Cockney: A Stepbrother Romance

by Irons, Aubrey

  “I’m really not sure about that.”

  Oliver grins at me. “And why ever not?”

  I know what he’s up to, and arch my brow at him. “Um, because he’s little bit crude and crass and-”

  “And a bit like me, yeah?”

  “Honestly, yes.”

  He laughs.

  “And my mom is a little more level; she’s a little bit more prim and proper I guess. Just a little bit-”

  “Like you?”

  I smirk as Oliver turns the key in the lock of the front door to Ella and throws an arm over my shoulder. “Yeah, bizarre that one. Imagine that; the uptight prude and the bossy scoundrel.” He winks at me. “Right, can’t see that one possibly working out,” he says, leaning down to kiss the top of my head.

  Life is complicated. Oliver and his dad have talked, but infrequently, but I think they both know they need space from each other. Of course if Barney ever comes near my mom again, I think even Oliver might toss him out a window.

  Jolie is still around; we even pass it infrequently on strolls around our new South Bank neighborhood, which is sort of sweet considering our history there. Of course, it’s not exactly bustling the same way it was a year ago, when Oliver and I were there and before the Times review was published.

  I didn’t end up reading it until much later, after I’d decided I was an idiot and came running back to the heart I’d left in London. But the review ended up being decent for Jolie, but amazing for Oliver. A “classic case of ego run amok in the management ranks” I believe they said, regarding Barney’s drunken fight with Oliver and subsequent public firing. “An efficient, if not creatively stifling environment for the best thing to hit the London food circuit since Danny Cole, and probably better.”

  Yeah, that stoked my husband’s ego in ways it couldn’t possibly need, but I also couldn’t have been prouder.

  Oh, right, yeah; husband. I guess I forgot to mention that little detail.

  Oliver and I were married less than two months after I came back, in a small ceremony back in L.A., actually.

  Barney and Delia, who are apparently and quite unbelievably still together, were not invited.

  Danny did come though, grinning the whole time like he couldn’t possibly be prouder of Oliver. Marco managed to come out as well, and ended up being so taken with the food scene in L.A. that he ended up staying and landing a pretty great job.

  Apparently, there’s something about a girl involved too, but that’s a whole other story.

  Our story though, is right where it needs to be. Danny and Oliver are about to go in as investors on another project, which should ideally free up some time for when our baby boy comes, which can’t be soon enough. And honestly, if I hear one more “bun in the oven” joke - yeah, no, I get it, and yes you’re very hilarious - I might go a little crazy.

  So somehow, like random ingredients percolating and mixing together to make something wonderful, two opposites became one, perfect, delicious whole.

  Oliver glances up at the grey London sky. “Looks like snow.” I grin as wraps his arms around me in the chilly air as he leans in and kisses me. “I love you,” he murmurs, his hand coming down to rest on top of my swollen belly. “Both of you.”

  “I love you too,” I say, kissing him. “And I know she can’t wait to meet you.”

  “Oh it’s a she now, is it?” Oliver grins. We’ve decided to wait and be surprised, not that it stops either of us from guessing.

  “Oh of course it is!” I smile at him. “As if the world needs one more male Beckett running around.”

  Oliver grins. “Very fair point.” He glances at his watch. “Now, get in the car, luv. Let’s go do Christmas.”

  “Yes, chef,” I managed to get out, before his lips sear to mine just as the snow begins to fall.

  ~ The End ~

  Did you enjoy Cockney? Scroll forward for a two-chapter preview of Crude: A Stepbrother Romance!

  Crude: A Stepbrother Romance

  Knox Shepherd is a total d*ck. A really, really big one.

  He’s a swaggering, cocky prick who blows through women the same way he roars around town on that motorcycle of his - fast.

  Sure, I wasn’t supposed to be sneaking out to bars or singing at open mics, but that didn’t give him a right to talk to me like that. No one’s ever said those things to me before - filthy, raunchy, crude suggestions that made me literally run for the door. Suggestions I wish didn’t make me feel so funny inside.

  But hey, no big deal, right? It’s not like I’d ever have to see that smug, foul-mouthed jerk ever again.

  If only he weren’t standing with that cocky smirk on my front porch right now, right next to my father’s new fiancé. His mom.

  Yeah, that unbearable prick is going to be my new stepbrother.

  OK, he’s gorgeous, and every time he looks at me I can practically hear him whisper deliciously dirty things in my ear. And maybe something about his cocky swagger makes me think I should break some rules for once.

  ...Maybe something about him makes me not so sure I want to go to college still holding on to my V-card.

  But I definitely don’t want to lose it to my stepbrother. Ew.

