Trouble: A Stepbrother Romance Read online

  Table of Contents

  About Trouble…

  Chapter OneClaire

  Chapter TwoRogue

  Chapter ThreeClaire

  Chapter FourRogue

  Chapter FiveClaire

  Chapter SixRogue

  Chapter SevenClaire

  Chapter EightRogue

  EpilogueRogue

  About Stephanie Brother

  Trouble

  A Stepbrother Romance

  By

  Stephanie Brother

  © 2015 Stephanie Brother

  All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental. The characters are all productions of the author's imagination.

  Please note that this work is intended only for adults over the age of 18 and all characters represented as 18 or over.

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  Book cover designed by Kasmit Covers (hyperlink Chychee's website)

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  Trouble is a 12,000 word novelette, suitable for 18+ readers who like it EXTRA LARGE!

  About Trouble…

  The term “staying out of trouble” was completely lost on Rogue.

  He thrived on it.

  Toyed with it like some kind of addict.

  He was addicted to gambling, drugs, and women.

  A loser in all three.

  It was pathetic.

  He never won.

  He was like a kid with a new toy.

  He’d play, get bored, and move on to the next thing.

  Always wanting something new.

  Always losing.

  I was asked to help him.

  Begged to help him change.

  But a leopard can’t change its spots.

  I knew it was a lost cause, but I got roped in.

  A cause that I was sure the hell going to lose!

  No cliffhangers. HEA guaranteed.

  Chapter One

  Claire

  Sometimes, my mom had a way of just winding me up and getting me into trouble. I was one of the top associates at my law firm. On my way to being a partner. I had worked fucking hard to get where I was. I certainly didn’t have the title babysitter written on my forehead. Yet, that was what my mom had roped me into. Babysitting my stepbrother.

  He’s older.

  So, he should have known better.

  The problem was that didn’t stop him from acting like a big kid. He had problems with drugs, gambling and women.

  Why women problems?

  Because instead of chasing women that were single, ones that he could actually hook up with, he had an addiction to only go after the ones that were taken.

  Oh, and they weren’t taken by just a simple jealous partner.

  No, he had a death wish by chasing mobsters and policemen’s wives. He always chose the partners that could kill him and get away with it.

  His gambling problem would have been manageable if he had money to throw away. But like most gamblers, he didn’t have a dime. Gamblers tend to either borrow money from the wrong crowd or steal.

  Technically they’re the same thing.

  The ones that borrow tend to never pay it back. As soon as they have money, they end up gambling again and losing.

  The ones that steal always get caught. Thrown in the slammer. I get called to defend them because they’re usually from a rich family. Their parents never seem to learn that this is not the way to stop their addiction. Usually daddy decides to cut off the kid. Then the kid goes on a rage and ends up stealing from some family friend who always call the cops and they get booked. That's where I step in, usually as a favor to one of the partners, and I manage to get them off.

  Sometimes, I think gamblers are worse than drug addicts. At least with drug addicts, you can blame the drugs for fucking up their minds. They don’t know what they are doing most of the time. When they steal for drugs or just jump in a car and drive, it’s because they’re so damn high.

  Now, what was a gambler’s excuse?

  I had no idea.

  But for some reason, it had now become my problem. Because, I wasn't being asked to defend him. I was asked to live with him. Something I hadn't done since I had left home. I had never lived with anyone and I hated Rogue for making me.

  I was standing outside the slammer, wondering where the fuck Rogue was. He was supposed to get out of jail at three. That was the only time I could meet him, as I had an important client meeting and that took priority. I had a home loan to pay and responsibilities, unlike Rogue. The only person he cared about was himself, which was the reason he ended up in jail in the first place.

  So, I went inside to ask where he was, only to find out that Kathleen came to pick him up.

  Who the fuck was Kathleen?

  Rogue was supposed to be in my care.

  If he thought for one minute that I was taking pleasure out of all of this, then he was sadly mistaken. The only thing I wanted to do apart from scream was find him. Tell him that this arrangement was over and get on with the toughest case that I have ever had. I needed to win it. Normally, my cases had a couple of sticky points, but I knew that I could win them.

  This one.

  Well, it was going to be tough.

  It didn’t help that William, one of the law firm partners, put my name down for the case. Just because I didn’t sleep with all of the partners. The industry was very much old school. Run by boys who treated women as if they were part of the furniture unless they looked good in a short skirt.

  The more I thought about it, the more I didn’t know why I stayed in my job.

  I hated it at the best of times. Sometimes, I wondered if it was changing me. Making me more aggressive, nothing like I used to be.

  Right now, I was hating everything about my life, including having to babysit my stepbrother. I had a strong suspicion that Kathleen was the parole officer that he was banging. Or rather, was banging prior to him being locked up.

