Fade Back (A Stepbrother Romance Novella) Read online

  Fade Back

  A Stepbrother Romance

  Stephanie Brother

  Copyright © 2015 Stephanie Brother

  All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental. The characters are all productions of the author’s imagination.

  Please note that this work is intended only for adults over the age of 18 and all characters represented as 18 or over.

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  About this book

  Despite Becka’s confidence, the piece of paper containing her tattoo sketch was wadded and crumpled. She’d erased the lines so often, she’d worn through the first piece of paper. Here she was, with the ten zillionth draft, about to get this picture permanently etched on her flesh, and she still wasn’t sure she’d gotten it right. She spent a month on the internet scouring for the right phrase, the perfect combination of words that summed her up and made her authentic. Something about butterflies? No, that was tawdry. Something in Latin? Ugh, too biblical. Goodnight Moon? The Owl and The Pussycat? Where The Wild Things Are? Nope, nope, and double-nope!

  In the end, she’d settled on a phrase she heard in a movie and thought sounded cool. She picked out a font online and typed it out in different sizes, different configurations; she’d even photoshopped it on some photos of herself, trying out places and eventually settling on her ribcage, just under her right breast. Whatever happened, she was determined to be positive.

  She took a long sip from her now-cooled drink and turned up an alleyway to a lurid neon sign hovering above a staircase descending below street level. The neon tubes read “Dickie’s Emporium” in old-timey carnival-colored letters. It was kitschy, a little tacky, and painfully hip. The place had a trendy dive vibe, which made Becka feel a little bit dangerous as she scoped herself out one last time in the reflective glass of the door and stepped inside to find the new, improved, one-hundred per cent sexier woman she was sure she’d become, with a little ink.

  But she could’ve never predicted what she’d find inside that day.

  Chapter One

  She felt eyes on her everywhere she went, but she never, ever looked back. Let them look, she thought as she waltzed down the street, catching glimpses of her reflection in the windows of chic stores and looking for all the world like one of the mannequins behind the glass, or the pouting models in the posters adorning the walls of the salons. She watched herself as she walked, and the appreciative looks she received from both men and women were plain to see.

  Her jeans were tight and slung beneath her hips, the seemingly effortless flat stomach of her twenty-two year old body hinted at by the fluttering of her Dolce & Gabbana t-shirt, the super low v-neck exposing small but pert breasts, toned arms straining against her barely rolled-up sleeves. Her long perfectly highlighted wavy hair shone in the afternoon sun, and she had dimples when she wasn’t even smiling.

  Any way you sliced it, Becka Treadway was one sexy girl, and she was on her way to complete the look.

  She sidled past a designer sneaker store (a pair of which adorned the ends of her own perfectly sculpted legs,) picking up her pace to avoid the restless eye of the hot sales guy behind the counter. Becka flirted with him mercilessly only a few nights before, without giving him her number in the end, and she did not need the drama of some little scene right there on the sidewalk. When she’d safely passed the store, her pace returned to normal, and she treated herself to a few casual winks at passers-by, just to make their day: a guy in a great suit, a girl in a fierce dress, a few older folk—just to freak them out. She could practically feel hearts break when she tossed her caramel-colored hair. She felt irresistible, and that wasn’t far from the truth.

  Her list of admirers ranged from cute college grads to wealthy sugar daddies, married men and jocks, cowboys, and old-school gentlemen who offered her the world. Few she slept with (very rarely), most she didn’t, but she collected their hearts effortlessly. Or at least, it looked effortless. But as Becka liked to tell all her friends who sought her favor and advice: you work hard so you can play hard, in every sense of the phrase.

