Forbidden: Ultimate Stepbrother Collection (21 page)

Chapter 3

Tommy

The intercom woke me from a deep sleep. There was a long leg draped across my chest, and Rose, the other half of my birthday gift, had her very delectable ass still pushed securely against me. My automatic blinds were programmed to open an inch at a time as the sun broke so I could slowly be bathed in sunshine. From the amount of light in the room, my guests and I had slept through the first three inches. Max had paid for two hours, but we’d gone straight into the night with our fun. They had seemed as reluctant to leave as I was to part with them.

I reached up to the intercom panel next to my bed. “Yeah?”

“Yeah?” Nana repeated. “Is that any way to address your grandmother? I’m coming up, and thought I’d give you a warning so you and whoever else you might have up there can get decent.”

“Good thinking, Nana.”

I woke Violet with a kiss on her dark pink nipple, because it just so happened to be winking up at me from my bed. Rose opened her eyes and blinked at me as if I was a complete stranger which, aside from spending half the night with my cock buried in her, I technically was.

“That’s my grandmother, and she’s coming up.”

The word grandmother prodded them along much faster. I went to pull some money from my wallet, but Violet rubbed up against me and put her hand on my wrist. “Your friend paid us, and the rest is our birthday treat.” She winked. “We’ll be sure to leave our hotline number. It’s strictly for special clients.”

“Special, huh? I like that.” I kissed her cheek and went to my walk-in closet. I grabbed up a pair of jeans and shirt. The girls shimmied into shorts and t-shirts. I whistled. “You two look good all dressed up like that.”

Violet laughed as she stuck the toys in her trunk. The familiar beep of the elevator sounded in the hallway.

“The handcuffs,” I reminded them and went to the front door to let Nana inside.

Nana had added dark purple highlights to her shiny black hair. With bright red lipstick and glitter rimmed glasses, she looked nothing like a regular grandma. Thank god. Loved her to death because of it. A regular old grandma would also not walk straight over and introduce herself to the two high-dollar hookers walking out of her grandson’s bedroom.

The giant white beads of her bracelet clunked together as she reached out her small, slightly wrinkled hand. “Good morning, I’m Maggie, Tommy’s grandmother.”

Violet’s blue eyes rounded as she shot me a shocked look. Rose, who I’d already discovered was the more laid back, no nonsense twin, took my grandmother’s hand. “I’m Rose and this is Violet.”

“Very nice to meet you,” Nana said. She pointed to the trunk. “Would you like us to call the concierge to help you with that?”

“Nana, they’re fine.” I walked to the door and opened it. Violet and Rose waved as they walked out and headed to the elevator.

I shut the door. Nana lifted her smoothly penciled in brow. “Good god, Tommy, two? And twins, no less.”

“This coming from the woman who spent her early twenties as a big proponent of the peace and free love movement, and who conceived my father out in some field at Woodstock while Jimi Hendrix was pounding out Purple Haze on his guitar.”

“That was different. We were making a statement.”

“Like what— life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness through a cloud of weed and free sex?”

“Shut up and let me hug my favorite grandson for his birthday.” Nana lifted her arms and wrapped them tightly around me. She always smelled of jasmine and vanilla. It was a fragrance that always made me homesick. My great grandfather, Nana’s dad, had been dirt poor while Nana was growing up. Then he’d purchased a giant piece of seemingly worthless land in Texas, with dreams to start a ranch. It’d yielded oil instead, and the Hawkson family fortune was made. But Nana had never really embraced the posh lifestyle of an oil baron’s daughter. In her twenties, she’d gone off on her own, hitchhiking around the country and hanging with a lot of other twenty-somethings who shunned the
establishment
. But once she’d learned she was pregnant with my dad, she headed back home. She said, as fun as it was, she knew the back of a V.W. van was no place to raise a kid.

Nana dropped her arms. “Tommy, get your grandmother some coffee.”

We walked into the kitchen. The pot had been set to brew at eight in the morning. It was ten, but it was still warm.

