NEVER KISS A STRANGER (A Stepbrother Romance) Read online

  “They’re only things,” he said, studying my face. He stood waiting, his brows arched.

  “Oh, yes,” I said, realizing it was my turn to undress him. My cheeks flushed as I grabbed fistfuls of his navy blue sweater and tugged it over his hair, disheveling it even more. I ran my tongue across the fullness of my top lip as I worked his buttons and he loosened his tie, and within seconds, he was a shirtless vision of rippled abs and sculpted shoulders. He shoved his tie into his back pocket, and the second I reached for his belt buckle he stopped me, placing his hand over mine.

  “This is where I take over,” he said. “This is where you lose yourself in my world for the next hour.”

  The thought of giving up control both tantalized and terrified me. I quickly contained my fear, reminding myself of what I’d come there to do.

  “Think you can do that, Addi?” he asked.

  I groaned. “Please don’t call me Addi. That’s all I ask.”

  He frowned. “I call the shots here… Addi.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Fine,” he said, leaning in and scooping his arm behind my waist. His lips found mine again and we stumbled back toward the bed. “I won’t call you Addi. But everything else I might say or do tonight, lovely, is out of your control.”

  He laid me across the bed at an angle and lifted my arms above my head. Reaching into his back pocket, he pulled his silk tie back out and wrapped it a couple times around my wrists before securing it to the headboard.

  I tugged at the straps that bound me. I was really tied up. This wasn’t pretend. I pressed my lips together as my body tingled from head to toe and my clasped hands trembled.

  As he hovered over me, the intensity of his raw verve drew attention to the burning desire in my core. He smelled like vetiver and cedar, tobacco and musk; like a rich cologne only a few fortunate individuals could afford to wear.

  Wilder clicked off the lamp and lowered his body over mine. The floor-to-ceiling windows of our suite ushered in the flickering glow of New York City at night, and though we were amongst millions of people, we were in our own little world high above it all.

  Wilder lowered himself to my hips, floating above my silk panties. His fingers slid beneath the waistband, traveling lower and pulling the fabric away from my mound.

  “Exquisite,” he said as he admired me. Red bloomed in my cheeks, and I was thankful he couldn’t see it in the dark. “Really. Exquisite.”

  And then he ripped them. My very expensive, French, silk panties. Ripped clean off me. I opened my mouth to protest.

  “It’s just a thing, lovely,” he said again.

  She tasted of arousal with a hint of flowers, and I smiled at the notion that she’d spent time prepping for our little encounter. With her panties lying in shreds on the floor of the hotel suite, I devoured her intricately-groomed and deliciously sexy pussy.

  My tongue separated her folds as I slid a finger inside her, previewing her warmth and wetness. She was tight, almost too tight, which matched her personality perfectly.

  “Relax,” I whispered. I glanced up to find her biting her tongue as her wrists wriggled and writhed against the tie the held them in place.

  Soft moans escaped her full, fuckable lips, as if she were embarrassed to let herself go but couldn’t fight it off completely. I breathed in her scent, letting it flood my lungs, and continued licking and exploring her beautiful pussy.

  Had she been another girl, I’d have let her suck my cock and then finished myself off balls-deep inside her, but Addison was different. There was something about her that told me this probably wouldn’t be the last time I saw her.

  She needed me, whether she knew it or not.

  I peeled myself away, leaving her panting and breathless and probably relieved to get a break from fighting off her orgasms for a minute, and searched for the foil packet I’d set on the nightstand earlier.

  Sheathing my engorged cock, I readied myself at her wet and ready entrance. “Are you ready, lovely?”

  She lifted her head toward me, her eyes seeming confused even in the dark. “I didn’t realize this was going to happen so quickly.”

  “Do you want more foreplay?” I asked. “I could let you suck my cock, but I’d much rather bury it deep inside this pretty little pussy of yours.”

  Her head fell back into the soft pillow and she nodded. “Do whatever you want to me, Wilder.”

