Cannon (A Step Brother Romance #3)

by Sabrina Paige

  "You wanted me to serenade you, didn't you?"

  Addy laughs. "I didn't mean it," she says. "Sit down."

  "Not on your life, sweet cheeks," I say as she covers her face in mock embarrassment. "Don't worry, I'll dedicate it to you."

  "Hendrix, no!" she protests, but she's laughing, and she leans back in her chair with her legs kicked out in front of her, teal flip-flops on her feet, and tucks the brim of her hat down over her face. I watch her flag down the waitress and get another shot of tequila, that she hold up at me in a "cheers" gesture.

  When the music starts, I can practically hear her groan from the stage. Okay, I can't really, but her reaction is priceless. She buries her face in her hands as I take the microphone. "This is for my best friend, who should just admit that my voice is much more amazing than hers will ever be."

  I belt out the lyrics to Addy's first hit, "Country Sweetheart," the candy-coated pop country song that made her famous. And by "belt out," I mean I do my version of singing, which falls somewhere on the tolerability scale between nails on a chalkboard and the most annoying sound in the world. But I know all those goddamned lyrics, even though I wasn't into that bullshit when I was in high school. That damn song worked its way into my brain and took up residence there, way back then.

  Just like Addy did.

  The other people in the bar think it's funny, that I'm doing some kind of serenade for my girlfriend, and Addy covers her face with the brim of her hat as people clap along. When I get back to the table, I'm pretty sure Addy is going to say we need to get the hell out of there before she's recognized, since we're skating on thin ice, but she doesn't. She doesn't touch me either, doesn't make any public display of affection that would wind up on one of the gossip sites, just laughs and shakes her head. "Nice song choice."

  "Thought you'd like it."

  "I'd rather every copy of that song were just burned," she says. "If I never have to sing it again, I'll be more than happy with my life."

  "What would you rather sing?"

  Addy traces her finger absently around her glass again and shrugs, not looking at me. "I don't know."

  "Bullshit," I say, my voice just a little too loud. "I know you. You haven't stopped writing songs."

  Addy looks at me. "Maybe I haven't," she says. "But the label will never let me sing them."

  I nod at the stage. "You should go up there and sing one of them."

  "It's for karaoke."

  "So?" I ask. "They have a band here. There's a guitar right over there."

  "They're personal," she says.

  I shrug. "Suit yourself," I say. "But the old Addy would have grown a pair and gone up there."

  "You're trying to bait me."

  "Is it working?"

  Addy sighs heavily. "Not at all."

  Between songs, the silence is suddenly deafening and Addy looks up. "Fine," she says. "Fuck it."

  "That's what I like to hear."

  "Me growing a pair?" she asks, standing up. I want to reach out and grab her, pull her onto my lap, but I don't, conscious of being in public with her.

  "Nah, you saying 'fuck'," I say.

  Addy leans close, her hair spilling down around her face, and whispers in my ear. "Fuck fuck fuck," she says. "That's what I want to do to you later." Then she walks up to the stage, leaving me with the biggest raging boner in the history of the world.

  She talks to someone beside the stage, who nods a lot and then rushes to grab her the guitar. Then she pulls a barstool to the middle of the stage where the microphone is. The bar is filled with conversation that doesn't quiet even when Addy starts to play the first few notes on the guitar. The low rumble of drunk conversations rolls through the room, refusing to be silenced. Until Addy opens her mouth and sings the first note.

  And then, it's like everything in the place stops. People pause, conversations go mute, and it's like the way it is every time Addy sings. She's got that thing, that special-ness, that tells you you're in the presence of greatness. She sings softly, her voice lower and breathier than when I've heard her sing in the studio.

  I think I stop breathing, listening to her sing one of her songs. I tell myself that they're just lyrics, words she's singing and nothing more, that they're not directed at me in any way. But it's hard to think that when she's looking the way she is, at me no less, singing the way she is.

  ELEVEN MONTHS AGO

  "How could you?" I scream. The tears well up in my eyes, and I blink furiously, attempting to keep calm, trying to keep from picking up the nearby vase and throwing it across the room at my mother, letting it shatter into a million pieces all over the marble floors.

