The Forbidden Beat (A Stepbrother Romance) Read online

  By Jillian Sterling

  Copyright © 2015 Hearts Collective

  All rights reserved. This document may not be reproduced in any way without the expressed written consent of the author. The ideas, characters, and situations presented in this story are strictly fictional, and any unintentional likeness to real people or real situations is completely coincidental.

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  THE FORBIDDEN BEAT

  A Stepbrother Romance

  By

  Jillian Sterling

  CONTENTS

  ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  The basement hallway was mercifully silent, the soundproofing worked like magic. Bare feet silent on the plush carpet, I padded towards the room at the end, the rehearsal space where my drum kit was set up. It was a long day, punctuated by my mother's forced sobs and my stepfather's stoic silence. Nearly a thousand of their closest friends streamed into the mansion, offering condolences, eating our food, drinking our booze, and, eventually, asking for money or favors. Now the sun was setting over the Hollywood Hills so someone cranked up the music. The crowd stripped out of their mourning suits, and jumped into the pool. Another bacchanalia at the house that Anthem, my stepfather's ludicrously famous rock band, built.

  Today we buried my stepbrother Kyle. He was found two days ago with a dirty needle in his arm under a makeshift tarp tent on skid row in downtown LA.

  Heir to a rock and roll fortune, and drummer in his own rising band Rogue Nation formed with his two brothers. But he preferred to stick a needle in his arm.

  My head felt heavy and there was nothing I wanted more than to beat out my frustrations on my drum kit. Ever since I was a kid and my failed musician dad handed me a pair of sticks—the only right thing he ever did for me—it was where I worked out my demons.

  I turned the knob to the rehearsal space and pushed the door open with my left hand, searching for the light switch with my right.

  "Get the fuck out unless you're female and naked," a voice growled through the pitch black.

  As the overhead track lighting flickered on, I blinked, my eyes adjusting to the bright light.

  My stepbrother Dion, who had gone missing after we left the gravesite, was hiding out in my practice room. Shirtless, he made himself comfortable. His suit jacket and dress shirt were tossed on top of my cymbals. His Vans covered feet were propped up on my bass drum. He slumped against the wall, his firm ass supported by my "throne," the stool that was the foundation of my kit. A bottle of Gentleman Jack was cradled in his arms.

  "I didn't know you were down here," I muttered, pissed that he disrespected my kit but letting it slide since he did just bury his brother.

  He looked me up and down.

  "You're not naked," was his response.

  I bit my tongue and held my temper in check. "Want to get your feet off my kit?"

  He took a long pull from the bottle. My breath caught when he licked the rim with his tongue, his olive green eyes met mine. They were edged with red, a combination of no sleep, booze and grief.

  "I'll just, you know—" I stammered as my anger turned to frustration of a sexual sort. I took a step backwards. Time to leave.

  "Stay," he said, standing to his full 6 feet. "I'd like to talk to you."

  "About what?" I asked, torn between sticking around and making a run for it. This was the reason why I moved out of the mansion and into my own apartment. My physical attraction to Dion made living in the same house my worst hormonal nightmare.

  "About Kyle," he said, crossing the room in three large strides. He leaned into me, closing the door behind me. The click of the lock sliding into place stilled my heart.

  I treaded carefully. "What about Kyle?"

  A solid foot taller, he loomed over me. I stared at the ring that pierced his nipple and swallowed.

  "Did you know?"

  I took a step back from him, and my backside hit the door. "Dion, everybody knew."

  "But no one did fuck-all about it, did they?"

  Overgrown curly hair framed his chiseled face, his expression filled with desperation.

  "Look, I can't even imagine how you feel right now. I mean, if I lost Presley or Jett—"

  "But you didn't," he hissed. "Your bitch sisters are still alive. My brother? He's dead."

  My hands curled into fists and I stiffened. "Look, Dion, I'm sorry your brother died. But Kyle was a junkie. Everyone tried to help him, but the drugs won."

  He advanced on me. "He wasn't a junkie until you Benson girls came along."

  "Now that is some serious revisionist history," I snorted. I reached behind me and felt for the door handle. "Kyle was boozing or drugging since the day we all met. Even at 12-years-old. You can't blame this one on the Benson women."

  The anger that flashed across Dion's face melted into anguish. He crumbled to the floor and sobbed. "I'm sorry," he said, reaching for me.

  "I know," I said, softening. Dion was a first class asshole ninety percent of the time, but he and Kyle were tight. It was a brutal loss that no one should have to endure.

  I dropped to my knees beside him. "Look, I know we don't get along, but I'm here for you, okay. Whatever you need."

  Tentative, I reached my arm around him. My fingertips rested gently on the smooth skin of his back, rising and lowering with the uneven tempo of his breath. He crawled into me, wrapping his arms around me, his face, wet with fresh tears, pressed against my chest.

  "What are they doing upstairs?" he asked, composing himself after a minute or two of silence.

  I shrugged. "A bunch of people stripped down and jumped into the pool."

