Trick - A Stepbrother Romance (18 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

PATRICK

Four years later

“How’d you do? Tell me, tell me!”

Lucy stood by me as I checked my final course scores on my laptop. After I’d recovered from my surgery a few years ago, we’d both decided to attend college to study filmmaking, and one of our professors had just posted our final grades.

It had been a hell of a ride. I’d had to do coursework through correspondence when I went off to do the Keller-Nolan movie in Vancouver, and when the movie had become a blockbuster hit upon its release, things had been even more hectic. I’d somehow managed to find the time to study between movie premieres and interviews, with Lucy’s help, of course, and we’d both been doing really well at it.

She always joked around that she sold autographed photos of me to other students who loved my shows and movies to pay the bills, but obviously that wasn’t true. She’d continued to help Ron out at the studio while she studied, and she’d saved enough to put a deposit on our own apartment. She’d been so proud of it that I hadn’t had the heart to tell her I’d already bought a house for us in Brentwood for her birthday…but that could wait till another time.

Ron had made a full recovery, by the way. He was healthier than ever now that he had a new kidney, but he wasn’t working as much as he used to so he could spend more quality time with my Mom and Lucy. He and my Mom were totally fine with my relationship with Lucy – sure, it created some awkward moments at big family events, but overall, everyone in the family had accepted it in the end.

“B-plus for that class. Not bad,” I said, glancing up at her.

“That’s awesome!”

“What did you get?” I asked.

“Um, well now I feel bad,” she said, giving me a forlorn look.

“Why, because you got an A like you always do?” I asked with a grin, standing up and sweeping her into my arms.

She squealed. “Hey, put me down!”

“I’m never putting you down. Unless it’s down on that bed,” I said, nodding my head towards the bed before throwing her on it.

She squealed again and then skittered up to the head of the bed, her legs clamped firmly together.

“I don’t know who you think you are, Mister, but I have a boyfriend already,” she said. “He’s a bigshot Hollywood actor, and I’m pretty sure he could beat you up.”

I got on the bed and slowly crept towards her on my hands and knees before pouncing. “Is that so?” I murmured, my lips on her earlobe. “He sounds like a bit of a prick.”

“Oh, yeah, he’s a total prick,” she said. “He’s arrogant and loud and…”

I cut her off with a kiss, smacking my lips on hers. My cock stirred as she moaned into my mouth, and every other thought in my mind that wasn’t related to her immediately vanished. All I could think of was her warm, perfect body, her full lips, her bright eyes…Christ, she was the most perfect woman alive. I was so lucky to have her.

Four years ago, I would’ve never thought that we’d end up together after what had happened between us when we were teenagers, but it just goes to show that people can change, and forgiveness exists. We’d learned that forgiveness didn’t mean forgetting the past entirely, it meant creating a new one for ourselves.

Thankfully, the tabloids had also somewhat learned the meaning of forgiveness. We’d been off the hook for our allegedly sordid relationship for ages now, and no one even blinked an eyelid when they saw us strolling around in public together. I think they’d finally got it through their heads that Lucy and I weren’t related, and we hadn’t grown up with each other, so what we were doing wasn’t anywhere near as taboo and forbidden as they’d made it out to be.

Plus, it helped that another scandal had broken not long after ours, as awful as it was. Apparently my old costar Lexie Greyson had been having a torrid affair with a married movie producer, and she’d fallen pregnant to him. The fallout in the media from that had been shocking, but she actually seemed to have used the experience to grow. I’d run into her recently, and she’d been carrying around her now-three year old son, glowing with happiness and exuding motherly love.

I couldn’t wait to see Lucy with our future kids in her arms. Maybe I was jumping the gun a little bit. We were still young, and she’d said she was happy to wait to get married, seeing as were both so busy with our work and studies.

Little did she know she wouldn’t be waiting too much longer…

“Patrick…” she whispered breathlessly beneath me as I broke away from our kiss.

Her eyes were locked to mine, gazing at me intensely, and I leaned down and trailed kisses along her shoulders and collarbone as I pulled her flimsy wrap blouse off. My mind had already well and truly entered the lusty haze that shrouded my entire being whenever I thought about getting her naked, and I explored her beautiful curves with both hands as she helped me strip the rest of her clothes off along with mine. She did the same a moment later, running her hands all over my back and tracing my shoulder blades with her fingertips.

I needed to taste her again. Weaving my fingers into her hair, I gripped her and pulled her head upwards until our lips touched again, and I savored the sweet warmth of her mouth on mine as my tongue slid past her lips to entwine with hers. There was something about her taste; something that was uniquely hers. There wasn’t a single girl in the world who was anything like her.

Pressing against her, I forced my hips between her legs, and she moaned softly and writhed around as she felt my hardness pressing up against her.

