by Nikki Wild
Good Lord—forgotten him. As if I could ever forget my first real crush. As if I could forget how badly I’d wanted him, even when I told myself that I didn’t. How he’d made me tremble in the kitchen of our old house, my breath thick in my throat, his voice husky in my ear.
Come on, love. Don’t you want to piss your mother off?
“How am I supposed to forget my stepbrother after the exit that you made?” I asked, trying to keep my mouth from hanging agape. Tristan’s sudden rush to join the military was something that none of us had expected—me most of all. And the night that the two of us had nearly... I fumbled for something to discuss other than that time we’d nearly fucked. “That fight you had with your father was legendary. I think there are old women still scandalized by it to this very day.”
Lord Wolfe was in a rage like I had never seen before in my entire life, bellowing at the top of his lungs, spittle flying from his mouth as Tristan and he stared one another down face to face. Not that fighting between the two of them was uncommon. In fact I almost thought that they both too a certain pleasure in angering the other, seeing how far they could go to push one another into another argument…. I wasn’t sure how Tristan could have stood for that all of his life.
“What can I say? I like to make a spectacle of myself,” he chuckled again. It was a sound that had angered me so when we were teens together. The way that he could turn anything into a joke.
Tristan always seemed to have that arrogant smirk on his face, as though he was always one step ahead no matter what. It drove me insane when we were younger, always acting like he knew everything, and yet all the while utterly oblivious to the fact that I had harbored the deepest crush for him than anyone else I’d ever known.
It was an illicit thing, of course. For all the inbreeding that had plagued the royal lines in the past, the aristocracy was doing its best to rid itself of that image now. The fact that Tristan and I weren’t blood-related hardly mattered when reputation came into play. So I’d weathered the storm of my hormones and tried not to think too hard about my stepbrother’s lilting accent, the mischief in his eyes, or the way his lean muscles rolled when he took off his shirt to go swimming in the lake near his father’s estate.
But then, there was that one time—that fleeting moment we’d had before he left for the military. The night I’d been certain Tristan was going to undo me, a silly little eighteen-year-old virgin, right there in the pantry well after we were supposed to be in bed…
I physically waved the memory away. No. Now was not the time to think of that. We were adults now, and we knew better. Or I hoped I did, anyway.
“You certainly do,” I said, trying to compose myself with all haste. “And still, after all this time, you think that you can just come and go? Leave for years at a time, and not expect me or anyone else to bat an eye?”
I hadn’t realized that my temper had gotten the better of me, my face still tingling from all the blood rushing to it. Even I was shocked by the suddenness of my ire, so many old memories brought up at once had apparently been more than my self-control could handle. I had been holding these feelings in for all this time, bottled away with the hope that I’d never need to confront them ever again. I never realized that my stepbrother would ever return, not so suddenly, at least.
I cleared my throat and straightened my blouse before addressing him again. “Is there a reason you’ve broken into my office at the godforsaken hours of the morning?”
“Well, when I broke into your apartment you weren’t there,” he said, his admittance of his own wrongdoing had me boiling again already, and yet that errant bad boy, blasé attitude that he always seemed to flout also had a more… arousing effect, as well. “I thought that if you weren’t at home then you’d be at this posh new office of yours, working until the break of dawn. That was always the way you did things, after all. Valedictorian. Top of your class, and all that.”
I hated how after all of this time he still could affect me in the most intimate ways, simply by being in my presence. I wanted to slap him with all my strength.
“What do you want, Tristan?” I asked, folding my arms over my chest, staring daggers at him from across the room. He was so gorgeous I couldn’t deny how I’d want to drag him back to my flat and tear every bit of those clothes off. It was too bad I also wanted to put him through a blender and burn him in an incinerator. Why did we always crave the people who had always been the worst for us?
“I need your help, otherwise I wouldn’t be breaking in like some common criminal,” he said, rolling his eyes.
“If you’d have answered me, then I would have opened the bloody door!”
“But that wouldn’t have been any fun,” he sighed, shaking his head. The urge to punch him only rose higher inside of me. He was such a damned asshole that I could hardly stand it.
“What could I possibly do to help you, Tristan? You’ve never needed my help in the past. Why start now?” I set my jaw, my eyebrows furrowed in an attempt to look stern, though every time I looked into those gorgeous eyes I wanted to melt into the floor.
“Because I need something that only you can help me with, Gwennie.”
“Don’t call me that,” I snapped, my cheeks filling with color. “I told you never to call me that!”
“Which is why I do it,” he said in a sing-song voice. I wanted to scream.
“You’re not making a good case to get my help, Tristan. Whether we’re family or not, I don’t like being toyed with,” I said. “If you want to do business, then we’ll talk business. No games.”
I watched as his perfectly groomed eyebrows rose, and a shocking expression of... admiration spread across his face before his shoulders slumped ever so slightly. If I wasn’t so determined to be the kind of hard-ass who could stand up to him, I would have been surprised… and practically drooling at the way he looked in that suit.
“Sorry, Gwendolyn,” he began, clearing his throat. “I really do need your help.”
