Page 4 of Her Stepbrother Master (Master Me #7)

Brad lay on his back on the couch with his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling.

He would make the young man who’d forced himself on LuAnn pay.

The strength of his desire to avenge her surprised him, almost as much as he’d shocked himself by pulling up her gown to search for bruising.

Why in the hell he thought he had the right to do such a thing was a mystery.

LuAnn brought out something in him—an unusual protectiveness and the need to nurture.

It was different than when he’d turned a girlfriend over his knee or scolded her for irritating him.

Those encounters had a detached quality—the need to dominate, the need to satisfy them sexually, but never the need to care for them on a personal level.

He’d always been a ladies’ man—making it plain from the start that he wasn’t the boy they would marry, and if they wanted to stick with him, they’d have to follow his rules.

He supposed it was LuAnn’s youthful innocence that made him want to take care of her.

Or the fact that she was family. Or his memories of her as a vulnerable adolescent.

If only she hadn’t turned into a full-grown woman, so lush and voluptuous…

He woke to find her in her nightgown, banging pots and pans around in his kitchen.

The thin satin material left little to his imagination—the curves of her ass, the outline of her panties all too apparent.

The panties he had peeled down to her thighs the night before.

He sat up, covering his morning wood. This would not do.

He needed to stop thinking of his stepsister this way.

Little Sister. Little. Sister. Not a hot young ingénue making scrambled eggs in his kitchen.

Unbidden, he pictured her as his very own sweet wife, preparing his breakfast in nothing but an apron.

Perhaps she’d have a freshly reddened ass for getting sassy with him. Oh God.

He stood up and bolted for the bathroom where he splashed cold water on his face. When he came back, he found LuAnn gasping over burned eggs. “Holy hell!”

He chuckled.

She yanked the frying pan of smoking eggs off the burner and dropped it onto the yellow laminate countertop without a hot pad.

“No,” he yelped.

She gasped, realizing the problem and jerked the pan from the counter, sending it flying to the floor with a crash, eggs splattering all over the linoleum.

“Dammit all.” She bent over to give him a perfect view of her bottom, spread and lifted.

He couldn’t resist—he landed two sharp slaps to her backside. “Young lady, that sort of language does not become you.”

The truth was he didn’t care if she cursed, but it gave him a reason to swat her oh-so-attractive buttocks, so he went with it. Based on the way she jumped and howled, he’d bet she still smarted from her spanking the night before.

Her face flushed a deep shade of pink and her jaw thrust forward. “I have heard you curse many times, Brad Stanford.”

He grinned. “But I’m not a sweet girl like you.”

At that moment, someone tapped at the door and Mrs. Verlaine called out, “Hello? Brad?” Of course she’d be snooping over here if she heard a female voice.

He quickly threw a dish towel over the burn mark on the counter and crossed the room to open the door. “Hello Mrs. V.” He gave her his most charming smile.

She craned her head around the doorjamb to take in LuAnn, who was scrambling to clean up the spilled eggs. “Well, what is this?”

“Mrs. V, this is my little sister, LuAnn. LuAnn, Mrs. V, my landlady. LuAnn is a student at Sarah Wharton, but she was having a hard time getting serious about her studies while living in the dorm, so our parents thought it would be best if she finished the last few weeks of the semester living with me.”

Mrs. Verlaine gaped. “Your sister?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t see any resemblance.” She peered at LuAnn suspiciously.

“No, she takes after her father and I take after my mother,” he said, which was not a lie. He laid what he hoped was another devastating grin on the nosy woman.

“How long will she be here? There’s only one bedroom.” She glanced at the couch, which thankfully still sported a pillow and blanket from his night’s rest.

“Just a month. I’m sleeping on the couch and letting her have the bedroom.”

“Will I be washing her clothes, too?”

“I will do the laundry,” LuAnn interjected. “Both of ours. It’s the least I can do.”

“I see...well, you’ll be using extra water and electricity with two people.”

“Oh, I doubt it will amount to much difference in your bill, but if it does, I’m sure you’ll inform me,” he said evenly.

She craned her neck around for one more curious look, then withdrew. “Well, we’ll talk about it later, then.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He waited, looking at her with an impassive face until she backed out and turned around. “Have a nice weekend, Mrs. Verlaine.”

