Dynomite: A Stepbrother Cowboy Romance (22 page)

I had to brush it off. The last thing I wanted was April snooping around in my business, pretending to care about my injuries. Pity and charity really chapped my hide. I’d been fending for myself and then some for years. “Nothing big. Nothing I can’t handle, anyways.”

Her eyes cried out for something. I wasn’t sure what. “No, Dyno! Tell me. It hurts me that we used to be such good friends. You patched it up with my dad, obviously. He told me he believes you didn’t do anything to me seven years ago—”

“Yeah, ’cause he heard about my medals, my decorations! That’s the only fucking reason, April. Does he admit it was Marcus who drugged you?”

“Well, no, but that’s water under the—”

“It ain’t!” I took three long strides to reach her chair. I made no bones about plunging my fingers through that cotton candy hair, all spun candy, smelling of peaches. I swiped my callused thumb across her creamy cheekbone. She looked up at me like I was handing her a lifeline across a giant chasm. It felt so wrong, and so right at the same time, to be touching her again. “The only thing you need to know is I ain’t got any bodily injuries.”

“No bodily…” She gripped my wrist. “Well then, what happened to you? You’ve got some kind of psychological—”

“
No!
” I hadn’t meant to scare her, and I’d wound up scaring her even worse. I never should’ve brought up injuries, period. I’d just meant to show her that I was all in one piece, and the only way to do that now was by action.

I ran my hand around the back of her skull and mashed her face to my groin.

Of course, she was surprised at first. Her hands splayed out and wormed around like she was a beached salamander. But quick as a dog can lick a dish, that filly had my butt in her palms. She mouthed my hard-on all over, gumming it through the jeans fabric. The thought of that Mason Simon anusbrain must’ve gone completely out the window once she got a taste of my meat. I mean, she was mouthing me like a magnet, like there wasn’t a layer of cloth between her teeth and me, drooling all over my pocket, her fingers already flying to my CCPRA belt buckle, the one I’d left behind in the storage unit I shared with Sequoia so many years ago, along with all my other paltry belongings.

I still hated April for how she’d uprooted my entire life. So I smashed my crotch to her face, and when she took out my hard-on and plunged it down her throat, I helped by throat-fucking her. I didn’t hold back, either, like I had the last time she’d sucked me, out of fear of hurting her. I corkscrewed my tool in and out of her throat, and she took it, too. Anyone the fuck could’ve walked in on us then. Hell, Mason Simon himself and his entire foundation could’ve busted us royally. April might make it unscathed through that uproar, but I never would. I’d be out on my ass again, throat-fucking my own stepsister like that, looking for work in the private security sector as a disabled analyst.

“April,” I grunted. “That’s it. Suck me good. Love me with your mouth. Show me how much you’ve wanted my big dick all these years. Use your tongue. Yeah. That’s it. Show me how much you want your brother’s big, fat cock in your mouth. Oh yeah. Be a good girl and love on your brother like the dirty slut you are.”

This nasty talk seemed to inspire her to greater heights. She grabbed ahold of my hips and just plunged my rod down her throat. Jealousy burned in the pit of my stomach, wondering where she’d become so talented on a sudden. She was hoovering my cock so deeply she could even reach out with her tongue and lick my sac on the downswing. It was like her throat had stretched sucking some other bruiser, and I went wild with lust and rage at the idea.

“Do it, bitch! Eat my giant cock like you’re hungry for more! You know you’ve been dreaming about it all these years, so eat it! Smoke my dick like you haven’t eaten in months. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
Oh yeah
.”

When I fired off my load, I more than did my nickname proud. Fact, I choked her with my spunk so badly I think it came out her nostrils.

“Oh
yeah
. Oh
yeah
. Oh
yeah
.” I remember saying that over and over again. Nothing had ever felt so fucking good. It felt like a thousand tongues lapped at the core of me, sending me spiraling into heaven. All my senses shut down—all I knew and felt was the immediate area around us, the desk, the chair, the floor.

“Oh
yeah
.”

