Cannon (A Step Brother Romance #3)

The Colonel didn't even bother showing up to the academy in person to tell me, not that I'd expect him to. He called to drop that bombshell over the phone. And since I got kicked out of military academy last week – none of the Colonel's bluster and blather could get them to keep me after I screwed the General's daughter – now I've been carted to Nashville fucking Tennessee, which I think must be redneck capital of the United States, to meet my new family.

"Whatever?" The Colonel stands in front of me, his face contorted with rage. I know he wants to hit me right now, more than anything. But we're here in the entryway of his new wife's mansion, this ridiculous place that's so suburban-new-money it makes me want to vomit. So he wouldn't dare slug me, not here in the middle of everything. I'm sure she doesn't want bloodstains on her fancy tile.

"Sir, yes, sir," I say, my tone mocking. I'll rile him up and not feel a damn bit of guilt about it. Why should I? He's the one who's dragging me along for the ride, inserting me into this new family life.

A small voice cuts through the tension. "Are you Hendrix?"

I turn around to see her, walking down the marble monstrosity of a staircase that curves up to the rooms upstairs.

Addison Stone.

When my father told me who he was dating – the "dating" part was a lie, by the way, since he'd already married Addison's mother, Wendy Stone -- I didn't recognize the name. Then I did a little internet research. Addison Stone was some kind of media sensation, discovered on one of those reality singing shows two years ago.

Now she has an album and she's touring and shit. She's younger than me. Which means it's only a matter of time until the comparisons begin: "Addison has made a million dollars already; what are you going to do with your life?"

Addison is definitely hotter than she looked on the videos I watched of her online. Her long blonde hair is pulled back in a ponytail that swings as she bounces down the stairs in her jeans and bare feet with her perfect little pink pedicure. She's wearing lip gloss on her perfectly pouty pink lips. I watch her walk across the marble floor -- she practically bounces as she moves -- and then she flashes her perfect, gleaming white teeth in a perfect little smile and holds out her hand. "I'm Addison Stone," she says, her cheeks pink as she grins like an idiot.

I look at perfect little Addison in her perfect little house and I decide I fucking hate her.





PRESENT DAY


Addison's eyes pop open and she makes an expression that falls somewhere on the spectrum between surprise and horror. "What the –"

"You fainted." I don't add that she probably fainted because she looks like she could stand to get a good night's sleep and to eat a meal other than salad. I haven't seen this girl since she was seventeen, but she has to be smaller now than she was then. She feels fragile in my arms.

At least, until she starts flopping around like a fucking fish out of water.

"Why are you – " she starts, and slaps my arm, hard. "Put me down."

If it were any other time and any other person issuing the directive, I would. But because it's Addison ordering me around, I can't in good conscience listen. On principle, you know. "I don't think so."

She struggles harder, which makes me laugh. And makes her obviously angry. "You're a Neanderthal. I'm not going anywhere with you."

"You heard my father," I say. "I'm going to be your new bodyguard. Or whatever. Shit, stop squirming, or you're going to fall on your head and I'm not going to feel the least bit sorry for you when you crack your skull open on the damn ground."

"People are looking at us," she says. I'm carrying her down through the hall of whatever-the-hell building this is, and she's right. There are offices in here and someone comes to the door to gape openly at us. "I'm sure someone has called a photographer already."

"Then I guess you better get ready to smile for the cameras, sweet cheeks."

"Unless you want the story to be about how you're hooking up with your own stepsister, I suggest you put me down."

"What the hell?" Her words catch me off guard and I let go. Somehow, she manages to land with her feet underneath her, like a cat, although how she does it on those ridiculously high heels of hers boggles my damn mind. Hooking up with her? "Why would you say something stupid like that?"

I can't see her eyes. They're obscured by the hair hanging in her face as she looks away from me. The fact that I want to see her eyes, that I want to know what she's thinking, should be setting off warning bells in my brain.

Addy whirls toward me, tucking her long blonde hair behind her ear, and giving me a look. I recognize that look. That's the one she used to give me pretty much all the time when we were teenagers. She wants to throttle me.

The problem is that when she licks her lip the way she does, her tongue running over the bottom of it slowly, I swear she's doing it on purpose just to wind me up. I have to consciously think about not getting hard when I look at her.