Stepbrother Breaks Bad: The Complete Series Read online

  SHELBY

  Ten thousand dollars. Enough to start over. Not so much that it wouldn’t fit into a backpack. My father kept more than that in his safe, but I wasn’t going to take more than that, and not just for practical reasons. I gathered that I was owed at least ten thousand for my pain and suffering. Not to mention hazard pay for getting me into potential trouble with the law.

  If I took more than that, my father was likely to see it as greed.

  I wanted him to see it as justice.

  So it was justice on my mind as I closed up that safe, slung my bag over my shoulder and made for the front of the bar. Even before I saw the man standing there, that big shiny badge on his hip, right next to his gun.

  “Going somewhere, Shelby?” Colton asked, leaning in that doorway like only he could. Blocking off all escape.

  “The bar’s closed,” I said, fighting down panic.

  “I know. Which is why I find it powerful curious that you’re here. Especially since everybody’s back at the festival raving about your apple cake. You might win that blue ribbon, after all, Shelby. Didn’t you want to stick around and find out?”

  Frustrated, angry, and terrified all at once, I shouted, “What do you want, Colt?”

  “You, mostly,” he said so calmly that it stole the breath from me. “But since I can’t have that, I’ll settle for the truth.”

  Under the heat of his gaze and what I sensed was actual desire, I nearly melted. But I dared not believe my instincts. I’d been fooled by Colton before. “The truth about what?”

  “Well, you can start by telling me what’s in the bag.”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  “Probably not,” he allowed. “Thieves stealing from thieves, after all. Not the proper domain of a lawman to be sure.”

  “I’m not a thief,” I snarled, angrier by the minute.

  “Well, you don’t have to be. Not after today. You can put the money back, you know. You can come clean about everything else you’ve done on your daddy’s say-so. The law’s likely to go easy on you. You were young and likely didn’t know what you were getting yourself into.”

  “Like you care what happens to me,” I said, furious at the tears welling in my eyes. He’d always seen me as a hopeless kid sister who had the hots for him. I didn’t want him to see me as a weak one too.

  “Put the money back and do this the right way, Shelby,” he said, stalking towards me in a way that made me take two steps back.

  “The right way?” I asked, feeling the edge of the pool table at the backs of my thighs. “You mean to tell me you followed me here just because of your all-abiding love for doing the right thing? No. You want me to turn on my kin. That’s what you burn for. You wanna hurt my daddy for not being good enough for your Momma. For knocking her around. For being a shitty stepfather to you. That’s what you want. That’s all you want. To get one over on Buford Baker at long last. Even if it means using his daughter to do it.”

  I saw the flicker of something in Colton’s eyes then. Some shadowy part of him that he always masked behind the southern charm. And he moved in close, so close that I could feel the heat coming off him. So close that I could smell the soap on his skin. He grasped me by the arm. “Sounds like wishful thinking, Shelby. Because if I were a bettin’ man—and I am—I’d say you wanna be used by me…”

  This time I didn’t wait for him to kiss me. I couldn’t. Whatever was happening between us went way beyond reason or gamesmanship, and even if I was being played, I didn’t care. I wanted the strong and sometimes silent Colton Marbray. I’d wanted him all my life. I had to have him. I just had to.

  And I’d be damned if I had to wait for it just one more minute.

  My hands slid up into his hair, knocking his hat off as I made fists of that spiky sandy mane. And as our mouths pressed together, the smoldering coal between us burst into flames. We kissed, tongues tangling, the sweet taste of Colton filling my senses. His chin was rough with stubble but that thin disapproving mouth of his was soft was yielding. I breathed in his breath, and he breathed in mine, and for once—for one glorious moment—I believed we finally felt the same way.

  Then Colton’s lips hardened, became more demanding, kissing me so hard that it was like he was trying to erase all the years and distance between us. We kissed and kissed until our bodies were pressed so tight together, there was scarcely room to breathe.

