Seduction: Her British Stepbrother Page 2
“I will,” Clayton promised. “It’s not every day a man is given a second chance at happiness.”
“Good.” Tristan didn’t really know what to say. He felt awkward talking to this stranger who would become his stepfather. He was used to being in a position of power around other men, but this wasn’t a situation he could have prepared for.
Fucking hell. When Carter found out about this…His best friend would laugh clear through next week.
“I’ll check on Kat,” Clayton said, offering a warm but hesitant smile. “Why don’t you let your mother know we’ll be down for dinner later?”
“I will,” Tristan replied. With a sinking feeling deep in his chest he walked away from Kat’s door.
Chapter 2
Kat sat on her bed, knees tucked up to her chest, arms curled around her shins. Tears dripped down her cheeks, soaking her jeans in two little damp patches on her knees. Everything inside her was a jumbled mess of pain and confusion, all of it so thick and strangling she could barely breathe.
Dad’s engaged, and my future stepbrother is Tristan Kingsley. My Tristan.
Two weeks ago I saw him walk into a pub and kissed him because I wanted to experience an adventure. Two days ago I gave him my virginity, and we shared the most mind-blowing sex ever. Now he’s here…and he’s going to be part of my family.
I’m so screwed.
It didn’t change how she felt about him. He was gorgeous, not just on the outside, but inside, too. Their first night together, he’d confessed things, small whispers in the dark about himself. What filled him with joy, made his heart beat fast. Things a man wouldn’t share unless he really wanted to. He’d opened up to her, and she’d done the same in return.
That has to mean something doesn’t it?
He was sexy, addictive, so electric in bed that he’d left her more spellbound with every kiss, every caress. Everyone said having sex for the first time would be painful, awkward, and unsatisfying. Not with Tristan. He’d fulfilled every fantasy she’d ever had. The dark brooding bad boy, one who dominated her senses with his mouth, his exploring hands, his power over her, yet never making her feel she couldn’t tell him no if she wasn’t ready. They’d made love all night in his bed at the grand Fox Hill estate while the snow fell outside the windows. All she had needed was him. Nothing else had mattered.
Kat closed her eyes, still feeling his hands around her wrists, the way he’d pinned her against the door. It made her body flush with heat and her blood pound in her ears. How did he know just what to do to make her unravel from the inside out? Why couldn’t she go back to Cambridge and his bed where it was just the two of them? She needed him to touch her, to make her feel alive, to show her that exquisite world of pleasure he’d only given her a taste of two days ago.
But now I can’t have him. He’s going to be my stepbrother.
It didn’t get any more off-limits than that. Her dad would freak out if he ever found out she and Tristan had…She shook her head. Clayton had always been protective, and he’d never approve of her dating someone older than she was. And Tristan was twenty-five to her nineteen. A six-year difference.
God, this was so bad, so bad. She didn’t want to think about how she’d have to spend not just this Christmas but all holidays to come around him and survive not being with him. Because if she was being totally honest with herself…it wasn’t just her dad finding out that scared her. It was how easy it would be to fall in love with Tristan. The more time they spent together, the harder it became to go their separate ways. Love was dangerous. Love burned a person up inside. She’d watched it destroy her father’s life after her mother had left.
I don’t ever want that to happen to me.
The thought of that agonizing pain, that awful crushing of one’s heart…it was something she never wanted to experience. But Tristan had the power to do that to her. She’d gotten her heart involved when she opened herself up to him and shared parts of herself she’d never shared with anyone else. And he’d shared himself right back. Still, she feared he wouldn’t feel the same way about her. A man like Tristan didn’t fall in love; he had too many woman out there to seduce, and she was just his current obsession, God only knew why.
Sniffling, she wiped her hands across her cheeks, trying to get rid of her tears. Maybe her dad getting married to Lizzy was a good thing. Tristan being off-limits as a stepbrother would make it easier for her to stay away from him. It would protect her heart. She’d had her adventure, she’d slept with him and almost fallen in love. It was as close as she could allow herself to get without risking her heart.
I just have to find a way to steer clear of him for three weeks. No matter how hard it is, I have to resist him.
Kat closed her eyes, memories of him flooding her until she couldn’t ignore them.
Every time she’d see his hands, she’d remember how he had pressed her down on the mattress as he hovered over her body. She had to watch his mouth as he spoke and not think of the sinful way those lips had sucked on the tips of her breasts, or how he’d licked her in secret places that had made her scream his name until she was hoarse. He had shown her that pleasure wasn’t just physical. Every time they’d been close, not just in bed, she’d felt alive, as though every part of her body and soul reached out to his, connecting them. His laughter had filled her heart, and his flirty smile had stolen her breath. And she couldn’t forget the way he had looked at her when they first met, as if there’d been no one else in the room…
The guestroom door opened, and her father’s head appeared around the edge. She jerked, her face flaming. Thank God he couldn’t hear her thoughts.
“Hey, honey, mind if I come in for a minute?”
Her day couldn’t get any worse. “Sure.” She shifted to sit cross-legged as her dad closed the door and walked over to sit on the bed.
