Forbidden: Ultimate Stepbrother Collection (22 page)

Chapter 6

Tommy

Crystal was stretched out on the chaise lounge in the center of the top deck with a table of fruity drinks and snacks within arm’s reach. She was milking the twisted ankle so she could be waited on and fawned over. It was one of the reasons that in our on-again, off-again relationship, the off-again side was always winning. If Crystal wasn’t the center of attention, she did something to make sure the spotlight was back on her. Even though I doubted she’d intentionally hurt herself, this injury had definitely put her in the queen’s chair, exactly where she liked to be.

Olivia had already grown tired of her friend’s drama. She and Max had pulled their chairs into the shade to read magazines and sip margaritas.

I was having a harder time than I’d expected cutting myself off from work. I’d sat myself across from Crystal on the newly upholstered bench running along the bow. The contract I was reading was dull as shit, and my mind kept drifting to the idea that Dani was onboard with us. I knew that Nana had kept in touch with her, but I hadn’t seen or talked to Dani for a good seven years. She’d changed. And for the better, which was saying a lot because even as a bony hipped fifteen-year-old, she’d lit up any room she walked into. I had always really liked her, even though, I had only showed it by teasing her mercilessly and making fun of everything she did. It was typical defensive behavior for a sixteen-year-old boy with a major crush on a girl he could never have.

Then, as if my thoughts had summoned her, Dani walked out on deck. Her blonde hair was swept up in a ponytail, just like she always used to wear. I could still remember standing behind that long, silky neck as I taught her how to throw a dart, and the entire time, I’d been unable to focus on the dart lesson. All I’d been able to think about was kissing her neck. That same thought seemed pretty logical right now as she stooped over to check the swelling on Crystal’s ankle.

Crystal stared up at her over the rim of her sunglasses. “So, a nurse practitioner, huh? Why would anyone choose that? Is it good money? Or maybe you just wanted to meet a hunky doctor.”

Dani put the ice pack back on the ankle with a little more force than needed. “I couldn’t afford all the years of medical school, but I wanted to help people.”

Max laughed. “Helping people. It figures that one didn’t cross Crystal’s mind. I still remember when Tommy was skateboarding down his steep driveway, and he had to bail off of it. Left a lot of skin on the asphalt, but he was more worried about the tongue lashing he’d get from his dad for riding down the driveway in the first place.”

Dani looked over at me. I remembered the day vividly and from the expression on her face, she hadn’t forgotten either. I smiled at her. “And Dani cleaned all my scrapes and cuts in secret so that my dad wouldn’t find out.”

Max laughed. “Poor guy was walking around so stiffly trying not to let on that he was in horrible pain, and then his dad patted him on the shoulder about something.” Max dropped back against the chair still laughing. “Tommy nearly jumped out of his skin.”

I shook my head. “Glad you found it so funny.”

“I should probably get some more ice for this,” Dani said and turned to leave.

“I’ve got some here in this bucket.” I stood and picked up the ice bucket. I walked toward her, and as the gap between us closed, a sudden charge of energy swirled in the air. Or at least, I’d felt it. It was the same exchange of energy I’d felt one morning back when Dani was still living with us. It had been a weird encounter that I still hadn’t forgotten because it had been so profound. Dani had stumbled out of the bathroom in a hurry and late for school, as usual. She had only been wearing a towel as she bumped right into me. She’d stared at me as if I’d grown horns, and her face burned red with a blush. As she dashed around me to her room, it felt as if some unexplained electrical charges had snapped apart. I’d pushed it out of my head as just being a completely awkward moment. 

I held out the bucket. As Dani took hold of it, my fingers seemed to move toward hers, all on their own, as if my brain wasn’t controlling them. My hand grazed hers. Actually, it wasn’t a graze at all. It was a touch. It was a full-on caress. For a moment in time, no one else was on deck with us. Just me and Dani, the cute, skinny stepsister who had morphed into a heart-stopping beauty.

My fingers pulled reluctantly away, but even after holding an ice bucket, the heat of her hand stayed with me.

My grandmother and her secret matchmaking schemes— she’d set this whole damn thing up.

Chapter 7

Dani

The loud knock woke me from a deep sleep. I opened my eyes into an unfamiliar darkness and quickly remembered that I wasn’t in my room at home. I was on Maggie Hawkson’s luxury yacht, only Maggie was safely tucked on land and I was out on the Caribbean Sea with her playboy grandson, Tommy, and his snooty friends. The end of my bed lifted and sank with the waves. A second urgent knock also reminded me that I was the one person medical team for the spoiled passengers on the three hundred foot Sea Queen.

“Coming!” I called. I lowered my feet to the floor, but the deck dropped out with a change in current. I pitched forward and caught myself on the dresser. Lightning glowed through the three portholes making my wall look like the grill on a car with three headlights. I reached for the light switch. I was wearing only a cotton t-shirt. I grabbed my shorts and pulled them on.

Another knock and Robert’s voice followed. “Miss— uh, Dani, we are in need of medical assistance,” he called through the knock on the door.

