Stepbrother for Christmas

by Amy Brent

  Slowly, Amanda Ross started to fade away.

  And Amy Rossetti slowly returned.

  Chapter 13: Isaac

  When it was over, Amanda gave me a long kiss and said she had to pee. I nodded toward the bathroom and climbed into bed to await her return. I yawned as I glanced at the clock on the nightstand. It was almost 2:30 AM. I had been up since 6 AM the previous day. I hadn’t eaten much and I’d drank more than I should have and had just expended my energy having marathon sex with the most amazing woman I had ever met.

  I didn’t know why I thought she was so amazing.

  I just did.

  She made me feel things…

  She made me feel…

  Maybe that was it.

  She made me feel.

  Period.

  It was an oddly satisfying feeling, like a warm hug from someone you loved. Or could love, given the chance.

  Sadly, the feeling wasn’t enough to keep me awake.

  I fell into a happy, drunken sleep.

  I didn’t recall Amanda ever coming to bed.

  When I pried open my eyes the next morning she was gone.

  Her side of the bed had not been slept in.

  All that remained was the mask she left behind on what should have been her pillow and the sinking feeling that I had just met and lost the love of my life.

  Chapter 14: Amy

  I could not believe what I had just done. I had basically come to a high-end whorehouse, picked up a billionaire in the bar, let him finger-fuck me till I came in the elevator—while a bunch of security guards watched on video—sucked his cock in the foyer of his suite, and let him fuck me until I came so hard it rattled my teeth.

  Now, here I was, sitting on his fancy bidet with water shooting up my ass and tears of regret streaming down my cheeks and the evidence of our sex gushing out of me and sluicing down the drain. Even as I finished the job of de-sexing my cooch with a warm cloth, I could not wrap my head around what I’d done.

  I mean, what the fuck was I thinking…

  Maybe that was my excuse.

  Maybe I wasn’t thinking at all.

  Maybe I had simply drunk too much champagne and gotten caught up in the moment.

  That had to be it.

  Because this was not me.

  I didn’t do this kind of shit.

  Not anymore.

  Goddammit.

  It was all Serena’s fault.

  I should have never let her drag me here.

  Now, I had to escape before anyone knew I was there.

  * * *

  I stood in the dark with the bathroom door cracked until I heard Isaac start to snore. I quietly slipped out of the bathroom and paused at the foot of the bed for a moment. Isaac was sleeping like a beautiful baby bathed in the moonlight coming through a set of French doors that led to a balcony. He was on his back with one arm over his eyes. His chest slowly rose and fell. His long cock was draped across his right thigh. It moved a little when he breathed.

  For a moment, I thought about crawling into bed with him so I could wake up in his arms with his cock inside me. Then reality set in and the feeling that I’d just fucked up everything I’d worked so hard for came back in full force. I left the mask on the pillow and tiptoed from the room.

  I put on my dress in the foyer, picked up my shoes, and let myself out. I went back to Serena’s room, changed into a pair of sweats and tennis shoes, pulled my hair into a ponytail, packed my bag, and asked one of the guards to find Mr. Lemon for me. I told him I had an emergency and needed to leave. He took me to Lemon’s office and told me to stay there while he found his boss.

  The party was still going strong in the main room, the loud music filtering all the way down the hallway outside the door. I worried for a moment that Serena might show up and try to convince me to stay. I was not going to stay. No fucking way. Not after what I had done. I would climb the security fence and hitchhike back to the city if I had to. I was about to get up and leave when the guard came back with Lemon in tow.

  “My dear, is everything all right?” he asked, his voice filled with genuine concern as he hurried into his office where I sat nervously waiting. He sat behind the desk and let his eyes go around my face as if he were looking for signs of abuse. “Has someone done something to you?”

  “No, nothing like that,” I said quickly. “I have a family emergency and have to get back to the city at once.”

  His eyes narrowed. “A family emergency?

  “Yes.”

  “At…” He glanced at the gold Rolex on his left wrist. “3:25 AM?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see.” He gave me a slow nod without taking his eyes off mine. “Did you receive a call somehow?”

  I blinked at him. “A call? Um…” I had completely forgotten that my cellphone had been taken when I arrived. Cellphones were not allowed at Club D. My bag was also thoroughly searched for tablets, laptops, cameras, recorders, and other electronics that might be used document my stay.

  As I tried to think of something intelligent to say, Lemon held up one finger, then took a set of keys from his pocket, and leaned down to unlock the lower desk drawer. He rummaged through the drawer for a moment, then brought out my cellphone. There was a white tag stuck to the back of the phone that had my name neatly printed on it. He set the phone on the desk and slid it toward me. I picked up the phone and slipped it into my bag.

  He got up and came around the desk with his hand extended toward the doorway. “If you’ll just follow me.”

  I followed him down a long hallway and out the back door to the courtyard. He waved over one of the security guards, then led me to a black SUV and opened a rear door so I could climb into the back.

