FIERCED 1: A Stepbrother Romance Read online

  “Relax dude,” Rocco says with a flick as though he’s swatting at a fly. “The principessa and I got acquainted the other day right before -”

  “Lee-za, there you are.” Groan. My new stepmother squeals from across the room ensuring maximum attention from the crowd.

  Rocco turns back to me, clasping my wrist to whisper into my ear.

  “And I know you liked it Principessa.” His breath doing that traily thing down the side of my neck. Suddenly I can’t breathe because all the air’s rushed out of the enormous warehouse and the pressure in my body is fit to blow.

  My pussy aches for him, his fingers stretching my lips apart and curling that hot breath across my slickness. Which just happens to be flowing into my brand new over-priced panties.

  “Lee-za where have you been Darling?” Er, right here. “Dante is desperate to meet you.” He is?

  She screeches across the room and the celebrated male star turns with a winning smile to indulge her and wades through the parting throng. All eyes are on the little scene they’re playing out for the crowd. I’m so accustomed to this, I can spot it a mile away. Not with Hollywood types of course but politics is the same hype without the good wardrobe and make up.

  I glance at the prick beside me and I swear he meets my eyes with a conspiratorial roll of his own. Like he knows exactly what I’m thinking. But I only have time for a little raise of my eyebrows indicating “what?” when Monica is all over us.

  “Dante Darling, this is Lee-za my new daughter. Isn’t she gorgeous and she’s such a huge fan.”

  She is? Well, did she have to out me in front of everyone?

  “And you know Romeo of course?”

  He does? As a minder? That criminal character research thing?

  And how does my step momma know this brutish lout? Not one of her public list of Latin lovers surely? If she likes it rough she couldn’t have picked a more square husband than my father.

  “A daughter as beautiful as her mother,” the cinematic hero says, although I’m a little disappointed by how much tinier he is off-screen. He must stand on a box for his close ups because he’s barely grazing Rocco’s shoulder.

  But he’s got my hand in both his – a move Ryan surely copied since arriving in Italy and it feels kinda hot. He only lets go of me to slap his palm into Rocco’s massive one. They do that gangsta routine of whacking handshakes and Rocco dwarfs him. I hope Dante didn’t hurt his hand.

  “And the Rock,” Dante adds. “A more handsome hunk I never saw. What a picture perfect family you made, Monica.”

  Er-Family?? What??

  My eyes fly up to smash against Rocco’s, but his attention is squarely on the male star, who’s still holding his hand. Hmm. An Italian thing or more? But hold on, what’s with the family shit? Who is this guy to my new Step-mom?

  “You know Romeo Rocco is the perfect son and I couldn’t be prouder as his mamma. And now I plan to be the perfect guiding light for my perfect daughter.”

  Well ain’t that all just perfect?

  I am beyond fucking disbelief. That bastard prick is my stepbrother. And I’ve been visualizing a thousand filthy scenarios out of the wrong kind of movies ever since I met him.

  The bastard prick is looking down at me with his depraved grin stretched wide across his stunning features that says he knows exactly what I’m thinking.

  The bastard prick – I hate him.

  Chapter FOUR

  “Daddy how could you dump me with not just a step mother but a rat ass brother too, without a word of warning?” I corner my father in a group of suits where he cannot turn mean, has to keep the smile locked and loaded.

  “Sweetie, I already told you it was a spur of the moment thing. Aren’t you pleased with having a new brother?” He takes me by the arm to drift me away from the old guys.

  Suddenly I detect the face. I’ve seen it on my father a thousand times when he stands up in front of the press corps and tells them a total lie. He always wears the same front, contorted to display truth-telling when he’s covering up one big steaming pile of lies.

  “What was my new stepbro doing in your office the day you flew out to this impromptu wedding?” I ask. I’ve never stood up to my father quite so blatantly.

  “Nothing really. He picked up the diamond ring I was surprising Monica with. And he finalized all the details for getting to the island after Monica fell out with her assistant.”

  I could imagine Madam Moviestar going through assistants even faster than younger lovers. And suddenly another truth hit me in the gut.

