Hendrix.
I repeat the name I haven't spoken in years. "Hendrix who?"
Hendrix who, indeed. I know exactly who he's talking about. Is there really any other Hendrix?
Has there ever been?
My stepfather clears his throat and opens his mouth to speak, but the door behind him swings wide and as if on cue, Hendrix walks inside. Immediately, it's like all of the air is sucked out of the room.
I sit there, my heart pounding so loud I think my chest might actually explode as I stare at him.
Hendrix.
My stepbrother.
I was seventeen when he left to join the Marines just as soon as he turned eighteen. That one year age difference between us was everything -- a gulf a mile wide. He was one year older than me and a million times more superior, with dyed hair and piercings and total disdain for authority. He only joined the Marines to piss off the Colonel.
I couldn't stand Hendrix from the moment I met him. I hated him on sight. And then, later, I wanted him, with all the wild lust and longing of a teenage girl. He walked into my life when I was fifteen years old, and at that age, he was the most irresistible thing I'd ever laid eyes on.
I'd like to say I haven't thought about him since he ran off to join the Marines, but that would be a lie. I've definitely thought about Hendrix. But in my thoughts, he's still the irritating, sexy-as-hell teenager I used to know.
Not this.
This is…something else entirely. Five years has changed Hendrix. He's not a sullen teenager anymore. Now he looks like the freaking poster child for the Marines. Except with tattoos. Lots and lots of tattoos. They run up the length of his arms, disappearing under the sleeves of the t-shirt that stretch across his biceps, the same t-shirt that pulls across his very well-defined chest. I'm suddenly reminded why, five years ago, my heart would race every time I was near him.
Hendrix stands there, his broad shoulders squared back, looking at me like he dares me to object to any of this. The way he gazes at me sends a shiver up my spine. It's the same way he looked at me the day he walked into my life. "Hey, Addy," he says, one corner of his mouth pulling up slightly in his trademark cocky grin, the one that used to give me goose bumps. "I'm back. Did you miss me?"
I stand so quickly my knees go weak and I feel dizzy. I don't get weak-kneed. I've been in the spotlight for as long as I can remember. Hell, I've performed at Madison Square Garden. I don't get nervous in front of people. I sure as hell don't get weak-kneed over some guy. Especially some guy I don't even like. Hendrix was a total asshole to me when we were teenagers, and he might look different -- hotter, to be sure -- but that doesn't mean he's changed. "I'm not doing this," I say, imbuing my voice with a steadiness I definitely do not feel. I clear my throat. "Fuck this. I'm out of here."
The suit from the agency stands and buttons his jacket. He doesn't look at me, just turns and addresses my mother before he leaves. "This was a concession on our part," he says. "Get her in line."
"Addison," my mother hisses. "Do not ruin this."
"Of course. I wouldn't want to embarrass you, or God forbid, stop the flow of money coming your way." My hands are shaking, and I steady them on the surface of the table. Why do I feel so light-headed? I pointedly ignore the look Hendrix gives me from the other side of the table. His eyes are on me, and I feel naked under his gaze.
Hendrix has always had a way of making me feel that way.
Nothing ever happened between us, but Lord knows I thought about it back when we were teenagers, before he left for the Marine Corps.
"Addison Stone," my stepfather bellows. "We are trying to look out for your best interests."
"Bullshit," I hear myself say, the words echoing through the stillness of the room. They sound stronger than I do, like they're coming from someone else, someone more sure of herself than I am. I step around the other side of the table and walk toward the door, all the while refusing to make eye contact with Hendrix. I'd rather go to some fake rehab for thirty days than have Hendrix escort me everywhere. "You're looking out for your own interests."
"Damn it, Addison." My mother stands up, shrugging off my stepfather's grasp when he tries to get her to sit down, and rushes toward me, her face contorted with anger. "I've put too much work into you to have you blow this off like it's no big deal, just so you can party all night and act like a little slut, do you understand?"
