STEPBROTHERS (3 Book Stepbrother Romance Collection) (3 page)

T
ossing in my bed
, I threw the covers off my agitated body. I couldn’t sleep as I replayed the evening over in my head. Had Devan actually winked at me? Or was I imagining things? And I could’ve sworn he’d taken a peek at my chest. I blushed at the thought and put a hand over my mouth to stop from smiling. I was sick and twisted – I should not be grinning!

Eventually I must’ve drifted off, and wild dreams filled with rich tattoo-like colours - Devan’s hard body against mine - troubled my night’s rest, or should I say lack of it.

I awoke to the sound of soft moaning. It took my brain a second or two to realise the panting breaths that echoed around my small room were coming from my own open mouth.

My thighs pressed together, and my back arched as my clit pulsed. My fingers searched almost instinctively and found their way under the covers. I was so wet, my fingers were coated in my arousal, and it was all because of the one person who was front and centre, the leading man of my dreams tonight.

Devan.

Half-asleep, my lips breathed his name as the tip of my finger pushed into my opening. Pretending was OK, I told myself. I could pretend the lengths of my fingers that moved inside me, caressing my soft inner walls, were his cock. Thick and filling, his cock would satisfy my every need.

My hips moved in time with my plunging hand as my other hand, the pad of my thumb, worked the swollen nub. Faster and faster, no longer caring about the sounds emanating from my mouth. Mark had never made me this crazy or caused me to have wet dreams.

Wishing Devan was there with me, watching me, turned me on even more…

Clamping my eyelids shut, my body went rigid. My toes curled as I desperately tried to hold onto the cresting orgasm that was about to come crashing down.

With a last tap upon my clit and a final thrust of my fingers, I burst open, spilling juices into my hand.

I panted, lips pressed into the pillow, and I let myself feel every ricochet of pleasure that detonated inside me, all the while thinking of him.

My married stepbrother.

H
ung
-over and feeling a little guilty from the night before, I resolved to do something good. I couldn’t get the idea out of my idea. Me: pregnant?

Damn it, Suzanne!

It was madness, I knew it was but I was too curious to stop myself, and started researching information on the net about surrogacy.

It wouldn’t harm anyone if I took a look? Found out the ins and outs of what would bee involved, right?

As I researched, I felt a pit growing in my stomach.

The only pro seemed to be that Devan and Monique would get a baby. The cons, on the other hand… the internet was rife with descriptions of families who had spent all of their money on contracting with a surrogate and covering her medical expenses, and then the woman had refused to give up the baby. Obviously that wouldn’t happen if I offered to do it for them,
would it?

But reading about some of the struggles the birth mothers felt was very real; I didn’t know how I would feel after carrying a baby, even one that wasn’t my own, for nine months. And what would we do at family gatherings? Would I be Aunt Mila?

Medical issues were another big one; no doctor could guarantee a surrogate mother would bring a baby to term. What if we went through everything, and I couldn’t deliver a healthy baby? I couldn’t put Devan and Monique through that. Hell, I couldn’t put
myself
through that. And what if I put myself in jeopardy for having my own kids one day? It’s not like I was dating anyone or getting even close to marriage, but I was young, and that was definitely on my list of dreams once I got a more stable job and the right man. Would I want to give someone else a baby at the cost of my own?

The pros were obvious, but the cons seemed so much more likely to happen. I hadn’t realised so much could go wrong in a pregnancy and birth. My Google searches led me to sites about birth defects and illnesses, and nine months, which hadn’t seemed like a very long time at all, suddenly loomed into something so much more - like too much time for something to go wrong.

I called Suzanne. “Dude, I’m panicking. Do you know how risky pregnancies are?”

“Wait, what? You’re actually thinking about it?” she gasped.

“Maybe…” I said trailing off.

“Oh. My. God. This is nuts! You’re nuts! But women do have babies every day, you know,” she said. “Successfully.”

“I know,” I said. “But I was researching online—” Suzanne cut me off.

“Looking online is not ‘researching’,” she said. “It’s torturing yourself by reading every worst-case scenario and every outlier situation that has ever happened to anyone with a computer. If you really want to research, go to a clinic. Go to your doctor.”

“You’re right, as usual,” I sighed. “It’s such a big step if I went ahead, and you know…”

“I still can’t believe you’re serious.”

“I know you were kidding when you mentioned it, but you should have seen the look on Devan’s face. It was like someone had just thrown him a life preserver when he’d given up all hope. I had no idea things were that bad.”

“I did see the look on his face. And that’s why you need to do some actual research, and you need to talk to both of Devan and Monique. If you can help them out in this way, can you imagine?”

