Defender: A Stepbrother Romance Read online

  We lay still for a long while, both of us lost in the pleasure of our mutual touch. I clung to him, my fingers buried in his flesh. Slowly, I became aware of his fingers entangling me too, one hand clutching my upper thigh, the other twisted in my hair.

  He relaxed his grip as he came back to himself, whispering a quiet apology as he wrenched his fingers away from my body. When he rolled off of me, I was confused.

  Well, that’s it. Now we go back to acting like strangers, right? Or worse. Like we hate each other.

  But then he pulled me up against his chest and held me until we drifted off to sleep.

  It was the most peaceful sleep I’d experienced in a very long time.

  Fifteen

  Crawford

  “Make sure I have that information on my desk as soon as I get back to the office,” I said into my smartphone as I boarded the elevator. A young woman in a Red Raider’s baseball shirt glanced at me, a soft smile on her lips as her eyes checked out my wrinkled shirt and heavy five o’clock shadow. I ignored her, more concerned with what my assistant was telling me than with anything some stranger might have inferred from my style of dress.

  “Mr. Stone’s called three times in the last two hours. I think something’s going on with his nephew’s case, but he didn’t want to leave a message with me,” my assistant said.

  “If he calls again, tell him I’ll be in the office in the morning.”

  “I will. Is there anything else?”

  “Not at the moment.”

  “How’s your sister? Is there something more I can do on that case?”

  Irritation soared through me. I didn’t want to talk about Eden. The memory of the previous night was still too fresh in my mind. I woke with her head on my chest, her skin like silk against my body. I wanted to wake her up with kisses and repeat what had happened, maybe a little slower, a little gentler. I wanted to taste her, every inch of her, and have her taste me. I wanted to…I wanted to do a million things that weren’t me.

  I rarely let a woman sleep in the same bed as me unless I’m too drunk to send her home. And on those rare occasions when it does happen, it’s never a cuddling situation. I don’t sleep well as it is. Sleeping with a woman’s body draped over mine is just an unpleasant thought. It never happened.

  Except for the past night. Except for the fact that I slept better that night than I had in years.

  And I don’t do morning sex. Most of my court appearances are scheduled for the morning. I have to be on top of my game. Sex in the morning would wear me out, take my mind off of the business at hand. I simply don’t do it. Yet, I would have that morning if Eden hadn’t looked so peaceful.

  Fucking Eden.

  After everything, I somehow managed to let her get under my skin. I promised myself I wouldn’t, but I did and I only had myself to blame. I knew coming back to Texas would be dangerous, but I did it anyway. Seeing her again fucked me up inside. She had a power over me that I could never explain. That weekend at Stanford…she’d just been Eden before that, my little sister, the runt who followed me everywhere I went. But then she stepped off that plane and she was a vision. I saw the way other men stared at her, the way women glared at her. She was that desirable, that enviable. When I first saw her, I didn’t even realize who she was. Then she turned and smiled, and I knew I was in trouble.

  I tried to reconcile in my mind that this gorgeous creature was my little sister, the same girl I grew up with. But when I caught sight of her out of the corner of my eye, my mind kept going to places it should have never gone. And then we went to a frat party and all those boys—stupid, immature fools—were dancing with her and whispering what they wanted to do with her. It made me lose my mind a little.

  I was twenty-one, an adult by all definition of the word. Experience. I even bragged on some of that experience with her, maybe to prove something to myself, maybe to show off to her. I’m not quite sure why I did it. But when she got jealous, the sight of it gave life to that spark I kept trying to kill all weekend. And when we kissed, that spark stood up and laughed.

  But then she was gone, and I was left standing alone with the most painful erection I’d ever had, wondering what the hell I was doing. Then I went searching for her and found her in the arms of my roommate.

  Just the memory of it still had the power to make me want to put my fist through the elevator door.

  “Why don’t you just do what I told you and keep your nose out of my personal business,” I barked into the phone, my tone low and cold enough that even the pretty girl sharing the elevator with me jumped a little.

  “Yes, sir,” my assistant said in a quiet voice that didn’t quite hide the emotion that laced it. I could hear shock, hurt, and a little anger. I was impressed with the anger. I tapped the disconnect button just as the hotel elevator opened to my floor. I didn’t even glance at my fellow passenger, though I’m sure she was okay with that.

  When I pushed open the door of the room I shared with Eden, she was sitting on the edge of the bed in the same skirt and top she’d been wearing the night before. She looked up, expectation in her eyes. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed that she’d dressed in my absence, that I didn’t want to go over there and press her down against the mattress. Instead, I tossed the bag of donuts I’d bought onto the mattress beside her and said, “We need to go.”

  I saw a flash of disappointment in her eyes, but all she replied was, “Okay.”