"A slut? Really, mother?" I hear myself say. But I feel light-headed, and my voice sounds weak. The room begins to sway, and I totter, regretting my choice of high heels. My mother grabs my arm, her fingernails digging into my skin, and I want to smack her, but I suddenly feel paralyzed, like I'm stuck in quicksand. I shouldn't have skipped breakfast, I think. Did I eat dinner last night?
Then Hendrix is standing in front of me, positioned between my mother and me, his hands on my arms. When he speaks, his voice sounds muffled, like he's talking to me from underwater.
I never noticed what an odd shade of blue his eyes are, I think, feeling strangely detached from everything. They're the color of the sky before a storm. That's what my grandmother would call it. There's a storm-sky rolling in, Addy, she'd say, taking my hand in hers. In the south, the sky turns this gray-blue, almost black, right before the heavens rip open and unleash a torrent of rain.
I wonder what Hendrix is hiding behind those eyes.
That's the last thought I have before everything goes dark.
CHAPTER TWO
HENDRIX
SEVEN YEARS AGO
"This is not the time or place for your bullshit, do you fucking understand me, Hendrix?" My father stands in front of me, his voice low and deep in his throat, speaking in hushed tones so that his new wife and her perfect little brood don't accidentally overhear him. He wouldn't want them thinking that anything less than the ideal father and son were becoming part of the family.
"Whatever." I roll my eyes, speaking the word under my breath. My father, with all his rigidity and damn propriety ("There's a reason protocol exists, Hendrix, a reason for a chain-of-command; life needs order" and all that blah blah blah bullshit), decided that it would be perfectly fucking appropriate to marry the mother of a damn teenage country music star. They eloped. Didn't tell anyone. He went and did it two weeks ago, while I was still at military school. They didn't even have the courtesy to wait until I was on summer break or anything.
It's not like I wanted to be involved in some stupid wedding anyway.
Whatever.
The Colonel didn't even bother showing up to the academy in person to tell me, not that I'd expect him to. He called to drop that bombshell over the phone. And since I got kicked out of military academy last week – none of the Colonel's bluster and blather could get them to keep me after I screwed the General's daughter – now I've been carted to Nashville fucking Tennessee, which I think must be redneck capital of the United States, to meet my new family.
"Whatever?" The Colonel stands in front of me, his face contorted with rage. I know he wants to hit me right now, more than anything. But we're here in the entryway of his new wife's mansion, this ridiculous place that's so suburban-new-money it makes me want to vomit. So he wouldn't dare slug me, not here in the middle of everything. I'm sure she doesn't want bloodstains on her fancy tile.
"Sir, yes, sir," I say, my tone mocking. I'll rile him up and not feel a damn bit of guilt about it. Why should I? He's the one who's dragging me along for the ride, inserting me into this new family life.
A small voice cuts through the tension. "Are you Hendrix?"
I turn around to see her, walking down the marble monstrosity of a staircase that curves up to the rooms upstairs.
Addison Stone.
When my father told me who he was dating – the "dating" part was a lie, by the way, since he'd already married Addison's mother, Wendy Stone -- I didn't recognize the name. Then I did a little internet research. Addison Stone was some kind of media sensation, discovered on one of those reality singing shows two yea
rs ago.
Now she has an album and she's touring and shit. She's younger than me. Which means it's only a matter of time until the comparisons begin: "Addison has made a million dollars already; what are you going to do with your life?"
Addison is definitely hotter than she looked on the videos I watched of her online. Her long blonde hair is pulled back in a ponytail that swings as she bounces down the stairs in her jeans and bare feet with her perfect little pink pedicure. She's wearing lip gloss on her perfectly pouty pink lips. I watch her walk across the marble floor -- she practically bounces as she moves -- and then she flashes her perfect, gleaming white teeth in a perfect little smile and holds out her hand. "I'm Addison Stone," she says, her cheeks pink as she grins like an idiot.
I look at perfect little Addison in her perfect little house and I decide I fucking hate her.