  His knee wedged itself between mine, and I gasped, letting my head fall back with the pleasure of it. Colt’s eyes went a little glassy, then narrowed, and I was terrified that he’d stop. “Touch me,” I whispered, because I felt half sure that I’d die of sexual frustration if he didn’t. Then the friction of his palm as it slid up my belly and over my breast convinced me that I’d die of pleasure instead.

  His hand cupped me, rubbed my nipple, the pressure felt so good that I moaned. But it wasn’t enough. I needed to feel his skin on mine, bare. Which is why I reached down for the bottom of my tank top and peeled it off. Then grabbed at his shirt and bunched it in my sweating hands, ready to tear it off him if he made me do it.

  But he didn’t. He took his shirt off. Let it drop to the floor with his hat.

  That’s when I saw those long, lean, toned arms. That smooth chest. Those sculpted shoulders that I wanted to lick like honey from a comb. And it’s a good thing that the pool table was behind me to brace against, because I felt a weakness in my knees that buzzed all up my body until my brain went to mush.

  But whereas I went soft and pliant, he turned hard and determined. He looped his fingers in the waistband of my jeans and tugged at ‘em as if to get me naked as fast as he could. I don’t think it was just lust that made either of us hurry. I didn’t want to give him time to walk out on me again…and it seemed to me like he didn’t want to give himself a moment to reconsider either.

  His voice went low and throaty as he stared down at my heaving breasts as they peeked up over the lace of my bra. “Goddamn, girl. You’re sexy as hell.”

  “Told ya before. I ain’t a girl, and I ain’t good,” I said, wetting my lips to entice him. “So tell me, Colt. You gonna do a bad thing?”

  Chapter Five

  COLTON

  Colt was in trouble. Big trouble. And Shelby Baker had put him there. As his stepsister scratched a nail over his chest, scraping pure arousal over his nipple, he nearly hissed, so keyed up and turned on that he couldn’t even remember why he’d ever thought it was a bad idea to have his way with her in the first place.

  Was he gonna do a bad thing?

  Hell yeah, he was.

  He was gonna do her. And he wasn’t going to stop until he’d had his fill. Because kissing Shelby, touching Shelby, undressing Shelby blocked out everything else. It blocked out guilt. It blocked out pain. It blocked out doubts. And he’d been drowning in all three…

  She was better than whiskey. Better than pie. Better than the jolt of adrenaline that went through him when he discharged his firearm. She was pure delicious thrill and intoxicating escape all rolled into one. He loved the way her hands felt on his body, but he had to get at her. So he lifted her up onto the pool table, then yanked her panties down, finding some satisfaction in the sound of tearing lace under his hand.

  This wasn’t gentlemanly.

  This wasn’t his way.

  But where had being a gentleman ever got him?

  Fortunately, Shelby didn’t seem to mind his rough hands. She cried out when he yanked her panties off, but then spread those luscious thighs of hers with pure, wanton abandon. Jesus H. Christ. She had a body that gave a man back his religion. Full, rounded, swollen breasts. A soft belly he wanted to caress. And a glistening pink pussy that just about drove him to his knees in worship.

  His hands went to her hips. Gorgeous hips that gave a man something to hang onto. He was going to bury himself inside her, but first he trailed his kisses down her quivering belly, eager to taste between her legs.

  She knew what he aimed to do, and stopp
ed him with a squeeze of her nails into his shoulders. “Please. Colt. I need you inside me. I need it so bad.”

  Well, let it not be said that he was a man to disappoint a lady in need.

  Tasting her would have to wait. So, while Shelby pulled him free of his pants, and stroked his shaft, he reached in his back pocket for a condom. Thought he’d better do that before all the blood rushed from one head to the other, because he was already a little bit dizzied by the teasing touch of her fingertips on his shaft. And he was so ready for her that a little drop of fluid pooled at the tip of his cock. He was aching. He was needing.

  But he couldn’t resist using his other hand to touch her between her legs to find out if she was as wet as he hoped she would be. Happily, she was soaked. Stroking over her swollen clit, he made her moan prettily. And hearing that was like a shot of some kind of illegal drug for sure. Pure euphoria. He’d always imagined the kinds of noises Shelby might make during sex, but hearing them…

  Well, it did something to him. That’s why he couldn’t resist rubbing her harder, trying to slip a finger inside. He felt how tight she was. More than tight. It almost felt like…well, now wait a second.

