FIERCED 2: A stepbrother Romance (6 page)
Read FIERCED 2: A stepbrother Romance Online
Authors: Stephanie Brother
Chapter SIX
Back in Rome the staff at the embassy seem horrified by my sudden reappearance. As though I’m back from the dead. They shrink away from Rocco as he struts down the hallway to his room. My father isn't home and Sandro, my driver, has been assigned to him in case there's any news of me. Rocco's mother, my new step-mom is at the film studio.
“You must be exhausted after three solid days of bike riding,” I say and receive a grunt in response.
Rocco goes to his room and slams the door. After the stab in my heart, I cannot contain myself from going straight to my laptop to check the possibility of retrieving my photos.
It's dark when I finally emerge from processing and search him out. I need him to see these images. He's not in his room, or he's not answering my knock at his door but I need to finds him. He's the only one who'll understand the power of what I captured. Finally I discover him in the screening room, sitting in the dark with a bottle of good red wine open in front of him. A couple of empty beer cans sit crushed on the table.
I sit beside him without a word, push the cans aside and replace the glass with my computer. I sit back and sip at his wine, watching him become mesmerized by my pictures.
“Wow.” He leans back, his rigid tricep grazing my arm and sending a thrill to my center.
He takes the glass from my hand, downs a long swallow then hands it back. As we watch the slideshow, we pass the wine back and forth. Each time his fingers brush mine, my body quivers with deep need. I yearn to have him fill my arms and press his solid wall of chest into me. Only then do I feel safe and desired. We're pressed so close together, side by side, I feel him again, buried all the way inside me. My chasm clenches with craving to be completely filled with him. I down the remainder of the glass, my nervousness making my chest thump so loud I'm surprised he doesn't notice it shake. But he's engrossed in my movie of stills.
“Amazing. You're amazing,” he breathes. “I knew it.”
I'm aware of a distant roaring but don't connect it to human rage until my father bursts into the dark room.
“What in Heaven's name do you two think you're playing at?” he bellows. “I've been insane with worry.”
“She was quite safe, sir,” Rocco says, not moving from his seat, while I straighten up against my father's onslaught.
“Yes, your mother told me you sent her a text. But only after half the security services had been combing Italy for my daughter. Where were you?” He demands of Rocco, who silently refills his, our, glass.
“She was with me. Perfectly safe.”
“Daddy, look at the incredible images I captured. This is important for the world to see. And I can make my name as a human rights photographer with these.”
My father glances briefly at the pictures sliding across the computer screen and turns purplish, as though he's going to erupt in on himself like a popped balloon. I cringe for an instant recalling a time he squeezed his hand around my throat when I disobeyed him. Then it passes because Rocco would never allow it and my father is also aware of that now.
“You took my daughter to Africa?” he finally blasts at the man sitting cool in his space. “Without my permission?”
“Yeah. I did.”
“I do not appreciate the insolent tone you're taking with me, son.”
“I'm not actually your son,” Rocco tells him. “And I don't need your permission for anything.”
“You do when you decide to abduct my child in the middle of the night. Filling her head with stupid ideas about being a famous photographer.”
“Dad, I'm your child but I'm no longer
a
child. I can go where I want with who I want.”
It takes more than a little effort to say those words. The first time in my life I've ever spoken back to my father when he's in one of his rages. If only I could imbibe some of Rocco's 'insolence'.
“She's proven herself in more ways than one in the past week,” Rocco tells him. Making my father's face turn hard the way it always does when he's determined to believe what he chooses and come out on top. His voice drops to a snarl, low and filled with menace.
“You will leave my house and not enter it again until you learn to treat me and my family with due respect.”
Rocco rises without a word, like a silent warrior, and heads for the door.
“No. Rocco, please, don't go. Please,” I beg, jumping up to hang on and prevent him leaving me here. Back where I started.
He looks at me, confused as to why I want him after my rejection back in the desert. Can't he tell how much I bitterly regret the mistake I can't take back now?
“You sit down, Miss.” My father moves between us. Any moment he's going to call his robot security men to take care of his dirty work. “You're flying with me and your mother to Venice in the morning for the press announcement. That's your job, not taking ridiculous photos of- indigents.”
“I am not going to Venice.”
“You are and that's the final word on this matter. You live under my roof and do as I say.”
“I guess there's repression in all cultures, not only among
indigents
,” Rocco says.
“Get out now before I call security to remove you,” my father says, always ready to invoke his black suits to gather control and the final word.
Before I can lunge and cling to Rocco, I'll willingly go wherever he wants, my father catches my wrist painfully and half yanks my shoulder out of its socket. Rocco meets my pleading gaze then raises his fingers to his face in a square. He clicks his index finger like pressing down on a shutter and gives me a wink.
