Stranded with My Stepbrother Chapter 109

Will

Hoot was a masterful driver. He drove the Suburban as though he was going for first prize at a NASCAR race. It didn’t hurt that any smaller car seeing a Suburban coming up their tailpipe quickly got out of the way. The black sedan did not have the same intimidation factor.

But when we crossed three lanes of traffic and nearly caused a twenty-car pile-up to take an exit, I decided he was crazy. The sedan wasn’t able to follow us, of course, but I’d been pretty sure in those few seconds that we were all going to die.

“Y’all can stop hangin’ off the oh-shit bars. Scary part’s over,” Hoot said as we joined traffic at a busy intersection. He frowned at the gas station on the corner. “Y’all keep your heads down. I ain’t sure who all’s been given a picture of you two in this area.”

I ducked down and so did McKenzie. I curled my torso over hers.

Hoot got us to a Ford dealership, but that was all I knew because I saw the tall sign. He turned back and held out his hand. “Cash.”

I fished my money clip out of my pocket and handed it over.

“Stay down until I tell you.” He got out of the Suburban and locked us in.

The thunk of the locks engaging had a sound of finality to them. It made me feel both safe and vulnerable at the same time. If someone got those keys from him, we were sitting ducks.

“Want something to eat?” McKenzie asked, breaking the tense silence.

“Might as well, I suppose,” I said after a beat. It would be a distraction, anyway.

She rummaged in the bag on the floor and came up with my Funyuns.

I smiled. “You hate those.”

“I know. But you don’t.” She opened the bag and handed them to me. “Try not to get crumbs in my hair, okay?”

I laughed. “I’ll do my best.” I crunched into a Funyun, taking great care with the crumbs. It was harder than it sounded.

McKenzie got out some of her dark chocolate with chile, and I had to laugh again. “The only things we don’t agree on.”

“Well, that and your overwhelming sense of guilt, but who’s counting?” she said.

I knew she was trying to tease me, but I still felt a heaviness in my soul.

“Will?” she prompted after I was quiet for a long time.

“Hmm?” I responded, trying to pretend like everything was okay. But we were hunched over in a Suburban so no one would recognize us, and there was at least one black sedan of baddies on our tail. Not to mention the fact that her uncles were dead.

She squeezed my knee. “Please stop brooding. Even Hoot says you saved me. I understand saving my life had a high cost, and I feel guilty about that, too, but we really do need to place the blame on your grandfather.”

“Oh, trust me, there’s plenty to go around,” I said.

McKenzie sat up, which forced me to sit up as well.

“We can’t—” I protested.

She brushed the Funyun crumbs off my lips. “I have a solution,” she informed me.

I swallowed, hoping this was going where I thought it was going. “Really? What’s that?”

McKenzie put her hands on my shoulders, leaned in, and kissed me.

It was a sweet, closed-mouth kiss. At first.

Then I licked her lips, tasting the dark, tangy sweetness there, and she opened up for me.

As soon as she allowed me entry, my tongue was in her mouth, desperately tangling with hers. My dick strained in my pants, swelling painfully against my fly. I wanted her. I wanted all of her. I wanted to consume and savor her just like the dark, spicy chocolate I could taste on her tongue.

She shifted into my lap, grinding right where I wanted her. I tore my mouth away and groaned. “We can’t do it here,” I panted, even while I slid a hand up her shirt to cup her breast through her lacy bra. “God… I want you.”

“Me, too,” she breathed. She kept grinding against my fly.

I gripped her ass, not sure if I wanted to stop her or help her along. I chose the latter. “When we get somewhere safe, I’m going to do things to you…” I promised, nibbling along her collarbone while helping her ride my bulge.

“Yeah?” She was close. I could tell in the way her body tensed.

That was good because I was close, too. And right then, I didn’t give a damn about my pants. “That’s it, honeybee. Just like that.”

“‘Honeybee’?” she repeated with a lilt of humor in her tone. But she didn’t stop, thank God.

“Mhm. Your hair… beautiful… you’re so beautiful,” I babbled, not even capable of complete sentences anymore.

McKenzie bit down on her lip, and I thought she might be stifling a chuckle until I felt her body shudder against mine.

I exploded in my pants, groaning, my face pillowed against her shirt between her breasts. “Sonofabitch.”

“That’s not nearly as nice as ‘honeybee,’” she grinned, clinging to my shoulders as we both came down.

I snorted. “As though I’d ever call you anything less than perfect.”

She gave me a heart-melting expression, and I knew then and there I was never going to be satisfied. I was going to want this woman every moment of every second of every day for the rest of my damn life. When she ran her fingers through my hair, I wanted to purr.

“I think you’re perfect, too,” she murmured.

There was a knock on the window, and we both jumped. “Hoot—!”

It was not Hoot.

A man in an expensive suit smiled at us like the cat who got the cream. “Open up,” he said.

“No,” I replied, wrapping my arms around McKenzie and holding her protectively against my chest.

He frowned. “I’m not asking.”

“I don’t care,” I said.

