Cockney:A Stepbrother Romance(40)

     



 





She storms out of the foyer and through the double glass doors into the  museum courtyard, and I'm shaking my head and following her. Of course  I'm following; like I've been following her for longer than she's ever  known and in spite of how damn bratty she gets. It's cold out here in  the open-air courtyard, and the city lights and sounds are only slightly  muffled by the four walls of the museum around us.



She whirls on me with a look of fury on her face, her mouth open ready  to spit fire and brimstone and vitriol at me like I know she is, when  suddenly she's slipping on the ice under her heeled feet. I move faster  than my brain even knows how to; years of training and reflex just  making the body move on its own accord I guess, and I'm catching her  before my head even totally registers that she's falling.



Fuck, she feels amazing in my arms. She's come out here without a coat  on in that classic hot-headed Reagan way, and as my arms go around her, I  can feel the heat from her skin against my palms through the low-cut  open part at the back of her dress. Her hands clutch at my jacket  lapels, one seizing my arm as she gasp and tumbles right into my chest. I  close my eyes for the briefest moments, smelling her perfume or  shampoo, or whatever voodoo magic she's using to bring my head  completely to a stop as I just hold for a frozen moment in time.



You know, smelling her, like a totally normal person.



"Put me down," Her voice is high and whispered, but she's not fighting  or struggling against me. I'm still frozen, feeling her hand against my  chest and my shoulder like that; her hair in my face and her scent just  enslaving me.



"Hudson!" She sounds more insistent this time, and now she's pushing at  my chest; "The last thing I need is some photographer snapping pictures  of me canoodling with some hot prick in a tuxedo."



I pull my face back to grin into hers; "So, five years later and you're  still thinking about my hot prick, huh?" I smirk at her, still relishing  the feel of her in my arms, and doing everything I can, even if it's  obnoxious, to keep her there even a moment longer.



Reagan rolls her eyes; "Emphasis prick," she huffs out, squirming out of my arms and stepping away from me.



"Hey, your words not mine, sweet stuff." I wince inside, regretting  saying it even before it leaves my mouth. Why the fuck can't I just be  normal around her? There's something about the way she talks to me - the  way she's always talked to me - that brings out the fighter in me when  all I want to do is be normal around her. Well, that's of course not the  only thing I want to do with her when I'm around her, but I let that  thought simmer away for the time being. It doesn't help that she's sexy  as hell standing here in the freezing cold with her red hair looking  wild and fierce and wearing that ridiculously hot black dress with her  nipples poking through. I can feel my cock stir in my pants, and I shake  my head, trying to tear my eyes away from her perfect tits in that  perfect dress with her perfect nipp-



"In your dreams, asshole."



You have no fucking idea, babe I think inside, gritting my teeth and  trying to will my erection to go away. Instead, like I always do with  her, the snark comes out instead; "You know honey, Donald's right about  you." I can see her bristling at the word honey and add that one to the  list of probably slightly offensive names she clearly hates.



"What?"



"You do have a hell of a mouth on you."



She smirks at me, all sass and sexiness; "Oh, honey, you have no idea."



I groan inside, feeling my cock go rock-hard inside my tuxedo pants. I  don't know if she means for it to come out as innuendo-laden as it does,  but before I can even think about it too hard, she whirls to march away  from me and suddenly she's slipping on the ice all over again. I lunge  again, catching her once more before she falls.



"Stop touching me, Hudson!"



"Well stop fucking falling then!"



We glare at each other for a second, and it's taking everything I have  to meet her eyes and not to stare at her trembling lower lip, or further  down to where I can clearly see her nipples poking out of her sheer  gown. Somehow, somehow, chivalry wins out over my dick, and I let her  go, putting her back on her feet. She shivers, and before I know it I'm  shrugging my tux jacket off and pushing it towards her.



"Stop it, I don't want that." Her eyes flare defiantly, all the while rubbing her arms with her chilling looking hands.



"It's freezing out here"



"Well I'm fine!"



