Secret: A Military Stepbrother Romance (65 page)

My father was mean, fall-down drunk who I stopped talking to the day after my high school graduation when I enlisted. The only reason I even know about the neighbors finding him is because of a Google alert I set up for my old hometown newspaper’s online obituary report. I know Bryce is right; I’m
not
my father, but it’s still this grim fucking reminder about mortality. Besides, the man  I actually think of as any sort of actual Dad-figure in my life was the Old Man, and I’ve already grieved for that father.

For a weird, brief moment, I think about calling Reagan, even though I know that door is shut. I want to call her and tell her, and just talk to her about her Dad and Dads in general. I want to hear her voice, even just once more, but I know calling would be a useless venture.

“Do you wanna call someone? A sponsor maybe?” 

I know Logan is being serious, but I laugh out loud anyways; “No, man. I’m good.”

P R E S E N T

I’m sitting in my living room, in the dark, staring at a bottle when the front desk buzzes up that she’s in the lobby, and I’m ashamed to say I almost pretend I’m not home before I finally grumble a confirmation into the phone.

I don’t turn when I hear her come in, not even when I hear her footsteps pause as she walks into the room. I just
stare
at the bottle of scotch sitting like some sort of monolith in front of me on the carved wood table.

“Are you ok?”

Her voice finally breaks the spell the amber liquid holds over me, and I turn to her, seeing the worry etched across her face; “That was nothing, back there, it was just-” I trail off and force a smile at her instead. I’m not comfortable feeling this exposed to her, knowing that the emotions and the baggage I usually cram down somewhere deep inside are threatening to rip me apart while she’s right in front of me, and the thought of that is almost more than I can stomach.

“Look, this is nothing,” I nod at the bottle; “I’m not going to actually open it or anything, I just- I don’t know, I just like to look at it sometimes. I guess it helps in some weird way when I can stare it in the face and know I’m not going to let it get to me.” I shrug as I look at her standing there in the doorway of the dark room, silhouetted by the low light from the kitchen behind her.

“I know you aren’t.” She steps hesitantly into the room; “Hudson, I don’t care what that asshole was talking about, and you don’t have tell me anything. I just want to know that you’re OK.”

Jesus, how did I find this girl?

“I’m- I’m fine.” But then I look into her eyes and it breaks me, breaks the bullshit; “Well, no, I’m not actually.” I close my eyes as she moves into the room, and when I feel her weight on the couch next to me and feel her wrap her arms around me, I just
sink
into her. “Reagan, there’s a lot about me-” I pull back to look her in the eyes, and she’s looking at me so innocently, and with such an intensity that I can’t even tell her. How can I ruin that smile and the light in those eyes with the literal hell I’ve seen; with what I’ve
done
.

I kiss her instead, and I’m just like that, I’m losing myself in her. I’m lost in that kiss and i’ts better than any escape I’ve ever found in any bottle I’ve ever seen the bottom of. She’s pulling us both back onto the couch and I’m collapsing into her, tearing at her stiff formal clothes. I’m pulling off the vestiges that make her the prim, poised public Reagan to get to the sexy, animalistic primal Reagan that I know that lives deeper; the Reagan that comes out when we’re both naked and my mouth is on her pussy. She gasps as I slide my lips over her sex and push my tongue inside her, and she’s rocking against my face as her hands grip my hair and my name falls from her lips. Her hands are on my hips, pulling me onto the couch alongside her, and I groan into her wetness as she takes me in her mouth. Her lips are like heaven, her tongue dancing across me, and there’s something so sensual, so visceral about this that I almost don’t want to break away.

But I have to have her; I
need
her in that moment. She’s my new vice, my everything.

She pulls me into her as she lays back in the plush sofa, her legs wrapping around my waist to keep me inside as she rocks against me almost as hard as I push into her. We’re panting, kissing, grasping at each other like we’ll fly away if we don’t as we move together like one wave in an ocean, like a tempest. We’re both lost in the everything until the world shatters around us, as we both come screaming to the neon skyline.

Her head is lying against my chest afterword, her fingers tracing an inked line across my skin.

“Before, that time at my Dad’s-“

“Ray-”

“No, no, it’s not like that. You already explained all that, and I’m not
mad
that you didn’t take advantage of the situation, Hudson; believe me. I just want to know-”

“Why I walked away, you mean?” The words are ones I’d never have imagined telling her before, though for some reason they come easy now.

“Because I knew you were hurting; I was too.” I take a deep breath; “Reagan there’s so much he never told you, about everything.”

I can hear her sniff against my chest; “I know,” She says quietly.

“I had so much shit, so much pain inside. You- you don’t know, and you can’t know the things I’ve seen, Reagan,” I whisper out; “The things I’ve done-”

Her lips kissing my chest stop me; “You don’t have to tell me.”

Right, but being near me might be bad enough for you
I want to scream. I’ve come a long way from the broken man I was when her father found me, but I’m still toxic, and I know that. I still have the demons clawing at my back, the lust for vices I’ll have to deny myself for the rest of my life, and the recklessness of a man who’s already seen death. How can there be a place for a girl like her in all of that shit? She’s so
good
, and just so damn perfect and unbroken and undimmed by the darkness of the world that I can’t bare the thought of even telling her that darkness exists. She’s the light, and I can’t let my darkness swallow that up.