  “Did Romeo Rocco or whatever his name is go to The Seychelles with you?” I was cringing inside not wanting to hear the response that I already knew in my heart was coming.

  “Someone had to give Monica away. You can hardly expect a woman to walk down the aisle alone.” He turned away and waved to someone across the room.

  I was pretty sure I was going to be a woman who walked down the aisle without a supporter taking her arm. Unless of course there was a photo op involved. That would be the only thing that would lure my dad to the event. And know who I blamed? For some reason Rocco got the majority of my flare of hatred. Perhaps it was because with my mom just recently passed, I couldn’t direct my anger at my one remaining parent. What the fuck, the big bully could take it. And I had no doubt it wouldn’t give him a single moment of anxiety. I wasn’t even on his radar.

  “Are you invited to the big shindig in Venice?” I’m like a sucker for pain. Now I have to hear that I’m not going along.

  “Obviously, as one of the most important men in Rome and with the most prominent wife. We’re all going.”

  “I’m not going,” I announce.

  Done deal. I know I’m being childish but I can’t help it. He has his new arm candy and I’m relinquishing my position as perfect press daughter.

  “Yes you are sweetheart. Of course you are. It’s our first family appearance.”

  “You can appear with your new family without me because I’m not going anywhere with that bully biker.”

  “Biker? You mean Rocco? Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “I’m surprised at you, daddy, wanting him on your docket. He’s not exactly respectable.”

  My father’s face turned cold in a way that terrified me. I’d never seen him so hard and vindictive.

  “Who are you to judge what or who is respectable?” he snarled. “You have no idea what Romeo is involved with.”

  “I’m not going.” I can feel the petulance trying to prod a reaction from my father and I know it’s pointless and infantile but I cannot stop myself.

  “Yes you are,” he grits through smiling clenched jaws. Oggi Magazine is doing a feature on Monica and I and we require you and your brother for the photo shoot.”

  Brother.

  Stop saying that hideous word. My father narrowed his eyes and raised his hand for silence when I opened my mouth to sass him again.

  “You may choose. Venice or grounded in the compound for a month, no shooting.”

  He got me. To not be able to take a photo for a day would be a disaster, a whole month would have me howling with nothing to live for.

  Then I remember Ryan, the cute blonde new diplomatic envoy. How could I have already forgotten my whispered promise that we’d get together in Venice in a week or so, no matter what? I meant to keep that promise. Perhaps I could make just one more public appearance. Now that daddy has a new companion, he might be too distracted to keep me under security lockdown 24/7.

  I go back to the party and find it’s raving now. Bodies writhing and caressing to the music so that if I half-shutter my eyes, I could be attending a new century Roman orgy. I’ve scored another flute of bubbly, all the time my eyes a pair of Ryan-seeking missiles.

  But he seems to have vanished. Perhaps another girl got in there first, he’s that gorge. I’m standing beside a pillar made to look like a digital hub point or some shit, but at least it’s offering camouflage from the fact that I’m alone at a
crowded event. Then a solid form pressing his attention into my back makes me shiver. The hot breath on the back of my ear and neck reminds me briefly of someone else.

  “Fuck, I would really love to abduct you,” Ryan’s voice is silky and thick with desire. “Although I hope you’d prefer to come willingly.”

  “I would,” I whisper. His chest is pressing hard into me, his thigh against my ass cheek giving me delicious quivers of rising lust. “Come. Very willingly.”

  Ryan does something to me. He makes me cheeky and lewd and risky all at once. I’m dying for an affair to remember. Whats the point of being in Italy if you aren’t going to enjoy seduction and romance? Lately I’ve had the violent need coursing through me constantly, to feel a man’s arms crush me into their embrace. A solid wall of chest I can trail my tiny fingers across and feel securely protected and cared for.

  His hand comes across my hip to press flat into my stomach and pull me back into him. I lean back against his lean but firm frame and lightly graze my tush into his groin. Nothing too slutty, just enough to spur him on. There’s a definite bulge greeting me.

