Protection: A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance (9 page)

Connor snorts, looking annoyed.

“It’s my job,” he reminds me.

“Yeah, but only because I’m like… well, who I am.”

He looks like he’s going to say more, then he just shakes his head.

“I assure you, I can take care of myself. Both of us, actually.” He pauses, then sighs. “Good night, Elly.”

The arm goes over his eyes again. I stare at him for a second, at the position he’s lying in.

Is that how he slept in uncomfortable places when he was in the Navy?
I wonder.

I turn over and close my eyes, trying to get comfortable enough to sleep. My mind whirls a million miles an hour, it feels like. I can’t fall asleep, can’t fall asleep…

I must have, though, because I wake with a startled shout. My hands fly up to my throat, where I can still feel my stalker’s hands… in my dream.

It’s dark; Connor must have turned off the light at some point.

I tremble, my face crumpling. I’m embarrassed, but the leftover terror from the dream makes me cry. And not subtly, either; the big red-faced, gasping sobs kind of crying.

Ugly crying
, mom used to call it. Kind of a joke, kind of not.

“Hey, hey,” Connor says. He sits on the bed next to me, pulling me close. “Is it because it’s dark?”

“No,” I whimper, flinging my arms around him and pressing my wet cheeks against his bare chest. He must have taken his shirt off after I fell asleep.
Maybe that’s why he turned the light off?

“Elly…” he says, his voice strained. “What can I do, honey? Please don’t cry.”

I sniffle for a moment, feeling utterly ashamed of myself.

“I don’t want to feel alone right now,” I whine, my voice breaking. “Will… will you sleep next to me?”

He hesitates for the barest second. I hold my breath, trying to calm my stupid pointless tears.

“Yeah. Sure I will, Elly,” he says. “Just lie down, okay?”

I let out a little sigh and scoot over on the bed, lying down facing away from him. I’m too embarrassed to actually look at him.

He lies down next to me, on top of the covers.

“Is this alright?” he asks.

It occurs to me that I’ve never heard Connor Gray sound so unsure of himself.

“Um.” I figure I might as well go for the whole hog, since I’m bound to regret all of this later. Connor and I have a kind of chemistry that’ll make
sure
of that. “Will you just… put your arm around me? Until I fall asleep?”

Another pause, then Connor rolls over. His big, warm body presses up against mine and I shiver.

It’s
too
good, this feeling. It’s definitely wrong on several levels… but I’m gonna do it anyway.

I look down at his arm when he wraps it around me, trace the words
ALL IN - ALL THE TIME
with a fingertip.

“Is this a Navy thing?” I ask him. “A SEALs thing?”

“Mmmhm,” is all he says.

“It suits you.”

He’s quiet for a moment, maybe thoughtful, I can’t tell.

“It would suit you too, Elly.”

My lips quirk up at that.

“Thanks,” I whisper.

I swear I feel Connor’s lips touch the back of my head, but it’s over too quickly for me to be sure. In the dark, in Connor’s arms, it doesn’t take long for my fear to slide away. My eyelids grow heavy, my brain sort of goes fuzzy and happy, and then it’s just black.

My last thought is,
I wish like hell that Connor would still be here with me in the morning.

But I know he won’t.

W
hen I wake up sprawled
on my back with Elly wrapped around my body, clinging to me, I have to suppress a groan. I’m hard as fuck, and it’s not morning wood. It’s the fact that the smell of her shampoo has been in my head all night, the way her soft breasts are pressed against my side, the way her head is nuzzled against my shoulder.

Fuck. It’s a lot worse than I thought. I don’t just want to fuck her anymore, I want… this.

Needless to say, I extract myself from her immediately. I can’t get out of that bed fast enough, trying so so hard not to wake her up as I roll her off me. It’s like a funny reverse of the dozens of times I’ve snuck out of a woman’s bed in the early hours of the morning; usually I’m trying to escape because she’s not as cute as the whisky was telling me the night before, or I get the idea that she’s going to catch feelings.

This is the opposite. I have to get the fuck away from Elly, because I
like
her. As a person, not just her amazing tits or the potential for a nice fuck. That is… not acceptable.

I throw myself into an ice-cold shower, listing all the reasons I can’t fuck her or think about her like that.

One: she’s your boss.

Two: she’s your future stepsister. Gross.

Three: she’s fucking famous, and you’re… not.

Four: you don’t do relationships, asshole.

Five: she deserves a hell of a lot more than you.

And still I can’t stop myself from turning the water temperature up until it’s steaming and hot, wrapping my hand around my cock, and muffling my own groans as I stroke myself.

The whole time, thinking about what Elly’s tits would look like while she rides me, thinking about her taste when I bury my mouth between her thighs, thinking about the sound she makes when she’s about to come.

That does it, the release ripping straight up from my balls and hitting me so hard that I almost topple over in the shower, trying not to make any noise.

Fuck
. Then,
this is really, really bad
.

When I get out of the shower, filled with shame, I wrap a towel around my waist and sneak out to dress. Never in my life have I been so glad not to wake someone up.