“I want to, you know,” I say, running my hands through her hair and closing my eyes as she softly kisses my chest again; “I just- I just can’t; not yet.”

“I’m here, you know, when you can.”

I smile into her hair, wondering for the millionth time how all this is possible; “I know.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

P A S T

I know as soon as I step off the stage that I’ve fucked up, even before my new campaign manager stomps over to me with that mean look on his face.

“
Oooo-kay,
so, that was-’ He shakes his head, sighing heavily at me like I’m some sort of disobedient child; “That was
not
good, Reagan.”

I’m feeling flustered, and out of my element, and
mad
at myself for not going up there and being strong; “I know, I’m sorry, Donald.”

“I give you a script for a
reason
, you know;
stick
to it.”

I groan; “I
know,
I know, it’s just- I mean, I’m doing this because
I
have ideas, and visions, and projects that are important to me that I
really
want to make part of my platform in all of this. And I feel like if I ignore those things-”

“If you ignore those things, you’ve got a shot at being elected.” Donald snaps at me.

“Well then what’s the point? What about fighting for what you believe in? What about having passion for things that matter?”

He sighs; “To
get
elected, Reagan. If that’s not your goal, than you may be wasting your money with me.” He takes off his glasses and looks at me sharply as he cleans them with his tie; “You do
want
to actually get elected, right?” I nod quietly. “Good, then keep your fluffy daydream ideas inside and stick to the damn script.”

P R E S E N T

I giggle as I push back against him, feeling his lips brush against the back of my neck and send shivers down my spine; “We need to stop this, I’m about to go on stage you know.” I bite my lip, wondering if that sounded even remotely more convincing to him than it did to me.

“Stop what?” He growls into my ear, and I gasp as I feel his fingers slide up the inside of my thigh, under my relatively conservative knee-length skirt. I gasp as he finds what I know he was looking for, his fingers sliding over the gusset of my panties and only making me press back against him even more.

“
Mmm…
that. Stop that.” I murmur, my eyes closing as he touches me there.

“What, this?” His fingers slip under the seam of my panties and slide through my wetness. I suck my bottom lip between my teeth as I reach back behind me to the hardness in his pants, and I begin to stroke his length. “That’s not exactly doing much for your case here, Senator,” He whispers huskily into my ear.

“Fine.” I grin as I hear him groan as I take my hand away from him, but suddenly I’m gasping as his other hand suddenly hikes my skirt all the way up to my waist behind me. Before I can even turn around, his hand is yanking my panties down over my thighs; “Don’t even
think
about it!” And I squirm to try and stop him, but not really all that hard.

“Too late,” he says with a sly grin against my skin, as he pushes my panties down further until they drop down my legs to my heels. 

Welcome to a typical Thursday afternoon with Reagan and Hudson; sneaking around like we’re teenagers and fucking every chance we get; even when that chance is a
chancing
it in itself. We’re about to go out on stage to sit for this panel-type discussion with a news anchor about my platform and about me being the “fresh young face of politics” or something like that. Hudson’s going to be out there too actually, due to his association with Archer Holdings, and while he resisted at first, I managed to convince him.

…Ok, so maybe I convinced him while I was fucking him, but that doesn’t make me any less of an amazing negotiator. 

Suddenly, I can feel him doing something behind me with his hand, as I hear a familiar sound, my eyes go wide; “
Hudson!
” I can feel it then, his bare, naked cock pressing hotly against the skin of my ass cheeks. “What the fuck are you doing?” I hiss, peeking out from behind the curtain we’re hiding behind to glance out at the stage and seeing that they’re just about set up. He pushes the head of his cock down between my legs, and I’m suddenly moaning quietly as I feel him slide it across my opening; “Hudson, don’t even thi-
oooh.
” He growls into my ear as he pushes half of his length inside of me, and I can feel my knees go week as I ease back against him.

“Oh, did you mean don’t even think about
this
?” He chuckles as he pushes his hips forward, sliding deeper into me.

“Reagan!”

Fuck.
Erika is on stage, shielding her eyes from the lights and looking around the empty auditorium for me. With a moan, I’m pulling myself away from Hudson and pushing him back as I try and catch my breath; “Put that away!” I say with a giggle, eyeing his cock which is sticking out from his pants still glistening from me.

He shrugs and grins at me; “Why?”

“You’re incorrigible!” I roll my eyes at him before I see that he’s holding my panties on the end of one of his fingers; “Give me my panties.”

 “Oh, these?” With a smirk, he closes his hand around them and slides them into his jacket pocket.

“
Hudson!
” I hiss, my face growing red; “I’m
serio-
”

“
Reagan!
”

Hudson’s cocky grin is plastered across his face as he gestures nods towards the stage and to Erika’s shrieking voice; “We better get out there, Senator.”

*****

I’m still buzzing electrically from Hudson’s teasing while I smile at the woman sitting across from us. It’s Hudson and I sitting at one desk, and her at the other, at sort of angles to each other so that we can both also face the small assembled crowds and the live cameras. Yeah, live televisions with loose cannon Hudson Banks and a lingering sexual high still teasing my body from him; what could
possibly
go wrong in this scenario?

“Well, Amy,” I’m saying; “Politics don’t
exactly
run in my family, but doing good does. You see, my Father-”