He opened his jacket, revealing a gun. “Don’t make me use this—”

I reached behind me for my own gun, hoping I didn’t shoot myself in the ass. Luckily, a gun appeared at the man’s temple while I was fumbling for mine.

“What did I say about stayin’ down?” Hoot admonished us.

The man raised his hands and started backing away.

“McKenzie, Will, get out of the truck. Go inside. I need to have a conversation with this here gentleman,” Hoot said.

She leaned over and scooted out of the opposite door with me right behind her. I wondered what Hoot was going to do while we were gone, but most importantly, I wanted to get McKenzie to safety.

“Is Hoot going to be okay?” she asked once we were in the dealership.

“If anyone’s going to be okay, it’s going to be Hoot,” I responded with confidence. I looked out the dealership windows, wondering where the black sedan could have parked.

Not seeing it, I looked over at her instead.

“I don’t see it either,” she said before I could ask.

“Weird.” I was about to say something else when a salesman approached us.

“Good afternoon. Can I interest you in a…” He paused and looked us up and down.

We’d been recognized. “What’s the reward?” I asked flatly.

“Fifty-million dollars for one, a hundred-million for both,” the salesman said, licking his lips.

That wouldn’t have been too rich for my blood a couple of weeks ago, but now that I was on the run, I only had five-thousand dollars to my name. “I suppose it wouldn’t work to appeal to your better nature?” I tried.

The man pulled a cell phone from his pocket. “Not one bit.”

Fantastic. Even if we managed to get away with Hoot, this dealership would know which car he had bought. “Look, I can’t pay you now, but…”

“Too bad for you,” the salesman said. “Hey, I found what you’re looking f—”

There was a loud bang. I could have assumed it was a car backfiring, but that was unlikely. It was followed by several other loud bangs.

Hoot then rounded the corner of the dealership with blood splattered on his shirt and face. “How’re you two?” he asked us.

“Our new friend here was just making a call on a hundred-million-dollar ransom,” I said.

All three sets of eyes narrowed on the salesman.

“That so?” Hoot replied icily, tapping his gun against his thigh.

The salesman dropped his phone. It bounced and cracked on the ground. “Nothing. I wasn’t doing anything. I swear!”

“You were giving us up to William Masterson Sr.,” McKenzie accused him.

The man looked confused. “Who?”

“The guy paying the ransom. Don’t play dumb,” I growled.

“No… it’s just… no. The guy… he didn’t say his name was Masterson. He didn’t even say he was working for Masterson,” the man said.

Hoot stepped up to the salesman and put his gun under his chin. “Who, then?”

People had finally started to notice us. Dealer employees were eyeing us with greed while customers stared at us in fear. Phones were out everywhere, recording, calling. At least twenty people had seen us now.

“Uh… Hoot…” I began.

He ignored me and ground the muzzle of the gun harder into the underside of the salesman’s chin. “Who?”

“I-Ibrahim. Ibrahim Abadi,” the man squeaked.

Hoot frowned. “Who in tarnation is that?”

“He works for the sheik,” I remembered from my grandfather’s files.

“The sheik?” Hoot’s lips pressed together in a thin line. “Them there gentlemen were working for Masterson. Were.”

“Are-are they dead?” McKenzie asked.

“Reckon so. They shouldn’t have been followin’ us in the first place. That’s what you get for threatenin’ us,” Hoot said. He looked at her. “You’re gonna need to get more comfortable with shootin’ and killin’. It’s only gonna get worse from here.”

She paled briefly then squared her shoulders and nodded.

“What do we do from here?” I asked.

Hoot took his gun away from the salesman’s chin. “We leave.” He looked around at our audience. “Fast as we can.” He held out his hand to the salesman. “Keys.”

“To what?” he asked.

“Any keys,” Hoot demanded.

The salesman dug in his pocket and three sets of keys fell out.

“That’ll do.” Hoot snatched up a fob and herded us out of the dealership. He fired a shot at the ceiling. “Anyone follows us, they gonna meet their maker today.”

No one followed us.

Hoot held the fob up in the air and pressed the lock button.

A brilliant blue Mustang flickered its lights at us.

“Get in the car,” he said.

He didn’t need to tell us twice. I rocked the passenger seat forward so McKenzie and I could get in the back of the two-door Mustang. I didn’t have a lot of leg room once the passenger seat rocked back, but I wasn’t about to complain to Hoot. Not while he was in this mood.

“We’re sorry we didn’t keep our heads down,” McKenzie apologized as we tore out of the dealership.

“Nah. It’s my fault. Shoulda found a different way to change cars. We’re gonna have to do it again soon. You bet your ass this car’s being reported to your Ibra-whoever or the police or both. We’ve gotta make a real run for it now,” Hoot sighed. “They woulda caught you in the Suburban whether you were down or not. They recognized the truck. You were sucking face anyway. It’s not like they would be able to see what you look like.”

I felt heat creep up my neck. “We were—”

He waved a hand. “We got bigger problems now. I want you to tell me everything you know about this sheik and Ibra-whose-it.”