My Billionaire Stepbrother (Lexi's Sexy Billionaire Romance #1) (2 page)

I open it anyway. It’s a generic birthday card with several points of amusement. First, it’s clearly for a Jewish person judging by the subtle Star of David on the front. That in itself means I’ll need to burn the thing before Mom sees it, lest she take mortal offense to her Catholic beliefs. Second, it says nothing specific to indicate the sender knows me. Third, my birthday was a full week ago. And fourth — most insultingly — the signature inside is clearly a farce and a forgery.
 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ANGELA. PARKER.
 

But that’s a fucking joke. I recognize the handwriting. I should, seeing as I’ve been getting birthday and Christmas cards bearing this handwriting for years. Parker’s personal assistant. He doesn’t even have a
secretary
. Parker has a
personal assistant.
The kind of person you hire to pick up your laundry, buy your vitamins, and send birthday cards to your stepsister.
 

I stare at the card, unable to believe that this year (as every year) he can’t be bothered to sign the card himself. He probably doesn’t even know it’s sent. I’m sure it’s a recurring task in his assistant’s to-do list, going out faithfully without bothering the boss.
 

I look at the object in my other hand: a gift card for Olive Garden. One hundred bucks. Parker’s standard present — which, again, he probably only knows as a minor debit from his titanic balance.
 

My jaw works, wanting to grind my teeth. I know how my eyes must look: they’ll be hard, in that glare people say is so bitchy and intimidating.
 

I stare at the gift card. Hating it. Hating the way he sends this offering in such an offhand, forgettable way each year. Inside a card he never sees, signs, or considers. I hate the way it’s for Olive Garden, which I happen to love, though I know Parker feels way too good for. Most of all, I hate the way my pride wants to throw it into the trash … but I pocket it instead.
 

Money is money. Food is food.
 

I stalk inside, wondering if it’s worth sending a thank-you note. Twin powers war inside me. I was raised to be polite and thank people for gifts they’ve given. But I was also raised with pride — by my mom back when she had some, and even a bit by Parker’s father, Bill, whom I don’t like more than his son, but ended up stuck with nonetheless. I hate that it’s harder to loathe Bill than Mom, seeing as he at least contributes to the household a little. And sure, he drinks his paycheck before it hits the bottom line, but always reminds me that I should be grateful, so I pretend to be, like a good little girl.
 

I used to have pride. I learned from two proud people whose pride had twisted and soured, turning them into what I’m saddled with today. Supporting proud people is even worse than supporting dishrags. Shameless people will at least get out of your way, but prideful folks feign self-sufficiency, making dragging their carcasses out of the gutter to prop them up that much harder.

I’ll send Parker’s assistant his fucking thank you. Parker probably won’t see it.
 

But I won’t send
him
a birthday card.
 

Our birthdays were close enough that after our parents married, before I tried to leave the first time and Parker vanished, we used to have parties together. One set of decorations, one cake, two friends each. A cost-saving convenience, disguised as family unity.
 

Today is his birthday. He’ll be thirty, and next year it’ll be my turn to do the same.

Happy birthday, asshole.

PARKER

I
DECIDE
I
DON
’
T
WANT
to cum in Samantha’s mouth.
 

I’m kind of mollified by her toast: sweet for a pit viper. There was much less personal advancement in her toast than is typical for Samantha, and if I didn’t know her as well as I do, I might have truly believed she was congratulating me and wishing me well. But to Samantha and girls like her, I only have two parts worth knowing: a cock and a wallet. If she’s going to have her hand in one of them, I’ll fill the other.
 

Something in me doesn’t want to sully her mouth saying the one possibly nice thing I can remember her saying, so I’ll compromise. I’ll cum inside her then watch her try to keep the evidence from dripping down her leg through the evening’s remainder. Everyone knows she doesn’t wear underwear. Good for access, bad for cleanup. Maybe that’s why she likes to use her mouth as a receptacle.
 

I turn her around, hiking up Samantha’s short blue dress to expose her magnificent, Pilates-toned ass. She protests a little, probably comfortable on the closed toilet seat, already buckling down for delivery, but of course she complies.
 

Samantha grabs the pipes at the toilet’s rear like a motorcycle’s handlebars, her ass high with her shaved slit presented like a gift, moisture wicking between her smooth folds. That’s the thing about Samantha: She loves giving head; it gets her soaking. Sometimes, she fingers herself while doing it, and usually finishes before I do — or while I do. I’m pretty sure Duncan knew all of this about Samantha before setting us up. I repress my intuition about exactly
how
.
 

“Do you want to fuck me?” Samantha purrs, turning, gyrating her smooth ass and shaved pussy. She reaches back for my dick, so recently down her throat, and still slicked with her spit. But it’s too far to reach without ruining her presentation, so she reaches back and spreads her lips instead. I see pink inside. I hate myself a little for doing exactly what she wants, but it just so happens I want it, too.
 

I don’t answer. I bury my dick inside her instead, balls deep.
 

Samantha’s gasp is over the top, playacting to please me. But I’m not fooled. I’ve seen enough porn to know when girls are putting it on in a way they
think
— not always accurately — men want. She knows I want to fuck her; that’s why she was bent over a toilet with her pussy in my face. I know it must feel good to have me inside her, but no one gasps like that. She might as well have slapped her own cheek when she unzipped me, feigning shock at my size.

“Fuck me! Oh, fuck me harder!” she pants.
 