  Before he shut the door, Lemon leaned in to give me a stern look. “Please remember the agreement you signed, Miss Rossetti,” he said. “Privacy is our utmost concern and we will not hesitate to enforce the terms of the agreement.”

  “That goes both ways, Mr. Lemon,” I shot back, once again in full control of my faculties. Regret and shame had dissipated the alcohol in my system. “No one should ever know I was here, do you understand? No one. Not the employees, not the members, not even the owners. You break my trust and I’ll break your balls. I’ll plaster this fucking place on the five o’clock news so fast your head will spin. And at that point, you can shove your NDA up your ass because my lawyers will be having you for lunch. Am I clear? Mister Lemon?”

  “As clear as Waterford Crystal, Miss,” he said calmly. He stuck out his hand for me to shake. “You keep our secret and I’ll keep yours.”

  “Agreed.” I shook his hand, feeling a little like I’d just made a deal with the Devil.

  “Agreed,” he said with a nod. “Have a good trip home, Miss.”

  He gently closed the door and disappeared into the night, leaving me to wonder how trustworthy—and how loyal— Mr. Lemon really was.

  * * *

  It was nearly dawn by the time I got home.

  I locked myself in my apartment, stripped off my clothes, and fell into bed, exhausted and more than a little disgusted with myself.

  I prayed that when I awoke, Amanda Ross would be a distant memory and Amy Rossetti would be back to reality.

  And she would never gaze into Isaac Hanson’s gorgeous eyes again.

  If I hadn’t been so tired, I would have cried myself to sleep.

  Chapter 15: Isaac

  I wasn’t terribly surprised that I woke up alone. Amanda Ross wasn’t the first woman to use and abuse me and leave me alone to snore in my own juices. I just figured that she had woken up early and made her way back to her own room to get some rest after our workout. Still, it would have been nice to wake up with my arms around her waist and my nose in her hair and my hard cock sliding between her lovely ass cheeks. Oh well, at least she left her mask on the pillow, something to remember her by until I could go find her for real.

  I was surprised, however, when I couldn’t find her anywhere on the gr
ounds. She was not in the dining hall having breakfast or in the meeting rooms using the monitored internet or house phones. She wasn’t at the pool or the spa or on the tennis courts. I tried to remember who she was a guest of, but couldn’t remember her mentioning a name. After an hour of searching, I found Monte, the man who knew all, sitting at his desk sipping coffee from a white mug with the Club D logo on the side.

  “Morning,” he said cheerfully when he saw me at the door. I knew that Monte probably hadn’t slept a wink, but you’d never know it to look at him. He looked fresh as a daisy in his tennis whites. “Need something?”

  “Yeah, I’m trying to locate a guest,” I said, leaning against the door frame. “She said she was here with one of our employees last night.”

  “A female guest?” Monte said, his tanned forehead cutting into a frown. “We don’t get too many female visitors.”

  I smiled and sat down across from him. “That’s why it will be easy for you to tell me who she was and where she went. I’ve looked everywhere and can’t find her, so I need to know who she was a guest of.”

  Monte blinked at me for a moment, as if he were choosing his words carefully. “I’m not aware that we had a female guest last night, Isaac,” he said, leaning back with his arms crossed over his chest, giving me the eye like he thought I might be drunk. “We had several new girls start last night. Maybe she was one of them?”

  “Nope, she was not an employee,” I said, head shaking. “She said she was a guest of one of the girls.”

  “Which girl?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  “Maybe you just thought she was a guest.” He gave me a scolding smile. “You were putting them down pretty good at the bar last night.”

  “I wasn’t that drunk,” I said. I leaned in toward the desk and lowered my voice. “Monte, what aren’t you telling me?”

  I’d never seen Monte look defensive before. Maybe because he’d never lied to me before. “I’m not not telling you anything,” he said. “There were no female guests here last night. Trust me, I’d know if there was.”

  “Monte, who was she?”

  He held out his hands like he had nothing to hide. “Isaac, honestly, I have no idea what or who you’re talking about. We had no female guests last night.” He turned his chair toward the computer sitting on a stand beside his desk. “If it makes you feel any better, I can pull up the roster of everyone who was on the property last night. Did you get her name?”

  “Yes, of course,” I snorted. “Uh… Amanda…”

  “Amanda what?”

  “Ross. Amanda Ross. Black hair. Blue eyes. Great tits. Nice ass.”

  “I don’t need a description,” he said with a smile.

  I held my breath as I watched his long fingers dance across the keys. I got the feeling that something odd was going on, like a joke was being played on me. But that couldn’t be the case. Monte Lemon did not play jokes.

  He shook his head at the computer screen. “Nope. There was no Amanda Ross here last night. No one named Amanda or Ross, at all. Employee, guest, or otherwise.”

  “You’re sure.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Monte, I did not imagine her,” I said.

  “Maybe not, kid,” he said, picking up his coffee cup and cradling it between his hands. “But I’m telling you there were no females guests here last night. And no one named Amanda Ross.”

