Secret: A Military Stepbrother Romance

by Irons, Aubrey

  My hand is shaking, and I grip the champagne flute tighter, willing it to stop. I do not get this way over guys, especially a prick who tried to take advantage of my grief; winding me up around his finger before shoving me away, quite literally. Hudson Banks is a fucking head-case; some ex-military jock who somehow found his way into my Father’s good graces and wound up running a whole division of his company. I shake my head again, suddenly realizing I actually would rather there not be a campaign than take my father’s money; especially if it’s coming from Hudson fucking Banks, however stupidly good looking and sexy he looks in that damn tuxedo with those piercing blue eyes the color of a stormy sea.

  I’m dimly aware of Donald hissing at me as I shove the champagne flute into his hands and walk away, ignoring the cameras, the stuffy museum trustees, my campaign aides, and especially the hot asshole in the tuxedo, as I march right out through the museum foyer and out the door.

  Chapter Two

  She storms out of the foyer and through the double glass doors into the museum courtyard, and I’m shaking my head and following her. Of course I’m following; like I’ve been following her for longer than she’s ever known and in spite of how damn bratty she gets. It’s cold out here in the open-air courtyard, and the city lights and sounds are only slightly muffled by the four walls of the museum around us.

  She whirls on me with a look of fury on her face, her mouth open ready to spit fire and brimstone and vitriol at me like I know she is, when suddenly she’s slipping on the ice under her heeled feet. I move faster than my brain even knows how to; years of training and reflex just making the body move on its own accord I guess, and I’m catching her before my head even totally registers that she’s falling.

  Fuck, she feels amazing in my arms. She’s come out here without a coat on in that classic hot-headed Reagan way, and as my arms go around her, I can feel the heat from her skin against my palms through the low-cut open part at the back of her dress. Her hands clutch at my jacket lapels, one seizing my arm as she gasp and tumbles right into my chest. I close my eyes for the briefest moments, smelling her perfume or shampoo, or whatever voodoo magic she’s using to bring my head completely to a stop as I just hold for a frozen moment in time.

  You know, smelling her, like a totally normal person.

  “Put me down,” Her voice is high and whispered, but she’s not fighting or struggling against me. I’m still frozen, feeling her hand against my chest and my shoulder like that; her hair in my face and her scent just enslaving me.

  “Hudson!” She sounds more insistent this time, and now she’s pushing at my chest; “The last thing I need is some photographer snapping pictures of me canoodling with some hot prick in a tuxedo.”

  I pull my face back to grin into hers; “So, five years later and you’re still thinking about my hot prick, huh?” I smirk at her, still relishing the feel of her in my arms, and doing everything I can, even if it’s obnoxious, to keep her there even a moment longer.

  Reagan rolls her eyes; “Emphasis prick,” she huffs out, squirming out of my arms and stepping away from me.

  “Hey, your words not mine, sweet stuff.” I wince inside, regretting saying it even before it leaves my mouth. Why the fuck can’t I just be normal around her? There’s something about the way she talks to me - the way she’s always talked to me - that brings out the fighter in me when all I want to do is be normal around her. Well, that’s of course not the only thing I want to do with her when I’m around her, but I let that thought simmer away for the time being. It doesn’t help that she’s sexy as hell standing here in the freezing cold with her red hair looking wild and fierce and wearing that ridiculously hot black dress with her nipples poking through. I can feel my cock stir in my pants, and I shake my head, trying to tear my eyes away from her perfect tits in that perfect dress with her perfect nipp-

  “In your dreams, asshole.”

  You have no fucking idea, babe I think inside, gritting my teeth and trying to will my erection to go away. Instead, like I always do with her, the snark comes out instead; “You know honey, Donald’s right about you.” I can see her bristling at the word honey and add that one to the list of probably slightly offensive names she clearly hates.

  “What?”

  “You do have a hell of a mouth on you.”

  She smirks at me, all sass and sexiness; “Oh, honey, you have no idea.”

  I groan inside, feeling my cock go rock-hard inside my tuxedo pants. I don’t know if she means for it to come out as innuendo-laden as it does, but before I can even think about it too hard, she whirls to march away from me and suddenly she’s slipping on the ice all over again. I lunge again, catching her once more before she falls.

  “Stop touching me, Hudson!”

  “Well stop fucking falling then!”

  We glare at each other for a second, and it’s taking everything I have to meet her eyes and not to stare at her trembling lower lip, or further down to where I can clearly see her nipples poking out of her sheer gown. Somehow, somehow, chivalry wins out over my dick, and I let her go, putting her back on her feet. She shivers, and before I know it I’m shrugging my tux jacket off and pushing it towards her.

  “Stop it, I don’t want that.” Her eyes flare defiantly, all the while rubbing her arms with her chilling looking hands.

  “It’s freezing out here”

  “Well I’m fine!”

  I grit my teeth and roll my eyes; “Have you seriously always this fucking obstinate?”

  “It’s my ‘political edge’,” she sneers out.

