Stepbrother Romance: The Complete Box Set

by Diamond Durango

  Swinging her leg off the pillow, Aviana said, “That’s not fair.”

  “It isn’t fair how you rank the quality of your life below my inconvenience in moving. If we can’t get a handle on this situation, then I’m going to remove you from it. He won’t have a chance in hell of reaching you in Europe.”

  “What if Luxure won’t transfer you there?”

  “Then I’ll quit. The company needs me a lot more than I need it. Besides, that way I will finally get a proper vacation. Anything you want to see?”

  She forced herself to think of something other than Milan. “I want to ride in a gondola through the canals of Venice. How cliché, huh?”

  “We can do that.”

  Hollis laughed. “No, I’m sure. Just too beat. You guys have a good time.”

  “He told me,” Wyatt breathed.

  Aviana studied Wyatt carefully. His eyes were still closed, but he did not appear to be upset. “Oh.”

  “I thought I’d be mad. He thought I’d be mad. If it were anyone else, I would be.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Wyatt opened his eyes. “Perhaps it’s because I’ve always shared everything with him. We talked about it. I can’t be with you knowing how miserable it makes him. He doesn’t want to be with you knowing how miserable it makes me.”

  This topic was as upsetting as the previous one. “I have the feeling that I’m going to end up with neither of you.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying. If he still has a place in your heart, Aviana, I’m not going to tell you to shove him out. In a strange way, it’s good to know that he feels that way about you. My job is extremely demanding at this stage. I can’t spend as much time with you as I would like.”

  Was he implying that he didn’t mind if she was involved with both of them? He took her hand in his and said, “And Hollis worries that he can’t give you as much of himself as you deserve either. He’s never let a woman in, Avvie. He needs to know that when it gets too frightening for him that he can back off to regroup without you feeling left out in the cold. He doesn’t want to hurt you. He just has things to sort out on his own.” At another laugh from the kitchen, Wyatt smiled sadly. “He has no idea what a good guy he is.”

  “Well, his mother’s favorite hobby was ripping him to pieces,” Aviana said.

  “I’ve never seen him this way before. I don’t want to get in the way of it.”

  Astounded, she said, “How would you honestly feel if I shared his bed tonight instead of yours?”

  “Any other guy and I’d be furious, like I said. With him, I don’t feel that way. I’m not telling you to be with him or not be with him. That’s your decision. But if it happens, Avvie, if you still have that pull, I don’t want the only reason you say no to him to be because of me.” Picking up his cell phone, he groaned. “I forgot about these reports. I’m going to the study to get through them.” He took his food cartons to the kitchen and vanished into the study.

  It was after ten when she went to bed in the spare bedroom, and midnight when she got up after a light, restive nap. The door to Wyatt’s room was closed and all was silent within, but the lights were still on downstairs. Going to the first floor, she found no one. A chopping sound turned her attention to the backyard. Hollis was taking a late night swim, and coming to the end of it. Heaving himself up the ladder, he dried his naked body with a towel, wrapped it around his hips, and headed for the house. She retreated up the stairs.

  At the top, she asked herself why she was avoiding him. Then she remained there and waited for him to come up. When he saw her, he said, “Did I wake you?”

  “No,” Aviana said. “I don’t know why I woke up. Why are you awake?”

  “I wasn’t tired yet. Now I am.”

  “Too tired for the movie.”

  “Too tired to be the clown among my friends,” Hollis countered.

  “I don’t know how it would work,” Aviana said. “One of me and two of you.”

  “I don’t either.” He stepped up the last stair and stood close to her. “But should that mean we don’t try it at all?”

  She put her hand on his damp chest, not to stop him but to feel his hard muscles. Then she moved into him, her head on his collarbone and their arms around one another. “I’m not into all that,” Hollis said. “The handcuffs and ankle cuffs and ropes and what-not that he likes.”

