ROMANCE: BAD BOY ROMANCE: Bad Boy Brother (Stepbrother Interracial College Romance) (Contemporary Stepsister Taboo Romance)

by Gillian Joyner

  As Tyler watched, Shawn leaned in and gave her a kiss. His insides churned to see it. In his mind the tableau of himself bedding Janine turned to one of Shawn doing the same. His devious smile turned to a frown. Shawn, old buddy, I'll bet you think you're pretty good in the sack--just like you always thought you were good at everything else. Just like you thought you were better in bed with Wendy. We're just gonna have to see about that. I might have spent the last year at the Community College instead of here, but working at The Toy Chest I picked up a thing or two I'll bet you don't know. I'll be showing Janine what I learned real soon, just wait, pal...

  Shawn handed Janine the portfolio from the empty chair and she slipped the drawings into it. Without zipping up the case, Janine stood it up against the leg of the table while Shawn sat down. And under Tyler's watchful eye, Shawn began to talk to his girlfriend. At this distance and over the hubbub of the Student Union he couldn't make out what they were saying. But Shawn's smile remained constant and the rumble and churn of bile inside Tyler persisted. His old friend looked just the same--still so self-assured, still so cocky. Everyone always loved Shawn. Everyone always listened to Shawn. Girls wanted him. Other boys respected him. No doubt some other boys wanted him too. The time since high school had made him no less the alpha male. Shawn's father worked for an investment firm in town. He was upper management, a Vice President. Shawn had always been on a track to be just like the old man--a mover, a shaker, a moneymaker. His father would probably get him a job in the firm after graduation. Shawn had always seen himself as a future captain of the investment industry, a future multi-millionaire or even billionaire CEO. He had always talked of a future full of yachts and jets and made everyone believe he could make it happen. Tyler always noted how impressed everyone was with Shawn, and thought no one else could ever be as impressed with Shawn as Shawn was with himself.

  Tyler watched the rapt attention that Janine was paying his former classmate and the loathing inside him rose like a tide. What are you telling her, Shawn old pal? Are you dazzling her with your plans for your fast-track executive life? Are you telling her about how you're gonna make such a fortune moving other people's money around, and all the places you're gonna put it, and all the stuff you're gonna buy with it? And so what if some people's investments go south? So what if somebody else gets wiped out and loses their shirt and pants? What's it to you what happens to somebody else's pension and retirement or somebody else's home? Or somebody else's family? What's it to you? Investments are risky, sure, but nobody else's risk ever touches the broker or the firm. They just move on, don't they, buddy? Well, some of us move on better than others. And some of us don't forget what they had to move on from...

  And so Tyler watched Janine with Shawn and kept his eyes on the prize.

  At the table, Shawn said to Janine, "Dad keeps telling me he wants me to bring you to dinner at the club again. We ought to go soon."

  Janine signed but kept an indulgent look. "Dinner at the country club? Really? With all those people?"

  " 'Those people' are the people Dad works with and plays with. They've got money and connections and they're good to know." He leaned in meaningfully. "Some of 'em even spend money on art."

  "They're not going to spend their money on some college student's work, Shawn."

  "But they might know somebody who would. Or they might know art directors at magazines, or people who work in ad agencies. You never know. It's all about who you know, honey."

  Janine looked as if she were about to say something. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out but an exhaled breath. She closed her mouth again and looked off.

  "What?" asked Shawn. "What is it?"

  "This is what life will be like after school, isn't it? No one will ever be just a person. Everyone will be a contact, or a networking opportunity. I'll have to think of everyone for what I can get out of them or what they can do for me. No one will be just a person."

  "Janine, sweetheart, you've got friends. You'll still have friends. It's just you need to start making friends with people who can help you."

  "It's just...always having to work the angles with everything and everyone. I'm afraid it'll get exhausting. I'm afraid it'll take up so much time and energy that I'll have nothing left for the work. It's what we keep talking about, Shawn. If it's not about the work, what good is it?"

  "Better question is, if you can't sell the work, what good is it? Sooner or later everything's about selling. It doesn't have to be so hard."

  Janine could feel her face looking weary, the way she always felt when they had these conversations. "That's easy for you to say," she said. "You're a natural at that kind of thing: networking and schmoozing and bonding with people no matter who they are. I'm not like that. I can't bond with just anybody just because they're there, or just because of what I think they can do for me. I'm not a 'just any people' kind of person."

  Shawn shook his head, disagreeing. "That kind of thinking is the first thing you've got to start psyching yourself out of. People who can do something for you are not 'just any people.' They're the people you need to get you where you're going."

  "They're boring. They're not creative and they're boring."

  "Uh-uh." He wagged an admonishing finger in the air. "There's something interesting about everybody. All you've got to do is find the interesting thing and zero in on it. That turns 'just any person' into somebody you know. And knowing somebody gets you someplace. That's what Dad taught me. You'll see."

  Janine shrugged, having no argument to get herself around or past this. "If you say so, I guess..."

  "I do say so," Shawn said with his usual unfaltering confidence. Janine had to admit it was one of the qualities about him she found attractive--when he was dressed.

