Criminal: A Bad-Boy Stepbrother Romance Read online

  Criminal

  Alex Abbott

  © 2015 Pathforgers Publishing.

  All Rights Reserved. If you downloaded an illegal copy of this book and enjoyed it, please buy a legal copy. Either way you get to keep the eBook forever, but you’ll be encouraging me to continue writing and producing high quality fiction for you. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imaginations. Any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, are entirely coincidental.

  Cover Design by Michelle Keep. All cover art makes use of stock photography and all persons depicted are models.

  This book is intended for sale to Adult Audiences only.

  All sexually active characters in this work are over 18 and all sexual activity is between non-blood related, consenting adults.

  More information is available at Pathforgers Publishing

  Content warnings: step-romance, non-sexual violence, mention of drugs & alcohol, gang activity.

  Wordcount: 45,546 words

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  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Bonus Material

  Note from the Author

  More by Alex Abbott

  Biography

  “Oh, Kaiden! Right there! Oh God, I’m going to come!”

  The rhythmic creak of the bed is the least of my worries as I lay awake, listening to them. My step-brother and... who’s tonight’s guest? I want to say Samantha, but honestly, they’ve all blurred together by this point.

  The bed grinds into the floor, the headboard banging against the drywall. Kaiden’s breathing is hard, but he doesn’t say much at all. He just makes her scream louder.

  All the women he takes back to his place might call out his name like he’s some sex-God, but he barely ever makes a sound, let alone puts much effort into remembering their names. What’s the point? I’d never seen the same girl by twice since I moved in with him six weeks ago.

  Every night it’s the same thing. I’d almost think it was a routine if Kaiden weren’t so against such things.

  He comes in around one or two in the morning with some new girl, usually tipsy, and both of them laughing before he takes them into his bedroom. And, unfortunately, his bed is right up against the paper-thin walls.

  Right up against my room.

  I pressed the pillow to my head as Samantha-or-whoever screams and Kaiden grunts.

  “Take it,” he growls. “Take it all!”

  He doesn’t care at all that I can hear. I’m under his roof and his control now, at least until I decide what to do with my life. Everything had been derailed when my father and step-mother—his bio-mom—died in a car accident eight months back. Before that, I thought everything was going to be fine. I had just turned eighteen, and I had an education fund set aside.

  I didn’t know that my education fund had been ‘borrowed’ from to bail Kaiden out of jail. I didn’t realize that my parents were effectively broke. I also didn’t realize how much funerals cost. And I had to do it all on my own. Kaiden barely even made an appearance outside of the funeral, and though he looked broken-hearted, he was gone before I could blink.

  So instead of going off to college, all expenses paid, I struggled to live on my own, grieving for months. Then the restaurant I worked at went bankrupt. I had to beg my step-brother, the person who had bankrupted my college fund, for a place to stay.

  And he was just as happy about it as I was. I was going to interfere with his life, he said.

  What kind of life does he have, anyway? Screwing random women every night, making money in who-knows-what ways. He was arrested for drugs, but that bar he hangs out in every night, I knew that was trouble; that the people he hung out with were trouble.

  What other choice do I have, though?

  So I lay in bed, listening to him pound the girl into oblivion, and I can barely help the flush that goes through me. Beneath my annoyance and anger, there was hurt as well. Beneath it all, I can still remember how much I’d crushed on him through high school. How every time my friends told me how hot he was, I was secretly agreeing. I can still remember the time when we went boating, and I fell in. He rescued me, held my face, and all I wanted him to do was kiss me, but he didn’t. He got all awkward and wouldn’t talk to me for a week.

  My body feels like it’s floating as I hear them come, as if I weren’t quite within myself, but looking down as I flush, my hand dips between my thighs.

  It’s not something I’m proud of. The way my body prickles with heat, craves my touch. It’s a habit I thought I’d broken. I had hoped it was just a childhood phase, but as I hear him grunt and growl, I can picture him laying over me, his gorgeous body thrusting.

  The fantasy is so familiar, and I burn with desire.

  I touch myself over my panties; my body is already so hot and wet, so needy from listening to my step-brother have sex with his latest fling. I close my eyes, holding in my moan so that he won’t hear me. So that he won’t know what I’m doing, fantasizing about him.

  Every night I have to fight the urge to masturbate to the sounds of him pleasuring someone else. Every night I have to remind myself how dirty these desires are.

  I swallow and force my hand away, so desperately wanting to lose myself in my fantasy.

  But I can’t.

  ***

  My schedule has been turned upside-down since I moved in with him. How can I get up bright and early to look for a job when he’s been keeping me up ‘til three in the morning screwing random chicks?

  I plunk myself down at the kitchen table, a plate of toast and some tea in front of me.

  Kaiden’s still sleeping, even though it’s past noon, and I at least have some peace and quiet. I bring the piece of toast to my lips as I boot up my laptop and the local job search pages.

