STEPBROTHER ROMANCE BOX SET: Romance Stories For My Hot Stepbrother, My Younger Stepbrother Soldier & Dr. Stepbrother (Romance, Alphas Bad Boy Soldier ... Forbidden Short Stories, Military Romance) (2 page)

The end of her shift came slowly. Time was a relative thing, and even with the nonstop running that her job demanded, it didn’t move with the speed she would have wished. She pushed away thoughts of what would come later, when they were at last alone in the luxurious privacy of Darren’s apartment. A nurse couldn't afford to be distracted.

At long last, it was over. Andrea clocked out and went to her locker to change into her day clothes, gathering up her things and stepping out into the humid warmth of a San Diego night. They hadn't ended up too far from home, either of them. Andrea had always liked California, though she preferred the warmer summers and more temperate winters of the southern cities to the foggy chill of their home town. Darren hadn't seemed to mind it. He didn't seem to mind Southern California either, though. He was content wherever he went. It was one of the things Andrea liked about him. His influence was steadying, warm and calm.

She drove her own car, of course. It wouldn't do for them to arrive in the same one. She had her own apartment too, though she spent as little time in it as she could get away with.  People often remarked on how close she and Darren were. They didn’t know the half of it.

Darren would be home already, she knew. His shift had ended an hour before hers. If she was lucky, and she usually was, he would have already ordered takeout. She pulled into a parking spot on the street a few blocks from his building, as close as she could get, and walked up the sidewalk to the large glass and steel facade. It was a simple matter to buzz up to his apartment from the foyer and get his answer. She tapped her foot lightly against the carpeted floor of the elevator as it rose slowly toward the twelfth floor.

As she stepped out into the hall, the door two down from the elevator bay opened for her, and she smiled when she saw Darren, slipping inside and closing the door behind herself.

"Food's just got here," he said. "I was taking it in to the living room. You wanted the fried rice and spring rolls, didn't you?"

"Like you even have to ask."

After all this time, he knew her order well.

Andrea settled down on the couch with her boxes of takeout, and Darren joined her a moment later, setting two glasses of wine on the coffee table in front of them.

"How was the rest of your shift?" he asked, kicking his tired feet up on the coffee table as well, careful to avoid the glasses.

"Same old, same old," Andrea answered. She cast a sideways look at him. "I kept trying not to think of you. You make my job very difficult."

He grinned at her.

"Do I?" he asked, no repentance in his voice. It wasn't really a question. He knew full well what he did to her.

Andrea just looked at him, and he ducked his head for a moment, chuckling, then looked back up at her through the now loose fringe of his hair. He'd washed the pomade out then, before she'd arrived. He smelled like his soap, cinnamon and sandalwood. Andrea could smell it even with the fragrant Chinese food sending up scented steam between them.

"Your shift?"

He lifted one shoulder in a shrug.

"Exhausting, to be honest.Though I still have energy enough for later."

He always had energy enough for later. It was one of the many things Andrea appreciated about him. She took a bite from the box of rice, making a pleased noise at the taste of food. She hadn't eaten anything more than a protein bar since the beginning of her shift, and she'd been run nearly off her feet in the later half.

"Are we watching anything?" she asked, glancing toward the TV.

Darren shook his head. "I thought there might be better things to do."

She raised an eyebrow at him.

"With Chinese food? That seems a little messy."

He huffed a laugh.

"That isn’t what I meant. I just thought it might be nice to sit in the quiet a while."

Andrea couldn't argue with that. Sometimes it was nice to shut everything off and just enjoy the peace of the apartment with only the two of them in it. At least when it was peaceful. Things had a tendency to become a little less than calm in the later part of the evening. Andrea settled in with her food, eating quietly. She could hear Darren breathing next to her, the occasional muffled sounds of chewing. It was a nice way to be.

A while later, she set her empty boxes of food aside. Darren was just finishing his too, and she got up to throw them all away, answering his thanks with a nod. When she walked back in, he was still lounging where she’d left him, socked feet resting on the coffee table and arms thrown over the back of the couch, his head leaned back, but there was a shift in his manner. She felt his eyes following her across the room and she glanced at him from under her lashes, lips curving up. It seemed he wasn't in the mood to waste any time. When she settled back on the couch beside him, she made sure to snuggle in close, her head resting against his shoulder, her arm over his chest.

"I believe," he said, lifting his head and stroking the backs of his bent fingers against her cheek to make her look up at him. "That I promised to make it up to you."

He had. The memory of it, and the promise in his voice, made her start to warm, and she shifted a little next to him, knowing he would feel the anticipation in the movement.

"Why don't you get up and go to the bedroom, and I'll meet you there in a few minutes?"

