Redeemed Complete: A Military Stepbrother Romance (17 page)

I didn’t much feel like going out by myself, so I guessed that it was time to do some reading. I headed up to my room and got out the small stack of trashy romance novels I brought with me, and randomly chose one to read first.

The one I’d chosen was about a reclusive but gorgeous alpha male billionaire, and is torrid love affair with the new curator at one of his many art galleries. I came downstairs and found a comfy chair in the living room, making sure I had snacks and water close by.

Time to enjoy myself, free from the distractions of the rest of my family.

Most notably free from Harrison.

The book started out as expected, with the young curator absentmindedly knocking over the reclusive alpha male billionaire as he Peru’s his new acquisitions on her first day at the gallery. I smiled to myself, knowing that these stories were the same every time, but loving them no matter what.

The billionaire, obviously intrigued by his new employee, began to spend more and more time at the gallery, when he probably should be spending time managing his huge and varied financial empire. The curator, of course, was swept up in the romance and excitement of being around all those wealthy people.

Must be nice.

The book took a turn towards the sexy very quickly, with the billionaire and the curator finding themselves in increasingly tight and sexually charged situations, until he could keep his passion for her in check no longer, and they spent the next 60 pages pressed up against every surface they could find having vigorous and amazing sex.

They made it sound almost easy. How come I didn’t know any billionaires who wanted me to work at their art galleries? After all this time in New York City, my list of sexy billionaires falling in love with me was suspiciously short.

Who could I speak to about correcting this obvious error?

“Laurel?” Came my shouted name from elsewhere in the house. ”Are you home?”

Harrison.

Shit.

It was just the two of us at home now.

Awkward!

Pit in my stomach rose immediately, and I felt my face and body flushing all over. Just the sound of his voice was enough to set me on edge, I couldn’t even see him yet, but I was already warming up.

Keep it under control, Laurel. Don’t let him know just how much he turns you on. Nothing good could come of that, with any man, especially a man like Harrison. He would do things with that knowledge that would leave me sobbing in a heap if I didn’t take care of myself.

I should probably answer the. It was impolite of me to stay silent when he was calling out my name. What should I say? How should I act around him?

Ugh, I couldn’t figure any of this out in the moment, and I had no idea what to do.

“Hey! There you are! How come you didn’t answer me?”

I looked up, my eyes bugging out, shocked at how quickly Harrison appeared in front of me. “Hey! Uh, sorry, I was lost in my own thing.”

Harrison stood with his hands on his waist. He wore a skintight navy blue athletic shirt that showed off all his muscles; colorful wisps of his tattoos poked out from beneath the sleeves and neck hole. His powerful legs, rippled with strength, emerged from his tight shorts.

I nearly gasped my way out of my chair, breathing in so hard.

It should be illegal to look so sexy.

I had no idea what to say, or even what words were in that moment. “You, uh…look good.” I was just babbling at this point.

How could Harrison have this effect on me? How come I couldn’t speak around him?

He looked down at himself. “Really? I’m covered in sweat, and I look good?” He frowned.

“Uh…yeah?” I didn’t know where this was going, but I set aside my book, and took another long look at him.

Finally, Harrison grinned. “You’re so weird. I will never understand girls.” He run one hand over his head across his cropped black hair, while the other one slipped into his pocket and took out his keys, setting them in the pottery dish on the side table next to him.

I couldn’t keep my laughter in at that. “You? Of any man on Earth, I suspect you understand women.”

His hands went back to his waist; he cocked his head to the side. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“…Never mind!” I could tell my face had invented new shades of red to turn.

He shook his head, that grin coming back. “How was the party?”

I exhaled. Whew, looks like I made it through without completely embarrassing myself. “It was good, Maggie loved it.”

“That’s great to hear, I’m glad she’s doing well.”

“Yeah.” I lurched up, shakily at first, feeling weird being the only one sitting. I tried to busy myself moving things around, picking up and setting my book down on the end table, moving my cup of tea. Anything not to stare at Harrison’s chiseled body with those clothes hugging him so tightly.

