Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 56507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 188(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 188(@300wpm)
“Your … stepmom?”
“Your mother married my father,” Aiden tells me. “It was rocky at first, but it’s going well. In fact, they’ve just had a baby. That’s why I’m here. I’m taking you to your real family.”
A “little girl” sort of hope flutters into me, reminding me of my early childhood when I’d write stories about some dashing prince coming to rescue me and taking me to a new family. Then the Bratva instincts kick in. He’s given me no proof. I’ve got no reason to believe him.
“I’ll just take your word then, shall I?”
“Hmm,” he says, with that captivating smirk. No, it’s not captivating. “It’s good that you’re not easy to trust. Most people your age are very naive.” He nods at the car. “Get in, Ania.”
“What if I don’t, Aiden?”
“Then I’ll have to make you.”
He walks right up to me, emphasizing just how big he is. Being around Mikhail and Dimitri means I’m used to being around huge, towering people. Yet there’s something different about Aiden.
What other choice do I have? I feel lightheaded and sick, panic constantly trying to mess with me. That’s what I tell myself as I climb into the car. I have no choice.
The truth is, part of me hopes this is real. I’m going to meet my mother.
CHAPTER 3
AIDEN
As I leave the state, I try not to look in the rearview mirror at Ania constantly. She’s still wearing her ballet gear and tight clothes, which makes my mind go to all kinds of steamy places. My cock keeps threatening to harden, lust stiffening me, as she sits there squeezing her hands together with anxious red blotches on her cheeks.
She’s eighteen, I remind myself, and she looks it. Eight-fucking-teen. I need to chill the hell out. I’ve never been with a woman with so much of an age gap. Hell, it’s not like I’m some ladies’ man anyway. Even if I was, she’s just too young.
So why can’t I stop feeling like this?
It gets even worse when she says, “So we’re relatives, sort of, then?”
I swallow, keeping my eyes fixed on the road, trying to calm myself down.
“You’re my stepbrother, aren’t you? If you’re telling the truth about my mom?”
“Hmm.”
I can tell it pisses her off when I do that, which is maybe why I do it. She gets this flustered, beautiful look when she’s angry. She bites her lip as she looks at me in the rearview. She might like to think she’s not innocent and naive, but she looks it. That makes me feel a whole load of things I shouldn’t.
“Okay, stepbro,” she goes on. “You can hmm all you want. I’m just glad we’re spending some family time together.”
She’s making me fight a constant smirk, trying to push down my response repeatedly. I wonder if she knows the effect she’s having on me.
“However you want to think about it,” I tell her.
“So, where next on our family road trip?”
I grit my teeth. For some reason, the idea of her thinking of us as brother and sister floods me with rage.
“A private airstrip, then the East Coast.”
“We’re catching a flight.”
“Not catching. I’m flying us.”
“I guess I should be impressed?”
She looks out the window, her small body shuddering. Reaching over to the passenger seat, I grab my hoodie and toss it into the back. “If you’re cold.”
“I’m not cold,” she snaps, but she takes the hoodie anyway.
I know I’ve made a mistake the second she pulls the hoodie over her head and adjusts the sleeves to fit around her wrists. She has a small, vulnerable look that appeals to the savage in me, the beast who was put on this planet to save people like her. That’s a seriously messed-up thing to think, considering I’m the one she needs saving from.
She says nothing as I drive down another dusty road, turn a corner, and finally reach the airstrip. The entire drive, she’s looking out the window, her arms wrapped across her middle, making me want to hold her as gently as a man like me can.
“What are you looking at, stepbro?” she says as I bring the car to a stop.
“Why do you keep calling me stepbro?” I growl.
Her eyebrows twitch with a flutter of victory like she’s glad she could get a response from me. “Why does it bother you so much?”
“It doesn’t.”
She takes a moment, then says forcefully, “Hmmmmmm.”
I bite down before I can let out the biggest laugh of my life. Of all the ways I imagined this going, holding back laughter wasn’t one of them. She’s too captivating and exciting to me in ways she shouldn’t be.
Despite her sleepy look and suspicious eyes, a grin lights her face up. “You were about to laugh then.”
Fighting this smile is so damn challenging. “No, I wasn’t.”
She laughs in the most alluring way, a laugh that makes me want to hold her, kiss her, and protect her, again, from myself. “Sure you weren’t, bro.”