Redemption: A British Stepbrother Romance (55 page)

“You’ve turned your life around. Nick could have too.”

“I’m part of an illegal underground fighting ring,” Riker quipped. “I’m hardly a model of success.”

“Yeah, but you’ve got a ripped body, and that sexy brooding thing going on,” I joked. “And you have me. If you want me.”

“I’ve never not wanted you. Not since I first laid eyes on you. But I can’t have you.”

“You can,” I insisted. “Trust me, you can.”

Riker smiled. “I mean, it can’t work between us. I’m not having you join the list of people I’ve lost.”

“I’m not like Nick, and I’m willing to bet I’m not like your brothers.”

“You’re definitely prettier.”

“You say the nicest things sometimes.”

I moved closer to Riker, hoping he would take the hint and kiss me. He took the pictures from my hands and placed them back on the table, before putting his arm around me. That would do nicely.

“You want another drink?” he asked.

“No. I’m done drinking.”

I looked up at him, pleading with my eyes for him to pick up on what I thought was fairly obvious body language.

The look dragged on, as if he were weighing up the consequences in his mind, but in the end he moved towards me and our lips touched gently.

About fucking time.

T
his is a bad idea
.

This is a fucking awful idea.

But I can’t help myself.

The second our lips touched, sex became inevitable. My mind flashed back to the night we’d spent together a week ago. I needed that again. I needed Nora.

I’d brought Nora back here to explain everything. I hadn’t expected us to end up heading to my bedroom. I shouldn’t have been so naive. When did I ever have women in my apartment and not take them to bed? And this wasn’t just any woman—this was Nora.

Our lips never parted as I pushed Nora towards my bedroom. Once inside, I pushed her forward so she landed on the bed, red faced and expectant.

I stopped at the foot of the bed and looked at her. This was my last chance to come to my senses. My cock pulsed in my pants, as I noticed for the first time that I was already hard and raring to go.

So was Nora.

Just looking into her eyes and listening to her quickened breathing was enough to know she would be dripping wet and ready for me.

Nora needed this as much as I did.

She looked petite stretched out on the large bed, with one hand resting behind her head and the other on the top of her thigh, tantalizingly close to where I wanted to be.

I peeled off my top, and Nora did the same, mirroring my movement. I stood at the foot of the bed until she’d removed the bra as well, and then climbed on the bed and knelt between her legs.

We maintained eye contact as I pulled her pants down and threw them aside onto the floor. Her panties followed soon after.

How had I coped these last few weeks without the sweet taste between her legs? I lowered myself down and kissed her sex, before sending my tongue deep inside. Her fingers wove into my hair as she held my head in position and pressed herself into my tongue.

Nora moaned deep enough that I felt the vibration through her body, even though I couldn’t hear it with her thighs locked firmly against my ears.

My tongue slipped out of her entrance, and I began flicking gently against her lips, inhaling the intoxicating sense to her excitement as she writhed under me.

I teased her by gently lashing her clit with my tongue, while I slid two fingers deep into her wetness. I held her down with my other hand as she arched her back and wriggled in response to my touch.

“I need you inside me,” she moaned, her words coming out in one quick excited breath. “Please…”

My cock had much the same thought, as it pressed against the bed, desperate to get to work. All in good time.

I kissed her engorged clit, then took it between my lips and pressed my tongue firmly against it. I could feel her pleasure pulsing through the tiny bud, as I sucked gently between flicks of the tongue.

I’d already felt Nora come on my cock. Now I needed to feel it on my tongue.

Nora obliged.

Her orgasm was better than anything I could even have imagined. Her sex clasped my fingers as her thighs locked on to my head. Every muscle in her body went stiff until she released with a loud gasp.

Nora’s body quivered under my touch as I kept tasting the sweet juices spilling forth from her sex. Her hands reached down to my shoulders. She tried to pull me up, but the arms that we’d strengthened through training, were now weak and useless.

Once the last shakes of her passion had subsided, I climbed up her body, and kissed her fully on the lips, my face slick with her wetness.