  “Oh, Lisa, you feel so good in my arms. You fit into me the way I knew you would when I collected your hand.”

  “I know. We fit perfectly as an Italian suit.”

  He scoops me into his arm to pull me through the crowd. We weave our way with him leading and me tumbling along beside him.

  “Where are we going? What’s the rush?” I giggle as I try to keep up with his stride.

  “I work at the Embassy, there’s always the likelihood I’m being watched. We can’t let your father find out.”

  “Find out what? Daddy’s possessive but I would imagine you’re exactly the man he’d have in mind for me.” I’m struggling to keep up now as we hurtle along the wide corridors of the film studio and Ryan pulls open a door.

  He looks behind him like a convict on the run and I wonder what the hell he has in store for me that he’s so terrified of my father. Must be a boss thing. Again that swarthy brute swarms up into my vision.

  “I ain’t afraid of Pappy, Principessa.” Shit, stop thinking about that monstrous pig. Just the image of him pressing hard into me against the wall and calling me that stupid name makes me want to kick out. If only my clit wasn’t tweaking with the thought of his huge arms encircling me, his graze of stubble along my neck.

  Stop, focus on the man you’re with. Ryan’s great. Perfect for you. Even if he is a little too agitated about us getting caught. At first the door seems locked but then it gives and Ryan drags me in behind him.

  “What are we doing in a storeroom?” I say. I giggle with a slight shudder as he advances toward me. I back up a step and my back hits the wall. A stray pair of brooms collide and clatter to the concrete. Ryan’s mouth smothers mine and his hand fists my breast. I almost miss the cheesy sweet words of the Italian men over this full-on attack.

  “Ryan stop, slow down I mean, it’s getting out of control.”

  “But I want you so bad, baby. You have no idea how you’re driving me crazy every moment since I met you. I can’t think of anything else.”

  “But we don’t have to take it so fast. We only just met and do we have to do it in what is basically a broom closet.”

  “Storage unit. Come on Lees, doesn’t that seem kinda hot to you?”

  “Yes, no. maybe. Under different circumstances, like if I knew you a little more.”

  “Come on baby, you know you want to get rid of that uptight virgin trapped inside you,” he moans into my neck, suckling and slurping at the point it curves into my shoulder.

  He’s tugging at my dress, trying to free my breast as he kneads it like silly putty.

  What makes him think I’m a virgin? Christ, not even the Italian men are this pushy. I should push him off me. I don’t want to be forced into this although I don’t want Ryan to get mad and refuse to take me to the party.

  The door slams open and ricochets off the wall. It would have smacked back into the face of the person opening it except he raises a fist and the door rebounds again, right off his iron knuckles and comes to a standstill.

  Ryan and I both stare in horror at our detector. His face is a raging mask of anger.

  “What the fuck are you doing to my sister?”

  “Oh please,” I squeak, I almost want to burst out laughing except no one has ever tried to rescue me or save my honor or whatever the hell this is.

  “Dude, this is nothing to do with you. And hasn’t she been your sister for like seventy-two hours. Now leave us alone and we’ll let it go.”

  I’m concerned that Rocco might tell daddy he caught me in a broom closet at Monica’s party and I’ll be in more trouble than I care for. Headlines being a major concern an’ all.

  “Maybe, but that’s seventy-one and a half hours longer than you’ve known her,” Rocco growls, low and dangerous. “And I’m not trying to take sexual advantage of her in the broom closet. Real classy BTW.”

  “I’m warning you, this is none of your concern. Lisa wants to be here with me and she doesn’t need some fake white knight on a hog coming to save her.”

  “I’ve given you fair warning dude and now I’m telling you this is not up for discussion. Let her go.”

  “Fuck yo-” Ryan doesn’t even complete his invective before Rocco’s fist intersects with his jaw.

  “Lisa, get outta here. You’re supposed to be celebrating your parent’s nuptials.”

  “Fuck you.” I tell him, my eyes blaze back into his, daring him to sock one on my jaw too.

  “We can discuss that later. Right now you need to leave the hole this guy tried to fuck you in because I am going to whip his ass.”