I rushed through to the outer room, the small infirmary I’d been put in charge of. I flicked on the light. The glass cabinets, stainless steel exam table and refrigerator door gleamed back at me.

I grabbed the first aid box and swung open the door. The deck sank quickly like the floor of an elevator and then rose up just as suddenly. I braced my free hand on the door jamb for support.

Robert had yanked on his shirt so fast, it was inside out. He ducked his head down to avoid crowning himself on the top of the doorway. “We’re in a storm,” he said.

“Yes, I gathered that. Who’s in trouble?” I asked.

“It’s Crystal,” a deep voice answered. Tommy stepped onto the landing with his damsel, once again, in his arms. She was wearing a frilly nightgown. Tommy had taken the time to just pull on his shorts. For a second, I felt a pang of envy thinking that it would be awfully damn nice to be the woman in those fantastic arms. When the hell did his arms get so massive? I shook the silliness from my head and blamed it on the intense rocking of the ship. I returned my focus to the patient. I was, after all, onboard to help sick people, and Crystal definitely looked sick. Her beautiful golden skin had taken on a greenish pallor that almost matched my khaki shorts.

“Bring her in here.”

Tommy turned sideways to get her through the small doorway. Crystal looked limp in his arms. She moaned in pain as he lowered her onto the patient bed. I walked to her side and placed a hand on her forehead. She was cold and clammy.

“Did she hit her head or fall?” I asked.

“No,” Tommy said. “She just woke up looking like this.”

I stared down at the woman and had to hold back a grin. “Crystal, do you feel nauseous?”

She moaned in response. Tommy’s pretty, little girlfriend absolutely had a flare for drama. Just one day after sitting like an invalid on the deck lounges, acting as if she might never walk again, she’d been up and dancing on the same twisted ankle by nightfall.

“Crystal, I’m going to give you something for the nausea. This is just seasickness.”

Her long, pink fingernails reached up and grabbed my shirt. She managed to pinch some skin with it. “Bullshit. I’m dying. Now get me to a fucking hospital.” She still gripped my shirt as she pulled herself halfway to sitting. Then she turned her head and puked all over my shirt.

I stared down at the mess. “I guess you had a lot of those strawberry margaritas.” As a nurse practitioner, I’d learned to have an iron stomach, but with the crazy storm surge tossing the yacht around, I was already feeling a bit off myself. I swallowed back the bitter taste in my throat.

Crystal flopped back down like a ragdoll and sighed. “Now I feel better.”

“Fuck, Crystal,” Tommy said angrily. There had been a few seconds of concern on his part, but now he was clearly annoyed. “You could have asked for a bowl or trash can.”

Crystal lifted a limp arm and waved her long nails at me. “She’s just wearing some trashy old t-shirt.”

Tommy opened his mouth to say something, but I shook my head at him. “I’ve dealt with worse.” I sidled past him. His arm brushed mine and, again, I imagined briefly what it would be like to be in those arms. What the hell was wrong with me? Tommy was my stepbrother. He was Nana’s grandson. I was obviously just delirious from the unsteady deck beneath our feet.

I reached into the medicine cabinet, pulled out the motion sickness pills and returned to my patient. Crystal had her arm draped dramatically across her forehead to block out the light. “It’s probably a little late for these, but they might help you sleep,” I said. “Tommy, could you fill a glass with water?”

Crystal held up her hand. “Give me five or six.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I’ll give you two. That will be plenty. When Tommy gets you back to the room, put a cold, wet towel on your head. That should help.”

Crystal lifted her arms, letting Tommy know she once again needed to be carried.

“There’s a wheelchair in the hallway,” Tommy said.

Crystal was not pleased. Robert rolled the wheelchair into the room. Tommy lifted and lowered Crystal, rather unceremoniously, into the chair. They walked out.

The smell of vomit was not helping my own state of equilibrium. I quickly yanked off the t-shirt and decided to throw it straight into the bio waste receptacle. Just as I closed the lid, there was a light knock on the infirmary door. It pushed open.

“Just wanted to thank you—” Tommy said, but his thank you ended abruptly.

I crossed my arms across my naked breasts, but my thin forearms were really no match for my breasts. I reached over to the counter, grabbed several paper towels and held them in front of me.

Tommy glanced away politely for a second and then looked at me again. It took all his will, it seemed, to keep his focus on my face. “Sorry about all that,” he said, motioning back behind him. “She’s sort of—”

“A yuck?”

He laughed. “I forgot you used to call my girlfriends, or at least the ones you didn’t approve of, yucks.” He seemed to be giving it some thought. “You’re right. Crystal’s a yuck. Nana sort of gave me short notice about this trip, so I went down the list—”

I put up my hand. “So don’t want to hear about my stepbrother’s list. But if
she
was on the list, then I know why you haven’t found anyone yet.”

He raised a smooth brow. “You’ve been spending too much time talking to Nana.”

“I love talking to her. But trust me, we have many, more interesting topics than your love life.”

He stepped inside the infirmary. Suddenly the tiny room seemed even smaller. “Uh, did you leave your frail flower out in the hallway, or did you just give her a quick shove with the hopes that she would end up at the door to your cabin?”