It didn’t work.

“Was it just the two of you?”

“Oh, uh, no, it wasn’t, of course. There were a few other girls there, girls from high school.”

“Oh,” was all Harrison said as he turned his head away from me and focused on something new and exciting on the wall or table nearby, I couldn’t tell which.

“What’re your plans today?”

He turned back to me, evidently losing interest in whatever he was looking at before. “Today? Today’s well over half over, Laurel.” That grin could start fires. I knew from experience.

Every girl in high school knew from experience.

I gave him a look that tried to ignore how much I loved to see him smile at me like that. It was cocky and ever so slightly condescending. I hated that I liked it, but that didn’t change anything. “Well, yeah, I know that. I meant, the rest of the day. Geez.”

He looked down at his sweaty body, the skintight gear soaking. “Well, I have the exercise part taken care of. I saw they’ll be out till tomorrow.”

“Yeah…” I trailed off, not sure what he was implying, if anything. I wondered if he thought I’d be out of the house, at Maggie’s party, till later. Maybe he wanted to have the house all to himself?

Was he going to, uh, take care of himself, after whatever exercise he’d done? Or…was he bringing a girl back here? I could feel myself cloud over as I considered it. I mean, after all we’d done last night, which to be fair, wasn’t very much…Harrison would bring a girl here?

The nerve.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. I’d gone almost the whole time I was here wondering if people could change, could become better than they were before. Maybe that was totally nuts and people didn’t change.

We just became a little closer to what we really were all along. That was starting to make more sense by the minute.

“Well?” Those strong hands, back on those strong hips. It was weird, feeling this welling up of anger and resentment toward Harrison while trying to avoid focusing entirely too much on his ripped muscles.

Wasn’t there some study that said that women were more attracted to men after the men had worked out, and were covered in sweat?

Because right now I felt like I was in the lab that produced that study. Holy hell, I could barely think of anything else, and forming words felt like something my body was no longer familiar with.

How did my stepbrother have this effect on me? Why did I let him do this to me?

Play it cool, Laurel. As cool as can be. Cool as…cucumbers.

Shit. I was a goner.

No hope here.

“I, uh, don’t have any plans yet. Maggie’s got family stuff.” I left that hanging. Harrison knew full well that I didn’t really have any other friends in Summitville besides Maggie. I’d spent years here but never really made any others. Up until now that had never seemed weird.

I didn’t really feel like going out alone and sitting at a bar, and honestly there wasn’t much else to do here besides that. So, I guess my schedule was wide open tonight, and if Maggie was busy with work and school and getting ready to, you know, be an adult and a mom and stuff, my schedule was gonna be wide open till I left town.

Which was looking more and more appealing by the hour.

Of course, though, I wanted to spend more time with Harrison, just the two of us. Even if just to get those hands on me again. But I couldn’t just come out and say that, and nor could I really figure out what was going through his head.

The old Harrison, well, actually, the Harrison I knew, maybe this one was one and the same, would have no trouble fooling around with one girl on a random night and seeing another one or two the next day.

No trouble at all. I’d seen it with my own eyes too many times to count.

“What’re your plans?” I couldn’t avoid his gaze any longer and forced my eyes to meet his. Ugh. Somehow his beauty had gotten even more rugged yet more radiant in his time overseas. My stepbrother had always been a good looking boy. Now he was a staggeringly, heartbreakingly, good looking man.

Which made him teasing me like this way more difficult to deal with. Clearly we weren’t talking about what happened last night.

“I don’t have anything yet. Wanna do something?”

The way he put that was just so casual, I almost couldn’t stand it. What did that mean, do something? Did he want to hang out and watch a movie? Grab a burger? Have more hot sex?

Nothing in the way he spoke or looked told me anything! Argh, Harrison was so frustrating. Why did guys have to be like this all the time?

