Off Limits: A Stepbrother MMA Romance (8 page)

Then, just like that,
he stepped to the side. “Have fun.” He tossed the words over his
shoulder and headed down the hallway, dismissing me. I hated how he
always made me feel like he had the upper hand.

I wished I could pack
up my bags and go live somewhere else. Unfortunately, my Mom had sold
our house in L.A. If I had any money of my own I could have paid for
an apartment, but this internship was unpaid. The really prestigious
ones usually were. And when I’d chosen to accept it, I’d believed
my mom when she’d said she’d be there for most of the summer. It
wouldn’t feel so weird in this Bel Air mansion if my mom were there
with me.

Play the tiniest violin
for me, I know. I really had nothing to complain about. Here I was,
the beneficiary of a freaking billionaire. The only problem was me. I
didn’t feel comfortable accepting any of it. I knew this marriage
wasn’t going to last. My mother cycled through men like a washing
machine. All I could hope for was that when the buzzer went off this
time, I’d be safely on my own two feet, degree in hand and nice
salaried job finally giving me true independence.

Until that day, I’d
just have to endure Tuck. Thankfully, if there was one thing I knew
how to do well it was hide out. I knew how to blend in with the
scenery. All I had to do was fade into the background and he’d
forget I even existed.

Problem was, he always
seemed to notice me, even when no one else did. He’d noticed me
that first time we’d met at that fundraiser. He’d noticed me in
New York. I wished I could forget about what had happened there, what
I’d seen him doing up against that wall, how it had felt when he’d
touched me in the hot tub. Together again under one roof, I thought
about it all the time.

Tuck

I couldn’t fucking
believe it. Wednesday morning she was doing yoga outside on the pool
deck. Dressed in next-to-nothing while she twisted and stretched.
Fuck.

I stood there, sweat
dripping off of me from my 6 a.m. run, drinking a bottle of ice water
and watching her out the window like a fucking stalker. She usually
wore baggy clothes, annoyingly baggy, like she was deliberately
trying to hide underneath a bunch of layers. While most girls I knew
just about painted on their clothes, prancing around in tiny tank
tops and short shorts, Jewel preferred old t-shirts that would
probably fit me and sweatpants so loose I’m not even sure how they
stayed up on her hips.

I shouldn’t be
thinking about her hips. She was my stepsister. Here to spend the
summer in the same house as me. What a fucking joke.

The last time I’d
seen her we’d been in New York. I’d caught her watching me fuck a
girl against the wall.

I took a swig of water
and wiped my mouth on my forearm. I liked seeing what she usually hid
underneath all those layers. Now all she wore was a jog bra and capri
tights. Lean and slim, long tone legs, a flat stomach flaring out
into sweet curves, a tight round ass I could sink my teeth into.
Perfect tits, a good handful. I bet she had pink nipples, big and
sensitive to the touch.

Damn it. This summer
was supposed to be about nothing but training. I’d cleared
everything off my deck. Most of my friends didn’t even know I was
out in So Cal. That was the point. Everyone I knew through my father,
the boarding schools I’d gone to, my college lived back east. I’d
come out west to escape it all so I could focus on nothing but
training and fighting with the best MMA club in the country.

But then she showed up.
Little Miss Perfect with her wide eyes and fuckable lips, standing
there with her creamy legs that went on for miles and that tumble of
red hair. What. The. Fuck. She was the last person I’d expected to
see.

I guess I shouldn’t
have been so surprised. She was my stepsister after all. Most people
wouldn’t be too surprised to have a family member walking into
their kitchen. But I wasn’t most people and our family wasn’t
exactly typical. Step-sis took it up a notch, too, avoiding me and my
dad like it was her job. Hell, I don’t even think she let my father
pay a cent of her tuition. And from the look of her beater car, she
wasn’t taking any handouts on her ride, either.

She pissed me off, but
I had to hand it to her. She was independent. I didn’t know her
well, but I already knew I’d been wrong to assume she was just like
her mother. The girl was a hard worker, all business all the time. I
respected that, even if it did rub me the wrong way. She held a
mirror up, reminding me how much I relied on my father’s hand-outs.

Not for long, though.
That was what this summer was all about. Laser-focused, eyes on the
prize, nothing distracting me or standing in my way from becoming the
best fighter I could be.