She moved to rise and he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder, leaned up to steal a kiss. It was a long kiss, slow and tender and the kind they didn’t have the time or the privacy for at work. Andrea let herself sink into it with a sigh, his hand on her cheek steadying her. When they broke apart, she licked the taste of him from her lips, and saw his eyes darken. She smiled.

In his bedroom, she didn't bother wasting any time. She knew what he wanted when he sent her back ahead of him. With a glance toward the door that opened on the hallway, she stripped out of her scrubs and pulled her hair free from its tight ponytail, loosing the heavy dark fall of it to spill over her shoulders and well down her back.

Under the scrubs she was wearing practical underwear, but she had something nicer with her, had brought it on purpose, knowing what tonight would bring. It would be convenient, and pleasant, she thought as she changed, to keep some of those nicer things here, where they would always be ready for her, but of course she couldn't. It was too much of a risk that someone would find something out. Everything they did was careful, quiet, sneaking around in the shadows where no one would see. Sometimes she wished it didn't have to be that way. Most of the time, she didn't care so long as she could be with him. He was hers, no matter what anyone else thought, and that was enough.

Andrea knew the black lace looked good on her, setting off her blue eyes and dark against skin tanned golden by the California sun she made a point of lounging in on her days off. Darren liked the cut of this particular bra – the way it made her already full breasts look even more ample. She stretched out on the bed, resting on her side with one hand on her hip and her chin resting in the other hand. He would be in any moment.

Andrea heard Daren's footsteps in the hall before she saw him, silhouetted against the brighter light from the other room. She saw him pause in the doorway, lingering to look her over from that vantage, his wine glass in his hand. As he stepped into the bedroom, she saw that he was smiling.

"Have I told you," he inquired as he settled down on the edge of the bed, setting both the wine glasses on the night stand. "That you are a goddess?"

She was pretty sure he had, but that didn't mean she didn't want to hear it a few times more. She smiled.

"Not enough."

"No?" He looked down at her with a grin that said he knew exactly what she was up to and didn't mind in the least. "Then I'll have to remedy that."

One of his hands - strong, careful doctor's hands - settled against her side and traced the curves there, lingering over the lacy waistband of her underwear, though he did not yet make any attempt to have them off. He shifted, turning so he lay the same way she did, pressing her onto her back on the bed and settling over her, still fully-clothed.

She liked the contrast, the slightly rough rub of his jeans against her bare skin. Sliding her legs apart to let him lay between them, Andrea looked up at him with her lower lip pulled between her teeth, and he braced himself on one arm, the fingers of his free hand tangling in her hair.

"You," he said, his hand slowly but firmly pulling her head back so that he could press his mouth to her neck. "Are a goddess."

He bit her, just short of hard enough to mark, and Andrea gasped.

"Absolutely beautiful."

Another kiss, another bite. Andrea started to squirm a little beneath him, wanting more. He shifted so that his leg was pressed between her thighs, up against the place she most wanted to be touched, and she rocked her hips against the steady pressure of it, feeling the friction through the thin fabric of her underwear.

"And," he continued. "Absolutely mine."

The last word came out low and possessive, and the hunger in it send a little shudder down Andrea's spine. Her hips hitched against his thigh, her fingers curling a little tighter. He bit down on her collarbone hard enough to leave a faint purple stain where his teeth had been, sure the mark would be covered by her uniform, and she swallowed a moan. His answer was another sharp nip.

"I want to hear you," he ordered.

He knew it wasn't always easy for her to be vocal, knew that the sound of her own noises filling the room made her cheeks heat with embarrassment, but there was pleasure in her for it too, and he knew that. He knew all of her. Andrea let the moan slip out then, and he soothed the sting of the bite with his tongue.

"Good," he purred against her throat.

Reaching up over her, he opened one of the drawers in the nightstand and pulled out a long strip of soft black fabric, followed by a pair of fur-lined leather cuffs. Andrea swallowed around the sudden tightness in her throat, new heat flushing her cheeks and sparking through her blood.

"Arms above your head."

Andrea complied, reaching up toward the wrought iron of the headboard. She hand asked him once if he’d chosen the headboard for how easy it was to tie people to, and he had laughed and informed her that was exactly the reason for his choice. He buckled one wrist into its cuff, checking to make sure it was not too tight before he hooked the chain around one of the rails of the headboard and buckled the other one shut, leaving her caught in them. Andrea pulled a little to test them, the way she always did. They held firm, and she whimpered softly with new need. Darren smiled above her.

"Don't worry," he said, settling the blindfold over her eyes and fastening that too. "I know exactly what you need."

