HIM—A Stepbrother Romance: With BONUS NOVELLA: PERSONAL

by Stephanie Brother

  “Oh my God.” I covered my shock of seeking his nearly naked body suddenly with the fake awareness of his swelling of his ankle. I had to remember to point, to point at his package. I shook my head, I mean…to point at his ankle to match my confession.

  “You were worried about me, huh?”

  Shy and feeling the heat on my cheeks from blushing, my eyes dashed down to his backpack as a book slid out.

  It was a Thoreau history book.

  “Why…why do you have a Thoreau book apparently from the Hampton library?”

  “Help yourself,” he said without a care in the world. “I figured you could use the help since the ‘net is down.”

  My heart raced to my ears.

  “You mean…you mean you just went to the library? That’s where you were?”

  “Broke in is more like it.”

  A robe was wrapped around Bradley by Mr. Fox. Once Bradley tightened it, he balanced on one leg. His hand went inside as he whipped off his wet underwear and they pooled at his ankles.

  Oh my dear god.

  He was now naked.

  Naaaaked!

  My eyes didn’t miss a beat. This amused him as he ran his fingers through his wet hair as if trying to seduce me with his good looks. “Well, I’m one frigid man. That hot tub is calling my body. All of it.”

  I’m quite sure my mouth was hanging so wide, I looked like a fly trap.

  “Right away, sir. Do you wish to lean on me for support?” Mr. Fox inquired.

  Suddenly Bradley’s eyes went mischievous as he gazed through the sitting room and out to the lit glowing waters. In an instant, he dropped his robe, reached for his crutches and proceeded to the double doors as I stood watching, completely frozen, dumbfounded, as that muscular body of his, on crutches, limped out to the waters completely naked.

  No one said a thing. Mr. Fox went right away to open the door for him.

  All I could do was stare.

  Stare with disbelief in my eyes and a lust that stirred my entire body.

  I barely heard myself say it, but I said it.

  “Would you like some company?”

  Chapter Eight

  Bradley

  I tried to play it off like it didn’t’ matter, like it didn’t mean anything that the very girl who haunted my dreams and always hung around the crevices of my heart, the very girl who disappeared from my life, wanted to join me in not just hot bubbling waters set in a romantic backdrop of winter wonderland, but in an activity that promises one to be almost naked.

  I swallowed hard as my johnson tensed as if about to grow into a raging hard on. If I could just make it to those bubbling waters where steam and snowflakes could cover my intention.

  Oh, the smile was as big as the Grand Canyon etched across my face. She couldn’t see it, though. So I sounded as flat as possible. “Sure, why not.”

  The cold winter air slapped my senses into shape. The steam rose from the waters like a natural hot geyser. The contrasting temperatures made the transitioning into the water a slow one.

  So I took even more time.

  My ankle hurt like hell, but there was nothing that could shake off the smile from my face.

  “Sir, uh, we have a few swimsuits from Clarissa if you wish, I could fetch one for her.” Eh, I didn’t care about Fox seeing my naked body. He’d seen so much in this home, nothing fazed him.

  I nodded and kept my eyes closed.

  “Excellent. Thank you.”

  Clarissa, my bitchy ex girlfriend who could stand to eat a hundred cheeseburgers. She didn’t even hold a candle to Kate’s voluptuous body that every guy in the world would kill to have for one night.

  My dick hardened thinking about how no doubt Kate’s doubled breasts would spill out of the top. Oh this was perfect, indeed.

  With my eyes shut, I couldn’t help but think back to the memory etched in my mind like a cow marker, blazed into the skin.

  Her naked body.

  Damn.

  The door swung open and I turned around quicker than I meant to, like a dog hearing its owner’s whistle. It was Mr. Fox with a tray of our drinks and bucket of ice for my ankle.

  I sipped the warm beverage as it brought heat to my weak limbs.

  Finally, the moment I had been waiting for arrived. And there was no hiding my hard-on.

  Normally, I would want whomever I was with to see it. It was a turn-on to them. But with her, it was different.