  She plucked her iPhone from the pocket of her blouse to check the time. Her eyebrows arched a bit at the lateness of the hour. "Oh, damn, it's almost one o'clock and I have to be across campus for a class. I hate it when I do this, always running late. I'm such an artist."

  Shawn grinned at her: "Right. You're my little artist." And he leaned across the table to give her another kiss. At the same time, Janine leaned into the kiss while reaching down for the handle of her unzipped portfolio, and while kissing Shawn she lifted the case--which fell open and spilled its paper contents onto the floor of the Student Union.

  In mid-kiss, Janine heard her little mishap, and with a start she took her lips from Shawn's and looked down to the floor and the little cascade of sketch pages she had accidentally made. "Oh no!" she cried. "Look at that! Like I need this now!" And she at once stooped down to start collecting the drawings before anyone saw them or, worse, carelessly stepped on them or spilled something on them.

  Quickly, Shawn was at the floor with her, gathering up the spilled sketches. "Is this your latest stuff?" he asked. "Stuff I haven't seen yet?"

  Janine reached over for the drawings in Shawn's hand. "Quick, let me have those so I can get out of here."

  Shawn pulled the pictures from her reach. "Wait a minute. I want to see your latest. You know how I like seeing your brand-new stuff..."

  "Shawn, please!" she urged him, sounding anxious.

  He waved her off, taking the drawings in both hands to get a better look at them. "In a minute, in a minute. I just want to see..."

  At the instant that he focused his eyes on the subject of the charcoal studies he was holding, Shawn's voice caught in his throat as if he were suddenly being choked. A stunned and slack-jawed look of shock came over him. Janine watched him, sighing in frustration, having no time for this.

  Finally, Shawn stammered out, "W-wh-what the hell! What the hell, Janine? These...these are...they're..."

  "Nudes, Shawn," she finished for him. "Nudes from my Life Drawing class that we shouldn't be looking at out in the open outside of class. If you don't give me those back, someone is going to get offended at the model's privates being shown in the middle of the Student Union. So please..."

  Shawn, his face g
oing from pale to red, turned the top drawing to face her and pointed at it. In a voice of alarm that Janine did not understand, he asked, "This guy...this guy modeled for your class?"

  "Yes," she replied. "He's our new model. He sat for us yesterday."

  In a strange tone that further mystified Janine, Shawn went on, "This guy. This guy right here, this one? He was in your class, modeling for you yesterday?"

  "Yes, he was, all right? He was! What are you...?"

  "He was modeling for you? Stark naked? With his junk hanging out, right there in front of you? HIM?"

  "He was nude in front of the whole class, Shawn. That's what we do. You know that. Now will you please give me my drawings before we get in trouble?"

  But Shawn continued to clutch the artwork as if he wanted to squeeze the life from the image rendered in the charcoal. "Son of a bitch!" he muttered, seething, frowning.

  Janine watched his expression, totally perplexed. Why was he reacting that way to some drawings? "Excuse me," she said, reaching for the papers and trying her best to pry them from his clutching fingers without smudging the art. "Do you know him?"

  Shawn shot Janine a burning look that was not actually meant for her, but she could feel the heat in it all the same. She gave one more tug on the sketch papers and as if by some unnamed reflex Shawn finally let them go. "Know him? Do I know this bastard?" he replied. "This guy and I go back a way's. What I want to know is what the hell he's doing here and what the hell he thinks he's doing, posing stark naked in front of my girlfriend!"

  Collecting the last of her work and making an effort to slip it back in the portfolio while not taking her eyes from Shawn, Janine nervously answered, "He said he just transferred here. What's this all about, Shawn? What's the big deal? How is it you know him?"

  Zipping up the portfolio and wishing she could somehow do the same to his inexplicable reaction to her work, Janine watched Shawn burn hotter by the second. "He said he just transferred here? He told you that? He actually talked to you?"

  Now Shawn's voice was raising and Janine glanced around the Student Union, dreading unwanted attention and people's reactions. "Yes, he talked to me," she answered in a shaky, fidgety voice. "Will you please tell me what..."

  But Shawn cut her off: "Did he have his damn clothes on while he talked to you?"

  Janine began to squirm as if she had a full bladder and the Student Union had no restroom. "I don't want to talk about this any more," she said, "until you calm down and explain to me how you know Tyler and why you're acting this way."

  Shawn looked as if the top of his head would blow clean off any second. "How do I know Tyler? How do I know him? Tyler Austin is bad news, that's how I know him! He's a snake and a bastard and a troublemaker and he can't be trusted, that's how I freaking know him! Tyler Austin is trash!"

  "All right," she said, getting ready to take a step back from Shawn and this whole powder keg of a situation that she liked less every minute. "I have a class to get to. We can't talk about this now; I have to go."

  Shawn came around the table and, to Janine's further and utter shock, reached out and grabbed her by the arm. "Listen," he demanded--actually demanded--"I don't want you seeing him any more."

  Now getting angry herself, Janine wrenched her arm free and held up a finger at him, warning him to stand his ground. "You have no business telling me that, Shawn. He's a model for my class; I have to see him."

