MY HAND LANDED ON my car door handle, and his voice hit me like a shockwave.
“You are a mother,” his deep voice accused.
My heart slammed into my ribs, and I about jumped out of my skin. Turning, I saw Callan standing just past the reach of the spotlight Ted had installed on the corner of the garage last year.
“What? No.” I should’ve been terrified of him hiding in the dark, waiting for me, but I stupidly wasn’t. I was hoping to see him again. I’d wanted to see him again. I was beyond upset when he’d abruptly left. I’d held on to the memory of his shoulder squeeze all through dinner, hoping it had meant more than a simple gesture.
He tipped his chin toward my back seat. “You have a child carrier.”
I took a moment to digest the way he spoke. I couldn’t imagine growing up on a compound, let alone never having gone to school. “I’m a nanny.” I glanced at his clenched fists. “And a student.”
“Nanny?” The word sounded odd coming out of his mouth.
“Yes. I babysit a four-year-old boy while his mother works.” I’d shamelessly googled River Ranch after he’d left. While there was no mention of him or his name in any of the articles, they all painted a frighteningly bleak picture of a group of followers that were more prisoners than believers.
Callan’s gaze traveled to my hips. “Does that satisfy you?”
My stomach fluttered at his intense stare, at the sound of the word satisfy passing his full lips. But oh my God, I needed to get a grip. If the articles were to be believed, this man grew up with no schooling, with liberal access to any female on the compound whether she was willing or not, and with more weapons than a military ammunitions storage.
I swallowed, wondering if I would have the courage to walk away from him. “Um, well, it’s a paycheck, and the boy is sweet.” I loved being a nanny a thousand times more than nursing school, but babysitting wasn’t gainful long-term employment.
Still standing in the shadows, the line between his eyebrows deepened. “Who tends to you?”
Tends? “I’m an adult. I don’t need anyone to look after me. I work and I pay my own—”
“What man takes care of you?” he interrupted, demanding an answer I didn’t have.
My mouth opened, but nothing came out. His change in behavior, his attitude, it should’ve been a red flag. His tone was a one-eighty from when he’d left, and I wasn’t sure I understood even a fraction of it, but I felt it. Like you feel a warm sunray slowly travel across your body, heating where it touches until it’s too hot to stand. If I was smart, I would’ve gotten in my car and driven away, but I didn’t.
Instead I bit my lip, stalling, searching for any kind of response that made sense.
He grew impatient and barked out another question. “Is Theodore tending to you all?”
Oh.
My God.
Is that what he thought? We were all… oh my fucking God. I’d read what supposedly happened on that compound. Inbreeding wasn’t even the worst of it, but Jesus.
His gaze penetrating, he waited for an answer.
I stared back, not quite believing he went there.
His chest rose and fell once, twice. “I asked you a question.”
“I heard you. I just can’t believe you asked that.”
“Why?”
I struggled for words that wouldn’t offend him, because I didn’t want to insult his upbringing, but wow. “It doesn’t work like that.” It was the best I could do.
“Explain,” he demanded.
I lost my patience. “Okay.” My hand popped up in a universal stop gesture. “First, you need to answer my question. Is this why you’re mad? You saw the child seat for the boy I babysit and you what? Assumed I had a kid, and that made you angry?” I told myself I was only asking because I needed to know what the hell I was dealing with, but if I was being honest with myself, this was more, so much more.
“You did not mention having a child.” He bit the words out.
“Because I don’t.” I studied at the frown etched across his face, but it didn’t recede. “What else?”
Holding me captive in his intense stare, it was as if he had to make himself speak. “You did not look at me like a taken women looks at a man.”
My heart leapt against my ribs. “I don’t know what that means to you exactly.” I was discovering there was no other way to be with him except incredibly blunt and honest.
“At the dinner table, you looked at me how a female looks at a man.”
I felt the blush heat my cheeks. “I’m not sure what you want me to say to that.” I should have denied it, but we’d both know I was lying.
“Answer my original question,” he demanded.
I inhaled. “Okay, first, he’s my dad.” I’d never called him that, but basically he was. Ted was the only father I’d ever known. And the thought of…. No, just no.