  Where was she when he was getting in trouble?

  I picked up the phone and called Mom. I felt silly calling her, but she had to know what was going on. I had a feeling that this would be the last day that I would help Rogue. I didn’t need this shit in my life. I had a prestigious client that I was representing at the moment and she was difficult enough.

  “Mom, can you believe that he came out already? I told him I would be here for three.”

  She sighed as she replied, “You know what Rogue is like. He never listens.”

  She had to be kidding me.

  The guy just never learned. Everyone in Vegas knew not to mix with the Valentino’s. Rogue borrowed money from them and flirted with the big boss’s wife, in front of him. The Valentino’s weren’t happy with just beating Rogue up. No, they had to teach him a lesson. That meant planting drugs on him and making sure that the Feds found them when they did a house call. He landed in jail for five years, but got out in three for good behavior and due to pleading from my mom. He was staying with me.

  “Mom, I really don’t want to do this. He’s with Kathleen.”

  There was silence, and I was just about to speak when she said, “Oh, his parole officer.” />
  “Uh-huh.”

  As I’d suspected, she was his parole officer.

  “Please, Claire, can you just find him and sort it out? I’m going down to the hospital again. Richard’s not responding to his meds.”

  Then it all hit home. That was the reason I agreed to do this in the first place. My stepdad, Richard is sick. Real sick and this was his wish. To know that his son would be Okay. Not back in jail or running around chasing some skirt.

  One last try, Rogue. If there are any more fuck ups, you and I are truly over.

  “Mom, I’m going to try and find him. I’ll catch you later.”

  “Thank you, please do.”

  With her words, she hung up. My mom sounded stressed. I did’t blame her. To say that since my dad died our relationship had been strained was an understatement. I did promise to help Rogue, so I would try one last time.

  Any more problems.

  Any more fuck ups.

  And it was a promise that I wouldn’t regret breaking.

  Chapter Two

  Rogue

  I should have called Claire and told her that Kathleen was picking me up. But, Claire was so damn uptight. How she and I were going to live in the same house was beyond my comprehension. She talked to me like I was fucking stupid most of the time. Just cause I’d been in the joint.

  I wasn’t dumb. Besides, I hadn’t had any pussy for years. It felt like a fucking lifetime. The last thing I wanted to do when I got out was listen to Claire set down the rules on her place while I was as frustrated as hell.

  Shit, it made sense to call Kathleen and have her pick me up.

  She would feed me.

  Not only my stomach, but my dick too.

  I just needed to stop at the diner to satisfy one appetite before she satisfied the other. Kathleen had no idea what being in jail for three years meant. I couldn’t jerk off without some guy getting the wrong idea, so guys like me kept themselves to themselves and never thought about sex.

  I used to fuck morning, noon, and night, it was hard. It was fucking difficult. One time I nearly forgot myself. I nearly did it and I would have regretted it. I knew that if I did then I would have been gang raped by at least one or two of the groups. That was all it took. A sign of weakness and you were putty in their hands.

  That was when I knew that I had sunk too low.

  My pride and dignity were hurt the minute I was banged up.

  My own dad turned his back on me. He said that my drugs and gambling were getting out of hand. Course it fucking was. I was supposed to be on the basketball team. I had an injury which meant that I would amount to nothing. What else could I do? Since I was fucking born, all I had ever wanted to do was play basketball.

  I fucking went to bed dreaming about basketball.

  I fucking woke up thinking about playing basketball.

  Then, that one fucking game. A jealous player went out of his way to injure me. In a flash, a basketball scholarship was out. Dad didn’t have enough to even think of sending me to an Ivy League college. Sure, I could have gone to community college, but what was the fucking point?

  Career choices. I didn’t have a fucking clue. The only thing I had ever thought about doing, was playing basketball.

  It was bad enough that my mom left me with him when I was only five years old. I hadn’t spoken to her since that day. She never even tried to get in touch. Maybe if she was around then I would have had someone to talk to about the whole life changing experience that I had to go through. It was like someone put a dagger in my heart when the docs said that my right knee was totally messed up and I could never play again. It fucking hurt so damn bad.

  I had just graduated from high school. The injury happened a couple of weeks after my final exam. It was a friendly game that went totally wrong. It was supposed to mark the end of the school year. Maybe if I had never played, my life would be totally different right now.

  After that, I went through my “stage,” as Dad liked to call it, he let me go through it because he was hurting too. I acted like a jerk, rebelling all the time. Being moody. Drinking. Smoking.

  Games would come on and he would quickly switch the channel the moment I walked in the room. All my trophies, awards, and pictures were taken off the wall and stored. And then he found love. Love with Hannah, Claire’s mom, and then he kind of forgot about me.

