Protection: A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance Read online

  Strangely, I find that thought reassuring. Fucked up, Elly.

  Connor takes me to the elevator and down to the staff floor.

  “BRAD! GISELLA!” His shout makes me jump, and he hugs me tighter for a second. A kind of apology, I think.

  Doors start to open as Connor hurtles down the hall with me in his arms. I see Brad’s startled face as Connor carries me into a single hotel room.

  “I’m gonna put you down now, honey,” Connor tells me gently. “I’m not going farther than the doorway, I promise.”

  He sits me on the edge of an unmade bed, and I watch as he stalks over and grabs Brad by the collar of his t-shirt. I realize, in a funny flash, that I’ve never seen Brad in his t-shirt and PJs before. It’s strangely comical.

  “Do not move from her sight,” Connor snarls, giving Brad a shake. “And don’t fucking talk to her either, unless she speaks first.”

  “Uh—” Brad says, but Connor’s not interested in his response.

  “I will be right here, on the other side of the door,” Connor reminds me.

  He slams the door shut behind him, leaving me alone with a very startled-looking Brad. I look at Brad, he looks at me. I can see the questions whirling through his mind, but he just sinks into a chair and stays silent.

  Thank you for that, Connor. I can’t talk about… it… yet.

  Through the door, I can hear Connor literally screaming commands. I smother a laugh as I imagine everyone outside running around like terrified ants; it takes my mind off things for a second.

  Then I realize how badly I’m shaking. I’m cold.

  “I don’t care what you have to do. Get. Artisan. Here. Right now!” Connor bellows.

  The door slams open and I jump again. I rub my eyes and realize I’m still crying. Or my face is damp, at least.

  “For fuck’s sake,” Connor says when he sees me. He looks so angry, it’s really starting to freak me out.

  When he comes over and sits down next to me, I pull back a little, flinching.

  “Brad, get out,” Connor says.

  Brad swallows and practically flees for the door.

  “Hey,” he says, running his knuckles over the back of my hand.

  “Hey,” I say.

  “You know that I’d never let anyone hurt you, right?” he asks.

  “Yeah,” I nod. I do know that much.

  “I’m so sorry that I let this happen, Elly. I thought—” he stops, frustrated, and shakes his head. “It won’t happen again. Fuck.”

  “You don’t… you can’t control someone else,” I venture.

  The flash of disagreement is plain in Connor’s impossibly green eyes, but he doesn’t go there.

  “Would you rather have Karen stay with you right now?” he asks, taking me by surprise.

  “No,” I say instantly. “No. I want you.”

  He sighs and wraps an arm around me again, drawing me close.

  “Fuck, you’re shaking,” he says. His voice sounds stressed to the point of breaking.

  “I’m chilly,” I admit.

  “God damn it,” he says, to himself it sounds like. “You might be in a little bit of shock, honey. Let’s…” he pauses, thinking for a moment. “You can stay in my room tonight. I’ll take the couch.”

  “Okay,” I say. I’d agree to pretty much anything at this point. Connor’s the only stable thing in my universe at this moment, and I’m happy enough to cling to him until the world rights itself again.

  “Come on,” he says, pulling me to my feet. “Or do you want me to carry you?”

  I give a humorless laugh.

  “No, I can make it,” I say.

  Connor leads me out into the hall, past all the Ravens and Gisella, who stare me down like a bunch of wide-eyed bobble head dolls. They actually step back and scatter before Connor, though I’m walking behind him and can’t see his expression.

  He leads me to another single room at the end of the hall. The bed in here is still perfectly made, an unopened suitcase sitting on the couch. Other than that, it’s like Connor hasn’t even stepped in here yet.

  Maybe he hasn’t. After all, he’s running the whole security operation. He probably does a lot more than I even know about.

  “Are you still cold?” he asks.

  I nod, and he moves over to adjust the thermostat, then starts pulling back the covers of the bed. Turning it down for me. Kind of sweet, in different circumstances.

  I look down at myself; I’m wearing tight jeans and a silk shirt.