  "I don't understand what you're so upset about," she says. "Hendrix is fine. He came through the hospital, but he's in one piece. He wasn't even injured. It was ages ago, anyway. You had a tour, and you didn't need to be bothered with that kind of news. What a downer, right?"

  I clench my hands, my fingernails digging into my skin, and focus on the pain. I count, taking deep breaths to steady myself even though I feel like I'm falling apart, fragmenting into a thousand little pieces right here in front of her.

  "You two aren't even close," she says. "I fail to see what the big deal is."

  "Hendrix was in the hospital," I say. "You don't think I might want to know that?"

  "He was fine," she says. "We called him on the phone. He was doing some -- I don't know -- Marine stuff, and had to travel somewhere or something. He did not want us to visit."

  "He -- he said that?"

  "He specifically mentioned you by name, Addison," she says. "I was trying not to be mean."

  "I don't believe you," I say, my voice breaking. Hendrix was back in the United States. Hendrix was in the hospital. He was in an explosion in Afghanistan. The pieces of news come flying at me, one at a time.

  Hendrix didn't want to see me.

  Me, specifically.

  My mother shrugs and flips a page in her planner. "I don't know what kind of bad blood the two of you have between you, but you really need to start acting like adults," she says. "Now, we need to talk about the interview tomorrow. The label wants you to plug the tour and..."

  Her voice drifts away, becoming quieter and quieter as the thoughts swirl in my head.

  Hendrix was back.

  He could have died.

  He didn't want to see me.

  I hear my mother protest as I stand up, stumbling to the bathroom and barely closing the door before I collapse into tears, a mixture of anger and sadness and overwhelming relief.

  Anger that Hendrix didn't want to see me.

  Sadness that his squad was killed.

  Relief that he's alive.

  PRESENT DAY

  "Do you think anyone knew it was me?" I ask. Hendrix has my hand and he's pulling me down the beach until we're far away from the bar, the only ones out on the sand at this time of night.

  Hendrix laughs. "Yes," he says. "You're lucky we got out of there quickly. That video is going to be everywhere tomorrow. And we are going to be fucked, you know."

  The tequila in my belly makes me warm and brave and foolish and I know, but I don't care. I spin around in circles on the beach, my arms wide. I'm spinning because I'm half-drunk, on tequila or love, I'm not sure which. And because I'm happy. And, most of all, because Hendrix is here. He's here, with me, on a beach in South Carolina, after I thought I'd never see him again. And that is something. "But tonight, we're going to fuck," I say.

  Hendrix laughs. "You're practically cursing like a Marine now," he says. "I'm afraid I'm rubbing off on you." He pulls me against his hardness, and slides his hands over my ass.

  "We could go back to the hotel and you could really rub off on me," I say.

  "Or, we could stay out here," Hendrix says, reaching for the button on my pants. I laugh and smack his hands away.

  "Out here?" I ask, thinking of photographers and tabloid photos of us on the beach. "That's just what I need."

  Hendrix's mouth is
against my ear, and then on my neck, and when I tilt my head, my mouth finds his. "Maybe that is just what you need, Addy-girl."

  "Sex on the beach?" It makes me giggle, until he slides his hand underneath my tank top and inside my bra. His thumb finds my nipple, and his touch makes me moan, the way it always does.

  "Remember the last time we were here?" he asks, his finger running circles around my nipple until I'm practically begging for him.

  Like it was yesterday.

  I have to shake off the feeling, that sense of deja vu that comes over me, being out here together. "I haven't been to the beach in a while."

  "You know what I thought about doing when we were here before?" he asks. He slides his hand down lower.

  "What?" I ask, glancing around in the dark.

  "I thought about pulling those little bikini bottoms you wore right down over that tight little ass of yours and riding you, right out here in the middle of everything, where anyone could see us."

  "That's what you thought about, back then?" I ask. He's said he fantasized about me before, but hearing him say it again now sends a thrill of arousal through my body.