  Aviana didn’t want that from him. It was genuine coming from Wyatt, and thrilling. It wouldn’t be the same with Hollis. With one, lust was about control. With the other, it was abandon. “I like what he does. I like what you do. I don’t need you two to mix-and-match sexual styles, nor do I want to talk about what I do with each of you privately.”

  “That’s fine with me. May I ask what you like?”

  She put his hands on her hips. “How you clutch me this way.” His towel had been loosely tied, and their small movements made it fall off. She took his cock in a gentle hold. “How you whisper my name when I have this in my mouth.” It wasn’t about reward and punishment with Hollis, always being mindful of what came next. Sex with him was deliriously free of mindfulness. They were just two bodies coming together in shared ecstasy.

  He kissed her on the lips, his cock growing hard in her hand. “Want to stay with me tonight?” he asked.

  She took a step in the direction of his room, keeping her grip on his cock. “I would, but you reek of chlorine.”

  “We haven’t had sex in the shower yet,” Hollis said as she drew him on.

  They were offering her everything, and she was going to take it. “I’m wearing too many clothes for the shower.”

  “I know a trick to help with that.”

  They made it to his room, Hollis kicking the door shut. He liberated her from her pajamas and turned her so that his erection was against her ass. Then he walked her into the bathroom and turned on the faucet. The water became hot rapidly and filled the room with steam as he kissed along her shoulder and fondled her breasts.

  She couldn’t hold on to her worry. Every stroke, every pinch, every tiny thrust of his hips to her buttocks was driving the world farther and farther away. By the time they stepped in, water streaming over them from two showerheads, she was wild to have him enter her. Holding to the bar, she groaned as he slipped inside. With her hips locked in his hands, she gave herself over to pleasure.

  Chapter Eleven

  For the rest of the week, she was much more Hollis’ girlfriend than Wyatt’s. When the workday ended, she had nothing to take home and Hollis didn’t have much. Wyatt, on the other hand, didn’t get home until hours later and still with a sheaf of work to plow through that lasted long into the night.

  So she stayed with Hollis. They drove to Venice and strolled the boardwalk late one afternoon, and on another she cheered on the sidelines as he played soccer. On the third they drove to a fair and went on every ride, making it home so late that Aviana just moaned when Hollis woke up bright-eyed and chipper on Saturday morning. “Has anyone ever called you hyperactive?” she asked.

  “Why, no!” Hollis exclaimed in fake amazement.

  “Do whatever you want today, but leave me out of it. I need a weekend to recover.” She thrashed as he blew a raspberry on her bare belly.

  “Actually, I need to go out and buy some things,” Hollis said, blowing raspberries all over her skin. “It’s Jason’s bachelor party tonight at a titty bar . . . I mean, library. He’s a friend I made in college.”

  She laughed and pulled him up to plant a kiss on his lips. “Have fun.”

  “You’re not going to forbid me from going to libraries?”

  “No, go to the titty bar. I just respectfully request that you watch your step so you don’t trip and have your penis fall into a stripper.” Aviana was on birth control pills, but they weren’t using condoms.

  “Not to worry,” Hollis said. “I hate when that happens. He lives two hours away so I’m going to shop and head straight over there. I’ll crash at his place tonight ra
ther than drive home.”

  “Is the lucky bride having a party as well?”

  “Good God, it probably will be at the library for her. I don’t know what he sees in Zanie.”

  “Interesting name.”

  “It’s the only interesting thing she has.” He rolled off her and dressed, giving her a kiss before he left. She was returning to sleep by then, tucked warmly into the blankets, and she mumbled noncommittally when he said, “See if you can get Wyatt to take a load off whenever he gets back, would you?”

  Rousing a little a few moments later, she said, “He’s gone?”

  Hollis was already at the door. “I heard his car going down the driveway as I woke up. He doesn’t usually put in too many hours on Saturday. I’ll enable the system, Avvie, just sleep.”