* * *
PRESENT DAY
Addison's eyes pop open and she makes an expression that falls somewhere on the spectrum between surprise and horror. "What the –"
"You fainted." I don't add that she probably fainted because she looks like she could stand to get a good night's sleep and to eat a meal other than salad. I haven't seen this girl since she was seventeen, but she has to be smaller now than she was then. She feels fragile in my arms.
At least, until she starts flopping around like a fucking fish out of water.
"Why are you – " she starts, and slaps my arm, hard. "Put me down."
If it were any other time and any other person issuing the directive, I would. But because it's Addison ordering me around, I can't in good conscience listen. On principle, you know. "I don't think so."
She struggles harder, which makes me laugh. And makes her obviously angry. "You're a Neanderthal. I'm not going anywhere with you."
"You heard my father," I say. "I'm going to be your new bodyguard. Or whatever. Shit, stop squirming, or you're going to fall on your head and I'm not going to feel the least bit sorry for you when you crack your skull open on the damn ground."
"People are looking at us," she says. I'm carrying her down through the hall of whatever-the-hell building this is, and she's right. There are offices in here and someone comes to the door to gape openly at us. "I'm sure someone has called a photographer already."
"Then I guess you better get ready to smile for the cameras, sweet cheeks."
"Unless you want the story to be about how you're hooking up with your own stepsister, I suggest you put me down."
"What the hell?" Her words catch me off guard and I let go. Somehow, she manages to land with her feet underneath her, like a cat, although how she does it on those ridiculously high heels of hers boggles my damn mind. Hooking up with her? "Why would you say something stupid like that?"
I can't see her eyes. They're obscured by the hair hanging in her face as she looks away from me. The fact that I want to see her eyes, that I want to know what she's thinking, should be setting off warning bells in my brain.
Addy whirls toward me, tucking her long blonde hair behind her ear, and giving me a look. I recognize that look. That's the one she used to give me pretty much all the time when we were teenagers. She wants to throttle me.
The problem is that when she licks her lip the way she does, her tongue running over the bottom of it slowly, I swear she's doing it on purpose just to wind me up. I have to consciously think about not getting hard when I look at her.
I don't know what the hell I was thinking, agreeing to the Colonel's plan. This was a big fucking mistake. I ran headlong into the Marines when I was eighteen just to get the hell away from Addy. Five years away from her should have cured me.
All it takes is one look, one lick of her lips, and I'm right back where I was five years ago. Addy has no idea how I felt about her back then, though, I made sure of that – and I'm not about to let her know now. And I sure as hell don't want any pictures of us that imply we're something we're not. Something we can't be.
Addy pushes me away from her. "Something stupid like what?" she asks, her eyes flashing. "You pick me up and carry me outside like a caveman. What do you expect people are going to think?"
She whirls around, wobbling in her heels. I catch her elbow so she doesn't fall, but she jerks her arm away from my grasp.
"You want to fall on your ass?" I ask, squeezing her arm tighter. "Stop being so fucking obstinate. I can see some things really haven't changed at all, have they?"
"Obstinate. That's an awful big word," she says, not looking at me. But she doesn't yank her arm away this time, not until we get outside. Then she wrenches it from my grasp, like she's ashamed of being seen with me publicly. The gesture pisses me off more than I care to admit to myself. Of course, Addy has always gotten under my skin, from the first moment I laid eyes on her, seven years ago. She'd already hit it big then, so she was the golden child, and I was the black sheep.
"Yeah, well, some of us Marines can use big words," I say. "A few of us can even read."
Addy makes an unintelligible sound under her breath, and the fact that she has no response gives me a perverse feeling of satisfaction.
"What?" I ask. "Nothing to say, sweet cheeks?"
"Stop calling me that," she huffs. "I didn't ask for them to make you my fucking handler or bodyguard or whatever the hell they're doing."
"No shit," I note. "I didn't think you were that much of a masochist."
But Addy doesn't respond. "Is your car here?" she asks. "I had a driver."
