ARROGANT BRIT (A BRITISH BAD BOY ROMANCE) (21 page)

Jeremy hissed, collecting his senses, but let
the knife clatter to the ground. “Alright, fine, tough guy. Who the fuck
are
you, anyway?”

The patron whipped out his wallet with his
bleeding hand, unfolding it to reveal a nice, shiny badge. “Off-duty officer.
Now
you’ve fucked up. I don’t know what
kind of scene you were causing a second ago, and frankly, I don’t
want
to know…”

He glanced over at Dalton and me.

“He’s my stepbrother. We’re not related,” I
quickly interjected.

“…Right.” The officer turned back. “But it’s
a serious crime to attack an officer of the law. Hands up where I can see them,
NOW
…”

After the scene was over and the officer had
taken some notes from both of us, he patted me on the shoulder with his freshly
bandaged hand.

“That guy shouldn’t be bothering either of
you anymore,” he reassured me. “What the
hell
were you thinking, going into public with someone as controlling and
deranged as that?”

“I…wasn’t thinking,” I conceded. “I wasn’t in
a great place when he contacted me this afternoon, and I should have known
better… I’m so sorry that this happened.”

The officer looked saddened. He quickly dug
out his business card and handed it to me. “Listen. I don’t think this guy will
be a problem, but if you run into a situation like this again…
call me
. My older sister had a
controlling boyfriend like this. It didn’t end well… and that convinced me to
become a cop in the first place.”

He turned to Dalton. “And you… help this one
keep her head straight, won’t you? You handled yourself well with a knife in
your face. The only people I know who don’t flinch like that are ex-military.”

“Marines,” he shrugged.

The officer gave him a subtle nod. “Good man.
Honor to be in your company. Anyway… you two have a good night. I have a shit-ton
of paperwork to file now…”

With that, he left. We quickly paid out the
tab and left the restaurant, eager to get away from that mess as soon as
possible.

“Do you want to get out of here?” Dalton
asked, the moment that we were back outside. “You might recall that neither of
us live terribly far from here.”

“Yeah. Unfortunately, Jeremy drove… do you
have your other helmet?”

“Of course,” he smiled.

“Then yeah,” I nodded. “Let’s ditch this
place.”

He smiled softly, leading me towards his
motorcycle. “Going back to your place?”

“Nah,” I grinned. “
Yours
.”

And so we did.

Thirty minutes later, fueled by the heat of
the evening, we stumbled into his rental house. I say
stumbled,
because Dalton’s mouth was already pressed against mine,
our lips instantly locking.

Dalton fumbled with the door locks, almost as
an afterthought, while we furiously kissed. We barely made it into the house
before our passions overwhelmed us. I could already feel his powerful hands –
the hands of a marine – clamped firmly around my thighs, dragging upwards.

His impossible weapon yearned against the
denim of his jeans, aching for my touch. It pressed into my leg, radiating
extraordinary heat.

“Goddammit Dalton, I need you,” I purred
breathlessly. “I never stopped needing you.”

“I know,” he murmured into my lips.

His hands slid up my body, tracing my curves
with his rugged palms until he had them around my neck. I lifted my chin,
letting him squeeze if he needed to, but instead he cupped the back of my head
and pulled me into another crushing kiss.

“I love you, Clara,” he whispered between
engulfing kisses.

I felt every nerve in my body spark with
emotion, a whiplash of pleasure thrashing down my spine. My entire being curled
up inside, taking his words and building itself up around them.

“I love you too, Dalton,” I replied with
hesitation. As the words suddenly slipped from my trembling lips, I realized
how
right
they were to say, and how
much I needed him to know their truth.

I couldn’t just utter them fearfully.

He needed to understand their conviction.

I repeated it, fiercer this time: “I… love
you.” As I did so, I let my fingers firmly wrap around his shoulders, pulling
him deeper into the kiss.

With the powerful swipe of an arm, Dalton
shoved a bowl of fruit and few misplaced possessions clean off the counter.

I let him shove me down to the surface,
unbuckling my jeans and tugging them down my thighs. Ripping them off and
yanking my panties down, I felt the cold surface and shivered…

Until his hot, yearning breath took me away.

He kissed down just above my eager pussy. The
pressure sent a burst of intoxicating emotion through my core.

“Oh god, Dalton,” I murmured peacefully.

He slipped into place beneath my thighs,
hoisting them over his shoulders. His strong fingertips dug into my skin as he
secured me around his face, kneeling against a stool to hold himself into
position.

I felt the flicker of his tongue against my
clit, and just like that, I was undeniably his once more.