  I wasn’t a man whore by any stretch of the imagination, but most of the girls I’d been with were so fake in the sack it took everything I had to keep my dick hard. They’d enthusiastically suck my cock like it was a fucking lollipop and then scream out my name as if they were auditioning for a goddamned porno. Addison was real. All she did was be herself.

  And it made me hard as fuck.

  I pressed the head of my cock toward her soft entrance and inserted myself inch by inch until I was all the way in. She felt like heaven, like a teenage boy’s wet dream and a night at the Playboy Mansion all rolled into one. If pussies came in luxury models, hers was the Rolls Royce. Tight and soft. Wet and inviting.

  One thrust. Two thrusts. Slow at first, then building. Each thrust brought me closer to the brink, much to my dismay. I could last for hours in any other woman I’d bedded, but not Addison.

  I forced myself to think of other things. Baseball. The stock market. Smog. But they kept coming back to her and how fucking amazing she felt on my dick. Her hips wriggled and bucked beneath me, meeting me thrust for thrust, and she gripped onto the tie each time I hit her wall.

  “Wilder,” she panted. “Oh, my God…”

  My hand traveled up her breasts, a pert nipple tickling my palm, and then landed under her jaw. My thumb traced over her fuckable pink mouth. I’d have to know what it felt like another time.

  I fucked her as long as I could, filling my mind with as many unsexy thoughts as I could in an attempt to stave off the inevitable. She bucked hard against me as sexy moans and expletives flew from her lips, so I had to correct her. “No, lovely. I’m in control.”

  “But I can’t fight…” she breathed, her words trailing as she attempted to obey me.

  “Trust me. I know what you need,” I said in a low whisper.

  I didn’t want to pull out of her. I wanted to stay in her forever, bask myself in her musky arousal, fuck her all night long, round after round. I barely knew her, and yet she was one of the most fascinating people I’d ever met. I’d never met a girl so prim and proper and perfect who quietly preferred to be tied up and fucked like that. I supposed it made sense though.

  Addison fought it long and hard, but after a while her body gave up the fight, practically convulsing as she bit her lip to keep from screaming. I released myself as she wriggled and bucked against my cock.

  The second she caught her breath she glanced at the nightstand toward the alarm clock. “Shit. I have to go. I have to be up in six hours.”

  I raked my hand through my hair. “Seriously?”

  She just came all over my cock, and that was the first thing she had to say when it was over and done with?

  “Untie me,” she said, immediately returning to pre-fuck Addison. I tugged on the strap of the tie, unraveling it. She rubbed her wrists and scooted off the bed while I enjoyed the view.

  She was a true hourglass: curved hips, whittled waist, round, natural breasts. She could’ve given Marilyn Monroe a run for her money, back in the day. If I had to guess, she probably didn’t know how sexy she was, or it was so removed from her perfect list of priorities that it didn’t matter.

  She rifled around the room, searching for the bits and pieces of the clothing she’d shown up in.

  “You mind calling me a cab?” she asked as she grabbed a sparkling stiletto from the floor.

  Women like her, the workaholic types, only gave their sexuality a thought when they realized how much their girlfriends were getting laid or when they were lying awake at night thinking about how good it would feel to have hot sex right about then.
I imagined that was how Addison found me.

  Admittedly, I was doing the same thing. Looking for a one-night stand. An innocent hook-up. A beautiful girl to bury my dick in for an hour or so. But now that I’d had her once, I wanted to have her again.

  I pulled my jeans back on and flipped on the light. She was all dressed, save for the torn underwear lying on the ground.

  She stepped toward me, as if she didn’t know how to say goodbye.

  “I’ve never done this before,” she said, her eyes shifting nervously. “For the record.”

  “I figured.”

  “Thanks for tonight,” she said in a low husk with the tiniest hint of a southern drawl. “I needed it.”

  Her pretty blue eyes washed over me, as if she wanted to get one last glance at me before she left. She wrapped her cream coat around her and secured it with a shiny, glass button. She looked just as beautiful leaving as she had when she’d arrived. The flush on her cheeks were the only sign that she’d just been fucked. Other than that, she was pure elegance.