  Her thoughts ran to the weekend’s partying, which began on Thursday night and ran through till Monday morning. She’d thrown a drink in the faces of a pair of men in expensive suits who offered to buy her a designer luggage set if she’d join them in their limo. She’d danced for hours with a hot female go-go dancer from Lux, the hottest club in town (where Becka worked), before the girl’s boyfriend got jealous and threatened to break up with her, but wound up kissing both of them instead, all probing hands on the dance floor as the dysfunctional pair took turns pawing Becka’s perfect breasts. She’d slammed Red Bulls with a fairly major pop star, then licked whipped cream off his nipples in a private booth and let him do the same to her. She drank just, oh, way too many espresso martinis and was still sweating Kahlua when she woke up. It was a fun weekend. It was always a fun weekend.

  And, if she was honest with herself, which she certainly tried to be, it was all getting old. One weekend blurred into the next, and the weekdays spent in recovery of more club activities weren’t much better. At twenty-two, she’d seen it all, or almost all. She almost never took men home—her intimacy was something only three men have shared so far, to be completely honest. She just never really got close with anyone, not since her high school boyfriend had cheated on her (well, it wasn’t even actually cheating since he’d just used her to peeve his real girlfriend). And she never got the appeal of a casual one-night stand. As far as she was concerned, getting into her bed was a prize, and to get that prize, the guy had to work hard, very hard.

  She hadn’t met a grown man, that was for sure. Everyone in her increasingly tight-feeling social world seemed to be some variation of a teenage girl or boy, whatever their driver’s license said. It was all about tighter bodies, tighter designer jeans, tighter dress codes for the VIP lounge. They gossiped and fought, throwing shade and drama like volleyballs across Becka’s life.

  She’d been spending more and more time with Mick, whom she met in college as the only non-partying person in her dorm. Mick was a certified nerd but with a taste for inked-up girls with punk-rock flair. They’d both been nerds back then, but Becka decided to throw away that look and transition into the hottest girl their dorm—nay, their entire small liberal arts college—had seen. Mick had only been clubbing with Becka about six times in their whole friendship, and every time he wound up scowling at Becka for days, shaking his head and muttering “that scene is the worst” until she promised never to take him out again. She was starting to see what Mick meant, but what could she do? It was her job: Becka worked as a PR rep at one of the hottest clubs in town. And the attention was nice, after all those years of being rejected by the male gender, when she looked like a total book definition of a nerdy girl—complete with thick-rimmed glasses, mousy hair, and sweatshirts that said “Entropy Happens.”

  They compromised, watching old movies and whole TV series marathons in their mutual downtime. That downtime has decreased since Mick hooked up with Karen, a tattoo artist and a card-carrying feminist of the no-fucks-to-give persuasion. Becka hadn’t met her yet, but to see Mick glued to his phone, texting sweet-nothings and cooing secretly behind the pantry door, made her want to barf with… well, jealousy.

  But, whatever. It was tattoo time.

  She stopped at
a coffee place and ordered a take-out chai latte, the thought of more coffee turning her stomach even as she craved the warmth of a paper cup to hold. The curly-moped server taking her order kept glancing up at her from beneath his thick fringed lashes. Becka wondered if she should let this guy have her number. He was kind of cute. She was about to suggest as much when the server suddenly spoke instead.

  “Hey, do you work at Lux?”

  Becka’s heart fell. Oh. One of those conversations. What a buzzkill.

  “Mmmm…. yes? You go there a lot?

  “Yeah, I was there a couple of weeks ago. I thought we totally hit it off, but then you disappeared. I’m Alex, by the way.”

  “Oh yeah, of course, Alex. Of course! Yeah,” Becka trailed off, holding Alex’s gaze as she pretended to recall this particular face whispering sweet nothings into her ear. Nope. He was one of an endless, faceless parade of her flirting conquests, but Becka thought she could just vaguely recall these features leaning close to her, maybe even making out briefly… but it might have just been her rather active imagination filling in the blanks with some convenient color. What could she say?