Nana hoisted herself up onto a stool. “Where did you meet the two rainbow girls?” she asked.

I poured us each a cup of coffee. “They were a birthday gift from Max. So don’t go getting your little matchmaker notebook out.”

“Tommy, I’m not some feeble old fool. I knew they were hookers.”

I picked up her hand and kissed it. “I never think of you as old or feeble, Nana.”

She poured creamer into her cup. Her big glass rings glittered under the recessed lighting in the kitchen. “Besides, I don’t use a matchmaker notebook. That’s too old fashioned and not nearly secretive enough. I have to be stealthy with my two grandsons. Neither of whom have found soul mates yet.” She sighed. “I blame your father for that. He had way too many different women in his life.”

“Don’t think you can put the blame on Dad. Kenny just hasn’t found any woman who can tolerate his supremely obnoxious personality, and I haven’t been looking.”

She rested her arm on the counter, and her jewelry clunked loudly on the granite. “I worry about Kenny.” She leaned forward as if there was someone around who could overhear her. “I had Louie, the chef, sneak some bran into Kenny’s meals. But he still always has that pinch-faced look like he’s carrying a load he just can’t drop.”

I laughed. “Nana, Kenny has had that look since the day he was born. A little bran isn’t going to nudge him into suddenly being charismatic.”

She reached over and placed her hand on my arm. “Not like my youngest grandson, who, I might add, took completely after me.” She looked around my place. “And he made his money all on his own.” She reached up to my face for the perfunctory Nana cheek pinch.

I sipped my coffee and looked at her over the brim of my cup. The sparkle in her eyes told me the woman was up to something. “What exactly did you mean when you said you had matchmaker secrets?”

“Hmm, did I say that?” She looked away, which meant she was hiding something.

“Yes, I believe you did.”

Her array of oversized bracelets vibrated as she waved her hand in dismissal. “You should never listen to the ramblings of an old, feeble hippie. Between the mushrooms and the LSD, I’m surprised any rational thoughts ever come out of my head.”

I stared at her. “Nana?”

She sipped more coffee. “Really, Tommy. You’re imagining things.” She put the coffee mug down harder than needed. “Anyhow, I came to tell you about your birthday gift.” She pointed to the door. “And I’m sorry to disappoint you, but it’s nothing like Max’s unique but tawdry gesture of friendship. As you know, I had the yacht pulled out of mothballs for my trip to the Caribbean.”

“Mothballs? The Sea Queen just went through a half million dollar renovation. I hope they did more than take out some smelly mothballs.”

She smiled. “It’s truly beautiful. But, alas, I’ve had some things come up, and I’ll have to delay my trip.”

“Things came up?” I repeated.

She brushed my question off again. Nana was expert at only answering questions she felt like responding to. “Anyhow, I’ve got a crew lined up for the two week excursion. It’s too late to cancel their contracts, so I have to pay them anyhow. You should go. Take some friends and go have a ball on Nana’s dime.”

“I’ve got work, Nana.”

“Everyone needs a vacation. Two weeks in the Caribbean Sea, Tommy. Otherwise, I’ll offer it to your brother. But he and his uptight, loafer wearing friends aren’t the right passengers for the Sea Queen’s maiden voyage after her major plastic surgery.” She reached over and patted my arm. “You look tired, sweetheart. You should take a vacation.”

“Now, how am I supposed to say no when you look at me with those big brown eyes, Nana? I’ll go. It’ll be nice to get away. Work’s been sort of grinding me down lately.”

“Terrific.”

Chapter 4

Dani

The best thing about Axel’s newfound fame was that he and his band, a loud, semi-rank smelling foursome with an aversion to picking up empty beer cans and pizza boxes, were making enough money to find a studio to work, compose and practice in.