  So why can’t I stop thinking about it?

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  A B O U T T H E A U T H O R

  Aubrey Irons enjoys writing about bold, sassy, and intelligent women and the dominant, cocky, and quite typically forbidden alpha males who love and lust for them; gripping stories, happy endings, and enough heat to keep things extra steamy! In the real world, Aubrey is kept plenty entertained by her own tattooed Marine husband, their precocious and adorable three year old, and one very ill-behaved puppy.

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  What a DICK!

  I can feel my heart practically jump out of my chest as I slam on the brakes, narrowly missing the motorcycle that cuts me off at the foot of my own driveway. The guy on the bike only slows down enough to flip me off though, before he roars off.

  My pulse thumping a mile a minute, my hands tight on the steering wheel at their ten-and-two position, and my foot still jamming the brake pedal to the floor. But mostly I’m just confused as I watch in shock as the biker goes tearing up the driveway to my father’s estate.

  Who the heck is that?

  I mean, I know they say most accidents happen within a mile from home, but “the mailbox” is kind of pushing it! On top of that, there’s the embarrassment that, as totally cautious a driver as I normally am, I know I wasn’t paying attention back there.

  The other distractions of the day go tumbling through my head as I frown and start to follow the biker up the curving wooded drive to the main house. The dull, nagging whine in my head about my father wanting to have an “important talk” with me after my piano lessons today about Amanda, the woman he’s been seeing, comes thudding back to the forefront. Amanda, the mysterious woman I’ve only met once, even if I know they’ve been dating for more than six months now. And whatever, it’s fine that he’s dating. Heck, a guy like my dad should have been back in the field the day after my mom took off, the way she did.

  So yeah, my dad dating is fine, but there’s something weird about dating the widow of o
ne of his top foremen that’s a little weird. And a little classless, if you ask me.

  But whatever.

  At the top of the drive, it’s my turn to stick my finger out the window and flip off the guy on the bike, who’s now kicking back the stand and swinging his leg back over it. I slam the car into park and yank the keys out as I step out into the dry Texas heat.

  Alright mister, you and I are gonna have word-

  Oh.

  The guy’s back is to me as he shrugs his leather jacket off, and slips the helmet off his head. His hand comes up as he stretches, the fingers raking through his short dark hair and the sleeve of his white t-shirt straining tight over the defined muscles of his bicep. A half-sleeve of tattoos curves around that arm, swirling around those muscles, and I find myself blushing a little as I stare.

  He’s ignoring me and my brake-screeching driveway entrance, his back still to me as he turns his head just a bit to bring a pack of cigarettes up to his mouth and draw one out with his lips. His very perfect, very sexy lips there on his very perfect, very defined jaw.

  Um, wow.

  I’m taking a step forward when two things happen. At the top of the curving stone steps, the front door to the house opens and my dad steps out with a blonde woman on his arm.

  And then the mysterious and sexy biker in my driveway turns around, looks right at me, and suddenly starts grinning.

  Oh you have got to be kidding me.

  Stranger? Well, yes, but not really. Because I know him. Well, I’ve at least had the displeasure of meeting him

  He’s the boy from the open mic songwriters show the night before last at the Music Hall. The show I most certainly wasn’t supposed to be at, and the show my father thinks I was at Megan’s house studying during. The open mic show where I don’t play the Mozart and the Tchaikovsky from my lessons, I play and sing my own songs.

  Oh my God, what is HE doing here?!

  He’s the boy who loudly shushed his buddies when they started to cat-call me on stage. The boy who met me right off the stage with a grin and a look that promised all sorts of bad decisions and offered to buy me a drink. A drink I, of course, declined seeing as I’m underage. The boy who leaned close and asked when I was playing next as he ran his finger through a stray lock of my wild red hair and tucked it behind me ear. The boy who had me absolutely tongue-tied and hanging off of his words until…well, until he got quite crude with them and I marched away, wishing I’d slapped him.

  And of course, the boy who’s been in my thoughts ever since then, in ways he definitely shouldn’t be, because he’s so obviously trouble.

  And here he is grinning at me and lighting a cigarette next to his motorcycle in my father’s driveway.

  Seriously, what is happening here?

  My dad beams at me as he walks down the stairs with the woman I now recognize as Amanda, my dad’s girlfriend. Somewhere in my head, an alarm bell starts to go off quietly.

  “Ah, good! You’re both here!”

  The alarm bell is joined by a second, and they start to get louder.

  “Paige,” He smiles widely at me; “You remember Amanda. Well, we were going to wait, but we’ve got some very exciting news for you.” He looks towards Mr. Trouble; “Both of you!”