“Again, you’re right.”

“Of course I am! Give them a call tonight, and let’s meet for happy hour tomorrow. I have a feeling your drinking days are numbered.”

I could hear Suzanne smiling on the other end of the phone; she knew what my ultimate decision would be.

I wandered around my apartment and started to pack a few things I found in my closet into a box, ready to go look at the studio about Dev’s garage, and stopped short as my hand trailed over the little dresses hanging up on the rail.

This time next month, I could be pregnant. I probably wouldn’t be able to wear any of my usual clothes… The thought was so strange. Was I actually considering doing this?

After I packed up my things I tidied the whole apartment, trying to take my mind off what may happen in the future if I went ahead and did this crazy thing.

Slumping down upon the couch, I opened a well-deserved bag of chips. The salt tasted delicious, and I licked my fingertips and remembered what I’d done with them the night before. I shook my head, trying to scatter the thoughts, but all my restless energy travelled down my body to my legs. They twitched under me. I couldn’t stop thinking about my dream, Devan or…
carrying his baby.

“Fuck it,” I said to my empty apartment.
There is only one way to stop this,
I thought.

I grabbed my phone and found the contact I was looking for, hoping he’d answer my text.

A few agonisingly slow minutes went by before I got a response.

I
laughed
. How come I hadn’t married Mark? A man who would come over at my beck and call and would bring my favourite food? I sighed.

But I already knew the answer to that question: because Mark was a cheating scumbag, he couldn’t be trusted, and any time we got serious for more than a few months, things would fall apart. His eyes would stray, and I’d find him nine-inches deep inside some bar ho.

No, this arrangement suited me nicely. We both got what we wanted, perhaps not what I needed… but at least we were great bed buddies and my heart wasn’t shattered in the process.

Half an hour later, Mark walked through my front door. The smell of burgers and fries filled my apartment, and my stomach growled in appreciation, for both the food and the man before me.

Instead of diving right into the food he’d brought, I grabbed his hand and pulled him into the unlit bedroom. Mark got the idea and soon took the lead, moving in on me, kissing my neck, my collarbone, my shoulder.

Stripping me bare and laying me on the bed, he kissed down to my breast, and I sighed happily and lay back, allowing him to crawl on top of me.

I closed my eyes, letting his hands explore my body.

But I imagined another man; one with tattoos trailing up his arms, parting my wet lips and entering me; claiming me for his own.

“
I
know
what you’re thinking, honey, but honestly, this could be the solution we’ve been waiting for.”

Suzanne’s words had stayed with me all through the night. The seed was definitely taking a hold of me, and I knew it was a solution we had to at least explore. If only Monique would see it that way, too. This would be our last chance, I thought. The last chance to save our crumbling marriage.

“Are you giving up on me?” Monique asked quietly.

“Absolutely not,” I said. Monique and I had a rare morning off together the day after the New Year’s brunch. We sat at the kitchen table with a pot of coffee and some toast between us. “I will keep trying as long as you want, but honey, we’re nearly out of money, and we’ve tried so many times.”

“Can we trust her?” I could see Monique processing everything in her mind at a thousand miles an hour. Her eyes were darting around the room, and I could tell her heart rate was a little amped because her breathing was shorter than normal. I put my hand on hers.

“She’s my stepsister. She’s family. We can trust her,” I said gently.

“Will you call her and ask her to come over?”

“Do you want to do it?” I asked, the first sparks of excitement beginning to ignite in my stomach.

“Slow down,” she said. “I want to talk to her. I’ve heard about these things going wrong, and we have no idea if she even wants to do this. She needs to know how hard the process can be before I can put my hopes on her. If we do this, it has to work; I can’t bear to have one more failure.” She shook her head as if failing one more time might break her — and I didn’t doubt that was true.

“I’ll call her,” I said and stood up, getting my phone out of my pocket. I dialled Mila’s number and mentally processed what I would say.
I’d like you to have my baby… no, that didn’t sound right.

“Hey, Mila, it’s Devan. Are you around?”

“Yep, just hanging out. I’m glad you called, I was going to ask if I could come over today and check out the studio?”

“That would be great,” I said. “Monique wants to talk to you about, er, what Suzanne mentioned last night. Do you remember?” I asked as I whispered into the phone.

“Erm, I think so. You mean what I think you mean, don’t you?” Mila said, a little apprehensive.

“Yes…”

“OK then. I’ll be over in a little while.”

I hung up the phone and looked at Monique, expecting to see her smiling; instead, she was glaring at me.

“What?” I asked.

“Don’t say it like that,” she snapped.