I had to prove it to
myself, first. I knew I had what it took. Then I could prove it to
the MMA world. I’d been studying Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu since I was
ten, wrestling since I was twelve, and now I had an amateur
heavyweight win-loss-draw record of 8-1-1. It was enough that scouts
and sponsors were sniffing around me.

But I was a hack and I
knew it. The booze, the girls, the partying, I’d been half-assing
it my whole life. I had a huge brick shithouse of a body and the
drive to push myself, physically. But I’d never had the mental
discipline.

Until now. Now, I
wanted to see what I could do. I was lucky to have been accepted onto
a kick-ass, highly competitive training team and I was giving it
everything I had. This summer the club had lined up a couple
exhibition fights for me, the first one this weekend. I was going to
dominate, and I was going to do it all based on my own sweat and
blood. For once the Helmsworth name didn’t mean shit. I loved it.

What pose was she doing
out there by the pool? Was it called ‘fuck me now’? I practically
pressed my nose against the glass of the kitchen window. She had her
back arched, tits thrust up, one leg stretched out in front, one leg
back with her knee bent and her foot actually up touching her head.
So now I had that image burned into my brain. Why did I have to know
how flexible she was? All that did was give me all sorts of ideas,
all the ways I could bend and stretch her and spread her wide so I
could fuck her good and hard and long.

As if sensing the dark,
nasty train of my thoughts, she looked over at me. Of course she had
to have emerald green eyes with that red hair, eyes that narrowed as
she realized I’d been watching her. I gave her a slight nod of
acknowledgement. I wasn’t going to apologize. It was my father’s
house. I belonged here. Her mother happened to have married him, but
I didn’t give that union long. He maxed out on his partners once
they hit their expiration date right around 40 years old. I think
this one had about two more years left in her, tops.

Jewel rolled up her
yoga mat. She didn’t seem aware that she was giving me a perfect
view of her round ass as she bent over. My cock sprang to attention,
imagining bending her over just like that for a much different
purpose. She picked up her mat and walked over toward the kitchen,
head high, prissy as fuck.

She didn’t like me. I
liked that about her. As Tucker Leland Helmsworth III I’d
encountered more than my fair share of suck-ups. Not many people said
no to you when your daddy was a billionaire. It taught me early on:
don’t trust anyone. You never knew what they were really after, you
or your money. So I liked it that Jewel clearly wanted neither.

“Doing some early
morning yoga?” I opened the sliding glass door for her. We had an
open floor plan, like most homes in L.A. With every day 80 degrees
and sunny, it only made sense.

“How did you know?”
Smartass, she looked at me all wide-eyed pretending to be impressed.
I wanted to impress her, that was the problem. I wanted her to look
up at me wide-eyed for a whole other reason, her pink lips parting
just like that. She glowed from the exercise, a flush in her cheeks.
She’d put her hair up in a loose bun and more tumbled out than
stayed in, cascading around her, just-fucked curls in her luscious
red hair against her creamy skin.

My fucking stepsister.

“Just trying to make
conversation, sis.” I shifted my weight and held my water bottle in
front of my shorts. No sense scaring the girl with my wood.

“Don’t call me
that,” she snapped back.

“Our parents are
married, sweetheart. I give it one year, two tops, but—”

“They won’t make it
past twelve months,” she interjected.

“As I was saying, for
now, you’re my stepsister. Or would you rather I just call you
sister?”

“You know I’m not
your sister!” Her green eyes flashed as she looked at me with anger
and disdain. I loved her like that, all fire and heat. I bet she’d
be a fucking firecracker in bed.

Not going to happen. I
was a lecherous fuck, I knew that, but even I had boundaries. My
stepsister was off limits. As much as it pained me to say it, I knew
it was true. Plus, the last time I’d nearly crossed the line she’d
reminded me all about it with a sharp, hard knee to the balls.

She brushed past me to
get to the refrigerator. For a moment, I felt her soft skin, the
warmth of her arm against my own. I could see her feel it, too. She
clasped her hand up to her skin as if she’d been burned.

