Break Me: A Stepbrother Romance (8 page)

S
ummer

I
was sitting
in my dad’s office at the body shop, behind his desk, when he came in on his crutches. “What are you doing?” he asked, looking down at me.

“Paperwork,” I replied. “You don’t have an office manager anymore.”

He blinked. “What do you mean, I don’t have an office manager?”

I looked up at him. “I fired Lisa.”

“What?” He looked outraged. “Summer, the last time I checked, you didn’t work for this company. What the hell gave you the authority to fire my office manager?”

“She called the police on Bram!” I tried to keep my voice under control, since the upper half of the office walls were glass, and the men working in the bays outside could see us. “I suppose if you want to call her back, I can’t stop you. But I’ll tell you that when I fired her, she told me she was glad she did it, and that she’d do it again. Are you honestly saying you’d keep her on after that?”

He sighed and lowered himself awkwardly into a chair. “No. Did she say why the hell she did it?”

“It’s simple,” I said coldly, remembering Lisa’s judgmental attitude. “She thinks Bram is a criminal, and that you should never have given him the combination to the safe. When money went missing soon after he arrived here, she was sure she knew who it was.” I watched him closely. “But it wasn’t Bram, because you say you lost it betting on horses.”

“That’s right.” He nodded, as if he was reminding himself of the story. “I’m really sorry, honey. About the money, about all of it. And I’m sorry I blew up just now. I just don’t know what I’m going to do without an office manager.”

“We’ll hire another one, Dad,” I replied. “I can get a job posting up with a temp agency, and we’ll start interviews.”

He was quiet for a long minute, so long that I went back to the paperwork in the silence. Lisa may have been a judgmental bitch, but at least she’d left everything in pretty good order.

“Summer,” my dad said finally. “Please call Bram in here.”

I looked up. “Bram is here?” I tried not to let on that my heart had skipped a beat.

Dad nodded. “He’s out in the bays, working on one of the cars. I want to talk to both of you for a minute.”

I hesitated, but he didn’t let on that he had found out about me and Bram somehow, so reluctantly I got up and opened the door to the office. One of the guys was milling around nearby, taking a drink from the water cooler, and I asked him to send Bram in.

A few minutes later, the door opened and Bram came through. He was wearing jeans and a worn gray button-down flannel shirt, the fabric flexing over his shoulders and his chest. His gaze was sharp and wary, and he took me in, sitting behind the desk, in a flash of possessiveness that made me squeeze my knees together under the desk. “Dad wants to talk to us,” I said.

He nodded without a word, pulled up one of the other chairs, and sat down, wiping his hands on a rag.

“Listen,” Dad said. “First of all, what happened with the cops—that’s done. It’s behind us.”

Bram went very still. He was pent-up, I could see. Full of anger and steam. Keeping it all in. He didn’t speak.

“But here’s the thing,” Dad said. “I’m fifty-one, and lately I swear I feel seventy. It isn’t just the broken leg—it’s everything. I haven’t had a vacation in over a decade. I’m tired.”

I bit my lip. I had urged my dad endlessly to take time off, to go on a cruise or something, but he never would. He always insisted that he liked to work. I could see that something was changing. I glanced at Bram, but his gaze was resting on my mouth, watching me bite my lip. He caught me looking and looked away.

“Are you taking a vacation, Dad?” I asked.

“Just for a week. You remember Ted Munson? He’s asked me up to his cottage, starting tonight. I originally said no, but now I’ve rethought it, and I called and asked him if I can still go. He said yes.”

Bram was still silent, so I said, “It sounds good. Are you going to be okay with your crutches?”

Dad shrugged. “I’ll make do. Ted will help. All I know is that it’s going to be a week of not bathing, roasting steaks on the barbecue, and pissing in the woods. A guys’ week. It’s exactly what I need.”

“What about the shop?” Bram’s voice was a low rumble.

“That’s where you come in,” Dad said. “Both of you. Bram, Lisa’s been fired—Summer took care of that. So we have no office manager. Summer has her own shop to run, so she’s not going to be able to be here all day. You’re going to have to take care of some of this stuff.”

Bram looked at him, surprised. “Me?”