“With what, exactly?” I asked, narrowing my eyes. “You’ve never needed my help before—for anything. What’s so different?”
“I need to get married.”
My heart flipped and forgot to flop. “I beg your pardon?” I asked, slowly lowering myself back down into my office chair. I didn’t want him to show it, but those simple words had me shaking. Tristan wanted to get married? But what in the world for? He’d never wanted to be tied down—he’d even decried marriage to be archaic and backwards, an institution that should have been left behind in the Middle Ages. “What in the world would you need to get married for?”
“Because I actually want to claim my inheritance, Gwendolyn,” he said, no shortage of edge to his voice. His expression soured suddenly and he began to pace.
“I thought that you were already set to inherit,” I said, frowning as I leaned forward, elbows on my desk. “I mean, I know that with the new boy there’s a second heir, but you’d have priority as your father’s eldest son, wouldn’t you? I thought that was how this all worked.”
“It would be exactly that… if I was my father’s legitimate son.”
I leaned back, eyes wide as Tristan locked his gaze with mine. I’d known that Tristan’s mother had died in childbirth, but that he was born out of wedlock was something I’d never known. Though as I allowed that information to sink in, things began to make more and more sense, especially Lord Wolfe’s general coldness toward Tristan for all the years I’d known them.
“I never knew you were a…”
“ ‘Bastard’ is the common term,” he said, shrugging in an attempt to seem nonchalant, though by the sour expression on his face I could tell that the term bothered him. “I am my father’s by-blow from his days as a stallion, bedding women left and right through his years in college. My mother being one of many—though the only one that he managed to get pregnant.”
“Surely, he took responsibility—” I began, though Tristan’s sharp, barking laugh cut me off.
&n
bsp; “Only because he was pressured,” he said, his tone scornful. “My father didn’t care much for the idea of caring for his illegitimate child any more than I liked being under his watchful gaze. I was more than happy to see him leave for London on business while I stayed behind.”
“And now, with the child on the way, you need to cement your position as the heir to his legacy,” I said, turning my gaze away from him for fear that my thoughts might again wander to more unseemly places. “Which is why you need my help.”
“Spot on,” he replied, that smirk returning as though it had never left. “I need to be married to a respectable woman—an honest man with a family of his own.”
“I have a feeling that you might not get the results that you’re expecting from this, Tristan. I don’t just try to set up marriages, I try to encourage actual relationships. I mean, if you’re expecting to marry this woman in a matter of weeks or months, then I don’t think this is—”
“Let me worry about that,” he said, waving his hand dismissively. “After all is there a woman alive who can resist a man like me?”
I have, I thought, though I fought the urge to give in to that stunning smile whenever I saw him. I could already feel my heart fluttering, my pulse rising just from the way he moved and spoke. Maybe this was the best thing that I could do for him—and me.
If Tristan was married off, then he’d be gone and out of my hair. I’d be free from the constant temptation to maul my own stepbrother, begging him to ravage me just like I’d dreamed of. I licked my lips nervously. This might be the answer to my problem—a permanent solution to something I’d thought solved years ago. Though part of me cursed the thought I’d never get what I’d always desired—desired, but knew that I could never possess.
“All right,” I said after a brief silence. “I’ll help you, but first we have to get a few questions out of the way.”
“And before that,” Tristan said, coming just a little too close to me, that smarmy grin on his handsome face, “I think your big brother could do with a hug.”
4
“Come here,” I said as I walked around her desk, my arms spread wide to envelop her in a hug.
I was honestly surprised she’d even agreed to my insane plan, much less the prospect of finding me a wife in such short order. To be truthful I was hardly sure whether my plan would work at all, but I knew little Gwennie liked a challenge. Especially when it involved matters of the heart.
“I—no! Tristan I can’t—” she tried to say as I pulled her into a tight embrace. I could feel her body tensing as I pulled her against me, and I distinctly hear her let out a little gasp. More like a squeak, really—that same mousy sound she used to make whenever I got too close, like that night in the kitchen before I left for Afghanistan. She’d been making that sound, and so many more, and as soon as I heard it, something dark and primal pulsed through my groin. Was Gwen still hot for me after all this time?
Interesting, I thought, trying to hide the smirk on my face. Knowing my goody two-shoes stepsister still wanted me was validating, to say the least. And intriguing…
“Have a seat, please,” she said, her voice stiff as I pulled out of the embrace. Her face was flushed as she tried to straighten her outfit, her hands trembling. I knew I had a mission—a goal that all of this was for—but seeing Gwen after all of this time brought back the thoughts I’d get when I caught her staring at me as we grew up. She’d been so awkward, all arms and legs as a teen, but about the time she turned eighteen something had happened. All of a sudden she had curves and an ass that I would have killed to get my hands on. All of this, however, was stymied by the fact that on no circumstances was I allowed to lay a land on sweet little Gwennie, no matter how much I would have liked to. She was my stepsister, and the scandal alone would have gotten me disowned right before it gave my father a coronary.
That only served to make me want it more.
