FIERCED 2: A stepbrother Romance (2 page)

Chapter TWO

I know those boots.

They ignite a memory of fierce loathing I'll never forget as long as I live. They belong to my most despised nemesis. The man who has the ability to ruin my life every time his ugly big boots walk into it. I hate him more than ever and my pounding fists in his locked pectoral muscles are an attempt to make him fully aware of how deep my loathing runs. And my frustration explodes as my small knuckles against those ridges of rock are about as effective as beating my way out of a jail cell through a steel door.

Him standing there, an unmovable force of resistance only makes me madder. I whack my furious fists against his chest until they swell with bruising. I'm hurting no one but myself and certainly not making the tiniest dent in him which only propels my rage at this controlling hunk of man.

“Better?” he inquires casually when I finally turn away with my hands tucked into my armpits. Hiding my breath coming in ragged pants and the tears of impotent fury thrusting at my eyelids. I have never felt more helpless and impotent. It's like being a small child in an adult body. Although being beside Rocco, my body rages in violent swings between childish fury and something far more adult.

My breasts wipe the memory of their recent mauling and rise in thrilled anticipation I have no control over. The electricity of his presence dominates every particle of air in the room and every pore of my skin. Once I manage to get control of my stupid waterworks, I whirl back around to face him, hands on hips. The smug smile I met almost had me lash out at him all over again.

“What are you going to do with me?” I hiss. Having vented my physical wrath, it's now my mind's turn to get in on the action. A thousand questions whirr up in my mind, aside from the numerous plots hatching for revenge.

Rocco! What is he up to now? Is he the criminal I first suspected him of being? Not to be trusted.

If so, my father will discover I was right and he should have heeded my warnings instead of falling for Rocco's very questionable charms. Or what if Rocco has filthy, lewd ideas of finishing what we wrongly started in the broom cum storage closet at the film studios? Maybe he intends to force me as his woman and then pass me around to all his crew in turn.

My body refuses to reconcile the two vivid images. Obvious revulsion against the pig who manhandled me is overlaid with a tug deep in my core. I do not like how out of control my body is around my brand new brother.

“Answer me,” I snap. His superior smirk drives me insane. At least that's where I lay the blame for the physical reactions plundering my depths.

“I'm not going to do anything
with
you,” he says with the calm of a saint and a prick-proud smirk that makes me even more enraged. “Just taking you along for a ride.”

He turns to leave me there, beside the stinking hulk still passed out on the floor.

“Wait. What ride? Where are you going?” I'm ready to get on my knees and beg him not to leave me alone again with that disgusting animal.

“Rocco!”

He turns back with his cocky smile of triumph and my heart spikes.

“There you go again, calling my name. I heard you moaning when I lifted you from your bed. Sorry for interrupting by the way. I'd have loved to help you out there but the guys were waiting and I like to take my time in things that matter.”

“You'd be the last man on my lips. Ever.”

Total prick asshole.
The blood burns into my cheeks. So he did see me stroking my own folds. Did I murmur his name?

“Who was it then? Not that lily pussy I saved you from in the broom closet? No, I'd swear it was my rock hard body you were moaning for.”

“I'll swear too. Fuck you.”

“Harsh.”

“So are you planning to leave me alone to face more abuse?”

“Did he hurt you?” His smile falls away. The vehemence in his tone and suddenly thunderous face shock me. He hadn't intended that to happen or known anything about it. “Because when he comes around, I'll fucking kill him.”

Now I'm confused. Rocco abducts me then wants to protect me? The two don't go together. What the fuck is he up to?

“I'll live. What do you mean along for the ride? I'm not going to Africa.”

“You already
went
to Africa. I think you slept through the journey.”

“What- what are you talking about? Of course I didn't sleep-”

Then the memory of that somnolent rocking, so calming. We must have been on a ship. And now that I focused on something outside my anger, it makes sense – the fact that we're still on one. The metal walls and floor that echo hollow with every sound and glow with warmth from the heat beating down on the other side. The sense of being legless buoyant is still there, only without the rolling wave motion. We're floating but not cutting through surf and current, must be coming into a port.

Rocco's egotistical, know-it-all-I'm-always-right sneer curls up his lips. Those lips that – fuck, I have to get his pillow lips out of my imagination. Where they're busy caressing and probing every secret corner of my body. I force away the eager yearning to have them connect with mine. However, my nipples press hard through my thin sleepshirt and his eyes drop in tandem with a smile that says he's pleased with the response he's getting from my body.

“My Father is going to – he'll kill you, he'll, he'll, have you thrown in jail, deported even.”

“Uh, huh. I thought I already told you exactly how much I live in fear of daddy. And I'm pretty sure you don't believe he'd do any of that to his new favorite child.”

“You bastard.”

“I can't help what my mother told me. She was gushing about how much he's always wanted a son.”

“Why the kidnapping heist?” Does dear stepson intend to hit my father for a ransom? That makes no sense as naturally I'll tell daddy it was his darling son child that cheated him as soon as I get free.

Unless.

“Are you going to kill me?” I hear my voice come out like a mousey squeak.

When Rocco laughs his face lights up with complete joy. This guy loves being alive and it infects the atmosphere all around him like fireworks illuminate a night sky.

“You watch too many cop shows,
Principessa
.”

“It comes with the territory. I've been through ten trainings for this event, but no FBI agent ever told me what you're supposed to do when your own family abducts you.”

He takes a step toward me then stops when I mirror with one backing away from him. His proximity highlights the fact that my thin sleep shorts and shirt are on the wrong side of transparent. Not much is being left to his imagination and I'm suddenly very conscious of being nearly naked.