Unable to see him, Andrea concentrated on other sensations, on the sounds he made as he moved, the way bed dipped under him. She could tell he was taking off his shirt, his jeans. It was a little cruel of him to deny her the view, but she had seen it before. When his leg moved away, Andrea rocked her hips against nothing, making a soft, pleading sound she knew he liked to hear.

"Patience," his voice said above her. "You'll get everything you want."

Andrea tugged against the restraints again, hearing the rattle of the chain that linked them.

A moment later, he settled over her once more, and this time his bare skin was pressed to her own. He reached up and unfastened the front catch of her bra, letting it fall out to her sides. She felt his breath against her skin as he bent down toward her, and writhed a little in disobedient impatience. He chuckled.

His teeth caught one of her nipples gently between them, his tongue flicking over the taut little bud. Andrea took a sharp breath, fingers curling around the rungs of the bed. The gentle nip became a slightly harder one, and then he was moving across to her other nipple, repeating the teasing. Andrea was breathing fast and a little uneven, writhing already. Darren stroked a palm down between her breasts and over the curves of her stomach, down to the waistband of her underwear, then back up again, making her plead with little moans and rolls of her hips.

"You look so good like this," he told her, sounding almost smug. "You'd look even better without these, though, I think."

She hated the way he could stay so self-possessed when she was falling apart underneath him. Hated and loved it, both, because it was really kind of hot.

His fingers curled in the elastic, and he pulled her underwear down off her legs, his hands pushing her thighs open wide as he settled between them once more.

"Tell me what you want."

He knew what she wanted. Andrea strained up toward him as his fingers caught her nipple between them, tugging just enough to give an edge of pain to the pleasure. It only made it better. Only made her want more.

"Touch me, Darren. Please."

"Touch you?"

His nail flicked against her other nipple.

"I am touching you."

She made a frustrated, wanting sound low in her throat.

"You know where I want you, Darren. Please."

"Hmm." She could feel his eyes on her, sliding the length of her body and back up again. "I do," he admitted. "I happen to know exactly where you want me to touch you."

His fingers slid up the lips of her sex, and she arched, legs sliding even wider apart of their own accord, and his answering sound was pleased. Another stroke of his fingers, sliding down to where she's wet, and when they moved back up he stroked her clit with them. Slow, firm strokes, until she was bucking under his hand, clutching the headboard, her head tossing against the pillow. She knew he liked that view: her hair spilling out around her, her fingers white-knuckled and her legs open wide. He'd told her before, in detail, just how he felt about it.

"Tell me how you want it," he said, sliding his fingers into her now, pressing them against the spot inside her that made stars sparkle across the backs of her eyelids.

"Fast," she said. "Hard. Darren. Please."

Sometimes he liked to tease her, liked to drag it out until she was begging. But this time he seemed happy to oblige. She felt him moving, lifting her legs up over his own thighs so that her hips were tipped up, so that she could feel the head of his length against her entrance. He lingered there a moment, teasing, sliding his cock in between her labia, making her breath catch.

"Come on. Please."

He pressed all the way in then, and the familiar stretch of him opening her was as perfect as it always was. Andrea moaned his name as he drew out, and when he thrust back in it was hard and fast, the way she had asked for. Another thrust, and she rose to meet him as well as she could bound to the headboard, rocked into every new slide of his cock. God.

"Darren. Darren."

The word dropped from her lips like it was the only word she could remember, and he leaned down over her so that the base of his cock rubbed against her clit as he moved, so that her hard nipples rubbed against his chest as he claimed her mouth with his own, his tongue taking her as deep as his cock was. The sounds she made were caught and muffled between them.

One of his hands tangled again in her hair, holding her head in place. He was moving faster, harder, the sound of skin against skin and the little moans and groans that escaped the lock of their lips filling the room. It was good. It was exactly what she wanted.

He pulled back from her lips and kissed down her neck again, tugged at the lobe of her ear gently with his teeth. She whimpered and bucked beneath him. With every stroke his cock rubbed against that place inside her, against her clit, and she knew that she wouldn't last long. Hoped he would let her come. It went on and on, the heat tightening inside her, winding itself up until every nerve was trembling with the need to let go.

"Please. Darren."

"Yes," he said, generous. "Yes. Come for me."

She came, sobbing his name, clenching around him, and she felt him still and shudder against her, following her over the edge. For a moment, they lay stay, breathing together. Then Andrea moved, and the chain on the cuffs jingled.

She couldn’t see Darren’s smile, but she could hear it when he spoke.

“Uh-uh.” His hand reached down, fingers stroking gentle over her over-sensitive clit, making her shudder with the overload of sensation. “You’ll be staying there for a while, my love. Round two starts now.”

Andrea slumped back against the mattress with a gasp.

It was going to be a long night.

She was looking forward to it.