Hooked: A Stepbrother Romance (16 page)

Nothing had ever felt as right as this moment.

“You taste so fucking amazing, Emilia,” he growled, breaking our kiss just long enough to breathe and then descending once again onto my mouth. He moved in with enough fierceness to back me against the nearest building, grinding my brand new dress into its brick exterior.

Worth it
.

Absolutely worth it
.

I looked up at him, his eyes wild with lust, his unspoken demand sending daggers of excitement to my belly. I slid my hand up on his chest, meeting the wall of bulging muscles and rigid planes that I was quickly coming to memorize by touch. I wanted more, much more, and I let my hand slide down to his hips, pulling him against me and shamelessly rubbing my lower belly against his cock. I could feel how thick he already was, and I couldn’t wait to get rid of the layers of cloth that separated me from him.

Loud hollers resonated nearby as a group of revelers passed by on the opposite sidewalk, cheering us on lewdly. They were making obscene gestures, but not half as obscene as what I wanted to do with Simon.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said in a deep voice, and I couldn’t agree more. I grabbed his hand and he escorted me toward the major avenue off the side street where Quay 78 stood. He immediately hailed a passing cab, and a minute later we were sitting next to each other.

He didn’t ask, but all the same I didn’t hesitate before giving my answer.

“Yeah, come home with me.” My voice was deep and raspy, heavy with lust and almost unrecognizable. I wanted this, wanted him. Needed it. My fingers trembled when I placed my hand on his cheek, feeling the stubble grating the soft skin of my palm.

“I never thought I’d hear you say that,” he answered, taking me into his arms for a stolen kiss that left me into even more of a mess than I already was. I gave the cabbie my address and closed my eyes, bracing myself for the longest drive of my life.

If only we’d had a helicopter.

Her birthday.

I wanted to send a card, but who was I kidding?

It would’ve just ruined her big day.

21 years old.

I wonder how she’s doing.

Thirteen years I’d been aching for this moment.

Thirteen years, never believing it might actually happen.

I’d only dreamt of it, letting my imagination run wild.

In the shower, during our two summers together. Picturing her in the same room, naked, touching the same things. It was the only room in her house with a lock, and maybe she’d taken advantage of the privacy in the same way I had….

Thinking of her when I was alone in bed, hard and unable to sleep.

Thinking of her when I
wasn’t
alone in bed, on top of some brunette who could almost pass for her when the lights were off. How many strange women had I called
Emilia
during the throes of passion? How many times had I woken in the middle of the night, covered in cold sweat?

I’d never allowed myself to think this moment would come, but yet here it was. She was sitting next to me, and I was struggling not to pinch myself in the arm. If this turned out to be just another vivid dream, I at least wanted to enjoy it for as long as I could.

Feeling her nestled beneath my arm, smelling her so close to me, my head was swimming more now than it had been in the club. Our rather shameless public display of affection a few minutes ago was far more of a rush than all the alcohol I’d had tonight.

“Are you okay?” she whispered, shuffling around in her seat. I could feel cool air touching my skin in the place she’d been resting, and I wanted nothing more than to feel the weight of her pressing back into my body. I wanted to stroke her cheek, run my fingers through her long hair, coax her back next to me.

I wanted it more than anything else, but I knew I couldn’t. It had taken all my strength to stop the first time, and I knew that if we started again here, we’d never be able to stop. We’d end up putting on a show for the cab driver, and I had no intention of making our time together so crass. If mere sex had been the goal, even Quay 78’s bathrooms would’ve done the trick.

No, this needed to be special.

“I’ll feel a lot better once we get to your place,” I explained, looking out the window as we passed through empty streets. Time seemed to slow down as the dingy lights of the city blurred past us, and I would’ve given anything to speed things up. I’d just gotten a taste of heaven, and I needed to feel her against me once more. I felt like an addict in search of a fix, except she was right next to me all along.

The wait was insufferable.

After an eternity, the long and straight city avenues turned into cozy, winding residential streets. When the cab pulled to a stop in front of an apartment complex, I didn’t even wait for him to announce the fare. I practically threw a fistful of money at him, more than enough, and told him to keep the change as I slid from the vehicle and rushed around to help Emilia out of the car.

We made it into the building and slammed the elevator button, realizing with frustration that it needed to come down to the ground level. Not wanting to waste time, Emilia and I rushed up the stairs and made it to the second floor in the blink of an eye. While my heart was pounding in my throat, she fished her keys out of her bag and unlocked the front door.

She clicked on the light slowly, a little hesitant and shy. In the blink of an eye, I was faced with all things Emilia. Everything I’d been carefully trying to avoid for years, until one day an article in the paper had brought all my feelings back to the surface.

