Criminal: A Bad-Boy Stepbrother Romance Read online

  You should apologize, I told myself, even though with my skin still flushed from the orgasm that I fantasized he gave me. I knew it was the right thing.

  I didn't treat him fairly, and if I'm going to be staying much longer, I'm going to need to make it right. To thank him for standing up for me and protecting me, to let him know that I appreciate his concern. That things are good between us.

  But when he comes in with the blonde woman that had tipped me earlier, the same one who laughed at me as I was being assaulted?

  All bets are off.

  "What the fuck Kaiden?!" I screech, looking from him to her, feeling absolutely and utterly humiliated once more. Here I am getting off to the thought of him, thinking of how caring and sweet he was, and he just has to come home with another floozy? The same floozy that embarrassed me not six hours earlier?

  "Oh, Abigail. I didn't realize you'd still be up," he says, his voice reeking of disappointment as he goes to the fridge and grabs himself a beer. "You want something?" he asks the woman he was with.

  She half stumbles around before leaning against the kitchen table and stares at Kaiden's ass. "I'm good, sugar," she coos, her voice slurred, and I want to smack her.

  "I want her out of our house right now," I scream, more pissed that Kaiden seems so calm.

  He stands upright, pulling off the cap of the beer bottle with his bare hands, taking a long drink.

  It looks like he's already had a few from the way his face is flushed, and that pisses me off even more.

  He looks between me and his 'date' for the night, shrugging his shoulders.

  "Get out," he orders her, casually.

  "What?" She looks confused, not sure if it's a joke, and she laughs. "You know I don't have a ride."

  "Call your old man, then," he says, tossing her his cell phone. "He can pick you up on the way."

  Maybe it's the way he's looking at her like she has no choice, or maybe it's because I'm trembling and looking like I'm barely able to refrain from punching her, but she starts dialing and goes out into the porch to finish the call. Kaiden and I stare at each other in silence before she finally returns.

  "He can't get me," she says, and Kaiden is suddenly enraged, turning on her.

  "I said get the fuck out. This isn't my fucking problem, you cunt," he snarls with a scowl, and I wonder if he picked her because he saw her laughing at me. If he was doing it to punish her, or me... I didn't even know. She seems shaken by his tone, though, and quickly makes for the door.

  "You're fuckin' crazy, Kaiden!" she screams before slamming the door shut. Seconds later, we hear the sound of keys scraping metal. His bike? Or my car?

  Either way, Kaiden doesn't budge.

  He stares at me intensely, his breathing hard.

  "What is it you want from me, Princess? Huh?"

  I stare at him, confused bewildered.

  "You come here, you fuck up my life, and you take over everything. You come into my home, my job, and my friends. And now you're the one that tells me who I sleep with?"

  His voice is this measured calm, this dark, scary tone I've never heard him use before.

  Honestly, it's terrifying, and he looks so intense I can barely breathe, let alone answer.

  "I can't get you out of my head, and then you start taking over my life too," he growls, and it's like there's a heavy pit in my stomach. I don't want him to go on, I don't want him to keep talking, and I take a step back. But he follows.

  The kitchen is small enough that it only takes a couple of steps before he has me pinned to the wall, one hand over my shoulder, glowering down at me.

  At six and a half feet tall, he's built like a truck, and I feel so tiny.

  "What do I have to do to get you out of here, huh?" he asks, tapping his temple. "I've fucked every broad that comes into that place, and not one of them can get you out. And now I have to see you every goddamned day of my life, prancing around like I'm the scum of the earth, and you're untouchable.”

  He pauses, but he doesn’t stop. His words are slurred and dark, his breath washing over me.

  “I got away from you, I got my life back, and then you come wandering back. Making me want you again, and all the while, you act like you’re too fucking good for this world. But if you eat with the pigs, Princess, you can't be surprised when you get a bit dirty."

  I can't believe what I'm hearing, and my heart is pounding so loud that maybe I'm hearing it all wrong.

