Defender: A Stepbrother Romance Read online

  Let’s face it. I’m a fuck up. And I’ve been fucking up all my life. And this…just because I couldn’t remember what happened that night didn’t mean I wasn’t at fault. Yet, Crawford was fighting so hard to clear my name. It made me love him all the more, but at the same time, it weighed my soul down with guilt.

  There was a heavy knock on my front door as I stepped out of the shower. With my hair still dripping, I slid into a thin bathrobe and peeked out the living room window. Crawford was standing there, his back to the door as he surveyed the small parking lot and the town beyond it. There was one advantage to being on the third floor. The view was pretty amazing.

  I pulled the door open. “Hey.”

  He turned, his eyes sliding over the places where the thin, silky robe stuck wetly to my skin, revealing almost as much as if I had simply come to the door naked. He made this noise deep in his throat as he pushed me backward, shoving his way inside, and stole my lips all at the same time. I sighed, the feel of his touch like a soothing balm on my hurting soul. I wrapped my arms around his neck and let him lift me up, my bones turning to molten lava as if no time had passed since our last embrace, as though we were simply picking up from the heated touches we’d shared in my father’s studio.

  I was vaguely aware of the front door closing as he carried me through the apartment into my tiny bedroom, cursing against my lips as he hit his thigh sharply on the corner of my dresser. And then we were on the bed tearing at each other’s clothing. He had on far more than I did, and it would have taken too long to work it all off. I chose to concentrate on his belt as he tore open my flimsy robe and began to use his teeth to send shivers of pleasure down my spine. My toes curled as he nibbled at the thin flesh of my throat, the tingles still burning at the small of my back as he took a nipple in between his lips and caused it to elongate and fit the shape of his perfect mouth.

  He moved out of my touch, and I groaned, needing to touch him, needing to feel him with my hands. But then he was dropping little kisses all along my belly, and I couldn’t catch my breath. When he urged my thighs apart, I lost my ability to think. All I could do was lie there and let all these exclamations slip from my lips because I no longer had control over my body. Pleasure was always a word that was something of an abstract to me. I mean, I understood the concept. But to feel it—like that? I never could have imagined something so intense actually existed.

  He ran his tongue along my outer lips, and I was gone. By the time he found my clit, I was so lost that he could have done anything he wanted to me, and I would have laid there and begged for more. His touch was perfection. It felt like he’d found the secret to my soul and was playing with it, reprogramming it so that I would never be the same when he was done with me. That was something I’d known from his first touch, since that night after my arrest. But I had never imagined it could be so… well… perfect.

  When he tired of tasting me, he moved slowly back up my body, his hot breath bathing every inch of me, I could only open to him and welcome the connection that I would never feel with anyone else. I would have thought that when he came inside of me, it would be familiar. It would be like it had been before, and my body would know exactly how to welcome him, how to accommodate his presence.

  And it did.

  My hips moved at just the right angle, my body opening to him just right. But there was something new about it too, something that wasn’t familiar and more than just the physical fitting together of two bodies. As he stared down at me, pleasure danced in his eyes. He ran his hand slowly against the underside of my arm and moved with a sort of slow determination inside of me. I knew there was something about that connection that would change everything. It would change me, change him, and make us something better.

  And that brought tears to my eyes even as my lower belly began to clench with orgasm.

  It wasn’t ‘til much later that my sanity came back to me. I watched Crawford sleep, admiring the way he looked when he was completely relaxed. It was a sight not many had ever seen, I suspected. He wasn’t a man who relaxed often. I wanted to touch him, but I didn’t want to wake him, so I contented myself with watching.

  I wasn’t sure what was going to happen over the next few weeks. I might go to jail. If not, Crawford had a life in New York City. He’d want to go back to his life there, his position with a high powered law firm, his girlfriends and his social life. He wouldn’t want his small-town sister embarrassing him in front of his colleagues. And I…well, there was a lot about me that could stand a little change. I needed to grow up, stop being such a fuck up. But that didn’t mean I was ready to leave my small town behind. I liked the simple life, liked knowing who my neighbors were, liked that everyone knew who I was—even when that led to everyone sticking their noses into my business. I would never fit-in in New York. And I suspected Crawford enjoyed the city too much to come back home.

  I ached so deep in my soul at the thought of letting him go that tears streamed down my cheeks just at the thought. How would I ever survive the actual moment of separation? But what other choice did we have? If he stayed there, our parents would learn the truth. I knew Mom would be unhappy, but she’d come around. She wanted her children to be happy. If he found that with me, I’m sure she would be okay with it after a while. But Daddy? He had specific ideas of what was right and wrong. He occasionally bent the rules of those basic morals when it came to me. But this? He would never understand.

  I wanted to believe he would come around like Mom. But each time I thought about it, each time the scenario played itself out in my mind, I always came to the same conclusion. He wouldn’t accept it in any way, shape or form. In his mind, Crawford was his son. It didn’t matter that Crawford was conceived by another man. It didn’t matter that he had come to our home after it was already established. It didn’t matter that there were no blood ties between us. In my Dad’s eyes, we were family. And that trumped everything.