“Patrick…” she said. “Please fuck me.”

She wanted it even more than I did. I chuckled softly before leaning in and kissing her again, roughly this time, claiming her with my mouth. Then I broke away, leaving her moaning with wanton need as I licked and nibbled along her jawline and neck. As I did so, one hand traveled to her tits, squeezing and rolling her nipples between my fingers. They were already rock hard with arousal, and she moaned in response, arching against me.

I wanted to fuck her brains out, but at the same time I wanted to go slow, teasing her and making her whimper with my sweet torture. My lips explored her collarbone again, kissing their way downwards onto her tits, and slowly but surely I took one nipple in my mouth, lashing my tongue over and around it. My heart raced with crazy anticipation while adrenaline coursed through me, and Lucy’s fingers dug into my head, holding me in place as I played with her tits.

My mouth moved further south a moment later, and I swirled my tongue around her bellybutton, teasing her. She knew exactly where I was headed, and she couldn’t wait.

“Please, Patrick,” she whimpered, arching against me again. “Do it.”

I flashed her a smirk and pushed her legs wider before hoisting them over my shoulders and gazing down at her beautiful pussy. Christ, she was perfect.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” I said before kissing her just above her clit, which made her squirm again.

Each touch built the anticipation even more, and soon I couldn’t hold out any longer. I wanted to devour her; every inch of her. I slid my tongue over her clit and lapped at it, softly and slowly at first, then faster as she began to breathe heavily. She groaned, and I licked her again. Rougher. Harder. I splayed my tongue flat and swiped it from her ass to her clit, and she cried out.

“Oh…God!”

There was no stopping her whimpers now, nor the thrashing of her hips as I lapped at her clit and entrance, gently sucking at her slippery core, and a deep sound rumbled from my chest as I breathed in her sweet scent. The vibrations from my mouth drove her even wilder, and I felt her thighs almost locking my head between her legs as she steadily approached orgasm.

I didn’t stop. I slid a finger inside her, curling it and rubbing at that sweet spot inside her as my tongue rolled over her clit, and Lucy tensed and let out another gasp as she finally gave into the wild waves of pleasure. Her legs shook on my shoulders as she came, and I looked up to see her eyes wide, darkening with a wild need for more.

I moved back up between her legs, pressing my weight against her, and she tilted her head forward, cupping my face in her hands and kissing me. With a gentle push a moment later, she made me lie on my back, our kiss unbroken. Fuck yeah. I loved it when she took control. She was the sexiest woman in the world, and I never wanted to look away. Ever.

Heat gathered in my groin as my cock somehow managed to stiffen even more, and she straddled me, stroking her slick pussy over me in a slow glide.

“Fuck, Lucy,” I groaned.

Reaching up, I fondled her tits again, tweaking her nipples between my thumb and forefinger. She curved into my touch and lifted her hips, and then she grabbed my cock and placed it at her entrance. Then she pressed down. Fuck. With every inch she moved, my cock throbbed even more, and she dug her nails into me, using my chest for leverage as she began to ride me.

As she threw her head back and gasped, I slid my hands to her waist to hold her steady. Her tight pussy massaged me to perfection as she bounced up and down, and all of a sudden I couldn’t wait any longer. I wanted to pin her to bed and fuck her harder than ever before, and with one quick movement she was on her back, moaning as I pumped into her, fast and deep.

“Fuck, you feel so good,” I growled, brushing my lips on her neck.

I drew back and thrust back in, and a moan escaped her lips. She gripped the hard muscles of my back, digging her nails in, and I grazed my teeth over her nipples, drawing another moan from her.

“God, yes,” she whimpered. “More!”

I drew back again before slamming back inside her.

Harder.

Deeper.

Faster.

Short breaths burst from her lips as she closed her eyes. She bit her lower lip a second later, and I knew she was close again.

“Come on, baby,” I said. “Come for me. Do it now.”

My drives turned harsher. My tongue caressed her lips again as her body began to twitch, and soon she was screaming louder than ever before. Heated lust raged inside of me, and everything else in the world seemed to vanish as I drew closer and closer to a climax of my own. Another loud moan escaped from her lips as her muscles continued to contract wildly around me, and white-hot stars seemed to burst in the back of my eyelids. Shit, Lucy coming on my cock was the hottest thing in the world.

My muscles tensed, and I pressed inside her with one more hard thrust before groaning as pleasure overtook me.

“Shit…” I said, rolling over a moment later. That had been fucking fantastic. It always was.

As I lay next to her with her head nestled in the crook of my arm, all I could think of was our future. With her, I had everything, but there was still one more thing I needed to do, and I was desperate to do it soon. I just couldn’t fucking wait any longer for her to be my wife.

