Burned: A Stepbrother Romance Read online

  Hernandez puts his hands up. “Guilty as charged, your honor.”

  Brock gives Hernandez a play punch in the gut. “What did I say, huh? Be nice. She’s practically all the family I have.”

  “What about your mama? She felt real nice when I was tapping her last night.”

  “Oh, it’s on!” and both boys go racing off laughing, trying to tag each other. Still, I get a funny feeling about Hernandez. He doesn’t look like he graduated grade school, but I’ve known many crims short in the brain department. He wouldn’t be the first criminal mastermind too dumb to notice and too stupid to care. If he is running for the cartels, the bikers, whoever, you can bet he’s not fucking around.

  “Come on, Maddy!” calls Brock in the distance. He has Hernandez in a headlock.

  I start walking back to the group wondering precisely when Vin Diesel’s going to show up. Maybe he can give Hernandez a good thumping.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  On the way home, Brock’s still quiet, engine thrumming away, revs high even for this stretch of highway. He doesn’t seem to mind he’s single-handedly guzzling the world’s supply of gas in this thing.

  I rub my hand over the dash. Feels funny. “Nice bunch of people.”

  He turns to me. “You think?”

  “They seem genuine enough.”

  “They are, most of them.”

  That’s the second time someone’s said that tonight. I’m trying to read between the lines, to make sense of who’s who when Brock says, completely out of nowhere, “Do you think people can change, Maddy?”

  Maybe it’s the magical burrito he’s just ingested, but this Brock is one I am not familiar with. A Brock with actual feelings and introspection—wonders will never cease.

  “Sure,” I throw out.

  “I’ve changed, Maddy. I want you to know that.”

  Where is this coming from? “You’re not about to cry on me, are you?”

  “Only if you dent my bonnet.”

  I ignore the humor. “What do you mean? I don’t get it.”

  “I mean the guy you knew me as, that reckless kid who only cared about himself, he’s gone and he’s not coming back.”

  “I don’t think it’s that easy. Do you know what you put your poor mom through, and my dad? Lord knows why, but I think he actually cares about you, you know. It doesn’t matter. You didn’t do anything—not a postcard or a call or message in a bottle to tells them where you were. They thought you were dead.”

  “And you? What did you think?”

  “I thought you were in prison.”

  A dark look comes over his face. “We really going to get into this now?”

  “Were you?”

  “For a while.”

  “I knew it.”

  “Hate to disappoint, but like I said, that’s the past. Once we got out of there we both set ourselves on the straight and narrow.”

  “What do you mean by ‘we’?”

  “Hernandez and I.”

  It’s starting to come together. I shift against the leather, the wire red hot on my skin sucking in every syllable.

  “You were in prison together for dealing?”

  “Distribution.”

  “You were bum chums? Don’t tell me you’ve gone that way.”

  Brock laughs, the kind of laugh I remember from when we were younger and things seemed so much more clear cut, when our biggest worry was where to scrounge up fifteen bucks so we could hit the movies. “I’m definitely still a fan of the female body, Mads. Make no mistake about that, dear sister, but what Hernandez and I have is different. There was a point inside where I was in deep trouble, flapping my gums, pissing off the wrong people. He pulled some favors, got me a break.”

  “So you owe him?”

  “I guess you could say that.”

  “He seems kind of dangerous. You sure he’s as straight and narrow as you’re making out?”

  “More or less.”

  “Pfft, more or less? What does that even mean?”

  “It means that if he is still involved in something, I don’t want to know about it. Ignorance is bliss and all that.”

  “That ignorance could bring you down again.”

  He takes his eyes off the road and glues them to me. They glow cerulean even in the darkness of the cabin. “I’m not going back to prison.”

  And that’s the last word on it.

  We arrive home and go our separate ways. I take off the wire and carefully stash it under the bed. It seems ludicrous I’m living with the very guy this investigation is centered on, that I’m betraying him right under his nose.

  I can’t sleep. I toss and turn. I try to get to the bottom of what this is all about, the one thing that is irking me, and then it hits.

  I know I’m betraying my stepbrother.

  I know it’s wrong.

  But worst of all? I’m enjoying it.

  *

  My alarm goes and it’s like I’ve barely slept. What time did we even get home? Four? Five? If that’s how Brock lives every night it’s no wonder he sleeps away the day like a vampire.

  I head to the bathroom and turn the shower on full. I like it hot. I like it so hot I can practically feel the skin blistering on my back.

  I strip and stand under the water, let it turn my hair heavy and wet. Even in this small space I can still smell him, the denim, the leather, the scent of speed and machines and everything overtly masculine.

  Eyes closed, I almost fall asleep, turning off the water and jumping out into a room full of steam. I wipe the mirror clean and see a sleep-starved twenty-something staring back—a cop, a daughter… a liar.

  I pick up a towel, wrapping it around myself as I turn the doorknob and exit. I crash into something with the solidity of a concrete wall, “Fuck!” followed by an even louder “FUCK!” when the force of the collision knocks my hand away from the top of the towel, the whole thing falling to the floor. And there I am, naked as a newborn, skin red and raw and completely exposed in front of my stepbrother.