  Colton’s sexual experience was broad, but a cold trickle of confusion ran down his spine. “Shelby, tell me you’re not a virgin.”

  She didn’t answer, merely quivering and squirming underneath him. Which made him come all undone. That she still couldn’t give him a straight answer, not even now, when they were about to have sex, sent an incoherent rage through him. Or maybe it was just his outraged disbelief that made him pound the pool table with his fist. This wasn’t happening. Goddamn it.

  If she was a virgin, this definitely wasn’t happening.

  It would be just one wrong too many to add to the pile of wrong involved with fucking his own stepsister. Colton Marbray was supposed to be one of the good guys. He didn’t seduce vulnerable girls who looked up to him as a brother. He didn’t screw women who were the targets of his investigations. And he sure as hell didn’t go around fucking virgins on pool tables in the middle of a bar.

  That wasn’t him.

  At least it never had been before. But he felt that shadow closing in on him. He felt closer to the breaking point than he’d ever felt before. “Goddamn it, Shelby! How can you possibly still be a virgin?”

  She just stared up at him, her luscious, plump, wet lower lip trembling close to his. “Well that’s easy. Every guy in Boone County is too terrified of my daddy to touch me.”

  Those words made him snap. He felt it happen. Couldn’t stop it. Didn’t want to. He forgot the condom. Forgot his badge. Forgot doing the right thing. Forgot everything but lust. Lust for Shelby and lust for revenge. He wanted to take her virginity. To make her his…if only to spite her daddy.

  Colton felt his mind go quite nearly black. He seemed almost like he was watching himself from far away when he shoved her back on the table and said, “Well, I ain’t afraid.”

  Chapter Six

  SHELBY

  I’d never seen that look in Colton’s eye before. Dark and dangerous. I suppose it should have frightened me, or given me second thoughts. But it only made me more desperate for him. All kinds of desperate. The kind of desperate that makes you stupid and self-destructive. Because it suddenly didn’t matter to me that Colton forgot his condom, and just pushed himself between my knees.

  The only thing that mattered was that he let his jeans drop to his thighs and positioned himself at my entrance. He didn’t need coaxing anymore. He didn’t need encouragement. He looked as if he meant to have me whether I wanted it or not. But oh, I wanted it. Trembling, with my back on the stained pool table, in nothing but a bra, I stroked my hands down his lean belly, savoring the thatch of dark hair there…a trail that led to where we were about to be joined.

  He was going to make a woman of me, and I didn’t know if it was going to hurt. I didn’t care if it did because not having him inside me already ached to the point of madness. But I’m not sure if he cared if he hurt me either, because Colt rammed himself inside and tore me open.

  I screamed. I’ll admit it. My whole body writhed as I struggled to make sense of the wash of pain mixed with pleasure. Meanwhile, Colton held himself above me, both arms straining, his eyes closed as if he had to fight the agony or ecstasy of burying himself in my body.

  “You alright?” he asked, throaty.

  Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes. “Just do it, Colt. Do it.”

  He started moving over me—and the pain somehow became the best feeling of my life. He must’ve known it, because he said, “I’m going to make you scream for me, Shelby.”

  I already wanted to scream for him. The heat of him. The fullness of it. The animal sounds he made as he plunged himself between my legs again and again. All of it overwhelmed me to the point that I could do nothing but cry out. After all these years, I was finally the center of Colton’s attention. The center of his world. He wasn’t just with me. He was inside me.

  I loved it. I loved every moment of it. Yet, as much pleasure he was giving me, I knew he was also taking pleasure from me. Pleasure I was happy to give, except…

  “Colt,” I whispered with a shaky breath.

  But he didn’t stop. Instead, he mauled my bouncing breast with one hand, as if determined to drive me to the edge, quick and dirty. Each stroke caused me to cry out a little louder as the tension coiled in my belly, and threatened to drive me to orgasm. “Oh. Oh, god. Colt…”

  “You gonna come for me already, Shelby?”

