Wicked Game: a Billionaire Stepbrother Romance (2 page)

God, how could I care with him fucking me with his fingers like that?  With his tongue teasing my mouth, and his cock straining against his jeans, desperate to be inside me?  My body was growing warmer and warmer, just on the edge of an orgasm.  

“Take my cock out,” he breathed, gazing into my eyes.

“But our parents—”

“They’re out for the night.  They won’t be coming back.  We’re safe, baby.”  He kissed me.  “I’ll keep you safe.  
Always
and forever.  That’s a fucking promise.”

I believed him.  

The more I moaned for him, the harder he became, and I helped strip him of the few clothes he had left.  I tangled my fingers in his hair and brought his mouth down on mine.  The heat of his skin on mine was amazing.  Even if we weren’t alone for the night, the only chance we’d get before my mother divorced his billionaire father and our lives spiralled out of control again, I would have still needed him.  

I always needed him.  

I loved him, I realized helplessly.

“Cleo,” he said, cradling my face.  He was so gentle, despite the muscles and tattoos and stubble across his face.  Despite his bad boy reputation and all the things I had heard about him.  I had never seen this side of him, one so kind and romantic.  “Please tell me you want this.  Tell me you’re ready for it.”

I could feel his cock pressing against me, and I bit my lip.

“Please,” I moaned.  “I need it.”

He smiled softly, cupped my chin, and kissed me.

“Are you afraid?”

I didn’t answer, paralyzed by the mess of emotions storming inside of me.  I didn’t know what to say.  I didn’t know anything besides the desperate aching need for his cock inside of me.  For his weight crushing me into the bed.  For hearing him moan my name like I moaned his.

He waited for me to calm down, kissing the jitters away.  My body melted into his helplessly.  

I
was
afraid, I realized.  

But only of how much I needed him.

“If it’s because you’re a good girl and good girls don’t do things like this,” he said, “you shouldn’t worry about it.  Do you want to know why, baby?”  

His voice was playful and teasing, and I glanced up at him to see his smoldering blue eyes burning into mine.  His passionate gaze was hypnotizing.  He gave me a delicious smile.

He leaned over and pressed his lips against my ear:

“Because I’m going to fuck the good girl out of you,” he whispered.  “And that’s a fucking promise too.”

I couldn’t take it anymore.  I grabbed his ass and forced him to me.  

His cock slid into me, making me gasp with pain and pleasure.  His arms snaked around me, crushing me to him and whispering in my ear about how fucking amazing I felt.  My whole body shook, and I could hear myself moaning.

God, he felt amazing.  

He
was
amazing.

“You’re so fucking beautiful, Cleo,” he groaned as his hips began to move against mine, slow and gentle.  I whimpered in pleasure, and he kissed me again.  “Fuck, I love you.”

It was the first time a boy said he loved me.

After a few minutes of letting me adjust to his size, his rhythm began to speed up.  His hips grinded into mine, pounding faster with every thrust.  Every time I whimpered or moaned, he would lean down and kiss me, his tongue running over my bottom lip.  

His fingers reached down for my clit again and stroked it.  

The warmth and bubbly electricity in my body reached a peak again, and I cried out his name when the orgasm crashed over me.

“You’re so fucking beautiful when you come,” he growled.

I couldn’t answer.  

His face was too gorgeous, his forehead dripping with sweat and his eyes on fire as they gazed into mine.

“Fuck, I love you, baby,” he groaned, digging his nails into my back.  

His hips began to pound my body into the bed, and the more I moaned, the harder he thrusted into me.  The headboard knocked against the wall and the mattress creaked mercilessly.  Every inch of his skin kissed mine, and I could feel his breaths getting shakier against my neck and his hips bucking hard.  

“I’m sorry,” he growled in a strained voice, “I’m trying to go slow but—you’re just too fucking good—fuck, Cleo!”

His arms crushed me to him harder as he came.  

He let his weight collapse against me, still clutching me tight against him.  I ran my fingers through his hair as we both floated down from the high, the aftershocks skittering across our bodies.  I fell asleep with his arms around me, one hand cupping my bare breast, and his lips pressed against my neck.  

For once in my life, I was finally home.

***

In the morning, I woke up pleasantly sore and warm.  Grinning like an idiot, still too sleepy to realize what had happened, I rolled over to hug him.  For the first time in years, I was alive.  

I was in love, I was in love, I was in love.  

I wanted to scream it from the mountains.  

But first, I wanted to kiss him, the first person ever
to understand
me inside and out, the first person to
be
inside me and out.  The first person to make me understand why people were always singing about love and heartbreak on the radio.

My hand reached out for Damien’s warmth and clutched at cold, empty bedsheets.  

Oh God, no.  

Please, no
.  

My heart sunk into a black hole and the world began crashing down around me.  All those whispers in the hallways at school and warnings from friends came flooding back.  

You know what kind of guy Blackwood is, don’t you?  

It’s all a game to him.  If you think you’re different, it’s because he’s that good at manipulating you.  

Damien Blackwood is a psychopath.  Don’t trust him.  Don’t play his game.  

