Off Limits: A Stepbrother MMA Romance Read online

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Jewel,” I managed. My heart raced and I could feel myself start shaking slightly, so sensitive to his touch. He looked down at me like he wanted to devour me whole. With a flicker of nervousness, my eyes darted to the side, as if checking for an escape route. I felt so vulnerable, trembling next to his massive frame. We were so tucked away, no one could even see us where we stood. Anything could happen.

  “Jewel.” He repeated my name and made a low, appreciative noise in his throat. His thumb teased my lower lip. “I want to taste you, Jewel.”

  Right there at the party, behind a pillar in the dimly lit corner of our private world, he dipped his head down and kissed me. He started warm, gentle and sure, but then he pulled me closer, deepening our kiss, his mouth claiming mine. I felt a rumble in his chest as his tongue teased me, licking, dipping, hot and wicked. I heard a low moan and realized vaguely that it came from my throat. Pressed against him, my soft curves were a perfect fit against his rock hard, solid muscle.

  Heat grew in my core as he pushed me back against the wall. My hands snaked up into his hair, soft and sleek, his hand circling my throat as I tilted back to take in more of him, his tongue plundering my mouth. My breathing ragged, I clutched his massive shoulder. An animal lurked beneath that tux. His mouth searched me, urgent, down at my throat, licking and sucking my sensitive skin. He cupped the swell of my ass in his large, powerful hand and forced me against his body. I could feel his long, steel length hard for me.

  “You’re making me crazy,” he whispered into my ear.

  I’d never felt so wild, so reckless and crazed with lust. Maybe I’d had too much champagne? But I hadn’t felt drunk until he kissed me.

  Panting, I murmured, “I don’t even know your name.” My hands, feverish, marveled at the width of his shoulders, worshipped the wall of muscle through his shirt.

  “Tuck.” Rhymes with… His hands, hot, roamed me as if he couldn’t get enough, circling my waist, skimming my back as he panted into my neck. My blood simmered as his hands traveled slowly up my dress, so slowly up to the curve of my breast. I sucked in my breath, my eyes closing as he brought his thumb up to lightly tease my heaving mounds. Instantly, my nipples hardened, two points pushing against the fabric. His molten eyes drank me in.

  “You like that, Jewel?” His deep and wicked voice, so secret and dirty, he made me so wet just from the sound of it. The way he looked at me, licked his lips as he feasted on the sight of my arousal. What would it feel like to have those full, hot lips on my breasts, to feel his tongue on my skin, sucking my aching nipples?

  In a remote region of my mind I tried to remind myself that I was still in public, at a party, and I didn’t do this kind of thing. I was cautious, reserved. I left parties early, didn’t give out my phone number. But then he kissed me again and my entire brain lost its reception in white-hot static.

  Owning me, his hands cupping my breasts, his breath ragged and hot against my throat, he continued his light, teasing strokes. Heart fluttering, pulse pounding, I sucked in my breath and bit my lower lip, my eyelids half-closing as I needed more, more contact, more of his hands, his heat, his skin on my skin. His gaze stayed on me, mesmerized by my response to him.

  In that sinfully sexy voice of his, he asked, low and husky in my ear, “Have you ever been bad, Jewel?”

  Trembling against his hardness, I couldn’t think. My sex clenched tight at his words, slick heat building within me. I couldn’t process what was happening. “What do you mean?”

  His voice stroked me, soft as silk, “I get the feeling you’ve always been a good girl.” His thumb and forefinger found my nipple, aroused, pressing against the fabric of my dress. I arched my back into his touch, still so light and teasing. Dark eyes intent on my face, drinking in my reaction, he pinched. My mouth parted in a gasp and I closed my eyes in the onslaught of sensations. How could it hurt and feel so good at the same time? It was as if my breast was wired directly down between my legs, making my sex throb and glisten with need.

  “I think you should be bad with me, Jewel.” He dipped his mouth down to my sensitive throat, trailing hot kisses against my skin, “Delicious,” he murmured as he stopped to lick and suck, swirling his tongue. Pressed up against the wall, panting and unable to think straight, I felt like Little Red Riding Hood with the big bad wolf. If the wolf had been hypnotically sexy as sin.