I want to tell her to shut her fucking mouth. I want to bend forward and put my hand over her maw. But Samantha likes it rough, and that would probably crank her volume. She’d start telling me to pull her hair, to slap her ass, to pull her straps off so I can grab her tits. I don’t feel like those complications right now. I just want to get off, and Samantha usually wants the same thing. Getting loud, here in the bathroom, will only make Manuel more uncomfortable than he seemed to be when we entered with Sam’s hand down my pants.

“I want you to cum in my mouth!”
 

Fuck that. She blew me almost to completion earlier, before I turned her around. If I’d wanted that, we’d be done and back in circulation, my stress level sufficiently lowered.
 

Still, I’m tempted, if for no other reason than to shut her up.
 

I thrust a few final times, my balls clenching, thighs tightening, rising on my toes as I unload inside her. My strokes are suddenly wetter, slicker. It’s been a long day, and we didn’t have sex yesterday. Relief is intense as I twitch, coming down.
 

She’ll be dispensing that one for a while.
 

I pull out. My cum runs down her leg, almost making her shoe before she catches it with a wad of toilet paper.
 

Samantha wipes herself, tosses the tissue in the toilet, then smiles at me as she turns around. Even duly spent, I can’t look at her without wanting to fuck her again. She’s unbelievable. She pulls her skirt back into place, wiggling her ass to do it. Then she sucks on one finger, and I wonder if it’s part of the cleanup. She definitely likes it in the mouth. If she starts trying here and now to finish herself off — a matching climax to accompany mine — I might start getting hard again. But I’m thirty now, and unsure if I’m up for round two so quickly.
 

I back up, buttoning myself, and look her over from high-heeled foot to beautifully coifed mane. I realize all at once that there’s never been a time that I’ve looked at Samantha and not wanted to fuck her. That’s good in one way but a total failure in another. She’s supposed to make me a proper poster boy for WinFinity, with the requisite high-society girlfriend. But does her pure sexuality make her position as my “respectable girlfriend” questionable?
 

Probably.
 

Out of courtesy, I decide to wait until the party is over to break up with her.
 

On the way out, leaving Sam in the stall to do whatever she might need to do, I drop another twenty into Manuel’s box.

ANGELA

W
HEN
I
ENTER
THE
HOUSE
, ready to wind down after a long day at work keeping this broken family afloat, my stepfather says, “Today is your brother’s birthday.”
 

I look at him for a long moment. We’ve never precisely
not
got along during his marriage to my mother, but we’ve never been friends. We’re roommates. It’s as if Mom is my mother and hence my burden to bear … and then my burden has a burden: a loser she invites around and I manage to tolerate.
 

It’s funny that my name is on the lease and has been for over a decade. It’s funny that I had to take that contractual obligation over when Mom and Bill, working together, managed to default for three months straight. And it was really side-splittingly hilarious when I had to leave my tidy studio to move back in here — not because I needed the help, but because help was needed.
 

It’s awesome that I’m the
only
name on the lease, and super great that despite Bill’s son being a billionaire,
I
have to support his sorry, drunken ass.
 

“I don’t have a brother,” I say.

“You know what I mean, Angie.”
 

I hate it when he calls me Angie. But it’s either him being an asshole or a legitimate inability to change old ways, not a correctable mistake. So I keep my mouth shut like always.
 

“I didn’t realize.”
 

“Sure you did. It’s a week after your birthday, and you’re good with dates.”
 

“Oh. Well, then I guess I did.”
 

Bill chews his cheek — a curious habit that once upon a time, during a brief spell of sobriety, he asked me to help him break. The first time I reminded him not to chew his cheek, he yelled at me. That was his last reminder.
 

“Did you send him a card, or call him, or anything?”
 

“No.”
 

“You should call him.”
 

“He didn’t call me.”
 

“Did he send you a card?”
 

I sigh. Bill can see the card. It’s my mother who must be protected from its accidental Semitism. I hand it to him, along with the ripped red envelope.
 

Bill opens it.
 

“Was anything in it?”

He hasn’t even read it. There was no time. It was a one-two beat, nothing longer.
One: Open the flap. Two: Ask his question.
Nothing had fallen to the floor; that was strike one. But there was still a chance his wealthy son could redeem himself.

“His usual gift. We can go to Olive Garden.”
 

Bill extends his hand. As if the card hadn’t been addressed to me, not him.

I pull the gift card out of my pocket and hand it to him anyway. Bill looks at it, shakes his head, and hands it back. The twenty-four-hour carryout where he buys his beer doesn’t accept gift cards.

“Well, that was nice of him.”
 

I laugh.
 

“Don’t tell your mother.”
 

“Why?”
 

“She hates him, for one.”
 

That was true. Mom was half the reason Parker left in the first place. The other half, predictably, was his dad. The intellectual part of my mind knows that half plus half equals a full boat, but sometimes I’m sure there’s room for a third in there anyway. A third reason he left. A reason I know something about, little as I like to consider it.
 

“And for two, we start going out, and she’s going to want to keep doing it. You know how she is. How much is on that card anyway?”
 

I wait a beat before answering, mainly to see if he’s measuring his son’s worth in dollars, which I’m pretty sure he is. “A hundred bucks.”
 

Bill vents air, half laughing. He should be used to it. My birthday gift card, surely purchased and sent without Parker’s notice, is the closest Bill ever gets to receiving money from Parker. Funny thing is, as much as I hate him most of the time, I’m with Parker on this. Bill not getting a dime from WinFinity means it never trickles down to me or Mom, but Bill sober was an even bigger asshole to Parker than he’s ever been to me drunk. Some dads are disappointed that their sons don’t live up to their standards. Bill’s son dwarfed Bill’s standards, more or less to prove a point. His way of saying I told you so has been to say nothing at all. To never come home. And to never give his fucker of an old man a single red cent.