Off Limits: A Stepbrother MMA Romance (18 page)

“Tuck.” I heard her
groan my name. My name. She was in there thinking about me as she
stroked her clit. “Oh! Tuck!” I could tell she was close, she
sounded desperate for release, and I thought I’d go out of my mind
listening to her. Then her sounds got muffled, as if she’d turned
her face into a pillow as she groaned and cried out, burying her
mouth to quiet her screams while she came hard all over her fingers
thinking of me.

That was it. Fists by
my sides, I let my breath out with a silent hiss. I was done playing
games. Done fucking around, flirting and kissing.

This week, our parents
were gone. We had the whole house to ourselves. We were going to put
the time to use. It would be our dirty, filthy secret.

As I walked down the
hall to my bedroom, I knew it with absolute certainty. Shit was about
to go down. It was going to get raw and nasty. And I was going to
make her beg for it. Over and over and over again.

Jewel

Sunday morning I was up
and out of the house like a jackrabbit. I hit an early morning yoga
class, then grabbed a latte and browsed around a bookstore. I knew I
could call one of my friends from high school. I didn’t have
anything like the social network Tuck had—who did?—but I knew a
couple people who were supposed to be around this summer. But I felt
so crazy, so out of sorts and consumed with conflict I didn’t think
it was a good idea. This wasn’t exactly an idle topic of
conversation. How’s your summer going? Awesome! I have an amazing
internship! And, let’s see, what else? Oh yeah, I totally want to
fuck my stepbrother!

I knew avoiding Tuck
wasn’t solving anything, but old habits die hard. I’d had a
lifetime of training—run away and hide!!! In some areas in life, at
least. Academically, I’d shone, winning prizes for essays and
scoring so high on the SAT that colleges sought me out, sending me
fat packages in the mail and offering scholarships. It was men that
freaked me out.

Growing up, all I’d
seen was a revolving door of guys yanking my mother around in the
kind of carnival ride you just wanted to stop. First she’d get up,
up, up over some new man. He was the one! This was it! Everything
she’d always dreamed of! Then I’d see the telltale signs. The
worry fraying at the corner of her mouth. She’d start smoking
again, sneaking a drink from time to time when she thought no one
would notice. Going on a shopping binge to buy the right stuff to
keep him interested. Then the collapse, like the steep downward pitch
of a roller coaster only without any of the fun rush. She’d lie on
the couch for a month, bottle of booze by her feet, cigarettes mashed
out on a plate. The woman who preened and fussed and insisted on
looking movie-star glam to run errands was gone, replaced by someone
who didn’t shower, didn’t brush her teeth, didn’t change
clothes for days on end.

That’s what men did
to women—or at least, that had been my side of the story, my
version of events. Even the up side hadn’t been that cool for me.
Mom didn’t cook dinner or ask about school any more when she was
falling in love than when she was falling hard after it ended. Men
were all-around bad news.

Up until now, it had
been easy for me to avoid them. As a late bloomer, in high school
they hadn’t wanted me any more than I’d wanted them. At an
all-girls college, it was pretty easy to go long stretches of time
without much interaction. I didn’t go to bars, wouldn’t dream of
heading to some frat party at a neighboring school. I’d been
extremely successful at keeping myself sheltered, practically
hermetically sealed away from the opposite sex.

But right now I wished
I’d had more experience. Nothing had prepared me for Tuck. Last
night, the word “kiss” didn’t begin to describe how it felt, so
luscious and intimate, shockingly erotic both because of how good it
felt and how much it promised. The man knew what he was doing.
Man-whore about town, I couldn’t imagine how many girls he’d
kissed over the years. He probably had no idea himself. But he’d
certainly picked up some skills along the way. He made me feel like
he craved me, like he’d die without tasting more of me, as if he
couldn’t get enough and never would.

I knew that couldn’t
be true. How could it? I sure felt that way about him, but it had to
be a symptom of temporary insanity, a product of my lack of
experience. When you’d kissed all of four people, you sure got a
kick out of it.