He ran his hand through his dark hair and sighed. There was a weariness in his eyes that hadn’t been there moments before.
I’ve done that to him. I wasn’t happy about this whole engagement thing.
Sure she could fake some smiles and politeness, but her father knew her better than that. Guilt gnawed at her insides, and she fought the sting of fresh tears in her eyes. It was selfish to want him all to herself and to have Tristan all to herself, too. And she hated herself for that.
Her father eased down on the bed beside her, his large hand touching hers, familiar and comforting.
“Come here, honey,” he murmured.
She moved closer, and he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, making her lean over so he could press a kiss to her forehead and hug her tightly. In that moment, hurting the way she was, she felt as if she were twelve years old. She was supposed to be mature for her age, not prone to crying or acting out. She wanted to be an adult in her father’s eyes, not a child needing protection. More important, she wanted to be a woman whom someone like Tristan would admire and respect. Even though they couldn’t be together, she still wanted him to like her.
“I screwed up. I realize that. I should have told you about Lizzy much sooner.” He rubbed her arm in the rough-but-gentle way only fathers seemed to manage.
Kat sat there, numb inside, as she listened to his deep, rumbling voice. For so long it had been just the two of them. Her mother had bailed on them once she’d realized how hard parenthood would be, and Kat’s father had spent the last ten years proving that they hadn’t needed her. That the two of them could do just fine on their own.
Everything was going to change now. And Tristan as her new stepbrother? It was so messed up she couldn’t even think about it without a throbbing pulse beating right behind her eyes.
“Kat, please talk to me,” her father begged. “It’s okay if you’re upset or angry, but don’t shut me out.” He gave her shoulder a little pat.
Where would I even begin? “Hey, Dad, I’m so glad you just up and decided to marry some
woman without talking to me. Oh, and by the way, I totally slept with my future stepbrother, but that’s cool, right? Yeah, her dad might have a heart attack.
“I know it’s a lot to take in,” Clayton said.
“You just dumped this on me, and I can’t be instantly happy for you.” The comment slipped out, crueler than she meant it.
“I’m sorry, Kat. I wish you could understand. The last several years have been…lonely for me. When your mother left, I gave up being happy.” He turned his face away, his chin dropping silently. “I was convinced I’d never love again, could never love again. She was my first love, Kat. It’s not easy to get over losing that.”
An image of Tristan, smiling, holding her in bed flashed across her mind.
She crushed that thought, grinding it to dust. That was lust. Pure and simple. Not love.
“When you fall in love for the first time everything is new and exciting, sometimes scary. It’s all fire and love and passion. If that fire goes out, the cold that follows…It scars you, soul deep.”
Kat stared at her father, her own heart splintering inside her chest as she watched him bare his soul to her. They’d never talked about her mother. Never.
“I’m sorry, Dad,” she whispered and leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder. He put his arm around her again.
“It’s not your fault. It took me ten years to learn that it wasn’t us she left. It was the concept of a family that troubled her. It meant she had to be a part of our team. And that’s what families are. A team.” He finally looked down at her again and smiled. “I want you to be open to adding Lizzy and Tristan to our team, our family. I know you don’t know them yet, but I think you’ll like them.”
Kat winced. She couldn’t confess just how well she did know Tristan.
She rubbed her palms on her jeans before looking at him. “How did you know you loved her?”
“Your mother?”
With a little shake of her head, she dropped her gaze again. “Lizzy. How did you know?”
Clayton grinned, and the expression lit up his entire face. When had he ever looked so happy? Not in a long time. The man had put the work in workaholic. He claimed he never had time for dating, yet Lizzy had changed that and him. Kat wanted to know what had pushed her father to act so out of character. She needed to understand why he’d want to take a risk with his heart again after what had happened when her mother had left.
“She makes me smile. When we first met, she saw me, just me. Not my money, not my job. It’s so easy to talk to her, she listens, and I love to listen back. It’s something I never had with your mother. An openness of the heart we were both missing in our first marriages. Neither of us expected or planned this, but it happened, and I can’t imagine life without her now.” Her father tilted her chin back and studied her face. “Someday you’ll fall in love, and it will change you forever.”
Kat thought of monarch butterflies and the way the caterpillars formed chrysalises and then, after a period of time, were reborn. They could never go back to being caterpillars. Falling in love was a type of metamorphosis. But it was a dangerous one, for her heart.
“She makes you happy?” Kat asked, even though she knew the answer.
“Yes, very happy.”
Kat ducked her head. So Lizzy was here to stay because she made Dad happy. That meant Tristan wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon and he was definitely going to be her stepbrother. How in the hell was she going to survive the holidays?
“Now, will you join us for our first family dinner in a couple of hours, after you settle in?”
“Yes.” She could do that. Dinner would be easy. All she had to do was eat, right? Then why did the very thought of it make her stomach turn?
“Good.” Her father rose from her bed and kissed her forehead again. “I’ll see you in a bit.”
“Uh-huh.” She waited until he’d gone before she threw herself back upon the bed and stared up at the four-poster bed hangings over her head.
