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  Fighter

  A Stepbrother Romance

  Kristianna Sawyer

  Amourisa Press

  Amourisa Press and Kit Tunstall, writing as Kristianna Sawyer, reserve all rights to FIGHTER. This work may not be shared or reproduced in any fashion without permission of the publisher and/or author. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  © Kristianna Sawyer, 2015 (Previously published under a different pen name and title.)

  Cover image: Depositphoto

  Cover design by Amourisa Designs

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  Blurb

  I’m a fighter.

  I fought to survive on the streets after running away at seventeen. I did what I had to, and I make no apologies for it.

  I fought and clawed my way up from illegal street fighting to a UFC contender.

  I fought my fear and came back to this wretched place, where my stepfather made me so miserable eleven years ago.

  I could fight how much I want my stepsister, who’s suddenly all grown up.

  I could fight to keep my secrets hidden.

  I could fight.

  If I wanted to…

  Couldn’t I?

  1

  Paxton

  Acid churned in my gut, making my solar plexus feel like I’d taken a punch that hadn’t been properly guarded as I walked up the pretentious driveway of the sprawling estate that was my stepfather’s home. I would give anything to turn around and go back to my 1969 GTO, restored by my own hands, but I couldn’t just leave my mother there alone to die.

  Even with the heavy thoughts weighing me down, I couldn’t help noticing with appreciation the kneeling form of the girl tending the flower beds. Apparently, Dirk Gaithway had engaged a more beautiful garden service than I remembered him having eleven years ago.

  The hot little honey-blonde in front of me was crouched over, short shorts barely grazing the crease where ass met thigh, and wearing a cropped shirt that had flipped up in the back to show a tempting expanse of golden-brown flesh. In seconds, I was harder than I had been for a long time, and it was gratifying to know that at least something still worked on the suffocating grounds of the Gaithway estate. After the past I’d left behind here, it amazed me I could get even the tiniest of erections, let alone a raging hard-on for some girl whose face I hadn’t even seen yet.

  Pausing beside her, I loomed just a bit over her, flashing my sexiest grin as her head lifted. I took off my aviator shades and tucked them into the neckline of my tank top and winked at her, certain she was swooning by now at my chocolate-brown gaze. Yeah, I could be a conceited motherfucker, but having a following of groupies could do that to any man. It swelled a head—the one above your shoulders and below your belt. “Hey there, beautiful.”

  She stood up slowly, revealing a tight, but curvaceous, figure in that skimpy outfit. Honey-blonde hair fell down past her waist from a ponytail she’d used to confine it, and when she ran a hand through her hair to shove it off her sweaty face, she left behind a streak of dirt. I guess it should have turned me off, but it was damned adorable. Without thought or permission, I reached up to wipe it away with my thumb before dusting the digit on my tight faded jeans.

  A tentative smile broke out, and suddenly she was in my arms. I embraced her automatically, thinking to myself that the girl moved fast. I half-expected her to rub up against me in an enticing fashion, and it wouldn’t be the first chick who had tried to dry hump me as I squeezed out through a crowd, though these circumstances were different. The last thing I expected was her dulcet tones that rang with familiarity and doused my arousal like an ice water bath for my cock.

  “Paxton, I’m so glad you’re home.”

  I recognized that voice. It was the same one that had frantically reached out to me three days before, after she had worked her way through an entire entourage of my underlings, the people who guarded my privacy and shielded me from the crazy fans. Somehow, she had persuaded them to put her through to each person in the chain, and it wasn’t hard to imagine why if she was as sweet-sounding as she looked.

  Hell, I had spoken to her briefly, only long enough to believe her and promise to come, and I’d been charmed by her sweetness in that brief amount of time. It was startling to realize the little girl who’d been ten years old the last time I saw her was now a gorgeous young woman, standing in my arms.

  Fuck.

  She had made my dick hard enough to pound nails.

  I wanted to fuck my stepsister.

  Fuck, was I in trouble.

  She led me into the house, acting as though I hadn’t been gone for eleven years. Other than a brief moment of impatience with me on the phone the other night, when she had assured me testily that she was in fact Mia Gaithway, and I was her long-lost stepbrother, she had been nothing but charming and welcoming.

  Even when she had broken the news that my mother was dying, with not much time left at all, and wanted to see me, she had been sweet and sympathetic. I couldn’t help contrasting in my mind how that sweet voice would sound as she uttered the dirtiest shit imaginable. Dammit, my cock was waking up again.

  Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your point of view—and mine was unfortunately, because I loathed the man—Dirk Gaithway stepped out of his study as we headed up to the second floor, where I planned to stow my bag in the room that used to be mine before going to sit with my mother.

  He drew to a halt, a fierce frown on his face. It pleased me to see eleven years had softened him somewhat, adding wrinkles and at least a good twenty extra pounds. He no longer seemed so large and intimidating, and he wasn’t the behemoth my memory had made him out to be.

  Or maybe it was just because I was so much bigger now than I had been then. I’d taken up working out in a big way, especially after being discovered by Lila to fight in the underground circuits. I couldn’t be a fighter if I didn’t have the body or the stamina for it. Considering what I’d been doing before that, illegal street fighting was a like winning a goddamn lottery, and I had done everything necessary to make it work and excel.

