FIERCED 1: A Stepbrother Romance (4 page)

Chapter FIVE

In seconds I'm back at the noisy party, scouring the room for my father, the only man who can control the two brawling men.

“Daddy I need to speak to you urgently.”
He turns to look at me almost as though he has to remember who I am. Then there's a roll of his eyes.

“Again, sweetheart? Is it necessary to keep interrupting in such an unsavory fashion? Would you like to be introduced to the Comandante of the Carabinieri for Venice?”

I go on autopilot good daughter function.

“Good evening sir, I'm sorry for the interruption but I need to speak to my father.”

The Commander gives a polite conciliatory gesture and moves on to his next social call. My father rounds on me with fire in his glare.

“That was exceptionally rude Lisa. Your mother would be so disappointed.”

“Would she really? Where is she, my mother? Over there chatting to a couple of sexy movie stars.”

“I'll deal with you tomorrow.”

“Daddy, you need to do something about Rocco. He's violent.”

“Rocco? What's happened to my son?”

Those words shake me all the way to my heart.

My son
.

The very thing he's always craved and never got. My mother's illness already that advanced by the time they caught it, it prevented her having more children.

If I tell him Rocco's fighting with Ryan he'll ask me why. Then I'll have to tell him what I was doing with Ryan to make Rocco protect my honor and I'm going to come out of this looking like the bad girl again.

“He's – he's just, um, out of control.” Daddy looks at me with his face set hard as stone. This is what I interrupted him for?

“He's nothing but a trouble making interfering lazy biker living off his mother's name.”

Oh no, this isn't going well I can tell. Daddy has a son now. One who comes to his office and takes care of things and who's adored by his new wife. Suddenly I feel so terribly inconsequential and unloved. Will it always be this way? Perhaps my temper tantrums and the wall I've got up that makes me seem filled with pride is going to render me forever unlovable.

“Lisa, I don't know what your issue is with your new brother. You seem to have some sort of irrational vendetta out for him when you’ve only just met him. But I can tell you that your brother is the furthest thing from a lazy biker. His rides into North Africa with his raiders are not what they seem to the small-minded.”

Does he mean me? My father thinks I'm narrow-minded.

“Rocco does a great deal of work for the camps on the border between Algeria and Morocco. Those people have been displaced from the Western Sahara for decades with no one in the world bothering about them. They rely on supplies from the West or they'd all be dead in days.”

“I-I- didn't know about that side of him.” I murmur. How could I when no one thought I'm worthwhile enough to introduce me properly to my new brother.

Perhaps it's for the best that I didn't know because it might have made the ache I feel for him even stronger. I bite down on the side of my lip to stop a fat tear escaping my eye. How can I have these kind of feelings for a man I hate and who is now married into my family? My own freaking brother.

I mumble some apologies to my father and escape his horrible glare beating down on me. I've never been so confused and in tumult. I wish I could go home, except this is our home now. Our home back in the States is an empty shell of mansion since my mother left us.

Rocco is back at the party like nothing happened, across the far side of the room, with a beer in one hand and a tumbler of scotch in the other. Some gorgeous petite little starlet type in a strapless white dress that her boobs are spilling out over top of is fluttering all around him. Circling for the pounce.

He's standing casual as you like, leaning one elbow back on the bar and watching her through hooded eyes with a slightly lop-sided grin playing one side of his full lips. He's enjoying her, of course. What man wouldn't? She's stunning, given where we're hanging right now, she's probably an actual movie star. She clearly wants him and intends to have him. Once again, I'm nowhere at all on his radar.

I move through the crowd with my back turned to them, trying to look bright and interesting hoping someone will start up a social interaction. Nothing. They're all absorbed in their own conversations and I don't feel that confidence some girls have of busting in and being welcome.

My eyes look around listlessly in case I find Ryan. Is he okay? Should I go check the closet in case he's lying unconscious in a pool of blood? It did appear that Rocco was getting the better of him without effort. I owe Ryan that much. He may have been trying to push me but it wasn't as though I hadn't encouraged him. I don't want to be responsible for anything terrible happening to him because of me.

With a quick check that Rocco still has his eyes firmly buried in the blonde starlet’s cleavage – of course he does, I make my way back toward the closet I'd last seen Ryan. I pull the door back and it falls open easily whereas I recall Ryan having to tug on it.

And – what the fuck? I drag the stack of chairs to one side with effort, it's a tower block and barely budges. I half expect to discover Ryan buried hidden under the stacked up salon chairs that weren't here ten minutes ago.

No stage hands can have stocked up this storage room and cleaned in the time it took to be chastised for criticizing the sainted Rocco. He must have dragged the chairs in to cover the body. I crouch down and – nothing. No feet poking out at me. No puddle of blood. And definitely no body. How had Ryan left without coming through the reception room? Is it possible I missed him while talking to my father?  Because surely his battered bloodied face would have caused a stir in the crowd.

I'm on my knees on the floor, determined to find some clue that Ryan was here and Rocco has done something terrible with his corpse when the door is thrown back into its frame and I'm plunged into darkness. But I'm sure I'm not alone.

Even without the rasp of heavy breathing in the tight room, the presence is pushing up against the walls with solid tension. His nearness makes me breathless as though the full weight of him is pressing down on my chest.

“You seem to prefer spending all your time shut inside closets,” the voice is molten treacle mixed into cement.

“What the fuck are
you
doing in here. I thought you were occupied with the porn star. And what did you do with Ryan?”

“Lover boy is safe. Let's say he won't be dragging any young girls off to
La Dolce Vita
for a few months now.”