  Is he saying that he feels for me the same way I feel for him?

  I stare up at him, and he leans closer, his mouth approaching mine. I can smell the whiskey on his breath, and I want, more than anything, to simply silence all my fears on his lips. To just succumb to what I want so fucking bad.

  His green eyes caress my face, his tongue runs along his upper lip as he leans in further. He’s only an inch away, and I want him. My stomach clenches with desire and I need him so fucking bad.

  Instead, I run.

  I don't know where I'm going. I just need to get away from him, from what he said.

  From how it made me feel.

  The road is so dark, I can barely see anything, even with my lights on. Not a soul around.

  I'm completely and utterly alone, and the sensation is at once comforting yet so alienating.

  Kaiden's words ring through my ears, the way he was staring at me so intently. With such longing.

  ‘Making me want you again...’

  I had to have misunderstood. It just couldn't be real. I didn't understand how it could be.

  It's one thing for me to think about my step-brother like this, but for the feelings to be mutual? That's just me dreaming, wanting for something that can't ever, ever be.

  I have to get out. Out of this town, out of this state, somewhere as far from him and the bar and Ryder as I can get.

  I drive for what feels like such a long time but must have been only forty-five minutes.

  The sky's turning that navy color, sunrise just an hour or two away, and my eyes are grainy. I can barely keep them open, all the adrenaline of the day taking its toll on me now.

  I have no idea where I am, but when I see a sign for a motel coming up, it seems my prayers are about to be answered.

  Pulling into a parking spot near the road and walking into the dimly lit lobby, I feel like a zombie, and the front desk clerk doesn't seem much better. Her face is sour and tight, but all I want is a bed for the night, to crash. To be alone and try to make sense of what's happening.

  "One night, please," I say, struggling to smile.

  "I'm sorry, we're full," she says in return, not even bothering to look.

  "But the sign says vacancy?" I press, more angrily than I intend.

  I can't believe my luck.

  She shrugs. "We're full."

  "You've gotta be shitting me!"

  The glare she gives me says it all, and I'm too tired to fight, too tired to even cry. A tremble goes through me, and I suck in some breath before simply turning and making my way back to my car.

  I can't go on. I crawl into the back seat, pull the itchy spare blanket over my shoulders, and just try to find some peace.

  It reminds me of those dark days after losing our home, back when I still had too much pride to talk to Kaiden about it, and I shiver despite the warmth of the night. I just need some sleep, and then I can figure it all out tomorrow.

  ***

  I wake up startled to a knocking on the window. At first I'm not entirely sure where I am. It comes back to me, slowly.

  I slept in the car again.

  For a second, I picture Kaiden coming to find me, an extra blanket and a warm coffee in hand, and I smile.

  Until I see the early morning light spilling over the cop at my window, lights flashing on his car parked not far away.

  "Fuck," I curse to myself, bolting up. My legs are cramped, and I have a kink in my neck, but I roll down the window.

  "Is there something wrong, officer?" I ask before I see the desk cler
k standing not far away, a smug look on her rancid little face.

  "I'm going to need you to step outside the vehicle, miss."

  ***

  "Kaiden... I know you're probably mad at me, but if you get this, I really need your help. I'm at a police station in Ramona, and if you don't pick me up, if someone doesn't pick me up, I'm going to be transferred somewhere else. I don't really know where. They impounded my car..."

  I try not to sob as I'm leaving him the message, but I've never been in trouble before. Never even been sent to the principal’s office. But now I'm in jail, being threatened with some half-baked vagrancy charge. I’d tried to explain over and over that the motel was full and I just needed to sleep, that it wasn't safe for me to drive, but they just kept telling me to tell it to the judge.

  I hang up the phone and get escorted back to my cell. It's a gross grey-green color, not really like what I've seen on TV. I guess because it's just lockup and not jail-jail. I go to the table and sit at one of the chairs, listening to the sound of the person in the bed retching something awful.