  I kept my expression neutral as I looked at him dismissively. I didn’t bother to speak to Dirk, though he looked like he might have wanted to say something, but his mouth closed with an audible click as I turned away from him and went up the stairs.

  It might have been eleven years, but I still remembered how to find my old room, and to my surprise, it hadn’t been turned in to anything else. Oh, someone had remodeled it into a bland, nondescript guestroom, but it wasn’t a game room or perhaps a torture den to meet Dirk’s sadistic needs. Of course, he’d never been overt about his dark side around his daughter and my mother.

  “I hope this will do for you, Paxton. I’m sorry all your old things are gone.”

  I turned to her with a charming grin, determined to ignore the mewling little wuss inside me that wanted to curl into a ball after having faced Dirk Gaithway, though we hadn’t exchanged a single word. Hooking a thumb in my belt loop, which I knew dragged my jeans down a good two inches, I was gratified to see her gaze slip to my navel and drift lower.

  I wondered what she’d do if I dropped trou and whipped it out for her. I’d known a lot of skanky girls over the years, and some of the groupies had made my former clients seem like well-bred ladies, but I couldn’t imagine her reacting the same way as them. Most of those girls would drop to their knees and beg for the gift of my cock in their mouth, but I had a feeling she would probably knee me in the ball
s instead.

  With a blink, I forced my attention back to the topic at hand. “Dang. You mean my Bourbon Crow and Devourment posters are all gone? What about the Divinity Destroyed CDs? Please tell me you at least kept my Symphony In Peril signed T-shirt? They disbanded the year after I got that.” I grinned at her. I couldn’t care less about shit that was gone that I hadn’t seen or needed in eleven years. However, I cared a great deal about seeing my mom, and that thought instantly changed my mood from flirtatious to somber.

  As though she’d read my mind, she stepped up beside me, threading her arm through mine casually, as though we were actually siblings who were close, rather than stepsiblings who hadn’t seen each other in eleven years. “Come on, I’ll take you to your mom.”

  She led me down the hall, past the master bedroom, to my surprise. I darted a glance at the door and sent her a questioning look.

  Her face looked a little tight, and she seemed embarrassed. “My dad decided Laura would be more comfortable in a room of her own.”

  “And the selfish fucker made her move out of the master bedroom instead of moving his ass down the hall?”

  Mia’s arm dropped out of mine, and she withdrew slightly, looking defensive. “You don’t have to be so mean.”

  I snorted. “Honey, I’m not the one who’s the mean fucker kicking an invalid out of her room.” Or terrorizing a thirteen-year-old boy for four years before I’d had enough and ran away from this hellhole, but I didn’t add that. It was none of her business, and I certainly had no intention of sharing the ugly past.

  A moment later, she tapped on the door a few rooms away from Dirk’s, and then stepped back to allow me to pass. I entered slowly, hesitating. I wanted to see my mother, but I was also afraid. I was afraid of her reaction, and of the pain I was no doubt going to see on her face. I had disappeared eleven years ago and hadn’t bothered to get in touch with her even one time.

  She didn’t understand, and she would never know why, if I could shield her from the truth. As far as I knew, she still thought Dirk Gaithway was the best fucking thing that had ever happened to us. Of course, a lot could change in eleven years, and maybe, just maybe, he’d done something to open her eyes. Knowing I couldn’t stand there all day, and I’d come seventeen hundred miles to be here, and she didn’t have a whole lot of time left, I summoned the same kind of courage it took to step into the octagon and approached her.

  Damn, she looked awful. She’d once had the same chestnut-brown hair as me, lush and full, but now only a few strands clung tenaciously to her balding head. What was left had gone straw-yellow mixed with gray. Her skin was sallow, with large purplish-black smudges under her eyes. Her lips had cracked to the point of bleeding, and I turned to glare at my stepsister. “Who’s taking care of her? They’re slacking off.”

  Again, she looked defensive. “I’ve been taking care of Laura a lot, and she has nurses.”

  “Why the fuck are her lips like that? How many people work with her, and how many of you are just overlooking her problem because it’s not yours?”

  Her blue eyes snapped with fire, and I could see the defensiveness fading to anger. “You’re such an arrogant asshole. You haven’t been here for eleven years, and you wouldn’t be here now if I hadn’t moved the fucking world to track you down, and then the first thing you do is criticize how well I’m taking care of Laura? It should be your job.” She poked me in the chest.

  “Yours and my dad’s, but neither one of you were here for her, so I’m doing my best.” Her voice softened, and her shoulders slumped. “The cracks are from the chemo, just like the ulcers inside her mouth. They don’t heal. If you had bothered to listen to anything I told you, or looked up even a cursory amount of information about treatment for breast cancer, you might have known that.”

  Before she could poke me again, I grabbed her hand in mine, cradling it gently as I folded our hands together. “I’m sorry. You’re right, Mia. It was just startling to see her like this, and I’m sorry I overreacted and jumped on you.” There’d been a heavy dose of guilt in my reaction, and I’d unleashed on her without thinking. To my relief, she squeezed my hand in a reassuring fashion before taking hers away gently.