  Kate

  I undressed as my hands shook. My heart pounded in my ears and dashed down between my legs like a lightning bolt. Right now, tonight, hell, this morning, Bradley wasn’t just my stepbrother.

  Who was I kidding? He really wasn’t anymore.

  He was my school girl crush, who was now naked in a hot tub in winter wonderland, with a backdrop of luxury that would tempt and taunt any other girl like the most delicious sin.

  The air was freezing and I shook as I draped the robe over a chair.

  “Fu…fuck. Fuck. Fuck…that’s hot.” I could only get my ankles in the water. The frigid air nipped my skin and I was caught between a hot and very cold place.

  Well, I needed to do something because everything hurt all at once.

  I lowered myself into the waters unaware and uncaring of the moans and sighs the temperature brought naturally to my vocals.

  I swear his eyes grew twice as big.

  “So, you wanted to join me, huh?” He asked as he handed my drink towards me. It was just champagne, sans orange juice. “No juice?”

  “Mr. Fox is trying to get you drunk, it seems.”

  “Mr. Fox? Are you sure?”

  “I may have tossed the OJ far, far away.”

  “Hm…” OJ or no OJ, I needed the liquid courage to accomplish this task. There was one thing I couldn’t stop thinking about, his naked body so close to mine.

  He sat a few inches from me. His back was to the ocean, my back to the property.

  He reached for his phone and swiped at it. Suddenly the privacy shades descended and I felt a dangerous thrill surge through me.

  “Now we’re alone.”

  “Do…do they come out here unannounced?” I twirled a tendril of hair around my finger, nervous. But it made me look menacing, I knew. I regretted asking the question as soon as I asked.

  “Why? You planning on going nude as well?” He winked.

  “I…uh, was just…asking. Stupid, I know.”

  He grabbed the Cristal out of the ice and topped my flute.

  “You could probably leave it out of the ice and it would be just fine, with this crazy cold.” I laughed lightly.

  He nodded, all the while his green eyes turned a liquid jade, and I swear he could have morphed into some shape-shifting creature with eyes like that.

  Right. Well, now or never, before my desire and his good looks ravage me just like a wild animal.

  “Um…Bradley…I…know a lot of time distanced us as a family. I used the incident as a catalyst and reason to stay away, you should know. I wasn’t comfortable with the Rainshaw lifestyle.” I found myself mumbling, nervous, not making any sort of sense. Shit. I’m a fucking writer and I can’t even articulate right with a man like that sitting naked surrounded by all that steam, with small snowflakes teasing his strong muscles before dripping down his chiseled chest, mixing with his own glistening sweat that I bet tastes so salty and delicious. And down it all went below to the same bubbling waters we shared.

  “Baby, I knew that.”

  Baby.

  That term of endearment heated my body like an icicle dropped into the middle of bubbling waters in Death Valley. I was silly putty.

  NO, no, it’s the alcohol. Blame it on the alcohol! my ego shouted at me like a small devil with a pitchfork on my right shoulder. But I knew it wasn’t telling the truth. There is no way ever undoing your childhood crush that you literally saw every night before you went to sleep because he smiled at you from your ceiling. There was no way you could shut out that obsession. Because it wa
s an obsession! Just like any girls in the 70s would literally die to sleep with a Beatle, or any girl in the 60s with Elvis, Bradley was mine. And then he was really mine as family. Maybe he could really be mine tonight…

  “Maybe it was a good thing you went away.” His statement shook me out of my thoughts.

  I shook my head from my crazy rabbit trails in my head. My heart pounded in my ears as the heat and dizzying intoxication of the sexiness of him, the magic of the moment, the surrealness of the hour, left me feeling like I was on the craziest roller coaster ride at Six Flags. A good thing?

  I could feel the perplexed emotion on my face as my chin tilted. His eyes lasered in on the movement as he clenched his jaw, as if he fought from doing something.

  Doing something to me.

  Please do it.

