No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find an excuse strong enough to absolve me from sporting an erection at family dinner night. I’d say it was to be expected—I hadn’t gotten my dick wet since I’d moved back to the island almost a year ago—but even that didn’t hold up against the fact that I was carrying around some serious wood, with my mom just twenty feet away. There was something wrong with a man who couldn’t control his Johnson around his mother.
But it wasn’t my mom who was my problem. Wasn’t her husband or my stepbrothers and their dates. I could spend time with any of them all day without an issue. No, my problem was specific and confined to one woman. All bets were off when I was around her, which was why I tried to avoid her at all costs. Family dinner night was not something I could skip though, which made me both a mama’s boy and a masochist.
“How goes the firehouse, John?” Owen Collins, my stepbrother of the past five years or so, clapped a hand on my arm. Not my shoulder, which seemed to be a stretch for him to reach comfortably. A fact that made me feel oddly like a giant—sort of as if I didn’t fit. Which I guess I didn’t in this family.
“Good. Quiet lately, which is definitely good.” I caught the glance and smile of Eric’s girlfriend as she grabbed a bottle of water off the counter. Eric—the oldest of my stepbrothers—slid up behind her, rubbing a hand over her very pregnant belly, a move that made my heart catch for a second, made my mood sour even more. Not because of her, but because of what she represented. What she was giving Eric in a few months.
I sighed and cracked my neck, wishing the whole monthly family dinner requirement thing would die already. I shouldn’t have to stay and torture myself to spend time with my new so-called family.
Growing up, it’d been my mom and me. My dad had passed away when I’d been barely old enough to know what death was, leaving a huge hole in both our lives. We’d been a two-person unit for almost two decades, but while enlisted and stationed halfway around the world, I’d gotten an email from my mom that she was dating the chief of police. A few months later, when I’d had enough leave to make it home, they’d married in a quiet ceremony at the marina. Both had lost their former spouses and had spent a lot of years as single parents, so I’d been happy for my mom. Thrilled, really. She wouldn’t be alone anymore, I’d actually have the family around me I’d always dreamed of, and Wade Collins had seemed like a good guy. What more could I want?
Not to be related to the one woman who’d turned my head in years might be nice, but I wasn’t one to get greedy.
“Anything I can help with, Yvonne?” Emery—the reason for my perpetual hard-on, my foul mood, and every bit of my shame—walked across the great room to the bar-like kitchen counter that served as a divider between the spaces. Her long, dark hair shone like the waters of the lake surrounding us after dark, and a small smile tugged up her firm, plush lips. Perky tits, legs made for spreading, and an ass that could be any man’s downfall—the woman was sex incarnate. But there was a softness to her, a kindness I so rarely saw from people. Emery was sweetness and seduction, sin and salvation, all wrapped up in the hottest fucking package I’d ever laid my eyes on. She was my biggest want, my only addiction.
She was also my sister, for all intents and purposes.
“Emmy.” My mom’s excitement was obvious in her tone, her grin spreading fast. Everyone loved Em. Including me…only in a different way than the rest of the room. “I didn’t see you’d come in. Come talk to me—I heard you’re working for that fancy rich guy trying to revamp the old mall. Mr. Huntley, right? Is he as handsome as everyone’s been saying?”
Fuck. That was a conversation I could definitely skip. My temper flared, my gut burning as I thought about my little Em flirting with another man. Emotions I needed to push back down so no one noticed.
I turned toward Jackson—Owen’s twin and the Collins brother who worked construction on the island. He’d hired me on quite a bit over the past year, giving me work when he got too busy to handle it all. My forty-eight on, forty-eight off schedule meant I had time to work another job, and my obsession with his sister meant I needed to. I had to keep busy.
Jackson seemed to be interested in something on the TV playing across the room. That was good. We could watch the local news while Em told my mom all about the rich, handsome guy she worked for. The one I’d trade places with in a heartbeat to get to spend more time with her without feeling like a fucking creeper.