I packed for the job on the Caribbean and then headed over to the studio to eat takeout food, share some good news about a job offer and listen to their newest song. Axel and I had both been so busy, we’d hardly seen each other in the past week. I’d found that I was all right with that. It gave both of us some much needed space. It had also given me time to reflect. The hitch in our relationship was all me. I was sure of it. I’d been completely crazy about Axel, the scruffy looking guitarist in the garage band. But there was something inherently less romantic about a band in a recording studio than a band standing between old boxes marked Christmas decorations and baby clothes. It was just the new circumstances that had me thrown off. I was sure my heart would come around again. Eventually, I’d find Axel just as appealing standing up on a big stage with dramatic lighting as I had seeing him beneath the single dusty light bulb in his mom’s garage.

I walked into their new studio. In an earlier life, it had been a big warehouse for storing paper goods. The guys were draped around on an eclectic collection of furniture, eating Chinese food from white boxes. Two girls had joined them. One was the drummer’s girlfriend, a woman I’d never warmed up to. I didn’t know the other one, but she was certainly gorgeous. She was dressed in a skirt and a t-shirt that were both several sizes too small.

She was just handing Axel a soda as I stepped into view. He cut his enthusiastic smile for her short and jumped up from the chair, almost as if I’d caught him doing something more than taking a soda from her hand.

“Hey, baby, come on in and get some chow.” Axel walked over and kissed me quickly on the forehead.

I sat down on one of the beach chairs that was propped up next to a coffee table made of ceramic tile. Blake, the drummer, handed me a box of food and a pair of chopsticks. The gorgeous girl in the tiny clothes sat just inches away from Axel.

I reached my hand across to her. “Hi, I’m Dani.” I decided not to tell her my connection. I was curious to see if Axel had told her anything about his engagement.

“Oh right, I’ve heard all about you,” she said with a nice smile.

That, unfortunately didn’t tell me much.

“Love that little band of stars on your wrist,” she said pointing to her own wrist. That was when I noticed that she, too, had a tattoo on the side of her arm. The name of the band, Steel Wire, was handwritten in black ink. I was hoping I’d misread it.

I glanced at Axel, but he had turned a ridiculous amount of attention to his chow mein. He was avoiding eye contact. Never a good sign.

I looked back at the woman with my fiancé’s band name tattooed on her arm and wondered if I should just be relieved that it wasn’t on her inner thigh or across the top of her very large breasts.

“And you are—?” I asked.

She laughed. “Oops, I’m Britney. I’m the new band assistant.”

I looked at Axel and then around at the band members. Everyone had extremely interesting boxes of chow mein.

Axel finally put his balls back on and looked up at me. “We needed an assistant to do things like food runs.” He lifted his box of food as proof. “That way we don’t take time out of our practice.”

I blinked at him. He knew me well enough to understand that I was calling him ‘stupid ass’ without one word leaving my mouth.

I smiled pleasantly at Britney and mimicked her mention of my tattoo by pointing to my arm in the place where she had the band name. “Interesting tattoo.”

She lifted her arm and looked at it as if she’d forgotten it was there. “Isn’t that cool? I got it a couple months ago when I became Steel Wire’s number one fan. Started a blog and everything.”

“Wow, a blog and everything. Fun.” I lifted my shoulders to assure her I was just as giddy as her about it all. “Axel, could I see you alone for just a second?” I asked.

He put his food down. “Sure thing, baby,” he said coolly as if there was nothing shitty going on.

We walked to the small alcove at the end of the giant room. “So, are you fucking your new assistant?” Obviously, I wasn’t in the mood to tiptoe.

He put on a good show of looking aghast at my question. “No, baby. Why would I do that when my fiancé is the most beautiful woman in the world?”

“Spare me the bullshit, Axel. Just tell me the truth.”

He put his arms around me and brought me close. “It’s the truth. She scouted us out. She needed work, and we figured she’d come in handy. The band has got a lot of stuff going on, and it’ll be nice to have her to do some of our errands and shit. You’re going to have to get used to pretty girls hanging around. We’re a band, and a band always has groupies.”

“O.K. your little pep talk isn’t making me feel any better.”

He kissed me. “Just relax.”

I nodded. “By the way, remember that job I was trying to get at the Angel’s Heart Hospital? I got it.”