I slipped my tongue into her mouth, while my hand reached across and fished a condom out of the drawer. Somehow I managed to get it on without my lips ever leaving hers.

Nora’s hand reached between our warm bodies as she took hold of my cock and guided it to the entrance.

We shouldn’t be doing this. Nora deserved better than me, and if we kept this up she was going to get hurt. I was being selfish, but the second my cock felt the warm wetness of her entrance, all those doubts disappeared under a pile of lust.

I had to have her.

Nora wrapped her legs around me and pushed me deep inside her. We both let out low groans as I filled her up. My mind usually went into autopilot at this point. Sex was as natural to me as breathing or walking. It usually took no effort. Not this time.

I moved slowly, trying to savor the moment, as the look on her face changed from slightly anxious, to one filled with nothing but pleasure.

“Harder,” she whispered. “Fuck me harder, Riker. I don’t want you to hold back.”

I always had to hold back. If I didn’t, people got hurt.

I grabbed Nora by the wrists and pinned them to the bed, while I screwed her harder. Short, deep, hard thrusts of my cock plunged into her slick, wet sex as I felt myself on the brink of exploding.

The only sounds in the room were my heavy balls slamming into her ass, and the groans from Nora, that got louder and louder, until she got as close to the edge as I was.

“Harder,” she yelled again, more aggressively this time. It was an order, not a polite request.

Her legs clamped around my ass and her hands dug into the muscular flesh of my back as she came hard around my cock.

I couldn’t hold back any longer. Her pussy practically pulled my essence from me, and her moans of ecstasy rang loud in my ear.

We kissed as I emptied myself inside her, pulse after pulse until I was completely spent.

After, she quickly fell asleep while I lay awake, staring at her. For a brief moment, I was happy. Then I remembered. I remembered what happened to people I cared about.

I couldn’t do that to Nora.

I
woke
up drenched in a cold sweat.

My eyes immediately darted to the left where I could see Nora still sleeping peacefully as the streetlights shone through my blinds.

A couple of men were threatening each other outside, but I could tell from the lack of conviction in their voices that it wouldn’t end up in a fight. Neither of them wanted it enough.

Fights were painful, and not to be taken lightly. You needed to really want it. You needed to be full of anger. These men were just pretending.

Anyway, it wasn’t the argument that had woken me up. It was the nightmare.

People made a living out of interpreting dreams, but you didn’t need to be a paid professional to figure mine out. It was about as subtle as the lyrics to a Taylor Swift song.

Nearly everyone I cared about had died. I’d lost a brother, a father, and now a friend. He’d been my best friend once.

I wasn’t just unlucky. It was more than that. I ran with people accustomed to violence. I’d spent five years in prison, and my idea of going on the straight and narrow involved becoming a member of an illegal underground cage fighting club. Hardly the textbook example of turning things around.

Worst of all, I couldn’t leave that scene. I didn’t know any other way of life. I’d become a fighter because I wanted another shot at Tyler Young, but that had always been a long shot at best. He was moving quickly up the UFC ranks; even if I got signed up, it would be years before I got my shot at him.

But what was the alternative? I was a fighter. Always had been.

And that meant I didn’t get to live a normal life. I didn’t get the girl. Not one like Nora anyway.

If she stayed with me, she’d get hurt. Maybe physically, maybe just emotionally. Either way, I couldn’t do that to her.

I’d fallen for her big time, and she might feel the same way.

I wanted to reach out and hold her while she slept, but if I did I might not have the courage to do what needs to be done.

I had to leave.

I had to do it.

I had to end things with Nora before it was too late.

I
pretended
to be asleep while Riker wrapped his arm around me and squeezed me tightly. Now I understood why couples just wanted to lounge around in bed all day and not go anywhere.

If it weren’t for Riker’s morning glory pressing against my ass, I would happily have stayed in this position until the evening when it was time to go to sleep again. Instead he had me aroused, and thinking of ways we could burn off some more calories without going to the gym.

Riker wasn’t used to being still, so I gave up all pretense of being asleep when he started fidgeting and getting restless. I expected him to do something useful with his erection, but instead he got out of bed and I heard the rustle of his pants as he picked them up off the floor.