“Almost finished at the old lighthouse?” I asked, hoping he could distract me.
Jackson turned my way, frowning. “Close, but I’m stuck on pause until the zoning for the B&B comes through. I’m also hoping Colin Huntley gets the zoning to rework the vacant mall property, though. That’s a solid year’s worth of work, minimum.”
Motherfucker. Colin Huntley…again. I couldn’t escape that name or his connection to my Em.
No, not my Em. My sister…sort of.
I needed to get my thoughts off her. “He’s the guy who wants to turn the old stores into apartments and shit, right?”
Jackson nodded. “That’s one of the goals, yeah. He wants to bring affordable housing options to the island, which I think we can all agree is needed. Well, except Em. She never had to fight for a deal on a place.”
That was the truth. Houses on the island were hard to come by unless you wanted to build a minimansion up on the west coast. Apartments seemed to be even harder to find, a fact I knew well from my search after moving back home. The only thing that had saved my ass from camping out in the backyard was that I’d recently left the Marines. My landlord had retired from the Corps and had given me a break.
Emery, on the other hand, had apparently run into someone’s father at the coffee shop one random Saturday and had a nice little cottage to rent on the fucking lake five minutes later. That was Emery, though—everything came up roses with her. She was the entire island’s little sister, which only made the filthy thoughts of how I’d like to smack that round, pert ass a few times while bending her over my shitty kitchen table even worse.
I needed a drink—one that could maybe help soothe the beast inside me.
“I’m grabbing a beer. Want one?”
“Nah, I’m heading to the lighthouse to get some work done later.” Jackson leaned a little closer and dropped his voice. “Besides, I promised Dad I’d stay sober for this dinner after what happened last month. I’m assuming you heard.”
I almost chuckled at his answer, remembering the stories from the family dinner I’d been able to wiggle my way out of last month. Jackson and alcohol didn’t mix—on that, the whole family could agree.
All the Collins brothers were good guys, really—almost as good as Emery. The three boys, all adopted, were a little on the wild side growing up, but they’d mostly settled down. Well, sort of. They worked hard, but they played hard, too. Owen was a paramedic working out of the fire station across the island from mine, his twin Jackson owned his own business, and Eric, the oldest, had become a cop like his old man. They probably never saw Emery—the only biological child of Wade and Grace Collins—as anything more than their sister. Of course, they’d had a lot more time with her than I had.
Emery was the youngest Collins child; a miracle baby who’d arrived not too long after the parents had adopted the boys. The children had grown up together. Me? I’d known of Emery as a kid, but she’d been too young for me to pay much attention to. I certainly paid attention now, though. Too much.
“You grabbing a beer?” Wade hollered at me from the kitchen, where he stood with his arm around my mom’s waist. With Em at his side as well.
I focused hard on him, ignoring the feel of Emery’s eyes on me. Not wanting to look directly at her…as if she were the sun. My sun. “Yeah. Want one?”
“Please. That’d be great, son.”
Son. Fucking hell, the man called me son. And there I was, stroking my cock every night to thoughts of his little girl. I was going to hell for sure. If I wasn’t already there.
Escaping quickly, I grabbed a beer from the refrigerator in the garage, taking a moment to open it and down a few gulps in the quiet of the empty space. Remembering the wedding that joined my family and the Collinses’. My relationship with Emery had started on that trip. She’d been this cute, young thing—a teenager at that point—and had seemed to take a liking to me. I’d agreed to be her pen pal while overseas, assuming she’d write me an email or two then get bored. Not so. The girl had written me weekly, sometimes more than once, and I’d gotten a kick out of her notes. She’d been my lifeline to the States, a constant source of laughter and light in some pretty dark days. Those letters were how I learned of her kindness, her sweetness. How I came to think of her as my sister even though we’d only officially met once. We’d bonded over our similar life goals—marriage, a big family, a life filled with love and roots and a shit-ton of kids running around.