  "So much for mourning," he said with a cold laugh.

  "People mourn differently," I said. "I try not to judge."

  "This is not an Irish wake," he said, his voice edged in defiance.

  "Maybe it's what Kyle would have wanted," I suggested while I untangled myself from him. There wasn't much space between the door and Dion, so I struggled to get to my feet.

  Dion pulled me back down. "Stay. Please."

  "Okay," I said, sitting back down and leaning against the door. "You mourn the way you need to. It's allowed."

  "He was a junkie, Nik," he said, tears starting up again.

  "Doesn't mean you can't love him. Or be pissed at him," I said. He raised his head and looked at me. "You know, you are allowed to be pissed at him. I'd be pissed if one of my sisters pulled that shit."

  "What the fuck was that coward thinking?" he exploded.

  I shrugged again. "I don't think he was thinking. He was feeling."

  "He should have come to me."

  "It's not your fault. Junkies are gonna be junkies," I said.

 
"Is that how you square it in your head with your dad?" he asked.

  "Sometimes," I said. "But he's getting help, getting his shit together, trying out that family thing again with someone else..."

  I trailed off when my own tears threatened to fall. We mourned the loss of my dad a long time ago. Although the man was very much alive and living in Maine, he died to me and my sisters a long time ago.

  "Junkies gonna be junkies," he agreed, but his voice cracked.

  We sat on the floor in silence. He rested his head on my shoulder, his arms clutched around me. The warmth of Dion's body close to my own made my heart beat unsteady.

  "Do you remember when you first met Kyle?" he whispered, his breath caressed the sensitive curve of my neck.

  "Of course," I responded, keeping my voice measured. "The wedding. He jumped on stage to play with that band that wore the silver lame jump suits."

  Dion smiled at the memory. "I'd forgotten about them. Only in Vegas. You were how old back then?"

  "Twelve," I said.

  "That's right, all legs and arms, like a colt," he said. "You barely had tits."

  I bristled. "Nice."

  "Better that way," he said. "What would I have done if my dad showed up with hot stepsisters?"

  "Presley's drop dead gorgeous," I argued. "And Jett is, too, in that hot-for-teacher way."

  "I bet Jett gives grammar lessons while she fucks," he said. I had to laugh at that one. "And Presley looks like your mom—no offense, but Pamela's not my type."

  "She's not mine either," I admitted. I was the spitting image of my father—short, muscular build, angular face, high cheekbones. Everything about Presley was soft and feminine, exactly like my mother. "So you're lucky we're all just a bunch of hags."

  "I think blue hair's kind of hot," he teased, pushing a strand of my shoulder length electric blue-hued tresses behind my ear.

  I felt my blush creep up my cheeks. "Blue hair in the granny way?"

  "You've grown into your arms and legs very nicely, but you are no granny," he said, his hand sliding underneath my Oxford dress shirt, caressing the small of my back. "Unless...Are you wearing granny panties?"

  Before I could react, he slipped his hand down the gap between my clothes and my skin, sending sparks of electricity along my bare ass cheek.

  "Thong?" he asked, eyebrow raised.

  "Dion?" I whispered. "What are you doing?"

  With his hand mere inches away from my wet slit, I was suddenly living my teenaged fantasy. It took all my willpower not to melt into his arms. Dion was gorgeous. Like drop dead gorgeous. I was a gangly 12-year-old girl the first time we met, and he made my hormones race even back then. Yup, I had a school girl crushed on my stepbrother. It was only our age difference—and the fact that he behaved like a first-rate asshole—that kept me from acting on it. Well, that and, you know. Stepbrother.

  Of course, school girl crushes fade. Except for mine. It was a big part of why I moved out of the mansion. Seeing Dion so undeniably sexy on a daily basis, in various states on undress no less, made me aware of every sexual nerve in my body. My attraction only grew as we got older. Damn hormones.

  Dion reached behind my neck and pulled my face towards his. My 12-year-old fantasy became a reality when he pressed his mouth on mine, hard at first. Like he had something to prove. My hands moved to his chest, wanting to draw him to me and push him away at the same time. But as his mouth softened and his tongue teased my lips open, my willpower faded. Despite my internal protests, I melted into him.

  He shuddered as I traced my hands down the muscular cuts of his chest to his solid abs before resting at his belt buckle. He tore my top off, pushing it off my shoulders. With one hand, he unhooked the front closure of my bra. My breasts spilled out.

  "You are definitely not twelve anymore," he said, taking a nipple into his mouth. I groaned in a mix of intense pain and pleasure as his teeth sank down into my sensitive flesh.

  I unbuckled his belt and yanked at the button of his pants. The button popped off and it made a tinny sound when it hit a cymbal.

  "Sorry," I whispered, swallowing a nervous giggle.

  He released his mouth from my nipple. “It’s cool." His hand massaged my other breast, teasing the nipple to a firm peak before coving that one with his mouth. I wiggled as my panties dampened.

  With the button from his pants gone, I jerked down the zipper and his enormous cock spilled out. I wrapped my hand around its substantial girth and gave it a brusque yank and Dion moaned, turning me on even more.