“Say what?”

“You said, ‘Monique wants to talk to you.’ It makes me sound like this is all on me, and it’s not. This will be
our
baby.
We
want to talk to her. Not me. We, us, together.”

“I’m sorry, Mo,” I shook my head.
Way to put my foot in it again
. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“I think it says a lot that you keep talking about it like it’s what I want, I’ll talk, I’ll do this, I’ll do that. Do you even want a baby? Because if you don’t, we are not doing this, and if Mila thinks that she’s just going to breeze in here and call all the shots, you both have another thing coming.”

“I do want a baby,” I said slowly, knowing that I needed to tread very carefully. “And I think Mila will be very willing to abide by any terms we give her.” I sat back down with Monique.

“I’m sorry,” Monique said, pulling her hand from mine and putting her head in her hands. “I don’t mean to be a bitch, or ungrateful, I just… this has been so much harder than it’s supposed to be, and I hate it. I just want a baby, and I don’t see why that’s so difficult when it’s so easy for everyone else.”

“It’s not easy for everyone,” I said, “or they wouldn’t have IVF and surrogacy and adoption and ways for people to have babies other than the traditional way. You’re not alone in this, babe.
We’re
not alone in this.”

I stood up to clear the breakfast plates and coffee cups. Monique never liked to drink more than one cup of coffee in the morning, and she didn’t like me doing it, either. She said caffeine was part of the reason we had so much trouble conceiving, and so now we drank decaf, but it was still a one cup only rule, and that was an argument too small to even fight.

“I’ll do the dishes,” I offered.

Monique nodded and asked, “Do you think Mila will want lunch? I could make sandwiches.”

I smiled. “I think that would be awesome.” I kissed her forehead, my hands wet with suds in the sink.

A few hours later when Mila arrived, Monique was busy finishing off making the sandwiches and I had started to make some lemonade.

“Hey guys!” Mila called into the kitchen from the back door. “Are you here?”

I poked my head around the kitchen cabinets so I could see Mila standing in the doorway.

“We’re in the kitchen; come on in.”

I heard the screen door slam and Mila, fresh and beautiful, made my mouth go dry as she walked into the kitchen.

A hard lump formed in my throat, and I forced myself to look away from her sheer summer dress. She greeted Monique with a hug.

“I made sandwiches for lunch,” Monique said. “I figured we might be together for a while today. Do you want to see your apartment?”

Mila nodded. “I’d love to! I brought a box of my stuff over, I hope that’s okay.”

Monique smiled. “That may be a little premature when you see the state of the place, but we’ll get it all fixed up for you. Come on.” She grabbed Mila by the hand, and the two women walked out the back door.

I thought about joining them but figured that it might be good to let them have some time alone. Plus it’d give me the time-out I needed after seeing her perfect, curvy body… soft flesh that you could take hold of and knead. How on earth would I survive with her living here?

They weren’t gone long, only about ten minutes, and when they returned Monique was in higher spirits than I’d seen in a long time. Thank God.

“What do you think of the place?” I asked Mila.

“It’s absolutely perfect!” she said. She had such a beautiful smile, and her brown eyes, flecked with gold, were open wide. “It’s a dream! Even though it needs a little work, it will be amazing.”

“You can use our kitchen and bathroom, obviously,” Monique was saying. “We’ll get you a key. The bathroom off the kitchen is the guest bathroom, but that will probably be the one easiest for you to use, don’t you think, Devan?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I think that would be best.”

“Are you hungry?” Monique asked Mila. “We could sit down and talk over the terms, see if we can both be in agreement and go forward with this whole… with this whole other thing.”

I saw Monique’s face falter a bit when she almost had to say ‘surrogacy’, and I knew that although she was cheerful now, she still wasn’t completely sold on the idea.

“Do you want something to drink, either of you?” I asked, getting the sandwiches out of the fridge. I set up lunch on the patio… sandwiches, chips, some brownies and the lemonade. Monique, not happy with my choice of beverage, went back into the kitchen. Without engaging my brain, I pulled the chair away from the table for Mila. Her hand brushed mine in thanks, touching my tattoos again, and I could’ve sworn my cock jolted in my pants.

I scolded myself.
For fuck’s sake… your wife is right there!

Monique sauntered out of the kitchen, glass of water in hand, and I guiltily got the chair for her, too.

“I want to start off by telling you that
we
,” Monique looked pointedly at me, “are really, really happy that you’re even considering this. You know how long we’ve been trying, and, for whatever reason, things just aren’t working in our favour.”

Mila was chewing on her sandwich and nodding.

