Free Bad Fighter Stepbrother (Book 2) by Michelle Black

Chapter One
    “Okay, let’s see how she moves in the field,” Julia said to one of her stable hands before she turned towards Emma. “She’s a potential match for Duke.” Emma nodded. Duke was the common name of her mother’s prize stallion. He was sought after the world over and his offspring fetched a high price in the hopes of producing a champion.
    Emma watched a beautiful bay with white socks that moved around the field in a dazzling display of athleticism. She was definitely a match for the stallion. “She’s beautiful,” Emma said. She looked across the field and saw Duke racing around his field in a wild display of pure grace. “Looks like Duke approves.”
    Julia laughed. “Duke approves of every female we toss his way.”
    Laughing with her, Emma watched the stallion more than she watched the mare. Duke was breathtaking, and it was no wonder his offspring were so sought after...that and because the ranch didn’t breed milk foals. Every pedigreed mare raised her young herself and that meant it took a lot longer to get the next breeding from a mare. Mom didn’t care. She detested the use of milk foals, where another mare would produce a baby that was sold at birth so a racehorse foal could nurse from it. She had the money to take her time with breeding, so she did.
    Duke reminded her a bit of Aiden, a dark beauty was filled with dominance. Thinking of the man now, she blushed as she thought about what had happened in the shower. It had been a wild night and when she’d finally snuck back to her bedroom, a half hour after she heard her mom head to bed, she fell asleep.
    Aiden hadn’t touched her for that half hour they had stayed in the bathroom. He had turned back to her, regret filling his eyes, but he crossed the room and closed the door of the shower. He washed himself and waited as she washed the makeup from her face. They’d stayed in the shower until it had run cold and then climbed out in silence.
    She hadn’t dared looked at him in fear that she would see so much disgust that it would break her heart. Instead, she wrapped the large towel around her body and another around her hair before Aiden had slipped quietly out of the bathroom. He had poked his head back in to indicate it was clear, and she had practically run to her bedroom.
    She’d passed out wrapped in the wet towel, her hair a complete mess when she’d woken up. Aiden wasn’t home when she’d finally worked up the courage to head downstairs at lunchtime. In fact, he hadn’t been home since Saturday morning and it was now Thursday.
    “So is Aiden home yet?” Julia asked, as though she was reading Emma’s mind...and maybe she was, they’d been friends for so long.
    “No, not yet.”
    “Where did he go?”
    “Tony said that he got a call Saturday morning and had to head in for a meeting with his team. I guess there was something about figuring out his next fights.” Emma shrugged and turned her attention to the mare. She had made her way over to the fence separating her from Duke and the two horses nuzzled.
    There was so much separating her from Aiden, and it wouldn’t be as simple as opening a fence gate to make it all better. She sighed. “So you never told me what happened between you two after you left the club,” Julia said.
    Emma started and glanced towards her friend. She was so embarrassed by what had happened, and she didn’t know how to explain it. Part of her felt horror that she’d had an orgasm with her stepbrother, but the other, more practical part, knew that it wasn’t as bad as she thought. Sure, Aiden was her stepbrother, but their parents hadn’t started dating until she was almost seventeen. Then they didn’t marry until she was nineteen. In reality, they weren’t stepsiblings; they were just two people who had a shared connection.
    Besides, it wasn’t illegal, just taboo – and Emma had never really cared about fitting into the norm. But she still couldn’t reason away that niggling of guilt