Billion Dollar Bastard: An Alpha Male Step Brother Billionaire Romance (13 page)

KAREN

As if striving to match my mood, it began to rain: a perfect late autumn storm. I gazed out at the Silliman quad, my eyes clouded over with tears just like the sky.

I knew I should leave, get away from campus before anyone saw me so distraught. But it was already the end of the day and I didn’t have any energy left. I stayed in my office, trying to read, trying to work, but I couldn’t bring myself to do anything. And so I stared out over the perfectly manicured lawns, watching students dart through the storm.

And then I saw him.

I knew him by his confident, striding walk immediately.

Kyle. He had come here.

“Bastard,” I growled, dashing downstairs.

Without any consideration of the water streaking down out of the skies, I ran to him. He was wearing one of his fine suits but it was plastered to his body, his gorgeous, powerful body, showing off the tight contours of his back, how his back narrowed to form a V at his waist…

“What the hell are you doing here?!” I demanded, screaming into the storm as he saw me. The sad, pathetic look he gave me melted my heart almost immediately, but I tried my best to keep a cold sneer on my face.

“I love you!” I yelled back, the rain swallowing up his words even as they reached my ears.

“Then why were you kissing her?”

“Karen, it’s over between us. She kissed me. She’s a drug addict and an alcoholic. She doesn’t know what she’s doing. She didn’t then. I had to send her home before she puked all over the restaurant.”

I knew, at least, that the part about Liana being on drugs was true. I wanted to believe him.

I wanted to trust him.

I wasn’t sure if I did. But that didn’t matter, because I found myself going to him, throwing my arms around him, kissing him in the rain.

We staggered back into my department building, all but falling over each other as we made our way up the stairs. I didn’t even peek around to see if any of my colleagues were around. Somehow, this seemed more important.

We barged into my office, and I slammed the door behind me. In seconds, I was stripping off Kyle’s wet suit, kissing his powerful chest, tasting the water and sweat and tears on his skin as he stripped me, tossing my blouse on the floor, and then my jeans and then my underwear.

And then his mouth was on my sex. I gasped, my butt on my desk as he held me there, hungrily devouring me. He slurped and suckled like a beggar at a feast, tasting me, tasting me deep, working his fingers into me, stretching me and making me moan.

“Kyle…” I gasped hard, running my fingers through his soaked hair, molding it into shapes as he licked me. “Kyle… Kyle… I love you too…”

He answered me only with his licks and kisses, slurping away at the center of my pleasure, at my throbbing node of delight as I shuddered and whimpered, my hips shaking as I got closer and closer.

“Oh, god!” I moaned, thrusting my breasts forward passionately, every cell of my flesh alive with desire for this man as he pleasured me. And suddenly, I was losing my mind, shaking and squealing with delight, spasming beneath his practiced mouth as he continued his delicious ministrations.

And then he was on top of me and his cock was sliding into my sopping hot center. I groaned, still aching from our loving over the weekend as he claimed me once more, penetrating me deep.

“Kyle…” I groaned as he took me, working his hips deeper and deeper into me, my body responding in agonized delight as he labored over me, grinding our flesh together, rainwater and sweat mixing together into a delicious cocktail of passion.

“Karen, I’m close,” he whispered and I felt him twitching inside of me, felt his passion coming to an end.

“Please…” I whispered in reply, kissing him hard, dragging my teeth over his lips. “Please, fill me up.”

And then he arched his back, his beautiful, handsome face contorting in pleasure as he released himself inside of me. I gasped, feeling it pump inside of me, his shaft spilling his seed deep into me.

“Remember my fantasies about you?” he asked after a few minutes of quiet touching.

“Bent over just about everything in existence?” I asked teasingly.

“That’s right,” he growled, guiding me over my desk, my ass up in the air, like an animal in heat. He kissed the back of my neck and I groaned in delight as we began to act out those very fantasies…

KYLE

We lay together on the floor of her office, our spent passion surrounding us. The air was thick and hot even though it was cold and wet outside.

“So, have you reconsidered this whole relationship thing?” I asked finally. Karen lay on her belly and I had been stroking her back; long, uninterrupted strokes down her perfect, unblemished skin, feeling the sweet sweat separate under my fingers as I massaged her flesh.

“I don’t know, Kyle. I just… I don’t know. Give me time to think.”

I sighed. I suppose that was all I could hope for.

“I haven’t been in a relationship since Liana and I broke up,” I admitted finally.

She lifted her head to look at me.

“Really? Is that true?”

I nodded.

“It’s hard. Work and life got in the way. I would see friends from school getting married but I just never found time for it…”

“For love?” she asked suddenly. I nodded.

