Stepbrother Soldier: A Forbidden Military Romance Novel (20 page)

24

After all the flashbulbs and reporters left us alone, Jane, Ashton,
and I snuck back to my hotel room and promptly raided the mini-fridge.
Actually, it was mostly Jane and Ashton. Despite the victory, my stomach was
still acting up awfully, and I could barely manage a few sips of a single
drink. But I was happy enough just to watch them cheers to our success and talk
about the future.

We decided that Ashton and I would make a quick trip to the farmhouse
before joining Jane for a while – until I finished my degree. I’d, miraculously,
been able to keep up with my work at school. My academic suspension had been
lifted after my would-be plagiarism accuser disappeared off the face of the
earth and multiple professors and peers vouched for me. It wouldn’t be long
until I had my degree.

Hell, the school would probably have given me the degree no matter
what after the publicity I’d gotten them.

When Jane, happily tipsy and filling the room and hall with raucous
laughter, retired to her own room, she pulled me aside, slipping a gift-wrapped
box into my hand. It was long and rectangular; jewelry, I assumed.

“A little victory gift for you,” she said, a twinkle in her eye. I
hugged her tight, feeling her strong arms around me, a better victory gift than
any shiny necklace or trinket could ever be.

And then we were alone.

Ashton and I looked at each other for a long
moment, both trying not to smile like idiots.

And then we crashed together, a rowdy rush into each other’s arms, a
messy twirl of limbs as our lips met and hands tore at each other’s clothes,
hearts racing as the heat between us rose and rose, temperatures flashing
upwards as we dove into each other’s skin, hands and tongues whipping
feverishly.

Ashton twirled me around, my blouse hanging half-off my body, my jeans
unbuttoned, holding me tight against him with his hands coming up to my exposed
breasts. I moaned as his hands roamed, hungry, across my chest, grabbing my
nipple roughly, his lips tracing my neck from my chin to my collarbone and
back, sending endless shivers of delight through me.

His hot breath hit the tender spot at the back of my ear and I almost
collapsed forward with need, his two hands now coming to rest on my breasts,
fondling them gently and tweaking my nipples between his thumbs and
forefingers.

“I’ve needed this for so long,” he growled into my ear, voice husky
and low and tickling my flesh as much as his fingertips on my now-erect
nipples. One hand left its place on my chest and began to travel downwards
across my stomach, which fluttered under his touch, plunging down the front of
my jeans and into my panties.

My slit was soaked already, my clit yearning to be touched, his
strong, rough fingers drawing cries from my mouth as he dipped into my waiting
opening, using the juices to lubricate his fingers as he drew them upwards to
my clit. I gasped, leaning backward into his embrace, his other hand still
toying with my breasts.

Suddenly, he spun me around again, his hand leaving my sex and coming
around to cup my ass, pulling me upwards into him, our lips meeting once more
in a battle of tongues, my whole being sucked into his warm, wet mouth as I
grabbed at his cheeks and necks, running my fingers along his stubble. His
long, blonde hair tumbled into my face, tickling my nerves, each silken strand
like a shot of pleasure. I ground against him, desperate, hungry, my body
forgetting anything but the need deep inside me.

I could feel his stiffness through his pants, the immense length of
him throbbing against my mound as I moaned into his mouth. He walked forward,
pushing me forward with him, until we came to the dresser. With one arm,
impossibly strong, he lifted me onto the top of the dresser, pulling away just
long enough to rip my jeans from my thighs and down to my ankles.

My hands struggled to do the same for him, my desire making my fingers
shake as I tried to undo the buttons. He grabbed my arms viciously, pinning
them behind me, holding them in place with one hand as the other released his
pants, his cock popping out as they fell to the floor. My arms ached as he held
them behind me, but when our eyes locked the ache turned sweet, just another
dimension of the crazed yearning inside me.

“This is for making me wait so long,” he growled, his forehead coming
to meet mine as he walked between my legs. My slit was dripping, pulsing, heat
radiating from my flesh as it begged for him. I moaned as his cock pressed
against my slit, my legs spreading for him, my pussy trying to suck him inside
like a vacuum. My stepbrother’s massive cock teased me, not plunging all the
way in, pumping only just so slightly into my aching slit.

“Please, Ashton,” I begged, cried, pleading with him to stop this slow
torture. His free hand came to my stomach, trailed downwards to my clit, our
foreheads still pressed together, his eyes boring into mine as I clung to him,
trying to pull him forward, into me. “Please fuck me!”

His fingers found my swollen clit, began rubbing, and I closed my eyes
as sweet, torturous need flowed through me, now enhanced tenfold as my tender
clit sent shockwaves through my body. Finally, slowly, he began to press into
me, his fingers still circling my clit as his cock ripped into me, stretching
me wide, my pussy still tight as a virgin’s.