  “I don’t want to sleep in this,” I say, feeling silly.

  “Shit, of course.” Connor goes over and unzips his suitcase, rifling through his stuff until he comes up with a gray t-shirt and a pair of what looks like gym shorts.

  “Are these okay? They’re clean. I can get Gisella to get something else…” he trails off, then shakes his head.

  Not from my room, I think.

  “Just the shirt,” I say, taking it from him. I glance over at the bathroom, then bite my lip. It’s silly, but I don’t want to go in that dark bathroom by myself. Not yet.

  “Can you turn around for a second?” I ask. There’s nothing remotely sexual about this moment in either of our lives, so I’m just going to do what needs to be done.

  Connor turns his back on me, a funny expression on his face.

  I strip off my jeans and shirt as fast as I can, pulling on the t-shirt he gave me. After a moment’s thought, I take my bra off under the shirt.

  After the night I’ve had, might as well at least be comfortable.

  I climb into the bed and pull the covers up to my chin, feeling like a little kid.

  “You can turn around,” I say.

  Connor turns around and sees me in the bed, and a little bit of the anger in his gaze leaks away. Which makes me way happier than I expect, somehow.

  I guess I don’t want to outright cause him stress… is how I explain that gem to myself.

  “Alright,” he says. “You want this lamp on instead of the overhead light?”

  “Sure.”

  He switches the lights and moves his suitcase off the couch. For a second, he’s at a loss as to what to do next. I’m sure normally he would change into night clothes. Unless he sleeps naked, of course…

  I roll my eyes silently.

  You’re just tired, I tell myself.

  He sits down on the couch and frowns. He gives the tiniest shrug and then lies down. It’s actually super comical watching him try to arrange himself on the couch; he’s several inches too long and wide to fit on it. His feet hang wayyyy off the end; he hasn’t even taken his shoes off.

  “Um, night,” he says. He settles on his back, throwing an arm over his eyes. He doesn’t move, but clearly he’s not sleeping, either.

  “Hey,” I say after a second.

  Connor moves his arm and glances at me.

  “You need something to eat?” he guesses.

  I shake my head.

  “No. I just… I’m sorry that I dragged you into this thing with my… stalker, or whatever.”

  Connor snorts, looking annoyed.

  “It’s my job,” he reminds me.

  “Yeah, but only because I’m like… well, who I am.”

  He looks like he’s going to say more, then he just shakes his head.

  “I assure you, I can take care of myself. Both of us, actually.” He pauses, then sighs. “Good night, Elly.”

  The arm goes over his eyes again. I stare at him for a second, at the position he’s lying in.

  Is that how he slept in uncomfortable places when he was in the Navy? I wonder.

  I turn over and close my eyes, trying to get comfortable enough to sleep. My mind whirls a million miles an hour, it feels like. I can’t fall asleep, can’t fall asleep…

  I must have, though, because I wake with a startled shout. My hands fly up to my throat, where I can still feel my stalker’s hands… in my dream.

  It’s dark; Connor must have turned off the light at
some point.

  I tremble, my face crumpling. I’m embarrassed, but the leftover terror from the dream makes me cry. And not subtly, either; the big red-faced, gasping sobs kind of crying.

  Ugly crying, mom used to call it. Kind of a joke, kind of not.

  “Hey, hey,” Connor says. He sits on the bed next to me, pulling me close. “Is it because it’s dark?”

  “No,” I whimper, flinging my arms around him and pressing my wet cheeks against his bare chest. He must have taken his shirt off after I fell asleep. Maybe that’s why he turned the light off?

  “Elly…” he says, his voice strained. “What can I do, honey? Please don’t cry.”

  I sniffle for a moment, feeling utterly ashamed of myself.

  “I don’t want to feel alone right now,” I whine, my voice breaking. “Will… will you sleep next to me?”

  He hesitates for the barest second. I hold my breath, trying to calm my stupid pointless tears.

  “Yeah. Sure I will, Elly,” he says. “Just lie down, okay?”