Everywhere I looked tonight, those feelings intensified. Sitting atop a large windowsill were old trophies I knew she had won running, or pictures of her in the competitions. Her long mane tamed into braids and ponytails, joy on her face as the hair flew behind her.

On a wall across from those, she’d captured other moments of her life. Her diplomas, pictures of her celebrating with Lena and Joana. Knickknacks from trips and vacations she’d taken as a new adult, memories from a well-rounded life.

Next to her TV was a wall of books, with magazines and newspapers stacked into an orderly pile near the shelves. On her coffee table were two French pastry cookbooks, both sitting open, and a dog-eared copy of a tome I knew well.
Fundamentals of Rugby
had not only been my bible when I was just starting out as a high-strung coach on the path to redemption, but it had been written by my old mentor and first coach. A man who’d seen something in me when no one else did, and probably saved my life in the process.

“I see you’ve been doing a lot of reading,” I said lightly, placing my hand on the small of Emilia’s back and enjoying the feeling immensely.

“Before you ask, no, I’m not going to serve you pastries tonight,” she joked back, and I wanted to kiss her more than I wanted my next breath.

“But yeah, the book has been a lifesaver,” she said after a moment. “The team is always hungry for more, all the time. More tips, more training, more skills, more skits. They’ve really taken to the sport more than I ever thought, and it’s been hard to keep up.”

“Yeah, their enthusiasm is humbling,” I said back. As much as I wanted to throw Emilia down onto the couch and ravish her, I was sincerely happy that the rec center’s rugby program was such a success. “Do you think you could find them a regular coach, after the summer season is over?”

“It’s not exactly a popular sport here, you know. It might be really hard,” Emilia shrugged. “We might have to branch into football, or just go back to our policy of non-specialized training. I mean, it’s great that they’re playing competitive sports and actually discovering that they’re good at something, of course. I just don’t know if we’ll be able to continue, and the original idea
was
just to initiate them into healthy habits of regular physical activity.”

“Competition is vital to some of us, you know,” I pointed out.

“Learning life skills is also vital.”

“Being competitive is a life skill,” I quipped, tickling her a little. “I win.”

“Not the most important one, though. And it needs to be in the right context, otherwise you just end up self-obsessed and unable to take no for an answer,” Emilia said.

“If I took ‘no’ for an answer, my life would be a lot worse. And you’d be out of a job right now, for that matter,” I shrugged, clearing a bottle of nail polish and her Kindle off the sofa before sitting down.

“Fair enough,” she said a little awkwardly. “Make yourself comfortable here, I need a second to go change. I haven’t been able to breathe since I put this dress on six hours ago.”

“Want a hand?” I said with a wink.

“No,” she blurted out, her cheeks turning a gorgeous shade of crimson before vanishing into her bedroom.

“Want some coffee?” she called a minute later, darting from her room into the kitchen. I got up to follow, and found her busying herself around the coffee maker. The breath caught in my throat as I looked her over.

I’d imagined that she was going to put on something informal, like pajamas or a t-shirt, but I had been wrong. Her petite figure was framed in a spaghetti strap tank top, its V-neck once again hinting at delicious curves. Below that, she was sporting a stylish pair of dress shorts that highlighted her toned legs.

“Did you take off your bra?” I asked, entranced by the clear outline of her nipples jutting out next to the plunging neckline of her shirt.

“No,” she said again.

“Liar.”

“I wasn’t wearing one in the first place. There was no room under that dress for anything but me, sweetie,” she said, tilting her head up to look me straight on.

My cock and my heart both somersaulted at the same time, animal instinct telling me to run forward and claim her now.

“Coffee?” she repeated, and I managed to beat down the primal urges flowing through me.

“You’re hooked on coffee, young lady,” I observed.

“No I’m not,” she said, betraying how on-edge she was as she spun back towards the counter. I could see tight knots of muscle building beneath the strings of her top.

“I think you are,” I said, stepping forward and putting my hands on her shoulders, massaging the tension from her body. Gently pulling her to face me once again, I placed a hand beneath her chin and ran my thumb across her trembling lips. Her beautiful eyes were locked onto mine, and her mouth was hanging open just slightly.

“I know hooked when I see it,” I said as she took short, gasping breaths. Her green eyes were like two emeralds, sparkling and staring straight into my soul. “Trust me. I’ve been hooked on you from the moment we met.”

She took a sharp, shocked inhale as I leaned in closer, before she could process my words further. My heart was threatening to burst in my chest as I backed her up against the counter, her body once again pressed snugly against mine. My mouth descended onto hers with a fierceness that I could only just barely control, reveling in the taste of strawberry and alcohol on her lips. My tongue stroked hers, and I imagined I could feel her nipples jutting into my chest.

I wanted more, so much more.

I wanted to taste her, to make her scream with an exploding climax.