  Milan. She tried to fall back asleep, but he was persistent in pushing his way into her brain. Since the mall, there had only been one indication that he was around. That had been in the mailbox down at the foot of the driveway, a Valentine’s Day card with a fake rose attached to the envelope. Not sent through the mail, it had been placed there by hand somewhere between Tuesday evening and late Wednesday afternoon. The second Hollis had brought it in, she’d known what it was. Milan had been here at the house, as close as outside the gate. That disturbed her greatly. The personal message inside the card held repetitions of the letter A captured in crosshairs.

  The tide of anger that had been surging through him as he decorated the card was palpable. It was carried in every furious slash of thick black ink, incongruent with the sweet picture of cartoon animals hugging one another on the front. She couldn’t imagine where he had acquired a Valentine’s Day card in the autumn. It wasn’t new, soft and shredded at one corner with what looked like a coffee stain on the back. The pink rose was something cheap that he could have found in a discount store. Hollis had taken one look at the inside of the card and called Wyatt. Within half an hour, a man arrived to install a camera overlooking the mailbox and changed the mailbox itself to one that locked. Milan could still put things in, but he wouldn’t be able to rifle around their mail once it was inside.

  There was nothing unusual in the box on Thursday or Friday, and she wasn’t going to walk down and check it today when she was home alone. What did he do in the pauses between bothering her? Go to homeless shelters for food? Stroll through stores to steal the necessities? Did he make friends among other mentally disturbed people? Ride the bus around aimlessly while plotting how else to wriggle into her life? Or it could be that there was no pause. It was only to her perspective since she didn’t see him, but that didn’t indicate that he wasn’t hidden somewhere close by. On one of his cross-hair pictures of months ago, he had scribbled I AM GOD.

  She had thought at the time that it was just more craziness, but now she discerned the remark was logical to him. He was always watching her, like God. He determined if she lived or died, like God did. He was Aviana’s God.

  There was no way that she could sleep alone in the house, even with the presence of the new wireless security system that Wyatt had had installed. She got up and had a quiet morning, not allowing herself to get up and look every time she heard a sound. The doors and windows were locked, and many of the curtains were pulled.

  Even when Milan hadn’t been anywhere around in the last two to three years, she was so on edge that her subconscious placed him there. Every shadow vanishing around a corner, every lift of a curtain or car going by had a sinister cause. Getting her mail couldn’t be the brainless task that it was for everyone else, because of the shadow of him left behind when he filled the box with communications for her. In some ways, the cruelest part of being stalked wasn’t the terrifying times he confronted her. It was in the waiting for it to happen.

  The television distracted her for hours as she went back and forth to the kitchen for snacks. At one in the afternoon, she received a text from Wyatt. Tell me you’re having fun doing whatever it is that you’re doing.

  It had always seemed sort of romantic when she was in college, having a high-powered career in business. Now that she was seeing it close up with Wyatt, she didn’t covet one for herself. His hours were insane.

  Her fingers moved swiftly over the tiny keyboard on the screen. Wyatt, come home. She had loved being with Hollis through the week, but she’d missed Wyatt. Other than hugs and sporadic texts about the mailbox situation, they hadn’t connected in any meaningful way.

  Another text came from him. I should finish up a couple more things. Unless you have something to motivate me to leave them for Monday.

  Are you asking me for a naughty picture or two?

  I would find that extremely motivating.

  All she had on was a long T-shirt. She had never taken a naked or even semi-revealing picture of herself. A better idea crossed her mind. Going to the kitchen, she snapped a picture of a bag of chips. Then she went upstairs to his room and took one of his crisply made bed. Sending both, she imagined the look on his face once he saw the pictures and put together her intent.

  He liked to have things a certain way. He needed it: his books alphabetized by author and lined up, his clothes on hangers, his framed photographs precisely spaced. His brother relaxed into the happy disorder of his belongings, but Wyatt could only relax when everything was in its proper place. For her to disrespect that was going to get quite a reaction.

  A text came. This is your one warning, Aviana.

  She took a third picture, of herself on the bed with the bag of chips open under her chin. Oh, was he going to make her pay for this! Just the thought made a tingle go through her. Setting down the phone and getting herself a glass of water, she ate chips and pawed through his bondage drawer to see what all of the options were. Once she had seen everything, she left the drawer ajar.