I grit my teeth and roll my eyes; "Have you seriously always this fucking obstinate?"



"It's my ‘political edge'," she sneers out.



"Well, that's one word for bitchy." I cringe again inside, wondering how  the hell I can go about murdering the voice inside my head that keeps  insisting on letting everything out.



She frowns at me, reaching up to push a loose lock of hair behind her  ear and just looking so damn cute standing there shivering; "Is there a  fucking point to all this?"



Ugh, yes, if I could just stop acting like an asshole and ruining it.



I clear my throat; "Yes, actually. Archer Holdings believes in your  campaign." Christ I sound like I'm giving a board meeting address.



She purses her lips and clenches her jaw at the name; "Fantastic, well  tell them to vote however their little hearts desire in the election.  I'll have my people send over some lawn signs and buttons if they'd  like."



"Cute" I mutter, seeing her frowning mouth turn up slightly at the corners.



"So, what, is my Dad trying to buy my love from beyond the grave or something?"



I grimace, feeling my muscles tense and hands clench, before I have to  remind myself that she never knew William Archer like I did; like we  did.



When he found me, I had nothing; less than nothing really. None of us  did back then, until he dragged us back from the brinks of our own  personal hells. And when I say ‘Nothing,' I don't just mean in the  material possessions sense of the word either. When a man is broken  inside as I was - like all three us were - there's almost no coming back  from it. In the very bottom depths of my own nightmare, with the shit  I'd seen and the even worse shit I'd done, I'd given up on myself;  almost.



"When a man gives up on himself, that's when he's truly gone" He'd said  to me that first night, sitting in that shit-ass bar as he'd pulled the  bottle away from my shaky hand when I'd reached for another drink; "And  you don't seem like you're gone; not yet."



'But Goddamn close to it' is what I would've said, looking at me that night.



I asked him later what he saw in any of us when he found us in that  shithole of a slum-bar on the outskirts of Kinshasa, in the Democratic  Republic of the Congo. I was curious about me when I asked him, but  Bryce had been way worse than even I was back then with his addictions.  William's only response had been a single word: "Promise."



'Promise' is what turned three shell-shocked, burned-out, drugged out  soldiers for hire to the worst dictators on Earth into the disciplined  new men of means we were today. We'd never be the man who saved us, but  we'd pledged our lives to getting a close as possible. And a promise -  not just any promise but THE promise - is what brings me out here in the  freezing cold, looking at Reagan Archer and wondering how in the world a  guy who'd lived through the shit I'd lived through is having the  hardest time in the world trying to figure out what the hell to say to  her.





P A S T



"Reagan! Ray! Do not make me late!"



"What? I'm here, jeez." I stomp down the stairs from the second floor  landing with a scowl on my face, a scowl that only deepens when Quinn  and my Aunt Kelly coo and aww and gush over the frilly, stupid pink  dress I'm wearing as I make my appearance.



"Oh Reagan, you look adorable, honey!" Aunt Kelly gushes; clutching her  hands together eagerly before digging in her purse for her camera.



I groan; "No! No pictures!" I make a face as the flash goes off  regardless, setting my jaw even harder as I stomp the rest of the way  down the stairs. I am fourteen years old, still very firmly in the grasp  of my anti-dress tomboy phase, and I absolutely hate that I'm dressed  up like a freaking cabbage patch doll.



"Well I love my dress!" Chelsea comes bounding down the stairs, and even  Quinn rolls her eyes at the exuberance. Chelsea is ten and firmly  believes she's actually a Disney princess.



"Well you look very pretty young lady!" Aunt Kelly can't help herself as  she snaps another couple of pictures, the flashes making me turn away  and shield my eyes.



"Well I look stupid, stop it." I groan, pushing her fussing hands away from the dress; "Why do I have to wear this dumb thing?"



"Because it's my graduation, that's why, Ray-Ray." Quinn giggles and  sticks her tongue out as I make a lunge at her, only to be held back by  Aunt Kelly.