Vacation with my Stepbrother: A Forbidden Stepbrother Romance (5 page)

“You’re serious?” Danny stated.

All I could do was nod in agreement. I was too terrified to saying anything else. Danny reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. Then he tossed it on my lap.

“I want you to pull out the hundred dollar bills and hide them. Only leave the smaller bills. If they’re going to take my fucking wallet, then they aren’t going to leave us completely broke.”

I opened his brown leather wallet and did as he asked. As quickly as I could, I pulled out the hundred dollar bills. I didn’t bother to count them out, but there was at least five or six of them. I left everything else and closed the wallet back up. Then I folded the hundreds and shoved them underneath my seat.

“Okay,” I said. “We’re good. Let’s get this over with.”

Danny took a deep breath and then lifted his foot off of the gas pedal. I watched as the needle of the speedometer slowly dropped. With each millimeter the needle moved downward, I felt the rate of my heartbeat increase. Finally, Danny pulled the car onto the dirt shoulder of the highway, bringing us to a complete stop. Within seconds, the men on the motorcycles surrounded us.

Please, God. Let us survive this. I don’t want to die out here in the middle of nowhere. This was supposed to be a vacation, not a death sentence.

The rumbling of the motorcycles shook the car. The sound was deafening, as the engines popped around us. After a moment, though, they turned off the bikes bringing silence to the air. Danny slowly rolled down the window. He had his wallet in his hand.

One of the bikers hopped off of his motorcycle. He appeared to be the leader. I could tell by the way he moved. His steps carried authority and power and the other men moved out of his way as he walked by. The man was tall with black hair, and every inch of his skin, besides his face, was adorned with tattoos. He stepped up to the driver’s side window and leaned in toward Danny.

“Why are you running, homey?” he growled, with a thick Spanish accent.

Danny seemed surprisingly relaxed as he responded. “I had no intention of giving you my wallet. But it seems you weren’t going to give up. So here you go.”

Then he held the wallet toward the window. The biker looked past it, bringing his eyes straight to me and giving me a once over.

“How about we take that sweet little thing sitting next to you instead?” he responded. “I think we’d rather have that than your wallet.”

Danny glanced over to me and I saw a flash of rage in his eyes that I hadn’t ever seen before. He looked at me for just a moment and then turned back to the stranger in the window. I watched as his chest rose and fell as he slowly took a deep breath. Then, to my utter shock and surprise, Danny reached up and grabbed the bandana that was around the man’s neck, pulling his head into the car.

“Danny!” I shouted. “What are you doing?”

Danny ignored my cries, though. He was face to face with the man, strangling him with his own bandana.

“If you so much as lay a single finger on her, I will
fucking
kill you,” Danny growled.

The other bikers that were surrounding the car began to approach us, but it didn’t seem to sway Danny.

“Tell your friends that they had better stay on their bikes, or I will break your neck where you stand,” he continued.

The man reached his hand up, motioning the men to stop. They obeyed the order.

“Good,” Danny growled. “Now here’s the deal. I’m going to let you go and after I do, I’m putting this car in drive and pulling away. If you or your men so much as ride ten feet in the direction that we’re driving, I will turn around and run you the fuck over. All of you. I will make sure that not a single one of you is standing by the time I’m done. Is that clear?”

The biker lifted his face as much as he could, which wasn’t very far, considering how hard Danny was squeezing the bandana around his neck. He locked eyes with me and then brought his gaze to Danny.

“You’re fucking crazy, homes,” he said, his words broken up in between his gasps for air. “But I respect that. We’ll leave you alone.”

Danny pulled the man’s face a bit closer to his own. “Give me your word.”

The scary leader of the biker gang suddenly didn’t look so scary any more. The way Danny manhandled him made him look like a frightened and harmless puppy. The tables had turned in an instant and suddenly Danny was the scary one.

“I promise,” he said, still choking for air. “I promise. We’ll let you guys go.”

Danny slowly released the bandana and the biker immediately pulled his head out of the car, coughing and gagging as he tried to breath again.