  So there were three possible outcomes to the situation, and none of them were happy endings:

  1. I go to jail.

  2. I give up Crawford and remain in my Daddy’s good graces.

  3. I lose my Daddy’s unconditional support in favor of a potential commitment from the only man I have ever—and probably would ever—love.

  * * *

  A bleak future, no matter how I looked at it.

  Twenty-Three

  Crawford

  For a day that started off perfectly, it had sure had gone to hell awfully quick.

  First, we still couldn’t find the blood alcohol tests conducted on either Eden or Joel the night of the accident. That sang of a cover up to me. Kendra was at the hospital trying to determine if the test had even been done on Eden. It wasn’t listed in her medical records, but it might not be if the request came from the police, as it should have. But still, there should be some notation in her records. The fact that she was drunk would have had a serious impact on how they treated her that night.

  It bothered me that the cop told Dad that the test showed she was more than twice past the legal limit, but he didn’t make an attempt to arrest her that night. He should have. And that made me wonder if Dad had misheard him. My mother said it was noisy and chaotic in the ER at the time. Maybe, just maybe, he hadn’t been talking about Eden. And if he wasn’t…if he was talking about Joel, that meant that there was a blood alcohol test with his name on it somewhere.

  I had to find that test.

  Second, the pictures of the Bentley still did not show the front of the car. So we couldn’t prove or disprove that he hit Eden. The accident photos were taken more than an hour after the accident—thank you timestamps—so the cars could have been moved. The accident, as I understood it, took place at an intersection. But the pictures showed that the cars were off on a side street, significantly back from the intersection. That seemed off to me, especially since one of the few memories of that night Eden had was that she had been sitting at a red light before the accident. Therefore, Kendra’s
accident reconstructionist wouldn’t be a lot of help. He couldn’t accurately determine what happened if the cars had been moved.

  Third, Joel’s attorneys called me. They suggested that they had some information that they thought would seal the case for them. I wasn’t sure what that could be, but I didn’t like the implication. So I had to go meet with them that evening. It meant I wouldn’t be able to see Eden until late, if at all. And she was…I don’t know. She seemed off when I woke up in the morning. She was already out of bed, making breakfast for the two of us. For Eden to cook was a pretty big deal. She didn’t like to cook. And she wouldn’t smile at my jokes. Eden had always found my jokes incredibly funny. I knew she was worried, but her fear clearly went deeper than I’d suspected. I didn’t want her to psych herself out and do something stupid. I needed to be with her, to keep her centered. It frustrated me that I couldn’t be there. I did, however, convince her to spend the day at the rent’s house. Maybe that would help.

  My smartphone rang as I searched social media for pictures of the accident. It occurred to me that the part of town on which the accident happened was filled with clubs and other venues that would attract twenty-somethings. And where there was a cellphone there were pictures posted to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. I was hoping that someone had taken a picture of the accident just after impact, so I could prove the cars had been moved before the police took their pictures and better yet see get a view of the Bentley’s front-end.

  I glanced at the phone, a flutter of hope rushing through my chest when I saw Kendra’s number. Maybe she had good news.

  “Did you find it?”

  “No,” she answered. “But I found a nurse who identified a picture of Joel. She remembers taking blood from him that night not long after the accident. But she doesn’t know what the result was or if the test was ever run in the lab.”

  “Okay,” I mumbled, disappointment once again settling heavy on my shoulders.

  “But she does remember him. She said he was belligerent and the cop with him kept telling him to settle down and not embarrass his father. She even overheard the cop tell him that he could have killed the young woman in the other car, and he should be happy that she wasn’t that badly hurt.”

  I sat up a little straighter. “She heard all that?”

  “Yes. Says it stands out in her memory because she saw them bring Eden in. She said she was outraged because she knew the girl would have a scar for the rest of her life and could’ve had a serious brain injury.”

  “Would she be willing to testify?”

  “Definitely.”

  I wanted to laugh but I kept my cool. Kendra couldn’t see the huge smile that filled my face in that moment. “Good work,” I said. “Now, do you think you could find the cop who said those things? It’d be better to have him.”

  “I think so. She gave a pretty good description of him.”

  “What about the other cop? The first on the scene that night, the one who went with Eden to the hospital?”

  “He’s still reluctant to talk to us. But I know he’s off today. He likes to go to the batting cages with his son in the afternoons. I thought maybe we could try to talk to him there.”

  “Good idea.”

  “I have a few from time to time.”

  I just smiled as I hung up. Things were beginning to look up, and Kendra was proving to be a Godsend.

  I spent several more hours looking at pictures on social media. It never failed to amaze me how many pictures of cats and dogs and children people posted on their pages. Once you saw one pet or one baby, you’d seen them all. What really got me, though, were the pictures of food and feet and other odd objects that people deemed share-worthy. Why would I want to see some stranger’s feet? My phone rang again even as the question was floating through my mind.

  “Crawford Foster,” I barked into the phone.

