Forbidden Fire (2 page)

And some part of him knew it had been for her. He’d worked so hard, wanted to be someone she’d respect. For her, all for her.

“If I were in one of your favourite Jane Austen books, I’d be a man of substance, like Edmund Bertram, the parson in Mansfield Park.”

“I’ve always seen you more like Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights.”

“Because of my working class background? But I don’t brood as much as he did.”

“Yes, you do. Sometimes…you’re so quiet, I don’t know what you’re thinking,” she said. “I wish you’d take me to see where you come from. You never talk about it, but I know you think about it.”

He could have told her, but then she’d run from him and lock her door. The dirty things he wanted to do to her…

“I’m proud to work with the guys at Station 57.”

Her eyes widened and she knelt beside him, reaching out to grip his hand. “Oh, I’m so proud of you, Luke… You’ve come so far. You broke my heart, even my Dad’s heart. We both wanted you to have opportunities.” She studied him, her gaze running over his shoulders, his chest. He hoped like hell she liked what she saw since he worked out like a maniac. “Now you’re a hero.”

He blinked. “Did you just call me a hero?”

A crooked smile touched her lips. “I’m so going to pay for being sappy, huh?”

“You totally are.” He liked the hint of green in her eyes. They were large in her small face and her mouth was a little off-centre, the top lip fuller than the bottom. He liked it, he wanted to kiss it.

“It feels like forever since we really talked,” she said. “Why is that?”

“Maybe because you’re always out with some guy. Who was it this time? The architect or the gym owner?”

“Luke—”

“Don’t tell me it’s none of my business, Sian. We’re all we’ve got.”

“No, I don’t accept that.” She climbed to her feet, her dress sagging like a sail without any wind, putting her back on display. Firm skin, small bones, strong. Strong like the way she’d been when his mom had had cancer—holding him, letting him know with her body against his that he would never be alone.

“Then why do you still live here? Why are we both living under the same roof?” Fuck it, he was pushing things, he was probably ruining things, but he couldn’t take it anymore. He was on his feet, hands on his hips, looming over her.

“It’s just easier—”

“That’s bullshit. It’s not easy for me,” he said. “I still live here because I need to be close to you.”

She shook her head. He crowded her against the wall, waiting, watching her to see if she wanted free of him. When she only stared up at him he leant down and put his mouth over hers, claiming her.

Sian made a small sound in her throat and then her fingers were digging into his arms. She tasted like coffee and crème caramel, and annoyance slashed him when he thought about how she’d shared that dessert with another man.

When his tongue touched hers she jerked in his arms, her body fully pressed against his now. She felt amazing, better than anything he’d ever felt. He tore his mouth from hers and yanked his boxers down, wanting them to be skin to skin.

Her eyes looked shocky as he also tugged down her dress, leaving her wearing only her panties. One of his fingers curled under the top of her underwear, moving back and forth, letting her know he wanted in.

“You’re what I want.” He reached up and cupped one of her breasts and she groaned, her eyes closing tightly. Closing him out? Fuck, he didn’t care. Now he was in a heat to mate and he didn’t care if she didn’t want to acknowledge that she was finally letting her little stepbrother have her.

They kissed again, man to woman, her lips pressing against his, her tongue shyly touching his as he took command of her mouth. He growled and she made another soft sound and his hand moved down to grind against her mound, finding her damp through the cloth.

He knew he should slow down, but this might be the only time she ever let him have her. After all these years, he was desperate. He broke away. “You’re on something, right?”

“Uh, what?” Dazed, heavy eyes met his.

“I’m clean, but I need to know if you’re on something.” He wouldn’t mind making her pregnant, but telling her that would probably have her running for her bedroom.

“Yes.” She blushed again.

He pulled down her underwear so it fell to her ankles and cupped her, holding her gaze as his fingers touched her slick folds, then delved deeper. She made a growling sound of her own now, gripping him tight. Close, he was so close, ready to be touched into an explosion.

“Hold on to me, baby,” he whispered, lifting her high against the wall. Her legs wrapped around him. He was shaking as he took himself in hand, one arm supporting her weight as he positioned his penis and thrust into her.

It was… Oh, God…

But Sian’s fingernails stabbed into his shoulders, so he looked into her indignant eyes and guessed he had been clumsy. Oh, shit. His woman in his arms at last and he—

“How does that feel?” he made himself ask.

“Big. It feels
big
.”

“Oh.” He held her suspended, not hammering into her the way he wanted to. “How long before it doesn’t feel ‘big’,” he whispered. “Sian, please, baby.”

“Uh…”

He reached between them, his arm burning from taking all of her weight, but he found her clit and her eyes flared wide. He wished he was on his knees, that it was his mouth touching her. He loved to do this for her, loved to see her shudder as he touched her. “Big is bad,” he whispered in her ear.

She laughed and he grinned back at her. “Big is a lot to, ah, accommodate,” she said.

But as he continued to play, she shivered again, and it was like her body was holding tight, living for every touch he gave her.

She squirmed, pushing down her body so she was seated more solidly. Oh, yeah.

“You’re my woman now,” he said.

“Luke, we can’t—” Her tone was meant to put him in his place. Luke the kid, Luke who is misguided. Fuck that.

A bead of sweat ran down from his hairline. He needed her to shatter for him. He needed her soft and wet and compliant and not telling him he couldn’t, they couldn’t…

When she was in pieces, he could finally get into her bed. He wouldn’t nail her as dirty and raw as he liked it, but only because he knew she’d never had it that way. His princess was relatively innocent.