With the expert precision I’d come to expect
from my experienced, talented lover, Dalton easily flicked the button of
passion with the tip of his tongue. Diving into my hood, he lapped with broad
strokes, teased with varied pressure, flicked the edge, and brought down his
lips to push down upon my tender, needful clit.

“That feels
so good, baby…
”

Dalton continued downward, licking up the
juices that began to lubricate my wet, demanding pussy. I could feel myself
growing wetter and wetter for him. I loved every last little flick of his tongue
and firm kiss from his lips.

“You taste so good, Clara. It drives me wild
how much you love this… and how mouthwateringly
wet
you get, just for me…”

I opened my mouth to reply, but he was
sucking on my tender clit again, driving me wild. I felt his fingers move, and
then he was parting me with one of his digits.

“Your fingers are so big…”

He pushed inward, my pussy tight enough to
love the width of his finger. After he primed me briefly, his lips still
thrumming against the bead of my passion, I felt a second one join the first.

“You’re so fucking
tight
, babe. I can’t wait to have my thick, huge cock back inside
you…”

His fingers curled in a
come hither
motion, instantly finding the bundle of nerves that
needed him so much. He stroked carefully, drawing his fingers in and out
 
as he pulled his mouth from my hood. His
pussy-stained lips planted wet kisses along the seams of my thighs as he worked
my body, and then onto the supple flesh of my thighs themselves.

“I need your cock, baby. Fill me, please…”

He withdrew from between my thighs, gently
leading me back down from the kitchen island. I pulled off my top and unlatched
my bra...

I couldn’t stop myself.

My fingers dove for his buckle, ripping his
pants open grasping his hot, steaming cock. I started to part my lips around
it, but Dalton stopped me.

“No way, babe. Not tonight. I’m so hot for
you right now that I could come down your throat in an instant… and I want it
to be inside you.”

I nodded, standing up to pluck the wrapped
condom from his teeth.

“Alright then,” I smirked. He watched me with
animalistic hunger, clearly turned on by my display of aggression.

Dalton drew me up, his eyes hot with desire.
“That was hot, but
I’m
in charge,” he
informed me, twirling me around and pushing me up against the nearest wall.

My palms instinctively caught up around my
shoulders as he ripped off his clothes, dropping them in a scattered heap all
around.

Within an instant, his hot, heavy body was
pressed up against mine. With lust that only deepened in intensity, I felt
small and awed under his pressure.

“Fuck me, Dalton,” I whispered hungrily.

I could swear that he straight up
snarled
in response as his hand clamped
around my hips. The other one stroked his bulbous crown against the slickened
lips of my opening.

He lasted a few seconds, teasing my body,
until I felt his punishing length thrust into the steaming gash between my
thighs.

“Oh god, you’re so
big
,” I gasped.

How could I have possibly turned
THIS down?

Both of his hands planted against the backs
of mine, threading our fingers together as his body pinned me against the wall.

“You aren’t leaving again,” he murmured with
words laced in pure, fervent hellfire.

“No,” I replied. “Never.”

His pelvis thrust against mine again, and I
quivered from my lips down to my toes. I had become so wet with anticipation
that he was hilting himself up into me.

“
NEVER.
AGAIN. You belong to ME.
”

“That’s right, baby,” I moaned with
overwhelming satisfaction. “I’m all yours… I’ll never, ever try to leave again…”

His length slammed into my sopping pussy
again, hard enough to almost send stars ricocheting through my head. The
intense pleasure was crippling my higher brain function, reducing me to a
babbling and shivering mess beneath his blazing touch.

“Tell me how badly you need this, Clara.
Convince me
that you will
never
put me through this last week
ever again
.”

“Oh god, Dalton,” I trembled, “you fuck me so
good. I’ll never go. Not today, not tomorrow, not in a million fucking years.
Your cock was
made
for me. I’m a mess
without you. I need you, always and forever. Whatever you want, whatever we’ll
need, together…”

He pressed his lips to my ear, tugging at the
lobe before delivering a kiss that left my entire body wobbly with quaking
need.

“That’s right, babe… and I will
always
be here,
always
ready to protect you… whatever comes, we’ll face it.
Together.”

I nodded. “Together.”

Even in my lustful haze, I knew what we were
doing. We were signing a verbal contract, an unbreakable oath –
us against the world, forever.

He pulled me from the wall, scooping me into
his arms. As he kicked his discarded clothes out of the way and carried me to
his bed, I felt the finality of this decision.

When he lowered me down to his sheets, I
pushed him onto his back, took his cock in my hands, and began to straddle him.

