Vacation with my Stepbrother: A Forbidden Stepbrother Romance (4 page)

A moment later, Danny slid into the seat next to mine and buckled up. He glanced over at me, flashing his crooked smile. “I’m so ready for this vacation. I can’t wait to wear a tank top and shorts for ten days. It’ll be a nice change from the BDU’s I’ve been wearing for the last year.”

“What are BDU’s?” I asked.

“It stands for Battle Dress Uniform,” Danny explained. “It’s the camouflage gear you see soldiers wearing. But it’s not as glamorous as you’d imagine. It’s heavy, hot and uncomfortable. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it.”

I listened intently as he spoke. I found myself suddenly drawn into his words. It was the first time that he had ever just leveled with me, instead of snapping back with some sarcastic response. He was surprising me more and more by the minute.

“Yeah, I’d think that would be tough, especially in the heat,” I responded.

A serious look flashed across Danny’s face. “Yeah, well, I’d better get used to it. There’s a pretty damn good chance that they’ll send me to the desert overseas soon. I don’t know for sure yet. But it’s likely.”

My eyes were locked with his and I suddenly felt a lump build in my throat. Sure, I hated Danny. But I didn’t want him to get shot at. I didn’t him to
die.

“Danny,” I muttered. “You might go to war?”

Danny chuckled and shook his head at me. “Well, yeah, sis. I mean that’s usually a possibility when you join the military.”

Then he paused for a moment.

“But hey, let’s not worry about any of that right now,” he continued. “We’ve got a vacation to enjoy. And goddammit, we’re going to have some fun whether you like it or not!”

Then he reached over and placed his hand on my knee for just a second. I glanced down to where his fingers touched me and then I looked back up. He immediately pulled his hand away, awkwardly.

“Sorry,” he said. “That was weird.”

His simple touch on my knee caused a burst of excitement to fill me. All he did was graze me with his fingers. He didn’t pull my hair or pinch my arm or any of the things that I was accustomed to. He just gently touched my knee and then pulled away. It was really, really nice. Except there was one major problem: his recent changes in behavior were making it that much harder to ignore my attraction to him. I had this sickening feeling that it wouldn’t be long before I’d find myself succumbing to my attraction completely.

––––––––

T
he house that my parents had reserved for us was almost three hours away from the airport, which meant that we had to rent a car and drive there. Danny, who had been surprising me left and right, handed his credit card over at the car rental desk.

“I’ll get this,” he said. “You can get the first dinner or something.”

Out of reflex, I squinted my eyes at him suspiciously. I didn’t argue, though. I just wanted to know why he was being so nice all of a sudden. “Nice” wasn’t exactly Danny’s middle name.

“Can I drive?” I asked.

Danny chuckled and flashed his sarcastic smile. “Hell no.”

His words actually brought a feeling of relief. It was like the old Danny was back, if only for a moment.

“Fine,” I said. “But it’s three hours to the house, so can we at least listen to
my
music?”

“Nope,” he shot back. “Your music is awful. I’d rather just have the windows down and the wind blowing through my hair than to listen to your crappy hip hop.”

I found myself chuckling softly as he spoke. He was kind of being an asshole again but it didn’t seem as natural as it used to. It seemed forced.

“Well, okay,” I responded. “But don’t be surprised if I start singing one of my songs at the top of my lungs just to get on your nerves.”

Danny shook his head and then grabbed the car keys from the rental attendant. Then we stepped out into the heat of Costa Rica, making our way across the parking lot to the car. It was a small, black vehicle that was just big enough for Danny, myself, and our luggage. Not much else. We threw our suitcases into the back seat and then got inside. Danny slid behind the steering wheel and started up the engine. Then we pulled out of the lot.

I rolled down the window and drew in a long, deep breath. The warm Costa Rican air filled my nostrils. The humidity was high, but it felt good. It made the air feel healthy and thick. Even though I had only been in the country for a matter of minutes, I already started to imagine what it would have been like to live there.

“Three hours, huh?” Danny asked.

I glanced over to him, nodding in agreement. “That’s what it said online. I printed out a map at home, since I figured my phone service would be pretty crappy here.”