When he steps through the door (which is immediately shut behind him by the automaton wearing wires in both ears like he's listening to pop tunes, standing on the threshold) I turn to my father in ice cold rage.
“Don't make him leave. If you want me smiling nice at your side for your happy family pictures, you'll bring him with us.”
“I will not have my authority as head of this household undermined. We'll put a couple of these photos of yours to good use and say he's doing his humanitarian work in Africa.”
“No!” I shout and my father cocks an eyebrow in shock at my outburst. “You won't spin him and you won't use me. I want Rocco with me, I need him.”
“You're better without him. You can be my only precious child again.”
“I don't want to be,” I snarl.
My father frowns and a suspicious concern washes across his features.
“Everything in this house belongs to me, including these photos and the life I created out of you. You're a part of my campaign and you will do what I tell you or you're out on your own and we both know you've got no talent for that.”
“I hate you. You're everything that's wrong in this world.”
“I can see your brother has warped your mind in just a short time. Even more reason to keep you apart from him for your own good.”
“I love him,” I scream'. For some reason I thought that would move my father. Instead his grimace turns to disgust.
“It's almost as though you have Stockholm Syndrome. I'm going to have to call in a professional to deprogram you.”
My heart beat plummets and my skin creeps across my bones in cold tremors. I know very well what those state controlled psychologists are capable of. Whatever is necessary for the good of the government will be stated as a fact by those so-called personality experts. Everyone knows that I was taken, or at least disappeared without a trace for almost a week.
If I don't do exactly as my father commands, he'll call in some lackey doctor to say I'm unsound, brainwashed. A danger to myself and others. He'll spin that in the news as his only daughter coping bravely after her ordeal, making himself appear to be the perfect suffering parent. I could be locked up for as long as he deems necessary to bring me back under his control.
The Passion Continues . . .
Follow the passionate Step relationship of Lisa and Rocco in the final part of FIERCED
FIERCED is now COMPLETE and the Finale of the series – part 3 is
Available on Amazon
HERE
http://www.amazon.com/FIERCED-Finale-Stepbrother-Raider-Romance-ebook/dp/B015ONKM28
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About the Author
Stephanie Brother writes scintillating stories with step-siblings as their main romantic focus. She's always been curious about the forbidden, and this is her way of exploring such complex relationships that threaten to keep her couples apart. As she writes her way to her dream job, Ms. Brother hopes that her readers will enjoy the full emotional and romantic experience as much as she's enjoyed writing them.
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Now read on for a snippet from Escape
I hear Sammie’s bare feet padding on the hardwood but I don’t turn. I feel her hand rest lightly between my shoulders and all the love I feel for her seems to spill out of my heart and into my chest, pulled by that small touch of her palm against my t-shirt covered skin. I swallow and it’s so damn quiet in the room that it’s audible.
“
Bran,” she says rubbing my back. “It’s okay.” When I don’t turn she places her other hand against my cheek and draws me until we are facing each other. I can’t hide anything from her. I never could. Sammie’s always been my best friend and my home. We stare at each other, her eyes so sad and filled with a yearning that I know is reflected in mine. It’s like the threads that had bound us together when we were kids are fusing back together. She licks her lip and the sight of her tongue makes my dick prickle. It’s a tiny reaction but it freaks me the fuck out. But then she’s got her hand around my neck and she’s pulling me towards her and we’re hugging and it feels so good, so perfectly right. She soothes me with her hand that rubs up and down my back and her words that she whispers in my ear.
“
It’s okay, Bran. You’re here now. We’re back together. Sammie and Bran Bran, best friends forever,” she says just like she used to. But it doesn’t feel like friendship when I’m distracted by her soft breasts pressed against my chest and the curve of her hip under my palm. When her lips graze my ear I think it’s an accident. She’s whispering close after all. But the soft feel of it, that little graze, makes me sigh and then she sighs too and I know it wasn’t an accident. “I love you, Bran,” she whispers, her mouth now so close to my neck I can feel the wetness of it against my skin.
The air feels alive with something. It’s our history swirling around us like a vortex that’s drawing me closer to her when I know I should be pulling away. Fuck. None of this was part of the plan but I can’t stop the way my hands want to feel the skin of her back and slip inside her blouse. Her hand grabs at my shoulder, molding the muscle there as if she needs something firm to keep her grounded. I can hear her breathing hitch as I stroke across the silkiness of her back. With my face pressed into her neck I can almost pretend this isn’t really happening. It feels like a dream, a fantasy that will be gone when I open my eyes. She’s like an angel visiting me in purgatory and her sweetness and strength just make me want more.
I know I shouldn’t.
I shouldn’t be here. I don’t belong in her perfect life.
I shouldn’t want her. She’s my stepsister and it’s wrong.
I shouldn’t. But I do and I can’t stop myself.
