by Lane Hart
* * *
Winston will do anything it takes to earn Zoe’s forgiveness. And this time, he isn’t going to let her leave without putting up a fight.
Chapter One
Winston Prescott
* * *
Ten years ago…
* * *
“Tell Zoe you changed your mind. Tell her she can’t leave!” I shout at Martin Donahue when I barge into his office in a panic Saturday morning. He’s always spoiled his daughter because her mother died when she was a baby, but this is going way too far.
“I wish it were that easy.” He pushes his laptop away from him to lean back in his desk chair. “But Zoe’s eighteen now, and I can either let her go or have her resent me for the rest of her life for missing this opportunity.”
“At least she would be safe,” I mutter. “Who’s going to look out for her when she’s flying all around the world?”
“It’s sweet of you to worry so much about your stepsister. Really, it is,” he remarks.
“Someone needs to!”
“Winston, you know I love Zoe more than anyone, more than your own mother! But sometimes this is what you have to do when you love someone—you support them when they follow their dreams, even when it hurts.”
“I don’t like it,” I tell him through gritted teeth.
“Neither do I!” he says with a chuckle.
“She should be going to college, not traveling the world with some fucking modeling competition.”
For the past two years, I’ve been waiting for this day, for Zoe to graduate high school and leave the city—hopefully the state—to go to school, far enough away that I stop thinking about her and all the dirty things I obsess about doing to her. She’s constantly tempting me with her too-sexy outfits and bikinis around the pool. I had to move out of the house when she turned sixteen because it was too much. She was too much.
But every day after school, she still stops by the shop where I work to flirt with the other mechanics, flaunting what I want but can never have, right in front of my face. Her father would castrate me if I ever laid one of my dirty hands on her, and I owe him everything for saving my mother five years ago from her abusive husband.
“College would be my preference as well,” Martin says. “Zoe, however, has decided that she wants to pursue a career in modeling. And she worked hard for this chance. Maybe when she returns in six months, she’ll have had enough of the fashion industry and finally go to college.”
“You think so?”
He laughs. “No, but one can hope.”
Fuck.
“Ah! Look at the time.” Martin stands up and grabs his suit jacket from the back of his chair. “We should get going. Her party starts soon, and she’ll give us hell if we’re late.”
“I’m not going,” I tell him.
“This your way of punishing her for leaving? She’ll never forgive you.”
If I had my way, I would punish her by bending her over and spanking her perfect ass until it was bright red and she agreed not to leave. Since I’m nearing my breaking point of doing just that, I plan to stay far, far away until her plane leaves tomorrow.
“I’ve got shit to do. I’m doing a total restoration on a sixty-nine Camaro, and the shop promised the client it would be finished next week,” I lie. I am doing the restoration, but there’s no due date for a job that requires finding rare parts. “I’ve wasted enough time coming by here.”
“Right,” he agrees. “Then I guess you should get going. I’ll tell Zoe you send your regrets.”
“Yeah, thanks,” I say before I stomp out of his office, angry at him—and her—for being idiots.
Zoe Donahue
* * *
“You are so freaking lucky!” Sonya gushes as she and my other friends from school gather around me at my graduation-slash-going away party.
“I can’t believe you get to travel the world this summer!” Mabel chimes in.
“And living all on your own!” Sonya adds.
“I won’t really be on my own,” I tell them absently while keeping an eye on the front door as guests come and go. There has been a steady flow of people, with the exception of the one person I wanted to see before I leave tomorrow morning. “There will be tons of other models competing too.”
All my life, I’ve loved fashion and longed to be one of the lucky women who gets to pose in gorgeous, designer dresses on the cover of magazines. I want to travel and take pictures in different countries, experience new places and cultures. And most of all, I want to be wanted, the object of men’s desires.
Which is pretty stupid since, no matter how hard I try, how flirty I am, or how provocative I dress, I’ve never been able to hold the attention of one particular man for more than a few brief seconds. He’s the opposite of the boys in high school who proudly show me their dicks and beg me to get naked for them. But then again, Winston is a man not a boy. At twenty-one, he’s obsessed with cars and motorcycles.
He’s also my stepbrother, and I want him more than anything, even my six-month all-expenses paid trip around the world or the modeling contract I could possibly win.
“Excuse me for a second,” I say to my friends before I slip away from them to find my father and stepmother, who are talking to one of our neighbors. “Have either of you seen Winston?”
“No, not today,” his mother answers before diving right back into her conversation about seaweed spa treatments or whatever.
“Dad?”
“Sorry, honey, but I spoke to Winston earlier and he said he couldn’t make it. Something about a Camaro restoration that couldn’t wait.”
Oh my god! Some stupid car is more important than saying goodbye to me before I leave for half a year? That jackass!
The next few hours of my party I spend silently stewing, pissed at my stepbrother and unable to enjoy myself.
How hard is it for him to show up and say a simple goodbye? What car repair couldn’t wait ten minutes for him to at least pretend like he cares?