As I spoke, I dug into the front pocket of my jean shorts and pulled out my cell phone. It looked like I had enough phone service to make a phone call if I needed to, but not enough to use the Internet. Which meant that we’d have to attempt to get to the house based on the map alone.

“We’ll be fine,” Danny said, assuredly.

He must have seen the look of concern on my face as I looked at my cell. I had to admit that not having the Internet on my phone did make me a bit nervous. I felt so disconnected from the world.

“I’ll do my best to be a good co-pilot,” I said. “Just follow my directions and we should be fine.”

Danny chuckled. “Yeah, okay, Nikki. Kind of like that time we tried to find the exit out of the theme park when we were kids? Remember that? You led the way, saying you knew
exactly
where you were going. Two hours later, we had to ask the security guards to find our parents for us.”

My jaw dropped as he retold the story. I hadn’t thought about that memory in years.

“Whatever,” I said, playfully. “I’m not sure that’s exactly how that happened. Wasn’t it
you
who was trying to lead the way? I’m pretty sure it was.”

He laughed as he pressed on the accelerator, pulling our little black car onto the highway. “No way. I would have gotten us out of that amusement park in five minutes. I let you take the lead for once, and we all know how that turned out. Our parents had been in a complete panic until the security guards finally delivered us to them. I think they thought we had gotten kidnapped or something.”

A smile crossed my face as I turned away from Danny, bringing my attention outside of the car window. It felt nice to have a relaxed and playful conversation with him for once. I started to wonder if maybe all that he and I needed was a little bit of one-on-one bonding time. I began to think that maybe the trip that I had been so hesitant about was actually going to end up being really good for our relationship.

“So, it looks like we just stay on this highway for a couple of hours?” he asked.

I glanced down at the map that I had printed off, which was laying in my lap. The red line, which was supposed to be our path, made it look like a straight shot from the airport to our house on the beach.

“Yeah, looks like you’ll stay on this highway for a little while. We’ll turn off as we get closer to the house, but that’s going to be at least a couple of hours until we get to that point,” I explained.

Danny then grabbed the map off of my lap. He set it on the center console and placed his elbow on it so that it wouldn’t blow out of the window. Then in a relaxed pose, he placed one hand over the steering wheel and leaned back into the seat. It was going to be a pretty long car ride, especially after nearly seven hours on the airplane. It certainly hadn’t felt like a vacation up to that point. I loved seeing new places, but the actual traveling part was exhausting to me. There was nothing fun about sitting on a cramped airplane or in a tiny car for hours on end. I couldn’t wait to get settled in at the house. I had already made my plans for when we arrived, too. I was going to get unpacked and make something to eat. Then I’d mix up a margarita, slip into my bathing suit and go straight to the beach. I figured that we’d still have at least a couple of hours of sunlight once we arrived at the house and I planned on using every minute of it to start getting tan.

But as is often the case, plans change. And as Danny and I pressed on along the highway, I found myself dozing off. The heat, combined with the soothing sound of wind pouring into the car window, lulled me to sleep. Which in most cases would have been just fine. But Danny was driving. He was too arrogant to ask for directions if he got lost. So he didn’t wake me up when he thought he had passed our exit. He just did his best to read the map I had given him, probably turning it upside down and backwards in order to attempt to figure out where in the hell he had landed us after three hours of driving in an unfamiliar country. And just like many times before in our lives, Danny’s blind arrogance and pride got us into a whole heap of trouble. He should have just woken me up the moment he realized that he was lost.

––––––––

“O
h, man. This is not good, Nikki.”

I was in the middle of a dream about Danny. It took place on the airplane, where I had straddled over him to get to the bathroom. Everything in the dream was exactly the same as how it had happened in real life, except for one major difference: both Danny and I were only wearing our underwear. My hands were on his muscular shoulders and I was grinding my crotch against his.

Danny looked up at me in the dream, his green eyes meeting mine. Then he slowly flashed his boyish smile and said, “Nikki, wake up. You need to wake up now.”

“Nikki, wake the hell up.”