“Wait, Clara, are you sure–?”

I smiled down at him, filled with love,
longing, and desire… and soon, I knew, I’d be filled with his red-hot seed,
too.

As I shoved my hips down hard
around his incredible cock, feeling him
inside me without a shred of hesitation between us, I gasped out our promise
once more:

“Together.”

Chapter 20

With a start, I woke up in the middle of the
night. A sluggish glance at the alarm clock nearby told me that it was the wee
hours of the morning, and I silently, carefully extracted myself from Clara to
pour a glass of water and clear my head.

Strolling across the apartment, I glanced
over at my roommate – conked out in the easy chair again, snoring away in front
of the television.
Wasn’t expecting him
tonight. That would have sucked if he’d walked in on the sex…
He had fallen
asleep during a Netflix run, and the next episode was queued up and waiting for
a response.

Nope,
I thought to myself, clicking the
television off.
That’s a great job almost
burning permanent pixels into my nice flat-screen, asshole.

I thought about rustling him from the couch
to scamper off to the guest bedroom, but I was in a good mood with the recent
revitalization in my relationship, and he wasn’t exactly bothering me here.

Just this once,
I thought to myself.

As I quietly slunk off to the kitchen, guided
by the moonlight from the window above the sink, I pursued my original mission:
refreshment. A quick glance in the fridge didn’t turn up any appealing
alternatives, so I grabbed a glass from the cabinet and poured myself some
water.

Refreshed, I set the glass in the sink and
smoothed out my palms against the counter on either side. As my fatigue slowly
uncoiled itself in my head, freeing up some room for thought, I reflected on
what the future probably looked like for us.

I didn’t know what was going to happen with
that whole
traveling the world
thing.
As much as I wanted Clara in my life, I couldn’t ignore that I had little
intention of remaining in the States – it wasn’t where I was born, and it
wasn’t where I wanted to really be. The truth was that I didn’t have the
faintest clue of how I was going to reconcile her feelings with those facts…

What made that especially difficult was that
she was dedicated to continuing her school. I wasn’t about to rip her away from
a possible future, just to join me around the world.

Well… we can cross that bridge
when we come to it
,
I thought to myself. I reasoned that there wasn’t any point to worrying about
it until the time properly came.

That’s when something else entirely suddenly
jumped out at me. I was almost floored with the severity and suddenness of it.

The Carlyle Fortune,
I thought with horror.

With all the other factors in place, it
hadn’t really occurred to me that my grandparents would be
pissed
about this if they ever found out. To my astonishment, I had
considered the impending claim on their money such a done deal that I never
stopped to wonder how a revelation like this would affect them.

If there was one thing that could destroy any
chances of that prize, it was perceived incest. A scandal like this would
instantly spell the end of my inheritance forever.

Fuck. I didn’t think about that!

All of my womanizing and drinking had fallen
beneath their radar so far, but this was playing it
way
too close to the chest. For the first time in my life, I had to
seriously consider the fact that I might lose my rightful claim to their money.

“Was I so blinded by love that I only just
thought of this
now
?” I asked myself.
“Why
now?
How didn’t this not factor
in before?”

Unsurprisingly, no answer drifted up from the
shadows to offer any guidance.

It didn’t really matter, I realized.

I’d risk it all for her.

After all, I reasoned quietly to myself, I’d
supported myself this far. From the beginning, I had pulled myself up by my own
bootstraps.

My career in the marines had taught me
everything I didn’t already know about self-reliance and determination. I had a
few connections from my time serving. Plus, the GI bill was going to fund any
degree I wanted.

Thank you, dear old Uncle Sam.

That major life choice had prepared me for
any major detours or hiccups – something I’d factored in before I joined, but
now that I was leaping over my grandparents’ last few hurdles, it comforted me
to remember the backup plan.

It certainly didn’t hurt that I already had a
very small war chest of funds in a bank account. If I played it safe and didn’t
take anymore last-second flights across the country, I was probably going to be
just fine.

Maybe I’ll just have to take
school a little more seriously,
I told myself.
That’s all. Everything else will fall into place.

Confident in this direction, I slipped back into
bed with Clara. Still mostly asleep, she murmured something incoherent, but I
quietly assured her that everything was fine as she curled up against me again.

And for a few more hours, that was true.

In my sleep, I ignored the vibrations of my
cell phone against the end table. This same state of slumbering ignorance
overrode my marine training and extended to the sound of my front door being
unlocked, and someone calling my name… I groaned in my sleep, thinking I was
dreaming again.

I was only barely aware of the sound of my
bedroom opening. When I’d slipped back into bed in the night, lost in thought,
I’d forgotten to lock it again.

