Stepbrother Fighter: A Love in Steps Standalone Novel

by Rachel Angel

  “It takes a lot to shock me, but here I am, shocked,” I said, trying to sound light hearted, but it was an emotionally heavy moment, almost like I was lusting after a third man, making it Pedro, Ian, and The Masked Missile. Yet two were the same, kind of—or was the MMA guy Ian’s alter ego?

  “I had a feeling that I’d find you here,” he said.

  “How?” I asked.

  “I know how determined you are and there was some publicity for this event,” Ian said.

  “Of course,” I said, just staring at him, all interview questions out the window.

  “Ana, I can’t get you out of my mind. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I want you so badly, Ana, I want to be the one to have you in my life, always. We’re so good together, you know it. I can tell you feel it, too.”

  His words snapped me back to reality. I had to show some resistance, because I wasn’t sure where my thoughts were coming from. It scared me. “Ian, it’s been a long time since we were together, and…”

  He put his finger up to my lips and it instantly hushed me. “Ana, our parents aren’t married to each other anymore. We’re not related in any way, but we are drawn to each other in a huge way, unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. I’ve always loved you and I tried to put it out of my mind, but when I saw you at the airport, it dragged me right back in. If you tell me that you don’t have any feelings for me other than friendship, I’ll walk away.”

  “I do have feelings for you, Ian. I’m not sure I understand them, but I haven’t completely forgiven you for just abandoning me. It made me doubt my instincts when it came to love. It made me think I was like my dad in that way.”

  Ian took both my hands in his as he looked earnestly into my eyes. “I’d do whatever it takes with my whole heart and all my energy to show you that I’m sorry; I’m not the guy I was back then. I’ve changed and matured. Don’t you see it?”

  I just nodded my head yes.

  “I crave you, Ana. I’ve never stopped loving you, despite the distance and thinking I’d never see you again. I thought my one chance passed me by, and that fate had just wanted to get me by having it happen when I was so young. But everyone I’ve ever dated is someone who isn’t right for me. They pale in comparison to you and never fill the void I have. Just one second around you, and I felt more full of life than I have since those days in Hawaii. Please tell me that you feel this, too, that Pedro is someone who you’re trying to find to fill that gap, but he doesn’t.”

  How did I go about answering this? It deserved honesty, too. If I was going to resolve this situation I had to be forthright. From there, the chips would fall where they were destined to. “I’m comfortable with Pedro, we get along well and things click. The other morning, he proposed to me, and his answer is due.”

  “Do you love him?” Ian asked. “Do you want to spend your life with him? Does he make you heart melt, make you crazy with love that you’re willing to go against everything, against the odds for it?”

  “I don’t know, Ian, but…”

  Again, Ian cut my words off, but this time it was with a kiss that felt as necessary for his survival as a heartbeat was. It was hard. It was gentle. It was all focused toward me and what his feelings were. There was nothing held back, which was utterly wild and romantic. Raw and aggressive energy that was completely honest and revealing.

  I melted into him, loving the way we became one and as his lips traveled to my neck, forcing me to sigh and release, “Oh, Ian,” like it was my very soul talking.

  “Don’t marry him if you have any doubts about him, Ana,” he said in my ear.

  Chapter 18

  Ian’s body was so close to mine and I felt like I was a prisoner, screaming to be freed but knowing where I’d go if I was. How far would I go? Was this really what I wanted? And the hurt…Ian had abandoned me, in a way, at least that’s how it felt, could I forget that and what may bring me a wonderful future? I needed to find out what my feelings were. It wasn’t fair to Pedro to keep him waiting if my feelings for him was not the same as his. That wasn’t me, and I expected more of myself.

  “Ian, I’d better go,” I finally said. I put my hands in between us to create distance and tried to talk with conviction, but I felt how weak my words were. They were practically begging for him to beg me to stay right there, in that hallway. There was no way to cover this up or blow it off—unfortunately.