  It was a tense ride in the elevator. She brushed her hand against mine as she passed me to step into the metal box. I pulled away. I don’t know why. Maybe out of habit. But I suspected it had more to do with the fact that just standing near her, just smelling her natural scent, hearing her breath, was driving me crazy. I hated that all I could think about was taking her back into that hotel room and throwing her on the bed, of burying myself inside of her until neither of us could stand it another moment. I don’t suppose it mattered why I pulled away. The only thing that mattered is that by doing so, I caused a flash of pain to float through Eden’s eyes. And that killed something deep in my soul.

  She marched through the lobby out to my waiting car the moment we got off the elevator, clearly uninterested in my company. I followed as soon as I’d dropped the keycard off at the front counter. She wouldn’t even look at me as I opened the passenger door for her. A part of me couldn’t blame her. I’m not sure I would have looked at me either.

  We drove in silence for a while. However, it was almost forty minutes from the hotel to our parent’s house. Not even I could stand that level of tension for so long. “We should probably talk about what happened last night.”

  She dragged her fingers through her hair, a sigh slipping from between her lips. “Do you have someone back in New York?”

  That was the last question I expected her to ask. The car swerved a little as I lost my concentration for a second and forgot to ease into a curve. “What do you mean?”

  “A girlfriend,” she mumbled as innocently as if she were asking what kind of coffee I liked to drink.

  I glanced at her, taking in the guarded look she’d so carefully crafted onto her face. “Why?”

  She sat up a little straighter in the seat, her fingers again burying themselves in her long, thick hair. “You don’t talk about your personal life during your rare conversations with Dad and Mom.”

  Because I don’t really have one worth discussing with family. But I wasn’t going to tell her that. “Why do you want to know about my life in New York all of a sudden?”

  “I just want to know about you, period.”

  “Now you’re interested. After all this time—“

  “You’re the one who walked away from me.”

  “Because you…” I stopped. I really didn’t want to think about what happened that summer after I graduated from Stanford with my bachelor’s. I didn’t want to remember what she asked me to do or why.

  “It’s been a long time since you’ve acknowledged me.”


  “You say that likes it’s my fault.”

  “So it’s all my fault?”

  “I walked away because of what you did.”

  “What I did? I just asked you for a favor.”

  “That was one hell of a favor, considering.”

  “Considering what?”

  Now I knew she was playing with me. She had to have known I would find out she was with Joshua after she left my arms that night at Stanford. She couldn’t stand the idea of kissing me, but it was okay for her to go off and do God only knew what with my roommate? And then ask me to—

  “I don’t want to fight with you, Crawford. I just want to get to know you.”

  “I’m going back to New York as soon as I drop you off.”

  You’d think I’d hit her in the stomach. She gasped. But that was it. She didn’t say anything, didn’t even look at me. But her body became as rigid as a marble statue, her eyes glued to the windshield like the scenery unfolding around us was something she’d never seen before.

  “You had to have known that I didn’t intend to stay here forever.”

  Silence.

  “I have commitments back there. I have a career that’s taking off, a partnership waiting just around the corner for me. I can’t put that on the line for some stupid personal injury case.”

  “So last night was… just an accident?”

  Her voice was raw, laced with emotions that I’ve heard in a woman’s voice before, but this time it cut through me like a knife, tearing at me until it felt like there was nothing left inside. Like I was hollow.

  “It was just the end of something we never should have started a lifetime ago.”

  She nodded, her bottom lip trembling.

  “You have to understand that this—whatever it is—it can’t happen between us. Mom and Dad would be horrified if they knew. I mean…” I looked over at her and wished I hadn’t, the tears sliding silently down her cheeks worse than the photos of her raw wound spread open in the emergency room after her accident. My palm actually itched, I wanted so badly to reach over there and comfort her. Instead, I knew I had to put the final nail in the coffin.

  “Where did you honestly think this was going, Eden? We can’t be together. We’re siblings.”

  She shook her head. “That’s not what you were thinking last night.”

  “No…” I glanced at her, steeling myself even as the sight of her crying silently beside me destroyed everything that might have made me a decent guy once upon a time. “It was… Look. I don’t know. We had sex once, and we can’t let it go beyond that.”

  Eden sat motionless, silent, blank-faced.

  I pulled to a stop outside our parent’s farmhouse a few minutes later. Eden got out and ran to the front door, brushing past my mother as she disappeared inside. I couldn’t even gather the will to lift my hand in a goodbye wave to my own Mom.

  I wished I never left New York.

  Sixteen

  Eden

  I stormed into the house and rushed right upstairs to my old bedroom. I needed the comfort of something familiar. I crawled under the old threadbare quilt that still lay across my childhood bed and pulled the quilt up over my head. I wanted to disappear. I wanted everything that had happened since yesterday to go away. In fact, it would have been nice if I could go all the way back to the day of my blind date and just not go. Or, even better, refuse to let Jeannie set me up on the blind date in the first place.

  If the accident hadn’t happened, Crawford wouldn’t have come home. If the accident hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have been arrested and then…last night wouldn’t have happened.

  “Eden?”