It was April talking this time. She finally pulled back, gulped, wiped her nose on the back of her hand. and continued nursing at my cock, making light butterfly kisses to the side of it, my sac, the channel that ran the length of the underside, slurping loudly. When I said “take my balls into your mouth” and grabbed her in a vise by the back of her neck, she obeyed, falling to her knees on the floor.

But it was too much for me, her suckling like a calf at my cojones. I had to push her away, and I guess I pushed too hard, because on a sudden she was spinning on her ass, her mouth all pouty and bee-stung.

“
Christ!
” I swore ambiguously, not even sure myself why. I sort of fell backward a few steps, grabbing my hose at the base, like it’d fall off without my fist around it. “Damn!”

Again she wiped her face with the back of her hand, and she looked so innocent, so childish. I was still full of rage, though. Rage at how she’d acted seven years ago. Rage at why she’d suddenly been able to deep throat me. Rage that things had changed, that we’d never been allowed to get it together. Rage against fate.

“There!” I snarled. “Now you’ve shown me how much you want me, I get to show you how much I don’t fucking want
you
!”

What was I, five years old suddenly? I sounded like a complete and utter moron, even to my own ears. Was my traumatic brain injury kicking back in? I don’t know the answer to that. I just know that being around April sent me whack, just a few peas short of a casserole. I had a full six-pack. Just not the plastic thingie that held it all together.

“Why, Dyno?” she cried. She was as pathetic as could be, collapsed on the floor like that, her belly full of my seed. And it was bad seed. My family had very bad seeds. My father was an abusive alcoholic and now I’d turned into an abusive dry drunk. “Why? We just hooked back up. Why can’t we take it from here?”

I didn’t know what to fucking say, so I buttoned my last button while walking backward to the sliding door. “Look, I just want you to know that your fucking party
sucks
. I’d rather be fucked in the ass by a rhino in a cactus field, so what time do you want me to be there?”

April was speechless. That was understandable, seeing as how all my talk and actions just made me sound one tit short of an udder.

“Text me!” I commanded before vanishing out the door.

Like
that
would make more sense. But boy, did I say it in a commanding tone. She didn’t know my cell number. I guess I figured she could get it from Sequoia.

I don’t know. Nothing about that day, or any of the days soon to come, made much sense.

APRIL

A
fter my meeting
with Dyno, I was completely confused.

My life had turned into a Mongolian clusterfuck, as Dyno would say, after seeing him at the rodeo. Mason had already started acting strangely. He asked me things like “So. You saw your stepbrother?” and “You think he’s gonna go far in the bareback standings?”

Why was he asking me such invasive questions? Mason seemed particularly brutal the night after I sucked my stepbrother’s penis. He fucked me like a battering ram. I wasn’t even wet enough, so he left me very sore, maybe wanting me to have a reminder of him.

He acted strangely about the cocktail party, too. A million questions about things he normally wouldn’t concern himself with. Gin versus vodka, asparagus tempura versus spinach empanadas. I mean, he was
really into it
. He especially perused the guest list. He particularly wanted this tennis pro, Carla Reyes, to attend. Why the fuck would a tennis pro be interested in a rodeo party? And why was Mason controlling my guest list? It was my party, at my house. Just because he was the CEO didn’t mean he ran everything. He was getting too big for his britches.

“Dyno doesn’t drink, you know,” said Sequoia, watching me fuss over the open bar area. The reception would be held on our patio by the reflecting ponds butting up against the ninth hole. In April, there was still a risk of rain showers, but today the sky was placid, a sort of rusty glow over the beautiful grounds. “His fellow SEALS drank like fishes, he said, but he didn’t. Didn’t want to wind up like his dad.”

I didn’t know that. “Well, other guests will.” I didn’t stop drinking. Not the day Dyno left for the navy, when I continued to drink with Sequoia all day, or on the anniversary of my mother’s death. Life was too powerful, real, in my face. Alcohol helped create a comforting cushion between me and reality. Sadie had stopped drinking though. Would wonders ever cease? Made me feel even worse about myself when the stepmother I thought was an alkie pulled herself up by her bootstraps while I wallowed in the muck. She got my dad to cut down to an occasional whiskey, too.