  “Don’t go, Ana. I know how you feel about Pedro. You can’t marry him and you know that in your heart.”

  I looked at Ian suspiciously. “How would you know that?” I asked.

  “Your emails,” he answered. He looked embarrassed and guilty and nervous.

  I felt absolutely shocked and confused. “What do you mean?”

  “All your emails over the years, even up until a few days ago,” he said.

  “You saw those?” I asked incredulously. Ever since Hawaii, my emails to Ian had been like my journal, my way to release my thoughts and send them off into a place that would never be answered. Yet, he’d read them, but he never responded. Should I be pissed about that, or relieved that he knew what was happening in my heart? I had no idea.

  Ian took my silence as a time to share with me some of the most intimate things that I’d written in those virtual messages that I thought were being delivered to some virtual god somewhere that may guide me or help me. “Pedro is ideal in every way, but my heart, my heart still is connected to the past and the love I lost… They say that it is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. If that’s true, why does my heart hurt so bad that it often feels as raw as it did that day so long ago… When I’m with Pedro, I’m taken to the stars, but I fear that the fuel is the memory of someone else.”

  I stared at Ian, feeling like the wind was knocked out of me. He’d memorized those things and they were my most vulnerable moments, revealed and laid out before me like he was performing a magic trick. Only this was no trick, it was real and he’d called me out on what was going on in my heart. Why was it so easy to write it and so hard to admit it out loud?

  “Ana, I am that other guy you mention, right?” Ian asked, pressing in to me again. I felt like my legs were going to give out on me. It reminded me of how people see a ghost from the past and almost collapse—that was me in this moment, and it was so raw and intense and scary. But I couldn’t run. And those piercing blue eyes taking me in through that mask, it drew me in.

  Then the defiant child inside of me set in and I rebelled, like a wild horse bucking its hind legs up high in the air when someone tried to break it. “I thought I was writing those to no one, like a journal to help me, you had no right to read them, Ian. You have no right to say anything, because you never answered and allowed me to feel all that pain.”

  “I’ve read all of them and no matter how hard I tried to protect you by putting you out of my mind, I never could. The pain has been intense. I only did it for you,” Ian said.

  “That is such a bunch of shit, Ian. You knew I wanted to hear back from you and that I was desperate to, but you ignored me. I didn’t count and if you couldn’t sense my pain in those emails, then well…”

  I felt a few tears start to fall, so anguished by all of the confliction that I was facing. This was a situation in which someone had to lose and I was the only one who could make that call. I didn’t want to hurt anyone, but I didn’t want to make the wrong choice. What did I know about love when I was eighteen? Honestly, just as much as I knew about it now that I was in my mid-twenties!

  “Come sit down,” Ian said tenderly. He took my hand and guided me to a couch that was there in the hallway, like he was the herder and I was his sheep.

  Once we sat down, he said, “Let me explain.”

  I could only nod my head as I looked at him, caught up in his penetrating gaze and eager to figure out the message in his eyes compared to the one that was about to flow from his mouth.

  “I’ve never been able to forget you. I’ve followed your career and ev
erything, through your emails and through television. You’re easy to find everywhere, you know. And I can tell that Pedro loves you and you care for him, Ana, so I’ve tried to stay away. You deserve the best of everything and although I want you so badly and love you so much that it consumes me, I can only step aside, lest I persuade you to make a wrong choice. I have one question for you, though. Why did you continue to email me all those years?”

  “Habit, need, and because ever since I met you, Ian, you were the one and only person I could pour out my heart to and tell what I was feeling without being embarrassed or feeling judged. You really cared and you didn’t look down on me or try to manipulate me. You were just there, trying to understand and trying to help. It was because of you that I had the confidence to pursue everything I have in my life, unapologetically. Without you, I wouldn’t be who I am today.”

  Ian’s face dropped. “You’re not ashamed of me?”