“Of course you,” Dad said. “Who did you think, the Green Lantern? It’s only a week, but there will be some paperwork, invoices from suppliers, that kind of thing. The bank deposits will have to be done.” There was a pause as we all awkwardly acknowledged the mention of the bank deposits. “You’ll have to remember to set the alarms at closing every night, because the guys almost always forget. Summer will give you the codes to those, as well as all the passwords to the computer and the company email accounts.”

Bram scrubbed a hand over his close-cropped hair, the motion making his huge arm flex in ways that made me squeeze my knees again. “I don’t know anything about company emails,” he said.

“Well, now is the time to learn. I know you’re capable of it. Ask Summer to help you.” If Dad caught the white-hot glance Bram shot me, he didn’t let on. “She can go through the accounts with you in the evenings if you need it. Now I’m going home and packing a pair of underwear and a toothbrush. Ted is picking me up in an hour.”

I cleared my throat. Sure thing—I’d help Bram out in the evenings. Just the two of us. “We’ll manage just fine, Dad. You go have fun.”

After my dad walked out, Bram and I looked at each other. I could see a smear of grease on one of his knuckles, and the sight made the blood pound between my legs. I wanted to climb over the desk and onto his lap. I wanted him to reach under my skirt and push my panties aside with his strong, work-scarred hand.

“Why aren’t you at your shop?” he said to me, slicing the silence.

“I closed it for the afternoon.” The sign I’d put on the door read “Closed for Emergency.” I considered firing the woman who had called the cops on Bram an emergency.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Bram said. “You’re losing money.”

“It seems to me it’s my shop, and I can lose money however I want.”

“What for?” he said. “So you can help your stupid stepbrother with his math? You don’t need to do anything for me, Summer. I can count on my fingers.”

“You’re not my stupid stepbrother,” I shot back. “You haven’t been my stepbrother for a long time, and you were never stupid. You can do your own math.”

“Are you sure?” he said. “Do you think you can help me with the alarm codes, too? I’m not very good at pressing buttons.”

He was trying to make me mad, but it wasn’t working. It was just making me hotter. He was sitting back in his chair, his legs spread, and I could see the bunched muscles of his thighs. His hands were clenched on the arms of the chair, his forearms supple with strength. He was a coiled ball of pure testosterone, wound so tight he was about to snap. If there hadn’t been a window in the office, displaying us to the entire body shop, I would have unbuttoned my blouse and unsnapped my bra, just to see what he would do.

Instead, I clicked through to a screen on the computer and hit Print. “There are your computer passwords and alarm codes,” I said, snapping the page off the printer and dropping it on the desk.

“Fine,” Bram said. He stood up, his big body seeming to take up the entire room. “I’ll have you read it to me later, since I can’t spell the words.”

“You do that.”

“Fuck. I have to get back to work.” He turned and stormed out, his body rippling like a dream in his worn jeans. God, that man was flawed and complicated and messed up and damaged. And so, so fucking hot. Had there actually been other men in my life? I couldn’t remember anymore. All I could remember was Bram saying,
Who’s inside your pussy right now, Summer?

He was angry at the world, and taking it out on himself. I could see that. It should have scared me, but it didn’t. It should have turned me off, but it didn’t. The fact was, I knew exactly what he needed.

He needed to blow off a little steam.

I left the office, not looking back as I walked out the door, and returned to my shop. After I closed for the day, I ate quickly and went home for a hot shower. When I came out, the towel wrapped around me, I picked up my phone and texted him. I knew exactly when closing time was at the auto body shop. He would be punching in the alarm codes right now.

Are you still waiting for my signal?
I wrote.

There was silence for a minute. Then a message beeped through.
Fuck off, Summer.

I bit the side of my thumb, thinking it over. He was still trying to piss me off, but a man who wasn’t interested wouldn’t answer at all. Or use punctuation.

This required a more direct approach.

I’m naked,
I typed.

There was another moment of silence. And then the answer came.

Do. Not. Move.

My heart squeezed hard in my chest and my skin flushed hot. When he knocked on my apartment door fifteen minutes later, I summoned my courage.
Just do it, Summer.
I stood up, fluffed my hair, and dropped the towel. Then I answered the door.