  She’d only blossomed as a nervous and breathtakingly beautiful twenty year old, and the years of pent-up nerd-dom, longing for the hard-bodied boys on her high-school football team, not to mention the college team, backfired spectacularly. Her first boyfriend after her makeover had taught her what a waste that had been, keeping this heavenly body away from deserving hands and mouths. That guy turned out to be so dumb that Becka couldn’t even have a normal conversation with him, let alone pretend like they were on the same intellectual level, so she dumped him after two months. But after that, unburdened of the shackles of her previous geeky life, Becka became utterly voracious. Even now, in this awkward moment with a forgotten suitor, she was wondering what it would feel like to have this Alex-guy’s puffy lips kiss hers. Nah, she wasn’t interested in him two weeks ago, and she’s not into him now, for sure.

  “Well, great seeing you!” She picked up her latte and gave the guy a salute. She didn’t wait to see his reaction before she shot out the door. Frankly, it didn’t matter. She had an appointment with the hottest tattoo artist in town, who was not into lateness. Karen (Mick’s girlfriend), who worked at the same tattoo shop, was quite clear about that when Becka spoke to her on the phone.

  Becka was meticulous about punctuality as well, and she timed half her life by the Rolex her father had given her for college graduation. She was notorious among the club employees as the biggest hardass in the promotions team. When it came to timing, whether it was getting the VIP area perfect before the doors opened, or the ins and outs of the go-go dancers’ routines, Becka was a machine of precision.

  Despite her confidence, the piece of paper containing her tattoo sketch was wadded and crumpled. She’d erased the lines so often, she’d worn through the first piece of paper. Here she was, with the ten zillionth draft, about to get this picture permanently etched on her flesh, and she still wasn’t sure she’d gotten it right. She spent a month on the internet scouring for the right phrase, the perfect combination of words that summed her up and made her authentic. Something about butterflies? No, that was tawdry. Something in Latin? Ugh, too biblical. Goodnight Moon? The Owl and The Pussycat? Where The Wild Things Are? Nope, nope, and double-nope!

  In the end, she’d settled on a phrase she heard in a movie and thought sounded cool. She picked out a font online and typed it out in different sizes, different configurations; she’d even photoshopped it on some photos of herself, trying out places and eventually settling on her ribcage, just under her right breast. Whatever happened, she was determined to be positive.

  She took a long sip from her now-cooled drink and turned up an alleyway to a lurid neon sign hovering above a staircase descending below street level. The neon tubes read “Dickie’s Emporium” in old-timey carnival-colored letters. It was kitschy, a little tacky, and painfully hip. The place had a trendy dive vibe, which made Becka feel a little bit dangerous as she scoped herself out one last time in the reflective glass of the door and stepped inside to find the new, improved, one-hundred per cent sexier woman she was sure she’d become, with a little ink.

  But she could’ve never predicted what she’d find inside that day.

  Chapter Two

  The illumination inside was dim, except for the work lights over the front desk, a vintage gasoline sign slung in place of a logo across its front. Behind it gleamed another, smaller version of the neon sign outside. In one musty corner sat a couch upholstered in faux leopard skin, and all over the walls hung framed designs and photographs of the bodies bearing them. A shelf bore various statues and trophies, from little league championships to industry awards. A sign above it said ‘Dickie’s Emporium Minor Achievements’ in ironically grandiose script. Motes danced in the air where daylight struck through the open door, and the low throb of the loading trucks outside seemed to burst the shell of this tiny world. She felt like an intruder, like she’d wandered into someone’s well sign-posted, but nonetheless private, home.

  The brightly festooned woman sketching at the desk raised her head and smiled, her delicate pixie face dotted with tiny star-like gems, glittering in the light of her tru-lite lamp. The severity of her gothic pin-up make-up offset her inherent cuteness, and her deep scowl completed the picture. If Becka wasn’t mistaken, this had to be Karen. The same one that recommended this tattoo shop to Mick, and hence, to Becka.

  “Hi, I’m Becka.”

  “Of course you are, pretty little thing! Don’t shuffle in the doorway, come on in. You’re letting the heat out.” Karen’s voice was low and rich, but decidedly sullen. She’d clearly seen it all, and yet another cute clean-skinned girl wasn’t about to pique her interest.

