He’s not the only one either.
I’m totally shocked I’ve actually gone and done it myself, and as soon as it’s over I feel my face blushing red. I try and tell myself it probably looked a lot more innocent than it felt, but when I take two steps back to align myself with Mom and Marvin, their faces tell me something different entirely. Mom looks like she might have just seen something from another planet, while Marvin looks like he’s questioning whether he saw what he thinks he saw at all. I’ve kissed my step brother, and the whole world has witnessed it.
“Ok”, Mom says.
“Right”, Marvin says.
Landon can’t wipe the cheesy grin off his face, while I just stand there awkwardly, trying desperately to hide my blushes. That was so stupid I can’t believe I just did it.
“Ready to go?”
Mom and Marvin get into the car first, while Landon and I have a split second more before I have to join them. He shakes his head in disbelief, that wide smile a permanent feature across his incredibly gorgeous face.
“I knew you were dangerous.”
I mouth the word sorry, but I don’t think it matters. Landon doesn’t seem like he cares either way. I watch him get into his car before a tap on the window tells me it’s time for me to get into mine. It’s time for us to go.
We are the first to pull away, and through the cloud of dust that gets thrown up in our wake, I just about make out Landon in his car behind us, blowing me a kiss.
I watch out of the back windshield for as long as I can, before Landon falls away behind us and then finally disappears entirely.
For the first time in a few days I’m alone again. Ok, I’m with Mom and Marvin, but I’m naked without Landon. It’s only been a few days, but it’s been enough to know. My thoughts move to the inevitable, to the possibility of what might become of us, the things we’ve shared already and the things we have the potential of sharing in the future and although I’m sad that he’s gone for now, I know in my heart of hearts it’s only temporary and that most importantly, I’ve never felt so happy in my whole life.
Flat fields give way to distant mountains while fluffy clouds fill the gaps in an azure blue sky and from time to time without saying a single word, Mom looks back over her shoulder towards me and smiles a smile that makes me know that whatever happens between Landon and I, we’re going to be alright.
This really isn’t an end for us at all, it’s very much our beginning.
Epilogue.
Approximately six months later.
Landon
Tilly’s waiting for me in the tunnel like always, a last minute kiss of good luck before the big game. She’s showing a lot more now, although I don’t really notice the little changes as much because I get to see her every day. I put my hand on her belly, the warmth of our baby inside, and bring her close to feel the lips I still can’t get enough of kissing.
The last six months have been absolutely wild, both on a professional and personal level. Tilly and I are obviously still together, but that’s no real surprise. Anyone with any sense wouldn’t have bet against us. She’s also pregnant with our baby, which was a kind of happy accident neither of us wanted to change. Tilly took the morning after pill when she got back home after our vacation, but it just didn’t work. That little sucker obviously has Maddox genes, and wasn’t going to let anyone else tell him he had to quit. When we found out it was still growing inside her, there was no way we were going to stop it.
Just like everything else between us, it was obviously meant to be.
Tilly’s had to adjust her University schedule because of it, but I’ve never seen her happier.
It’s a boy too, which makes me more excited that I can even explain. I would have been equally happy with a girl, of course, but I wanted a boy first so he could look after the rest. Tilly doesn’t even know I’ve got a huge family planned for her.
Dad took the news better than I ever imagined, and coach didn’t even bat an eyelid. The papers went to town for a while and Tilly and I got some weird and worrying correspondence but soon after it started and Shoreville began winning again, and they saw just how cute a couple we made, it soon died down. I’m a star again, and Tilly’s right there beside me, our baby on the way, and our families right by our side to support us.
And Rachel? She knew all along. Tilly thinks she’s making it all up, but I wouldn’t be surprised. She even thinks I had something to do with Dad’s mystery illness, but I swear that was nothing but coincidence that brought us together.
Today is the biggest day of my life. Shoreville are in the super bowl final, I’ve broken record after record this year on throws, touchdown passes, yardage and everything else that was left to go and I’m a shoe-in for MVP.
I’m nervous, but I know I’ll have Tilly, Dad, Rachel, my unborn son, coach, the rest of the team and millions of people at home watching me play, so I know it’s going to be alright.
Whatever happens, I know I’ll always have Tilly.
“I love you.”
“You only want me for my body.”
“I want you for what’s inside it too.”
“We have to share it, evens stevens.”
“Evens stevens.”
“I love you.”
“Wish me luck.”
“We already did.”
The roar of the crowd is deafening when we enter the arena, thousands of Shoreville fans hooting and clapping and whistling down from above. They love me here, bad boy turned family man, I’m every fan’s hero and I carry the hopes and dreams of every single one of them on my shoulders. Shoreville have never been to a super bowl final before, and today I’m going to make sure they win it.
As I see Tilly wave from the tunnel before disappearing into the darkness inside it, our baby still growing inside her, I know that I’ve won too, the best prize anyone could ever hope for.