“What in God’s name…?”

My eyes flew open.

Was that…?

It can’t be.

Snapping to attention, I glanced over at the bedroom
door. Dad was standing there, his eyes confused and his mouth agape. Worse
still was that Sarah was standing behind him, holding her trembling hand over
her lips.

“Guys, what the hell are you doing… here…?”

A terrifying realization dawned on me.

Clara is still here.

My eyes followed their gaze to her awakening
form. Clara sleepily lifted her face from the pillow, looking over at our
unexpected guests. A few seconds of groggy recollection later, it was as if a
pail of freezing water had been thrown in her face.

“Dad?
MOM?
”

The two pairs of us were staring in horror at
each other, processing what had just happened.

Holy shit, they found us in bed
together.

My dear step-mum was the first to speak,
mustering up just enough strength for a few damning syllables. “Clara… what the
fuck?
”

Clara realized that her chest was exposed,
and ripped up the blanket to cover herself… and in the process, briefly
revealing my own naked form.

“Good
God!
”
Our parents cried out, exposed to the sight of my flaccid – but still
intimidating – royal package. Without a moment’s thought, they slammed the door
shut – putting a condemning barrier between themselves and us.

The damage was done, and I wasn’t going to
cower away from this like some frightened animal. Instead of covering myself, I
jumped out of bed and quickly tossed on a pair of boxers.

“Dalton…
DALTON
,”
Clara whimpered, gazing up at me from beneath the covers.

“I’ll handle this,” I whispered.

She looked away, shrinking with horror as I
pulled on a pair of jeans and a tee. I stepped out of the bedroom just in time
to see the front door close. It didn’t escape my notice that my
other
guest, Pete, was wide-eyed in the
kitchen.

“I’m sorry, dude, I recognized your Dad. He
called and woke me up, saying that it was some kind of an emergency–”

“Not. Another. Goddamn.
Word.
” I hissed at him. “You have
no idea
what the fuck you’ve just done.” His mouth snapped shut as
I darted out the door after my parents.

“
Wait!
”
I called out after them.

Dad was holding the door open for Sarah, who
was covering her face and ducking into the passenger seat. “I don’t know what
the
hell
we just saw in there, son,
but we’re leaving.”

“What the hell are you even
doing
here?” I demanded to know. “You
just barge in and walk straight into my goddamn bedroom?”

“Maybe if you’d pick up your fucking phone,”
Dad growled, holding his own up, “we could have avoided whatever the
fuck
is going on in there. I’ve been
calling and texting you off-and-on for almost an hour!”

“Pete said you told him there was an
emergency. What the hell is going on?”

Overlooking the present disaster, this wasn’t
like my father. He looked like a bundle of nerves, and I suspected that started
before he even pulled up to my place.

Dad pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s
your grandparents,” he explained, leaning backwards against the hood of his
car. “In their infinite wisdom, they’ve decided to come back into town. No
warning, just a missed call and a voicemail in the middle of the night. They’re
already here. We’re on our way to pick them up at the airport now.”

“Did they explain what they wanted?”

“How the fuck would I know? You remember what
they were like during the wedding, they’re probably just here to lord over all
of us again…”

I felt really bad all of a sudden.

Dad was clearly a wreck, especially after
just witnessing what he probably considered incest between his only son and his
single stepchild… and then heading straight into the lair of a pair of vicious
dragons.

“I’ll grab my keys, I can be there in–”

“Stop,” he immediately commanded me, his
voice booming. The look on his face was a mixture of crushing disappointment,
absolute revulsion, and boiling anger. “Sarah and I are going to drive to the
airport, without
either
of you, and
we’re going to figure out what the fuck is going on. You two are going to stay
away
right now.”

“For how long?” I demanded.

“Until they’re gone. However long that
takes,” he snarled. “The last thing I need right now is for
them
to get involved in… this.”

“I didn’t know she was Sarah’s!” I yelled. “I
met her first, and I already fancied her. I couldn’t help falling for her, you
don’t–”

“Falling –
falling
for her?” Dad laughed, trying to keep the hysteria out of
his voice. “You stupid git, you were always fucking impulsive, weren’t you?
Couldn’t just
snog
your sister, you
had to
shag
her? We’re not talking
about this right now. I am
laughably
ill-equipped
for this
bollocks
,” he snarled,
sliding around to the driver’s door.

“Dad, you’ve gotta listen to me –”

My father slammed another door between us,
twisting the keys in the ignition. As I rounded to his side of the car, I
realized that Sarah was crying into a tissue.