“I hate you. Why don't you just but out of my life? I already have a bodyguard.”

“Yeah fine job he's doing as well. And why do you hate me so much Principessa? What did I ever do to get you so wrung out?”

Being on the floor at his knees is making my heart thud. Looking up at him I cannot believe how huge his body is in the gloom. Although perfectly sculpted, every limb ripples with a seething energy below the surface that's making the room too crowded.

“You're rude and you're a bully and you think you can do whatever you want just because your mom's a famous movie star who married my dad and you knew and I didn't. And I wasn't even invited to the wedding.”

Before I can bite them back, three hot tears are streaming down one side of my face. The bile rises in me, my anger defense to push down all the pain. That my mom left, that my dad doesn't give a fuck and this asshole has stepped into the shoes of perfect offspring even though he's a lazy useless fucked-up arrogant biker.

He lifts his hand to my face and when I flinch, he pauses mid-air, raising his palm to show me it's okay. Then he softly, so softly the tears well into my eyes again from the gentle caress as he wipes one away. Lifting it on the tip of his finger like a drop of dew and gazing down on it.

“Yeah, that kinda sucked I thought,” he says and I have to cement my jaw to my palate to stop it crashing to the ground.

When he talks nice, that thick syrup voice is enough to make my panties dampen all by itself. I remember how his breath raked across my skin as the stubble on his jaw bristled me. I swallow hard because right now that same skin is prickling with the desire to have him closer.

Much closer. I absolutely can not feel this way about my brother. Not that I think of this hulk as any relative of mine, or ever will. But the facts are irrefutable. By his mom and my father having their secret stupid beach ceremony, we are instant family. Meaning I have stop palpitating like I'm going into cardiac arrest.

He caresses my tear drop between his thumb and all four fingertips, looking at it like it's a mysterious clue. Then he reaches again to curl a tendril of my long hair that Monica's personal hairdresser had curled into trendy waves.

“What are you doing?” I whimper.

My heart is bashing its way right through my chest wall making my breasts quiver. Rocco is breathing in short jags and his face is a contortion of – I don't know what but emotions are playing across like an opera with all Four Tenors. I can't bear that he's being so nice. No one has taken my side or tried to understand how I feel since my mom.

“Don't cry,
Principessa
,” he whispers, his voice hoarse.

“Stop being kind to me.”

If he doesn't quit that, I'm terrified that the tears are going to dambust out of my eyes and then the pain will be alive. An unstoppable permanent force.

“I want to be kind to you. And you need it.”

“What makes you think you know what I need?” There we go. That flexion of rage will keep the crying back. I am not going to lose it in front of him.

“You tell me then. What is it you need
Principessa
?”

“I need you to stop calling me that stupid name. I'm nobody's princess and I don't- act - like that.”

I can't formulate the words. My lips are numb with desire and my brain's all foggy, mindless with thoughts and wants and just pure fucking need.

That's what I need. Him.

Pressing in closer to my body so I can feel the heat from his skin crashing and buffeting against mine. His hips are so close I can almost feel his cock sliding between my inner thighs, searing the tender skin. I need him to stroke that sensitive firm finger along my folds. A shudder rampages through my body with the thought of him touching me in that forbidden place. Going further as that finger pushes through my entrance, corkscrewing all the way in.

I have to stop.

“We have to stop,” I blubber.

My hands reach up to shove his chest away from me, but instead keep going to cup around his stubble. Before I can pull his face down to mine, he's there. His lips claim me.

Rocco doesn't just kiss, he takes what's his. He sucks and licks my mouth so sensuously I feel like I might expire from pure bliss. His tongue curls around mine, luring and encouraging until I can't resist. I return to him everything he's giving. My tongue meets his and his powerful hands pull my waist tight to him so my back arches hard to tip my face up to his. My breasts are mashed against his rigid chest and I feel  his powerful heart beat making his pectoral bulge pump against my flesh.

“Oh God,” I whimper when he pulls away. I have a chance to haul in a gasp of breath as he trails a line of kisses down that sensitive side of my neck making me shiver and a rash of prickles rise along my arms that are still lifted to his precious face.

One hand now daggers into his surprisingly soft hair as his head tilts lower. The trail of nips and licks continues across my clavicle, down one side to the top of my breast, pressed high by the structure of the designer gown. I let out a moan as his fist cups the underside of my mound to shove the flesh closer up to his lips.

His thumb pad strokes across the naked top and hooks into the fabric, pulling it back a few inches so that my nipple instantly pops free. The cool shock of being exposed forces it to peak harder and he tongues it into his mouth, sucking tight into his palate as he rubs his tongue across the point.

Argh, I moan louder. I can't take this. I need to have him inside me, stretching me open to him and sawing against my agonized walls.

“Please.”

“Please what?” he asks. His lips move while his tongue continues to tease at my bullet nipple.

“Please- don't.” I never would have managed that plea if he hadn't asked. Another few seconds and I'd have been begging wildly, delirious with need for his to ram inside me. But the request to my brain to define the need brought its own query bouncing back. And in that instant recalled that this was wrong. The answer came back to stop.

But I can't stop. I want him with an urgency that overwhelms every other thought or feeling. I don't care about a single thing in the world other than being subsumed in the musky aroma and solid arms of this man. My breasts are burning from his caress, my pussy pounding with desire.

Shame envelops me in a flash and collides with the urgent hunger for sexual release. This guy is an oaf and an arrogant pig to boot. What the holy fuck am I doing pleading with him to come inside me. Taken over by the ravages of pleasure is my only excuse.

“Your body says different.” His tongue cups my nipple and he sucks it hard into his mouth again.