  Ryan has had his face tipped forward, nursing his bruise and suddenly turns into a ram to charge full pelt at Rocco. He creases him in the ribs and then they’re a whirling set of arms and legs, grappling each other like gladiators in the Coliseum.

  The room suddenly is tight as a closet and the two raging bulls bounce into the wall and back into me, almost creaming me before I jump back out of their path. The rage coming off the the men is irrational. All over a quick kiss in the closet. Okay, from where Rocco stood, I can see that it looked like more. Maybe Ryan was getting a little too forceful, ramping up the pressure but that’s because he was firing on lust and desire, just as I was. Am. Watching two men fight over me is terrible and beautiful.

  Then Rocco fires three quick punches to the face and Ryan’s nose or mouth spurts red. I scream at them to stop it but they’re in a melee. There’s no way either will stop. That would mean walking away the loser.

  “Stop it, Rocco. You’re gonna kill him,” I scream but the room is too small for the three of us and I dash for the door.

  Chapter FIVE

  In seconds I’m back at the noisy party, scouring the room for my father, the only man who can control the two brawling men.

  “Daddy I need to speak to you urgently.”

  He turns to look at me almost as though he has to remember who I am. Then there’s a roll of his eyes.

  “Again, sweetheart? Is it necessary to keep interrupting in such an unsavory fashion? Would you like to be introduced to the Comandante of the Carabinieri for Venice?”

  I go on autopilot good daughter function.

  “Good evening sir, I’m sorry for the interruption but I need to speak to my father.”

  The Commander gives a polite conciliatory gesture and moves on to his next social call. My father rounds on me with fire in his glare.

  “That was exceptionally rude Lisa. Your mother would be so disappointed.”

  “Would she really? Where is she, my mother? Over there chatting to a couple of sexy movie stars.”

  “I’ll deal with you tomorrow.”

  “Daddy, you need to do something about Rocco. He’s violent.”

  “Rocco? What’s happened to my son?”

  Those words shake me all the way to my heart.

  My son.

  T
he very thing he’s always craved and never got. My mother’s illness already that advanced by the time they caught it, it prevented her having more children.

  If I tell him Rocco’s fighting with Ryan he’ll ask me why. Then I’ll have to tell him what I was doing with Ryan to make Rocco protect my honor and I’m going to come out of this looking like the bad girl again.

  “He’s – he’s just, um, out of control.” Daddy looks at me with his face set hard as stone. This is what I interrupted him for?

  “He’s nothing but a trouble making interfering lazy biker living off his mother’s name.”

  Oh no, this isn’t going well I can tell. Daddy has a son now. One who comes to his office and takes care of things and who’s adored by his new wife. Suddenly I feel so terribly inconsequential and unloved. Will it always be this way? Perhaps my temper tantrums and the wall I’ve got up that makes me seem filled with pride is going to render me forever unlovable.

  “Lisa, I don’t know what your issue is with your new brother. You seem to have some sort of irrational vendetta out for him when you’ve only just met him. But I can tell you that your brother is the furthest thing from a lazy biker. His rides into North Africa with his raiders are not what they seem to the small-minded.”

  Does he mean me? My father thinks I’m narrow-minded.

  “Rocco does a great deal of work for the camps on the border between Algeria and Morocco. Those people have been displaced from the Western Sahara for decades with no one in the world bothering about them. They rely on supplies from the West or they’d all be dead in days.”

  “I-I- didn’t know about that side of him.” I murmur. How could I when no one thought I’m worthwhile enough to introduce me properly to my new brother.

  Perhaps it’s for the best that I didn’t know because it might have made the ache I feel for him even stronger. I bite down on the side of my lip to stop a fat tear escaping my eye. How can I have these kind of feelings for a man I hate and who is now married into my family? My own freaking brother.

  I mumble some apologies to my father and escape his horrible glare beating down on me. I’ve never been so confused and in tumult. I wish I could go home, except this is our home now. Our home back in the States is an empty shell of mansion since my mother left us.