I moaned and cried out as he released my arms, placing his hand on the
small of my back and pressing me forward to meet him, his cock plunging into my
pussy, now throbbing even more as his cock massaged every inch of it, pivoting
his hips down to send electric sparks through my veins.

“Fuck, Ashton,” I groaned, hips thrusting to match his pace, his
fingers still assaulting my clit, making me squirm in ecstasy, my pussy gushing
around him as he began to fuck me deep, hard, pistoning into me, our eyes still
locked, my expression turning painful as the pleasure tore through me,
unbearably blissful.

I locked my arms around his neck, and I screamed as he suddenly lifted
me into the air, his cock fully buried in my slit, his hand on the small of my
back now steadying me, the other hand under my ass.

His strong arms lifted and pulled me up and down along the massive
length of him, as though I were merely a toy to be used at his discretion, my
own pleasure building and building with each stroke. I cried out once more as
he sped up, his hips pulsing in mid-air as he supported my entire body weight
without any sign of struggle, my legs wrapped around him.

“Come for me, Christy,” he growled into my ear, and I had no choice:
the words seemed to spiral down through me, lighting every nerve in my body,
until they reached my deepest being and kicked down the gates, unleashing a
flood of electricity that left me breathless, a silent scream in my throat, my
muscles exploding with pleasure as I came on his cock, massaging it, milking
it, my every nerve alive with the unbelievable feeling of my stepbrother’s cock
plunged as far into my pussy as it could be.

I was barely aware of his tightening grip, his sudden shaking, the
flood of his warm, gushing cum as it spilled into my still-contracting pussy,
his hips slamming against me with a groan as he came into his stepsister’s cunt
again and again, our bodies rocking rhythmically until we were both spent,
shaking, shuddering on each other.

Ashton nearly threw me onto the bed, which was preferable to being
dropped onto the floor, his muscles giving way to exhaustion as his cock began
to wilt. He crawled in next to me, both of us sweating and panting.

We lay like that for a long while, not speaking, just loving, loving,
loving each other for all we had. Suddenly, I remembered the gift that Jane had
given me.

“I want to open my victory present,” I said with
a giggle, rolling over. Ashton groaned.

“I thought this
was
your
victory present,” he said, grinning and peeking out at me from the edge of one
eye.

“Please, darling, have a little humility,” I said, getting up and
scanning the room for the small package. Finding it, having fallen to the
ground during the ruckus, I brought it back to bed, sitting cross-legged,
Ashton’s hand coming to rest on my thigh.

It was wrapped in simple brown paper; very Jane. I opened one side,
then the other, my confusion increasing as I made out the words on each side. A
slip of paper fluttered out as I finally revealed the final product.

It was a pregnancy test?

Ashton raised himself on his elbows, looking
puzzled.

“What’s that for?” he asked, and I could only shrug, although it
doesn’t take a genius to figure out what a pregnancy test is for. In fact, it
probably only takes a seven-year-old to know why someone would need a pregnancy
test. But denial is a powerful force; I held out hope that this was some sort
of gag gift. I picked up the slip of paper.

Christy –

You don’t need to take this, but you probably
will, knowing the kinda thorough gal you shown yourself to be.

I may sound uneducated when I talk and write, but
you don’t live on this earth as long as I have without knowing a few things.

It’s written all over your face, honey. I’m happy
for you both. Bring the little tyke around once in a while to see her old Great
Aunt Jane, will you?

(Pretty sure it’ll be a little chickadee, but it
ain’t an exact science, so you should probably ask your doc).

Love,

Jane

I dropped the slip of paper. Ashton picked it up, read it, his eyes
first popping open then narrowing closed as he read it through. When his eyes
drifted up to mine, we couldn’t say anything at all to each other.

I didn’t know whether I hoped Jane was right or
wrong.

“Hell of a day,” Ashton said, his voice soft, his face unreadable. I
nodded, still holding the test in my now-shaking hands.

“Are you gonna…you know…” he asked after a few
minutes of wordless silence had passed.

“I’m scared,” I said. It was the truth. This was
way
scarier than anything I’d been through up to then. I’d rather
testify against the Admiral ten times over than take that test, no matter the
result.

“Of what?” Ashton asked, a smile creeping over his face. “If it’s not
positive, we’ll just have to keep trying.”

My mouth fell open.
He wants this? He wants us to have a baby?

Apparently so, judging from the blush in his
cheeks and the smile on his face.