This couldn’t mean as
much to him. I’d seen women throw their panties at him. Literally.
I’d seen him fucking a model up against a wall and she’d loved
it, moaned for more. A man who could have any girl he wanted just
couldn’t be hell-bent on me. I didn’t even think I was being hard
on myself—I liked myself just fine, knew I was smart as hell and
all that, but that’s why I knew, logically, this situation didn’t
add up. If I let down my guard with this man, I wouldn’t just have
to deal with the problem of having hooked up with my stepbrother.
Awkward at the least, totally wrong if you really thought about it.

But I knew that the
worst fallout, the worst casualty would be my heart. I’d never
fallen for someone, not really, not the way I knew I could with Tuck.
And I could tell, if I let myself go, I’d fall so hard for him,
down and down the rabbit hole. I might never come up again for air.
When the summer ended, he’d be onward and upward, a pro MMA
fighter, countless girls waiting for him back in his hotel suite. I’d
be a freaking wreck. If I thought I had it bad now, if I gave myself
to him, let myself go and surrendered to this madness, I honestly
didn’t know how or if I’d ever recover.

My phone blipped with a text. I
pulled it out and saw a message from Mike:

Missed
you last night.

That’s right, he and Maria had
gone to see that action flick. I would have been better off joining
them. I wrote back:

How
was it?

A few seconds later he wrote:

Horrible.
I loved it.

Then:

They
should have given acting credits to the hero’s abs. They were
captivating.

I cracked up.

Sorry
I missed it.

Before long, he’d
invited me to join him at a farmer’s market, which led to inviting
a friend of his over afterwards and we all made fresh salsa and ate
the whole bowl with amazing thick, salty chips and mojitos. His
friend used real sugar cane in the drink and I’d never tasted
anything I liked better. I liked them so much I drank three of them
and promptly passed out on Mike’s couch.

The next morning I woke
up fuzzy-mouthed and disoriented to the blip of a text message from
my phone.

Squinting, then rubbing my eyes, I
read:

Where
are you?

From Tuck.

I groaned and rolled
onto my back with my wrist up onto my forehead. That was the trouble
with avoiding things. The problems just stayed there, waiting for you
to return to them, texting you early in the morning.

“Morning sunshine!”
Mike emerged from his bedroom, looking impeccable as usual.

“Ugh,” I groaned.
“I’m so sorry I’m such a mess.”

“Are you kidding? You
were hilarious last night. I want to get you drunk on mojitos more
often.”

“Oh, no.” I covered
my face with my hands.

“Oh, yes,” Mike
insisted, hustling into his kitchenette to brew some coffee. I needed
some coffee. “I have never seen anyone as wound up as you. You take
repressed to the next level.”

I just groaned again. I
couldn’t begin to deny it. Bless the man, he brought me a mug of
coffee. I roused enough to take a sip.

“I never knew you had
a thing for MMA fighters.” He sat down next to me. I nearly did a
spit-take.

“Excuse me?”

“Last night. You were
going on about it, how sexy a man is in the cage. All raw and
powerful.”

I buried my face in my
hands again.

“Oh, come on.” Mike
chuffed me with his elbow. “Nothing to be ashamed of here. You were
speaking truth.”

“Did I say anything
else?” How much had I rambled? I cringed to imagine what he must
think of me now.

“Nothing that made
much sense,” Mike reassured me. “But, seriously, Jewel. I can
tell something’s going on with you. I’ve only known you for a few
weeks, but if you want to talk, or just hang out or whatever.”

I promptly burst into
tears.

“Hey, what did I—?”

I sloppy-cried on his
shoulder. “You’re so nice. I’m such a mess.”

“OK, now.” He
petted my head like I was a nut case. Which was true. “None of us
are perfect, you know. Best thing to do is stop trying.”

“You’re so nice.”

“OK. You said that
already. And you’ve got to get cleaned up or we’ll be late for
work.”

Shit! I hopped up,
regretting the speed of my actions, but I still managed to get into
his bathroom and make the most of the ridiculous state of my
appearance. Good thing I didn’t need professional attire at the
Marine Mammal Center. Yoga clothes from the day before would have to
do.