  "Yep."

  "Anyone could see, you know," I say. But I slide my hand over his chest and down the front of his jeans anyway.

  Hendrix shrugs. "I guess they could."

  "You're a bad influence."

  "The worst." He pulls me down on top of him in the sand, and I laugh as I collapse on him, then glance around at the deserted beach again, straddling him.

  "This isn't a good idea," I say as he cups my breast through my shirt. "I'm famous, you know."

  "Are you?"

  "I am. And there are photographers. Paparazzi."

  "Well," he says, lifting my shirt over my head. "Maybe we should give them a show."

  I slap his arm, hard. "You'd better not be serious."

  "Relax," he says, laughing. "There's no one fucking out here." He pauses for a beat. "Except us, soon."

  I hover over him, feeling his hardness underneath me. "I want you now," I breathe softly, between kisses.

  Hendrix slides my skirt up around my waist and reaches between my legs. His hand grazes my pussy, and he makes a growling sound under his breath. "No panties," he says. "And you're wet."

  "I told you I wanted you." I pull at his jeans, helping him slide them quickly over his ass before I wrap my hand around his cock, guiding him toward my entrance.

  "Don't fucking tease me like that, Addy," he warns.

  "You're clean?" I ask. I don't know why I'm doing this. I've never done something like this, completely unprotected. I'm always safe. I don't take risks.

  "Addy," he says. "I'm clean. But I have condoms and -- "

  "I'm on the pill, and I'm clean."

  "Shit, Addy," he groans as I touch his head against my wetness. He reaches up to kiss me. "I've never had sex unprotected."

  The thought of both of us doing it like this for the first time, with no barrier between us, makes me even more certain. "Neither have I," I say.

  "Are you sure?" he asks. Am I sure? No, I'm not sure. I'm in the middle of the beach and I have my stepbrother's cock in my hand and I'm rubbing the tip of it all over my pussy like he's my own personal sex toy.

  I'm positive I've lost my mind.

  "I want you inside me," I whisper. "I want to feel you."

  "Shit, Addy," he says, his voice breaking. I love that. I love that I make his voice break like that. I love that I bring him to his knees.

  When I lower myself onto him, it's not gently or gingerly. I slide onto him easily, aided by my slickness, and Hendrix lets out a moan, uttering my name followed by several expletives.

  This time, I'm the one who threads my fingers through his, pinning his hands above his head so I can ride him. Close to him at first, rocking against him and savoring the feeling of him inside me, of being in control of the man who's usually in control, then sitting up as waves of pleasure wash over me again and again.

  Hendrix grips my hips, plunging me down tightly on his cock until I'm filled to the hilt. "You feel so fucking good like this, Addy," he says, his voice low.

  I love the feeling of him bare, the tip of his cock stroking me inside, pressing against the most sensitive place in me. I reach down, rubbing my clit as I ride him, letting the sensation wash over me as he brings me higher and higher until I'm almost on the edge. "Oh, God, Hendrix, I'm so close," I moan.

  "I want to feel you come on me," Hendrix says. "Nothing between us."

  The thought of coming on Hendrix's bare cock pushes me over the edge, and I let go, crying out loudly, moaning Hendrix's name. His hands are tight on my ass cheeks and he groans as he presses his cock into me and fills me up with his warm seed.

  Later that night, I lie in bed with Hendrix back at the hotel room, my eyes closed but not sleeping.

  "Are you awake?" Hendrix whispers.

  "Yep."

  "The song tonight," he says. "It was good. Really good."

  "Indie-folk is not a seller, my record label says. Not for me," I whisper.

  "Fuck 'em," Hendrix says. "You were alive up there, you know. More than when I've seen you perform, or in the studio. That was different."

  Because it was about you, I want to say. It's different because it was for you.

  Then he asks the question, the one I've been wanting him to ask. "Who was the song about?"