  And all I can do is push my palms to my eyes and sob.

  "Please, Kaiden," I whimper under my breath. "Please come."

  “Who’s Kaiden?”

  I startle, wiping my eyes of their tears and try to look... what? Hard? I’m an eighteen-year-old girl that looks more like a high school cheerleader, not a thug.

  I look into the face of a woman double my age at least, who’s leaning on her knee in the dark corner of the top bunk. I hadn’t realized that there were three of us in here.

  “My brother,” I say too quickly, opening up too fast. I’ve seen the TV shows, I know these people aren’t on my side. But I’m so scared, and I want so badly for someone to tell me it’ll be okay, and she looks like she’s been here before.

  “I’m sorry for, uh, waking you,” I say as I wipe the rest of my eyes.

  “Don’t worry about it, kid. Missy-moo beneath me here is what’s keeping me up. Ever since they got rid of the drunk tank, this place has gone downhill.” She gives me a wry sort of smile, half-cunning, half-genuineness. She reminds me of one of the customers at the bar. Someone that time and life hasn’t been kind to.

  But I guess we’re both in lockup, so maybe life hasn’t been kind to either of us.

  “Oh, yeah,” I reply, as if I know, but she must be able to see me better than I can see her.

  “Your hands are shaking. First time here?”

  I look down at my hands before pressing my palms to the table. “Yeah,” I murmur, honesty spilling from my lips once more.

  She hops down from the bed, away from the puddle beneath our roommate’s face, and joins me at the table.

  “What’re you in for?”

  “Vagrancy,” I reply with a sneer, another sob striking my chest. “I just... I ran away, and the motel was full, so I was just sleeping in my car in the parking lot. I didn’t know there was anything wrong with it!”

  Her mouth goes into a line, the remnants of her lip liner still visible. Watery blue eyes and light colored lashes peer at me. “That’s a tough break, kid.”

  “Why, what are you here for?”

  She shrugs as if it’s nothing. “Solicitation.” She pauses, then continues without needing to, “Prostitution, I mean.”

  I look away. “Oh.” My nose crinkles before I force my eyes back to hers. “Is this... is it your first time for that?”

  She shakes her head and looks, for a second, so sad.

  “Third time’s a charm, right sweetheart?” she says, and my heart breaks for her. I don’t know the charges or the sentence she’s facing, but I can’t imagine it’s going to be lenient.

  “I’m sorry,” I murmur gently.

  She shakes her head and gives me a flimsy smile. “It happens. But when you’re desperate, you take risks you wouldn’t otherwise,” she says as she raises her chin towards me. “So what has you on the run?”

  “My brother...”

  “The same one that you’re begging to come get you?”

  I laugh, the sound pathetic and soft. “Yup.”

  Her face is instantly hard, and she leans in, talking more quietly. “Has he hurt you? Laid hands on you?”

  I shake my head, feeling a little sick to my stomach that anyone could ever think that about Kaiden. Despite all his hardness, despite all the things he’s done over the years, he’s never hurt me. Not like that.

  I don’t even know why it bothers me so much that this stranger would think that, but it does. I feel the instant need to defend him.

  “No, no. He’s... I mean, he’s my step-brother, and I’ve been living with him for a few weeks, and we just don’t... we don’t get along that great.”

  "Your step-brother?" The woman looked at me with a raised brow before she simply shrugged her shoulders. "Well, family's complicated, ya? Why don't you get along?"

  I sit back in my chair, and I'll be honest... I’m totally and utterly stumped as to what to tell her. I mean, I know why we don't get along, now more than ever. I know we've been pushing one another away, that we've been trying to deny this... feeling hanging between us. That we'd been needing to put time and distance and space between us, and it hasn't worked.

  So how do I tell that to a woman? To a stranger? I just don't know, and I lick my lips. She's just a random person. Maybe... maybe it wouldn't be so bad just to tell her. It's not like I'm ever going to see her again, not once I get released.