“You are not blood. He is a man. You are of child-rearing age.” Callan rattled off the excuses like we were having a sane conversation.
My mouth opened and closed like a fish. “Okay, that’s illegal.”
“Polygamy is illegal,” he corrected. “I did not ask if you were married. You wear no ring.”
It hit me all at once, and it was suddenly so obvious, but also so outrageous, I couldn’t comprehend it. Callan Anders was jealous. Jealous. Of the thought of me and another man.
Feeling like I’d been sideswiped, I swayed in the dark and inhaled, mentally trying to right myself. “If you know what’s illegal and what isn’t, then what are you really asking?” I needed to hear him say it.
His gaze unwavering, he didn’t even blink. “Who do you belong to?”
My stepbrother… asking in compound speak if I had a boyfriend. I shook my head and tried to skirt the topic. “I don’t need a man to take care of me.”
His nostrils flared with an inhale. “Your back tires are low on air, your shoulders are tense, your eyes are tired and you are taking care of another woman’s child.” He threw the words out as if they were abhorrent. “You need tending.”
Ted opened the front door. “Everything okay, Em? Your car not starting again?” He stepped out on the front porch.
I panicked. I didn’t want Ted, or Mom, to know that Callan had waited for me. Putting on a fake smile, I waved. “All good, thanks. Just lost my keys in the bottom of my purse.” I opened my door, carefully not looking to where Callan had been standing.
“Okay, sweetheart. See you soon.” Ted waved. “And get a smaller purse.”
With a silent curse, I got in my car. Reaching for my seat belt, I glanced to where Callan had been standing, but he was gone. The crushing thought that I might never see him again came and went, because something told me regardless of what I wanted, Callan Anders wasn’t finished with me yet.
My heart pounding like I’d run a marathon, I cranked the engine twice before it caught and drove home. By the time I pulled into my parking spot at my apartment complex, I was going straight to hell. Every immoral thought about my new stepbrother had filtered through my head until I was sure my entire family would know exactly what I’d been thinking next time I saw them. Especially Phoebe.
Groaning, I rested my forehead against my steering wheel. “Jesus, Em. Get a grip.”
A knock sounded on the window, and I jumped back.
My heart in my throat, I only had a second to take in the now familiar blue eyes before my door opened.
“Are you injured?” His deep voice cutting through the night, Callan stared at me.
My hand went to my chest. “Did you follow me?” I sounded exactly as I felt, shocked, a little pissed and a whole lot of flattered.
“You were drinking,” he stated, as if I were the one missing all my fucking marbles.
“One drink, and this is stalking. You can’t follow a girl home.” I said the words I was supposed to, the words any self-respecting girl would say, but all I could think was, holy shit, he was here. I needed to stop this barreling train of eighty-seven kinds of fucked-up, but my stupid heart rate kicked into high gear and the thought of every fantasy I’d entertained on the way home tingled between my legs. Going for incredulous, only half hoping he would back off, I got out of my car and slammed the door shut. In my fervor to act pissed off instead of taken aback, I stumbled.
His hand shot out and he grasped my upper arm, righting me as his gaze cut to my chest. “You are a woman without protection.”
Awareness spread from his hold on me and traveled south. “I’m your stepsister,” I corrected, hoping like hell I sounded convincing, because suddenly, being alone with him in front of my apartment was a whole lot different than sitting next to him at Mom and Ted’s. The shock of seeing him again only slightly less than when I opened the door earlier tonight, I still felt the enormous weight of his situation, of what had brought him to Mom and Ted’s. But unlike earlier, when I felt as if everything I said needed to take into account his upbringing, this was a different animal, having had him follow me home. I was no longer looking at a man who’d lost his life to circumstance. I was staring at a six-and-a-half-foot muscled god who’d said he wanted to kiss me.
His predatory gaze cut to mine, and he dropped his hand. “We have already discussed this.”