I’d already bought the ring. All I needed now was the perfect moment.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

LUCY

Four months later

“This is perfect,” I murmured, pressing my back against Patrick’s chest as we stood on a hilltop, overlooking the aquamarine waters of South Africa’s Western Cape.

Patrick wrapped his arms tighter around me and murmured in my ear. “Not quite as perfect as you.”

We’d just finished shooting a nature documentary like I’d dreamed of doing when I was a child, and now we were staying at a resort up in the Botlierskop game reserve, a beautiful place where we could go on tours and watch all the animals living peacefully on the land. The lions were kept separate from the more passive animals, so there was no need to worry about driving around and seeing a zebra being attacked by a hungry big cat.

The reserve itself was named after a rock formation on the land which the tour guide told us was supposed to look like a bottle head. Personally, I thought it looked more like a monkey’s head, but I suppose years of weathering could do that. Time always changed everything.

Wait, no. There were some exceptions. Time would never change how I felt about the man holding me right now.

I smiled and closed my eyes for a second as a cool breeze picked up, suddenly overcome by a wave of nostalgia. Last time I’d been in this part of the world, I’d been with Claire. It had been almost four and a half years since she lost the plot, and she’d spent two years in a private mental health rehab facility, regaining her faculties. We hadn’t ended up pressing charges against her, although many people had told us to.

It just seemed wrong. What she had done was absolutely terrible, but she hadn’t been in her right mind at the time, and it had just seemed like overkill to have her sent to prison when she was already going to be stuck in a mental health hospital anyway. We’d already helped the police send my ex, Jimmy, to prison for a couple of years on aggravated assault charges – but he totally deserved that.

Claire had since been released from the mental health facility, and according to her mother, she was adjusting well to being back out in the world. She’d actually written Patrick and me a letter a while ago, telling us how deeply sorry she was for what she had done, and thanking us from the bottom of her heart for not making things worse for her by pressing charges. She’d said she understood if we never wanted to reply or see her again, but she hoped that one day we’d be able to forgive her.

We’d written back saying that we accepted her apology, but we weren’t quite ready to see her. I didn’t know if I ever would be ready to see her, to be honest, as much as I still missed the wonderful friend I’d once had, long before she went off the rails. The last time I’d seen her, she’d almost pushed me off a waterfall, so I guess that was understandable. Some things are hard to forget, even if you’ve forgiven the person long ago.

Speaking of forgiveness, sometimes it happened at the strangest of times. And no, for once I wasn’t talking about Patrick and me. When my Dad had the kidney surgery done, he was physically weakened for quite a few weeks afterwards, and surprisingly, Penelope had stepped up to help Julia take care of him. She’d said she understood how bad the situation looked at the time of the stalker incident, and she knew she’d looked quite guilty, given what her records said about her. But she’d forgiven us all, refused to claim any sort of legal settlement against our family, and now she was back working at the Calabasas house again…for double her old salary. She hadn’t asked for that; it was my Dad’s way of trying to make things right.

My Mom had also stepped up her game. Dad getting sick had really shaken her up, and she’d realized that some of the life choices she’d made weren’t for the best. She’d stopped drinking so much, and at the age of forty-two, she’d finally started her first job. She and Adam had decided to open a health food café in Malibu, and it was doing really well. I loved their kale smoothies, although I still couldn’t convince Patrick to try one.
Seaweed shakes
, as he still called them.

Patrick murmured in my ear a moment later.

“You know what would make this moment even more perfect?” he said, letting go of my waist.

I turned to him. “No, what?”

He grinned and got down on one knee before pulling out the biggest damn diamond ring I’d ever seen.

“Lucy, will you marry me?” he asked.

Tears of joy threatened to spill from my eyes, and I nodded like crazy.

“Yes! Yes, yes, yes!” I said, my voice choked with emotion.

He slipped the ring onto my finger, and I swore I could see a tear or two glistening in his eyes as well.

“Remember when you said you should marry the studio exec’s daughter to get more TV roles? Is that what you’re doing?” I teased.

He grinned and threw his hands up in mock defeat. “Shit. You got me! That was the plan all along.”

I laughed and threw my arms around him.

My life hadn’t always been a perfect fairy tale. I’d suffered through a lot of things, and so had everyone else I knew. It just showed that no matter who you were in this world, you couldn’t escape the bad things in life. All you could do was surround yourself with wonderful people who you loved and enjoy the good times.

Every moment with Patrick was a good time.

We might not have ended up together in the most conventional way, and I’d even hated his guts once upon a time. But none of that mattered now. We had each other, and we’d created our very own little fairy tale together. Things might not always be as steady and amazing as they were right now in this moment, but they would always be close to it.

And to me, that was pretty damn perfect.

THE END

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