Free Burned: A Stepbrother Romance by Teagan Kade

cuddly tomato.
    “How’s he doing?” I ask Michelle, knowing that I’ll get much more of an honest answer from her than I ever will my father.
    “He’s being stubborn. Still jamming away the jerky like it’s going out of fashion.”
    “I like my jerky!” Dad cries. “Jesus, is it such a crime?”
    “Why don’t you tell yourself that when you’re trying to call up from the fires of hell?” says Michelle.
    “You think I’m going to hell?”
    “In a handbasket.” She shoves a juiced mix of what looks like grass and egg in his face. “Now, drink this. It’s good for you.”
    I take a seat next to Dad.
    “How’s work, kiddo?”
    “Busy.”
    “I bet. They got you working late?”
    “You could say that.”
    “Well, if anyone can handle it, it’s you, my darling. Say, a girl came around to see you before.”
    “A girl?”
    “Said she knew you from back home.”
    “From Rosie?”
    “Yeah. Everett—I remembered the name but couldn’t place the face.”
    Rosie—The small town I grew up in straight out of a Stephen King novel. It must be almost twelve, maybe fifteen years since I was back. “What did you say her first name was?”
    “Alice,” Michelle interjects, a droopy look on her face as she takes a still three-quarters full glass from my father’s hands. “She left her number on the table there.”
    Alice Everett. I’ll be damned.

CHAPTER TEN
    Brock wasn’t kidding. He can cook. I sit in front of perfectly cooked short ribs he probably spent the whole afternoon slaving over. They melt in my mouth.
    I dab at the corner of my lips. “Not bad.”
    “Told you I could cook.”
    “The last thing I remember you cooking was a Frankenstein pizza made out of month-old cheese and stale bread.”
    “I was young. Desperate times, desperate measures.”
    “We weren’t that bad off back then, were we?”
    Brock smiles. “I remember two things about my adolescence: being really horny and really hungry, all the time.”
    “And now you’re just horny all the time?”
    “I am when you’re around. What can I say?”
    “I don’t blame you. I’d fuck myself.”
    “Sounds like some Inception shit.”
    “The whole sleepwalking thing certainly feels like it.”
    Brock places his fork and knife down, plate clean. If he does the dishes I just might suck his dick. “I can’t believe you’re still sleepwalking after all these years.”
    “Believe it.”
    “Isn’t it something you grow out of?”
    “You mean like wasting money on cars?”
    “Wasting? Who said anything about wasting? That’s an investment out there, as much of an investment as bricks and mortar.”
    “I beg to differ.”
    “Besides, what house do you know that will run Second Bridge to Main in twelve seconds?”
    I roll my eyes again. “Not this again. It can’t be done. You’re all in it together, a big pact.”
    “What would be the point of that?”
    I throw my hands up. “I don’t know. Fuck with Maddy day?”
    “It can be done. Let me show you.”
    “And break every road rule there is?”
    “For twelve seconds. Come on, let’s make it a bet.”
    “A bet? Hmm,” I purr, “interesting. What are the stakes?”
    Brock thinks on it, his glacial eyes watching me closely, foot weaving between my legs and pressing against the crotch of my panties. “I come in over twelve seconds and I’m yours. You can do with me whatever you like, but if I win…”
    “Yes.”
    “You race the Camaro.”
    “Why would you want me to do that?”
    He shrugs. “Don’t know. I just find the idea of my two favorite girls getting it on kind of hot.”
    “Fine.”
    We shake on it.
    “When do you want this to go down?” I question.
    Brock grins. “There’s no better time than the present.”
    Great.
    *
    Second Bridge is a street, not a bridge at all, running perpendicular to Main for a good quarter mile. Running behind the major thoroughfare, it’s quiet for the most part, and flat, which I guess is the appeal for these guys. It’s