  A horrible moment of shock passes between us.

  I don’t know why, but Brock’s eyes just drop, drop like fucking stones all the way down my body.

  I’m so stunned I can’t even make my arms move away from my sides. It’s like I’ve been shocked into some kind of statue.

  “Ah…” That’s all Brock’s got.

  Bing! My senses return, one arm slapping over my breasts and the other reaching down to the floor to pick up the towel and drape it in front of myself.

  “Don’t just stand there!” I scream. “Move!”

  And he does, laughing, mumbling something I can’t quite pick up as he heads into the fog of the bathroom.

  The door closes and the strangest feeling comes over me. Simultaneously I want to bash his mouth in and kiss it at the same time.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  It’s been good having Dad back home. As promised, I sat down and went through their finances, but the problem’s bigger than I imagined—five figures big.

  I’m sitting next to Brock on the granny flat sofa playing a video game about witches and dragons. Dragons that are witches? Witch-dragons? I really don’t know. Even when we were kids I was never good at this stuff.

  “You still suck,” he suggests, loping my head off with a battleaxe.

  “I don’t have time to sit around playing this crap.”

  “Could have fooled me.”

  I punch the buttons until my character’s holding the closest thing I can find to a knife. I use it to stab Brock’s repeatedly in the head, not that it seems to do the faintest amount of damage. Yeah, try that in real life. “When’s the club getting together again?”

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you enjoyed our little cruise the other night.”

  “Well, I was expecting actual racing. That is what street racers do, isn’t it?”

  “Ah, you want the real fast and furious, right? Danger to manifold and all that? Nos on tap 24/7? It doesn’t exist.”<
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  “No?”

  “Well…”

  “Show me.”

  “Give me one good reason.”

  “Hey, after that little peepshow this morning, I think you owe me.”

  He moves his legs together on the couch. “That was quite a spectacle, I must say.”

  “You didn’t enjoy it even in the slightest?”

  “Oh, I enjoyed it just fine.”

  “Then pay for it and show me the real deal. No more deserted carparks and dodgy kebabs.”

  “Alright. We leave at midnight.”

  “What a shocker.”

  *

  “Maddy.”

  I open my eyes and search through the darkness. It’s Brock, a firm hand on my shoulder trying to wake me up.

  I sit up, still on the couch and still in my uniform. I must have fallen asleep.

  “You coming?” he says.

  I rub the sleep from my eyes, yawning so wide I’m sure he can see what I had for breakfast. “Uh, yeah, sure.”

  “Might I suggest not wearing your police uniform to an illegal drag-racing meet?”

  I nod, groggy. “Good thinking.”

  I’m surprised to find a different car parked on the driveway outside. “What’s this?”

  “Nissan Skyline R34 GT-R V-Spec II.”

  “No, I mean where’s your Camaro?”

  “The boys are doing some work on it. Hernandez let me borrow his puppy tonight. Besides, these Japanese imports tend to blend in better where we’re going. Not enough low-down torque for my liking, mind you.”

  I walk around to the driver’s side trying to lay the cool on real thick. “I’ll give you talk.”

  The door swings up like a scissor with a psht of air.

  “You sure your name’s not Paul Walker?” I tease.

  Brock smiles, that wide, all-open grin I’ve been thinking about more and more over the last few days. “Just get in and shut up.”

  “I bet that’s what you tell all the girls.”

  I’m surprised at the speed by which Hernandez’s car takes off. Something whistles away under the hood and then releases a sort of cough. “Is everything alright with this car? Sounds unhealthy.”

  Brock shifts back a gear, the revs jumping and the whistling growing so loud someone could be boiling a kettle under there for all I know.

  “The engine’s turbocharged,” he tells me. “The whistling sound is the turbocharger spooling up and coming onto boost.”

  “And the cough-fart thing?”

  “The blow-off valve.”

  I crack up. “You serious? Don’t tell me that’s a real part.”

  He looks almost offended. “Of course.”

  “For letting off steam?”

  “Excess pressure,” he corrects. “It’s not ‘steam.’ This isn’t a locomotive we’re taking across the Wild West.”

  “Right, right.”

  I’m killing myself inside knowing this is getting to him. “What’s the appeal? Aren’t all cars the same?” A classic troll, but it has to be done.

  His head slams forward and his forehead hits the horn, a sharp beep! following. “Oh, you better be trolling me. Otherwise I’m just going to leave you here in Stabville to find your own way around.”

  “Don’t be such an ass. I’m just saying, cars are a waste of money.”

  “And diamond rings are not?”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “They’re both about commitment. I know that much.”

  I wave it off. “You don’t commit to a car.”

  “No, you commit to the build, to the process. It’s not about the end result. It’s about the journey.”

  “You sound like Tony-bloody-Robbins.”

  “And you sound like you’re out of your depth. We’re here.”

  We pull into a dark industrial park. There is not a single soul around, just a couple of strays with opalescent eyes picking through the trash.

  We pull down between two buildings and emerge out into the next street lined with cars and people. There are no girls skanking around in thongs, no subwoofers booming, but this is a race meet alright.