  “Look, lovely,” I said, combing my fingers through the side of my hair. “I don’t do relationships, or anything like that, but if you wanted this to be a regular thing, I could probably make that happen.”

  I couldn’t believe I was propositioning her. It never happened this way. It was usually the girl pretending she wasn’t interested in me, like I wouldn’t know what reverse psychology was, and her subtly hinting about hanging out again.

  Addison made no mention of seeing me again, and I suppose the fact that she could have very easily walked out of there that night and I’d have never seen her again made me break my rules.

  Her full lips arched upward at the corners as her blue eyes glinted. “This was a one-time thing, remember?”

  She walked to the door, seconds from walking out of my life forever. I couldn’t let that happen.

  I cut her off, placing my hand on the door. “Maybe I didn’t make myself clear just a second ago.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I have to have you again.”

  “Of course you want to be with me again,” I said. “I just let you tie me up and have your way with me.”

  Wilder winced in pain—the emotional type, not the physical. I was quite positive most women threw themselves at him.

  “I meant it when I said I don’t do relationships,” I said.

  “I did too.” His teal eyes searched mine. “I don’t do relationships. Hooking up on a regular basis does not constitute a relationship, Addison. Not in my world.”

  “You say that now,” I said, “but I know how these things happen. We’ll hook up a few times. Maybe one night we’ll be hungry, so we’ll run out to get dinner. We’ll inadvertently get to know each other, which will make us start caring about each other. We’ll look forward to the next time we see each other again, and then we’ll start having romantic thoughts.”

  He could argue his point all he wanted, but I knew I was right. I’d been down that road before. Besides, I was already in love.

  With my job.

  He scoffed. “I don’t want to get to know you. I don’t even know your last name. I’ll never ask, I promise. And I won’t tell you mine.”

  I stared at him. He really wanted me, and I couldn’t deny how good it felt to be desired again. But still. I didn’t have time for a relationship. That was why I hooked up with him in the first place.

  “Why?” I asked. “You don’t need me. There are millions of girls out there who’d kill to be your little sex toy.”

  One look into his eyes coupled with the things I knew he could do to me physically, meant I could very easily fall in love with him if I wasn’t careful, and that was exactly why I had to nip it in the bud.

  “I’ve met a lot of Nikkis,” he said. “Nikkis are all bat-shit crazy. Sexy as fuck, but crazy. I’ve met Ashleys, Jennas, Tiffanys. Even a few Chloes. They’re all the same. Pretty, yet shallow. Every single one of them. But I’ve never met an Addison. You’re different, and you intrigue me.”

  “We could have the best intentions, Wilder, but we can’t control the uncontrollable.” I placed my hand on the doorknob. I breathed him in one last time. “If you’ll excuse me, five a.m. comes early.”

  * * *

  I skipped my run that next morning. I never did that. I’d had the best sleep of my entire life, courtesy of an earth-shattering orgasm. I was out like a rock.

  “Shit.” I popped out of bed, realizing my alarm had never gone off. If it had, I must have turned it off in my sleep. The sun was already out, which meant it was well past seven and I had less than an hour to put myself together and make it downtown to my office.

  I took a quick shower and slipped into a navy pencil skirt with matching heels and a cream blouse, reminiscent of the one I’d worn to see Wilder the night before.

  An hour later, I was running off the elevator toward my office.

  “You okay?” My assistant, Skylar, watched me with big, brown eyes. “You’re, like, never late.”

  She was right. I was never late. And the day I hired her, I told her that being ten minutes early to work was still considered late in my book. I’d written her up for being five minutes late before, but now I was going to have to cut her a little slack.

  “Brenda wants to have a meeting with you and Kyle,” she said.

  “When?”

  “Now.” She pointed to the conference room where the door was slightly ajar.

