Curve Struck (A Celebrity Stepbrother Romance) (19 page)

I love you, Mel.

Her heart seized at his words and the soft sparkle of truth in his eyes. Her mouth pinched forward, the proclamation almost painful to hear. He hadn't said it before. Neither had she. She blinked, felt her own gaze turn sparkly. Her mouth collapsed and her body with it. She threw her arms around his neck before her legs could betray her.

Declan held her, let her sob for a ridiculously long time against his chest without prodding her for the cause. He just soothed her, his hands rubbing calming patterns against her back and along the drape of her hair down her neck and shoulder.

When she finally looked up, she saw the pain her little breakdown had caused him.

"It's okay, Mel," he said, his voice barely audible. "You don't have to respond. I mean it, but I picked the wrong time to say it."

"I mean it, too," she whispered before burying her face against his chest once more. She couldn't stand to think she was hurting him.

Another sob tore its way up her throat.

Declan squeezed her to him, his lips pressing hard against the top of her head. "Did you just say you love me, too?"

His throat had as tight a hold on the words as his arms had around her body. They scratched and grated their way out, their sound stretched so thin that it almost evaporated upon hitting the air.

Forcing a little distance between them, she bobbed her head.

"I love you," she said, her smile offside and trembling. "I wish I'd said it sooner. I wish I had trusted myself enough to trust that you wouldn't pull away when I told you."

His hands cupped her face, and then his lips moved against hers in reply. Slowly, he teased her mouth open, his tongue slipping inside to caress the line of her teeth before stroking deeper.

For almost an hour -- since that moment her mother's name had flashed on the screen of her phone -- tension had been wringing its way through Melanie's body, twisting her muscles, making her ache. She couldn't defend herself against the kiss, didn't want to.

She melted against him, her body no longer capable of supporting itself, not when he was kissing her like that. Sensing her approaching collapse, Declan scooped her up and carried her out of the kitchen.

They didn't make it out of the formal dining room with its long table and dozen plus chairs. Kicking the end chair out of the way, he sat Melanie on the table. His hands dipped under her blouse but he didn't pull it off, not yet.

His mouth fastened on her neck as she wrapped her legs around his lean hips. Sweet mercy, her blood felt like it was on fire, like it would burn its way through her flesh. Her hips thrust upward, goading him into squeezing her closer to the thick erection bulging at the front of his running pants.

Biting at her bottom lip, she maneuvered her hands between them, her fingers plucking at the waistband of his pants to free the fat crown of his cock. It was a dining room, and she wanted to feast right there, to push him away long enough to get on her knees on the marble flooring and suck him until he had climaxed so many times he was squeezed dry.

Growling, he grabbed her hands and forced them behind her back.

"Behave, Mel."

Still biting her lip, she shook her head, her brows dancing upward with a mischievous need.

Faster than she could counter his movements, he stripped her blouse off and quickly turned it into a makeshift binding for her hands so that they remained behind her and tied together. Leaving her bra on, he stripped her pants and underwear off next, then the compression shirt that hugged at his muscles and the hard points of his nipples.

She wanted to suck those, too, her mouth puckering with the need to do so. Her pussy rebelled, twisting and squeezing so that a fresh pulse of cream left her, slicking her thighs and the surface of the table.

Declan pushed her legs apart and groaned to find her so wet. He hurriedly pushed his pants down his hips, just far enough to free his cock and cum-heavy balls. Wrapping his hands around her bottom, he jerked her toward the edge at the same time he speared into her aching pussy.

Melanie shuddered, the first wave of a climax trembling through her. Declan found her neck again as he thrust a second time. He bit lightly, then sucked hard, his pace furious.

"I'm going to fuck this sweet pussy into a coma, baby."

A giggle-moan slid up her throat as her insides curled around the invading cock. He was so thick, stretched her so wide she felt at times like she would tear. But as thick as he was, she was equally wet, her pussy creaming harder with each thrust he delivered.

She groaned, teeth gnashing and her head thrashing as the bulk of her orgasm seized the rest of her body, forcing her muscles to tighten and strain closer to her lover. She shook, cried out, cresting in her release.

"More," she begged, her insides knotting around his cock as the rest of her spasmed with release.

"Fuck, Mel..." Declan grabbed the sides of her head, hands threatening to crush her skull as his mouth slammed against hers, devouring her lips as his thrusting grew merciless.

Her eyes rolled back. A scream threatened and then she realized the scream was already out and unending as she threw her body upwards against his, over and over until they both shattered, his cock jerking inside her, his release leaving his body and entering hers in thick ropes she could feel as they flooded her and tried to squeeze past the seal of his big cock.