Then it’s what you want, too,
said something inside me, a voice both strange
and familiar. An image flashed in my head: my stomach, swollen and full, and
Ashton’s hands on it. Another: Ashton, back to me, rocking back and forth
slowly, a sleeping infant on his shoulders. Another: my mother, my earliest
memory of her, standing above me, arms outstretched as I toddled towards her,
her face a shining beacon in a darkened world.

That last image made my heart wince, tears threatening my cheeks. I’d
thought that maintaining her sunflower fields had been the right way to honor
her memory, but now I thought…

Ashton took my hand, squeezed it.

“I’ll love you just as much, either way,” he said. I looked into his
eyes. So much kindness, so much strength. My man, my soldier, my
stepbrother…the father of my child.

Jane was right.

I didn’t need to take the test.

I squeezed Ashton’s hand back.

And smiled, wide and true.

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Epilogue

“Mrs. Trapper, Mrs. Trapper, wait up,” I heard the voice echoing down
the hallway. I recognized it as one of my intern’s, and paused, a dull throb in
my head as I waited for the eager young man to catch up to me.

I smiled, but inside I was groaning: it was the end of a long, long
day at the end of a long, long week at the end of a long, long month, and I
wanted to go home already. But, I reminded myself, this is what I
really
wanted, and it was as demanding
as I’d known it would be going into it. There were far bigger things at stake
than my aching feet or pounding head.

“What’s up?” I asked as Josh, the intern, trotted
up to me, nearly panting.

“I just…whew…I just need your Hancock on this last form,” he said.
“Sorry, I must have missed it the first time I was going over the grant
approval. Glad I caught it though, you know how that stuff goes. One missing
signature, two more months of waiting.”

“Sure, sure, geeze, thanks, that’s great that you caught it,” I said,
gratefully taking the pen and paper from his hand. He was right; if I’d left for
the weekend and the approval had been submitted without that one little detail,
it would have derailed us for another eight weeks at least.

I raised my eyebrows in amusement as the young man turned around,
hunching over slightly, giving me his back to use as a clipboard while I signed
“Uh, that’s okay, Josh, I’ll just use the wall.”

“Oh, okay,” he said, turning back around, a big old smile on his face.
I returned it as warmly as I could manage despite my tiredness. With my looped,
distinctive signature inked onto the form, it was ready to go, and I handed it
back with a sigh.

“Thanks, Josh, good work. You really saved our butts,” I said,
offering him a handshake, which he accepted with no less enthusiasm than if I
were Noah asking him if he wanted a ride on the ark while the waters rose.

“Pleasure, really,” he said, backing away with that big smile still on
his face, waving me off, paper fluttering in his hand. I turned back and
resumed my quick, clipped walk down the hallway, the only sound my heels as
they tapped against the linoleum.

Why oh why didn’t I choose a career that would
let me wear orthopedic shoes,
I
asked myself, knowing that my feet would be a big, red mess by the time I got
home. They always were on Fridays.

But, sore feet meant one beautiful thing to me: a foot rub. I could
almost feel Ashton’s hands massaging my soles already as I sunk into the couch,
glass of wine in hand. And then I’d get to rub his back, sore from driving
around all day as one of London’s finest. With little Jane snug as a bug in her
bed, we’d sit in front of the fire, discuss our day, listen to the radio or put
on a record.

But there was a lot still to do between now and then. Like, navigate
London’s brutal traffic patterns. And figure out whether to do frozen pizza or
Indian take-out. And help little Jane with her homework. And I still had to
respond to
other
Jane’s most recent
letter, though that could wait until Sunday morning. But there was tidying up
to do, there was
always
tidying up to
do. Even the thought of taking a shower seemed exhausting, and just another
road block to the most special time of the week, Mom and Dad date night
love-fest.
 

As I crossed the parking lot to my car, I reminded myself to be
grateful. Grateful to be tired, grateful to have a life to take care of, a
normal life, with normal chores and normal problems. It could be worse. We
could have stayed in the States, where no matter whether or not I changed my
name, I would always be Christy Starling, and Ashton would always be my stepbrother,
and our child would probably be seen as some devil incarnate, a result of taboo
lust and, possibly, Satan worship.

Americans have funny notions about everything, and we’d known that we
would never be able to raise little Jane there. It would have been hard enough
on us, coming out as publicly married, even after we both changed our names.

But abroad, we had scads less celebrity. No one really gives a damn
about what happens in America, you know, unless it involves the rest of the
world, too. “Christy Starling” had made the news, sure, but only as an
occasional byline in the “international” section, and she’d been forgotten
quickly. To my knowledge, no news outlet in the UK had even run a picture of
me. And Ashton was good as gold.

