Off Limits: A Stepbrother MMA Romance

by Harper, Callie

  I knew I was being childish avoiding him. It made perfect sense to join him, have dinner together, make conversation. But I told myself that this was just a phase, people didn’t change that quick and easy. Tuck was a player. I knew that, I’d seen him in action. I couldn’t let him play me.

  Sneaking out of my door like a thief in the middle of the night, I padded down the hallway. The quickest way to the nearest stairwell went right past his room. Surely I could manage to walk past his closed door in the middle of the night. It wasn’t like I was going to open it and climb into bed with him.

  I wondered if he slept naked. A big animal of a man like him, I bet he did. And on a hot night like this, I bed he’d kicked his sheets off. He was probably lying there, sprawled across his bed, not a stitch on, his entire body as rock hard as a granite statue but so much more warm to the touch.

  His door wasn’t closed. I noticed too late. I was already there standing outside. His door was ajar.

  And he wasn’t asleep. The blue light of a screen filtered out from his room. He must be up, unable to sleep like me, watching something in the middle of the night.

  I shouldn’t look, I knew that. I should head back straight the way I’d come. I’d been quiet. I doubted he’d heard me. I could escape unnoticed.

  But I was in too deep. Caution, usually my middle name, wasn’t even a concept I recognized anymore. I craved risk, wanted to seek it out, wanted to see what it felt like up close.

  I took a step toward his door. No creaks in these wooden floor planks. I guessed billionaires didn’t tolerate that sort of thing. I stepped closer still until I was right at the threshold, able to look straight into his bedroom.

  Tuck sat there in bed propped up against some pillows, his massive sculpted chest bare. His eyes were fixed on the screen of his laptop, resting on the bed by his side. His hand was on his huge, erect cock as he jacked himself off.

  I would have gasped but I couldn’t breathe, not at all. I stood there, frozen, all the air out of my lungs, fixated on him in the dark blue light. He was so big. He wore nothing, just like I’d imagined, his broad, thick thighs stretched out. His big hand wrapped around his shaft, pumping, working his hard length as he watched the screen.

  The unmistakable sound of a woman’s pleasure came from the laptop, a low, throaty moan. The screen was at enough of an angle that I could see what he was watching. A naked woman was giving a man head. Tuck was up at 2 a.m. jerking off and watching porn.

  Oh my God. I needed to turn around. The image on the screen was so nasty. The man was sitting on a chair. He still had his shirt on, but his jeans were pulled down and his huge dick sprang free. He had a hand at the back of the woman’s head and was pushing her down onto his giant cock, making her take all of him in, deep down her throat. Her hands were handcuffed behind her back. She was his helpless servant.

  “That’s right, baby, suck it,” he growled at her. She moaned again with abandon, like a needy animal. I’d never seen any porn before. I knew they were actors. Probably the scene had been shot at studios not so far from where we were right at that moment. What I hadn’t known was how hot I’d find it.

  The way she knelt between his legs, taking him in her mouth, working to pleasure him. The way he dominated her, his hand at her head, forcing her down. He brought his fingers down to her breasts and pinched her nipples hard. She moaned again, her hands bound behind her back, her nipples peaked and vulnerable for him to twist.

  Tuck locked on the video, working himself, his pumps growing faster, harder. He looked so male, so feral, a beast giving himself pleasure.

  Between my legs, I burned. The heat built within me and I knew I was wet, knew if I brought my hand down inside my panties I’d find myself slick and begging to be stroked.

  Stepping slightly to the side, my body mostly hidden behind the wall, I kept my eyes fixed on Tuck. But I slipped my hands down my panties.

  I bit back a whimper as I touched myself, so drenched and hot, soaking for him. As he worked his huge cock, the crown thick, the tip so wide, I stroked my pussy, dripping for him, dying to feel him inside of me. On the laptop, the man grew more forceful.

  “That’s it. All the way down your throat.” He pushed her head down on his prick, fisting her hair in his hand. I wanted Tuck to do that to me. I’d never done that to a man, had to admit up until now I’d thought it sounded disgusting, demeaning to women.

