ESCAPE: A Stepbrother Romance (These Wicked Games Book 2) Read online

  “Parachuting!”

  “That’s not comforting.”

  He laughs again. “No worries little girl, I’ll take care of you both.”

  He turns and heads toward the front of the plane. Then he stops and turns back. “Oh, if you need anything, you can use the phone to call me. Or just give a knock on the door.” He focuses on me. “Ever been in a cockpit?”

  I blush deeper for some reason. I shake my head.

  “Well, if you want to see what it’s like,” he glances at his watch again, “give a knock in about fifteen minutes.”

  I nod. “Thanks.”

  He smiles, and is gone.

  “I don’t like him,” Cade says when the cockpit door is shut.

  “Why?”

  “Lady and gentleman, we’re cleared for takeoff. Please take your seats and fasten your seat belts. At your leisure, of course.”

  The fasten seatbelt light blinks on.

  “They have those here,” I muse, staring up at the sign.

  Cade pushes me down into the seat, then slides in next to me. “Did you see the way he was looking at you? And that whole brother—” He grinds his teeth together.

  “Hey.” I touch his arm. “I’m not going anywhere.” I nudge him. “It was the cockpit, wasn’t it? You don’t want me going in the cockpit?”

  He frowns. “Why would I care if you went in the cockpit? If you’ve never seen it, go for it.”

  “So, you don’t mind me going into the cock… pit?”

  He groans. “You’re dirty.”

  I bite my lip. “Want to find out just how?” I grab my sweatshirt and slowly lift.

  Cade grabs my hand hard. “Don’t.” He looks at the cockpit door.

  “Calm down, Cade.”

  “Look, Mags, can we just— Let’s just slow down.”

  “Me!?” I cry. “Who’s the one who keeps turning inferno hot then ice cold?”

  “I’m sorry, it’s just…”

  “What? Goddammit, what?”

  He sighs. “Weird.”

  My heart sinks. It takes a moment to notice it’s because the plane has started moving. I blink several times, trying to decide whether it’s the plane or my own emotions that triggered the dread. “How… What is?”

  “Us. You’re my— Our parents are married.”

  “So? We’re not related. I mean, Jesus, Cade, we didn’t even meet until I was ten. It was another year and a half before we got to know each other.”

  “It’s not just that.”

  “What then?”

  He goes silent.

  “Fine. Just don’t tell me anything.” I throw myself back into my seat. Which hurts, but which I don’t let show. Then the plane accelerates. I whimper.

  Cade, perhaps misinterpreting this, touches my leg. “All right. Do you really want to know?”

  My fingers dig into the arm rests.

  “Mags?”

  “Wait,” I squeak. “Don’t. Like. Takeoff.”

  He laughs a deep laugh. “Are you kidding?”

  I shake my head rapidly.

  “Here, take my hand.”

  The nose of the plane lifts up.

  “Ah!”

  “Take it.”

  I look down, and grab his hand, then look forward quickly. This doesn’t really do any good, since it’s not like I can see through the closed cockpit door and out the windshield, but somehow makes me feel a little better. Like I’m in the driver’s seat of a car. A really fast, really scary, really free-willed car that doesn’t slow down when I command it to.

  “Just squeeze.”

  “I am.”

  “You can do better than that. Come on, harder, little girl.”

  “I’m not a little girl!” I cry. Exactly like I used to when I was a little girl.

  “Good. Harder.”

  “My hand’s going to break if I squeeze harder.”

  “Don’t be such a pussy.”

  I turn to him, my mouth open. “What did you call me?”

  “A pussy,” he says simply. He squeezes my hand. “Now come on, squeeze, bitch.”

  My mouth drops open. “What?!”

  I can see the smile he’s trying to repress, like he’s in on some big cosmic joke.

  I begin to say something else, when there’s a dinging.

  “Okay boys and girls. Or, boy and girl. You’re free to move around now. There’s drinks in the galley, and a not-half-bad selection of food, if I say so myself. Enjoy. And if anyone wants to check the cockpit, now’s your chance.”

  I look at Cade. He’s smiling. “See. Aren’t you glad you squeezed my hand?”

  “Asshole.”

  Chapter 23

  After a brief look around the cockpit—I really couldn’t resist… what girl could?—Cade makes me a gin and tonic.

  “That’s not very appropriate, Mr Dorn,” I say as I take the glass from him and sniff it, getting bubbles in my nose. I wrinkle it.

  “God you’re so cute. As for appropriate, you’re gonna need something to calm you down for the landing.”

  “We only just took off.”

  “It’s less than an hour flight.”

  “Flown it much?” I take a sip. It’s actually good. I take another.

  “Whoa there.” He goes back to the kitchen area. “Have some food first.”

  “I’m good.”

  He stops what he’s doing and leans out to look at me. “Are you kidding? When was the last time you ate?”

  I shrug, and take another sip. “This morning?”

  Cade comes over to me and holds out some kind of sandwich.

  “Really, I’m good.” I take another sip. It’s really delicious.

  “All right, Hemingway,” Cade says, plucking the glass from my grasp. “Eat something or you don’t get any more. That’s an order.”

  “Yes master.”

  He goes back to the kitchen, and makes himself a drink.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask when he sits back down and doesn’t say anything.

  He shakes his head, then looks at me. “I like you. More than that.”

  “I more than that you too.”

  “Are you drunk?”

  “Me?” I press a finger between my breasts. I look down at them, and my finger suddenly comes up and hits myself in the nose. I stare at him, mouth agape. “Why’d you do that?”