Of course, both our jobs had required background checks, which had
turned up, inevitably, our sordid pasts. But Ashton had had to live in the UK
for three years before becoming a member of the London Metropolitan Police, so
by the time they did the background check it didn’t really matter anymore,
anyway.

He’d spent those three years, by the way, being just about the most
amazing stay-at-home Dad on planet earth. Even with his military background,
which necessarily implies some level of masculinity, he didn’t see it as
womanly or beneath him to take care of our precocious young daughter. He saw it
as an honor, a gift, and he said he still missed being able to take care of her
24/7.

As for me, I’d had a hell of a pregnancy, using those months to
finally finish my degree, remotely, while we hid out at Jane’s farmhouse, where
we were left in relative peace. It had broken my heart not to be able to walk
and accept my degree (awarded with very, very high honors, if I may boast),
especially after having labored intensively, trying to keep up a breakneck
speed of studying while carrying a watermelon around in my stomach.

But, alas, life isn’t perfect, and sometimes you just don’t get what
you want. But, if you’re a good person, and you work hard, you usually get
something better, and once I had little Jane in my arms, I knew she was the
best thing I’d ever done with my life, college be damned.

As soon as little Jane could sit up on her own, we boarded a plane to
London, where I’d already secured a position at the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR, as well as fully-funded admission to
King’s College to get my Master’s in International Relations. Not that I
couldn’t have afforded it on my own; the Admiral had, rightfully, paid out the
ass for what he’d done to me and the other girls, and not just in prison time.

With a full-time job and a graduate program to handle, I was busier
and more determined than ever. Sometimes, I regret not having been around more
for Jane’s youngest years, but I take comfort in the fact that Ashton was, and
he recorded every blessed milestone.

Now, as one of the top-ranking administrators in the UNHCR, my
department focused largely on the unique plight of female refugees, especially
those who had experienced sexual trauma in their homeland. I wasn’t necessarily
uniquely qualified for the position, but when I unfolded my own personal saga
to the woman who’d interviewed me for
the my
first
position, she’d been impressed by my dedication and bravery. Am I patting my
own back too much? Probably so.

So there we were: two young, determined, bright Americans living in
London, where we’d been able to get married without any eyebrows raised as to
our close upbringing. Stepbrother and stepsister? If anyone who officiated at
our wedding knew, they certainly didn’t seem to care. And there was no real
reason for anyone to know; with me going by my mother’s maiden name and Ashton
having legally changed his name to
his
mother’s
maiden name, there wasn’t a whole lot to link us together (except, of course,
our love).

After what felt like four years of traffic, I finally pulled into the
driveway of our narrow, two-story townhouse. I sat in the car a few moments
longer, listening to the engine tick, bracing myself for whatever post-work
catastrophe might come down upon me once I walked through those doors.

The one amazing thing about everything I’d gone through was that it
made me fairly invincible to almost every other setback you can imagine in
life. Finger paint all over the walls? So what. Broken dishes? No biggie. A
fight on the playground? Oh well. The stove is on fire, the sink is leaking,
the roof collapsed, and the front door has squeaky hinges? Okey dokey, let’s
get to work.

Finally, with one deep breath, I got out of my car and hopped up the
steps, already hearing the sound of little Jane laughing through the door, a
sound that never ceased to bring a smile to my face. As I opened the door, she
was already running down the hall, arms outstretched. I leaned down to meet
her, scooping her up into my arms, hugging her tightly.

I would have been just as happy with a son as I was with a daughter,
but having a daughter was uniquely special for me. I saw in her the potential
to change the world, to be a strong, courageous, loving woman. I wanted only
one thing on the earth: to raise her to be happy, healthy, with a strong heart
and no fear.

There are things I can’t tell her now, not yet. As I finish my story,
she’s still too young to worry about the things that could happen to her, to
worry about braving the storm that is the world. But maybe, someday, she’ll
read this. I hope, for her sake, she skips straight to the epilogue, since no
child should have to read all about how hot her parents were (and, hopefully,
still are) for each other. But here is what I have to say to little Jane when
she’s not so little anymore:

When you love, and you are going to have to love,
do it with everything inside you.

And when you fight, and you are going to have to
fight, do it with everything inside you.

Be bold with yourself; love yourself boldly. If
you don’t, no one will.

Fight for yourself; take no prisoners. No one
else is going to do it for you.

Fight with yourself; fight to be the woman you
want to be, whoever she is.

You deserve to have all the happiness the universe can give you, but
only if you act like you deserve it. So speak up when others lose their voices.
Never be cruel to something weaker than you. And don’t be afraid of anything
stronger than you.

Because, my love, my little Jane, if you are true to yourself, there
can never
be
anything stronger than
you.

All the armies of the world will pale in
comparison to what you can do.

Trust me.

I know.