  “Well, that’s one word for bitchy.” I cringe again inside, wondering how the hell I can go about murdering the voice inside my head that keeps insisting on letting everything out.

  She frowns at me, reaching up to push a loose lock of hair behind her ear and just looking so damn cute standing there shivering; “Is there a fucking point to all this?”

  Ugh, yes, if I could just stop acting like an asshole and ruining it.

  I clear my throat; “Yes, actually. Archer Holdings believes in your campaign.” Christ I sound like I’m giving a board meeting address.

  She purses her lips and clenches her jaw at the name; “Fantastic, well tell them to vote however their little hearts desire in the election. I’ll have my people send over some lawn signs and buttons if they’d like.”

  “Cute” I mutter, seeing her frowning mouth turn up slightly at the corners.

  “So, what, is my Dad trying to buy my love from beyond the grave or something?”

  I grimace, feeling my muscles tense and hands clench, before I have to remind myself that she never knew William Archer like I did; like we did.

  When he found me, I had nothing; less than nothing really. None of us did back then, until he dragged us back from the brinks of our own personal hells. And when I say ‘Nothing,’ I don’t just mean in the material possessions sense of the word either. When a man is broken inside as I was - like all three us were - there's almost no coming back from it. In the very bottom depths of my own nightmare, with the shit I'd seen and the even worse shit I'd done, I'd given up on myself; almost.

  "When a man gives up on himself, that's when he's truly gone" He'd said to me that first night, sitting in that shit-ass bar as he’d pulled the bottle away from my shaky hand when I'd reached for another drink; "And you don't seem like you're gone; not yet."

  'But Goddamn close to it’ is what I would've said, looking at me that night.

  I asked him later what he saw in any of us when he found us in that shithole of a slum-bar on the outskirts of Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I was curious about me when I asked him, but Bryce had been way worse than even I was back then with his addictions. William’s only response had been a single word: "Promise."

  'Promise' is what turned three shell-shocked, burned-out, drugged out soldiers for hire to the worst dictators on Earth into the disciplined new men of means we were today. We'd never be the man who saved us, but
we'd pledged our lives to getting a close as possible. And a promise - not just any promise but THE promise - is what brings me out here in the freezing cold, looking at Reagan Archer and wondering how in the world a guy who'd lived through the shit I'd lived through is having the hardest time in the world trying to figure out what the hell to say to her.

  Chapter Three

  P A S T

  “Reagan! Ray! Do not make me late!”

  “What? I’m here, jeez.” I stomp down the stairs from the second floor landing with a scowl on my face, a scowl that only deepens when Quinn and my Aunt Kelly coo and aww and gush over the frilly, stupid pink dress I’m wearing as I make my appearance.

  “Oh Reagan, you look adorable, honey!” Aunt Kelly gushes; clutching her hands together eagerly before digging in her purse for her camera.

  I groan; “No! No pictures!” I make a face as the flash goes off regardless, setting my jaw even harder as I stomp the rest of the way down the stairs. I am fourteen years old, still very firmly in the grasp of my anti-dress tomboy phase, and I absolutely hate that I’m dressed up like a freaking cabbage patch doll.

  “Well I love my dress!” Chelsea comes bounding down the stairs, and even Quinn rolls her eyes at the exuberance. Chelsea is ten and firmly believes she’s actually a Disney princess.

  “Well you look very pretty young lady!” Aunt Kelly can’t help herself as she snaps another couple of pictures, the flashes making me turn away and shield my eyes.

  “Well I look stupid, stop it.” I groan, pushing her fussing hands away from the dress; “Why do I have to wear this dumb thing?”

  “Because it’s my graduation, that’s why, Ray-Ray.” Quinn giggles and sticks her tongue out as I make a lunge at her, only to be held back by Aunt Kelly.

  “Reagan!” She scolds, looking at my firmly. Aunt Kelly is one of those sweet motherly types who is incapable of looking mad no matter how hard she tries, and even at thirteen, I think I’m aware of this fact and impressed with her attempt anyways.

  “She started it! I hate that name!”

  Aunt Kelly turns and gives Quinn another equally as unimposing stern look; “Be nice to your sister, she is wearing the dress after all.”

  “What’s the point? It’s not like Dad’s going to show up anyways.”

  The silence that descends over the bottom of the stairs is palpable, and I instantly regret opening my mouth as Chelsea’s face falls and the tears start to well up in her eyes. Even always-cool Quinn looks like I slapped her in the face, and my Aunt’s face goes a shade whiter; “Now Reag-“

  “Fuck you, Reagan.” Quinn spits at me as she turns and storms out the front door.

  I don’t know it yet, but me and my big mouth have a long, illustrious future ahead of us.

  P R E S E N T

  Hudson gets weird when I mention my Dad, which only drives the wedge that’s already between us even deeper; the wedge being that I didn’t know my own Father half as well as he did.

  “Look, let’s go get a drink or something and I’ll explain.”

  He can not be serious.

  “I’m not going anywhere with you.” I remember the last time with him when drinks were involved, and immediately regret it as I feel my face grow hot.