  * * *

  I went into the dining hall and took a table by the front windows after I left Monte’s office. A waitress brought me a cup of coffee and I ordered a short stack of pancakes. I stared out the window at the bright blue sky, trying to remember every detail about Amanda Ross, not just her body and what she could do with it, but her words, things she might have said that would tell me who the fuck she was.

  Was Monte right?

  Was Amanda Ross simply a figment of my imagination?

  Had I been with another girl and just got the names confused?

  I tried to picture her face. Shit. She never took the fucking mask off. I woke up with the smell of her pussy on my cock and the taste of her lips on my tongue, but if she walked into the room at that moment would I even recognize her?

  “Hey, asshole, what did you do?”

  I glanced around to find a striking brunette with tired eyes and a pissed off look on her dark face sliding into the chair across the table from me. I recognized her as one of the night shift waitresses. Serena something or other.

  I blinked at her. “I’m sorry?”

  “I said what did you do, asshole?”

  She looked sleepy and pissed, which probably made her think it was alright to call her boss an asshole. Her eyebrows formed a deep vee over her brown eyes. Her lips were curled into a snarl. That’s one thing my money had never been able to protect me from; a hungover, pissed off woman.

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “What did I do?”

  She wiggled a stiff finger at me. “I saw you leave the party last night with my friend and when I got back to our room this morning she was gone! She left a note that she’d see me back in the city on Monday. I don’t give a fuck how much money you have, Mr. Hanson. Nobody shits on my friend and gets away with it. Now, what the fuck did you do to her?”

  “Hold on a second,” I said, my hands up defensively between us. “Was your friend’s name Amanda Ross?”

  She gave me a confused look. “What? No. It’s Amy Rossetti.”

  My mouth literally dropped open. “Amy Rossetti… the consultant?”

  The color drained from her face. She licked her lips. I could almost hear the gears grinding to a halt inside her pretty head. “Um…”

  “Serena, I need a favor,” I said with a smile. I took out my cellphone and slid it across the table to her. “I need you to enter Amy Rossetti’s phone number and address into my phone.”

  She glanced down at the phone as if she had never seen one before. She put her hands in her lap and leaned back from the table. I saw her swallow hard and when she looked back up, there was a look of “oh shit” in her eyes.

  She asked, “Why do you need Amy’s information?”

  “Because that’s the only way this asshole will let you keep your job,” I said with a smile. “And Miss Rossetti has a lot of explaining to do.”

  Chapter 16: Amy

  Saturday.

  It was usually just another day of the week for me, typically spent catching up on things that did not get done during the week, grunt work mostly, work that didn’t involve speaking to anyone either in person or over the phone. Thank god, because I didn’t feel like making polite conversation with clients or debating the threat of cyber-attacks on the government with peers. If I didn’t speak to anyone before Monday morning that would be perfectly fine with me.

  I just wanted a quiet weekend to regroup and reflect.

  And recover.

  I woke up feeling a little bit like I’d gone three rounds with Hulk Hogan. Every muscle in my body ached—some more than others, if you know what I mean. Every time I moved my body reminded me of the hard, passionate sex I’d had with Isaac Hanson. My back and ass muscles were even sore from the positions I contorted myself into as Isaac slammed into me. Sad proof that I wasn’t as young or limber as I used to be.

  Great, I’m getting old and stiff; something else to fret about.

  Unfortunately, the memory of our sex, as amazing at it was, was also the thing I most wanted to forget when I opened my eyes and instantly recalled the night before. The memories came crashing back into my brain like a tsnami hitting the shore, the waves overtaking me, pulling me under, refusing to let me go no matter how hard I tried to swim away.

  I couldn’t explain why I did those things because I didn’t really understand it myself. I just felt ashamed of myself for doing them. Like I keep saying, I’m not a prude. I’ve had plenty of sex with plenty of guys and done plenty of slutty things.

  But that was the old me.

  The new me—the real me—t
he one who put her reputation before anything else, was simply disgusted with that girl.

  On a normal Saturday, my internal alarm clock would have me up by six. I’d make a pot of coffee and sit at the bar in the kitchen with my laptop, answering emails or reading reports until the pot was empty. Then, I’d go for my daily five-mile run through the park, take a hot shower and grab a quick lunch, then it was back to work on whatever project that needed my attention. Other than bathroom breaks and time for Chinese takeout, my butt wouldn’t leave the chair until it was time to go to bed.

  Sunday was usually a rinse and repeat of Saturday.

  Even though I woke up late this morning—I could not tell you the last time I slept until nine-fifteen—I stuck to the routine. I had my pot of coffee and answered emails, scanned the hacker news sites, and read over industry reports, even though my brain was not really registering anything I was reading. It was just an effort to distract my brain, which was bursting with thoughts I didn’t want to have.

  Thoughts of Isaac Hanson...

  Thoughts of my brief time at Club D…