  "I... we want to be something to one another that we just... can't be." The words feel funny on my tongue, but it’s like this sense of relief washed over me. All my anger and rage at Kaiden, all these emotions, they simply started to calm as the weight of the words lingered in the air.

  "I see," she says, tapping her fingers on the table. I don't know if it's a nervous habit or if she's just lost in thought—her expression is unreadable. "What do you two wanna be then, huh?"

  I swallow, and I can't meet her eyes anymore. I'm too scared of what might be reflected back at me.

  "Something…more." I manage. Something so much more. I want to be his. I want to be one of those women that he makes moan and cry his name. I want to feel my body wrapped around him, lost to his muscles, lost to his mouth.

  I want to feel his hard body pressing up against mine as he claims me for my own. I shake my head free of the thoughts. It's not an appropriate time for fantasizing about him, to say the least. But at least the thoughts take me away from the jail for a few seconds.

  When I look at her again, I see how intensely she's been staring at me, those clear eyes looking through to my soul. It sends a shiver down my spine, and I just give her an apologetic smile.

  "Sorry, I shouldn't be talking about this," I say and she shakes her head.

  "It's not so bad, being in love," she assures me, and my heart’s racing. I'd never thought of it like that. I've always denied that that was the word for what I feel.

  But the way it strikes me, I know she's right.

  I love Kaiden.

  ***

  My cellmate is still dry heaving and shaking like mad on the bottom bunk. I guess she’s drying out. They haven't woken at all in the hours I've been locked up in this grungy cell.

  Sarah, the prostitute on the top bunk, has finally managed to get some sleep, though she makes these soft little whimpering sounds that make me want to reach out and comfort her. She didn't tell me much about herself, and less about what got her in here, but those pained gasps of her nightmares tell me more than she ever needed to.

  I'm still at the table when I hear some noise from outside my cell. I haven't slept since the catnap in the car, but I'm too afraid to sleep. And, I'm still in a daze about my realization with Kaiden. About what I want from him.

  "Abigail Tuney? Someone's come for you," the cop says through the little barred window. "You're being released."

  I stand, pushing the chair away and turning towards the door as it swings open. I wonder if I should say goodbye to Sarah,
but she's still deep in sleep, and I don't want to disturb her.

  My hair's a mess, my muscles all ache, my makeup must be completely smeared or gone and I feel like a mess.

  But when I see Kaiden's face?

  He looks proud.

  And I've never been so happy to see him in my life.

  It's been a few days, and things have kind of returned to normal.

  Well, I say returned to normal, but Kaiden and I haven't spoken since I got off his bike and went back into the house. I don't know what to say to him, either. I just keep thinking about what he told me...

  What I had realized about how I felt.

  It reminds me of the time I fell out of the boat. The way he looked at me like he was just seconds from kissing me, and then went suddenly cold out of nowhere. He didn’t speak to me for so long I thought I’d done something wrong.

  But this time, I’m just as angry at him as I am at myself. Angry at how much I still want him.

  He hasn't brought any other women home, either. He’s just been locked up in his bedroom by himself, barely eating, though he helped me get my car back from impound at least. Even at work, he's been avoiding me, and part of me is happy for the space.

  But a huge part of me is upset that he's avoiding me. I know I started it, but I just want... something more than this.

  It's dumb, I know that. But I don't care. If he really feels that way for me, he should do something about it. But of course he won’t. I know I won't. It's too risky.

  Even if we weren't siblings, just getting closer to him would give Ryder more ammo.

  I’m grateful that I have today off. My first day off in seventeen days, and I'm feeling pretty good about it all, other than the fact that apparently Kaiden took the night off too.

  I can hear him in his room, the TV on low, but it doesn't matter. The walls are so thin I can still make out every word.

  Sounds like he's watching some biker show, random shootouts happening every once in a while and a whole lot of yelling and fighting.

  I listen to it for a while, letting my mind drift back to when I was sixteen or so.