Naturally, I avoid Elly for the rest of the day. I roust Bill for a round of guard duty, posting him at the door to my hotel room, and then I get the fuck out of there.

It’s just that I have a lot to do, dealing with last night’s aftermath.

Yeah, or I’m just a total fucking coward who can’t seem to control his dick or his emotions. One of those two things.

I don’t see her again for the rest of the day, mostly by design but a little by luck.

I do get a very interesting call from the police. They’ve positively identified Elly’s stalker from his fingerprints on the floral card, the wrapper the flowers came in, and from security footage. I pull Karen in to go through the file I got from a friend in the NYPD.

“Greg Dahl,” I read off, handing her a stack of arrest photos. “Damn, he’s got a New York state rap sheet as long as my fucking arm. Assault, assault, violating a restraining order, assault with a deadly weapon, repeated parole violations for one of his assault cases… Looks like Elly isn’t the first one he’s stalked, and he’s prone to violence.”

“Damn. That’s not really what I wanted to hear.” Karen shakes her head. “I guess we’d know if they’d had any luck picking him up at prior addresses.”

“Yeah, my friend in the police department has promised that we’re the first call they make if they catch wind of him.”

We both look at each other; this situation is snowballing out of our control, and fast. I spend the rest of the day trying to think through the most likely scenarios in case of attack, flipping through Dahl’s file and trying to get into his head.

It’s not pretty.

When I finally see Elly later that night, it’s from afar as she warms up for her show that night. We’re at the Harris Bradley Center, this giant fucking place that’s soon going to be packed to the gills with screaming fans.

AKA thousands of security threats
, I think.

At least some of the staff are moving the salvageable part of Elly’s stuff to a new hotel, one I’ve picked out because I think it’s got much better security. We’ll move a few essential personnel over there and let everyone else stay at the original place. From here on out, Elly’s not staying with the rest of the crew. It’s like having a big flashing sign hung outside that says,
Here I am, stalker!

I stride across the stage as Elly does her sound check, exploring every nuance of the stage and the area to each side. There’s a whole crew that does the actual concert security, making sure fans don’t leap up onstage or whip water bottles at Elly while she’s performing; I’m more concerned with the fact that there are about a thousand hiding places where Elly’s stalker could be holed away.

No matter how well we clear the area before the concert, this venue is just riddled with chances for someone to lie in wait. It takes the entire sound check for me to lock the place down. I borrow a few of the roadies that I know passably and ask them to each watch a hallway or access area; everyone on the tour knows by now that some serious shit is going down with Greg Dahl, so we’re all on high fucking alert.

No one can possibly be as paranoid as I am, though. I feel like I seriously failed Elly, letting that piece of human trash break in and invade what little privacy she’s got on tour. Every time I think about her missing panties, my blood boils with fucking
rage
.

A big part of me wants to run into Greg Dahl in a dark alley. A much smaller part of me fears it, because I know I will kill him.
I won’t even think twice
.

The crowd starts coming in, the stadium filling with people. I head back and check in with Karen, who’s watching Elly do some crazy leg-over-her-head stretches at a ballet barre offstage while she warms up her voice.

“Everything good?” Elly asks. At first, I don’t even realize she’s talking to me. She’s facing the other direction, her body contorted in an insane pretzel.

“Yeah,” I say after Karen gives me a weird look. “It’s good.”

“You seem a little… I don’t know,” Elly says, coming up to stand normally and face me. “Like keyed up or something?”

“Just alert.” The last thing she needs is me filling her head with all the nightmare scenarios that have been playing in mine all fucking day.

“Okay,” she says.

“I’m going to go to the other side of the stage before things get started,” Karen says. “I thought if we switched up our normal routine, it might give us fresh eyes.”

I give Karen a questioning glance, but her expression is blank.

“Fine,” I say.

Karen heads off through the back of the stage. Elly shrugs at me and then walks behind the little changing curtain that’s set up in the wings on each side of the stage, for her multiple changes of costume during the set. I can hear her hopping around, getting herself into whatever costume she’s starting the night in.

When she walks out, I’m staring out into the crowd, not really paying attention.

“What do you think?” she asks.

I turn, and the breath bleeds from my lungs. She’s in a skin-colored leotard, see through in far too many places. A handful of artfully placed feathers and shiny diamonds are basically the only thing keeping her from being completely naked.

She turns and whirls the long train of sequins and feathers that’s attached to the end, making the thing somewhat more like a dress, and it’s all I can do to not stamp my foot and refuse to let her out on stage.

“It’s new!” she says. “Gisella helped the wardrobe people design it.”

I try not to scowl.

“It’s nice,” I say.

“That’s it?” Elly says, sounding exasperated. “You can’t even compliment me in
this
?”

“It’s sexy, but… pretty revealing.”

“
Duh
.” She walks over to the mirror to fix her hair and check her lipstick.

“I’d rather you not wear stuff like that in front of thousands of people, but I don’t think you want to hear that.”

She shoots me an annoyed glance. Inside, I’m dying. Outside, I try to stay neutral.

I wish I could tell you how I really feel about that little number. I would like it better ripped to shreds, lying on my bedroom floor
.

“Let’s check out the crowd through the peep hole,” she says.