  Dion pushed me to the floor and, once prone, he ripped my pants off. He pressed his muscular body on top of me, teasing me through the small triangle of fabric of my thong panties with his stiff cock. I gasped as it pressed against my clit in exactly the right way.

  He pushed aside the thin fabric of my thong, and teased my folds open. His hard cock still pressing on my clit, one finger glided into me, the slow and easy motion bringing me to the edge of climax.

  A jiggle at the door handle interrupted us.

  "Yo, Dion, you in there?" Rafe's voice called through the intercom while he tried the door again. It was mercifully locked so Dion's adopted brother Rafe could not catch us in this compromising position.

  His weight shifted off of me, and I shuddered when he took his finger out of me, leaving me empty. He stood and pressed the intercom to reply. "What's up?"

  "Wondering where you went," Rafe responded. "There are some hotties up in the pool who want to help us through this difficult time. And they didn't bring their bathing suits."

  "As if that's what you do when attending a funeral," I muttered, scooping my breasts back into my bra.

  "Be up in a minute," Dion said, his attention returning to me.

  I ignored him and snatched my shirt up off the floor, surveying its condition. It was unwearable.

  "We cool?" he asked.

  "Since when have we ever been cool with each other?" I responded, hunting around the practice room for an old t-shirt to throw on.

  Dion held out his dress shirt. "Take this. I'm don't need clothes up there."

  He pushed his still-hard cock back into his pants. He hid it away with a rise of his zipper, although I could still make out the impressive outline of its bulge.

  "You going to finish yourself off?" he asked.

  "What?" I responded. What the hell did he just ask me? What the hell did we just do? I was too shocked to move.

  He walked behind me and placed his shirt on my shoulders. He pulled it around me, drawing me in close.

  "You know, touch yourself. You gonna think of me finger fucking you? Will that make you come?" he whispered into my ear while he pressed his erection into my ass.

  "You gonna think of me when your fucking one of those groupies up in the pool?" I spat out, pulling away from him.

  He looked at me with a wolfish expression. "How do you know I don't already do that?"

  I turned about fifty shades of crimson.

  "Thanks for the shoulder, sis," he said with a laugh. Then Dion and his still-rock-hard cock, sauntered out of the room.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I laid on the horn. The security guard took forever to open the gates to the driveway. It was ludicrous that my stepfather insisted on having a guard at the gates rather than an electronic keyed entry. He claimed having a human doing the job kept everyone safer.

  But I never put much stock in other people.

  I leaned on the horn again and wondered how much speed I'd need for my Hummer to break through the gates. There was heavy traffic on the 405 so I was already late for band practice, and I wasn't in the mood for Presley's wrath. She was on edge about going on tour with Fleetwood Mac. Not because she was nervous —my sister had so much self confidence that she wasn't plagued by butterflies. Presley was on edge because she was backing vocals. Presley didn't like to be backing anything. It irked her to stand behind Stevie Nicks. Never mind that Nicks was an icon. Presley didn't quite see it like that.

&
nbsp; After one more long horn blow, the black iron gates inched their way open. I gunned the engine and tossed off an annoyed wave as I roared past the guard house. The security guard rubbed at his eyes, like I woke him up from a nap. So much for safety.

  I pulled up the long drive, coming to a sudden stop when I saw the mess of black SUVs parked in front of my stepfather's mansion. The license plate "RAWK 1" stood out in the fleet of cookie-cutter cars, so whatever was going on was big.

  That plate belonged to Gary Grimm, the president of Grimm Records, the label that catapulted my stepfather's glam-band Anthem to superstardom some twenty plus years ago. And the one that, in an act of egregious nepotism, signed my stepbrothers' vanity project, Rogue Nation. The Nation was about to go out on a major tour in support of their debut album, but then my stepbrother Kyle over dosed under a makeshift junkie tent on LA's infamous Skid Row.

  I bet Grimm was here to cancel the tour.

  Grimm was a germaphobe. As a rule, he went from his home to his office and, occasionally, to the Chateau Marmont, to bed any young buxom blond that was not his wife. As he aged, that quirk magnified, and now a sighting of him anywhere outside of his Malibu mansion was rare.

  So for Grimm to show up here meant that something major was going down.

  I maneuvered my Hummer around the SUVs, spinning my wheels in the gravel as I went. Kicking up a little road dust on them felt good. I contemplated denting RAWK1, but didn't want the grounds crew to get blamed for it as a gardening mishap. Knowing Vince, he'd make them pay for the damages, and I saw their paychecks once. Those guys couldn't afford a Bel Air auto body bill.

  I parked away from the fleet and headed up the walk to the imposing front doors. The gong that went off when I pressed the doorbell made me jump. Even seven years later, the damn thing still set my teeth on edge.

  A maid in a uniform that looked like it was tailored by Hustler magazine opened the door.

  "Yes?" she said. She could barely open her eyes; they were weighed down with so much mascara.