“We needed reminding.” I needed reminding. Because with the way he looked at me, like no man had ever looked at me, like I was his next meal and his favorite Christmas morning—I no longer knew who I was trying to convince. Everything about him being here was wrong, but every second he stood in front of me made me wish my mother had never married Ted. And that made me feel guilty as hell. “You should go, Callan.” I bit my lip, wanting to take the words back.
Quick, precise, his hand shot out, and with a gentleness I wasn’t prepared for, his thumb stroked across my bottom lip. “You bite when you are nervous.”
My heart raced and my lip tingled. Wanting to reach for him, I forced myself to stand perfectly still. “You don’t know me enough to know when I’m nervous.” I wanted it to be the truth, but it was as if I’d known this man longer than two brief encounters and a few exchanged staring contests. His presence, his woodsy scent, he already felt more like home to me than the small apartment I worked my tail off to afford.
“Your body language does not lie.” He stroked my lip again. “The pain, when your teeth bite your lip, do you enjoy it?”
Uncomfortable heat hit my cheeks. “What are you doing?” The strangled whisper rushed past the very spot he was caressing.
“Touching you.” His thumb coasted across my jaw and his fingers landed on the pulse point on my neck. “Have you ever been with a man?”
Oh God, oh God, oh God.
I swallowed past the embarrassment and kept perfectly still. “I didn’t give you permission to touch me.”
For a split second, something crossed his features. Then his impenetrable, intense mask returned. “I do not need permission.”
Blessed righteousness overtook my traitorous hormones. “Ah, yeah, you do. This isn’t the dark ages, and you aren’t a caveman.” His upbringing may have been primitive, but he didn’t look a thing like a Neanderthal.
Faster than I could blink, his hand caught the side of my face and his fingers captured a thick lock of my hair. “I have already touched you, many times. You made no protest. Are you making one now?”
My core pulsed and a wave of heat washed over my body. For ten whole seconds, I let myself relish in the blazing sensations of his hold on me. Dominant, assured, confident, he held me like he’d held me at the gas station, and he held me like he knew how to hold a woman. But more, he held me like he knew every secret desire I’d ever had. Oh my God, I wanted him to be any other man, and I wanted this to be easy and right, not taboo and fucked-up. But I wasn’t stupid enough not to recognize that maybe a small a part of me thrilled in this because of who he was. Chastising myself and my dirty thoughts, I pushed at his hand.
He held firm. “Use words.”
The sheer dominance in his voice made my eyes flutter shut. “Oh God, I want to. I need to.” But I stopped there, leaving the decision on his shoulders.
He lowered his voice and slowly wrapped my long hair around his hand. “That was not an answer. Do you want me to stop?”
I tried to tell myself I felt nothing from his grip other than my utter lack of experience. I told myself this was nothing more than finally having a man’s hands on me.
“Open your eyes, Angel.”
The sound of his voice, the term of endearment, I wanted to weep. Honest to God, weep. “I’m afraid of you,” I whispered the truth.
No response.
I opened my eyes.
Intently staring at me, his gaze reached into my soul and twisted. “You never need to be afraid of getting close to me.”
Oh God. Why did every word out of his mouth both crush me and make me fall harder? “I need you to promise me something.” But the second I gave voice to the demand, I knew how futile and impossible a request it was.
I wanted, I needed, his promise of honor. I swore I was never going to feel abandoned by a man like I’d felt my whole life by a father I’d never met. I’d sworn off men completely. I’d said I was never going to be in a position where I could get hurt. But here I was, about to beg a man, my stepbrother, to promise me he’d never hurt me when he’d never even kissed me. I knew how fucked-up my thinking was. I did. I just couldn’t see past it, because the only thing I knew for sure? This gas station god in front of me, he could crush me.
As if reading my thoughts, he gave me rational words, but not ones of platitude. “I make no promises.”
My heart racing, my core aching, I wanted to crawl out of my own skin with want. In a few short hours, he’d turned my world upside down. But it wasn’t just a few hours. Fate knew what was coming and tried to warn me a year ago. Or mock me. I didn’t know. I only knew I was no match for this man. “Then I’m protesting.” I used his words, but I had to force them past my reluctant tongue. “I’m telling you to let go of me now.”