What else could I do, though? I could stay here and read a book, but really spend all my time thinking about Harrison, or I could suck it up and actually spend time with him and see where it went.

One path promised to be fraught with drama and self doubt. The other…might end up without clothes on? That settled it for sure.

“Yeah. Something sounds good.”

“Got anything in mind?” Harrison turned it right back around on me. I hated that, putting me on the spot all the time.

“Nope.”

“We’ll figure it out. At least let’s get out of the house.”

Hmmm, that meant he probably didn’t want a repeat of last night. Was he regretting what we did? I mean, it wasn’t much, but if he’d changed his mind about us already…

Us.

That word again. Two little letters, one big meaning. I mean, if I was honest with myself, there was no Us yet. All we’d done was a little fooling around after a traumatic night. But Harrison had said some things, somethings he couldn’t take back.

But now it looked like, or seemed like, he wanted to.

That was gonna be a bitter pill to swallow indeed.

At this point, though, the only thing I could do was now with it and see where we ended up. “OK, yeah.” I stood up, brushing myself off and hoping I still looked good after an hour of lounging about and staying out of sight. “Let me just freshen up a bit and we can go somewhere?”

Harrison looked me up and down, sucking in a deep breath. Ugh. Looking at him wasn’t fair; it was like cheating at the game of…whatever you wanted to call this game we were playing, I couldn’t figure it out anymore, and I was already tired of trying.

Harrison could wear me out with a look.

“You look fine, but I could probably use a quick shower myself.”
 

I found myself staring at his chest again. I took a deep breath, shaking my head. “Yeah, sounds good. How about we leave in 30 minutes?”

“Perfect. See you then.” Harrison turned and walked away, out of the room and toward the hallway, heading upstairs. I watched him go, admiring every long muscle in his body as he retreated.
 

You know what they say, “I hate to see you go, but I love to watch you leave?” That was Harrison in spades. The trails of his sweat running down his strong and broad back made my mouth water.

It really was unfair.

“Oh yeah,” Harrison called out. As quickly as I could I shifted my gaze back toward his eyes, knowing I’d been caught. Harrison stood on the stair case looking at me. “Dress warm. There’s a path we can walk that looks beautiful in the winter.”

“Got it.” I smiled. Harrison continued up the stairs and I waited before starting after him. As much as I wanted to see him peel off that second skin of a shirt, I simply didn’t know how to act around him and couldn’t trust myself at this point.

When I’d waited what I thought was enough time, I made my way upstairs, taking each step tentatively at first, straining my ears to hear above the creaking stairs of the older house. Our parents had had some work done on the place over the years, but it was still clear after a few minutes that the house was old and felt lived in.

The sounds beneath my feet made it clear I was coming up the stairs, so Harrison would have time to get out of the way.

Or to show off to me; whatever he wanted. Despite thoughts of his sexy body running through my head I couldn’t tell which I wanted more. All of a sudden he made me so nervous.

When I reached the top of the stairs I looked around, back and forth, making sure the coast was clear. Nothing from either side.

Emboldened, I walked to the door to my room. I stopped before entering, holding my breath, one hand on the doorknob, not exhaling till I heard the sound of Harrison making noises in his room behind me.

Whew.
 

Once I was in my room, I shut the door behind me and leaned against it, breathing heavily. I hated how strong Harrison resonated within me, good and bad. When he was around I wanted him to touch me just as much as I wanted him to go away so I could feel normal again.

I looked in my closet for something to wear - luckily finding warm clothing for being outside the winter was much easier than finding a dress for a family dinner. Within a couple minutes I’d found something that would keep me from freezing to death.

Unfortunately that meant it wasn’t exactly the most shapely thing in the world. I couldn’t really show anything off to Harrison if I wanted to stay alive and functional.

The eternal conflict of women’s fashion!

It seemed, though, that Harrison wasn’t interested in picking up where we left off last night. If he had been, why would he be taking me somewhere outdoors? Did he pick up some sort of public sex fetish in the military?

Maybe that was it. Would I be OK with that?