She had to admit, Lizzy had excellent taste in interior design. The town house was beautiful. Just like Fox Hill, Lizzy’s house in Cambridge. Everything the woman touched was perfect. Just like Tristan. He had that same golden touch his mother had when it came to beautiful things and beautiful houses. Like his bedroom at Fox Hill. And his bed…That thought led to other thoughts of them in that bed, bodies entwined, sharing moans and breathless whispers.
Oh no, I can’t go there.
I just need to survive dinner and lie low. If I avoid Tristan, he’ll give up and leave me alone. I’ll be able to forget about our mind-blowing perfect night together, and we won’t break up our parents’ marriage. And I won’t let him carve his name in my heart.
That invisible pressure of his hands on her body was there again, haunting her, lingering in her mind and her senses. She shivered. “Damn it.”
Chapter 3
Tristan.” His mother’s call halted him in his tracks on the way to his bedroom.
“Hello, Mum,” he said as he spotted her at the end of the hall near the doorway to the small upstairs study.
“Might I have a quick word?” She rubbed her palms together nervously.
Shoving his hands into his pockets, he walked over to her and followed her into the study.
She closed the door behind them and faced him. “I know we haven’t talked much tonight, but now we have a chance.” She waited, biting her lip and smoothing her hands over her white cashmere sweater.
“I’m happy to talk, Mum.” He would humor her, but he wasn’t going to start this conversation.
“Well, what do you think of them? Kat seems like a lovely girl. Clayton says she’s shy, but a wonderful student. Did you know she’s attending Cambridge, just like you? She’s only a freshman, but maybe you will have a chance to see her when you both return after holiday.”
He almost smiled. Tristan planned on doing just that, seeing lots of Kat in his bed. Preferably with her ankles thrown over his shoulders and her sweet cries of ecstasy filling his ears as she begged him to fuck her harder. He cleared his throat and attempted to put that delicious thought on hold.
“They seem very nice, Mum. I hope you’ve thought this through, though. Father won’t be pleased…” He walked over to one of the couches and stretched out on it.
“Let me worry about your father. And yes, I have thought this through. I want you to like Clayton and Kat.” Lizzy took a chair opposite him. “It’s important to me that you do. We’re going to be a family, Tristan. He and I want to spend the rest of our lives together.”
Tristan folded his arms over his abdomen and met his mother’s concerned gaze. “Does he make you happy?”
A warm, unguarded smile touched her lips. “He does. And he makes me laugh. I didn’t know love could be like that. With your father…” A red blush stained her cheeks, and she turned her face toward the window. Weak winter light penetrated the thick panes of glass and illuminated her hair, bringing out the hints of red amid the darker brown.
“You don’t need to talk about him, Mum.” He drummed his fingers on his stomach.
“I know.” She laughed softly, a mixture of chagrin and amusement in her tone that made him smile. It had been too long since he’d heard her sound so content. If Kat’s dad made his mother laugh, that was a good thing.
With a sigh of resignation, she faced him. “We do need to talk about your father, though. He’s demanded that you be at the estate for Christmas. We both know how he gets when you don’t do what he wants.”
Her words drew forth a quarter-century of dark memories. Cold holidays, icy dinners, frosty exchanges over afternoon tea. Never a kind word, never a single utterance of praise or affection. And always that knowledge that his father’s word was law. Whatever the old boy wished, it had to be done, or else someone would pay dearly for defying his orders.
The Earl of Pembroke was an absolutely wretched human being and an even worse husband and father. It was no surprise that the local papers
in London loved to drag out any negative news about him when they could. Usually they used Tristan to do it, smearing the papers with photos of affairs and lovers, trying to tie him to his father and his father’s political agenda in the House of Lords.
“You’ll talk to him, won’t you?” his mother asked. “Smooth things over for Christmas?”
“I’ll call him tomorrow. He won’t get more than a few days from me, though.”
His mother’s smile wilted at the corners. “Be careful, Tristan.” She cleared her throat and then changed the subject. “How’s Carter doing?”
Tristan shrugged. “Carter is well. Still in love with Celia.”
“He is such a delightful young man. If only her parents weren’t so opposed to him.”
Indeed. Parental opposition was the death of many relationships in a society like his. The peerage of Britain had standards, and they forced them to be met, albeit quite secretly. A relationship with Kat, for example, would be permitted as a temporary dalliance, but never a marriage.
Not that he intended to marry Kat—she was only nineteen and far too young to marry anyone—but when he did marry, his father was going to attempt to pick his bride as though they were stuck in the Victorian Age. Therefore, he had every intention of delaying marriage to anyone as along as possible. He wanted to enjoy his bachelor years while he could, which included being with Kat. He was going to have Kat in his bed again, and he wouldn’t let something like his father’s disapproval slice through what lay between them. If they had to build a world of secrets to keep their relationship hidden, he would do whatever was necessary to have her. He’d give her some time, some space…but he would get her back in his bed, right where she belonged.
Just when I thought life didn’t challenge me anymore…He chuckled.
“What’s amused you, sweetheart?” His mother raised one elegant brow. As a boy, that tone and questioning gaze had made him confess many sins. Now he was made of sterner stuff.
“I was merely thinking of Carter and Celia.” He rarely lied to his mother, but this was necessary.