  He ground his hips against me and through our clothes I could feel his heavy, thick cock. He was huge. A moan escaped my lips, true, real lust clenching its fist around me for the first time in my life. I wanted this man. No, I needed this man. I needed him to do all the things I’d only read about, right there, right then, up against the wall.

  A hot palm down at my hip, searing me through my dress, so close to where I throbbed but not close enough, he asked, “Are you getting wet for me, Jewel?” I panted and twisted under his grasp, wanting more of him, needing more heat, more pressure. “Right here at the party?” He tormented me, moving his hand ever so slightly down, then grasping the hem of my dress to inch it slowly up.

  “Naughty girl,” his dark voice rasped at my ear, his tongue flicking along my lobe, biting then sucking the sensitive flesh.

  Moaning, I arched my back, pressing my breast into his hand, impatient, needy, wanton. I’d never been so reckless. I’d never felt so good.

  CHAPTER 2

  Tuck

  There was something about this girl, some kind of fire running through her veins underneath her chaste, innocent surface. Something in her lit me up.

  She wasn’t my usual type. Typically, I went for the trashy ones, the girls who wanted a hard fuck, one and done. Or two or three, depending on the night. But come morning, no muss, no fuss, it was always over and out.

  This girl with her flaming red hair, porcelain complexion and pouty lips looked exactly like what usually sent me running in the other direction. The type who dreamed of doves and poetry, waiting for some swashbuckling pirate hero to carry her off to lands unknown, reform his ways and marry her with undying loyalty.

  That kind of shit didn’t happen in real life. In real life, people cycled in and out, dead set in pursuit of their own goals. My father had been through two wives so far, and I had a feeling number three was on the way. He’d asked me to come to the party tonight so I could “meet someone special.” I knew what that meant. He was considering going in for round three.

  I’d been bored that night, same old same old. I was getting tired of this shit. Lately, all I wanted to do was fight. A year and a half ago I’d joined an MMA gym and it had grown on me. Now all I wanted to do was train. It felt real, whether I was throwing the punches and kicks or whether I was getting beat down. Some of both happened. I was figuring it out, adding in new moves to my wrestling and ju-jitsu background. And I was starting to find it addictive.

  But I was used to attending bullshit charity events. I’d grown up on them. My mother had loved that shit, before she’d taken up drinking as a full-time hobby, married the pool boy and moved to Barbados. My billionaire father still made the circuit, though. He loved the schmooze. He’d been born into it himself, his father an oil and steel man who’d inherited wealth from his father before him. In the Helmsworth family we made money the old-fashioned way, inheriting and piling up even more. The best way to make money was to have money in the first place.

  Nothing drove my father crazier than bringing that up. He liked to pretend he’d pulled himself up from his bootstraps, that he was a regular rags-to-riches story. As if heirs to fortunes who’d attended Dalton, Princeton and Harvard Business School had anything to do with rags. Hell, if he hadn’t made good with all of the money he’d been handed at birth, turning a few companies going public into huge wins, that would have been the surprise. Turning the $750 million that he’d inherited into a billion? Yawn.

  My father had talked me into going to this fundraiser, some bullshit equestrian land charity. We didn’t usually pal aroun
d. He wasn’t exactly a fan of mine, his one and only son who showed more interest in fighting and fucking than in the family pastime of wealth accumulation. If that wasn’t bad enough, I was attending a state school, a SUNY besmirching the Helmsworth name. The horror.

  But I was home for the holidays, as if his Bel Air mansion felt like home, as if we celebrated Christmas with relatives and Santa and home cooking, and I’d let him convince me to come. These kinds of galas were usually good for getting laid, anything with an open bar typically was. And if a party didn’t have an open bar, I could always turn it into one, using my father’s tab to loosen the taps and inhibitions right along with them.

  This party started off the same as all the others. I surveyed the scene, bored as usual, ready to drink myself into a stupor and fuck whoever threw herself at me the hardest. Call me an asshole and I’d admit it. I never pretended I was anything but, never apologized. I played games with women who liked to play, like shooting fish in a barrel.