  I felt the weight of my Dad sitting on the edge of the bed seconds before his hand rested on my hip. It reminded me of when I was a very little girl and I had a bad day. He’d come and sit with me just like that, waiting for me to be ready to talk about it.

  But this I couldn’t talk about.

  “It must have been a terrible experience, being arrested like that.”

  I nodded, but he couldn’t see me.

  “I’m sorry. Crawford warned us…I shouldn’t have let him open the door.”

  “It’s not your fault, Daddy,” I said, peeking out at him. “They would have arrested me whether someone opened the door or not.”

  “Maybe.” He pressed his hand to the top of my head and forced a smile. “I can’t imagine how awful it all was.”

  “Not that bad,” I lied, rolling onto my back so I could see him better. “Crawford got me out as quickly as he could.”

  “So he said. Thank God we have a lawyer in the family.”

  “Yeah.” I closed my eyes, a headache pulsing behind them.

  “Do you want me to take you home so you can get some rest?”

  I shook my head. “I need to call work, let them know why I’m not there. And then—“

  “You don’t need to call work.”

  I opened my eyes, afraid I already knew the answer to the question that slipped from my lips before I could stop it. “Why not?”

  “They called here a few hours ago,” my Dad said, his eyes dropping to the floor. “They’ve asked that you start your summer vacation a few weeks early.”

  I sat up faster than my aching head could stand, sending my vision swirling around the room. “They fired me?”

  “No. They just want you to stay home until this case is decided. The principal assured me you would still receive your regular salary.”

  “They’re paying me, but they won’t let me work?” I climbed off the bed, not sure where I intended to go. “They can’t do that. I need this job. I want to work.”

  “Eden, you have to understand the position this places the school in. It’s a small town. Rumors spread quickly.”

  “I’m sure the whole town already knows I was arrested. But making me stay away from work is like telling them I’m guilty. I won’t do that!”

  “You don’t have much choice.”

  I stopped in the doorway, suddenly hit with the realization that he was right. My whole world was falling apart around me, and there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t even remember the damn accident! And I was being sued, accused of driving drunk, of reckless driving, and attempted vehicular manslaughter. As if my life couldn’t get much worse, now I couldn’t go to work. I just…I was so frustrated that I wanted to scream.

  “We can call Crawford and see if there’s anything he can do about it.”

  I laughed. “Crawford doesn’t want to get involved in this.”

  “He’s trying to help you, Eden.”

  “He’s doing what his mother asked him to do. But this…this goes beyond a favor for his mother. He won’t do anything.”

  “Crawford cares about you, Eden. If this is important to you, it’ll be important to him.”

  I just shook my head. The idea that Crawford cared about me almost made me laugh again. He didn’t care about me. If he did, he never would have said the things he said that morning. And I wouldn’t be there, hating myself and everything that was happening around me. I looked over at my Dad, searching for a little comfort, and all I saw was pain and worry and the deep wrinkles of years of stressing out over me and the messes I made. And in that moment, I knew. I was a fuck up, just like Crawford always said. I was a fuck up who was tearing my family—and this good, kind, loving man—apart.

  I walked to my father and wrapped my arms around his neck. “I’m sorry, Daddy,” I whispered.

  “It’s okay.” He brushed the hair from my face and studied my eyes for a long second, a slow smile brightening his eyes. “You have nothing to apologize to me for.”

  “I have everything. I’ve so screwed up, and it’s hurt you and Mom—“

  “This isn’t your fault.” He took my face in his hands and repeated himself slowly, “This-is-not-your-fault.”

  Tears welled in my eyes and rolled slowly down my face, coating the backs of his hands. But I wasn’t crying for myself or because I believed what he
said. I was crying because he was such a good man and I didn’t deserve his unwavering support.

  Seventeen

  Crawford

  I stared out the window of the plane the entire flight, trying not to move my hands near my face because they still smelled of Eden, and it was the last scent I wanted to smell. But avoiding it did nothing to keep her off my mind. The moment she disappeared into our parent’s house I wanted to jump out of that rental car and chase after her. But I knew if I did, I would be lost. No matter what we said to each other, no matter how she responded to my actions, I wouldn’t be able to put the prior night behind me and refocus on the things that mattered the most: my career, my partnership, my life.

  The moment the plane landed, I was back in the hustle and bustle of life in New York City. I grabbed a taxi and went to my place to have a shower and a change into a clean suit. Then I was at the office before the rest of the staff was headed out for the night, jumping into the files left piled up on my desk. I had nine open cases and the case Mr. Stone’s nephew had gotten himself caught up in. There were so many emails in my inbox that it took me more than two hours to address them all. A dozen of them were from Mr. Stone, his sister and his nephew, each addressing the same thing: the charges against him had been amended. Now, instead of a felony possession charge, they were calling it possession with the intent to sell.

  Fuck.

  I called the assistant DA and spent an hour trying to talk him into reducing the charges again. But, apparently, they had witnesses from the frat house willing to testify that Stone’s nephew sold to them in the past and had mentioned that he had more to sell just before the raid. Their case was rock solid.