  Alas, he slid closer to me and I held my breath. Please pin me against the side, make me a prisoner to your body. I’ll do anything. I want you. My insides screamed. Yet on the outside I knew it, I looked like a scared little kitten with doe eyes.

  “Because of this.”

  His strong hand reached for my dainty, fairy hand and placed it across it.

  Fucking it!

  Oh.My.Freaking.God. It was huge. And he was hard. For me.

  I felt him throbbing and stiff for me.

  My breath quickened and my nipples hardened so tight I could swear the little tie on my back come loose a bit.

  Chapter Nine

  Bradley

  I had to do it. It was just a tie and I just distracted her with my cock. It was delicious the way her innocent, weak hand wrapped around my shaft. The shock in her eyes, priceless. Just a small movement with my fingers to unravel her swimsuit strings, a bit. She’d never know. Her eyes sought the privacy shades and she began to pull her hand away, but my hand wrapped around hers once more, keeping her firm around me.

  Kate

  Feeling shy, I began to pull my hand away from him but he didn’t miss a beat. He kept my hand on him. I could feel him throbbing.

  “This is what you do to me, did to me.”

  Oh good Lord. Pools of heat shot down my body like electricity and I swear my nipples felt so hard they hurt. So hard that…oh my God.

  My top fell off and floated in the water before diving down in the water to its own adventures. Were my nipples that hard? Was I so in need of him my back arched and somehow…

  The little triangles floated away before disappearing like a smiling and purring mischievous Cheshire cat. It flirted with the edge of the water before diving down past the bubbles to its own adventures like a little trickster fox. Shivers covered my upper body like a small little village of pleasure mountains. Brave snowflakes with the aid of the wind found their way under the covered terrace to kiss my searing skin, but there was one feeling that sent me over the edge.

  His tender, wet lips across my shoulder.

  They felt as soft as satin, but juicy and wet enough to reveal a slow, purposely teasing kiss, the trail of a tongue. Such trailing of small circles, made my pussy clench so hard, I swore I moaned in hot erotic pain. That slow circle teased me. He knew exactly what he was doing. Exactly. I held my breath as a flood of heat floated my way like a heat wave until his soft whisper registered in my eardrums. “There’s so many things I want to do to you right now.”

  The confession of a lifetime. Words tried to form in my larynx. Words tried to form against my synapses. English? Spanish? Hell, just any sort of voice to signify hell yes, but nothing escaped because his teeth lightly bit my ear and I was seconds away from having to straddle him right there in the water.

  Bradley

  I had her in my hands. I could tell. Oh, I could tell I had her desire bubbling like these waters. Flashes of scenes so hot sizzled across the movie screen in my dirty mind, of all the wicked things I could to do to her. I could lick her dry until she quivered and begged me to stop.

  I could do that right here in the bubbles, as the cold teases her and makes her feel everything.

  Or I could take her back to my room, the very room where I fantasized about her a thousand times. I could tie her up and make her my prisoner.

  I’m a man without very much patience. I’d waited this long for so many years for her to even speak to me. I wanted to be a gentleman, but I’m a man. In hot need for her fucking body and that sweet pussy she’d teased me with all these years.

  That wicked video was imprinted in my memory like my very own name and social security number.

  The way her blossoming breasts fell so naturally. The perfect shape and perfect size. All natural.

  Her flat stomach and curvy hips. The way she sounded.

  Damn.

  I swear my cock just grew harder, about to explode at the thought that she was a mere second or so away from this; her naked breasts fell heavily as I teased her with the light trailing of my tongue across her shoulders.

  Well, she hadn’t seen anything of what was possible. Of how I could tease and taunt her clit so slowly as her hips bucked, while she’s all mine. I wanted to see her do that.

  I wanted her to beg and scream my name to stop, that she couldn’t take any more gut-wrenching, body-filling pleasure.

  But then I remembered something as I lightly raked my fingers through her hair and swept them over her shoulder to be bare, lightly teasing her once more with my lips and tasting the salt of her skin. Something very important I once learned of the female body—a woman is like a tea kettle that needs to be warmed up to boiling. Before they explode. Judging by her heightened breaths and soft moans, and the beads of sweat that dressed her shoulders, well, this was about to be a hell of a shrill.