“I have a few questions I need to ask you before we can get you matched with one of the women I have on our client list. Just standard personality question on what you’re looking for in a match,” she said, clicking a few times on her mouse.
“Ask away,” I said, leaning back in the comfortable office chair opposite her. “I’m an open book.”
“Two open for his Lordship’s liking, I would say,” Gwen whispered, though must have realized how loudly she’d said it all too late. “I… I mean…”
“It’s all right,” I assured her, smiling a bit as I relaxed. “I know very well what my father thinks of me.”
Gwendolyn must have gotten more than her share of tirades about my behavior after I provided scandal after scandal for the entertainment of the country. It was one of my favorite pastimes, to be quite honest; often, I would wonder how much I would have to do in order to put my father into an early grave.
My stepsister shifted in her seat before clearing her throat.
“Are you looking for a woman who is among the aristocracy?” she asked, trying to refocus herself back onto the task at hand. It was almost adorable the way she tried not to think about how much she still wanted me.
“Not necessarily, but I wouldn’t be opposed, no,” I said, my eyes trailing over the line of her blouse, imagining the way she looked naked. “So long as they didn’t have their head up their ass.”
“Any interests you’d like to share with your potential matches?”
“Well, I do love a good football match,” I said, smirking as I watched her eyes flicking toward me every now and then from her screen. “And I suppose a healthy enjoyment of literature is a bit of a must-have. After that, maybe an enjoyment of classical music.”
“When have you ever liked literature?” she asked, her eyebrows raised incredulously.
“Since always and forever, my dear stepsister,” I said, my grin widening as her substantial shock to such news. “It’s always been one of my secret loves.”
In fact I’d gotten top marks in every literature course since primary school, a fact that my father never once gave one lick of attention to. He’d have much rather focus on my failings than congratulate me for my accomplishments.
She blushed deeply and cleared her throat again, trying not to let her mind dwell too long on the fact that I was sitting here while she was almost drunk off of her ass. I wondered just how easily it would be to get her to take those clothes off. I knew I could if I tried, and I knew that I’d have enjoyed it… but there was another task at hand. As much as I wanted to claim Gwendolyn, I knew business had to come first, and sadly, a sense of propriety along with it.
“Any preferred physical type?” she asked, swallowing thickly as I considered.
“A redhead, preferably. A woman who’s about my height—maybe slightly shorter—curvy rather than skinny, I think,” I said, pondering just what I’d always fancied in the women I’d bedded countless times.
“I see,” she said, her cheeks still flushed a nice rosy pink with embarrassment. “I think that’s about all that I have right now… If I need to narrow things down a little more, then I’ll contact you.”
“Sounds like a plan, then,” I said, smirking as I stood slowly from my chair. “I hope I’ll hear from you soon then.”
“I’ll try to get you a match by tomorrow evening and arrange a date for the two of you,” Gwendolyn said, rising as I did and offering her hand awkwardly. “After that, we’ll see where everything goes.”
“I’ll be eagerly awaiting your call, my dearest Gwennie,” I said smirking as I watched her face redden with annoyance. “Yes, I know, ‘don’t call you Gwennie.’ ”
“Goodnight, Tristan,” she said, summoning some resolve after my purposeful little jab.
“Goodnight, Gwendolyn” I said as I turned and walked out of her office and into the night. I couldn’t help but chuckle as I walked a few blocks out alone in the early hours of the morning, enjoying the crisp night air as I gathered my thoughts.
I thought about the days when Gwendolyn and I were younger,
teens who would have liked nothing more than to have never known one another, yet secretly harbored an unforgivable lust for each other—though “secret” could have been a strong term. I used to catch her staring at me all the time, her pale cheeks made rosy by all the naughty thoughts I was sure were running through her brain.
I happily recalled the night before I’d left for Afghanistan, the way she felt underneath my touch as I slipped her cami up her body. The way she’d writhed for me, her lashes fluttering, her fingernails dug in to the palms of her quaking hands. Was my Gwennie still a virgin? Part of me—a very southward part of me—was desperate to know, and had been ever since I left her dripping wet the night before my deployment.
Oh, what a dolt I was back then. I’d made assumptions about her character, writing Gwendolyn off as a girl who was just the same as any other I’d seduced. But she was stronger than that, not at all the shade of her mother I’d imagined she’d turn out to be. As punishment for my pride, I’d spent years wondering what it would have been like to have had her, to have consummated our forbidden affair. I wondered if I’d ever get the chance to know.
I also wondered if she even realized that the perfect match I’d described to her back there in her office fit her to a “T.”
5
I sat in silence behind my desk after my brother left, walking so casually back into the night as though he hadn’t just completely flipped my life upside down. He had a habit of that, though, turning everything on its head just for the sake of a good laugh. But is that was this was? Did he just want to play with me?
It was certainly easy to think so after he’d practically named me as his perfect match to spend the rest of his life with. My heart was thumping like a war drum as I stared into the empty space that he’d occupied only moments before, looking so absolutely fabulous without even trying. All those memories of the two of us growing up together flooded back like a dam had burst in my head. It was almost too much to handle.
