,” Harrison broke the silence while pointing forward and to the left. “I want to show you something.”

  I didn’t say anything, watching the buildings go by. Not a lot of people out. It would be getting dark soon and I could see lights on in the houses, fires in the fireplaces. I pulled my hands in under my shoulders despite the heat in the car. It must be nice to be so close to family, to enjoy the holid
ays together like that in front of a fire.

  Cliche, I know, but it was a cliche for a reason.

  Harrison took the next left and we drove another mile or so before he pulled into a parking spot. I blinked a few times before realizing we’d stopped.

  “We’re here, come on, Laurel, wake up.”

  “I’m awake, I’m awake.” I stretched out in the car, hands colliding with the roof. Harrison winced, but kept his smile. “Sorry about that,” I felt my cheeks bloom.

  “It’s OK. Let’s get out.” I nodded and opened my door as Harrison opened his, letting the frosty air in from both sides at once.

  Brrrr. I unhooked my seatbelt and got out, shivering uncontrollably already. “Shit, it’s cold.”

  “You said it.” Over the top of the car I saw Harrison standing his doorway, head held high, as if the wind and cold air couldn’t touch him. He was really enjoying this. I wish I had that kind of resistance to cold. Maybe I should go spend some time in the desert.

  You know, for a vacation. Not the same reason Harrison spent time there. I admired his service more than anything, but I also knew it wasn’t for me.

  I stretched out, hands high above my head, this time not worried about a roof getting in the way. It felt good to be outside, despite the wind and the light snow falling. As I brought my hands down from the stretch, I felt the flakes pooling in my palms and rubbed them on my face.

  Cold or not, being outside felt great. Even so, I was already looking forward to warming myself up by the fire when we got home with a mug of hot chocolate in hand.

  Harrison closed his car door and the sound brought me back to Earth. “Come on, let’s go,” he said over the roof to me. I noticed that he’d picked up a bag from the back seat of the car, and he slung the back over his left shoulder as we left the car behind.

  “Lead on, this is your party.”

  Harrison grunted and walked forward. We were on the side of the road, no buildings around, just the beginnings of a forest to our right. We moved in the direction of the forest.