  I haven’t been having any luck. Kaiden lives in the middle of nowhere, and just like Kaiden’s nightly rituals, the job search page is always the same. Some jobs clearly out of my experience and education range, one or two scam postings, and that’s it.

  We don’t even have a big chain store, not for an hour-long drive.

  But today, there’s something new.

  The bar Kaiden is always at is looking for a shot-girl.

  Let me be clear. I don’t want to work at that dive. I don’t want to be surrounded by the people he’s surrounded by, and I certainly don’t want to see my step-brother picking up chicks.

  But I click it anyways, pushing aside my toast as I lean in.

  Shot Girl Wanted!!!

  Great tips, hourly wage $10. Must provide own uniform & be able to stand on feet for 10 hours. Call Ryder for more info.

  I jot down the number just as Kaiden rises from his hibernation. He instantly snatches my laptop like he owns it, looking at the screen.

  “Fuck off, Kaiden!” I spit out as I grab for it back. Not like i
t’s going to do any good. Kaiden is six-foot-five and two-hundred-fifty pounds of muscle, easy.

  I can’t deny that I can see what other women see in him. The appeal of that kind of guy.

  The one with muscles and pierced nipples, and who, for some horrible reason, decides to go around shirtless all the time around his house.

  His house, his rules. That’s his motto.

  I just wish his body didn’t drive me crazy.

  “Hah, little Abigail a shot-girl? Yeah right,” he says as he carelessly tosses the laptop back on the table, setting my tea to shaking. I reach out and grab it, glaring at him.

  “Whatever, I could totally do it.”

  Besides, I need to if I’m ever going to earn enough money to find my own place. I need enough for a damage deposit and first and last rent, at least, and Kaiden has the nerve to charge me rent as well. Says I owe him, now.

  As if he weren’t the reason I was in this mess in the first place.

  “Whatever, Princess,” he says with a roll of his green eyes. He leans against the countertop, hands pressed into it and making his biceps bulge, his brown hair tousled and messy. Every time he speaks, I’m thrown by the little hint of his tongue piercing, which, as far as I know, he never uses on those girls.

  And if anyone would know, it would be me. After all, I can hear everything in his room. It sets my stomach to turning.

  Just as I’m about to bite something back at him that would have been totally cutting, Samantha stumbles from his room, wearing nothing but his t-shirt that ends not even halfway past her ass.

  “Damn it,” I curse under my breath, grabbing my toast and stuffing the corner in my mouth as I take my laptop and tea into my hands.

  By that time, Samantha’s hand is already on his chest, possessively, and she’s glaring at me with her dark eyes. Her red hair is wild and frizzy, her nose ring glinting in the mid-day sun.

  “Who’s she?” she spits out, sizing me up.

  I’m everything she isn’t. My eyes are bright blue, and my blonde hair is stick-straight and neatly clipped back. Plus, I’m wearing a dressy blouse and a skirt. I’m not joking around about needing a job, and I believe in dressing the part.

  “My sister,” Kaiden says, his lips permanently crooked in a smirk.

  “Step-sister,” I retort quickly. I don’t want anyone to think we’d come from the same stock.

  “Oh. Hi.” Samantha looks at Kaiden as if expecting he’d say more. Maybe make her some coffee.

  But his eyes are on me, that smirk of his is never fading as his newest fling felt him up, and I wonder if he gets off on torturing me. Knowing I can hear him and that I can’t sleep because of his sexual antics.

  “Whatever, you don’t have to be nice to me. Kaiden’ll never have you back.”

  Her eyes narrow at me.

  “What the fuck did you say to me?”

  I roll my eyes. I’m just as bad as Kaiden with that. Maybe growing up together did rub off on me a little, though I hate to admit we’re anything alike.

  “I said he’s a pump-it and dump-it kinda guy. But since you were faking it last night, that won’t be a problem, right?”

  I’m pushing it, and I know it. I give Kaiden a glance before I shut my bedroom door, but I swear, he looks impressed.

  And then all I can hear is Samantha screaming at him about how he used her.

  I’ll have to wait to call Ryder about the shot-girl position, but knowing the crowd he runs with, he probably isn’t up yet anyway.

  ***

  “We’ll need to see you in person.”

  I nod, even though I’m on the phone. It’s so embarrassing to do that, but I’m gratefully alone. After Kaiden had given Samantha his standard, ‘It was nice but that’s all it was,’ speech, he’d taken off as well, and I’m finally alone to savor the quiet. At least there’s that in this small town. Quiet.

  When my step-brother isn’t fucking any random woman he meets inches from my head.

  “Of course!” I tell Ryder, hoping that my smile is audible. “When should I come over?”

  “Tonight, seven o’clock. Come dressed to work; if we like you, you start tonight.”

  “Absolutely, I’ll be there. Thank you so much, Ryder.”

  He doesn’t reply, and then there’s nothing but the emptiness of a hang-up. My stomach is in knots. I look at my phone. It’s already three in the afternoon, and I don’t have any clothes that scream shot-girl. Everything I have is, well, proper. Prim. And at the bar that Kaiden frequents? Prim isn’t going to cut it.