  Then I’d seen her. She’d been hiding behind a pillar watching the party. From where I was standing, I could see a glimpse of her, that green dress and red hair. I knew there was something different about her right away. Apart from the obvious, of course—that hair was like nothing I’d ever seen before. Nothing out of a bottle could ever look that rich, that captivating, like loose, flowing flames

  But it was more than that. Most of the girls I knew, prep school girls, rich New Yorkers, they’d been cultivated, groomed, trained from the day they were born. Some of them started having their eyebrows waxed at age five. They’d been on diets since they’d started solid foods. At boarding school I knew a girl whose mom flew her home every weekend so she could weigh her on the home scale and make sure she didn’t gain a pound. True fucking story.

  What struck me about this girl was how fresh she looked. So unstudied, new, real. It seemed like her first night out at a party and she looked radiant.

  And I was a healthy, red-blooded man, so of course it was her body that hooked me in good. Slender, graceful, pale creamy skin you wanted to suck and bite and mark, at least if you were a perverted fucker like me. I was a big guy, pushing 6’3”, so a lot of girls seemed like munchkins. I fit proportions all over and, honestly, some girls just couldn’t handle all of me.

  This girl, though, she looked perfect. She had mile-long legs and I could instantly see them wrapped around me as I drove into her, maybe fucking her against a wall the first time. She could throw her arms around my neck and her ankles around my ass and I’d plow into her as she screamed my name.

  It was hard to tell about her tits, she had a lot of structure up top in her dress, but I sure wanted to find out. I bet she’d be unsure, inexperienced, wanting my guidance about what to do. I’d love to see those full lips wrapped around my cock as I taught her just what to do to suck me right.

  I’d been about to approach her when she came up to get a drink. She wasn’t going to talk to me, though. I liked that. I’d have to go get her. As much as I liked an easy lay, the predator in me enjoyed having to hunt for my kill.

  She blushed when I spoke to her and instantly my dick got hard. That skin, so pale, so delicate. I knew if I spanked her I’d leave a nice, red mark. She stammered at first, shy, her emotions so close to the surface, none of the practiced flirtation I was used to encountering.

  And she was funny. As I drew her into a quiet, dark corner, the kind of spot where we could go unnoticed even in a crowded room, she surprised the hell out of me by making me laugh. We got some kind of running joke going about the ridiculousness of the party. Insightful, witty, she had a brain in that gorgeous head of hers. All the more fun to play with.

  When I first kissed her, dipping my head down to those luscious lips of hers, she tipped her head back and responded so rapidly, parting her lips, seeking out my tongue, making a few small sighs of pleasure. She might not have much experience, but she ran hot. That drove me wild, how sweet and intense I could tell she could be, just under the surface.

  She felt so good pressed up against the wall, so yielding and responsive, so feminine and hot. For a good girl she was going bad fast. I had my hand up at her breast and could feel her through the fabric, the firm peak of her nipple pressing through, wanting, needing more. I wanted it bare so I could pinch it, play with it, tease and lick and suck and hear her moan. Had anyone ever done that to her before? My gut told me no and I was filled with the primal urge to claim her, mark her, take her as my own and do everything to her she’d never experienced before.

  Her body responded like it had been made for me as I teased her nipples through the fabric of her dress, playing with her tender, sensitive buds. When I pinched her, light, her eyes closed and she gasped like she’d never felt anything like that before. I wanted to be her first for all of it, teaching her, showing her what it could be like. I could tell she’d be the perfect student, eager to learn, so responsive. She’d come undone under my tongue.

  I inched my hand along her dress, slowly, carefully, not startling my prey, working her heat, stoking her fires, making her want this as much as me. I drank in her pants, kissing her mouth, her throat, her chest as I worked my hand up, drawing up her dress. In the corner, I could do this unnoticed. My frame so large, hers smaller and more delicate, I could shield her from view, take advantage of the shadows.