  I was. God help me I was. Even if I didn’t want to give the insufferably arrogant bastard that. Because I didn’t want it to be like this. It wasn’t so much that I minded the ruthless, unrelenting pace. If anything, I was near to begging him to do it harder. It was just that I needed something else more. “Please, Colt. I need…”

  “What do you need, Shelby?” he growled, with another thrust, grinding his pelvis so hard against mine that I nearly sobbed with pleasure. “Tell me.”

  I managed to grip both his strong arms and make him look at me. “I need…I need to touch you. I need to kiss you. I need your arms—”

  All at once, he shoved me farther up the the pool table, leaving my shoulder blades burning with the friction against the felt. And I realized that my words seemed to have shaken something loose from him, because his expression had softened.

  He knew what I needed. He somehow understood. He crawled that long body of his up atop me, touching his sweat-damp forehead to mine before devouring me with a kiss.

  This. This is what I had needed. And it was everything.

  Wrapping my thighs around his hips, I lost myself beneath him and the cross dangling from his neck. Raking my nails down his back. Arching my hips up to meet him stroke for stroke. Heat and arousal was spreading across my belly, flowing like some kind of hot honey that left me sticky and sweet and sucking on Colt’s tongue.

  He was in me, on me, everything to me.

  We were like one person.

  Then I was coming. Clinging to him. Screaming his name.

  Hearing me do it seemed to unleash the demon inside him. He pumped so furiously that our bodies made slapping sounds and the table creaked beneath us. It was as if he was trying to outrace my orgasm with his own. Or as if he was finding some kind of shelter or solace in the grip of my spasming body. “Colt! Oh, Colt! I’m coming.”

  “That’s it, baby,” he grunted. “That’s it.”

  Then he smothered my cries with another kiss. A rigid, feverish kiss while he found his own shuddering release. His hands gripped me hard when he came, made me feel like I belonged to him. Made me feel claimed as he pumped his seed into me. And I swear by my maker, I heard him whisper the word, “Mine.”

  Afterwards, we lay like that. Entwined. Throbbing. Connected at the most secret places, my fingertips softly stroking his cheek. My thighs still cradling his body as if he was the one who needed comforting.

  I felt as if he did. I
was happy to do it. After all those years of longing, I finally had Colton Marbray in my arms and I wasn’t fixing to let him go.

  “That was amazing,” I whispered, kissing the damp hair by his ear.

  Colt looked a only a tiny bit self-satisfied. “Yeah, it was. But I don’t s’pose you’ve got anything to compare it to.”

  I smirked. “I said I was a virgin. Never said I was untouched. I know what it’s like to be brought off by a man.”

  Colton scowled, rolling his weight off me and taking deep gulps of air. “You shouldn’t tell me something like that.”

  Propping myself up on my elbow, I asked, “Why not?”

  “Because it makes me wanna ask you questions I’ve got no right to ask, and pound down any man who dared to touch you. It makes me want to make you come again and again until you forget any other man ever brought you off. Ever.”

  My blood surged at that, and I felt a flutter in my belly. “It’s not like you knew you were gonna be the first. But now you wanna be the only?”

  He didn’t answer.

  I shifted on my elbow, tracing a bead of sweat over his collarbone. “Because…” I trailed off, trying to fight the good fight against my heart’s silly insistence on being heard. But warm and all-but naked in his arms, his scent all over me, his handprints leaving a delicious trail in their wake, I couldn’t be anything but true to myself. Or to him. “Because that could be arranged, Colt. You could be the one and only. You’re the only one I ever wanted. The only man I ever loved.”

  Colton squeezed his eyes shut at that.

  “I was gonna run away today,” I continued. “Was gonna take a bunch of money and fly away from this place and away from you. Didn’t realize until this moment that I can be brave for you Colt. I can’t turn on my kin; don’t ask that of me. But if there’s any other way I can turn my life around and do the right thing by you and everybody, I’ll do it. Because I wanna be together. I want that more than anything and I’m willing to fight for a chance with you.”