Around ten o’clock, after my last guest leaves, I grab my phone and car keys, intent on finding out.
At the auto shop across town, the lights are on and there is a line of cars sitting out front, along with Winston’s Harley. But if I have to guess, he’s the only person inside at this hour.
Parking my Jeep, I get out and clomp toward the open bay door in my heels that are starting to hurt my feet after standing in them for hours. I’m used to the pain; it’s a small price to pay for fashion.
I hear a rock song first before the clang of metal tools. The usual scent of gasoline and oil hang heavily in the air. Strangely enough, I love the combination, probably because they remind me of him, and of afternoons hanging out around the shop watching him work while I talk his ear off about my day. He always pretends he barely hears me, and hardly ever says a word.
The shop is closed so he’s not expecting anyone tonight, especially me. When I step inside the open garage door, I take a few moments to drink in the half of his thick, muscular body sticking out from underneath the engine of the cherry red classic car he’s working on. I’ve always wanted to tug down the zipper of his navy coveralls to find out what he’s wearing underneath. Does he go commando? I like to think so in my fantasies.
“Guess this car is more important than my party!” I finally remark, loud enough to be heard over the music.
A tool clanks against the concrete and then Winston is rolling out from underneath the hood on his back, a swipe of grease over his brow and covering his big hands.
“Thought the party was for your friends,” he remarks, using as few words as possible. He stands up and heads over to turn down the volume on his stereo without even glancing in my direction.
“And you’re not my friend?” I ask.
“I’m your brother,” he remarks, grabbing up a black cloth to wipe his hands on it while avoiding looking at me.
“Stepbrother,” I correct, for the millionth time. “And why can’t you be both?�
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He doesn’t answer, not that I expected he would. Getting words out of him is like pulling teeth from a giant, grumpy grizzly bear.
“I thought you would at least come by the house to say goodbye.”
“Bye,” he grits out, as if the one single word is sufficient.
“Can I get a hug too, or is that too much to ask?”
Finally, Winston lifts his dark chocolate eyes that are the same color of his hair to me. They quickly sweep over my white spaghetti strap dress before they lower to the towel he’s still clutching in his fists.
“Can’t. I’ll ruin your dress,” he remarks.
Ruin my…? Is he serious? God, he makes me so furious! Since I won’t even be here but a few more hours, I gather my nerve and march right up to him. When only inches separate us, I do something I know is completely insane, but other than my lack of big boobs, I’m not self-conscious about my body. How could I be when I want to show it to the world as a model?
Reaching behind my back, I unzip my dress, then let it drop to the dirty garage floor, puddling around my heels.
“There. Problem solved. Now you can touch me and not worry about getting my dress dirty.”
Winston stares silently at me standing there before him in nothing but my white thong for so long, I start to grow insecure, especially when the colorful pictures on the wall behind him catch my eye—scantily dressed, gorgeous women, some topless as they lay provocatively across sports cars and straddle Harley motorcycles. My cheeks redden because they are some of the most sexually explicit images I’ve ever seen. And, they serve as another reminder that Winston is turned on by curvy, big-breasted women, not scrawny, eighteen-year-old girls like me who barely fill a B cup.
I’m about to slap my arm over my chest when Winston finally moves. His arms shoot out, grabbing me around the waist to spin me around and press my back against the cool metal work bench. I’m five-ten flat-footed, which means I’m almost as tall as him in my heels. The brush of his scruffy, unshaven jaw against my smooth cheek and my bare breasts pressed to his solid, muscular chest make my lower belly clench harder than usual whenever I’m around him. Which makes sense because I’ve never been this naked in front of him before.
Since his arms are still holding me to him, I throw mine around his neck.
“There. Was that so hard?” I ask.
“Have you lost your fucking mind? There are security cameras in here recording everything!” he grits out into my ear. “And the garage door is wide open!”
“I…I just wanted a hug goodbye,” I say sweetly as I inhale his usual salty scent from his neck—sweat from long hours of manual labor mixed with the woodsy oak from his body wash or aftershave. “I’ll miss you, even if you won’t miss me.”
“Who said I wouldn’t miss you?” he asks gruffly against my ear as his palms give my hips a harsh squeeze.
“I just assumed…” I trail off. So…he will miss me? And am I imagining it or are the pads of his thumbs easing underneath the front elastic waistband of my panties?
“You’re too young,” he grumbles.
“W-what?” I ask, because I’ve forgotten what we were talking about with his big body pinning mine to the table and his thumbs moving in circles that are heading lower.
“You’re too young for this shit.” Wait. Does he mean I’m too young for the modeling competition, or for something else entirely? “I don’t know what Martin’s thinking,” he mutters, making it clear he meant the competition.
“I’ve graduated and am legally an adult now,” I point out since he seems to think I’m still the same thirteen-year-old child I was when our parents first got married.
“You’ll get eaten alive,” Winston growls, his hard chest moving up and down faster and faster against my breasts with each of his heavy breaths, making my nipples harden. “Every man you meet will be thinking about how he can get to the sweet spot right between your long, gorgeous legs.”