  I let out a little sigh and scoot over on the bed, lying down facing away from him. I’m too embarrassed to actually look at him.

  He lies down next to me, on top of the covers.

  “Is this alright?” he asks.

  It occurs to me that I’ve never heard Connor Gray sound so unsure of himself.

  “Um.” I figure I might as well go for the whole hog, since I’m bound to regret all of this later. Connor and I have a kind of chemistry that’ll make sure of that. “Will you just… put your arm around me? Until I fall asleep?”

  Another pause, then Connor rolls over. His big, warm body presses up against mine and I shiver.

  It’s too good, this feeling. It’s definitely wrong on several levels… but I’m gonna do it anyway.

  I look down at his arm when he wraps it around me, trace the words ALL IN - ALL THE TIME with a fingertip.

  “Is this a Navy thing?” I ask him. “A SEALs thing?”

  “Mmmhm,” is all he says.

  “It suits you.”

  He’s quiet for a moment, maybe thoughtful, I can’t tell.

  “It would suit you too, Elly.”

  My lips quirk up at that.

  “Thanks,” I whisper.

  I swear I feel Connor’s lips touch the back of my head, but it’s over too quickly for me to be sure. In the dark, in Connor’s arms, it doesn’t take long for my fear to slide away. My eyelids grow heavy, my brain sort of goes fuzzy and happy, and then it’s just black.

  My last thought is, I wish like hell that Connor would still be here with me in the morning.

  But I know he won’t.

  Chapter Ten

  Connor

  When I wake up sprawled on my back with Elly wrapped around my body, clinging to me, I have to suppress a groan. I’m hard as fuck, and it’s not morning wood. It’s the fact that the smell of her shampoo has been in my head all night, the way her soft breasts are pressed against my side, the way her head is nuzzled against my shoulder.

  Fuck. It’s a lot worse than I thought. I don’t just want to fuck her anymore, I want… this.

  Needless to say, I extract myself from her immediately. I can’t get out of that bed fast enough, trying so so hard not to wake her up as I roll her off me. It’s like a funny reverse of the dozens of times I’ve snuck out of a woman’s bed in the early hours of the morning; usually I’m trying to escape because she’s not as cute as the whisky was telling me the night before, or I get the idea that she’s going to catch feelings.

  This is the opposite. I have to get the fuck away from Elly, because I like her. As a person, not just her amazing tits or the potential for a nice fuck. That is… not acceptable.

  I throw myself into an ice-cold shower, listing all the reasons I can’t fuck her or think about her like that.

  One: she’s your boss.

  Two: she’s your future stepsister. Gross.

  Three: she’s fucking famous, and you’re… not.

  Four: you don’t do relationships, asshole.

  Five: she deserves a hell of a lot more than you.

  And still I can’t stop myself from turning the water temperature up until it’s steaming and hot, wrapping my hand around my cock, and muffling my own groans as I stroke myself.

  The whole time, thinking about what Elly’s tits would look like while she rides me, thinking about her taste when I bury my mouth between her thighs, thinking about the sound she makes when she’s about to come.

  That does it, the release ripping straight up from my balls and hitting me so hard that I almost topple over in the shower, trying not to make any noise.

  Fuck. Then, this is really, really bad.

  When I get out of the shower, filled with shame, I wrap a towel around my waist and sneak out to dress. Never in my life have I been so glad not to wake someone up.

  Naturally, I avoid Elly for the rest of the day. I roust Bill for a round of guard duty, posting him at the door to my hotel room, and then I get the fuck out of there.

  It’s just that I have a lot to do, dealing with last night’s aftermath.

  Yeah, or I’m just a total fucking coward who can’t seem to control his dick or his emotions. One of those two things.

  I don’t see her again for the rest of the day, mostly by design but a little by luck.

  I do get a very interesting call from the police. They’ve positively identified Elly’s stalker from his fingerprints on the floral card, the wrapper the flowers came in, and from security footage. I pull Karen in to go through the file I got from a friend in the NYPD.