  The garage door opened and closed, making a tiny mechanical sound that carried up to the bedroom. Footsteps paced through the hallway downstairs and trailed over to the staircase. Thump. Thump. Thump. Each staccato beat of his shoes made her blood race faster.

  When Wyatt appeared in the doorway, she was leaning against the bars of the headboard and crunching on a chip. Loosening his tie, he said sternly, “What is all this, Aviana?”

  She shrugged. “There wasn’t anywhere else in the house to sit and have my snack.”

  “You know I don’t like food in my bed.”

  “Don’t be silly. I’ll shake off the crumbs when I’m done.”

  He was taking in every detail of her transgressions: the lack of coaster under her glass on the nightstand, the bag of chips, and the open drawer where she’d gone nosing. Sliding off his jacket, he hung it in the closet as she rustled noisily through the bag for another chip. Just as she selected one, Wyatt swiped the bag. “Hey!” she exclaimed.

  “Was there something you liked about my drawer?”

  “That soft rope. It feels nice.”

  “Too bad you won’t get a chance to try it out.” He pulled away the bag as she lunged for it. Catching her wrist in his hand, he leaned the bag against the nightstand and sat on the bed. She pulled and they fought for control, Aviana losing when he hauled her over his lap. Her T-shirt had ridden up, exposing her buttocks.

  She’d thought that she was going to be tied up, but he was going to spank her. In an instant she was wet. He had her pinned down, one arm pressing hard on her back to keep her there, and he brought down his right hand on her ass. It made a loud slap and she yelped, jerking in his lap from the sharp sting. “I didn’t do anything!”

  He didn’t debate the point. He didn’t ask her to count. He just spanked her again and again, Aviana squirming uselessly and crying out. A rush of warmth to her buttocks followed each stinging slap, and the vibrations went right to her pussy.

  It was so embarrassing to be in this position, but felt so good at the same time. Finally, she gasped, “I’m sorry!”

  The spanking stopped and Wyatt caressed her stinging buttocks. “Are you?”

  “Yes.”


  Fingers ran down the crack of her ass and slid between her thighs. He pushed two inside her drenched entrance and she groaned. With each thrust, his palm pressed lightly upon her spanked ass.

  When he pulled out, she mumbled resentfully, “Mostly sorry.” Her spark of rebellion was not met with another spank.

  “Get up,” Wyatt said. She stood and so did he. Unzipping his fly, he pulled out his erection and bent her over the side of the bed. His first thrust brought his loins to her ass in a gentle touch; the ones after it were much more vigorous. His body slapped into hers and the stinging began anew.

  She gripped the duvet as his thrusts moved her clitoris back and forth over a fold in the fabric. He hammered into her relentlessly, that fold rubbing and rubbing at her. There was the stinging in her ass and the blissful sensation within from being filled, there was that fold she was being pushed against and she couldn’t take all of it together . . . it was too much, everything melding into heat until she didn’t know where she left off and the world began . . .

  The orgasm overcame her in a wave so intense that it pushed her out of her body. Her fingers clenched and her pussy contracted around him in strong spasms; the scream she barely recognized as hers. He was coming as well, buried deep and his arms braced around her as he called her name.

  Then he was sweet, helping her to lay down on her stomach with her head on the pillow, smoothing a cool, soothing cream over her buttocks. She let herself be tended, and when he lay down naked at her side, she put her head on his chest. He stroked her hair, her back and shoulder, and his laugh passed from his chest to her cheek. “What is it?” she asked.

  “I’m not used to losing control,” Wyatt said. “I had plans to tie you up, but I couldn’t hold back. Mostly sorry. Oh, Avvie.”

  “You wanted a naughty picture or two.”

  “Those had me out of my office in a shot.”

  “Do you have to work tomorrow?”

  “No, and there shouldn’t be any phone calls. I’m all yours, if you want me.”