Bram was standing in the hall. His gaze went sharp with alarm when he saw me. “Jesus, Summer!” He pushed me back into the apartment, his hand on my waist. “What the hell! Someone could see you.”

He was wearing the same clothes he’d worn earlier in the day—he’d come straight from work. As he shut the door behind him, I leaned against him softly, letting my nipples touch his shirt and my hips press against his rough denim.

“Stop worrying, Bram,” I said, running my hands up his arms and over his shoulders. His muscles were bunched, hard as boulders, beneath my palms. I stood on tiptoe and brushed my lips over his. “Stop worrying and just fuck me.”

His mouth came down on mine in a rough kiss, his tongue coming between my lips. I kissed him back greedily, inhaling the taste of him. My hands slid down his chest, his flat stomach, seeking his belt buckle. I undid it, but before I could go further he bent and swooped me up, his hands cupping my ass. I wrapped my legs around him and held on as he carried me into the bedroom, kissing me hard, and dropped me on the bed.

He ripped his shirt off over his head and dropped it to the floor, coming over me. He still had his jeans on, and the cold metal of his undone belt buckle pressed against my inner thigh as he pulled my legs open. “You want me to fuck you?” he said.

I didn’t have to answer. I lifted my arms above my head so my breasts rose, the nipples hard. His eyes darkened and he ran his hands over me, over my breasts, my nipples, and down over my stomach. His gaze devoured me like fire. I opened my legs wider as his hands moved lower.

“Are you wet for me?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, my hands still locked above my head.

He slid his fingers down and over my pussy, touching it expertly. The tattoo on his chest moved as his arm flexed. “Yes, you are,” he said. “Say it.”

“I’m wet for you,” I said obediently. “My pussy is wet for you.”

He slid one big, rough finger inside me, and I felt it like lightning up through my body, to my nipples and deep inside my core. “What are you wet for?” he said again.

“Your cock.” I squirmed on his finger, my hips moving. “Please, Bram.”

He made a low humming sound, as if he was thinking it over. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Not yet. You keep your legs spread, sweetheart. I’m going to lick you instead.”

I nearly drooled at the thought. He hadn’t licked me yet, not the way I wanted. “Yes.”

He pulled his finger out of me and rubbed it over me, over my clit. “I’m not in a patient mood,” he said. “I’m going to fuck you when we’re finished, and I’m very fucking hard right now. So do not take your fucking time. I’m going to make you come like a rocket.”

I pressed up into his thumb. “
Bram.
”

He spread my thighs with his big hands, lowered his head, and licked me.

I gasped. He had no mercy, and he didn’t go slow. His bold tongue took my pussy, swiping over every inch, swirling my juices. He knew every piece of me, every nerve ending, and he assaulted every one of them. In moments I was halfway to an orgasm, moaning beneath him. I lowered my hands and gripped his hair, trying to press him harder into me. He responded by gripping me by the inner thighs and pressing me down into the bed while he licked me more roughly.

“Oh, God, yes,” I heard myself say as the pleasure nearly broke me. “Lick me, Bram… lick my pussy… make me come. Oh, God, yes,
please
—”

His tongue made tight circles over my clit, hot and hard, and I felt my orgasm start inside me. I gripped his hair and came in wave after wave, nearly screaming, as he held me down and tortured me. When I finally came down, he stood up, jerked his pants and underwear off, and knelt on the bed, turning me over.

I glimpsed his huge, hard cock, throbbing and ready for me. Even as my body was still shaking, I thought
I want that inside me
as he shifted me to my knees and put my hands on the headboard, his hands over mine.

I felt his breath in my ear, his big chest against my back. It made me feel protected, claimed. He kept his hands over mine, his body over me, as he pressed my legs apart with his knees and slid his cock inside me, pressing me forward.

I closed my eyes. It felt so fucking
good.
I pressed my ass back against him, and he shoved into me hard, letting me feel the full length and width of him.

He spoke in my ear, his chest rumbling against my back. “Your cunt is amazing, you know that? It’s goddamned heaven.”

“It’s yours,” I said, meeting his next thrust, wet and ready. “It’s all yours, Bram.”

“You’re fucking right it is.” He kept his hands over mine and started a rhythm, thrusting inside me, his hips pounding between my spread legs. “Fuck, woman.”