  Forcing myself to man up, I turned away from her, and the false sense of comfort her touch provided, to face my dying mother. She appeared to be sleeping, but as I sat in the chair beside her bed and lifted her hand, her eyes opened slowly. Her expression was confused, and her eyes appeared unfocused for a long moment as they looked in my direction.

  Slowly, as I watched, I thought I saw recognition, and a moment later, her hand clutched mine. I brought it to my mouth and pressed a kiss to the dry knuckles, covered by paper-thin white skin. When I’d run away, my mother had been the picture of health and vitality. I couldn’t reconcile the memory of what she’s been with what she was for a long moment.

  My eyes burned with unshed tears, and I forced them back. I didn’t want her to see me cry, because I was here to be strong for her, not to have her comfort me in her current state.

  For all I knew, she might not want to comfort for me at all. It could be Mom might want to slug me in the face and tell me to never come back. Somehow, I didn’t think so from the soft expression she wore and the single tear trailing down her face. “Hey, Mom.” I was an eloquent bastard when I wanted to be.

  Her lips trembled softly, and her hands shook as she squeezed mine. “My baby boy.” She turned her head slightly, clearly looking at Mia standing over my shoulder. With a small smile, she said, “Thank you so much for finding him, honey.”

  Mia cleared her throat before she muttered a soft sound of acknowledgment. Her hand at the back of my neck made me shiver slightly when she brushed against it softly. I looked up at her, a question in my eyes that she answered without me asking.

  “I’m going to give you guys some privacy, but if you need me, my room is still in the same old place.”

  I nodded and watched her leave for a moment, remembering her room was next to mine. I’d never had any reason to seek her out there before, back when I lived at home. We’d been seven years apart and not particularly close, and she sure couldn’t have shielded me from the horror of Dirk Gaithway. Maybe I had shielded her instead, though he was always a doting father around the sweet little princess. I guessed I was glad for that, because I hated the idea of her being hurt or twisted by that sadistic fucker.

  Forcing away thoughts of Dirk Gaithway, I turned back to my mom and basked in the moment, knowing there wouldn’t be many more like it. As I held her hand and talked to her gently, the rage and resentment I felt for Dirk swelled to an all-new high, and I had the urge to beat him to a bloodied pulp. I’d just have to settle for the punching bag at the gym later.

  2

  Mia

  Wow, he certainly had changed. I still remembered the somewhat-scrawny thirteen-year-old boy he’d been that I had met shortly before our parents got married. I’d thought he was a fun older brother, but he’d pretty much regarded me as a pest. Shortly after he’d moved in, he stopped putting up with me in a nice way and just turned into a solemn brat. My dad had told me it was just hormones, and that I should steer clear of my stepbrother until he’d learned some manners.

  That had been our relationship, and it had set the tone. Honestly, when he ran away, I had barely noticed. I’d been ten years old, spoiled and self-absorbed, and it had taken me a while to realize my stepmother was heartbroken her son had left without a word or explanation. Somehow, it had brought us closer together though, and she had started to feel just like my mom.

  Actually, better than my mom, because my mom lived in Albuquerque in an artists’ commune and wanted nothing to do with me. Motherhood stifled her creativity, or some shit like that.

  When Laura had asked me a couple of weeks ago to see if I could find Paxton, I had applied myself diligently to the search. A private detective had provided some leads for me, at least enough for me to learn UFC fighter Paxton LeChance had started life as P
axton Marsh. Then had begun the interminable process of actually trying to get a message to him or speak to him directly. He had a lot of people between him and me, but I had persisted, driven by Laura’s need to see her son again before she died.

  Now he was here, and I should have been flush with excitement that I had fulfilled my mission and granted her dying wish. I was happy to see him, but I hadn’t expected just how happy I would be. Sure, I’d realize how hot he had become over the years, and when you looked at his fight poster from his recent round, posted on his website and the UFC match site, it was enough to make any girl’s panties damp.

  Still, I had hoped it was just a reaction to the staging of the photo shot, rather than the man himself. I guess I’d somehow hoped he would have lost forty pounds of muscle, shrank six inches, and maybe turned kind of bald in the three days since I had talked to him and his arrival here at the estate. No such luck, and I was overwhelmingly attracted to my brother.

  No, my stepbrother. Hell, he was barely that. We hadn’t seen each other in eleven years, and we’d never been anything closer than friends, at best, when he’d still lived at home. I had no idea why he’d run away or stayed gone for eleven years, though my dad said he’d been involved in drugs.

  I guess it was possible, especially considering he was a professional fighter. Steroids or something had probably played a role in that, hadn’t they? It was enough to make me feel sad, and I knew I wanted no part of dating someone involved with drugs, so it should have made it easier to kill any physical interest in him.

  It didn’t, as I discovered as soon as I was exposed to him again a few hours later. He knocked on my door and leaned his head in, looking weary. “Hey, do you want to grab a bite to eat?”