“I’m really honoured that you trust me enough to do this,” Mila said. I could have kissed her; she brought up the trust thing right away and said it genuinely to Monique. It was perfect.

“Well, if we do this, and it is a big
if
right now,” Monique took sip of her water and swallowed a bite of her sandwich. “There are going to be some rules. I read some stuff online today that got me thinking.” She looked at me. “Devan, will you go get a pen and some paper, please?”

I walked quickly to the study and grabbed a pen and a notebook.

“Sit,” she said gently to me when I returned. “Write down the things we talk about. I think it’s best if we write up a rough contract.”

I nodded, and Mila nodded, too. A contract seemed like it would make things more concrete, more real. Anything to make Monique happy.

Then Monique turned all business-like, and sat up in the chair as if she were at a high-stake negotiations meeting.

“First, you need to get a check-up to make sure you’re medically healthy, and we want to see your past medical history. If you don’t pass the check up, or if we see anything negative in your history, we can just tear up the contract and there’ll be no hard feelings.”

Mila nodded. “Okay, sure. I don’t think there are any problems. I don’t smoke, I drink from time to time, you know that, and I eat pretty healthy.”

Monique took a deep breath. “Eating healthy is kind of a matter of perception. If we do this, I’m going to have to insist that you eat an organic, vegetarian diet. I would prefer vegan, but I know that your diet is really meat based right now, and so starting out with vegetarian should be enough. I’ll even join you… I won’t eat meat either.”

Mila’s eyes widened and I saw her swallow. “Okay,” she said, with slightly less enthusiasm than before.

“And then there’s the matter of any risky behaviours to the baby.”

“What do you mean? I’m no adrenaline junkie,” Mila scoffed, her eyes meeting mine for a second.

Monique frowned and continued. “You’ll need to stay here in town, no traveling. You can go into the city or whatever, but no plane travel. If something happens, you have to be close. Also, no caffeine, no alcohol, and no sugar. And, finally, no sex.”

“What?” Mila and I said at the same time. Mila looked dazed.

I’d been writing furiously, trying to keep up with all of Monique’s requirements, but that last one shocked me and I put the pen down. It seemed a little over the top.

“It would be different if you were married,” Monique said, “but, given that you’re not, and that you don’t have a steady boyfriend, I think it would be best if you refrained from intercourse or other similar things, like oral sex, until after the baby is born.”

I clenched my jaw and shut my eyes as Monique’s words about Mila’s sex life - oral sex - took hold of me.

Did she enjoy oral?

I didn’t need to think of Mila’s antics in the bedroom, especially while my wife was sitting right there, and tried desperately not to think of Mila naked, legs spread wide as an unknown partner lapped at her pussy.

Colour rose on Mila’s cheeks and then she took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Anything else?” she asked.

Monique thought. “That’s basically it for the pregnancy. We’ll have to talk about a separate contract for after the baby is born, about breastfeeding, what you’ll call the child, what she or he will call you, et cetera. The lawyers will probably have some opinions about how to structure that—”

“Lawyers?” Mila and I both said again at the same time. We looked at each other.

“Well, of course we’re going to get this professionally written up,” Monique said as if we were both dumb as stones. “You can’t expect that we would just take each other on our word. I called a lawyer friend of mine this morning, and she’s agreed to draft our contracts pro bono if we were to go ahead. She owes me a favour.”

I was torn. I thought Monique was asking an awful lot from a woman who had just agreed to carry our child in her body for nine months, but on the other hand, Monique was right; this was a big deal, and lots of things could go wrong along the way. The last thing I wanted to happen was for Mila to eat a cheeseburger and go into early labour and have Monique blame it on her diet. Even though I thought her rules were excessive, I also knew that it was better for both Mila and me if we let Monique drive this bus.

Mila seemed to agree. She thought for a moment, picking at the crust of her sandwich with her fingernail. Then she looked up at Monique’s desperate eyes. “I agree to everything,” she said. “I’ll do it.”

“You don’t have to pay rent,” I blurted out. Both women looked at me.

“While you’re pregnant and as long as you stay after. Surrogates get paid, a ton of money, I think, and we can’t afford to do that. But we can give you a free place to live, which is kind of like getting paid, and of course we’ll cover all of your medical expenses.” How we were going to do that, I didn’t know, but I was sure there was some way. I’d take on more contracts… work in the evenings. Anything. It was only fair.

Monique took the paper from me and added a few more things that I had forgotten. I saw her write the words “absolutely no sex” and underline them twice. I would need to remind Monique that Mila was making a big sacrifice here, but for now, everyone seemed happy.

We had turned a corner and we were on our way, the three of us.