Stepbrother's Secret

I nod, unable to speak.

He carries me to the passenger side, his breath warming my neck, that huge part of him prodding me. Wanting me. I curl my fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck and wrap my legs around his waist, making him growl. Earning me several hard thrusts against the door, both of us moaning, grabbing each other, the car groaning as it rocks behind us.

“You’ve ruined me,” Tristan pants, palming my bottom beneath my dress. “I’m being asked questions on live television and all I can hear is the wet, slapping sound your pussy makes when I fuck it.” He slaps my backside, creating a perfect, resonating sting that travels the entire length of me. “Apologize to Daddy.”

“I’m sorry, Daddy,” I wheeze.

When he drops me to my feet against the vehicle, I’m disoriented, aroused—and then he buckles me in protectively, kissing my forehead, and I switch gears yet again, my heart taking precedent. Pumping wildly. He dotes on me one second, manhandles me another, and I love it. I love the unpredictability of him, because it reminds me of the nature that surrounded me growing up. The power and beauty and honesty of it. The lack of pretense or prettiness that defines the rest of his world. I want to go for his wild ride. Never come down.

A moment later, Tristan climbs into the driver’s side and peels out of the rear lane behind my building. He takes the dark streets expertly, his restless energy reaching out and grabbing me across the car. Making my fingers clutch the edge of the leather seat, forcing me to focus on my breathing so I don’t hyperventilate.

I’m going to die without him inside me.

I’m going to die.

“Is it always like this between a man and a woman?” I manage to ask.

His laughter cracks like lightning. “No, baby. It’s not.”

That makes me tip my head back against the seat, my palms slicking up and down my thighs. “I saw on television…well, don’t you live in the governor’s mansion, Tristan? You can’t be taking me there.”

“I live there during the week. But I have a private home, as well. Not too far from our parents’ house. That’s where we’re going.”

I nod, relieved to hear we’re not far, and five minutes later, we pull through an electronic gate and fly down a cobblestone driveway, braking in front of a place so gorgeous, it could be a painting. A tall, ivy-draped, white brick mansion. Even though it’s so large, there’s a certain rustic charm to it. Lanterns flicker on either side of the entrance, the shutters on the windows are attached with black wrought iron, trees sway in the night breeze on all sides.

I don’t realize how long I’ve been gaping until Tristan opens the passenger door and lifts me out, carrying me up the steps to the front door and kicking it open. I burrow my face into his neck and let him take me wherever we’re going, the urgency to have our bodies joined matching beat for beat. We reach the top of a broad, wooden staircase and take a right, entering a bedroom I instantly know belongs to Tristan.

It’s no-nonsense. Cream and forest greens. Sturdy furniture.

A huge window overlooking the backyard and—

“Wait. What is that?” I wiggle out of his hold, racing to the glass to look out into the trees. And there…there is it. The moonlight is just strong enough that I can make out a tire swing in the backyard. “Is that…oh my gosh!”

“Cate…I was going to show you in the morning…”

I don’t bother listening, racing back down the stairs, ignoring Tristan’s shout to slow down and not break my neck. I’m unfamiliar with the house, so I skid into the kitchen first, reverse directions and find the exit into the backyard through a mud room. Tears spring to my eyes when I see the tire swing dangling from a towering oak tree and I throw my arms around it like a long-lost friend, even though I know it’s not my…

It can’t be my tire swing.

But when I lean back to study it closely, there’s the familiar, worn out brand name. There’s the little red heart I painted with Mama’s old nail polish.

Tristan exits the house and my hand comes up to trap a sob. “How did you do this?”

He watches me closely. Intensely. “I could tell it meant something to you. I hired someone to go collect it, send it to me.”

I breathe his name like a prayer. “Tristan. I can’t believe you did this.”

In that confident way of his, he starts forward, coming off the patio into the tree-covered backyard. “I did replace the rope. It was fraying and unsafe. Kind of like running down the stairs at full speed.” Looking at me hard a moment, he finally softens. “There are fireflies back here in the summertime, baby. Although I did ask if we could bring some here in a jar from North Carolina.”