  He didn’t want to know me, and as old as I was at the time, it cut like a knife.

  Fuck him!

  That was the way I was feeling. Why he sent Claire to help me out was beyond my comprehension. Dad didn’t even bother coming to the trial. He practically slammed the door in my face when I asked him for help.

  “I can’t do for you what you need to do for yourself.”

  What the fuck was that supposed to mean?

  I didn’t care. The only reason I agreed to put Claire down on my parole form was so that I could get out of the slammer early. Otherwise it would have been another two years in that hellhole. And I wasn’t going back. Not until I had me some pussy, and uptight Claire wasn’t going to get in the way of the one thing that I had been craving for the last thirty months.

  “Rogue, what the fuck? You knew that I was coming to the prison…” Claire yelled as she stood by our table.

  Why the fuck did she have to shout it out loud? I didn’t want the whole diner knowing that I had just come out of the joint.

  How did she manage to track me down to this diner? I couldn't believe it, and her whining was getting on my nerves. I stood up in front of her. Shit, she looked hot in her red suit, but that didn’t take away from the fact that she was ready to blow. Her shining blue eyes were ready to burst through her red face as I stuck my hand in front of her face.

  She moved my hand, shouting, “Rogue Rest, if your dad wasn’t sick, believe me, I wouldn’t be doing this.” She sighed, then her eyes shifted away from mine.

  What did she just say?

  The smirk that was plastered on my face suddenly turned to a frown. She could see the shock in my face. “Look, can we just start again?” she whispered. Too late for that. The old man was sick?

  No one had bothered to tell me. Yet, Claire yelled it out in the diner. Was I supposed to take her hand and act like a good little boy? Too late for that shit.

  I forgot Kathleen was in the diner.

  I walked past Claire and out into the parking lot. Now, it was all starting to make sense. Dad was sick. That was why he had asked her for help. He just wanted to do the right thing. The question was, how sick was he?

  “I shouldn’t have gone off like that.” I felt Claire’s hand on my shoulder.

  About five years ago, my dad had a lump. It was just a cyst so they removed it from his chest. Fear ran down my spine at the idea of it being more than that.

  I lit up a smoke, something that had managed to calm my nerves in the joint. A thing I used to frown out my dad for his addiction,“What’s wrong with him?”

  She hesitated as she avoided looking at my eyes. In another life, she and I could have been something special if she wasn’t so uptight and I didn’t have a wandering eye. She was petite just like her mom. It was obvious that she didn’t eat much. Whenever we’d managed to sit at the same table for dinner, her plate was practically empty. Her mom said more than once that she worried about her having an eating disorder. Which used to make me laugh, because her mom’s plate always had the same amount of food on it.

  “Lung cancer,” Claire mumbled, and then I didn’t feel like smoking anymore. I should have known. The old man smoked way too much, which was the reason that I never used to smoke. I flicked my cigarette butt. Thinking that I was no longer in the joint. I no longer had the desire to smoke.

  “Shit, all that smoking really came back to haunt him?”

  She nodded. “Especially because he hasn’t touched the stuff in the last three years.”

  Kathleen came storming out of the diner, waving her fake nails, wearing a wig that she’d probably bought speciall
y for my release and heels that were too high. She tried to compose herself as she nearly stumbled in front of me.

  “What you doing out here, hon?” Kathleen purred as she stood in front of me.

  Wow, since when had I become her hon?

  She ignored Claire, which before would have made me feel better knowing that she was getting under Claire’s skin. But now, she was getting on my nerves. Especially after what I had just found out about the old man.

  “We’re talking.” I cut her short and moved to the side. Kathleen was holding on to my arm. I didn’t know if it was for balance or if she wanted me to leave with her. Right now, my appetite in both departments were on hold. I didn’t feel like eating, and I certainly didn't want a fuck. Not with Kathleen anyway. Everything fake about her was on display—her inflated lips, the wig that she shifted from left-to-right, and the heels that she was having trouble balancing on.

  “Later, Kathleen. You can check up on me at Claire’s.” I started to head to Claire’s car. It had to be the Mercedes with the license plate LW1 CB. No one else could be that vain. I could hear Kathleen screaming behind me. I knew she would be pissed and I became numb to the insults that she was throwing at me.

  When I reached the door, Claire asked, “How did you know it was my car?”

  She unlocked the car and we both stepped in.

  “With a plate like that, it’s kind of obvious.”

  Chapter Three

  Claire

  Mom said that Rogue had lost his way and if anyone could put him on the straight and narrow, it had to be me. I wished I had that much faith in him, but I just didn’t. She tried every emotional blackmail in the book to get Rogue to live with me.