  “Why would I feel that way?” I asked. “Is there something you haven’t told me?”

  “No, nothing,” Ian said. “But with a mother like mine.”

  “Well, she was kind of my mother for awhile, too, sorta, I guess,” I mumbled. The entire step parent was something that I never did grasp, and neither did Ian. It was just something else we had in common.

  Ian laughed. “At least you could break away from her, divorce her.”

  “She wasn’t that bad—I barely ever saw her. She didn’t have much of a chance to do anything bad to me,” I countered. “Over the years, I’ve come to realize that she was just desperate. And when people are desperate, they do unwise things.”

  “Have you ever been in that situation? Desperate enough that you would do something that you know you shouldn’t? But you do it anyway.” Ian looked at me and there was such tenderness in the way he asked the question that I immediately felt as secure confiding in him, just as I had the emails to him, despite never believing they’d been received or read.

  “I have,” I said. “When I lost you, Ian, I lost the man I loved and also my best friend. I confided everything in you and your advice guided me through all the crazy things that seemed to always pop up in my life, especially since I was in the public eye. Having you there helped me to be, well, less pent up, I guess. I knew that what I shared with you would be kept private and not subject to some tabloid wanting to spread lies about me.”

  “So you didn’t have an alien’s baby that one year?” Ian asked.

  I laughed, thankful for the stress relief and said, “Nope. Wisdom teeth got pulled during that one.”

  “Good to know,” he said, rubbing my back softly. It felt so good and I breathed in deeply. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized how much I was holding my breath. “You okay, Ana?”

  “You know, I had such a hard time adjusting after the Hawaii thing and not hearing back from you. I even went to England for school, just to get away. But the pain never left. Sadly, I made some poor choices and filled it with some random guys, but none of them did anything to fill it.”

  “Has Pedro filled it?” Ian asked.

  “If you’ve read my emails, you know the answer to that,” I said, not wanting to say it out loud. I still had a proposal to answer to, after all.

  “I’ve always been with you, Ana,” Ian said, “watching you from afar, keeping tabs on you. I would’ve broken my vow to not see you if I knew you were in any trouble or pain. I feel so stupid; I just had no idea how deep it was.”

  I watched him as he stood up and walked over to the other side of the hallway, directly across from me, and leaned against the wall. He folded his arms and bit his lower lip thoughtfully and then continued. “I know you have your issues with Pedro, and I know you will do the right thing with him, so for now, I’ll just step out of your way and respect your relationship with him. I’ll be The Masked Missile, and you can just interview me for your story.”

  “Oh,” I said. I felt disappointment, but also relief. Ian was such a gentleman and so much stronger than I felt. I wished I could control these crazy intense emotions inside of me, but all they seemed to do was trip me up and make me say one thing, think something else, and then do an entirely different thing yet. I felt unstable, but when I looked at Ian, I saw a source of stability to be inspired by, but more than that, I saw a man who completed the equation.

  I put my head down, not wanting to look at Ian, thinking about what I had to do. “I have to tell Pedro face to face—as soon as he gets here tomorrow morning,” I said. It was to me, mostly, but I felt that saying it out loud would make it be more important—reduce my chances of chickening out about it. If I couldn’t stop loving Ian as more than a friend, I couldn’t marry Pedro. Then I looked up and Ian was gone. There I was all alone, talking to myself, and he was gone. As it turned out, it was not the night for an interview. I’d uncovered a scoop, alright, but it was about me, not The Masked Missile.

  Chapter 19

  So many bizarre reactions were racing through my mind, each a blur in its own way, but still clear enough that I knew what had to happen. It was time to just be done with all of this. I was walking out to my car and my phone buzzed. It was Ian. I knew the number now.

  I looked down and read: See you at my place tomorrow morning at 10. I’ll give you an interview like has never been granted before from The Masked Missile.

  Well, that was a side benefit and one that I was eager for. Ian was The Masked Missile—it didn’t get any wilder than that. I typed back: I won’t miss it.