  That, in and of itself, is bad enough. But I just have to get over my prudishness for a little while. A couple of months of work, and I should have enough saved up to get out of this place and be somewhere more comfortable. I’ll find a nice roommate in a big city, a better job...

  It’s all a stepping stone.

  I grab my keys and head for the door. I have to get to a mall.

  ***

  I’m strapped for cash. That is the nice way of saying it.

  At my last job, I’d managed to save a whopping $127.83. I’d begged Kaiden to let me off with rent until I found a new job, but he’s getting impatient.

  After gas and expenses, I have only $89.26 to my name, and I have to make it count. I need this job like I’d never needed anything else, and all my moral quarrels are going to have to be pushed to the side for the moment. I walk into the trashy little strip mall, into a used clothing store. That disgusts me too. It isn’t that I’m prissy, I swear, even if Kaiden won’t stop calling me Princess. But my dad had always been closer to the upper side of middle class.

  We had a nice house and a nice car, and more debt than I could’ve ever figured. The bank foreclosed on the house even as I desperately tried to pay the inflated mortgage, but I managed to keep the car.

  At least there’s that because it gets good mileage and is big enough that I was able to sleep in it those few days when things got really dark.

  I flick through the racks, looking for something that will make me stand out. I know that looking like a suburban cheerleader isn’t going to work in my favor unless I look a little, well, maybe “trashy” is an ugly word, but...

  My hands fall on a scarlet tank top that looks like it’ll barely cover my chest, and I pause. It’s only $4.

  I toss it in the cart, along with a couple other choices, followed by more miniskirts than I’ve ever owned, before moving towards the shoes.

  If I’m going to be standing, I know I’d have to dress practically, but the white sneakers that draw my eyes just aren’t going to cut it.

  Since I went to a school that had a uniform, I don’t have a lot of options for sexy shoes.

  I roam along the shoe aisle, but there’s nothing. Worn flip-flops, brown shoes that look too out-of-fashion for even a senior to wear, and some scuffed-up pumps that look like their heels are hanging on by threads.

  Old shoes skeeve me out at the best of times, but seeing the sad selection before me is a miserable disappointment. Shoes are already so expensive, and I don’t want to spend all of my meagre budget on it.

  But what options do I have? I need them.

  I sigh and make my way towards the changing rooms, quickly trying on the clothes. Over half are discarded as being either too baggy or not sexy enough. But the scarlet tank top and a couple of the miniskirts are perfect, and I feel a bit better about it all. At least this way I save some money on the clothes.

  I’m about to head to the checkout when something catches my eye. I move over towards the furniture section, and for a moment, all I can do is stare.

  There is the exact dresser I had as a kid. I can’t believe it. I mean, I’m sure it isn’t the exact one, but it looks just like it. My fingers run along the top of the white painted wood, feeling it with a sense of melancholic joy.

  Along with the house, all of my possessions went with it—anything I couldn’t take with me in the car. I couldn’t even afford storage, and my dad and step-mom never really h
ad any family they were close to.

  I miss mom and dad. There’s no denying that. I’ve just been struggling to stay afloat, and every reminder of them gives me a sharp pain in my chest. All I want to do is curl up in my bed, but ever since they passed, it’s just been disaster after disaster. I haven’t even had a moment to mourn them, and Kaiden… I guess he’s doing the guy thing. Pretending it doesn’t affect him.

  But I can see it in his eyes, that shadow. He misses them too.

  I smile a little, just at the familiarity of an object that reminds me of happier times. Of when they were still alive, and we were still a family.

  I idly open the top drawer to find that there must have been someone who had stowed away some finds that they couldn’t afford. A bundle of clothes.

  I’m just about to close it when something shiny draws my gaze. Black patent leather.

  I push the clothes aside and hidden beneath is a pair of stiletto platforms like I’ve never seen. They’re gorgeous, not a smudge or scratch on them. But I know better than to hope they’re my size.

  When I lift them and look at the bottom, not only are they my size, but they’re only $6! I’m about to jump for joy, but instead I shove them in my basket, beaming all the way to the checkout line.

  Maybe this is meant to be after all.

  I’m so nervous. I look up at the seedy bar, and my heart is racing. It looks so grungy. The sign is crooked, and the light above the door keeps flickering in and out.

  If I was watching a horror movie, this is the time that I’d be screaming at the character to get out of there while she could.

  But I haven’t gotten another interview in six weeks, Kaiden wants me to pay up or get out, and I have no where else to go.

  I push up my bra, tugging down the front of the tank top a little and pray for my pushup to do a little bit better of a job tonight. I’m a solid A-cup usually, which is an annoyance on a normal day, but if it costs me a job, that’ll be a whole other thing.

  I haven’t seen Kaiden since I got home, which I’m grateful for. The last thing I want to deal with is his questions and smartass comments about how I’m not cut out to be a shot girl. I’ve heard enough of that since I got the call for the interview.