“I mean, there’re always…”

“…women who want to take you to bed.”

I smiled ruefully.

“Of course. I mean, there’s always mindless sex.”

“I’ve been there.”

“You don’t seem like the type.”

“I’ve got a personal trainer who’s been blowing up my phone for the last few weeks. He’s dumb as rocks but he’s even got a better body than you do.”

I grinned.

“Now, consider what you’re saying…”

“Oh, I know what I’m saying,” Karen said with a sweet smile. “I’ll admit… He doesn’t have your stamina.”

“At least I’ve got that.”

“At least.”

We shared one more kiss and then began to slough our damp clothes back on. They were cold, sad, wet. I didn’t want to get dressed. I wanted to stay with her, stay naked with my woman, make her my woman.

But real life called, I suppose. It was time to return to the world.

Our clothes felt somehow uncomfortable, like they no longer fit. I wanted to tear Karen’s clothes off once more, rip them from her skin and make love to her all over again.

But that wasn’t to happen.

We chatted amicably, like friends, as we ducked out of the centuries old Gothic building, one of dozens adorning Silliman’s gorgeous campus. The rain had slowed to a drizzle and at one point, I turned to glance back at the building where we had just made love.

There was a single light on still, on the third floor, the floor where Karen’s office was. Where the English department was.

I saw an older man in the window. I squinted. He saw us.

“Karen…” I whispered, grabbing her by the arm. She stopped and we both gazed at the man gazing at us from across the wet quad.

“Is that…”

“It’s Gary Towson,” Karen whispered, her voice cold as daggers made of ice.

KAREN

I was only in my office for fifteen minutes the morning after my evening tryst with Kyle when Gary appeared at my door.

“Have a good evening, Karen?” he asked coolly.

I glowered at him.

“What do you need?”

“I was just curious as to what Mr. Stone, our gracious benefactor was doing on campus last night…”

“We were working on the fund. Nothing that concerns you, so don’t you worry about it.”

“It could look very, very bad, my dear…” he said with a growl. “If it got out, of course.”

He stepped inside and eased the door shut. My heart began to pound in my chest.

“How could it look bad?”

“Like you’re whoring yourself. Whoring yourself for your career…” he whispered as he advanced on me.

I felt so vulnerable sitting down. Adrenaline coursed through my body. I wasn’t going to be threatened or, if I was, I sure as hell wasn’t going to take it sitting down.

I stood and met him halfway, in the middle of the room.

“What do you want?” I hissed.

“You know…” he said, reaching out, grasping my breast roughly.

I yelped and before I knew what was happening, my right knee connected with Towson’s crotch. He groaned and doubled over.

“If you come within three feet of me ever again, so help me god, I will destroy you,” I whispered. “Do you understand?”

“Ghetto trash,” he growled. I slapped him hard, hard enough to knock him back a few feet, setting him on his way to staggering out the door.

I tried to work but I was too worked up. It felt good. It was a dumb thing to do but goddamn, it felt good.

I wanted to call Kyle. Wanted to brag to him. I knew he would be proud.

That was a good sign, I realized—the fact that he would be proud of me for standing up for myself, for fighting for myself. I smiled. This felt like an insight, and important thing to realize…

But gossip spreads fast. By five o’clock, it had apparently spread to my publisher.

I got a call as I was packing up to leave from Lori.

“Karen, everyone is talking about you and Kyle stone!” she gasped as soon as I answered.

“Really? How the hell did this spread so fast?”

“I don’t know, but it’s the biggest story in the world of academic publishing right now,” she said, a hint of irony in her voice. I found myself grinning. The world of academic publishing—certainly the most exciting world Lori could have ever found herself in.

“How would you feel about writing a tell-all book about you and Kyle?”

“What? A book?”

“It’ll make an incredible story. Bother and sister, billionaire and professor… You using him for his money, using him for his body… We could give it a feminist spin.”

“Lori, it’s not like that, really…”

Damn it, but Towson’s gossip sure did spread fast.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s like that. Kiddo, this could MAKE your career!”

I took pause at those words. Was she right? Possibly. But still… I couldn’t do that to Kyle. I couldn’t… I don’t know if betray was the right word… But it sure felt like betraying him.

“Listen, I’m going to have to say no.”

“Think about it.”

“Lori, no. It’s not going to happen. This is my personal life. Besides, I don’t want to be defined by who I sleep with—I want to be defined by my scholarship.”

“You’re a woman in a man’s world. You’re always going to be defined by who you’re sleeping with—and who wants to sleep with you.”

Fucking Towson. I sighed.

“Let me know when you have something to tell me about my book. My ACTUAL book. My scholarly book.”

And I hung up on her.