  Now I wanted Tuck to tie my hands behind my back and force me down on my knees between his legs. I wanted his hand fisted in my hair, fucking my mouth with his huge cock. I could see him breathing heavy, could see his muscles coiled and taut. I quivered with need, a bead of my juice dripping down my inner thigh, my clit swollen and aching as I stroked it.

  Tuck. I wanted him to come. I wanted him to come in me.

  The man on the screen snarled at the woman sucking him off. “I’m going to come. All over you.”

  He drew her head back and spurted out hot, thick come all over her huge, aroused tits and her exposed throat, marking her as she screamed in pleasure. Tuck groaned, low and deep, a guttural sound torn from within, and he began to come too, the pearly, gleaming jettison covering his hand.

  Shuddering, tense, one hand against the wall, I couldn’t stop my own release, the crashing waves of pleasure pounding over me as I bucked against my own hand, coming on my own fingers.

  I’d almost managed to not get caught. Almost managed to get away with it. Except for at the very peak, the apex of my orgasm, when I shook and felt unsteady on my feet. Watching Tuck on the bed coming with his cock in his hand, imagining it was my hand, my mouth on him, I moaned. A high-pitched, desperate cry as I came, quaking and quivering and completely out of control.

  Hand still on his hard shaft, Tuck looked up. His heavy eyes locked directly on my own. He saw me. He caught me. He knew.

  It didn’t matter that I picked up and ran. It didn’t matter that I made it all the way back to my bedroom and locked my door. It made no difference that he didn’t follow me, leaving me alone the rest of the night to stew in my own guilt and embarrassment, feeling dirty and wrong and bad.

  We still had over six weeks together left in the summer sharing the same house. He might leave me alone this night. But now he knew. He knew, without a shadow of a doubt, how much I desperately wanted him. There was no turning back now.

  CHAPTER 12

  Tuck

  The next day our parents arrived home, right on cue in my fucked-up life. Cooing like lovebirds, flirting like teenagers, they descended upon us. Perfect, just fucking perfect.

  Here I’d been ready to cut loose, finally break down the barriers with Jewel. I couldn’t believe it when I’d seen her there standing in the entry to my bedroom in the middle of the night, her face flushed, her hand down her panties with her fingers working her pussy. I’d never forget the sight of her, head tilted back, lips parted, nipples hard and pressed against her shirt as she cried out and came. After seeing that, nothing was going to stop me from having her. Not when I knew she wanted me as much as I wanted her. Fuck convention, it wasn’t as if we were really related. We both knew our parents weren’t exactly in it to win it. They’d probably be divorced by the end of the year. It was time to stop pretending and start fucking.

  Instead, Friday afternoon I’d come home from the gym to the sight of my father enjoying drinks poolside with his newest trophy wife. Jewel’s mom. Fuck.

  That night, instead of finally diving balls-deep into Jewel, I sat through a family dinner. My dad and Candice had insisted.

  I could count the number of family dinners I’d had in my entire life. My real mom had a liquid dinner every night, vodka and tonic her beverage of choice. Wife number two, a good fifteen years younger, had a deep aversion to anything domestic or maternal. I think she broke out in a rash if she came near the kitchen. Or me. My father thought it was cute. For a while, at least.

  I’d had plenty of dinners with our old housekeeper, Doris. She’d always clucked and
fussed over me and insisted I have seconds, taking personal pride in how big I seemed to grow overnight. Every night. She’d claimed it had been her roasted chicken, and she might have been right. I could eat a whole one right now.

  But instead, 6:30 on a Friday night B-list has-been Candice Kidd flitted around our kitchen in a frilly apron and fluffy high heels, the kind with angora tufts coming off the front. I guessed she thought they were kitchy-cute, like the 50s apron. She looked like she’d been miscast in the part of a housewife when she should have gotten homewrecker. She’d clearly had a lot of work done. Her breasts lifted up like unnaturally round grapefruits and her lips puckered out, plump from an injection. Her skin pulled taut; no surprise would cause a wrinkle on her forehead.