“Everything OK?” I
couldn’t help ask. Once you knew you bothered someone it was hard
to not go for it. It was like a big, shiny red button was right in
front of me with a ‘press me’ sign underneath it. Who was I to
say no?

“I’m fine.” She
brushed me off and opened the fridge. She bent over again as she dug
around in the fruit bin. She needed to wear tights more often. That
ass was a national treasure, so high and tight.

“Are you finished?”
She knew I’d been checking her out. Holding an apple, she slammed
the fridge door closed and stood there with a hand on her hip. Like a
prim and proper teacher, standing up in front of the class, annoyed
with the poor behavior. I’d like to take her over my knee and give
her some discipline.

“I don’t know what
you’re talking about.” I stood there, shirtless, and decided why
not. I lifted up my water bottle and took a long swig. Once I
finished, I had her right where I wanted her. Her eyes were locked on
the huge bulge in my shorts, the nylon tenting over my giant cock.
Now her eyes widened for all the right reasons.

“Are you finished?”
I taunted her, flashing a wicked smile.

“Uh!” Throwing her
hands up in frustration, she tore her eyes away. Her cheeks flushed a
deep rosy pink, so sensitive. “You’re disgusting.”

“Just a healthy
American male.” I sauntered slowly out of the room, taking another
swig from my bottle, feeling her eyes on me as I left. “You have a
good time today saving the world, sis.”

“I’m working at the
Marine Mammal Center!” She called after me.

Man, I liked fucking
with her.

That was the problem.
How could I focus on training when I walked around hard as a fucking
rock? I’d planned to be celibate this summer, none of my usual
distractions. But I might need to change my plans. Four days around
Jewel and I already knew I wasn’t going to make it one, never mind
eight weeks without plowing into some pussy.

Jewel. She might be the
one person who could make this Bel Air mansion seem small. How many
bedrooms did this place have? My father loved ostentatious displays
of wealth. Now that he had his third trophy wife, he’d really gone
for it. You’d think with almost 10,000 square feet we wouldn’t
see each other that often. You’d be wrong.

Seemed like every time
I walked into the kitchen she was there, her glasses sliding down her
nose, her knee tucked up as she read some book. I wondered how many
men she’d been with. Probably not that many, but a girl that
fucking hot couldn’t have flown completely under the radar. Some
chess-playing geek had probably hit the fucking jackpot one night
after a long study session. For some reason the thought made me want
to hunt him down and rip out his heart while it was still beating.
Must be the protective brother instinct in me. Yeah, right.

I had an exhibition
fight in four days. I needed to focus. And maybe I’d ask her to
come see me fight?

§

Thursday morning, 6
a.m., I got up to go for a run. In the hallway, I paused for a moment
outside of her door. Usually she got up at the same time I did. Five
days now sharing this house and we’d settled into something of a
routine. The walls weren’t exactly thin, but I was aware of her
movements. Too aware. I could hear her alarm when she woke up, her
soft footfalls down the hallway to the bathroom. Just keep on
walking, I’d think, just one more door to my room.

She never did, of
course. After a few minutes she’d head back to her room and I’d
get up and brush my teeth, then dress for my run. I’d see her when
I got back. Except for yesterday when she’d nearly killed me doing
yoga, I’d typically see her sitting curled in a patch of sunlight
in the kitchen. She liked sitting over by the sliding glass doors,
and she liked tea instead of coffee. She ate plain Greek yogurt and
as a high-protein, low-sugar person myself I had to respect the
choice.

We were like an old
married couple, right down to the fact that we didn’t speak to each
other. She mostly ignored me.

But sometimes she’d
look up with a shy glance. Other times I’d catch her checking me
out. I knew I was a fine specimen. I didn’t even feel cocky
acknowledging it, it was just fact. When girls threw themselves at
you 24/7 you pretty much got the message—they liked what they saw.
Plus now I was honing my body into a machine, ruthlessly taking it to
the extreme limit, all hard muscle, not an ounce of fat. I knew she
wanted to take a look.

I couldn’t help
letting her know that I knew. I’d give her a wink, flex a bicep for
her. How could I not when it made her pink right up? I couldn’t
touch her, she was my fucking stepsister. But I couldn’t resist
provoking a response, seeing the blush steal across her cheeks,
knowing she felt flustered and agitated because of me.