“I had Robert push her to the room because I wanted to stop in and thank you.” He moved closer, and I could feel the heat from his body. His chest and arms were incredible, and the ink from his tattoos vibrated with every movement of his muscles. This wasn’t Tommy the teenager anymore. This was a man, a man who was making me feel extra sensitive to the fact that I was standing in front of him with paper towels to shield my naked boobs.

“I’m sort of cold,” I said. “And I need to shower. Don’t think I’ll ever be able to look at a strawberry margarita again.”

He smiled. “Funny and sweet. Still the same, Twiggy. I mean, aside from the obvious—” He waved his hand in front of my breasts. “Not many women can rock the paper towel look like that.”

“Yeah, you know how great my fashion sense has always been.”

He nodded. “I do remember a very odd pair of striped pants that you liked to pair with that tiny pink midriff top you were always wearing.” He stopped as my eyes widened.

“You remember my pink midriff?” I had no idea why it meant something to me but it did. I’d always considered myself just to be a small passing blemish in the unbelievably lavish lives of the Hawkson brothers, an annoying, forced upon them sibling, who they saw only as another person living in their twenty thousand foot mansion. Kenneth had definitely made it clear that that was how he felt about me. Tommy had always made a bit more effort to make me feel part of the family, but even then, I still always felt completely out of place.

“Yeah, Twiggy, I remember a lot of things— like how you always hummed Christmas songs when you were working on your homework, even in May, and how you liked to spray cheez whiz on your Spaghetti O’s. And how you loved to watch those chainsaw movies where people were getting cut up, even though you always held the couch pillow up in front of your face when you were watching them.”

Unexpectedly, my throat tightened as he spoke, and he seemed to catch my mood change. “What’s wrong?”

My eyes actually burned as if I might cry, but I stopped myself. “Nothing. I guess I just always felt like I was this annoying little pest that you had to put up with. I know your brother tried so hard to ignore me, he nearly walked through me like I was just a vapor or ghost.”

“My brother has always prided himself on being the world’s biggest asshole. Why do you think I went out on my own instead of following him into the family business? I would have lived on the streets rather than work as one of Kenneth’s minions.”

“But you’re not on the street, are you?” I noted.

A humble smile crossed his face. He had an extraordinarily handsome face. He always had.

“Your grandmother is really proud of you, starting from scratch and doing so well. Commercial real estate, right?”

“I don’t think I can credit myself with the words ‘from scratch’. The name Hawkson can really come in handy in the business world. Even commercial real estate.” He laughed, but it was kind of a sad, rough sound. “Sounds dull as shit, doesn’t it? Sometimes I think I should have gone into the military like your brother or learned how to fly so I could be a pilot.”

“You did always have an affinity for danger,” I said. “But now, I guess women are your extreme sport.” I regretted the words as soon as I said them.

He shook his head and looked slightly hurt. It was like we were back sitting in the media room, watching MTV together after school and chucking insults and barbs across the couch cushions. Only this time I’d tossed a real stinger.

“I’m sorry, Tommy. It’s late and I’m wearing Crsytal’s barf residue and feeling a little seasick myself.”

He raked his hair back with his fingers. His arm muscle bulked with the movement. It sent an unexpected shiver through me. He noticed but he misjudged the cause of my tremble.

“You’re cold. It’s rude of me to keep you standing here in your— your paper outfit. I’ll let you go. Thanks again for helping Crystal. If I’m lucky, she’ll be fast asleep by the time I get up there.”

“Wait.” I held the paper towels against me with one hand as I reached into the cabinet with the free one. My fingers touched his palm as I handed him a few more pills. It was just the simple act of putting pills on his hand, but when my fingers made contact with him another shiver went through me. Just like I’d briefly wondered what it would be like to be in his arms, I had a fleeting thought about what it would be like to have his hands on me.
Stop, Dani
. This is Tommy. This is the guy who used to pull your hair when he walked by in the hallway or kitchen just to annoy you. This is the guy who would purposely chug down the last of the milk straight from the carton as he watched you pour cereal into a bowl. This is the guy who used to come into your room and hang out and toss your stuffed animals around like volleyballs whenever he was pissed at his dad or brother. . . And there it was, the epiphany, that strange moment when something hits you over the head that you didn’t see coming. Tommy and me had been far more connected than I’d let myself believe. I was just a flighty teen with so much going on and so much instability in my life, it hadn’t even occurred to me that Tommy and I had grown close in those few years. Whenever Tommy was in trouble or pissed or upset, he’d plod into my room and flop back onto my bed. He never wanted to talk about his problems, but in a weird way I was his confidante, his go to person.

“Well, good night, Twig— I mean Dani.”

“Good night. And I’ll keep my fingers crossed that you don’t wake up in the same stuff that just ruined my t-shirt.”

“Damn. Maybe I’ll sleep up on deck.” He gazed at me, and for a second, I caught that rebellious but charming twinkling eye of the teenage Tommy. He closed the door, and I went in to take a shower.