“Don’t come back to our neighborhood,” the biker said, as he brought his hand to his neck, touching the red marks that Danny had caused. “If you come back, you won’t be so lucky. Now get the fuck out of here.”

“Go, Danny,” I said. “Go! Now!”

Danny dropped the car into gear and slammed on the gas. The bikers in front of us jumped out of the way, as our tires spun to gain traction. Dirt kicked up behind us and we pulled back onto the highway, leaving the group of bikers in the distance. I turned around in the seat, watching as the dust cleared. Just like Danny had ordered them, the bikers stayed behind.

“Oh, my God,” I said, as I faced forward once again.

My hands were trembling and my heart was still pitter-pattering in my chest. I couldn’t believe what had just happened. We had almost died, or at least that’s how it had felt, and Danny had saved me. The selfish, rotten, arrogant little bastard who I had grown up with had shown me his true colors. When the chips were down and a stranger wanted to hurt me, Danny stood in between us. He put his own life at risk just to protect mine.

“Danny,” I muttered. “Thank you.”

He glanced over at me. The rage in his eyes slowly faded and the old Danny started to show through once again. “You don’t have to thank me, Nikki. I wouldn’t let anybody harm my sister. I protect my own.”

My eyes lit up and I found myself becoming even more attracted to him. I suddenly felt so safe in that car. He had proven to me that when it came down to it, he actually did have my back.

“That was absolutely insane,” I stated. “Like, I wish we had gotten that on camera so that people would actually believe us when we told them.”

Danny glanced into the rear view mirror and then over to the side mirror.

“I just can’t believe that actually did what I told them to do,” he said. “That guy must have thought I was actually going to kill him.”

“Were you?” I asked.

Danny looked over at me and nodded. “If they’d have laid a finger on you, then yes. Some things just aren’t forgivable. I could have strangled him to death.”

Without even thinking about it, I reached across the center console and gave Danny a hug. I held him close, pressing my face against his shoulder.

“Thank you, Danny,” I whispered. “It was by far the nicest thing you’ve ever done for me.”

He reached up and placed his hand over my arm, caressing my skin. It suddenly felt like I was in the car with a stranger. This man who I was holding couldn’t be my stepbrother. No, this man wasn’t the same kid that I had grown up with. He was much, much more than that. He was bold, daring, authoritative and powerful. He was no longer a boy. He was a man in every sense of the word.

After a moment, I slowly pulled away from the hug and sat back. Then I reached under the seat and pulled out the wadded up hundred dollar bills that I had taken out of Danny’s wallet.

“Well, we still have this money,” I said, holding it in the air. “It’s too bad that you had to give those guys your wallet and the rest of your money, though.”

Danny chuckled as he shook his head.

“I didn’t give those assholes my wallet,” he responded.

The he reached underneath his thigh, pulling out the wallet and tossing it onto my lap.

“They didn’t get a single penny from me,” he said, his voice filled with pride.

––––––––

F
inally, after five hours on the road, we arrived at the house where we would be staying for the next ten days. When we pulled into the driveway, I breathed a sigh of relief. The little cottage on top of the hill was a sight for sore eyes after the crazy morning we had had.

“It’s beautiful,” I commented.

It was just a single-story bungalow, but it fit the setting perfectly. It was nestled in thick vegetation, just a short distance from the main road. As soon as Danny put the car in park, I hopped out.

Wow. Now this is paradise.

The sun was low on the horizon, creating a beautiful orange glow that covered the surrounding area. Not too far away, I could hear the sound of the ocean. I smiled as soon as I heard it. The anxieties and stress of the day began to disappear and became filled with the calming sound of the waves lapping against the shore. But I was only able to
hear
the ocean from where I stood. I wanted to
see
it. So without even telling Danny where I was going, I jogged right past the house and to the very top of the hill behind it. Once there, my eyes landed upon the most beautiful scenery that I had ever seen.

“Oh, my God,” I whispered.

In front of me was an uninterrupted view of the ocean. The entire sky was orange from the sunset and the color of the ocean was a deep blue. The night air began to cool as the sun continued its journey past the horizon, but I figured that I had at least another hour or so before it actually got dark. So without a second of thought, I began jogging down the hill toward the water. As I ran, I started giggling and laughing. If anybody had seen it, I’m sure they would have thought I was crazy. But something about running down that hill toward the ocean just made me feel like a little kid again. There was freedom in it.