  Also in the kitchen, Jewel stood in the corner with her shoulders slumped, mumbling something in response to a question. She wore a long-sleeved, ankle length tent dress. I couldn’t imagine a single shop in L.A. sold shit like that. She must have gone online and found some fringe site for people with sun allergies or extreme religious intolerance for showing any skin.

  She didn’t glance up when I walked through the kitchen. She looked like a lamp with a blown bulb. She’d closed up shop, no sign of all that heat and desire that had been welling up inside of her, exploding last night.

  The oven timer beeped. I went upstairs to pull on a t-shirt and we all sat down together at the completely unused dining table and played pretend. My father filled Candice’s wine glass and gave her a smile as if he were deeply, truly in love instead of already growing antsy. Candice served me a heaping spoonful of some kind of nasty-looking casserole as if she were running for mother of the year instead of dying to run off to the spa.

  It was the pretending I hated the most. Maybe that was why I liked fighting so much. No pretending in the cage.

  Jewel sat at the end of the table, pushing her food around and looking miserable. I sat next to her, fists balled at my sides, coiled with tension and frustration.

  “Good to see you two!” My father kicked off the conversation.

  “How long are you guys going to be here?” My question came out gruff. I wasn’t as good at faking shit as he was.

  “I’m going to take that as sign of your reluctance for me to leave. Isn’t that right, Tucker?”

  “Sure.” I kept my eyes level, my voice taut. It was his house and I was freeloading off of it. He had every right to keep me in line. For six more weeks that was, while I did nothing but train. Then, I’d cut all ties and head out on my own, making money off my fighting. I just had to keep focused, remember why I was doing all of this.

  We ate a while in silence, the sounds of our forks scraping on the plates not exactly filling the gap.

  “How’s the internship at the bank, son?” my father finally asked. Son? Did he think he was in a 1950s sitcom, too? Should I call him pops?

  “Fine.”

  Jewel looked up at me, sharp. Shit. She knew I wasn’t doing an internship at a bank.

  “Learning the ropes?” my father asked. “Working hard? I was surprised to see you had time for the gym today.”

  “It was Friday.” I shrugged, not exactly lying. Not that I cared about lying to him, I just wanted to make it through this summer.

  “I hear those guys you work with are tough,” Jewel piped up from the side. “Real fighters.”

  I coughed my water, down the wrong pipe.

  “Investment banking can be cutthroat,” my father agreed.

  “It’s like they send them down into a cage,” Jewel observed.

  He nodded at her sage words. I gave Jewel a look and she winked at me. Winked! I liked that sass a hell of a lot more than the caving-in I’d seen around her mother.

  More silence. We were good at that part, saying nothing.

  “How about you?” Candice decided to turn the spotlight on her daughter. “Are you making any time to get out and live a little? Or is your nose always buried in a book?”

  Jewel sighed and took a strategic bite of her macaroni casserole. She made a slight grimace and swallowed it down with the help of some water. It was pretty disgusting, goopy and crazy salty. Neither she nor my father had any idea what they were doing with this playing house shit. It was kind of funny when you thought about it.

  “You only live once, kiddo.” My father offered his sage advice.

  “Lay off her, she’s doing fine,” I grumbled. Where did he get off telling Jewel how to live her life?

  “I’m sure you’re getting out.” He looked over at me, wry and acerbic. “Every night.”

  “You know me.” I looked at him, blank. I wasn’t giving him anything.

  “Well, don’t screw things up with this internship. When you graduate from college you won’t have the Princeton degree, the Princeton network.”

  “I’m not sure how I’ll manage,” I answered deadpan. “But somehow every day people struggle through life without a degree from Princeton.”

  “One day you’ll understand what you turned down. You’ll see what a bad choice you made.”

  I could feel Jewel’s keen eyes on me again, observing, understanding. She hadn’t known I’d gotten accepted at Princeton and chosen to go to state school. I bet she knew why, too, without my having to lay it out for her. The only reason they’d let me in was the library wing with my grandfather’s name on it. It housed special collections, the types of books they called manuscripts and then kept enclosed in glass for the sole purpose of getting old, gray donors to give more money to the school. I’d had enough of that crap at the preppy boarding schools my father had sent me to—one after the other after I kept getting kicked out.