Tilly
I have to pinch myself every now and again to make sure I’m not dreaming. I was worried that I’d never get to see him again, and here I am, carrying his baby, one day on the front of Time magazine, the next being commissioned to create artwork for a string of international celebrities. I never imagined any of this would be possible, but here I am, Marvin and Mom alongside me up in the VIP box looking down on my superstar, underwear model boyfriend below.
When it all happened, it happened faster than I imagined. Suddenly Landon and I were together, Mom and Marvin knew about us, and he didn’t see the point in hiding it from the rest of the world. I was worried at first about the baby, but after what happened with the morning after pill, Landon knew it could only go one way. When I saw how excited he was about the prospect, I knew I could allow myself to get excited too. I can’t tell you how happy having his baby inside me makes me feel either. Landon always says his best achievement was making me fall in love with him, I might just have to disagree and tell him it’s what he’s given me for us to share.
There was a backlash from the papers, but we both knew it would come. We are, after all, still stepsister and stepbrother and no matter how many times we explain we’ve known each other less time than many other perfectly happy couples and are not related by blood, it’s hard for some people to get.
Landon lost a couple of modeling gigs and a sponsorship deal on his boots, but they were soon replaced by other, more lucrative companies, and after about a month, when everyone realized we were happy and here to stay, things started to really turn around.
People love us now. Landon is up for MVP this year and if he doesn’t win it the whole world will be shocked. He’s almost single handedly taken Shoreville to the super bowl final this year, he’s broken records people didn’t even know existed and he’s proven to everyone that there’s much more than they might have thought originally to the man the world knows as The Donkey. He’s more than just a pretty face and a big dick, a huge arm that can throw a ball a thousand yards, he’s the best boyfriend anyone could ever hope for, and he’s mine and going nowhere.
I’m out of Uni, but it doesn’t matter. I can go back when the baby is born if I want to. I’ve got enough commissions on the back of the publicity I’ve been unable to avoid, that I’m going to be perfectly busy and content for a number of months. After that, I’ll have a little baby to look after. It’s amazing how things can change so much in such a short time, even more so when you’re living a life that’s about a close as anyone can get to their dreams coming true.
The final is a one sided showcase master class of six touchdown passes for Shoreville against three for the opposing team. There isn’t a single moment where they are behind, nor any other in which there is a possibility they might lose. Landon is extravagant, flamboyant and absolutely world class. He is a superstar of magnificent proportions and the round of applause he gets when the game is over, by both sets of fans, threatens to shake the stadium to the ground during the entire ten minutes it goes on.
There’s so much activity outside I can’t get down to the stands quick enough to give him my congratulations, but it doesn’t matter.
When the microphone goes to Landon for a post match interview, his face up on the big screen, he doesn’t talk about where the game was won or lost, nor the touchdown pass at the end of the third quarter, nor the performance of his live, he takes off his helmet, takes something out of it and holds it up in the air for everyone to see.
“Tilly.”
The camera swoops across the crowds and eventually picks me up at the edge of the VIP box. When I look back down to the field, I see Landon has taken to one knee and I know exactly what he’s holding and what’s coming next.
“The last six months have been the best in my life. From that vacation in the middle of nowhere, the lake and the forest and every other intimate moment we shared, from the creation of our baby, to now, you have made me happier than I ever believed was possible. I love you. I will always love you. Will you marry me?”
I shout the words down, but they get lost in the hum of the crowd. Before I know it I’m surfing on top of people, passed from one fan to the next, one row to the one below it until I’m finally at field side and can run, as fast as our baby will allow me into my stepbrother’s arms, into my soon to be husband’s embrace.
“Yes”, I emphatically shout, and Landon holds me up in the air like a trophy.
THE END
Charged
A Stepbrother Romance
Stephanie Brother
© 2016 Stephanie Brother
Authors note: This book was originally published as Tempest: A Stepbrother Romance. It has since been updated with this version.
All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental. The characters are all productions of the author’s imagination.
Please note that this work is intended only for adults over the age of 18 and all characters represented as 18 or over.
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About This Book:
Leighton Tempest is a force of nature. Rich, dominant, completely untameable. Did I mention he’s hung too? Hung like a…
Oh, and when he sets his mind on something, he always gets what he wants. ALWAYS.
Right up until he meets me that is. The one girl that seems determined not to play his game.
The one girl he simply has to have.
Without question.
At all costs.
Of course, things could be easier for the billionaire playboy.
If his father hadn’t just died. If I wasn’t on trial for the murder.
But the biggest one, the biggest problem. Something all the money in the world couldn’t change…
Leighton Tempest was my stepbrother.
***
Leighton was mid fuck when the phone rang. Shirt half undone, tie still hanging around his neck, trousers barely low enough to let his cock escape. This had obviously been a matter of urgency.