“Where are you going?” I asked groggily, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes while trying to open them and adjust to the light streaming in through the thin curtains.

“Out,” came the terse reply. “I should go.”

“It’s your apartment.”

The anger that had faded away while we spoke last night, now seemed to be coursing back through his veins. Had I missed something? He had no reason to be angry that I knew of. Quite the opposite.

“I just need to get out of here. You can see yourself out.”

“Excuse me? Is that it?”

“Last night shouldn’t have happened. I shouldn’t have let it happen.”

“I’m not just some one-night stand that you can kick out the next morning,” I yelled, suddenly feeling wide awake and not at all groggy.

“This is a bad time for me. I need to focus on the fight.”

“I’m not going to stop you fighting. When have I ever said that?”

Riker shook his head. “I don’t mean it like that. Look, just do me a favor and stay away for a bit. It’s for the best. For both of us.”

I
was
just a one-night stand. Well, a three-night stand, I suppose. Whatever I was, I wasn’t his girlfriend. He couldn’t have been much clearer if he’d said “it’s not you, it’s me.”

“So we just pretend last night never happened?”

“Yes.”

“And all the weeks before that?”

“Especially that. Look, I didn’t want this to happen, but I don’t have a choice. You have a future, I don’t. It’s not you, it’s—”

“Don’t you fucking dare finish that sentence.”

I got out of bed and got dressed at lightning speed. I was out of his apartment before he’d even finished buckling the belt on his pants.

I texted Alison on the way home, and she was waiting outside my door when I arrived. What had I done to earn such a good friend?

No tears fell until I was back in my apartment, but once they’d started they took a lot of stopping. Alison made a coffee, but I’d nearly finished the entire cup by the time I was ready to speak.

“I’m going to hazard a guess and say you have man problems?” Alison asked lightheartedly. “You’re clearly wearing last night’s clothes and you didn’t spend the night here.”

I nodded. I still didn’t know what would be the hardest part. Telling Alison about what had happened with Riker, or admitting that I’d been keeping him a secret from her. Neither made me feel like a good person.

After Mom had died, I’d cried for so long, I didn’t think I’d ever cry again for as long as I lived. Certainly not this quickly.

“You weren’t attacked or anything?”

“No,” I replied quickly. “Nothing like that.”

I told Alison how I had met Riker at the gym and begun training with him. I didn’t like expressing my feelings—even to Alison—so I stuck to the facts and let her put the pieces together. It would be obvious to her from my actions just how I felt about him.

I also left out all the details of Riker’s friend dying, and his time in prison, instead just saying that we’d gone back to his place, had a few drinks, and then things happened.

“Wow,” Alison remarked once I’d caught her up to the events of this morning. “So this entire time you’ve been at the gym, you’ve secretly been hooking up with this thug?”

“He’s not a thug,” I insisted.

“He went to prison for five years for attempted murder.”

“Actually, it was three years. The other two were added on for bad behavior.”

“Ah, sorry. I see I’ve misjudged him.”

“If you’re just going to be sarcastic then you can leave,” I said, folding my arms like a spoiled teenager.

Alison continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “And now that he’s out of prison, he spends his time fighting in an illegal competition. He beats people up for money. That might not be the exact dictionary definition of a thug, but it’s damn close.”

I considered telling Alison the truth about Riker’s prison sentence, but for some stupid reason, I didn’t want to break the confidence he’d placed in me. God knows why I even cared at this point.

“You don’t understand. The fights are no different to organized MMA like the UFC. Just because there’s no commercial sponsor doesn’t make it a big deal.”

“Surely you can see what’s going on here?” Alison asked.

“No, but I’m sure you’re about to tell me.”

“You’re going for the bad boy, just like your mom did when she hooked up with Duke.”

“Riker’s not a ‘bad boy,’ and even if he was, I’m not into him just because my mom briefly dated Duke.” I was determined not to think of my mom and Duke ‘hooking up,’ although from what Duke had told me, they’d never really gotten to the stage where they were properly dating either.