A few hours later, I got another
text from Tuck.

Where
are you? Are you in trouble? Are you OK?

Crap, I hadn’t meant to worry him.

I’m
fine. Spent the night at a friend’s.

He wrote back:

See
you tonight?

Why did that send a
jolt right through me? My hand holding the phone started to shake. I
was no match for this man. But I guessed I’d have to see him some
time.

I texted back:

Yes.

In a few minutes, my phone blipped
again from him:

Good.
I have a poker game planned.

Standing there in the
middle of a dusty old storage room taking inventory of archived
specimens, I suddenly felt a rush of heat pooling deep inside of me.
My pussy clenched, instantly wet and eager. Tuck. Tonight.

I didn’t respond. I
put my phone away. But that was it, for the rest of the day all I
could think about was him, like an irresistible magnet pulling me
back by his side.

§

A seven o’clock Tuck
was standing in the kitchen drinking a bottle of water. He wore a
shirt but it fit close to his body, revealing his form cut from
granite. I could still see the band tattooed along his bicep. I might
not even make it through this poker game. Tonight I felt so worked up
I might not even wait for the pretense of a dare. I might just climb
on for a ride.

He locked his gaze on
me, hot and intense. “You’re all right, then?”

“What?” I had a
hard time thinking around this man.

“You didn’t come
home last night. I was worried about you.”

“Oh, yeah, I just
hung out with a friend and had a few too many mojitos.”

“Were you with Mike?”

I rolled my eyes. “Why
do you sound so possessive and jealous?”

“I don’t want you
with any other man.” He closed the distance and grasped my wrist,
circling his thumb along the sensitive skin on my inner arm. It made
me shiver and forget all my words of protest.

“Come on,” he
growled, wrapping my hand in his large, callused grasp. “Let’s
play poker.”

I followed him into the
room, already heady with his nearness, his scent. He must have just
showered, his hair still looked a little damp and he smelled fresh
and clean. I imagined him using soap, working up lather all over his
body. I wanted to do that, taking my time, lathering every inch of
him.

I need to stop this. I
needed to get a grip. I should think of depressing things like acid
rain or the deforestation of the Amazon. Tuck would look amazing in
the jungle of the Amazon, sweaty and shirtless as he led me through
the palm fronds.

I was an idiot, a
hopeless case.

We sat on the couch and
he shuffled the cards, dealing out our hands on the coffee table. I
couldn’t take my eyes off of him, his hands, the way they worked
and moved.

“You up for a dare?”
he asked me, a dangerous gleam in his eyes.

This was my chance, my
out. I could stand up and leave, have a stern talk with him about
appropriate behavior. I could take the middle ground and tell him we
should just play for pennies, lunch money, and then head up for bed
alone in twenty minutes.

Or I could be stupid.

“Yes,” I answered.
I was already turned on and he could probably tell. Not much seemed
to get past him. After work I’d showered and changed into a
sundress. He’d have to know I’d dressed for him, put something
pretty on that he’d like. I needed to fight this but I couldn’t
seem to remember how.

“If you win, what do
you want?” he asked.

I closed my eyes,
briefly. What did I want? I knew what I should want, so I said that.
“Same as last time.”

“No touching until
you beg for it?” he said, desperately sexy. I nodded. I didn’t
exactly trust my voice.

“And when I win,”
he continued, “I have a good dare for you.”

“Wait, don’t you
want to tell me what it is?”

“Not this time.”

I should set some
parameters, I reminded myself. “No taking clothes off,” I warned.

“You don’t have
to.”

“And I don’t think
we should kiss again.”

“I won’t touch
you.” He looked positively wicked, so dangerous and hot like he
could eat me up right then. I licked my lips nervously. He had
something planned but I didn’t know what it was. Why did I like not
knowing?

“OK,” I agreed.

We played our hands. He
won, I won, he won. He won again. We didn’t even make it past
seven—he’d already won five rounds. He dominated.

“What do you think,
Jewel. Have I won?”

I swallowed. I could
tell he meant more than the game of cards. Had he won? Slowly, I
nodded.