Bend (A Stepbrother Romance) (4 page)

Oh, man.
I was going to float right over the ledge and up into the night sky. He felt so good. My hands roamed up his back, my fingers curling against the taut muscles beneath his shirt. Keir’s tongue flickered over my lips again, then, with a low and quiet growl, his fingers tightened in my hair. He angled his mouth over mine and thrust his tongue inside.

All thoughts fled my mind. Heat flared in my belly and tingles spread through my limbs as he ravaged me with his kiss. Our tongues danced, dueled. His teeth scraped my bottom lip, hungry and wild.

And I melted. I gripped his biceps tight for support, loving how hard and thick they were. My fingers slid beneath the sleeves of his t-shirt and savored the feel of his hot skin.

He shifted and pressed into me, angling himself between my thighs as my ass pressed into the ledge behind me. His erection dug into my hip, harder than the concrete barrier. I moaned aloud at the feel of it. I couldn’t contain the sound; I didn’t want to. I wanted him to know what he was doing to me. I wanted him to keep going.

But he eased back. With a slow, soothing stroke of his tongue and regretful sigh, he broke away and stepped back, holding my shoulders so I couldn’t follow.

“I promised myself I’d take it slow with you tonight.”

“Tonight?” It wasn’t the question I wanted to ask but my brain was still hung up in a pleasurable fog.

“Mmhm.” He kissed me again, softly, slowly, holding his passion back this time. “Tomorrow, all bets are off.”

“Tomorrow,” I whispered.

“Yeah.” He stepped into me and crushed his hard-on against my belly with a ragged groan. I made a sound closer to a squawk. “You can have all of this. If you want it.”

Desperation clawed at my chest, but he was promising me tomorrow.
Don’t blow it.
“I want it.”

He chuckled. “Of course you do.”That sobered me up a little. “Are you making fun of me?” I meant to sound lighter, more teasing, but it came out too loud.

“Not at all,” Keir said, chuckling again. His lips brushed mine, deliberately distracting me. “I just mean that I’m gonna rock your fucking world.”

Oh, he’d already done that.

I released a shaky breath when he stepped away, but he was grinning down at me. “You’ve got a temper, don’t you?”

“No I don’t,” I mumbled, retrieving my camera from the ledge. I’d always been taught that having a temper was an unattractive quality for a girl.

Apparently, Keir didn’t agree. “Angry short girls are so fucking hot.”

“So I’m in a category of girls?” I teased, sliding the camera’s strap over my head. “Do you keep a spreadsheet?”

“Not at all.” He bit his lip, looked me up and down. “I have a feeling you’re in a category all your own.”

I turned to hide my blush and snapped a few pictures of the view to buy myself a minute to clear my thoughts.

Keir’s body heat warmed me as he stood close. His hands trailed up my hips and I sighed. “Why tomorrow?” I asked.
Why not tonight? Damn, why not right here, right now?
He had me under his spell.

“It’s more fun if we wait,” he said, gliding his fingers across my ribs. He kissed my neck. Then he spoke more seriously. “I want to keep talking to you.” That was a very un-rock-star attitude, if I’d ever heard one, but Keir had blown away everything that I’d thought I’d known. He was so much more. I’d had no idea. “I want to get you know you more. Before I own this.” One of his hands slid low between my legs and cupped me there, making me rise onto my toes. My hot, wet center clenched at the unexpected contact, and I gasped.

“Keir…”

He backed away just as quickly as he’d touched me, breaking contact yet again, leaving my head reeling. “You’re gonna make me break my promise to myself if we stay up here much longer. You don’t want to do that, do you?”

Yes.
“No.”

“Good.” He took my hand and led me back towards the door. “I’m getting out of here. You can stay, if you want, or my car can drop you off.”

“A ride would be nice, I said, trying to mask the disappointment in my voice. I wasn’t ready for the night to end.

“A ride
would
be nice.” Keir squeezed my ass.

I gave him a playful shove and pouted. “Hey. What was that about promises?”

“Tomorrow.” He winked.

There was something sweet about the fact that he wanted to wait, even if it was just one day. One
date
. I wanted to laugh. If any other guy said such a thing—“let’s wait”—I would have been absolutely thrilled.

But I’d never wanted another guy the way I wanted Keir. Not after that scorching kiss.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow.
I chanted it like a prayer the whole ride home, while he stroked my knee and hummed a tune that I didn’t recognize.

“New song?” I asked. He only nodded.

And then he let me leave. I could feel his eyes burning into my back—my backside, more specifically, as I walked up to the front door of my apartment building.

As soon as I was inside I began questioning my sanity. I clutched my camera to my chest and loosed a hysterical laugh. Had I just dreamed all of that? Did I really just spend an evening with Keir Sonder?

My racing heart and the dampness between my legs were evidence, but the contents of my camera would be much more concrete. I could upload them to my computer and re-live the whole night.

I won’t be getting to sleep anytime soon, anyway
. My veins still buzzed with electricity and energy. I could still feel his hands on me, still taste him on my lips.

And I’ve got tomorrow to look forward to
. He’d said that he’d own me, and I believed it. I could imagine it.

I could spend all night imagining it.

And soon it would all come true. It would all be real. How had I gotten so lucky?

I had to force myself to ignore the little voice that followed.
Too lucky. Something will go wrong
.

CHAPTER FOUR

Keir

I jerked off in the car as soon as she was gone. Luckily the partition was up, or else the driver would have gotten an unwanted eyeful.

And again the next morning, after dreaming some filthy dreams that fled my memory as soon as I woke. I knew they’d involved her, though—I could clearly remember the colors of her eyes filling my world while I slept.