It wasn’t until I’d separated from the military and moved home that I’d learned of her sexiness. The little sister of Temperance Falls had grown up, and I’d nearly hit on her at the local dive bar my first night back. Hell…hit on her was too weak. I’d nearly propositioned her to ride my cock that night. No one could have blamed me—I’d been expecting Em to still be the young girl from the wedding for some fucked-up reason, not the bombshell who’d caught my eye and made my dick hard as stone. I hadn’t recognized her when I’d run into her, had had no clue the chick across the bar I’d been eyeing was Emery. I’d been dreaming of all the ways I could fuck the hottie with the long hair that would make her breasts bounce when she’d met my eyes and grinned. For one moment, I’d been ready to pounce. Ready to say fuck my adjustment period into real life and toss that girl in the back seat of my car for a little bumping and grinding.
Thank God I’d paused.
She’d rushed at me, throwing her arms around my neck even though I hadn’t recognized her. Hugging me as she’d said she was so glad I was home, and why hadn’t I emailed her to tell her I’d be back that night.
The woman had gone from potential sexual conquest to little sister in two-point-five seconds, and the loathing that followed—of myself, my thoughts and feelings toward her—had buried me in guilt. It’d been almost a year since that night, and still, I fought my attraction to her. Still had to remind myself that though she wanted kids as badly as I did, even though she was everything I had been looking for in a forever partner, I couldn’t have her.
Unlike her adopted brothers, I struggled with seeing her as my sister. The step in front of the title didn’t matter—I was expected to see her as family. I failed. Daily.
“You gonna offer me one?”
I nearly choked on my beer when Em’s sweet voice met my ears. Fuck, I knew better than to be alone for long when she was in the area. Emery had an almost preternatural sense of when she could corner me, which was another reason I avoided family functions. I was afraid of what I’d do to her if we ended up alone.
“What do you want, Em?” I hated speaking to her so roughly, but I needed to keep my distance. It still hurt to see her slim shoulders collapse in, though. To watch her almost shrink into herself.
“I wanted to talk to you.” She pulled the door to the house shut and took a step closer. Then another. Making me curl my hands into fists so I didn’t yank her right up against me. “About something important.”
The scent of her soft perfume teased me closer, the swirling in her hazel eyes captivating. Fuck, this was a bad idea. “We can’t do this in there? In the living room?”
“No. We can’t. Why do you always act like you can’t wait to get away from me?”
Because I wanted to touch, to taste, to break every rule between siblings—even stepsiblings—and bury my face between her thighs. Not that I could ever tell her that.
“I don’t always act like that.” The lie sounded weak even to my own ears, so I sighed and took a step back. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
She narrowed her eyes, her bullshit meter probably pinging like a slot machine. The girl was too astute to fool, and she knew me too well. “The anniversary of my mom’s death is coming up. And every year that goes by, I’m that much closer to the age she was when cancer took her.”
“Em, no. That’s not—”
“I’ve spoken to my gynecologist about it, and we’ve agreed the best course of action is to be proactive.”
I hated the way this all sounded, despised the fact that my Emery spoke about cancer as if it were nothing more than a paper cut. “Proactive?”
“Prophylactic ovary removal. Based on my mom’s history, my doctor and I think it’s best to have it done by the time I’m twenty-eight. At the very latest.”
Her words might as well have been a kick to my gut. I wasn’t a doctor by any stretch, but I knew what ovaries did and why she’d want to hang on to them. What she would lose by having them removed. “Jesus, Em. I’m sorry. What can I do?”
Em suddenly seemed nervous, licking her lips once and not meeting my eyes. So unlike her. “You know I’ve always wanted a big family.”
Of course, I knew. How could I not? She’d sent me plenty of notes with her dreams all laid out—she wanted professional success, but personal was far more important to her. That meant a happy marriage, kids, and lots of family around her. Those had always been her priorities, so I nodded, totally understanding that much.