“Have you seen Dyno yet? Other than at the rodeo. He’s really changed, April.”

“Well, that’s to be expected after what he’s been through. Yeah, he came by my office the other day with a payroll question.”

Sequoia practically sucked in air. “He
did
? He didn’t tell me that.”

I moved a vodka bottle around for no reason and smirked. “Well. It
was
a payroll question.” I frowned. “How has he changed?”

Sequoia dug his hands deeper in the pockets of his sagger jeans. This was his idea of dressing up. Sagger jeans that showed his underwear, a backward baseball cap, flannel shirt buttoned only at the top, and white unlaced Jordans. No wonder he’d never gotten off the ranch. He looked like a damned gangbanger, a cholo. He even liked to put his fists together and lean like a cholo. This didn’t go over well in high society—as a rodeo clown, maybe—but he was my friend, so I had to let him help me with the party.

He said, “He’s a badass, April. I know you think of him as this sappy, romantic dude—”

“Not really.”

“—who liked to take you up to that rocky cave or steal the Bull Gravy statue to win your hand—”

“Again. Not really.”

“—but he’s harder now. You wouldn’t believe some of the exploits he told me about. Three years ago he skydived into Somalia to save some aid worker using this special free-fall technique that had killed many guys in training. He said they had to steer their way for miles using wind current to cross a border in the pitch black of night.”

I tried not to seem impressed. “Well, that’s what SEALs do, right?”

“The aid worker later said she didn’t even know they were there ’til they were within ten feet of her. Bam bam bam, all ten kidnappers were dead, and she was safe.”

“Hm.”

“They wore night vision goggles. Then he was assigned to a place called Baluchistan. That’s where he was injured.”

“He mentioned that.”

“Some ragheads fired a rocket-propelled grenade at his position. He was hit by shrapnel and the concussion injured his brain. That’s why he sometimes doesn’t seem…like himself. They all get it, all those SEALs. Their bodies are trashed. Their brains are trashed.”

“Well, I wouldn’t know about his brain,” I said mysteriously, “but his body sure seems fine to me.”

Sequoia’s eyes widened. “
April
…”

I waved a hand at him. “Now you just get back into the kitchen. Ask Josefina for the cold bottles of water. That’s what most people drink these days. No one wants the sugary soft drinks.”

Sequoia stepped up to me. He wouldn’t let me pass. My first guests had arrived, some rodeo officials. “When he came to your office, you discussed more than payroll, is my guess.”

I wanted to wipe that juvenile grin off Sequoia’s face, but I didn’t deny it. “We’re all adults here. I’m not married. He’s not married…as far as I know.”

“You sly dogs. But I want you to know, you’ve got to step lightly with him. Barebacking isn’t going to help his traumatic brain injury either. He didn’t voluntarily take himself out of the SEAL game. He was constantly sending himself back in with concussions and adding more hits to his existing brain trauma. He didn’t give it time to heal. They finally told him to go home. He had no choice. He would’ve kept going back in.”

I dismissed him. “Excuse me. Good evening, sir! So good to see you again. I remember your lovely wife…”

Truth be told, I was fixated on that abrupt blowjob of the other day. I must have been a self-involved twit—hell, maybe I still am—but Sequoia’s words didn’t really sink in until later.
He must still like me. He can’t possibly run around letting every chick suck his cock. His cock was even thicker and robust than before. He said he’d be here tonight. His jizz tasted like champagne. I swallowed every drop. The drops that didn’t shoot out my nose.

I was even thinking this stuff when Mason joined me and the waiters brought out more appetizers. I’d been incredibly irritated with Mason lately, and tonight was no exception. He started droning on and on about his Modern Committee, how it was remodeling the Astro Bowling Alley because it was a gem of a midcentury piece of architecture and blah blah blah. The people we were with seemed interested, so it allowed my mind to wander. Seven o’clock came and went and no Dyno. I started panicking that he’d just been kidding when he said he’d show up. That would be the ultimate practical joke to play on me.