LUST (A STEPBROTHER ROMANCE)

My heart flipped and forgot to flop. “I beg your pardon?” I asked, slowly lowering myself back down into my office chair. I didn’t want him to show it, but those simple words had me shaking. Tristan wanted to get married? But what in the world for? He’d never wanted to be tied down—he’d even decried marriage to be archaic and backwards, an institution that should have been left behind in the Middle Ages. “What in the world would you need to get married for?”

“Because I actually want to claim my inheritance, Gwendolyn,” he said, no shortage of edge to his voice. His expression soured suddenly and he began to pace.

“I thought that you were already set to inherit,” I said, frowning as I leaned forward, elbows on my desk. “I mean, I know that with the new boy there’s a second heir, but you’d have priority as your father’s eldest son, wouldn’t you? I thought that was how this all worked.”

“It would be exactly that… if I was my father’s legitimate son.”

I leaned back, eyes wide as Tristan locked his gaze with mine. I’d known that Tristan’s mother had died in childbirth, but that he was born out of wedlock was something I’d never known. Though as I allowed that information to sink in, things began to make more and more sense, especially Lord Wolfe’s general coldness toward Tristan for all the years I’d known them.

“I never knew you were a…”

“?‘Bastard’ is the common term,” he said, shrugging in an attempt to seem nonchalant, though by the sour expression on his face I could tell that the term bothered him. “I am my father’s by-blow from his days as a stallion, bedding women left and right through his years in college. My mother being one of many—though the only one that he managed to get pregnant.”

“Surely, he took responsibility—” I began, though Tristan’s sharp, barking laugh cut me off.

“Only because he was pressured,” he said, his tone scornful. “My father didn’t care much for the idea of caring for his illegitimate child any more than I liked being under his watchful gaze. I was more than happy to see him leave for London on business while I stayed behind.”

“And now, with the child on the way, you need to cement your position as the heir to his legacy,” I said, turning my gaze away from him for fear that my thoughts might again wander to more unseemly places. “Which is why you need my help.”

“Spot on,” he replied, that smirk returning as though it had never left. “I need to be married to a respectable woman—an honest man with a family of his own.”

“I have a feeling that you might not get the results that you’re expecting from this, Tristan. I don’t just try to set up marriages, I try to encourage actual relationships. I mean, if you’re expecting to marry this woman in a matter of weeks or months, then I don’t think this is—”

“Let me worry about that,” he said, waving his hand dismissively. “After all is there a woman alive who can resist a man like me?”

I have, I thought, though I fought the urge to give in to that stunning smile whenever I saw him. I could already feel my heart fluttering, my pulse rising just from the way he moved and spoke. Maybe this was the best thing that I could do for him—and me.

If Tristan was married off, then he’d be gone and out of my hair. I’d be free from the constant temptation to maul my own stepbrother, begging him to ravage me just like I’d dreamed of. I licked my lips nervously. This might be the answer to my problem—a permanent solution to something I’d thought solved years ago. Though part of me cursed the thought I’d never get what I’d always desired—desired, but knew that I could never possess.

“All right,” I said after a brief silence. “I’ll help you, but first we have to get a few questions out of the way.”

“And before that,” Tristan said, coming just a little too close to me, that smarmy grin on his handsome face, “I think your big brother could do with a hug.”

5

ROYAL PRICK

Chapter 4

“Come here,” I said as I walked around her desk, my arms spread wide to envelop her in a hug.

I was honestly surprised she’d even agreed to my insane plan, much less the prospect of finding me a wife in such short order. To be truthful I was hardly sure whether my plan would work at all, but I knew little Gwennie liked a challenge. Especially when it involved matters of the heart.

“I—no! Tristan I can’t—” she tried to say as I pulled her into a tight embrace. I could feel her body tensing as I pulled her against me, and I distinctly hear her let out a little gasp. More like a squeak, really—that same mousy sound she used to make whenever I got too close, like that night in the kitchen before I left for Afghanistan. She’d been making that sound, and so many more, and as soon as I heard it, something dark and primal pulsed through my groin. Was Gwen still hot for me after all this time?

Interesting, I thought, trying to hide the smirk on my face. Knowing my goody two-shoes stepsister still wanted me was validating, to say the least. And intriguing…

“Have a seat, please,” she said, her voice stiff as I pulled out of the embrace. Her face was flushed as she tried to straighten her outfit, her hands trembling. I knew I had a mission—a goal that all of this was for—but seeing Gwen after all of this time brought back the thoughts I’d get when I caught her staring at me as we grew up. She’d been so awkward, all arms and legs as a teen, but about the time she turned eighteen something had happened. All of a sudden she had curves and an ass that I would have killed to get my hands on. All of this, however, was stymied by the fact that on no circumstances was I allowed to lay a land on sweet little Gwennie, no matter how much I would have liked to. She was my stepsister, and the scandal alone would have gotten me disowned right before it gave my father a coronary.

That only served to make me want it more.

“I have a few questions I need to ask you before we can get you matched with one of the women I have on our client list. Just standard personality question on what you’re looking for in a match,” she said, clicking a few times on her mouse.

“Ask away,” I said, leaning back in the comfortable office chair opposite her. “I’m an open book.”

“Two open for his Lordship’s liking, I would say,” Gwen whispered, though must have realized how loudly she’d said it all too late. “I… I mean…”

“It’s all right,” I assured her, smiling a bit as I relaxed. “I know very well what my father thinks of me.”

Gwendolyn must have gotten more than her share of tirades about my behavior after I provided scandal after scandal for the entertainment of the country. It was one of my favorite pastimes, to be quite honest; often, I would wonder how much I would have to do in order to put my father into an early grave.

My stepsister shifted in her seat before cl

earing her throat.

“Are you looking for a woman who is among the aristocracy?” she asked, trying to refocus herself back onto the task at hand. It was almost adorable the way she tried not to think about how much she still wanted me.

“Not necessarily, but I wouldn’t be opposed, no,” I said, my eyes trailing over the line of her blouse, imagining the way she looked naked. “So long as they didn’t have their head up their ass.”

“Any interests you’d like to share with your potential matches?”

“Well, I do love a good football match,” I said, smirking as I watched her eyes flicking toward me every now and then from her screen. “And I suppose a healthy enjoyment of literature is a bit of a must-have. After that, maybe an enjoyment of classical music.”

“When have you ever liked literature?” she asked, her eyebrows raised incredulously.

“Since always and forever, my dear stepsister,” I said, my grin widening as her substantial shock to such news. “It’s always been one of my secret loves.”

In fact I’d gotten top marks in every literature course since primary school, a fact that my father never once gave one lick of attention to. He’d have much rather focus on my failings than congratulate me for my accomplishments.

She blushed deeply and cleared her throat again, trying not to let her mind dwell too long on the fact that I was sitting here while she was almost drunk off of her ass. I wondered just how easily it would be to get her to take those clothes off. I knew I could if I tried, and I knew that I’d have enjoyed it… but there was another task at hand. As much as I wanted to claim Gwendolyn, I knew business had to come first, and sadly, a sense of propriety along with it.

“Any preferred physical type?” she asked, swallowing thickly as I considered.

“A redhead, preferably. A woman who’s about my height—maybe slightly shorter—curvy rather than skinny, I think,” I said, pondering just what I’d always fancied in the women I’d bedded countless times.