  “Are you sure it’s not warm enough?” Becka asked, blushing as she closed the door behind her.

  “Oh, you’ll appreciate it when you’ve got half your clothes off and we’re jabbing you with pointy objects.”

  “Sounds like a Tuesday,” Becka winked, and the woman leaned over and shook her hand resolutely, her magenta and jet-black hair tumbling over her shoulders as she swept it away with a look of annoyance. She pulled a barrette from the depths of her leopard-print corset and pinned a particularly troublesome lock of hair behind her head, revealing yet more stars inked across her neck and jaw.

  “Ha! Aaaaaanywaaaaaay… Mick warned me about your witty banter. Lemme get Fitz.” She reached out and abruptly rang an old-fashioned brass bell, the first hint of the resonant ‘ding!’ sending her back to her drawing as though she’d never been interrupted. Becka shuffled her feet, hesitant to start another chat with Karen again as she waited.

  After a few moments, a guy in mangled old blue jeans walked out from behind the beaded curtain at the room’s rear. As he sauntered, he lazily pulled on an equally torn up black t-shirt over his own constellations of ink. Hula girls danced frenetically over his washboard abs, coiled dragons leered from his waistband, and hot lava flowed from the V of his pubis, dusted with wiry hair, marking a tight trail from his navel to the depths below. Becka had to wait until the guy’s shirt was entirely covering this beautiful body before she even remembered about things like ‘faces’ and ‘names’. Even so, on seeing the former, she felt the latter could have been ‘Beelzebub’ and she’d still be throwing herself over this guy faster than if that guy at the shoe store greased her sneakers. This guy… yes. Every kind of yes.

  “Hi, I’m Fitz, and you are… I want to say… Beth?”

  “Ha ha! Yeah! I mean, no. It’s Becka, but I could be Beth if you wanted! Ha ha! Beth! Ha!” Oh crap. She could hear the stupid pouring out of her mouth, but she was powerless to stop it. This was definitely not a cool and confident young woman making a grand lifestyle-affirming gesture. This was a fourteen year old kissing that Ashton Kutcher poster in her bedroom. Not that it ever happened… ha ha. Ha.

  The Adonis spoke again. “Well anyway… I thought we should sit down
first and have a talk about your design. You don’t want to go off and get something half-cocked.”

  “No, no, I definitely want to be whole-cocked.” Damn it. Not smooth.

  “Uh-huh. Soooo, what have you got for me?”

  Becka tried to pull out her scrap of paper from her ultra-tight jeans without standing up, a feat her rapidly dampening hands barely managed. With a guy this handsome, you had to play ‘hard-to-get’, that was her own rule. Fitz, for his part, acted decorously, smoothing out the rumpled paper on the worktable. He was thankfully absorbed in the designs before him, and Becka’s resulting wave of embarrassment at her amateurish scribblings helped the threatening wetness in her underwear subside. Yes, she was definitely hot for this guy.

  With Fitz’s face turned to the page, Becka had a chance to really check him out. He was no less handsome on closer inspection: the slight creases at his eyes and the gritty quality of his stubble told Becka he was older than herself, but not by that much. Probably late twenties, not any older, but with a timeless Bradley Cooper quality to him. His hair was dark and slightly wavy but not in a greasy-biker way. More like a rock star. A rock star with beautiful hands. Something about Fitz’s looks tugged a string of familiarity in Becka’s mind, but she was so frazzled that for the life of her she couldn’t concentrate enough to grasp at that string.

  “Tell me about yourself, Becka.”

  Becka shook her head a little, suddenly nervous again as the green-hazel eyes swept up to her own, seeing the firm line of Fitz’s jaw and the delicate tilt of his brow that sent her heart beating out a samba. She hoped Fitz would notice her own crystal clear blue eyes. In the right light, they even looked purple. Please think my eyes look purple, she thought desperately. This guy was just too good-looking. Wait, he asked something. What was it?

  “I’m sorry, what was the question?”

  Fitz laughed a little and leaned back on the couch, scratching his belly.