  “Greg Dahl,” I read off, handing her a stack of arrest photos. “Damn, he’s got a New York state rap sheet as long as my fucking arm. Assault, assault, violating a restraining order, assault with a deadly weapon, repeated parole violations for one of his assault cases… Looks like Elly isn’t the first one he’s stalked, and he’s prone to violence.”

  “Damn. That’s not really what I wanted to hear.” Karen shakes her head. “I guess we’d know if they’d had any luck picking him up at prior addresses.”

  “Yeah, my friend in the police department has promised that we’re the first call they make if they catch wind of him.”

  We both look at each other; this situation is snowballing out of our control, and fast. I spend the rest of the day trying to think through the most likely scenarios in case of attack, flipping through Dahl’s file and trying to get into his head.

  It’s not pretty.

  When I finally see Elly later that night, it’s from afar as she warms up for her show that night. We’re at the Harris Bradley Center, this giant fucking place that’s soon going to be packed to the gills with screaming fans.

  AKA thousands of security threats, I think.

  At least some of the staff are moving the salvageable part of Elly’s stuff to a new hotel, one I’ve picked out because I think it’s got much better security. We’ll move a few essential personnel over there and let everyone else stay at the original place. From here on out, Elly’s not staying with the rest of the crew. It’s like having a big flashing sign hung outside that says, Here I am, stalker!

  I stride across the stage as Elly does her sound check, exploring every nuance of the stage and the area to each side. There’s a whole crew that does the actual concert security, making sure fans don’t leap up onstage or whip water bottles at Elly while she’s performing; I’m more concerned with the fact that there are about a thousand hiding places where Elly’s stalker could be holed away.

  No matter how well we clear the area before the concert, this venue is just riddled with chances for someone to lie in wait. It takes the entire sound check for me to lock the place down. I borrow a few of the roadies that I know passably and ask them to each watch a hallway or access area; everyone on the tour knows by now that some serious shit is going down with Greg Dahl, so we’re all on high fucking alert.

  No one can possibly be as paranoid as I am, though. I feel like
I seriously failed Elly, letting that piece of human trash break in and invade what little privacy she’s got on tour. Every time I think about her missing panties, my blood boils with fucking rage.

  A big part of me wants to run into Greg Dahl in a dark alley. A much smaller part of me fears it, because I know I will kill him. I won’t even think twice.

  The crowd starts coming in, the stadium filling with people. I head back and check in with Karen, who’s watching Elly do some crazy leg-over-her-head stretches at a ballet barre offstage while she warms up her voice.

  “Everything good?” Elly asks. At first, I don’t even realize she’s talking to me. She’s facing the other direction, her body contorted in an insane pretzel.

  “Yeah,” I say after Karen gives me a weird look. “It’s good.”

  “You seem a little… I don’t know,” Elly says, coming up to stand normally and face me. “Like keyed up or something?”

  “Just alert.” The last thing she needs is me filling her head with all the nightmare scenarios that have been playing in mine all fucking day.

  “Okay,” she says.

  “I’m going to go to the other side of the stage before things get started,” Karen says. “I thought if we switched up our normal routine, it might give us fresh eyes.”

  I give Karen a questioning glance, but her expression is blank.

  “Fine,” I say.

  Karen heads off through the back of the stage. Elly shrugs at me and then walks behind the little changing curtain that’s set up in the wings on each side of the stage, for her multiple changes of costume during the set. I can hear her hopping around, getting herself into whatever costume she’s starting the night in.

  When she walks out, I’m staring out into the crowd, not really paying attention.

  “What do you think?” she asks.

  I turn, and the breath bleeds from my lungs. She’s in a skin-colored leotard, see through in far too many places. A handful of artfully placed feathers and shiny diamonds are basically the only thing keeping her from being completely naked.

  She turns and whirls the long train of sequins and feathers that’s attached to the end, making the thing somewhat more like a dress, and it’s all I can do to not stamp my foot and refuse to let her out on stage.