“My time’s running out. I can always adopt—and I will, probably. Maybe after I’ve…met someone. After I’ve gotten married.” She coughed, covering up the low growl I hurriedly choked back. Fuck me, I couldn’t think about her marrying some douchebag. Luckily, she didn’t give me a chance to speak, instead continuing down her trail of thoughts as I stewed about the idea of another man touching her.
“But I also want the chance to be pregnant.”
Jesus Christ on a cracker, that meant sex. The woman of my dreams was talking about having sex with someone else. I shouldn’t have to listen to this shit.
Emery, meanwhile, probably had no clue I was about to explode. “I know it’s silly, but I think it’ll make me feel a little closer to my mom, if we can share that experience. And I don’t want to sit around and wait, hoping my future husband will suddenly come along.”
Wait for…what? “I’m not following you.”
“I’m ready to have a baby. Now. I want to have a baby now.” She stood tall, chin up, shoulders back, and locked eyes with me. “And I’d like you to be the father.”
Every molecule of air in the garage vanished, pulling my lungs tight and making it impossible to take a breath. “Excuse me?”
“Hear me out, okay?” Emery practically lunged toward me, grabbing my wrist. Making my heart stutter at the feel of her skin on mine. Fuck me, I was going to lose my mind. “I know this is…unusual with our family dynamic, but we’re not related. Not really. Didn’t even grow up together. And you’re my best friend. Even if you have been a brooding asshole since you’ve been back.” She gave me a glare, one I could only roll my eyes at. But then she grew serious again, her voice dropping. Her eyes sad as they stayed on mine. “I want to have a baby, but I don’t want it with just anyone. And I can’t think of a better man than you.”
I couldn’t think at all, couldn’t process anything other than a single argument. The same one that had haunted me for the past year. “You’re my sister.”
“No. I’m not. I’m Eric, Owen, and Jackson’s sister.”
Technicality, but one I’d concede for the moment. “You’re still a kid.”
That definitely pissed her off if her scowl was any indication. “I’m almost twenty-five, which may be a kid to you, but I’m dealing with some pretty grown-up shit right now. I’m old enough to make decisions that affect the rest of my life, and I’m doing it.”
“Your dad would kill me.”
“You’re scared of my dad?” Her laugh sounded an awful lot like a challenge, one I’d already been struggling not to accept. “If he’s too much for you to handle, I can deal with him.”
I wasn’t afraid of Wade Collins, though. I respected him. I knew how hard he’d worked to raise his kids alone, had seen it firsthand a number of times through the years. The man was the epitome of a father—strong, brave, and always there. The idea of disappointing him didn’t sit well with me. But neither did disappointing Emery.
Babies. She wanted babies. My babies. That meant she needed my seed, my sperm. My cock. I’d have to fuck her hard and deep, have to come inside that tight little body way more than once to get her pregnant. My dream…my idea of heaven. Lord have mercy, how could I say no?
How could I not?
“We can’t do this, Em. I can’t—” Jackson, Owen, Eric, Wade, my mom—their pictures cycled through my mind, pulling me away. Blocking me from even thinking about what I actually wanted. “They’d hate me.”
Emery inched closer, raising her hand to cup my cheek. Almost making me whimper at her soft touch. “No one could ever hate you, John. You’re too good.”
My mom’s voice sounded from what seemed like miles away, calling everyone to the table. Dinner. We were at the Collinses’ house for dinner. With our family. Which meant I needed to go back through that door and pretend little Emery Collins hadn’t set my world completely on end.
“Em, I—”
“Just think about it, okay?” She backed up, leaving me alone. Walking away from me with a sad expression on her face. One that might as well have been a knife to my heart. “Do me that much.”
I nodded, unable to speak again. Unable to think of anything else other than the desire to tell her yes and drag her back to my place so we could get started right away.
Unable to ignore the visions of disappointed family members still haunting me. There was no way I could help her, not without destroying the family my mom and Emery’s dad had created. She was going to have to find another way.