His thumbs have definitely moved lower, so low he must be well aware of the fact I get Brazilian waxes.
Wait a second. Did he say he thinks my legs are gorgeous? I was so distracted by his damn thumbs. God, I wish he would just touch me lower. But I know he won’t. I’ve tried to seduce him for years, and this, today, having his thumbs in my panties, is more than I ever expected to receive. It’s still not enough, which is why I have no plans to stop anytime soon.
“Why do you care if I get eaten alive?” I ask. I ease my arms down from Winston’s neck until my fingers reach the front zipper of his coveralls. Slowly, I start pulling it down, hoping to distract him long enough to find out what’s underneath.
His hands freeze on my hips before he answers, “Because I’m your brother.”
“Stepbrother,” I correct him yet again while the zipper moves lower and lower, revealing a dusting of black chest hair. Just a little further and I get to the indentation of his abs, telling me he’s not wearing a shirt underneath. Now, let’s find out if he’s wearing pants…
“What are you…” Winston starts to say before he takes half a step back and looks down. “Fuck!”
At first, I think he’s pissed at me for undressing him, but then I follow his line of sight to my hip bones that are covered with black smudges from his hands. I don’t mind. In fact, I love seeing the evidence of every spot where he’s finally touched me.
“Hold on. I’ll clean you up,” he says before he removes his hands from me and takes a step back. He stops and looks down before cursing again when he realizes he’s stomped on my white dress that’s no longer very white.
“Great. Fucking great,” he mutters as he picks up the material between two fingers. “These stains will never come out.”
“I don’t care,” I tell him.
“Cover up while I go wash up and get some wet towels.” He presses the fabric to my chest, then hurries over to a nearby sink where he scrubs his hands with soap for several long minutes before he grabs a handful of paper towels. After he wets them under the faucet, he wrings them out and brings them over.
I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t for him to get on his knees before me with his coverall unzipped to his sexy belly button.
“Fuck, you drive me out of my goddamn mind.” I can’t tell if he means that in a good or bad way. Glancing up at me, he says, “Your panties are ruined too,” then places the cool damp cloth to the elastic band at my hip and scrubs it, causing me to shiver.
“I don’t care, I have plenty of other panties.”
“We could try to wash them both with Clorox. There’s a machine in the back.”
“Yeah, whatever,” I quickly agree.
“I’ll delete the surveillance video before anyone sees it,” he assures me, like I give a shit about the security cameras when his face is inches away from my pussy.
“Okay,” I reply, just to say something instead of standing frozen like a nervous statue.
I gasp when Winston’s fingers suddenly hook inside the band and tug my panties down my legs and over each of my heels so I’m standing in front of him, naked, other than the wrinkled dress pressed to my chest.
Before I can start to feel embarrassed, I realize Winston hasn’t yet moved because he’s still looking at me…intently.
Muttering another curse, he starts scrubbing roughly at my left hip then my right. A trickle of moisture from the towel runs down, so very close to my pussy.
“It’s not coming off,” he grumbles. And when he moves closer to rub harder, I can feel the heat from his breath right between my legs.
“Th-that’s okay,” I assure him.
“No, it’s not. Turn around,” he demands, so I do, presenting my bare bottom to him. Nothing happens for several seconds but then the rag is cleaning the small of my back where he first touched me to spin me around. Gradually though, Winston moves lower and lower to where I know he didn’t touch me with his hands, not that I’m complaining. I’m burning up all over and the towel is cool and refreshing until he s
wipes it down the crack of my ass, making my knees go so weak I have to brace one of my palms on the work bench.
I have no freaking clue what Winston is doing to me, or why, after years of barely looking at me or speaking to me, he is finally treating me like a woman. All I know is that I don’t ever want him to stop.
Chapter Two
Winston
* * *
I’ve always thought Zoe was beautiful, even when we first met.
I was sixteen but she was just a thirteen-year-old kid back then. I couldn’t ever put my finger on what it was about her that was so visually appealing right off the bat. Her face was just classically pretty. She’s the type of person who walks into a crowded room and everyone can’t help but look at her. I think part of her appeal was how she held her head high, stood tall, confident in herself and her above-average height, even back then. Zoe’s long, ash brown hair with a few blonde strands, always looks somewhere between windblown and perfect. Her swollen lips never stop smiling, like she’s afraid a camera may snap. And then there are her emerald green eyes, which are constantly sparkling whenever they look at me, like she knows all my innermost secrets so it’s futile for me to try to hide them from her. Keeping my hands off her for five years has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
Tonight, though, having her walk into the garage and take her dress off in front of me, she’s the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever seen. I can’t resist her any longer.
My first instinct was to cover her up and send her on her way before someone saw her here or she gave the security cameras a show.
But then, I couldn’t stop looking at her or touching her, which is exactly what she fucking wanted to happen when she pulled this stunt and then yanked the zipper down on my coveralls. Now I’m on my knees, rubbing at invisible grease stains on her ass, unable to stop my hand from moving lower.