  The wailing of the alarm bells starts to crescendo inside my head.

  “Paige, this is Knox, Amanda’s son.”

  The driveway starts to spin under my feet as the warning bells reach a cacophony, and my dad and Amanda are just standing there smiling.

  “Knox already heard, but Paige, we wanted to be here together to tell you that Amanda and I have decided-”

  Oh please no, please God don’t say it-

  “We’ve decided to get married this fall!”

  The world goes silent, and it’s in slow motion as my jaw drops and I turn to stare in horror at the dangerous, tattooed, muscled bad-boy standing there grinning at me.

  “So Paige, meet Knox, your new stepbrother.”

  My tongue turns to lead in my mouth and I just stand there staring at him in shock as the takes the cigarette out of his mouth, crosses those lean muscle arms over his chest and just grins at me. His eyes roam quite freely over my body as he opens those perfectly devilish lips; “Well, well, well.”

  Oh this is not good.

  There’s a beat, and then a moment of clarity as I suddenly recognize the fiery-haired, angry chick standing in front of me. And then my jaw about drops to the ground.

  Holy shit.

  There’s no way this is the girl from that night. She’s got glasses on now, and she’s wearing her hair up in this old-lady librarian bun, with this ridiculous collared shirt tucked into pleated mom-khakis - fucking khakis. Like, who the hell even wears khakis anymore?

  My brain says there’s no way this can be the same girl, but the longer I just stare at her, not saying anything like some kind of weirdo, it all comes together. She had her hair down then, her red hair wild and streaming out from under a cowboy hat. This was the girl in the knee-high boots, with that slinky shirt that you could kind of see her bra through.

  The girl who sang her fuckin’ heart out on that stage, so much so that even the assholes like me who were only at that bar to begin with because of their loose carding policy shut the fuck up and listened.

  The girl who was all sass and vinegar when I tried to buy her a drink after, and the girl who took off the second I tried to make a move on her. OK, scratch that; the girl that looked at me like I had three heads when I suggested that we go get to know each other better in the men’s room.

  Yeah, OK, so not exactly my finest moment.

  She looks like a deer caught in headlights right now as her dad just fucking spills the news like that. And honestly, my face would probably look a just like it if I was hearing it for the first time on the steps of my house with - surprise! - my new family right there. As it stands, it’s exactly how my face looked yesterday when my mom broke the news to me. I mean, shit, I’m still nursing the hangover from processing that little nugget of news.

  This gi- Paige is staring at the two of them, slowly shaking her head. Jesus, she looks like she was even less ready for this than I was. And here I was thinking that it was Amanda who was the world’s most secretive parent, what with this whole surprise relationship. At least Paige looks just as fucking confused as I did last night, which I know is a weird sort of comfort, but at least I’m not the only one walking blind into this. I mean I guess I’d know my mom had a boyfriend, but hearing the “fiancé” bomb was a slap in the fucking face. Oh, and we’re moving in with him? Fantastic.

  And now here I am just meeting him for the first time right here in the driveway of his crazy-ass mansion on the day we move into it. No, let me take that back, I’m meeting him for the first time as my new stepfather. I’ve met Joe before, but it was three years ago as “Mr. McCauley, dad’s boss who’s here to offer his condolences and support.”

  Way to comfort the grieving widow, you prick.

  So here we are, about eighteen hours after my mom dropped the bomb. “P.S. I’m marrying you your dead dad’s boss; good luck with therapy for the rest of your life” is a pretty fucked up way to start dinner conversation with your son.

  OK, so it may have been slightly more tactful than that, but still; what the actual fuck? I mean don’t get me wrong, I hardly knew my dad anyways since he was always out on some job site drilling somewhere.

  But he was drilling for Joseph McCauley. Billionaire crude oil-tycoon Joseph McCauley. The very same Joseph McCauley, in fact, who’s standing there with my mom’s hand in his and looking at me like he’s sizing me up; like he’s worried about letting this son of a roughneck - this kid with tattoos and a leather jacket and a motorcycle - into his home and anywhere near his daughter.

  He should be.

  Because as my eyes dart back to her, standing there with her arms crossed tight over her chest and a wild, accusatory look in her eyes as she stares at me, I get a certain notion inside my h
ead. Yeah, I’ve know girls just like this; the uptight, wound-up type. But I also know the wild side that’s trapped behind girls just like Paige McCauley. There’s a fierceness and yearning to run free that I can see behind her eyes, and as I stand there grinning right in her stuck-up scowling face, I know I’m gonna find that wildness.

  And I’m gonna unchain it.

  Click here to check out Crude!