He held me in his gaze, and then he added another layer to his complexity. “I do not give falsehoods in the name of promises.”
Jesus. What did I even say to that? Nothing. That’s what you said, because when a man this intense was being so brutally honest, I could do nothing except respect his integrity with silence. So that’s what I did. My eyes locked on his, I simply drank him in.
For three heartbeats, he stared back. Then slow, as if not to scare me, he slid his fingers from my hair, and the heat of his palm left my neck. His voice got so quiet, it was almost inaudible. “I will walk you to your door.”
I thought of a half a dozen comebacks, all of them a variation of telling him to forget it. The danger of having him know exactly which apartment was mine was real. Not danger in that he would force his way in, but the danger in that I didn’t trust myself to close the door on him once I got there. This man wasn’t just intriguing, he was a year-long, slow-burn spiral of addiction. Heat was still licking up the side of my neck where he’d had his hand, and I had no words for what my body did at the very smell of him, let alone when he’d gripped my hair.
I wanted him inside my apartment. I wanted to stare at him all night. I wanted to ask him every inappropriate question about his childhood that I could think of. But mostly I wanted to know what he would do to me if I surrendered to him. And that was a thought that had never ever crossed my mind with any man.
I bit my lip then quickly released it, only to fold my arms protectively over my chest. “What if I don’t want you to walk me to my door?”
His gaze dropped to my arms then came right back to my eyes. He studied me for a moment. “An animal in fear retreats. It does not contemplate its hunter.”
“So, you’re hunting me?” That shouldn’t have thrilled me.
“I am standing right in front of you.”
“Meaning?” I stupidly asked.
His deep voice took on an edge. “If you were prey, you’d already be caught.”
Oh God, I could listen to the sound of his voice forever. Nodding, but not knowing why, I inhaled the night air and got a lungful of forest and soap and dominating musk. “I’m going in now.” I turned and forced my unsteady legs to move. With zero grace, I walked to my apartment, acutely listening for his footsteps, but I didn’t hear any.
Leaves rustled, cicadas chirped, air whispered past my ears. If he was following me, he was like the wind. I didn’t hear a single sound that wasn’t familiar. Night fell around me with the blanket of southern Florida humidity, but none of it stood out. I didn’t hear the footsteps of his heavy boots. I didn’t hear his breathing. But I felt him. God, I felt him.
Every movement of my body was a testament to those incredible blue eyes I could feel on me, like I felt every beat of my own heart. My back stood straighter, my neck stretched as I listened for any sound of his presence, and my hips swayed with each step, reminding me of every extra pound I carried.
Part of me felt ashamed.
But the other part felt alive, incredibly, beautifully alive, for the first time in my life.
If this was how Phoebe felt from the attention of a man, then every second since she’d hit puberty and discovered the opposite sex made sense.
I was drunk on the thought of his eyes on me. Drunk and nervous. My stomach fluttered, making every breath feel as if it were fueling the fire low in my belly. And that feeling, that fire? It made me want to do stupid, stupid things.
My keys already in my hand, I stopped in front of my door, but I didn’t look behind me. “I know you’re there.”
Heat crawled up my back a second before his hand covered mine. Gentle, but firm, he took my keys, fit the right one in the lock on the first try, then pushed my door open.
He didn’t say a word.
His breath on my shoulder, his chest so close to my back, I knew if I leaned back an inch, I would be against him. And God, I wanted to be against him. But he scared me. Despite what he’d said, I was terrified to get close to him.
Not knowing what else to say, wanting to say too much, I simply stepped forward.
“You did not answer my question.”
His voice crawled up my spine, and the hair on my neck stood on end. “You didn’t ask me anything.” But he had. Earlier.
He asked again. “Have you been taken by another man?”
Heat on my face, heat between my legs, heat everywhere, I slowly turned to face him and asked the stupidest of all questions. “Why?”
His eyes, full of experiences I would never understand, stared at me. “Because I am going to take you.”
I didn’t have time to respond. He turned and was gone, disappearing into the night exactly how he’d shown up—silently.