I follow her over to the one-way mirror that looks out into the arena, and we both scan the audience. Mostly young girls, Elly’s usual crowd. I’m always looking for male faces.
Well, looking for one in particular
.

“Hey, there’s my friend Anna!” Elly says, pointing into the front row. “I forgot that I gave her tickets. She’s got a twelve year old kid if you’d believe it…”

I freeze, picking out an all-too-familiar face in the crowd next to Elly’s friend.

“What?” she asks, tapping my arm. “Is it… him?”

I give myself a shake.

“No.”

“You recognize someone?” she asks, lifting up on her tiptoes to look.

“Unfortunately. Don’t worry about it.”

“No, tell me!” she insists. “Is there gossip? You know I love gossip.”

I rub the back of my neck, pushed way outside my comfort zone.

“Come on,” Elly says. “Distract me from my stalker thing.”

I grunt.

“That’s not fair.”

“I think you’d be the first one to say that life isn’t fair,” Elly says with a grin.

“Fine,” I sigh. “I had a shitty ex, and she’s here. She’s in the front row right next to your friend.”

Elly makes a weird squeak and presses her face to the mirror again.

“The blonde?” she asks.

“Yep.”

She gives me a skeptical glance. The two minute warning bell sounds, but Elly’s totally absorbed in creeping on my ex.

“You dated her?” she asks, glancing back at me. “She looks like a stripper, Connor.”

I don’t think I’m imagining the note of jealousy in her voice.

“Says the woman wearing lingerie in public. Besides, you blackmailed me into telling you in the first place,” I say. “Can you not make a thing of it, please?”

“Uhhh no,” Elly says with a snort. “I live for making a spectacle. Literally. And seriously, Connor. You can do a lot better than that chick. She has serious resting bitch face. She’s gonna wrinkle really young.”

I roll my eyes but don’t respond. Really I’m thinking,
I can do better than her, huh?

Then,
not gonna happen, asshole. You’re getting too fucking comfortable.

The final warning bell rings and Elly gives a little growl, turning and walking to her starting position at the side of the stage. A couple of her assistants check over her makeup and give her the bedazzled mic she uses every night.

The audience roars, the lights go crazy, and Elly pastes on a huge smile as she struts out onstage.

“Hello, Milwaukee!” she cries, barely audible over the sound of the cheering crowd.

She launches into her first song. I put in my earpieces; they protect me from getting hearing damage, plus they pipe in Elly’s voice at a very low volume. In case she has to give me some kind of signal during the show, mostly.

The danger I’m expecting never comes. The show goes off without a hitch, just Elly and her unbelievably excited fans. She slows things down near the end of the show, doing a quieter, unplugged version of one of her ballads.

During the song, she does something that almost makes me shit a fucking brick.

“Hey guys. I’m having such a good time with you tonight,” she murmurs into the mic. The crowd loves every bit of it, of course. “I feel such a connection with you, I’d really like you to know something special and personal about me. Something I don’t share with a lot of people.”

What the fuck is she on about? Please, please don’t get down into the audience.

Instead, she turns and points right at me, though I’m hidden from most of the audience’s view.

“Connor, could you come out here please?”

Uh… no the
fuck
I cannot.
I shake my head at her, not understanding what she’s trying to do.
Are you fucking crazy, showing off your security detail? Why not just tell Greg Dahl how best to find and hurt you?

“Connor, I can see you,” Elly says, a little louder. “Please come out here.”

Someone shoves me forward, and a few seconds later the stage lights are hot on my back. The second I walk out, people start cheering, which makes no fucking sense.

“Come on, come on,” Elly coaxes, beckoning. She walks over to meet me in the middle of the stage. Then she surprises me further by flinging herself into my arms with a flying leap, forcing me to catch her and scoop her up in my arms like a fairytale princess.

“What are you doing??” I growl in her ear.

Elly wraps her arms around my neck and plants a huge, deep kiss on my lips. No peck on the lips, but a forceful kiss with all the tongue in the world. In front of her fans, who are going
absolutely fucking ape shit
.

It might be the most confusing moment of my entire life.
Why is this happening? Why are they cheering?

“Put me down,” Elly whispers into my ear.

My brain has gone totally numb, and it’s all I can do to put her on her feet without dropping her on her ass.
She’d deserve it if I did, come to think of it.

“I’m going to get on with my song,” Elly says, though she’s almost drowned out by the wild screams of the audience. “And Connor’s going to go backstage. He’s shy, guys. I just wanted y’all to meet my
amazing
man. Say goodbye, Connor!”

I raise my hand, feeling weirdly flushed as the fans scream. I finally launch myself away from Elly, and then I can’t get off the fucking stage fast enough. When I’m safely in the wings again, I drop my hands to my knees and try not to dry heave.

“Nice job, Romeo,” Karen says, clapping me on the back. “Real smooth. Also, you’re on the wrong fucking side of the stage.”

“Fuck… off…” I say, shaking my head to clear the lingering panic.

“I’m gonna go around the back to the other side, give you some time to recover. Bravo again, though. Born for the stage,” she says, cackling as she leaves.