  “Will you fucking relax?” He snaps, looking irritated and still holding out his jacket to me even though we both know I’m not going to take it; “Look, this isn’t about us-“

  “There is no ‘us’, Hudson,” I sneer. I know I’m covering for my own embarrassment with this bitchy act, but I can’t seem to stop myself. Besides, what other way is there to act towards Hudson?

  “Yeah, no shit, babe.”

  I glare at him.

  “Listen, Red,” He scowls at me, his blue eyes somehow looking even hotter when they’re fierce like that. I make a conscious effort to look at his chin instead.

  “Believe it or not, this is about your campaign, which people are actually interested in seeing work out for you.” He shakes his head at me, as if I’m some petulant child; “Get over it being your Father’s compan-“

  “Are you shitting me?” I can feel the fury rising inside as I cut him off and stare at him in disbelief; “You think this is just about me trying to act out or snub my Dad? Do I look like I’m fucking twelve years old?”

  “Twelve year olds are better behaved, Princess.” He grins at me.

  “Don’t call me that!” I snap shrilly; “I don’t want the money because I am not taking campaign donations from a gun manufacturer!” Half my damn platform is about cleaning up the streets and keeping firearms out of the hands of kids; how the hell did Donald OK this?

  Hudson purses his lips - those perfect, totally kissable-

  “We got out of all that, it’s nothing we do anymore.” He says evenly, his eyes staring into mine.

  “Sure.”

  He sighs loudly, rolling his eyes at me; “Jesus, have you always been this ridiculous? Look, just come have a fucking drink with me and I’ll explain everything.”

  I know the sneering face I make at him plays entirely into his calling me childish but I just don’t care. I turn back to the doors and see Donald standing behind them back inside the museum, giving me a scowl and shaking his head, and I can practically feel his disapproval from here.

  “Fine; let’s go.”

  *****

  “This is your car?”

  He looks up from the passenger door he’s opened for me with a smug expression; “Yep”

  Of course it is; I roll my eyes, wondering for the ninth time since we walked out of my own fundraising event why on earth I said yes to this.

  The sleek black vintage Charger is sexy as hell, but it’s just so overtly masculine and absurdly macho that I just shake my head as I slide into the passenger side of the bench seat. A car like this, of course, usually says that you’re making up for something else. I instantly feel my face flush scarlet with the memory of that one moment and the size of that thickness pressing against me as he kissed me.

  Hudson Banks isn’t making up for a thing with this car.

  I jump from my naughty daydream when his hand brushes my knee as he reaches for the shifter; “Easy there, hands-y,” I quip, shooting him a look.

  “Oh, relax and put your seatbelt on, Senator.”

  I’m about to respond when he roars away from the curb fast enough to take the breath from my lungs and send a surge of adrenaline right through my core as we tear off into the cold city night.

  *****

  The place we end up going is way fancy; like, the kind of bar that’s got so much class you can hardly get away with just calling it a “bar” anymore at all. As we’re ushered in, I’m suddenly glad we’re dressed the way we are, with him in a tuxedo and me in my gown. Although something tells me when I see the Benjamin that Hudson palms the maitre-d that he’d be seated wearing nothing at all.

  Images of Hudson’s chiseled, shirtless torso, and the big hint of what’s hidden lower flood my mind as we take a seat at the far end of the elegant bar-top.

  “What are you drinking?”

  “Huh?” I shake my head, feeling my cheeks burn as I try and clear my head of the dirty fantasies throbbing and undulating through my brain involving the man sitting next me. This is the man I need to loath and despise on pretty much every principal I have, not the man whos cock I should be fantasizing about. I don’t really drink much, and I can actually still feel the half-glass of champagne I had back at the fundraiser buzzing through me, but I shrug apologetically at the bartender anyways; “Oh, uh, wine I guess? Something white?”

  He smiles and turns to Hudson with a curt nod before he moves down to the other end of the bar.

  “He knows what I want,” Hudson says with a wink. He lets his eyes linger down the neck of my dress as he grins; the subtext that I should know what he wants too isn’t exactly lost on me. I clear my throat and look away.

  I let my eyes wander around the demurely lit, sleek and modern-looking room that reeks of
money, taking the place in; “Come here often?” The place is full of gorgeous women; all young and hot and digging - and Hudson looks like he’s made out of solid gold.

  “Often enough, sure.”

  Yeah I bet, I think, eyeing the trio of skanks giggling and batting their eyes in Hudson’s direction from the other end of the bar. The jealousy takes me by surprise, and find myself shaking my head; confused by it. Why on earth am I so heated about this? There is no “Hudson and I”; it was one night, five fucking years ago, and we basically just kissed.

  Well, kissed with his shirt half undone and his hand on my skin, teasing across my hip and sliding down across the wetness at the front of my panties. I cough again to clear my throat and my thoughts as the bartender returns with my wine, and something that looks like it jumped off the kids menu at a chain restaurant that he sets down in front of Hudson.