“Don’t you dare”, Esmeralda warned, but she knew Leighton well enough to know he’d already made up his mind. “Fuck”, she complained as he pulled out of her, his cock still hard and slick with her juices.
“When are you ever going to fuck me long enough to make me come?”
Leighton rolled his eyes. With his cell phone in one hand, the other pulling his trousers over his sizeable cock, he moved into the kitchen to take the call privately. A lesser man would have looked awkward, embarrassed even. Leighton moved with the expertise of a panther on the prowl.
“Asshole”, Esmeralda mouthed to herself as she fell flat against the bed, frustrated to be left hanging. A moment later, Leighton came back to her, and leaned in the doorway until she did him the courtesy of looking up. Even when she was mad at him she couldn’t be for long. She hated that he had that over her, but there was no denying it. Leighton Tempest was a God amongst men. Undeniably sexy, extremely rich and very, very powerful, the man collected superlatives like other people collected parking tickets, and he knew how to get what he wanted.
Esmeralda was one of those things, and she certainly wasn’t the first. She hoped she wouldn’t be the last either, but she was intelligent enough to know that probably wasn’t true. No one got Leighton, not for keeps anyway. They just looked after him for a while until the next best thing came along.
Leighton Tempest. Even his name made him sound super-human. Dark eyebrows that perfectly lined stormy, brooding eyes. Lips that didn’t so much beg to be kissed, as demand it, for the sake of humanity. A torso so perfect it looked like it had been chiseled out of stone by a renaissance artist and then brought to life by some visiting deity, only it was somehow better than that. Somehow more perfect than perfection itself.
Part One.
Chapter 1
He had been lying face down, hand still gripped around the stem of a crystal glass that contained the remnants of a 1962 chateau petrus, eyes glassy and lips glossed with coughed up blood for over an hour. Alexander, the faithful family hound was the first on the scene, perhaps too faithful to do anything other than lie next to the motionless man as though assigned there for guard duty.
Pandora, Philip’s eldest stepdaughter, was the one to eventually break the news to the staff, some time after she’d realized, somewhat disappointingly, that although her filthy rich stepfather may have been temporarily indisposed, he wasn’t quite fully dead yet. Pretending she hadn’t found him at all was something that repeatedly crossed her mind as she was googling on her smart phone how to check for a pulse.
It took thirty minutes for the private ambulance to make it’s way to the vast estate on the edge of the Chesapeake river, two minutes of which was spent negotiating the ambling drive. When they lifted him into the back of the modified car to cart him away at high speed to one of Baltimore’s top facilities, Philip had regained consciousness momentarily, but remained completely confused. Pandora, Isabella and Gracey watched on with varying levels of concern, their mother a darkened shadow in the upstairs window, too involved in something she deemed far more important to come down and wave him goodbye. Alexander watched the ambulance disappear, whimpered, and then curled up at Gracey’s feet.
“About time”, Pandora said, before the ambulance had even got out of sight.
“Good riddance”, Isabella said and put her arm around her sister.
“Come on Alexander”, Gracey said, and led the dog inside.
Philip Mandrake de Vries was a very rich man. He was also a very fat man, and took up a huge amount of the specially converted, privately ordered double bed he was now lying in.
After regaining consciousness for the briefest of moments to see his stepdaughters standing in a row, framed by the back window of the car he was confused to find himself lying in, he slipped once again into unconsciousness, from which he hadn’t yet had the presence of mind to return from.
Several hours had passed. Philip had been hooked up to various different machines and a pantheon of very expensive and mostly unnecessary tests had been run on him. The results? Largely inconclusive. Philip had suffered a heart attack, and a stroke of some kind, he had swelling on the brain, and he’d broken a tooth and bruised a rib in the fall. They didn’t know why he wasn’t waking up, nor what might happen to him if he did. They were, what they affectionately called in their circles, playing the patient game. The longer he stayed alive, of course, the more value he was to them. A corpse in a private hospital is only a good earner until the men in black coats come along to cart him away to the cemetery, after, of course, all necessary posthumous tests have been carried out. A patient, and a patient in a coma furthermore, was a constant source of monetary donation. A well of giving, if you will. It was in their interests to be vague with the tests and even vaguer with the truth. It was nothing more than what was expected, especially at this level of care.
Philip’s wife, Alexis, a former pageant queen who currently divided her time between cosmetic surgery enhancements, magazine reading and alcoholism, had decided, if this indeed was going to be the last breath her husband was going to draw, that she ought to be there alongside him to watch it and make absolutely sure. Pandora and Isabella felt the same. Gracey was perhaps the only one amongst them who felt any kind of anything but resentment for her recently incapacitated stepfather.
Philip was not a well liked man amongst his household, but as I’ve already said, he was a very rich man, and in the lives of the women that surrounded him, money talked a lot louder than anything else.
DONKEY: A Stepbrother Sports Romance (With FREE Bonus Novel Charged!) Page 25