  “I’m out of here.” I stood, pushing my chair back. A woman in a white shirt and black pants appeared and moved to start clearing my place. Of course, my old man had hired in help for the duration of his stay. Casserole aside, he and Candice weren’t going to lift a finger around the house.

  “I got it,” I said, grabbing my own plate.

  §

  Fourth of July came and went without any of the coming I wanted. I nursed a beer at a backyard barbeque this guy Jax hosted, one of the fighters on my team. He was a good guy, not much of a talker, but a kick-ass fighter.

  I went home early, restless and unsatisfied. Not because the party had been tame, though it definitely was nothing like what I’d done last year. Last Fourth of July I’d raged hard with my old crew, tearing through parties and women all night. We’d been out in the Hamptons or on the Vineyard, I honestly didn’t remember which one. But it didn’t matter that this year’s party paled in comparison, what mattered was I didn’t have Jewel. She wasn’t writhing underneath me as I pounded into her, begging me to come. Anything less than that and I felt unsatisfied.

  I’d barely seen her since our parents had arrived back in L.A. She’d stopped doing yoga outside in the mornings, ate out of the house. I didn’t know where she went over the weekend, who she was hanging out with and I hated it. It might be that guy Mike from her internship. She’d seemed to like him. Motherfucker.

  I thought about texting her but didn’t do it. The girl was far back in her shell. And now that I saw more of her mother, I got it. You didn’t have to be a brain surgeon to figure out why Jewel might have issues with a mother like that. She’d basically had two choices, follow in her footsteps or run in the other direction. She could vamp it up and seduce herself a man or a string of men like her mother before her, or lock it down, hit the books and escape.

  Now wasn’t the time to try to talk her out of the choice she’d made.

  But I wasn’t letting her go. There was no chance I’d let Jewel get away from me for good. But while our parents were around us acting like teenage idiots, swatting each other’s behinds and making kissy faces, it did put a damper on things. Some people had to sign up to be the grown-ups in the family. Guessed that left me and Jewel.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about her, though, catching her in the doorway of my room flushed, hand down her pan
ties. It about drove me insane. I channeled it all into my training. My father had no reason to suspect I wasn’t working at a bank, I was out the door at the crack of dawn and then didn’t get home until fourteen hours later, stone cold sober and exhausted as hell. He even told me he was proud of me, working so hard. If only he knew.

  I had a fight on Thursday night. It wasn’t as big as the one I’d done almost two weeks ago. It wouldn’t be televised; there wouldn’t be as much hype. That wouldn’t come until the end of July when I had another exhibition fight. That would be my next big one, a night when I had to bring it. After a fight like that, I hoped I could get signed.

  Coach had scheduled this Thursday’s fight once he’d seen I’d walked from the last match with just a couple of bruises and cuts. Nothing broken, nothing even hurt too bad, I’d been 100% in a handful of days. That opened the opportunity for another fight, more experience, one more step on the way to freedom. I couldn’t wait.

  I also wanted Jewel to come.

  Finally, Thursday, I texted her:

  Fight tonight, 7 p.m. Ticket for you at the door.

  I sent her the address of the gym. No response.

  I figured she wouldn’t come. She’d barely looked my way over the past week. She had to be embarrassed as hell at what I’d seen her doing. I planned on seeing her do much, much more than that in the weeks to come. That noise she’d made, the high-pitched cry of release? I was dead set on hearing it over and over again.

  That night, getting ready, I still had her on my mind. How she’d looked at my last fight, seeing her out there in the crowd cheering for me, standing in that white dress. How I’d heard her voice in the cage during the fight. Tonight, I wanted to beat down my opponent and show her, pound my chest and roar. If I couldn’t touch her, I at least wanted her to see me dominate.

  No stage show this time around, no ring girls, I jogged to the cage without fanfare. No Jewel, either. The seat I’d set aside for her was empty.