  I pause, opening and closing my mouth several times before I answer. "It was just a song, Hendrix," I lie. My words catch in my throat, and I'm glad he can't see me in the darkness. Why didn't I say what I wanted to say? It's so easy, putting the words down on paper, singing them in front of a room full of strangers. But now when it's the two of us here, alone in bed, it's suddenly impossible to speak the words out loud.

  I love you. I've loved you forever.

  I'm scared to love you the way I do.

  I'm terrified of losing you.

  TEN MONTHS AGO

  Addy-girl,

  I haven't written you a letter in a long time. I used to write them every week. Hell, sometimes in Afghanistan it was every fucking day. I think I needed to hang on to something, when I was out there.

  Out in the field, I'd think about swimming lessons in the pool, replay those nights over and over in my head until I swear I could almost smell the chlorine instead of the stench of dirt in my nostrils. And I would tell myself that if I could make it through, I'd go to you. I'd show up on your front door, and I'd make a grand declaration of love, tell you all the things I didn't say before because I was young and stupid and thought that I had so many years ahead of me it didn't matter.

  And then after that, I couldn't write anymore.

  I can't write you anymore.

  I'm coming back to Nashville. You don't know it, but I am. I'm not a Marine anymore. I'll wear a collared shirt, and sit at a desk, and waste away.

  I'll rot away in the same city where you live, but I can't bring myself to see you.

  So I won't write you anymore. I have to let you go.

  I'm going to try to let you go this time. I think I can.

  PRESENT DAY

  "Are you nervous?" I whisper, once we're backstage. I'm trying not to stare at her, except it's really hard not to when she's looking like nineteen fifties glam, like she just stepped off the set of an old movie. It was on purpose, her mother's idea to channel a time characterized by wholesome American values, a reaction to the fact that we went running off together on a road trip. A few people uploaded videos of Addy singing at the bar, and they went viral.

  Our parents went ballistic -- not because of me and Addy, though. I don't think she suspects us of anything like...well, having sex on the beach. The Wicked Bitch and the Colonel were angry, accused us of being rebellious teenagers "playing hooky." Hooky from what, I'm not sure. But there was no hint that anything else was happening other than Addy dragging her bodyguard to the beach for a little friendly fun.

  "No," Addy says, as I escort her to her dre
ssing room. I'm careful not to touch her on the small of the back, the way that I want to in the middle of all of these people. The backstage area is crowded with performers, workers for the show who bustle about, weaving and winding through the stars, taking purposeful steps. People say hello to Addy, squealing and air-kissing her. She doesn't seem nervous at all. She seems calm, and that makes me happy. I know crowds make her anxious, but she's not even doing her regular counting thing.

  Inside the dressing room, she kisses me as soon as I close the door, her arms around my neck. "Careful, Addy-girl," I warn. "Unless you want me to fuck you right here in your dressing room before your performance. Is that what you want?"

  "Mhmm," she murmurs. "That's what you should do. It's good luck, you know."

  "Oh, is it, now?" I back her up against the wall. "I wouldn't want to ruin this dress."

  "No," she says, her voice soft as she looks up at me. "It's from the designer. I'm pretty sure it costs as much as a car."

  "So I should be gentle, then," I say. But the last thing I'm about to do is be gentle with her.

  "I hope not," she says. "I'd be disappointed if you were." Then she reaches for my pants. "I really like you in a tux, you know."

  "I'd rather be out of it," I say. "But not yet."

  "Are you going to make me beg for it?" Addy asks, feigning disappointment and giving me an exaggerated sigh.

  "Isn't it better when you tell me exactly how much you want it?" I ask, sliding down to my knees in front of her, pulling up the edges of the gown and placing my hands on her ankles. I want to rip this dress off her and take her right now, but that's what she wants me to do too, so I'll make her wait. At least for that much.

  "Hendrix," she says softly. "I want you inside me."

  "I'm going to be inside you," I say. "After I lick that sweet pussy of yours until I'm satisfied. Tell me that's what you want me to do. Tell me you want my tongue on you, licking and sucking, your clit in my mouth, until you come on my face." I slide my hands up the inside of her legs, pushing the fabric of her dress up until it's over my head and it falls over the top of me. "Tell me."