Big laughter rolled over from the center room. Axel gave me a quick, congratulatory hug. “That’s great, baby.” With that, he walked back to where everyone was sitting. Apparently, he didn’t want to miss any of the fun. And, apparently, big events in my life weren’t high on his interest list.

Chapter 5

Danica

Captain Yardley was the first person to greet me as I dragged my rolling luggage up the gangplank. Nana had hired a small crew for the two weeks, including a housekeeper, two deckhands, a chef, a chef’s assistant and me, her one woman medical team. Not that she needed much care for her health. Even after a stunning amount of experimentation with psychedelic drugs in her twenties, a time period that she loved to tell stories about, stories I loved to hear, Maggie was in great shape for a seventy-year-old woman.

The deckhand, Robert, a tall lanky guy who had to duck under all the galley doorways, showed me to my miniature infirmary. It was well supplied with bandages, antiseptics and pain medication. My room was right past the infirmary, a very cozy bedroom with its own bathroom and glittering shower stall and tub. There were three portholes on the wall behind the bed, and I had a nice but small view of the ocean. I’d told Maggie that she had to treat me like a member of the crew and give me a room near the infirmary. I didn’t want the others to chastise me for special treatment. Still, there would be plenty of off time for me to relax and enjoy myself. After all, I was technically family.

Robert knocked on the half open infirmary door. “Come on in, Robbie. You don’t need to knock. This place is for everyone.”

He opened up and nodded politely. “The passengers are boarding, and there was already an ankle twisting incident on the way up the gangplank.”

“Oh dear, is Mrs. Hawkson in a lot of pain?” I went to the refrigerator and pulled out an ice pack. I glanced around. “Is there a wheelchair somewhere?”

“I’ll check for you, Miss Richards.”

“Please, call me Dani. I’ll go see to Mrs. Hawkson. Please bring the wheelchair if you find one.”

“Yes, Miss—Dani, but just to let you know, Mrs. Hawkson is not onboard for this trip.”

I gathered up a few other things. “Of course she is.” I sidled past him to head up to the deck.

“No, she cancelled. It’s her grandson that will be on board. It’s one of his friends who twisted her ankle.”

I stopped and looked at him. “Her grandson? But why wouldn’t Maggie have told me the plans had changed?”

Robert, of course, wouldn’t have an answer to that question, and I felt silly for bothering him with it.

“Very well, I’ll go up and see what I can do for Mr. Hawkson’s friend.” I headed to the stairs with my supplies. Total disappointment. I’d be staying below deck more than I thought. Spending time in close quarters with Maggie’s snobbish, dull grandson, Kenneth, had just put a shadow over this whole trip. I’d left Axel feeling on very shaky ground about our engagement. I was sure there was no way their number one fan, Britney, was hanging around just to fetch mocha lattes. The whole thing had left me in a dark mood, but I’d had this wonderful trip to look forward to. I had been extremely excited to see Maggie again. This changed everything. And Kenneth, who had always hated how Mom and I had intruded on their lives, would be extra sure to make me feel like paid help. This whole trip had just turned south fast.

I walked up onto the deck. A woman with long auburn hair and showgirl caliber legs was standing staring down, with some boredom, at a woman sitting on the deck. A man with dark brown hair was bent down over the woman on the deck. The injured woman had curly blonde hair that looked a bit too styled for being out on a boat. Both women looked as if they’d stepped right off the runway in France. Definitely not the type of women I’d picture hanging out with Kenneth. No, in fact, they were more the type of women I’d see on the arm of—

“Twiggy?” A deep voice came from behind.

I spun around. “Tommy.”

He didn’t try to hide the fact that he was looking me over. “Holy shit, Twiggy, you aren’t that little stick of gum anymore.” His gaze lingered on my breasts. I’d gone through the first years of high school looking like a bean pole. Then, almost as if the boob fairy had come and touched me with her wand, my breasts had swelled up to a respectable C cup, and the curve in my hips followed.