“You’re trying to save him,” Alison said. “Your mom spent her entire life saving men like Riker, and now you’re trying to do the same.”

“Mom defended people in court. I’m sleeping with him. Was sleeping with him. Whatever, it’s hardly the same thing. I thought you might be a little more supportive.”

“I am being supportive. I’m just taking the tough love approach. Look,” Alison said, as her voice switched from angry to calm. “Nearly every shift at work, I see someone who might have turned their life around if a trusted friend or family member had been honest with them about their problem. Drink, drugs, sex, whatever the problem. Instead, everyone tries to pretend that it’s all going to work itself out. It rarely does.”

“I’m not going to end up in hospital because of a broken heart,” I pointed out. I was grateful for the change of tone, and I knew Alison meant well, but none of this seemed to be helping.

“Ask yourself this question, and be honest. Do you think he’ll ever change?”

Last night, I thought he already had changed. He’d opened up to me about Nick, and his time in prison. I didn’t know everything about him, but I took a big step towards truly knowing him that night.

Or at least, I’d thought so.

I guess I didn’t really know him at all. Not if his performance this morning was anything to go by.

“He won’t change,” I admitted. “But I’m not sure I need him to. He’s not a criminal anymore, and he works hard. What’s wrong with that?”

“He’s a fighter, Nora.”

“So am I now, thanks to him. He’s an athlete. There are worse professions.”

“Have you ever actually seen one of these fights?” Alison asked.

“I’ve watched a few on television.”

“That’s not the same thing. You need to see it in the flesh. It’s brutal. I’ve treated the men involved in these fights. They come to the hospital beaten and bloody, with broken noses and worse. Just think about it for a second. Riker has done that to other people, and he’s probably been on the receiving end as well. Do you really want to be with someone like that?”

I didn’t. I’d known that for a while. Duke had offered to show me footage of Riker’s past fights, but I’d refused point blank to look at them. I knew I wouldn’t be able to stomach it.

How could Riker and I ever have a normal relationship? How would that work? I’d get home from work at the end of a long week, and he’d leave to go risk his health in the ring.
Bye, honey. If I don’t end up with crippling injuries tonight, we can go for a nice bike ride tomorrow. How does that sound?

“I take it from your silence that you agree with me?” Alison asked.

“Let’s just say I don’t entirely disagree with you. But I don’t like it.”

“The heart wants what the heart wants, but sometimes the heart is an idiot.”

“So what do I do now?”

“Do what you were doing before your dad stuck his nose into things; stay away from Riker. Eventually the pain will fade.”

“What if it doesn’t?” I asked.

“Then go to the fight. Watch Riker kicking the shit out of another man. That will cleanse you of any affection for him, I guarantee it.”

“You really don’t like violence, do you?” I joked.

“You wouldn’t either if you did my job for a living.”

“Fair enough.”

“Of course, you could just tell me to butt out and mind my own business.”

“I could,” I agreed. “But you do have a point. I just don’t think he’s going to be that easy to forget.”

“When you meet another man, you’ll forget all about Riker, I promise.”

I didn’t agree, but I didn’t have the energy to argue. We agreed to buy some dangerously unhealthy fast food, and then sit in front of the television for the rest of the day.

Alison couldn’t be right about me just being attracted to Riker as a bit of thrill-seeking. Could she? If I liked the whole ‘bad boy’ vibe about him, then why didn’t I want to see him fight? If I got off on the violence, I would want to see him winning his fights.

There had to be more to my attraction than that. It wasn’t just Riker’s looks. I’d never been that shallow. Mind you, I’d never seen a body like that before either… But no, that wasn’t it.

Riker was straightforward, and not like other men. He didn’t try to impress me with how well-educated he was, or how rich. He never flashed money around, and even kept his tough side hidden. As hidden as it could be with all those muscles, anyway.

There was an honesty to Riker. Like with Duke, what you saw was what you got. Unfortunately, what I saw was a man who wouldn’t settle or commit to anything other than a fight. And that was the problem. I would always be second to the next fight or challenge that came up in his career.

I couldn’t settle for that.

The next step was simple in theory, difficult in practice.

No more Riker.