Cannon (A Step Brother Romance #3) Read online

  "Jerk-face again, huh?" he asks. "You get so obscene when you're angry."

  "I tell you that I know you were a total asshole, and you make fun of me," I say angrily. "Not a damn thing about you has changed, Hendrix."

  "No," he says, his gaze intense. "Not a damn thing has changed."

  "Let go of me."

  "No."

  "Screw you."

  "I said I fucked you, Addy."

  "I know you did," I say. "I just told you I heard you say it."

  "You knew me, though," Hendrix says. "You knew me more than anyone else in the whole damn world, but you didn't think to maybe ask why I would have told my friends that? You didn't think I maybe had a reason?"

  "The things you said were crude."

  "They were supposed to be," he says. "High school boys are douchebags, and one of them wanted to bang you."

  "So you had to what, let them know you marked me as yours?"

  Hendrix pulls me against him, his arm sliding around my lower back, and his hardness presses into me, sending a surge of heat through my body. "You are mine, Addy. It's a fact. But when I mark you as mine, you'll fucking know it."

  "You want me so you can have bragging rights," I say, but I don't move away, either.

  "Any man who wouldn't want to brag about being with you is messed up in the head," he says. "But I don't intend to say anything to anyone." He moves a wet tendril of hair away from my forehead. His hand follows the tendril as he tucks it behind my ear, and then, as if he's unable to control himself, he grabs my hair just like he did in the hallway, yanking my head back. Then he brings his mouth down on mine.

  My resistance fades away, and I feel myself melting into him, into the kiss, as his tongue finds mine. And I don't feel the rain anymore. I only feel Hendrix. His hands sliding along my arms, his lips pressing against mine, his tongue finding my tongue, tentative for a second and then hungry.

  His hand is under the fabric of my shirt, and then his palm is on my breast, and my nipple hardens against my bra. I want to feel his hands on my skin, and the thought makes me moan.

  It seems like forever that I'm lost in the kiss, until I pull away, gasping for a breath. My lower lip feels swollen, bruised from his kiss, and I run my tongue along it, tasting blood.

  Hendrix reaches up and presses his thumb on my lip. "I'm sorry," he says.

  "It's okay. It's just a little blood."

  He tilts my chin up and looks at me. "Not that. For before," he says. "For the graduation party."

  "You said I had cellulite on my ass."

  Hendrix grins, and he moves his hand from my face, running both of his hands down my body and over my ass. "Have I told you how hot I think cellulite is?"

  "Funny."

  "I was a stupid kid, Addy," he says. "And I didn't want my asshole friends to get near you."

  "Because you wanted me."

  "Because I wanted you more than I could fucking breathe, Addy."

  "I thought you hated me."

  "I hated that I couldn't have you."

  "Why didn't you ever...?"

  "Because you were my stepsister. And you were a year younger than me," he says. "And I was..."

  "A jackass."

  "That part hasn't changed, Addy-girl."

  "We should -- go back in, Hendrix." I'm standing here, pressed up against his hardness, the throbbing between my legs insistent, but I'm telling him we should go inside.

  "You're right," he says, tracing his thumb along my lip. My lips part, and I touch my tongue against his skin, tasting salt. "I should definitely not do what I want to do to you right now."

  "Wh- what do you want to do?" My voice cracks, and I can barely get the question out. I shouldn't be asking this question. I shouldn't be standing here, with Hendrix's thumb on my lips. I shouldn't kiss that thumb, the way I do now. I shouldn't watch his expression change to one of unbridled lust and listen to the way he groans, the slow rumble of desire under his breath.

  I shouldn't do any of those things. Hendrix touching me is dangerous. This isn't a game, not with my career at stake. Not with everything I've worked for at risk. I know that; I tell myself that; yet I don't move. Every cell in my body is on edge, waiting for him.

  "I want to taste you," he says. "I want to pull those pants of yours down, and I want to kneel right here in the rain and put my tongue inside you. I want to feel you come on my face, Addy. I want to plunge my cock inside you and feel you come around me." Hendrix's hand is on my back, pulling me to him, and I can feel his erection hard against my leg. If his words didn't tell me he wanted me, that would make it perfectly clear.

  "I --" I start, but his hand is fumbling with the button on my jeans. "Shit, Hendrix."

  He slides his hand down the front of my pants, underneath my panties, and I grip his biceps as heat runs through my body at his touch. "You are so fucking wet," he says.

  I can't speak, can't make anything more than a strangled cry as he touches me, his callused fingers rough against my clit. Desire runs through me like electricity, and every part of me feels like it's on fire. "I want you," I say. I speak the words. Out loud. Finally. "I want you."

  Hendrix lets out a growl under his breath, primal in its intensity, and I think he's going to rip my clothes off right here outside in the pouring rain, and I don't care. I want him more than I've ever wanted anyone. In five years, nothing about that has changed. That desire has only gotten stronger.

  Lightning cracks, illuminating everything with bright white light for a moment. "We should go back, before we get struck by lightning," I say, and when Hendrix slides his fingers from between my legs, I'm crushed by disappointment.

  Then Hendrix is pushing me against the tree, peeling my pants over my hips and yanking them, over my thighs. Before I can say anything else, he slides my panties over my hips. "Did I tell you how much I like this ass?" he asks.

  I grin like an idiot, and I must look like one, out here in a damn storm, with my back against a tree and my pants pulled down around my knees. But I don't have time to think about what I look like, or about the way we're both soaked to the bone, before Hendrix drops to his knees between my legs and covers my pussy with his mouth. He explores me with his tongue, licking me and sucking my clit, and I let out a loud moan that gets lost in the noise of the storm.

  He doesn't take his time eating me out. This isn't slow and languid. He eats me like he's been thinking about this for years and he can't get enough, and I close my eyes and let go. I pull his head against me as he sucks my clit into his mouth, running his tongue in circles over and over it. When he slides his fingers inside me, I'm already so close I nearly come at the sensation, and I know I want more. I want all of him.

  I moan his name, not caring how loud I am because it's carried away by the wind, urging him to fuck me harder with his fingers, when what I really want is his cock. When he groans, the vibration reverberates through my pussy, bringing me higher. I run my hands over my breasts, barely covered by the sheer fabric of my shirt, and the stimulation practically sends me over the edge. I want to wait, to savor him doing what he's doing between my legs, but he has me so far gone, I can't. When I come, I cry out his name, my hands gripping his head as my muscles clench around his fingers. The release is so intense, and I've waited so long to be with him, that I cry when I come. I fucking sob, the tears intermingling with the rain.

  FIVE YEARS AGO

  I look at the house one last time before I leave. It's five in the morning, and the sun hasn't come up yet. I'm slinking away from this place like a coward, without saying a damn thing to Addy. Not even goodbye. And certainly not the other thing I should say, the thing that really matters.

  The cab driver closes the trunk and I sink back into the seat, refusing to turn around and give the place a backwards glance. It's better this way. I said goodbye to our parents last night. My father gave me his one sentence of sage advice: "Don't fuck up the Marines."

  Addy was the one person I wanted to see, but she was gone