And my body loves it. My mind says no but every nerve in me tingles with thirst to be stripped bare. And I get the feeling my pig of a stepbrother knows it. He's very aware of the effect he has on women.

Rocco's wearing a muscle tee that scoops temptingly around his massive curves. I so crave his powerful arms pulling me into his wall of chest while his soft probing lips trail down the sensitive side of my neck. Oh god. Inside my head I let out a long moan.

“I want my clothes,” I announce, like a real little princess. “I know you packed my stuff in my bedroom.”

“Argh,” he groans, slapping his forehead with his palm. “I didn't even think about clothes.”

“How fucking convenient. So what went in the bag?”

“I brought your cameras.”

“My cameras? What for?”

He doesn't need to sell them for cash. Ohmigod am I going to make my own kidnap victim shots to send to my father?

“Look it,
Principessa
, far from wanting to kill you, I figured it was time for you to start living.”

“Thanks for that condescension. What makes you so sure I don't have a life?”

“Hints and clues.” He smirks as though to say my personality makes it obvious I'm a sad lonely girl who never has any fun. “Plus some intel from the mother unit. She said you asked your old man to take you with him to Libya on a mission one time and he refused. Said it was too dangerous.”

“And how is that any business of yours that my daddy is concerned for my life?”

“She also said you told him you wanted to make danger photography your life. Shooting in war zones, covering injustice and human suffering to make the world take notice.”

“And?”

“And he ignored you. No, he said he had a better plan for your future.”

“You really are a piece of work aren't you? Rolling through life taking what you want, literally
taking
it. And assuming you know what other people need in their lives. Does that entitlement and superiority come with being the son of a movie star?”

“I don't know,
Principessa
, maybe. Same way that snippy snot wall you've got up against every person you meet comes from being the daughter of the American ambassador.”

“Oh, just get to the point. What the fuck am I doing here?”

“What you said you wanted to do. Shoot some injustice and human suffering to make the world take notice.”

The brute on the floor begins stirring at the same time the boat connects with solid ground, touching against the quay and giving us a swift jolt. Being disoriented inside a sack must have taken its toll because I stumble and throw out my arms for balance. In a second Rocco hauls me into his powerful embrace and holds me firm while I catch my breath and the dizziness behind my eyes swims back down.

My vertigo is instantly replaced by the woodsmoke sweet aroma rising from the sheen of sweat on his skin filling my nostrils. The strangest surge of longing to taste it almost overwhelms me and I have to physically stop myself from stretching the tip of my tongue out from between my lips to skim across his smooth taut flesh. His arms remain circled around me, a secure haven from which I'd never fall.

If only.

No.

There are no if onlys and no what ifs in life. Only what is.

Because of this jerk I came close to being sexually assaulted by some ugly hairy beast of a man I don't know. He hauled me out of bed and threw a sack over me, causing possible lifelong trauma and now he thinks I'm just going to ride off into the sunset all grateful that he was only thinking of what I wanted.

And ohmigod, it suddenly comes back to me that he saw me caressing my own body right when he jacked me. Even more gross, he's beyond doubt certain that I was whimpering for him as I came to the edge. As the blood gushes into my cheeks, I shove off and push myself back from his embrace although every part of me but my analytical enraged mind wanted to stay right where I was forever.

“My would-be seducer is waking up. I need some clothes if it's not too much trouble,” I say with the deepest disdain I can muster up.

“Of course, right away, Your Majesty.”
He tears open a bag and tosses me some army type fatigue pants and a muscle shirt as cutaway as his. Thankfully I'm wearing the tank under my sleepshirt because Rocco clearly goes Commando in his underclothing as well as in his attitude to other people. Especially women.

Once I'm dressed, tugging the too big clothes on over top of my Pjs, he looks me up and down with what definitely seems like softening.

“Looking hot, Mamma.”

“Yeah save it for someone who gives.” At least the looseness of the tank covers my nipples rising hungrily as he comes close to me. I feel tiny beside him as he threads a belt through the loops of the pants and somehow makes them fit and even look bad-ass cool.

I stand still and allow him to dress me, my hands resting on the broad shelf of his shoulder blades for stability. Every sense is screaming for him to go the opposite direction, remove all the layers of fabric, undress me this tenderly, until I'm naked before him. The pressure in my breasts pounds, filling them so they reach toward his rock chest and the craving for him to fill his hands with me is unbearable. My ripped nipples are hungering to be tugged in his beautiful strong fingers as he wraps me up in the clothes as carefully as a fragile gift.

Finished, he turns from me without a glance and my eyes staple to the wide back of his neck and the tattoo winging out from the center. His ropes and mounds of muscle flex as he repacks the bag. I lift my hands to trail my fingertips across the slick black bird wings flapping gently across his neck. But only an inch away from his glistening smooth skin, so close I can feel the heat rising from him, I pull them back again as though his fire had seared right through them.

He turns back and frowns in confusion at me sucking the ends of my fingers like I've scalded them.

Moments later my legs are wrapped around him and we're shooting like a cannon ball out of the bowels of the ship into the searing heat of North Africa. I once had a ride on the back of a Vespa behind a boy from my class who took me straight home to the Embassy when Sandro was held up. This is the furthest thing from that tame journey as it's possible to get. Like comparing a space shuttle launch to a rising elevator. On the scooter I rode upright under my own central force. Not connecting with that boy's body at any point, I leaned into the corners without ever touching him.