  I could slip my finger up into her silky folds and feel her heat. I knew she’d be wet for me. So close, I had to touch it, had to feel her molten core. I needed to stroke her pussy and watch her face as I did it, see her plump lips part. I’d stroke her so good, coax so much pleasure out of her, feast on her pants and moans, her throaty cries of need. Then I’d drop my mouth to hers to drink in her scream when she came.

  With a giant clatter, a waiter near us dropped a large tray. Elaborate canapés flew everywhere and the waiter swore, loudly.

  She broke away first. I still looked at her like I was drugged, mesmerized, lust dulling my senses to everything but her. She seemed to notice something else, though.

  “Um…” She pointed down. I looked and saw a cucumber slice with cream cheese and salmon stuck to my pant leg, slowly sliding down.

  “Nice,” I commented, brushing it off.

  Before I knew what was happening, she was down helping to clean up the mess, scooping up bits and pieces of food from the floor. No longer in my hands, pressed against my body, but on her hands and knees. I’d like to see her in that exact position, but I’d need to get her somewhere more private first, back to my house. Or even better, one of the suites in the hotel building upstairs.

  “Oh, look here they both are. In the same place,” some lady exclaimed, false gaiety pumping up her voice like a hot air balloon. Next to her stood my father.

  Dimly registering shit wasn’t going down the way I’d planned, I shifted my weight, hiding the massive hard-on that pressed urgent and thick against my pants. Leaning against the wall, arms crossed against my chest, I took some deep breaths and waited to see what kind of shit my father was about to pull this time.

  The lady he was with looked the part, frosty blonde hair pulled into a tight coif, big unnaturally perky boobs squashed into a form-fitting gown. No wrinkle furrowed her brow, she’d had plenty of work done. Exactly my father’s type. She looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

  Leaning down, she hissed, “Jewel, did you knock over that tray of food?”

  “No, Mom,” she answered, instantly sounding like an embarrassed kid.

  Wait, did she just say Mom?

  “Jewel, stand up,” the woman sang out, sounding tense as fuck. She stayed on my father’s arm like the piece of candy that she was and he drew himself to his full height, still an inch shorter than me. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

  As if in slow motion, I watched this play out before me. The redhead I’d had up against the wall, so close to finger-fucking I could still feel her trembling, hot skin underneath my fingers. The one who’d riveted me, drawing me to her wit
h an animal magnetism I didn’t think I’d ever felt before. She was my father’s girlfriend’s daughter.

  Of course. Because my life was fucked up. Sometimes I liked to forget about that. But it never lasted long.

  “Son, this is Candice Kidd,” my father declared as if he were announcing royalty, the pompous fuck. Candice Kidd, now I remembered. She’d done a few movies back when I was a kid, the types about summer camps where the girl counselor’s bikini tops always came undone but you didn’t get to see anything good because it was PG. Cheap, forgettable, she hadn’t worked in a while. I was sure she needed a steady paycheck, and she stood right next to one now, dripping off of his arm.

  And Red was her daughter.

  “Pleased to meet you.” Candice stuck out her hand to me and I shook it.

  Jewel glanced at me quick, eyes wide, mortified, then looked away like she couldn’t quite believe this was happening. Her lips now parted in shock and embarrassment, but it didn’t stop me from picturing the same things I had been a few minutes ago. Down, boy, I shifted my weight, willing my painfully hard cock to catch up with the program. This was not going down as planned.

  “Tuck!” my father boomed out in his fake TV-dad voice. Both performers, it occurred to me that he and this woman might be perfect for each other. “Isn’t it something you and Jewel are almost exactly the same age? She’s a sophomore and you’re a junior!”

  “Cool, Dad.” What did he expect, Jewel and I to start playing with a train set or launch into a game of tag like we were six? What the fuck? Part of me wished he’d arrived a few minutes earlier, before the waiter had dropped the tray. Back when my hand had been right on Jewel’s delicious breast, my fingers so close to paradise between her thighs. That would have made for an awesome intro.

  Looked like I’d missed that fucking boat. All that lustful admiration shining from Jewel’s big green eyes? Gone. Now she looked anywhere but me and seemed itching to run from the scene of the crime.