Still shaking, Declan straightened but didn't withdraw. His hands gentled. He caressed Melanie's hair away from her face then tilted her chin upward so that he could stare into her eyes.

She managed a quivering smile then tried to hide from him.

"No," he said, tilting her head back up and claiming a kiss and then another. "I love you, Mel."

Eyes misting, she offered a second smile, this one soft but confident. "I love you, too."

Grinning, he kissed her forehead before carefully pulling out. "I think we should go upstairs for round two."

"Fuck, yes," she answered breathlessly.

Declan's gaze sobered before he could take her upstairs and deliver on his promise.

"Baby, I don't doubt that you trust me, not with the way your body just responded."

Seeing his mouth twist, Melanie tried to offer an encouraging smile even though she could hear the oversized "but" building in his voice.

He smiled back, the expression just as weak. "I have to pull the scripts and find the lines because I'm going to sue that slimy bastard for slander."

"They won't leave us alone until you do," she said, her voice reflecting an uncomfortable awareness that she was naked and wet on Declan's table while his mind had gone somewhere else -- somewhere ugly and unpleasant.

"No," he agreed. "They won't."

She should have realized, she would later reflect, that even once the truth was out there, the lie was too savory for the public to ignore -- particularly when Shayna and Strake had a few more tricks up their collective sleeves.

Less than a week after the doctored audio released, the entire world found out that Melanie was Declan's sister. This time, instead of Melanie's mother breaking the news, it was Cammie in a text.

CZ says Declan is your stepbrother???

And the hits keep coming, Melanie thought, shoving her phone into a bathroom drawer without replying. The revelation was bound to happen. She knew that, had even marveled at its delay. Now she assumed that all the forces aligned against her and Declan had been holding back for the right moment to launch a fresh attack.

That moment had occurred the day before as Declan's new publicist and attorney held a press conference announcing the lawsuit against Strake, Celebrity Zone and Corbin Dash. The press had been provided with a copy of the legal complaint, the old script that Declan had read from and an affidavit opinion from an audio expert that the recording appeared fake on its surface after extensive digital analysis.

Every site that had referenced the CZ article pulled back. Some scrubbed any reference to Strake's allegations completely off their site.

Now -- she imagined -- they had entirely new articles up to fill the blank space.

Splashing some cold water on her face, Melanie retrieved her phone, closed the lid on the toilet and sat down before calling her mom.

Nancy answered on the first ring, almost as if she'd been holding the phone and staring at the screen waiting for her daughter to call.

"Hello, sweetheart."

"You've heard?" Melanie asked, certain she didn't need to explain.

"Yes. Roger checked the internet after we woke up and found a news van parked outside."

"I haven't looked at the internet," Melanie admitted. "How bad is it?"

"Well," Nancy hedged. "There's not much they can do with this nonsense of you being his sister. It really doesn't count, does it? I mean, of all the things that have gone through my head since I heard you were seeing one another, this didn't even surface."

"Yeah," Melanie agreed. But, despite it being true they were siblings by marriage, the fact that there was no meat to that part of the story didn't mean the press and its readers wouldn't wring every last salacious drop out of the development.

People wanted to hate, they wanted something to be mad about, they wanted to feel superior to the multi-million dollar movie star and the fat slut who had reached above her station to snare him. She and Declan had to be tarred and feathered so the world could continue to hold onto its many insecurities -- to indulge in all the self-doubt that kept them surfing channels, clicking ads and trying to buy their way out of misery.

"It's more than Declan being your stepbrother," Nancy said after a few more seconds had passed. "They're saying things about his mother. Roger is beside himself."

"I'm sorry," Melanie whispered.

"Oh, sweetheart," her mother reassured. "This isn't your fault."

Melanie shook her head but didn't voice her doubt. In some twisted way, it was her fault. Her size gave Shayna that first bit of ammunition. The public backlash had emboldened the publicist. Then, when opinion started to shift with the first
#iamwithmelanie
posts, it seemed Shayna and Strake had banded together, leading to this moment.

For a decade, Declan had kept his past out of the public eye. That tight hold had only begun to unravel after he took Melanie to bed.

"Are you okay, baby?"

She wanted to shake her head again and sob the truth, but she sucked a breath in and lied. "Mostly. I'm just tired of the constant stream of hate."

That much was true. The world had to have gone insane if her relationship with Declan was garnering more media time than any shooting with a body count below five.

"You probably want to see how Roger is doing," Melanie suggested. "And I need to find Declan."

"Of course, sweetheart. I love you."

"I love you too, mom."

Melanie hung up before she could break down in tears. Almost two decades had past since the last time she had wanted to climb onto her mother's lap and cry her heart out. It wasn't that she hadn't suffered childhood heartbreaks in the intervening years, but she had learned how hard it was for her mom to give herself over like that. Instead, her father had filled that role until his death.