I decided tit for tat. If he could brazenly check me out, I could do the same. And it was easy to do. Tommy had always been a complete and utter heartbreaker with his thick black hair and green eyes, but he’d filled out. He was no longer the teenage boy who I’d occasionally stolen glances at around the cereal box, or whose name I’d once absentmindedly doodled inside a heart on my school notebook, a doodle I’d spent an entire lunch period trying to scratch out with a black pen. Undeniably, I’d always had a crush on my older stepbrother, but that was all it had been. That was all it could be. He was, after all, my stepbrother. And now, from what I’d heard from Maggie, he was a complete and utter playboy who bounced from beautiful woman to beautiful woman without a care in the world. The kind of guy who was best to avoid.

“Hawke, are you going to bring that ice over here, or what?” a familiar voice called from behind. I turned back around. Max, Tommy’s best friend, lifted his sunglasses to get a better look at me. “Twiggy? Damn, you’re all grown up.”

“Yep, that adulthood thing seems to have happened to all of us.”

The girl on the ground complained about being ignored and rightly so. I walked over and crouched down to check out the ankle. A broken shoe, with what I would term as an extreme heel, was sitting next to her injured foot.

“Crystal, I told you not to wear those.” The other woman’s unhelpful comment rained down on my head as I examined the ankle for broken bones.

“Oh shut up, Olivia,” Crystal said in a wavering voice.

“Girls, girls,” Max said. “No fighting unless there is a vat of mud to go with it.”

The auburn haired woman, Olivia, I assumed, rolled her eyes at Max’s crass comment.

Max still had that same roguish, slightly annoying grin that he’d had as a teenager. Growing up, Max had always been at Tommy’s side, a sort of comical sidekick. They had been inseparable, and it seemed that hadn’t changed. Max had always insisted he stayed close to Tommy to provide comfort to the endless line of broken-hearted hotties that Tommy left behind. I used to kid him that he deserved sainthood for relieving the misery of so many. The three of us had spent a lot of time together laughing and making fun of each other. It wasn’t until after Mom and I had moved out that I’d realized we’d all had a nice connection.

I turned Crystal’s foot gently. “Does it hurt when I do that?”

She winced as if it pained her. “Only a little.” She glanced at my clothing. I’d worn a blue sleeveless shirt and khaki shorts onto the boat. The heat and humidity called for light clothing. “Who are you? You’re not dressed like a doctor.”

“Crystal, Olivia,” Tommy chimed in finally. “This is Dani, my stepsister. She’s also a nurse.”

“A nurse practitioner,” I corrected him.

He nodded to apologize for his mistake. The gleam in his green eyes brought back some of those old memories of us hanging out in front of the television throwing popcorn kernels at each other. And then there was the constant teasing, which came mostly from his end.

Crystal was still staring at me. “I thought your name was Twiggy?” Suddenly, I was more her focus than the pain in her ankle.

Max laughed. “We used to call her that because she was so damn skinny.” He raised a brow at my breasts. “I like what you’ve done with yourself, Twiggy.”

“I haven’t done anything, Max.”

“You mean those beauties are real?” he asked.

“Shit, Max, you filled out like a man, but you still have the brain of a sixteen-year-old.” I peered up at Tommy, and for a second, my breath caught as if I was looking at a complete stranger, a beautiful, breathtaking stranger. “Can you two guys lift her and get her to her room? She needs to keep the foot elevated and under ice for a day.” I turned back to the patient. “A few aspirin and you should be fine.”

Crystal looked at me as if she didn’t quite trust the casually dressed stranger with the big boobs that had been the center of conversation. “I hardly think a few aspirin will help.” Pasting on a pretty, helpless female face, she looked up at Tommy. “Sweetie, do you think you could help me into my bikini? At least then I can sit out on the deck and get some sun while my ankle heals.”

Tommy nodded. “I think I can manage that.”

Tommy and Max lifted Crystal. Olivia snapped her fingers for Robert to grab all their bags.

I cast a secret eye roll Robert’s direction.

Finger snapping, an annoying habit of the wealthy, entitled class. This was going to be a long two weeks.