  There was a pause with the “typing” message up and I waited in eager anticipation, wondering what Ian was going to say next.

  Just then, another message came through. I looked down. It was Pedro. His message read: Surprise. I’m here early and at your place, cooking and waiting to feast on you, my beautiful Ana.

  He was there already! He’d just ignored me and I wanted to be pissed, but I was mostly nervous about my emotional state. Okay, now my nerves were frayed. I quickly typed back: You don’t need to fix dinner. Let’s go out and enjoy some of the 5 star dining Vegas is known for.

  Then Ian’s message popped through: I’ll be curious to see what’s changed in your life since I saw you last, as well. I do know this. If we were meant to be, our interview will be just the start.

  I smiled, loving his direct manner. It gave me confidence. I replied: You’ll know. He came to town tonight.

  Ian: Good.

  Then Pedro was there again: Whatever you wish, my love.

  And then Ian was back: I’ll never step on another man’s shoes. If we’re together, it needs to be with a clear conscience on both our parts.

  My head was spinning and I realized that I’d stopped walking on the sidewalk, making all the people meandering about have to walk around me. These men were distracting. I quickly texted each back and ended the stream.

  A half hour later, I was walking into my apartment and greeted by Pedro, who was wearing a smile and looking every bit as gorgeous as he had the first day he made his presence known in my life. He really was intoxicatingly beautiful, and refined. My mind couldn’t help but contrast him to Ian, who was rugged, intense, and macho—really macho. This made me feel bad. Maybe I really loved Ian, and maybe I didn’t. His presence was confusing as hell to me. And Pedro, the way I always responded to him meant something, right? If I could just give myself permission to explore it, I might find that he was the one.

  “Hello beautiful,” Pedro said. He walked right up to me and picked me up, nuzzling into my neck with his hot breath and tender kisses, and I couldn’t deny the physical response I felt to him. “I know you want to go out to eat, but I need an appetizer first.”

  He carried me right to the bedroom and I didn’t resist, wanting to experience the complete selflessness of the way he loved me…to be selfish just one more time, or maybe for a long time. Suddenly telling him what was going on seemed like the dumbest idea in the world.

  Gently placing me on my bed, he didn’t waste a minute running his smooth hands
down my body, sliding off my stockings and unbuttoning my blouse and sliding my skirt off, leaving me lying there, only wearing my black lace bra and thong panties. I saw him stare at me with appreciation, his pants bulging from the hard-on that was rapidly forming inside of them, and then he started to remove his clothes, watching me the entire time. I was mesmerized by him and couldn’t stop watching him, either.

  And then he was naked, his clothes laying over the back of the chair in the corner of the bedroom, and smiling at me with eager anticipation as he released the clasp on my bra and then slid down my thong panties, brushing his tongue on me as he went by. It sent an instant response through my entire body and I was drawn to the reminder of how amazing Pedro made me feel at the most unexpected times.

  Then he began to nibble on my inner thighs, his fingers sliding in and out of me, making me wetter as my anticipation grew. He knew every spot to touch and how to maximize every move his lips and fingers made against my flesh, drawing me into this place that demanded him sexually.

  “Pedro,” I moaned, completely absorbed in the bliss. I demanded that my inner conscience close down my thoughts so I could appreciate this moment—after all, he was giving it to me freely. I should be able to accept it without worry.

  “I couldn’t wait to have you,” he said, kissing me. “It’s been torture since I left, not knowing your answer, not feeling your body underneath mine.”

  I couldn’t think of a cohesive sentence of any sort to respond with so I just let Pedro have his way with me, doing what he wanted and taking me in. He was hot and romantic at that moment, tender and caring and completely consumed with me. I knew he was making love and there was no misconstruing it. There was nothing kinky or loud or aggressive, just us two connecting. My body grew increasingly excited and ready and when Pedro plunge into me.