She ground herself against him when he thrust, every second ticking with an almost audible impact, her eyes wide, the bead of sweat running down his cheek, crystallised like slow amber. It lit him off so suddenly he began pounding into her while she left a line of scratches on his back. He grunted, hands digging into her hips. She’d have bruises in the morning, like he would wear her scratches. She might want to put this aside, but her body would remember him.

“Can’t!”

“Oh, yeah, you can.” Relentless. This was a storm that came in from the sea, that all you could do was live through. Just their bodies sliding down the wall as he pressed his fingers against the top of her sex, tapping like relentless rain, her eyes going dark, swallowing his reflection as she climaxed. He felt her contracting around him, brought down, brought down to his level, to his hands stained with engine grease, to the kinky things he hungered to do to her.

He came in a scalding rush, marking her, wishing he could inscribe a symbol on her soul, on her skin. Mine.

He held her, feeling every part of her was his.

But then while he still trembled, arms burning, Sian stiffened, vibrating horror. He could almost hear her thoughts—what had she done? He was her little stepbrother and she had let him fuck her. And more than that, he had made her come.

“Sian—”

She scrambled off him. He caught her, held her gaze.

“It’ll only happen again.”

“No, it won’t.”

“Yes.”

He let her go, watched her snatch up her dress. Her door slammed a second later.

He guessed he wasn’t going to be invited into her bed. Not tonight anyway.

Chapter Two

What had she done?

Sian slid to the floor beside her bed. Her body was tingling, her nipples reddened from rubbing against the barely-there wisps of blond hair on Luke’s chest. Hello, contact with a male, which she hadn’t experienced in…

But that wasn’t the point. Fine, she had been celibate for years, but that didn’t excuse what she’d just done. Maybe her celibacy was responsible? She hadn’t really let herself go with someone in a very long time, since that required trust.

A picture flashed through her head of the very first time she’d seen Luke. He’d been in the music room, where a grand piano ruled over a pedestal that jutted over the rocks and beach below in a specially-built glass enclosure.

His golden hair had been limed by the diffused sea light, giving him the look of one of Botticelli’s sulky little angels. Human, flawed and yet still divine.

His fingers had skipped over the keys and solemn notes drifted, music whispering of being alone, utterly and completely alone.

And then he’d seen her and he’d yanked his hands away from the mahogany instrument as if she’d caught him carving his initials into the ivory keys. “Didn’t break nothin’.” His voice was the first discordant note, sullen as a black eye.

“Who are you?” Her tone was not accusing. She honestly hadn’t a clue.

“Luke, you know, my mom, your dad…”

Sian blinked, having no idea what the strange boy meant. “Are you the new cleaner’s son?” Mrs Cade was nice. She was slender and blonde with sad, steady eyes, but even though she was an adult, she wasn’t as tall as Luke. Studying him, Sian saw a resemblance in the shape of Luke’s narrow hands.

Luke nodded. “You’re Mr Henry’s kid,” he said, using her father’s first name as people did.

“Yes,” Sian said. “Are you waiting for your mom?” Maybe she could get Luke something to eat while his mother finished cleaning. She liked to cook. She could decide what to make and just by following the recipe, she was in control of the outcome. That was important to her.

And he looked like he could use the cals, since he was slender as that tomcat that jumped over their fence and prowled their yard in search of nesting gulls every year.

Something moved over his face. An expression like ‘what-the-fuck?’. He knew something and he’d thought she knew it too.

Sian’s throat tightened and she had to swallow twice. This was about her dad. He’d…found another girlfriend.

“Let’s go to the kitchen,” she said, needing to go there. Her place. She wasn’t just a kid there. Her kitchen. Mr Henry had even said so, last time he’d eaten dinner with her there.

“Okay.” Luke grabbed a grimy jean jacket off the hand-painted celadon upholstery. He put it over one big bony shoulder and followed her.

In the hallway, she sized him up in peripheral vision. He was taller than her, even though he really was a kid, at least ten years younger than she was. But he didn’t seem like it as he watched her out of eyes as steady and…knowing as his mother’s.

When they reached the kitchen with its warm yellow walls and IKEA cabinets, Sian felt herself relaxing.

 
“How about some antipasto and crackers to start?” she asked Luke.

“Uh…sure.” When he put down the jacket and hunched by the maple island, she knew he didn’t know what antipasto was. She was careful not to make a deal out of it, getting the ingredients and chopping Sicilian olives, onions and peppers. Luke just watched her quietly as if he also didn’t have a clue that most people served antipasto from a jar, not from scratch.

He closed his eyes tightly as he took his first bite of a cracker with the seasoned vegetables oozing off it.

“What do you think?” She wanted to know if he liked it. He’d never had it before so it was interesting, like a test in school—

“I think I’m going to marry you,” he mumbled around the cracker, blue eyes opening. There was not even a hint of humour there.

But Sian laughed because it was a joke. Luke just didn’t know you were supposed to smile when you made one. “How about some wheat grass juice?”

Luke’s face tightened. “Like at the gas station down the block? We had to stop and put two dollars of gas in the car and they had all this stuff…”

Sian blinked. What was the big deal with the gas station? “Yeah, like that.”

“I’ve never been in a gas station that had juice like that,” Luke said.

“They don’t all have fresh-squeezed organic juice?”

Luke’s face tightened. “Not where me and my mom live.”

“Oh.” She didn’t know what to say.

“This is a nice room,” Luke said, looking at the brightly painted ceramic animals she’d brought back from a trip to Portugal. She’d done a lot of shopping while her father and his then nineteen-year-old girlfriend had spent most of their time in their room.

“Yeah, it’s mine. I asked Mr Henry if I could make it my own. I chose the cabinetry.”

“Uh-huh.” Again Luke had that dazed look. She’d bet he wasn’t exactly sure what she meant. “The shelves where you put stuff.”