The air rushed around me as I picked up speed down the hill. The smell of the ocean filled my nose and within a few seconds, the grass beneath my shoes turned to sand. I looked left and I looked right, gazing as far as I could down the beach as I continued my sprint. There wasn’t a soul in sight. The entire beach was all mine. The sand kicked up as I ran, covering my legs. Within a moment, I was at the water’s edge. I stopped there, feeling my feet sink a few inches into the wet sand. The smile on my face must have been goofy, but I couldn’t help it. I was so happy to be there.

Once again I looked up and down the beach, just to make sure that nobody was around. There wasn’t a single person for as far I could see. It was like having my own private beach. There was nobody to judge me or to try and impress. I had pure freedom and privacy.

I’ve got to take a dip in the water.

It was just too tempting not to. I had to feel the cool water over my skin. I needed to feel it to solidify the fact that I wasn’t just dreaming and that the beauty that surrounded me was real.

I quickly glanced behind me, bringing my gaze up the trail toward our cottage. I had gotten so caught up in the moment that I had temporarily forgotten all about my stepbrother. He wasn’t in sight, though. I assumed he must have gone inside the cottage.

“Real quick,” I said to myself. “Just one quick dip in the ocean.”

Sure, I could have run back up to the car and grabbed a swimsuit from my suitcase. It probably would have been the intelligent thing to do. But the ocean was right there. Plus, I was just going to run in really quick and see what the water was like. I had no intention of spending much time floating the waves that evening. So I shrugged my shoulders and then grabbed the bottom of my shirt. I pulled it over my head and tossed it to the sand. Then I unclasped my bra, letting it fall to the ground on top of my shirt. All that was left was my jean shorts, which I quickly took off. I was standing there in the middle of the beach, wearing only my panties, which didn’t leave too much to the imagination. I felt vulnerable, but also very alive.

“Okay,” I said. “Time to get this vacation started!”

Then I charged at the ocean, running straight into the waves. Water kicked up around me, and soon it was like I was running through molasses as the depth of the water increased. The ocean was much warmer than I had expected, but it was still cool enough to send goose bumps popping up all over my skin. Within a few seconds, I was up to my neck and the ground disappeared underneath my feet. I began to tread water, letting the gentle waves push me around. Then I turned to face the beach, where I saw Danny making his way down the trail from the cottage.

“Crap,” I whispered.

My clothes were on the sand and I was in the water wearing only my panties. There was no way that the situation was going to turn out well. Not with Danny. This was the perfect time for him to pull one of his famous stunts. And even though he had changed so much since he had come back from boot camp, I was pretty sure that he wouldn’t be able to turn down messing with me in a situation like this.

So I started swimming quickly back to the shore. Danny must have seen me out there, because he started to jog toward the beach. After a few more strokes, I felt the sand underneath my toes once again. Then I started moving frantically toward the shore. I needed to protect my clothes before Danny stole them, which I knew that he would.

“Are you skinny dipping?” Danny shouted, as he neared the edge of the water.

Oh man. There’s no way I can beat him there.

The depth of the water was down to the top of my breasts and one more step would have caused them to breach the surface. But I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t let my own stepbrother see my naked chest. So I stayed down in the water, using one of my arms to cover my chest.

“Danny, don’t touch my clothes!” I cried.

He was mid-stride when he heard my call. He then stopped and looked down at the pile of my belongings.

“You
are
skinny dipping!” he shouted. “Wow, you’re starting this vacation the right way! Hey Nikki, close your eyes. I’m coming in, too.”

Then before I could even respond, Danny pulled his shirt over his head. He tossed it to the ground and then quickly took off his shorts, leaving him standing at the edge of the water in only his boxer/briefs. I should have closed my eyes like he had asked, or at the very least, looked away. But I couldn’t. For some reason, I just couldn’t turn my gaze away from the incredible male specimen that stood before me.