  We pull to the side, Brock reversing into place next to a group of bikers.

  Before long a crowd has started to gather around the car. Brock gets out and pops the hood, moving to the passenger side and offering me his hand. “Come on. They’re not going to bite.”

  Reluctantly, I step out realizing I’m not wearing my wire tonight. This is the perfect place to pick up intel and I’ve let it slip away.

  I flinch as two cars go shrieking down the road in the thick billow of smoke. The acrid scent of burning rubber fills my nostrils, olfactory overload.

  I stay close to Brock, watching. “What are they racing for?”

  “Money mostly.”

  “They don’t race for slips here.” Good one, Maddy.

  “Why, you want to offer up Champers?”

  “Ha-de-ha-ha.”

  Two more cars pull up to an impromptu start line that looks like it’s been marked with chalk. A tall guy holds his hands up, signaling them to stop.

  I take in the cars. The one on the right looks similar to the car we’re driving tonight. With its giant spoiler it looks fast standing still. The car next it to it is a hatchback of some sort with mismatched wheels and half the paint flaking off. It doesn’t look like it could outrun a tractor.

  I point to the start line. “Bit of an unfair match-up, isn’t it?”

  “Wait and see.”

  The guy’s hands go down and the two cars take off, the hatch hooking up immediately, the car with the big spoiler lagging behind smoking the tires and fish-tailing down the road. To my amazement, the hatch wins comfortably.

  “See,” says Brock, “you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, and that goes double for cars. It’s all about power-to-weight.”

  “Huh?”

  “The hatch doesn’t have as much power as the car it went up against, but it’s been stripped out, lightened. It weighs nothing and thus doesn’t need as much power to get down to the finish line. You can have a car with all the engine in the world, but if it’s a heavy whale you’re never going to win a race.”

  “I see, and your car? What’s its power-to-weight like?” I’m surprised at the flirty way this comes out, the way my fingers hold the corners of Brock’s leather jacket, our faces close.

  “My car?”

  I trace a finger up his zip. “Yeah.”

  “She’s an American classic, the girl next door.”

  “Like me?”

  “Can you run a ten-second quarter?”

  “If I had decent runners.”

  Brock shakes his head. “You are one of a kind, Maddy Collins.”

  “Don’t you forget it.”

  We watch a few runs and decide to move on.

  No waves of patrol cars come to break things up. There are no wild chases or macho shows of bravado. It almost seems civilized.

  We pull out of the industrial area and go east.

  Brock takes a detour off the highway heading into the hills.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Sometimes you just drive, see where the road takes you.”

  “Sounds like a line from a movie.”

  “My life is a movie.”

  “A comedy, sure.”

  He gives me that look. “It’s time for a driving lesson.”

  “Driving lesson?”

  “Yeah, everyone has to experience being behind the wheel of a Skyline once in their lives.”

  “I am not getting behind the wheel of this thing.”

  He pulls up onto the side of the road, clouds of dust running past the windows.

  “I do actually need my spine, you know,” I object.

  He laughs, opening the door and stepping out. He comes around and opens mine. I cross my arms over myself and pout like a toddler.

  He reaches down and unclips my belt. “If you don’t drive, we’re going to have
to walk home.”

  I look up at him, at his perfect fucking face. “You’re not going to let this go until I do, are you?”

  “Hey, I can be stubborn too sometimes.”

  “Ha-de-ha-ha,” I repeat.

  I give a grunt and untangle myself from the harness, pushing Brock aside as I make my way to the driver’s side.

  I slip into the bucket seat and pull the harness on, Brock helping and not very subtly brushing past my breasts in the process.

  “You just wanted to feel me up, didn’t you?”

  He shrugs. “Perhaps. Now, clutch in, turn the ignition.”

  I press the clutch down. It feels like I’m trying to move a mountain.

  “It’s a performance clutch,” says Brock, “heavy-duty, twin-plate. It’s got a real quick take-up, so once you feel the tipping point you’re really going to have to get on the gas, got it?”

  I nod. It’s been years since I’ve driven a manual. “How much power did you say this car has?”

  “About a thousand horse.”

  “And Champers?”

  “About ten.”

  I roll my eyes. “Grreeeeaaaaaat.”

  I sit there feeling really, really weird, like I’m strapped to a Stinger missile just dying to blow us both to hell.

  I take a breath and turn the key, finding first and doing my best to take off. The car stalls dramatically after we bunny-hop half a mile down the road.

  Brock is killing himself with laughter.

  I slap him on the shoulder. “It’s not funny!”

  He calms himself, placing his hand, hot, over my own on the gearknob. “I’ll talk you through it.”

  He moves his hand, fingers easing over mine. “Clutch in. Good.”

  “First.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Pull up gently.”

  “That’s it.”

  “Now punch it!”

  He shocks me into action. The foot on the clutch comes away and I stomp down on the accelerator. The tires give a momentary cry of pain before the car launches down the road like a rocket, my back pressed so hard into the seat I think I’m going to leave a permanent indent.

  “Second!”

  I shift back into second and the car barely notices, the whistling rising from under the hood and the world blurring by the windows.

  “Third!”