I hadn’t been excited about a girl in a long time. At least, not beyond the prospect of fucking them. But thinking about Cadence made me smile, and not just because of all the things I wanted to do to her.
Maybe there’s something to this waiting thing.

My publicist was less than thrilled at the news about Cadence taking Kelly’s place. “Who exactly am I supposed to tell people that she is?” she asked over the phone the next morning. Sloane was even less of a morning person than I was, but the earlier I gave her the info she needed for her little press kits, the better.

“She’s an aspiring photographer,” I said, “That’s all. College grad. Add something crass, say that she’ll be taking all my dick pics going forward.”

“For fuck’s sake, Keir,” she sighed, and I chuckled. “We planned for you to be with Kelly until the end of the tour, you know.”

“Can we just skip ahead to the part where we forget that Kelly exists?” I didn’t want to talk about her or even think about her anymore.

“Why, did she hurt your feelings, Keir?” Sloane teased. I cursed back at her, because there was a little truth there. Kelly, Mandy before her, Charlotte before that, they were all sweet smiles and girlish laughs until they wanted something. Until they revealed what they were truly after with me.

And I was dumb enough to believe they’d be different. Every fucking time.

That was one of the drawbacks of being rich and famous. Fake people flocked to you. I had a hard time telling who was real anymore, and I’d been burned too many times because of it.

“What did you think I wanted, Keir?”
My last conversation with Kelly still echoed in my head.
“This is about our name. Our image. I’m pimping you out to my Instagram followers, so why the hell haven’t you brought me onstage yet?”

I thought she wanted to hang out, drink, smoke, fuck, party, talk about dumb shit until the sun came up. I thought she might actually want to have fun.

Joke's on me, I guess.
She and all the others had an agenda. They didn’t want me, they just wanted who I was.

And who the fuck am I?
I hung up on Sloane without saying goodbye. We’d talk again at least four times before the event that night so I didn’t feel like I needed to be polite. She never was.

I flipped through my emails and my missed text messages while I lounged on the white couch of my expensive hotel suite. It had a great view but I wasn’t interested in it now, in the light of day. Alone.

Half my texts were just nasty messages from Kelly, each one angrier as time lapsed.

You bastard, we had important plans [Sat 01:15]

I knew we should have drawn up a contract [Sat 01:43]

I’ll be calling that bitch publicist of yours [Sat 02:24]

Who the fuck is the new girl??? Already? [Sat 03:02]

The hell?
How did she know? She hadn’t been at the lounge. No one would have let her in. Did she have a source amongst my crew? Some poor young guy who would do anything for a pretty face with a pair of big tits?

Probably. I was just as dumb when I was just starting out my musical career.

That’s enough time wasted.
I deleted Kelly’s messages and number, then sent Cadence’s address to Sloane with instructions to send a stylist and a car. That at least made me smile—imagining her getting all done up celebrity-style. I wasn’t sure if she’d love it or hate it. It didn’t matter. The night was looking promising now that she was my date instead of Kelly.

I groaned as I stood and stretched, popping joints in my spine. There was a long day ahead of me, despite not having a concert that night. There was a radio promotion and ticket giveaway, a quickie rehearsal with the band, then getting briefed and getting ready for the night’s big event… and I was already abuzz with excitement. I had an evening with a pretty, and seemingly sane, girl.

I was untouchable. Nothing could go wrong.

═ ♪ ♫ ♪ ═

“She
what?!
”I was sharing the limo with Sloane on my way to the charity dinner. She was schooling me on what exactly ALS was and who exactly started the “Songs of Healing for ALS” charity when her phone rang.

“It’s your most recent ex,” she’d said, rolling her eyes. I tried to discourage her from picking up at all but she ignored me.

The “she what” screech soon followed.

Sloane glared at me through the rest of her clipped conversation, then folded her hands and her phone into her lap after hanging up.

She took a deep breath. Then another. One strand of hair fell loose from the perfectly tight bun on her head.
What did I do wrong now?

“Do you have any clue who your new girl works for?” she asked.

I shrugged. “No. Why?”

“You didn’t think how maybe that sort of information might be important?”

I hadn’t. “Are you gonna tell me what the fuck Kelly said, or not?”

“Apparently.” The veins in Sloane’s neck tensed as she spoke. “Apparently, this Cadence Ryan is employed by
Snap Sparkle Pop
.”

It was like a short circuit in my brain. For a brief flash, nothing Sloane just said made any sense. “Cadence works for a gossip blog?” I asked as numbness spread in my chest. Fuck, even Cadence was after something? Had I judged her so poorly? I shook my head. “Wait, why the fuck does Kelly know this?”

Sloane shrugged. “She’s pissed, so she snooped.”

“Well, thanks for discouraging her,” I snarled.

She started to dial on her phone. “I’ll call that girl’s driver and turn him around.”

“No!” I snatched the phone away. Even knowing what Cadence’s agenda was, I still wanted to see her. I wanted to ask her right to her face,
what the fuck?
“It’s already set up,” I said, my mind racing. “Maybe we can spin this to our advantage.”

“Oh?” Sloane raised an eyebrow. “Are you doing my job, now?”

I narrowed my eyes. “You do work for me.”

“I work for your manager.” Bringing my father into it was a slap in the face. I had to let it slide or risk getting caught up in that shit-storm of an argument for the rest of the tour. Again.

“Tell me how to spin it, then.”

A thoughtful look settled over her face. Good. That meant I was getting my way. As if I’d have tolerated anything else. “What did you give her last night?”

“She snapped a few shots of the breakup,” I said.

Her eyes went wide, and a familiar wicked grin spread across her face. “I’m sure you’d love to make Kelly look bad.”