Because he always wins, and you always lose.  

And that’s a fucking promise.

I was afraid to open my eyes.  I knew what I would find when I did.  The only thing left of him were marks on the wallpaper where the headboard had scuffed it.  That, and a note on the bedside table.  

I spread the paper out on my knee with shaking hands, and my eyes strained to read it through the tears:

Thanks.  It was fun.  You should forget about me.

—Damien

I never saw or heard from him again.

Not until I got the next note four years later.
 

“Evicted?”

My jaw dropped.  

There was no way.

My landlord, a plump woman with fluorescent red hair and a tweed vest, shrugged at me as she leaned against my doorframe.  Her claw-like blue nails tapped against the yellow eviction notice as she held it out to me.  

Really, Eileen was more of a slumlord.  

Or was it slumlady?  

Either way, the only way I had been able to afford this apartment in the first place was because of how unbelievably shit it was.  Dad’s tiny inheritance was running out, and this was the only place in New York that would take me.

And now I couldn’t even afford this.

“Please,” I said, shaking my head.  The dizziness turned my stomach, urging me to run to the tiny bathroom and puke.  “There’s got to be another way.  I don’t have anywhere to go….”

“Sorry, Cleo,” she said, popping her gum.  “Nope.”

“I can get money, just give me—”

She held up a hand.  “Save it.  You’ve been late on your rent payments three times in a row.  I don’t have time for that shit, and I already warned you once.”  

She shoved the notice at me.

Numbly, I took it.  The thin yellow paper crumpled in my fist.

“There’s gotta be something I can do,” I said in a small voice.

“Can you get John Lennon back from the dead and in my bed?”

“I can find a guy who really looks like him.  Probably.”

“Joking won’t pay your rent.”  Her thin lips pressed into a hard line.  “You’ve been evicted.  Get over it.  And get out of this place by the 24
^th
, or I’m calling the cops.”

She pushed herself off the wall, and her neon blue nails waved a goodbye to me.  Her gum snapped as her heels clopped down the linoleum hall.  

A few doors locked as she passed them.

Ugh.

Evicted.

I pushed the door shut with a shoulder and slumped to the floor, resting my head on my knees.  Two weeks.  Two weeks, and I would lose the last sure thing I had in this world.  My parents’ deaths, I could handle.  Struggling through university, I could handle.

But this?  Losing my only home with no job or backup plan in sight?

Ugh, ugh, ugh.

I fought against tears in the freezing cold doorway of my tiny studio apartment.  My lumpy sleeping bag was slumped over in the corner.  A laptop was nestled on top of it, and boxes of old books from Dad’s library sat to the side.  They were the only things I owned in the world, and now it looked like I might even lose those.  

Think, Cleo, think.  I wiped a tear away on the sleeve of my black cardigan.  

I needed a game plan.

I could strip?  

No, not possible.  Besides the fact that I had no ass to speak of, I was pretty sure that pole dancing required coordination.  I’d accidentally kick someone in the face with a stiletto heel and end up in prison as the infamous Titty Bar Impaler.

I could try to put my history degree to good use and apply at a few museums again?  Keep running after my dream of becoming a museum curator or consultant like Dad was?

I glanced at the pile of rejection notices scattered in the corner.  

Nope.

Maybe I could sell a kidney?  But that was sort of a dead end with only one kidney to sell.  The more logical thing would be to create some kind of black widow dating system in which I drugged men and stole their kidneys for later sale.  How much could one male kidney go for?  I could probably survive on one victim a month, but if I wanted a cozy retirement account, I’d really have to up my game.  And how would I file my taxes?  Did the IRS consider serial killers self-employed?  Maybe I’d have to hire an accomplice accountant.

My bright future as a mass murderer was interrupted by another knock at the door.

I wiped the remaining tears from my cheek and straightened up to open it.

“Forgot to tell you,” Eileen said, leaning against my doorframe again.  She shoved a crisp white envelope at me.  “This got left for you too.  New job?”

I wish.  I was really starting to feel the burn from New York job market.  

As it turns out, not many people have a need for translators of classical Latin and Greek.  Not even museums, I thought with a frown as I kicked a loose rejection letter away from the door.

“I don’t know.”  

I grabbed the envelope and turned it over in my hands.  Stiff, creamy paper.  The heavy elegant stuff, like you’d get for a wedding invitation in the Hamptons.  I turned it over and brushed my fingertips against the address written in black fountain pen.  Gold edging glinted at me from the corners, teasing me with the mystery of what it held inside.

Maybe it really was a job offer?  Maybe I had missed one?

My heart raced.

“Whatever,” Eileen said, shrugging again.  I ignored her, still hypnotized by the letter I held.  She glanced at the flickering light above me.  “And don’t you think of stealing none of these lightbulbs before you leave either,” she started, “you can be sure as hell I’m going to count them—”

“Okay, thanks Eileen,” I said, nudging the door shut with a foot.  

Her grumbled mutters trailed off down the hallway along with her snapping gum and clopping heels.  I couldn’t care less.  Because the envelope I held may just be the golden ticket out of here and into a place with hot water and a reliable internet connection.