  I collected my thoughts and headed in. Impromptu meetings between myself, my boss, Brenda, and my arch nemesis and biggest competitor, Kyle, were never a good thing. Kyle and I had dated for a couple years, but we’d always kept it under wraps. Brenda would have freaked out if she knew and demanded that one of us quit.

  It couldn’t be about that, could it?

  I wasn’t about to quit, though, and definitely not because I was all love-swept over that nitwit for two years of my life. I was having the best year ever, about to clear a couple of record breaking commissions, which would put me in the top 1% of real estate brokers in all of Manhattan. In a city with over thirty-thousand agents, Kyle and I were both in the top 1%, and Brenda Bliss of Bliss Agency was our boss.

  We’d been under her umbrella for a few years, doing all the hard work and schmoozing and selling while she sat back in her expansive corner office and plastered her name on all the signs and billboards and accepted all the awards.

  I’d been busy making connections the last few years, but my goal was to have a team of my own very soon, and someday maybe my own agency. My ultimate goal was to become the number-one realtor in the entire city. Last I checked, Kyle and I both teetered back and forth between the seventh and eight spots.

  “Morning.” I smoothed my pencil skirt under my thighs and took a seat across from them. They both stopped talking and stared at me as I sat down, as if I’d just interrupted a very important conversation. “What’s this about?”

  Brenda’s thin red lips danced into an excited grin as her gaze alternated between us. Kyle’s smirk and too-close proximity to Brenda instantly made my skin crawl. He was constantly pouring the charm on her, and I’d have killed to know if she saw through him. Part of me figured she lapped it up because she was a desperate woman who craved that sort of attention.

  “We are courting a very high profile client,” she said. She smelled of excitement, money, unbridled ambition, and greed. She’d get to sit back and steal the glory while we did all the hustling. “I can’t tell you who it is, but he is wanting to interview two members of my team. My best. You two.”

  She placed one manicured hand over mine and the other over Kyle’s. She was old enough to be our mother, and if she were, she’d have been the passive-aggressive, guilt-trip-inducing kind. Thank God she never had kids of her own.

  “The meeting will be in two weeks,” she said. “You’re lunching at Butter. You’ll each sell yourselves and he’ll pick the person he feels will suit his needs best. I want you on your best beh
avior. Best clothing. Best presentation. A-game all the way.”

  “Always,” Kyle said. I wanted to tell him to wipe the shit off his nose. Instead, I smiled.

  “Do we know anything about him?” I asked.

  “We know he’s a major, up-and-coming Manhattan real estate investor,” she said. “He has a lot of cash to spend and he wants to spend it quickly.”

  “Do we have a name?” Kyle asked.

  She pursed her lips and shook her head. “His assistant kept referring to him as Mr. Van Cleef of Van Cleef Investments. I tried looking up his company. They have a website, but I didn’t see anything about staff or an owner or anything. It’s a new company, though, and if we can make him happy, we’ll have a client for life. That’s my motto, guys—you know that.”

  “Client for life!” Kyle jabbed his fist into the air triumphantly and Brenda smiled, only I knew he was half-mocking her.

  He used to mock her all the time back when we were together, but I had enough wits about me not to badmouth my boss to the man I was sleeping with. He may have been ridiculously good-looking, like a walking talking J. Crew advertisement complete with a New England pedigree, but no one ever accused Kyle Maxwell of having common sense.

  He raked his hand through his sandy blond hair and flashed his million-dollar smile at Brenda. His eyes, green and hazel like a fresh caramel apple, flashed with the kind of confidence he’d honed with years of practice. “Don’t worry, Bren, we got this.”

  I cringed, remembering how charming I used to find him. Years ago, I was just a junior agent barely making a livable wage. Brenda took a chance on me and brought me on her team while Kyle took me under his wing. At first he treated me like a kid sister and called me “Addi.” I’d always hated that nickname, but it was different when he said it.

  “What would we do without our Kyle?” I said with an undercurrent of facetiousness as I folded my hands in my lap and sat up straight. I plastered the fakest smile I could muster across my face as Brenda giggled like a schoolgirl as if being in Kyle’s mere presence was hilarious.