Criminal: A Bad-Boy Stepbrother Romance by Alexis Abbott, Alex Abbott Read Free Book Online

you’re desperate, you take risks you wouldn’t
otherwise,” she says as she raises her chin towards me. “So
what has you on the run?”
    “My brother...”
    “The same one that you’re begging to come
get you?”
    I laugh, the sound pathetic and soft. “Yup.”
    Her face is instantly hard, and she leans in, talking
more quietly. “Has he hurt you? Laid hands on you?”
    I shake my head, feeling a little sick to my stomach
that anyone could ever think that about Kaiden. Despite all his
hardness, despite all the things he’s done over the years, he’s
never hurt me. Not like that.
    I don’t even know why it bothers me so much
that this stranger would think that, but it does. I feel the instant
need to defend him.
    “No, no. He’s... I mean, he’s my
step-brother, and I’ve been living with him for a few weeks,
and we just don’t... we don’t get along that great.”
    "Your step-brother?" The woman looked at me
with a raised brow before she simply shrugged her shoulders. "Well,
family's complicated, ya? Why don't you get along?"
    I sit back in my chair, and I'll be honest... I’m
totally and utterly stumped as to what to tell her. I mean, I know
why we don't get along, now more than ever. I know we've been pushing
one another away, that we've been trying to deny this... feeling
hanging between us. That we'd been needing to put time and distance
and space between us, and it hasn't worked.
    So how do I tell that to a woman? To a stranger? I
just don't know, and I lick my lips. She's just a random person.
Maybe... maybe it wouldn't be so bad just to tell her. It's not like
I'm ever going to see her again, not once I get released.
    "I... we want to be something to one another
that we just... can't be." The words feel funny on my tongue,
but it’s like this sense of relief washed over me. All my anger
and rage at Kaiden, all these emotions, they simply started to calm
as the weight of the words lingered in the air.
    "I see," she says, tapping her fingers on
the table. I don't know if it's a nervous habit or if she's just lost
in thought—her expression is unreadable. "What do you two
wanna be then, huh?"
    I swallow, and I can't meet her eyes anymore. I'm too
scared of what might be reflected back at me.
    "Something…more." I manage.
Something so much more. I want to be his. I want to be one of those
women that he makes moan and cry his name. I want to feel my body
wrapped around him, lost to his muscles, lost to his mouth.
    I want to feel his hard body pressing up against mine
as he claims me for my own. I shake my head free of the thoughts.
It's not an appropriate time for fantasizing about him, to say the
least. But at least the thoughts take me away from the jail for a few
seconds.
    When I look at her again, I see how intensely she's
been staring at me, those clear eyes looking through to my soul. It
sends a shiver down my spine, and I just give her an apologetic
smile.
    "Sorry, I shouldn't be talking about this,"
I say and she shakes her head.
    "It's not so bad, being in love," she
assures me, and my heart’s racing. I'd never thought of it like
that. I've always denied that that was the word for what I feel.
    But the way it strikes me, I know she's right.
    I love Kaiden.
    ***
    My cellmate is still dry heaving and shaking like mad
on the bottom bunk. I guess she’s drying out. They haven't
woken at all in the hours I've been locked up in this grungy cell.
    Sarah, the prostitute on the top bunk, has finally
managed to get some sleep, though she makes these soft little
whimpering sounds that make me want to reach out and comfort her. She
didn't tell me much about herself, and less about what got her in
here, but those pained gasps of her nightmares tell me more than she
ever needed to.
    I'm still at the table when I hear some noise from
outside my cell. I haven't slept since the catnap in the car, but I'm
too afraid to sleep. And, I'm still in a daze about my realization
with Kaiden. About what I want from