  “You’re not that drunk.”

  I rest my head on him. “Tell me what’s wrong, o’ brother of mine.” I cringe as soon as I say it. Maybe I am a bit drunk.

  “That.” He pushes my head off him. “Look. I love you, but…”

  But I can’t hear him. Those words, and my world’s gone dark, gone bright with light. So bright that I can’t see anything at all, can’t hear anything over the ringing of the light.

  My vision clears, my ears stop ringing. Cade’s looking at his glass.

  “I love you too,” I whisper.

  But he must not hear me over the airplane.

  “Maybe it’s different for you, but my family…”

  I wait.

  He downs his glass in one gulp.

  “Hey there, Sinatra.”

  He smiles while looking at his empty glass.

  “You know that sheriff?”

  “The one who tried to frame us?”

  “No. Well, maybe. Bridget. Bridget Burton. From the airport.”

  “Oh. Yeah. What about her?”

  Cade lifts his glass as though to take another drink, sees it’s empty, lets it and his hand drop back to his lap.

  “She’s… She’s my— Cynthia’s cousin.”

  I stare at him, waiting for him to continue.

  He looks from his glass to me.

  “Okay. Is that supposed to be… impressive? So what, this is some family feud? I don’t get it.”

  He shakes his head. “Do you think my mom loves your dad?”

  “I don’t know. I think they did, at one time.” I gesture back and forth between us. “It was pretty go
od there, at first.”

  He nods. “And now?”

  I shrug. “I think my dad will do whatever your mom says.”

  “But do you think he loves her? Is in love with her?”

  “Who knows. Maybe some people just aren’t meant for true love.”

  “Oh maybe they never find it. Or if they do, it’s someone they can’t love. Someone they aren’t supposed to.”

  “Like Romeo and Juliet.”

  “Or like Juliet and Juliet.”

  “Uh.”

  “Mags, Cynthia is cheating on your dad.”

  I’m silent for a minute. “I don’t know how I feel about that. I think I don’t feel anything. I think I knew, maybe.”

  “But do you know who with?”

  “No. Do you?”

  Cade nods.

  I stare. “Well don’t keep me in suspense! It’s killing me. Spill.”

  But he doesn’t smile. He looks up at me, into my eyes. “It’s Bridget. My mom is sleeping with Bridget.”

  Chapter 24

  My world is rocked. I never thought Cynthia had unassailable moral character, and have long suspected she’s cheated on my dad.

  But that was suspicion. I could chalk it up to hating her guts.

  But this…

  “Hey,” I say to Cade, touching his thigh.

  He pushes my hand away gently, and puts it in my lap.

  “That’s not…” The same thing, I want to say. But I can’t bring myself to.

  Is this why he pushed me away? Is this why he is hot one minute, and then ice the next? There’s so many questions I want to ask him.

  And I can’t ask him any of them. Not now. At least not right now.

  But they’ll be time for that, I tell myself. Because whatever else is happening, I’m with him now. I’m safe.

  He just saved me again. Maybe I wouldn’t have been sent to Guantanamo, but I would have gotten sent back to that house. Back to Cynthia.

  And while I’ve never had to endure waterboarding or standing for ten hours straight, in many ways my house was worse.

  I stare down at my hands, resting awkwardly in my lap, unable to move them for fear it will make things more awkward, and yet, yearning to reach out and touch him, the desire growing second by second.

  We sit in silence for a long time.

  Every so often, I look at him. He spends most of the time on his phone.

  I’d use mine, but the broken screen makes it tedious.

  I’ve just given up trying to play Candy Crush when the plane lurches, the combination of frustration and shock finally giving me the courage to speak: “How much longer before we land?”

  Cade glances out the window. “Can’t tell.” He presses the intercom button, then lets go of it. “What was his name?”

  “Major.” I smile.

  Cade shakes his head. He presses the button again. “Hey, how far out are we?”

  There’s no answer.

  “Jesus, touchy guy,” he says to me, letting go of the button. He pushes it yet again. “Major, how far out are we from SF?”

  Still nothing.

  “Maybe it’s broken,” I say.

  “It’s probably Hayes’ idea of a joke.”

  “Who?” I say. The name rings a bell.

  He gets up instead of answering and heads to the front of the plane. He knocks on the cockpit door. “Hey.” He bangs. “Major. Open up.” He tries the handle, and the door opens. I see lights flashing beyond it.

  He steps inside. Then I hear him mutter something.

  “Cade?”

  He doesn’t answer.

  After another minute, I stand up.

  “Cade?” I call again.

  “Fuck,” I hear someone shout, then a dull thud.

  Before I can react, a dark figure comes dashing out and toward me. It’s not until hands are grabbing me that I recognize that it’s Cade.

  “What—”

  He hugs me to him and runs to the back of the plane, we stop at the emergency door. “Hold on to me tight.”

  “Cade,” I say, my voice rising.

  “Just do it!” he screams at me. I obey, and he braces one arm against the door, looks out the window, then wrenches the handle open.

  The door pops and is sucked out into the night.

  I scream as the interior becomes a vortex. Cade holds me tighter to him with his free hand.

  I twist to look outside—that imp of the perverse—and see a roiling black mass coming up to meet us.

  “Cade—”

  “Hold on.”

  We jump.

  I hope you enjoyed the story!

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  Twenty-year-old Amber Stanton knows what she wants. She also knows she can't have it.

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