"At your service." My tone is sarcastic, and I hear her huff behind me as she follows me to the car. I make a point of opening the door for her with a dramatic flourish.
Addy doesn't say anything, but as we drive, she moves her finger absently on the arm rest. Tap-tap-tap, pause, tap-tap-tap, pause. She used to count when she was anxious, which was a lot more than she ever let on, I think. I doubt she knows I ever noticed, but I did. She had these little habits – counting, arranging her stuff in a certain order – people wrote it off as her being a diva, but I knew it was more than that. I noticed a lot of things about her back then.
Damn it. Why am I suddenly feeling protective of her?
"You need food," I say. As soon as the words come out of my mouth, I realize how caveman-like they do sound. You. Eat. Food. Now.
Addy turns to look at me, and I can see her raise her eyebrow over the frame of her giant sunglasses. "Is this what our parents hired you for? To tell me what to do?"
Shit, it's been five years of giving orders in the military. She should be glad I didn't use my yelling voice. "Maybe if you took care of yourself a little better, they wouldn't have to hire someone to tell you to eat."
"The Marines sure didn't make you less of a jackass, did they?"
Her question makes me laugh, and I look out of the corner of my eye, only to see her try to hide her smile. "That would be a negative," I say, as I pull the car into the parking lot of a diner. "Besides, if they had, you'd only be disappointed."
Addy snorts, but she follows me out of the car, pushing open the passenger side door before I can pull open the handle.
"You could wait two seconds and I'd open it for you," I tell her.
She huffs as she pushes the door closed behind her. "Because I can't open my own car door?"
"You haven't learned any manners in the last five years, have you?" I ask. She has her back against the car, and I stand in front of her, blocking her from moving. I'm so close to her we're almost touching. She tilts her head up to look at me, her sunglasses obscuring her eyes, and the fact that they're on her face irritates me to no end. I reach out and slide them onto the top of her head so I can look at her.
Addy huffs like she's annoyed with me, except her pupils are large and her eyes are wide as she gazes at me, her lips parting as she inhales sharply. The sound makes me hard. My cock presses up against the zipper of my jeans, and I think about sliding my hands underneath that curvy ass of hers and placing her smack dab on the hood of the car and fucking her right here and n
ow.
What the hell is wrong with me? Twenty damn minutes with her and I can't think straight. This is definitely not the seventeen-year-old girl I left behind in Nashville. This Addison is all grown up. Something's got to be seriously messed up with the fact that screwing her is all I can think about.
"You're one to talk about manners," she says, her voice trembling. "Ordering me around like I'm some kind of employee."
"I haven't even begun to order you around, sweet cheeks," I say. I clear my throat to try to hide the arousal that's evident in my tone, but the innuendo in the words is as plain as day. The fact is, I didn't want this fucking job, but after three months of trying to work in an office after getting out of the military, I'm shit out of luck. Apparently I was not adjusting well to a corporate environment. Now that I've seen Addy in person, I'm not sure this was the best plan ever. A perpetual case of blue balls is not my idea of a good time.
Addy's cheeks flush pink, but I can't tell if it's because she's embarrassed or turned on. Either way, I feel smug when I see her reaction. "I'd love to see you try," she says.
"Is that a request?" I ask. The way her lips part slightly in response makes me think it sure as hell is, and I have to tell myself to step away from her before I really do something I regret. I can't even begin to imagine how the Colonel's head would fucking explode if I so much as laid a finger on Addy.
Of course, that might be even more incentive to behave inappropriately with the stepsister I haven't seen in five years, I think as I follow her inside the diner, watching her hips sway as she sashays on those heels.
CHAPTER THREE
ADDY
SEVEN YEARS AGO
"He's troubled," my mother says, as she applies another coat of mascara to her lashes. She's half-bent over the vanity in her room, wearing a dress that's cut down her lower back, barely covering her rear, garish and more appropriate for a twenty-year-old than for her. Sometimes I think that my launch to stardom just gave her a reason to relive her youth. That's been doubly true since she met the Colonel.
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