“Thank you,” she said, but did not wish him the same.

He shut the door and rolled his eyes.

LuAnn picked up the frying pan and turned on the water in the sink, scrubbing it with a fierceness it didn’t deserve.

He walked over and gently clasped her shoulders. “Thank you for making breakfast.”

Her shoulders sagged. “I didn’t mean to burn the laminate. What do you think will happen?”

“I’ll probably have to pay for it. It was an accident, mouse, I’m not mad.”

“I’m sorry I made a mess.” Her eyes filled with tears.

He smiled and touched her nose. She was being silly and he found it endearing. “You cleaned it up. It’s over. Are you going to try again, or are we eating toast for breakfast?”

She swiped a tear with the back of her hand and squared her shoulders. “I’ll try again. Oh, wait,” she said, slumping. “You’re out of eggs.”

He gave her a reassuring grin. “Toast it is, then. How about I make it while you get dressed?”

“Yes, sir,” she said, sending a thrill of excitement straight to his cock.

She looked so sweet in her nightgown with her head bowed in submission.

He glanced at her breasts shifting underneath the thin fabric.

Why were her nipples hard? He stepped back and allowed her to pass him before he did something stupid like pin her against the kitchen counter and screw her until she screamed.

He made the toast, slathering on a thick layer of butter and jam and cutting them into little triangles, as if she was a small child.

He set them at the table with a glass of milk.

For some reason, he was getting into the caretaking role with her.

When she came out, he held out her chair for her, smirking when she winced sitting down.

He placed a napkin on her lap. She looked up at him, blushing.

He shrugged and dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “Eat up, sweetheart.”

Brad had her so mixed up and befuddled, she hardly remembered how to speak. The fact that he treated her like a child infuriated her...except that she rather enjoyed being the center of his attention. Had he really cut her toast into little squares? Did he think she was six years old?

Her bottom still tingled from the swats he’d landed on it for swearing, so sitting on the hard wooden chair hurt her tender cheeks.

She watched Brad’s tall, broad-shouldered figure as he moved about the kitchen, cleaning up the rest of her mess, and scrubbing the burn mark on the counter as he made his own toast. Just watching his muscular form and the chiseled lines of his jaw brought butterflies to her belly.

It was odd to see a man so efficient in the kitchen, but she supposed he’d lived on his own for six years now. She wondered if he had girlfriends over much. Probably not, if that was how his landlady reacted to guests. That thought came as a distinct relief.

When he finished buttering his toast, he plopped down across from her.

“Why did you move away instead of staying with us during college?” She’d hated when he left, and then he hardly visited, staying away despite the fact that he only lived two hours away.

“I’m not like Brian. I don’t kiss authority’s ass, and I don’t particularly like living under another man’s rule.

Your dad wanted to help us, I know, but I couldn’t bear to be taken under his wing like Brian.

” A muscle in his jaw tightened. “All the advice and admonishments—It just wasn’t my thing. ”

“You don’t like my dad, do you?”

He chewed a bit of toast and swallowed before he spoke.

“It’s not that. Yeah, I was mad at my mom for getting married after my dad died.

But it wasn’t your pop’s fault. He makes her happy and he provides her with a good life, so I have no right to complain.

I was still a kid when we moved in together, even though I thought I was a man. ”

She’d thought he was a man, too. “You sure made things harder on yourself by insisting on working your own way through college.”

He laid one of his lazy grins on her. “See that’s the part your old man never understood. I don’t mind hard work. I’d just rather work my tail off and be my own man than be under the thumb of someone else.”

“But now you have a boss at the architecture firm who you have to please, right?”

He looked chagrined. “I do. But I plan to open my own architecture firm as soon as I have enough experience. I definitely wasn’t made to do another man’s bidding.”

She considered whether she was. She hadn’t given one whit about Mrs. McCormick’s rules when she’d lived in the dorm, but something about Brad made her want to do everything he asked.

As if Brad knew her thoughts, his eyes swept over her face and down to her breasts with a predatory gaze.

Her neck grew warm. What would Brad’s bidding be?

She’d be living here under his rules, and he’d already made it clear what the consequences for disobedience would be.

Her sex contracted, thinking about the bare-bottomed session over his knees and his threat to make her stand in the corner with her panties down.