  "Naked!"

  "Yes!"

  "With his junk hanging in your face!"

  Janine was now at the point of wanting to slap him stupid. Or stupider. She stepped back to stop herself doing exactly that. "All right," she said in a seething tone to match his, "now you're just getting crude and disgusting and I'm not listening to any more of this. I have to go and I'm not talking to you any more."

  "So you're just gonna go on letting this son of a bitch show you his stuff?"

  "It's not my place to 'let' him do anything. I'm a student; Tyler is a model. That's how it works."

  Shawn put up his hands, not as a gesture of acceptance but of redirecting and refocusing. He was still lit up to boiling. "Okay. Okay. Tyler Austin's a model--posing naked in front of my girlfriend, talking up my girlfriend after getting naked in front of her. And you're fine with it. Well, I'm not. That guy is bad news. He's not to be trusted. He's here for a reason. And I'm doing something about it. I'm not taking any more of his crap, Janine. I'm not."

  And without another word, Shawn turned on his heel and went stalking out of the Student Union, leaving Janine shaken and flustered. She could practically feel the eyes of other kids around her, staring at her and suddenly looking away. She trembled where she stood. In all the time she had known Shawn, been intimate with him, she thought she had come to know all his moods. This was something she had never seen and it rightly worried her. What was it about her boyfriend and Tyler Austin? Did she even want to know? She realized she needed to know.

  And that she was not going to like it when she found out.

  Suddenly mindful again of her lateness for class, Janine took a deep breath and sped for the exit.

  Just a flight of stairs above the whole scene, Tyler had watched it all in silence. Now he descended the stair and pondered what he had seen--and what he had heard when Janine and Shawn raised their voices enough for it to carry up to him. He had heard his name. There was no doubt as to exactly what was happening.

  Tyler pondered what all this meant. He had hoped to have been to bed with Janine, thoroughly sexed her, and had the deed done before Shawn knew he was present. This was something he had not foreseen. Things could now get a good deal more complicated.

  THE END

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  Fighting for Her

  (Foreign Translations)

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  Så mycket som hon älskade att måla, Janine fält alltid tyckt att det är en pina att behöva torka av hennes borstar. Hon skulle stå över vasken, med tvål och rensning pulver för att få ut en ackumulering av oljor och akrylföreningar från borstar som hade doppats i terpentin i timmar, och det hela skulle lämna henne känns som ett par gamla läder plånböcker med torkade lädret på fingrarna, och hon skulle ha till slather dem med lotion för att få dem att känna sig som en 20-årig flicka händer igen. Rengöra hennes borstarna var en utmaning - men hon ville att det skulle vara så lätt att få proppar ur hennes eget liv som det var att få det ur dem.

  Hans förtjänst, hennes pojkvän var bara försöker hjälpa. Det fanns så många saker hon tyckte om Shawn. Han hade ett gott sinne för humor, han var en god lyssnare, han hade bara "bra huvud på hans axlar", och han hade en sweetly underbara ansikte och en kropp byggd för sovrummet - som var där de var vana att spendera massor av tid. Shawn Brown menade väl, men i tider som denna gjorde han henne att känna sig som om hon var lack och terpentin virvla ner i avloppet.

  Med hennes långa mörka hår tillbakadraget i en Hästsvans och en arbetsrock skydda hennes tröja och designer jeans, Janine arbetade gegga från hennes målarpenslar och körde varmt vatten över dem och ibland blixtrade ett leende från hennes vackra, blåögda ansikte på Shawn medan han talade om ett ämne som Janine hittade tröttsamt men omöjligt att ignorera. Ämnet var, i faktum, det som omöjligt att ignorera hur Shawn såg ut i flanell skjorta och kaki långbyxor som hans kropp var för närvarande fullsatt. Bara med hans kort, perfekt pistade brunt hår, hans stiliga All-American ansikte, och hans mördare leende, Shawn var arbetshäst som en flicka och inte några pojkar vill gå. Men lägg till i kroppen av lean, slät, fast muskel och vad han presenterade henne när alla kläder lossnade och han blev arbetshäst som en flicka mest vill komma och hämta henne. Vad Shawn var
hennes för tillfället var dock något som Janine allt ville hon kunde berätta att gå förlorade.

  "Jag säger inte att du måste växla till företag, honung," sa Shawn. "Du är en artist och du är bra. Det är vad du bör göra, utan det är vad du är bäst på. Allt jag säger är, om du finnas att tillfalla gör verkligen det som en artist du har fått att tänka åtminstone lite som en affärskvinna."

  Janine suckade, stäng av vattnet och drog hennes borstar ur under kranen. Skaka den våta borst i verktyget handfat i klassrummet, sade hon, "Du har sagt det förut och jag vet att du gör rätt. Det är bara...du vet hur jag känner om arbetet. Arbetet är vad det handlar om. Om jag spenderar all min tid bångstyriga fordonen och marknadsföring och att befrämja, vad finnas vänstersida för det arbete som jag verkligen i det?"