  “Mr. Foster? Please hold for Mr. Stone.”

  Mr. Stone? The hair on my arms tensed. What might my former boss want with me?

  “Crawford,” he echoed, his voice as pompous as the rest of him. “How are things in Texas?”

  “Quite well, thank you.”

  “That’s good.” There was a long pause. I waited a little impatiently, eager to find out what it was he wanted from me. He cleared his throat once, then again. “I wanted to speak to you about our last meeting. Things got a little…heated.”

  “You fired me, sir.”

  “Yes, I did. And that might have been hasty.”

  My eyebrows rose. “How’s that?”

  “I let my emotions involving the plight of my young nephew color what was right for the firm. I realize now that I was in denial where my nephew was concerned. You did the best you could.”

  “Your nephew is a drug dealer, Mr. Stone. He was bound to get caught again sooner or later. The deal I got for him was the best he was ever going to get.”

  “I realize that,” Stone said, his voice so tight I was surprised he didn’t choke on his words.

  The whole thing made me want to laugh.

  “We would like you to come back to the firm, Mr. Foster,” he said, each word well enunciated as though he was reading from a script. “And I would like to offer a personal apology for some of the things I said in our last meeting.”

  My head spun a little as I tried to figure out what was happening there. Why would the senior partner of my law firm—my former law firm—be crawling on hands and feet to me? What happened in the few days since I left New York? The only thing I could figure was—

  I typed a few keywords into my computer, and almost immediately the answer flashed in front of me:

  Nephew of High Power Lawyer Caught in Drug Raid.

  He’d been caught again. And this time he couldn’t talk his way out of it.

  I had to bite my tongue to keep from saying a few told-you-sos. “What are you saying to me?”

  Mr. Stone cleared his throat again. “I’m asking you if we can put all this behind us and go back to the way things were.”

  “And you’re asking me to come back to the firm?”

  “I am.”

  A pleased smile spread over my face. It was the best thing that could possibly happen short of the prosecutor dropping all charges against Eden. But then the thought of Eden—of her case, of the last few days—and that smile slipped away.

  “Can I have a few days to think it over?”

  “Don’t take too long, Mr. Foster. Second chances don’t come very often.”

  No. But I’d gotten two of them in just the last few days.

  * * *

  “Officer Walker,” I said, impatience leaking into my voice. “We really need to know if a blood alcohol test was conducted on Eden within an hour of the accident. You were with her at the hospital—“

  “I told you, I can’t talk about this case with you or anyone else.”

  The officer kept his back to me as the pitching machine shot another ball toward the net that separated us. I refused to flinch when the ball hit just inches from my face. We’d been going at it for more than fifteen minutes, and I was frustrated as all hell.

  “You must have realized something was wrong at the scene,” I said, trying to come at it from a different angle. “You put Joel in handcuffs.”

  “That was procedure.”

  “That’s only procedure if you believe he’s a flight risk or guilty of something. Which was it, Officer Walker?”

  The man glanced at me, his expression hard, but he refused to answer the question.

  “Goddamn it!” I yelled. I shook the net, making the chains that held it into place rattle. “Do you not realize that a young woman’s future is at stake here? She could go to jail for something that you and I both know she didn’t do. Is that really what you want, Officer Walker? Where is your sense of duty? When did cops stop caring about the public?”

  “Mr. Foster,” Kendra said firmly but kindly. She laid a soft hand on my arm. “Don’t you have that meeting with those lawy
ers?”

  I started to shake her off, but then I saw the caution in her eyes and understood what she was trying to do. I focused on the cop for a second longer, wishing it was his throat in my hands instead of the net.

  “Eden doesn’t deserve to go to jail over this. But that kid? Joel? He’s a much worse fuck-up than she will ever be. We looked into his past. You cops may be able to keep him out of jail, to pay people off and put the blame on others, but you can’t hide the fact that he’s been caught up in half a dozen shit storms this year alone. One day, he’s going to kill someone, and the responsibility of that isn’t going to rest on his shoulders alone. It’s going to be your fault, too, and all the other cops in the city who’ve gone out of their way to protect him.” I saw a cloud wash over the guy’s face, but he continued to stare down the pitching machine, swinging the bat too hard each time the ball flew at him. “Will you step up then, Officer Walker? Will you step up when some innocent person like Eden is lying dead in the street because of that fuck up?”

  I shook the net one more time, then walked off, spitting the ugly taste out of my mouth as I went.

  * * *

  I was already annoyed by the time I arrived at Turgess, Junger, & Floyd. Their offices were…well, let’s just say they weren’t even remotely like my offices back in New York. They had embraced more of a nouveau Western style where the offices in New York were more Art Nouveau. But the secretary was quite an attraction all on her own. Her skirt was so short I could actually see the bottom curve of her ass as she led me to the conference room. I found myself wondering how anyone got any work done with her trotting around.

  “Mr. Foster,” a tall, potbellied man in an ill-fitted suit said as he approached me with a huge smile. “I’m John Turgess.”