Wicked Brat

Chapter One

Asher

“What the fuck are you wearing?”

“I’m a wicked witch.” She curtsied, flipping the tiny black lace skirt she wore too damn high up her thigh for my liking. “It’s Halloween. Ease off, old man.”

She winked once, crossing her arms, enhancing her large, round breasts ready for a battle.

As her stepuncle, I couldn’t help feeling protective. As a man, I couldn’t help wanting to snatch her over my shoulder and haul her off to my cave.

My brother’s stepdaughter, Leigh, had been getting deep under my skin since the moment we’d met at the wedding. She was stubborn to the core, outspoken to a fault, and was very often in need of a punishment with the way she made my body react to her.

“You’re a wicked brat in need of a spanking if you ask me.”

Leigh’s icy gaze held mine. The fact that she was twenty-one years my junior didn’t seem to faze her a bit. “What’s that, Asher?”

She made my cock hard and my balls burn like she’d taken a baseball bat to them. I’d only come to town for this damn overblown Halloween party my brother liked to throw every year. He’d been beating me over the head with this tradition since we were kids, I was better off skipping Christmas dinner than the annual Hunt Halloween Bash.

That didn’t mean I hadn’t thought my way around how best to avoid her while I was here though.

Leigh Everett.

All grown-up and standing in front of me now in the shortest excuse for a costume I’d ever seen.

“You heard me, Wicked Brat.” I edged a little closer, invading her space.

She pushed her pert little lips out as if I’d annoyed her, but then it turned from pout to a cocked grin. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you, Asher.”

She licked her lips, gaze trailing across my face.

I must have looked weather-worn and aged like old leather compared to what she saw in the mirror every day. Her skin was creamy soft, a ripe sight for my eyes and begging for just a small touch.

“Salt and pepper looks good on you.” She grazed the pad of her thumb across my temple.

Fuck. Cool it, I said inside my head, doing my best to keep control when she was this fucking close.

“Don’t test me, kid,” I growled with warning. She didn’t know what kind of fire she was playing with.

“Or what?” Her smile was teasing, and her caramel honey scent was invading my senses and battering my insides with the need to have her again.

“The last time you were this close, my hands were on you.” The memory I’d been trying to choke out surfaced finally. The need to trail my tongue along her hammering heart felt like a damn vise grip to my balls.

“I was only eighteen. My memory could be faulty, but I seem to remember more than just your hands on my skin.” Her words were soft and breathy, meant to destroy me.

“Leigh.” I couldn’t think, eyes slamming closed as the memory of the moonlit dance we’d shared came back to me, my hands around her waist, her body synced with mine. We’d begun that dance as newly minted stepuncle and stepniece, innocent and unassuming.

We’d ended it with sexual energy so charged between us, I’d had to relieve myself in the fucking bathroom at the reception hall. She’d caught me on the way out, freshly spent with visions of her, forbidden and obsessive, running through my mind.

If the hallway hadn’t been so dark, the song so charged with lust, if she hadn’t been so plain irresistible…maybe I wouldn’t have kissed her.

When she’d caught me in that deserted hallway, looking up at me with those mystical blue eyes, I’d done the only thing I could think of and pressed my lips to hers. Parted the seam of her sweet lips with my tongue and fucked her mouth deeply for long minutes before my senses came crashing back in and I’d ended it.

I’d left my brother’s wedding with an epic hardon for my new stepniece, and I was still having trouble controlling the fallout.

“God help all of us if you don’t run upstairs and change into something longer, Leigh.” I dusted my fingertips along the exposed skin of her waist. “I’ve got a hell of a problem controlling my lips when I’m around you.”

Leigh pressed her own lips together, gaze hovering on mine as we stood suspended, heartbeats rocketing between us. Her chest heaved with breathless words, the faint outline of her nipples visible through the dark lace-cropped vest she wore.

A quiet rumble passed over my lips as my gaze dropped to the deep vee of her cleavage, some sort of shimmery glitter dusted there that was meant to attract attention.

“What’s with the shimmery shit on your tits? If you wanted my attention, all you had to do is say the words.”