  Slow…And oh, words. Dirty words. Blush-worthy descriptive words. But most importantly, make things veeeeery slow.

  Chapter Ten

  Kate

  “I love to sweat. It’s so good for you. Ahhhh…” He moaned in utter relaxation.

  Huh? What the fuck did he just say? Wait, what? My eyes snapped open like an unpleasant 5 AM wake-up call from a bucket of cold water splashing my face as he laid his head back.

  You uh…were just like, kissing my shoulder. So lightly. And making me all hot and so wet as you bit my earlobe.

  I immediately felt his dizzying absence as if a draft blew my way; the holy of holies had just left my side and I wanted more. I inhaled so slowly before exhaling, trying to take all of this in. After all, I’d just literally felt his cock like seconds ago. Or was it a minute or two? Time was standing still.

  Feeling exposed and hazy all of the sudden, I lowered myself slowly just a bit in the waters to hide my hard nipples. More like sank like a deflated balloon. I let my own head fall lightly against the edge as my eyes took a small peek his way. His eyes were closed.

  “You taste so salty. You know what else I want to taste? That’s driving me fucking mad right now?”

  Oh shit.

  He finally opened his eyes and turned his shoulders a bit more toward me. I felt like an unknown weight tied to my body suddenly was freed and I was floating into the skies to meet the home of the snow.

  My insides flinched as I thought about how it would feel to be taken by one of the most beautiful men in the world.

  I bit my lip, letting the flesh slide between my teeth.

  His eyes studied my entire being as if I were a fascinating subject. Or a science experiment. I couldn’t tell. I mean, one thing was for certain, I certainly was not a Victoria’s Secret model like his ex girlfriend, or any of other Hollywood starlets he dated.

  It didn’t matter. This was just going to be like a hook-up, right? My last moment of glory before he and I went our separate ways as the estate was finalized and my mother moved on with her life? Right?

  He went to get library books. For me. A gesture that’s cost him a swollen ankle. Surely that means something. Something…

  Nervous but curious of what would happen next, I grabbed my flute and drank it quickly before setting it back down, emptying it. It was so surrea
l. Everything. And I didn’t know what to do or how to behave. Seduction wasn’t my thing. I felt like prey, a little rabbit in the hands of a skilled hunter. I didn’t mind to be skinned alive by him. All these built-up feelings and denial came flooding in like floodgates of Niagara Falls.

  The distance and time away was like an ironclad chastity belt over my feelings: safe, secure, and not one ounce of a chance of being in harm’s way.

  He held the key now and all possibility of safety went out the window.

  He didn’t miss a beat. As I mentioned, science experiment. And like that, he slid a bit across the marble underwater bench to reach for more champagne, a gesture that caused his face to contort a bit from the obvious pain he was in from his— oh shit, I totally forgot— his ankle!

  He could be missing a freaking leg and I wouldn’t have noticed. All I could think about was him being so hard. For me. I bit my lip again and quickly stammered in concern, “You, um, you should really ice that ankle. Isn’t, like, heat the worst for it?”

  “I’ll ice it in a bit.” He was smirking, damn it, as he suddenly stood up on one leg giving me a full good look at it, as if he knew exaaaaaaaactly what he was going. Oh, he freaking knew. Holy mother, Moses, Josephine, and Jesus on a twelve layered wedding cake, I…uh…all of the blood from my heart rushed to particular two places, my face surely beet red, and down below, just straight to my lady center like a one way ticket from New York to Paris but on the express jet plane at rocket speed.

  All the rumors of the celebrities and models, they notoriously talked about his member. Especially the drunken playmate on that stupid Howard Stern show. I know, I know…I wasn’t supposed to “know” any of this. But occasionally, I just knew and heard from friends in school who obviously didn’t know we were related. We don’t have the last name and, like I said, I acted like a way normal person unrelated to billions of dollars by marriage.