Danny’s voice sounded serious for once. I felt his hand press against my shoulder and a moment later, I snapped out of the dream.

“Wake up!” he shouted.

I opened my eyes, squinting as the setting sun poured over my face. Then I turned to face Danny. He was still driving, but he had both hands on the wheel now and his knuckles were white. My head felt groggy as I sat up in the seat and wiped the sleep from my eyes.

“What the hell, Danny?” I asked. “What’s going on?”

“I think I turned off of the wrong exit,” he explained. “And based on the people who are now following us, I’m pretty sure I accidentally pulled into the wrong neighborhood, too.”

I glanced to the side mirror, where I noticed a group of motorcyclists riding behind us. It wasn’t just one or two guys on bikes, though. There were at least fifteen. They were all wearing leather vests and any exposed skin was covered in tattoos. The moment I saw them, a burst of adrenaline pumped into my blood.

“Jesus Christ, Danny. What in the hell have you done?”

He snapped back, “Nikki, I don’t need to hear this crap from you right now. All I did was pull into a neighborhood where I thought someone might be able to point me in the right direction. I stopped in front of a bar where a bunch of motorcycles were parked...”

I cut him short. “Why in the hell didn’t you just wake me up? I could have helped you. We could have figured it out on our own!”

Danny glanced at me as he continued pressing harder on the accelerator, increasing our speed on the highway to over eighty miles per hour.

“I didn’t want to wake you up,” he muttered. “I was trying to be nice.”

I turned around and looked out the back window of the car. The angry-looking bikers were still hot on our tail. My heart began beating so hard that I could feel it in my chest, pounding against my rib cage. I was terrified. We were in the middle of nowhere, didn’t speak the language, and we were getting chased by a group of bikers. I was positive that we were going to die.

“I’ll call the police,” I said. “Yeah, that’s what we’ll do. We’ll call the cops.”

I lifted my cell phone, noticing that I had zero service. None. Zilch. Nada. My phone was dead in the water. I would have been just as well off if I had had a little plastic cup with a string attached. That would have been just as useful.

“Shit,” I said, tossing the cell phone back into the center console. “Danny, why are they chasing us?”

“Well, you didn’t let me finish the story,” he said. “I pulled up to the bar and these guys were outside. I knew instantly that they were gang members or something. They all have the same tattoos. So as soon as I saw them, I changed my mind about asking them for directions. But before I could drive away, one of them stepped in front of the car. In broken English, he told me to give him my wallet. I told him to “go fuck himself” and he pulled out a gun. So I pressed on the gas and drove off. The next thing I knew, that man and all of his biker buddies were on my ass. And here we are.”

Oh, God. We’re dead.

My palms were sweating as I glanced over to the side mirror. The rumble of the motorcycles was loud and I could actually feel the floor of the car shake from the loud engines. I didn’t know what to do. These guys could have been anybody. As far as we knew, they were cold-blooded killers. And here were Danny and I, a couple of rich white kids from the States, completely lost in foreign territory. These guys could have killed us and buried us in the middle of the jungle somewhere and nobody would have ever known.

“We have to do something, Danny,” I said, as I tried my best to stay calm.

He pressed harder on the gas, bringing our little car up to ninety miles per hour. The front end started to shake slightly. It was obvious we were pushing the crappy little rental to its limits. I didn’t know how much more it could take.

“Danny, they’re going to keep chasing us,” I said. “They aren’t going to stop until we give them what they want.”

“What are you suggesting?” Danny asked.

“Pull over,” I stated. “Pull the car over. Give them what they want.”

By the expression on Danny’s face, it was clear that he had thought I had lost my mind. I couldn’t blame him. But the way I saw it, pulling over was the only real chance we had. I mean we hardly had a half of a tank of gas anyway. So even if we wanted to try to outrun these guys, it wouldn’t be more than one hundred and fifty miles before they’d catch us anyway. By then, who knows how pissed they’d be. So I figured that the best thing to do was to give them Danny’s wallet and call it a day. Hopefully they’d be kind enough to let us go. At least that’s what I was praying for.