Now, with Roger in the picture, Nancy oozed motherly comfort and Melanie was too damned far away to take advantage in the sudden change in her mother's behavior.

"Stop the pity party," she growled.

Standing up, she shoved the phone in her pocket, refusing to open her browser and look at any of the coverage. Just as the assault claims had mainly targeted Declan, she had a feeling that this attack was aimed mostly at him. She needed to find him, needed to know if he had already read the articles and, if so, how he was holding up.

After another quick brace of cold water against her face, she dried off and left the bathroom in search of Declan. A quick walk through the rooms they commonly used on the second floor proved fruitless. She checked each of the first floor rooms, including her sewing room, the garage and even the float tank, then the basement with its screening room, then she peered out every window that showed a scrap of the walled in yard before dashing over to the guest house and finding it empty, too.

Returning to the main house, she walked around each level once more, calling his name before giving up and returning to their bedroom. Sinking onto the floor next to the bed, Melanie wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her head on her knees.

There was no getting around it. Declan had read the coverage and was hiding from her. Remembering her question on whether there were more concealed doorways after the first time he had revealed the bathroom near the float tank, it frustrated her that he had responded with a wink and nothing else. Her new sewing office had been one of those winked at rooms with a concealed doorway. Now he was off in another one and she didn't know how to find it or whether she had the right to intrude even if they had proclaimed their love to one another.

The urge to cry pinched at her eyes and nose. She rubbed it away, uncertain whether it was frustration or sadness fueling the need to unleash. She didn't even know why he was hiding. Nancy had said they were dredging stuff up about Declan's mother, but was that really a reason to hide himself away?

Her mouth pinched again. She had long sensed, even before their affair began, that his childhood was painful. There was too little mention of his time before Hollywood in his official biography. He also seemed to deflect the innocent attempts she had made to learn more. And he never invited her to talk about her childhood, like she imagined lovers usually did.

When she talked about it any anyway, he always seemed to steer the conversation in a new direction, or distract her from talking all together.

All she really knew about Declan was the Hollywood version, a few months on set and the month or less they'd spent together in his house -- under his control.

Melanie drew a long breath and released it slowly, then a second one, followed by another until she felt like she was thinking clearly for the first time in weeks. Slowly, she stood up, blood returning to her legs and making her feel a little dizzy for a few seconds.

Recovering her balance, she went into the princess suite Declan had first put her in. She had yet to spend a night in its bed, but it had become home to her laptop. Using her tablet for most of her art work, she had only turned the computer on a few times. The ease of the keyboard made it too tempting to search out all the horrible comments floating around the internet.

After weeks of avoiding those comments, she desperately needed to know what was being said. As much as she wanted to know, she was slow in extracting the computer from its bag, slow to turn it on and even slower to open the browser.

Her cheeks flushed with the realization she was giving Declan time to come out of hiding or, better yet, to come back from an unannounced walk someplace with no idea the wolf had returned to their door. As far fetched as it was, the latter scenario was the one that made her fingers clumsy with hope along the keyboard as she opened the landing page for Celebrity Zone.

DECLAN BAIN DOING THE DIRTY WITH SISTER

Melanie stabbed at her touchpad to open the link, a growl vibrating her lips. The fuckers didn't even have the decency to add "step" to the headline. It took Corbin Dash until the end of the third paragraph to reference that her mother was married to Declan's father, but the lack of clarification by appending "step" to anything or mentioning that the marriage had occurred within the last few months had all the morons in the comments section screaming "incest!" That was the mildest admonition. There were accusations hiding as questions, such as how young Melanie had been the first time he "kiddie diddled" her and whether he had really blackmailed Strake but carefully used language from the movie's original script to do it.

All followed by the inevitable suggestion that he or Melanie or both of them do the world a favor and die.

Collapsing the comments section, she saw another stomach turning headline.

DECLAN BAIN'S HISTORY OF TWISTED RELATIONSHIPS

Her finger hovered over her touchpad until there was just a little too much pressure and the page opened. Closing her eyes, she shook her head. Declan wasn't ready to tell her about this part of his life -- and she would find nothing but lies, exaggerations or facts offered out of context.

She knew that.

But he could have avoided someone else telling his story to her, could have avoided her first exposure being filled with lies and hyperbole and twisted facts that could never be called the truth. All he had to do was trust her and open up -- just a little.

But he hadn't.

Covering her face with her hands, Melanie breathed against her palms. The little trick of reflecting warm air back on her skin once again working to involuntarily relax the muscles pinched achingly tight for too long.

Dropping her hands to the keyboard, she opened her eyes and began to read.