Christmas Four Years Earlier
Poking his head through the door into the kitchen, Ethan Warren shook his head at his older brother. “Come on, Cade. Get in here,” he grumbled. “You’ve had enough turkey and cheesecake for now. The rest of us want to open presents already. And Momma Jane wants all of us in here together for that. It’s Christmas after all. You can always go back in there later for more food.”
“Oh, don’t give him too hard a time. Emma’s taking as long as he is,” Cade heard his stepmom call from the living room as he turned to make his way to the door out to the living room. “Something about not wanting her picture taken for Christmas in her pajamas. That’s not something she’s ever worried about before, mind you. I guess it’s because she’s getting older. My baby’s not much of a baby anymore.”
Finally, walking out of the kitchen, still cramming a last piece of turkey in his mouth, Cade Warren grinned at his brother. “If I don’t get all I want now, you’re likely to go back in there and eat everything up before I get a chance to get anymore. You eat a whole lot more than I do.”
“What can I say?” Ethan smirked. “I’m a growing boy.”
“You’re twenty-two, and six-foot five. How much more do you need to grow?”
“At least until I’m a half a foot taller than you.”
“You do not need to be six nine,” Cade frowned. “I think you’re more than enough taller than me already.”
“Honestly, you’re probably both still growing,” Jane, their father’s wife for the last year, and their stepmom, added in. “In a way.”
“He’s already a couple inches taller than me,” Cade grouched. “He doesn’t need to get any taller.”
“Well, I was actually referring to muscle mass. Not height,” Jane shrugged. “You’re both probably as tall as you’re going to get. Or at least mostly.”
“Aw shucks,” Ethan grumbled, immediately breaking out with a wide grin.
“However, I don’t figure either one of you, judging by how you constantly eat us out of house and home, are completely filled out yet.”
“Well, they do work hard every day,” Ezekiel, their father, jumped in. “A man builds up an appetite that way.”
“Yes,” she nodded. “That does account for some of it. But they eat two or three times more than you do. Easily. Sometimes four or five. And neither one of them has a spare ounce of fat on them.”
“Oh great,” Cade frowned. “You think he’s going to get broader and more muscular than me as well. Not just taller.”
“Oh, I don’t think you have anything to worry about, Cade,” Emma whispered, a delicate, pink stain appearing high on her cheeks. She’d obviously just come down the hall, and caught the tail-end of the conversation. She stood there, staring up at him with adoration in her eyes, doing her best not to let her nerves show. “You have lots of muscle already. From what I can see.”
“Well, thank you, Emma,” he winked playfully, stepping over to hug her tightly enough, he actually picked her up off the floor. “Thanks for being on my side.”
“Hey, you two are under the mistletoe,” Ezekiel chuckled, pointing at the branch above their heads that Jane had hung in the hall doorway. “You’d better give her a kiss.”
“She’s my stepsister,” Cade grumbled, looking down at the heated cheeks and enormous blue eyes of the girl in his arms. “I don’t think I should.”
“For one, she’s your stepsister,” his father pressed. “You’re not biologically related. Not to mention, you were both adults before you even met. Well, Emma was seventeen. As much as an adult. And no one said you had to give her a five-minute kiss, with tongue involved.”
“Oh gee, Dad, why did you have to get so… blunt?” Cade groaned, sending Ethan off into gales of laughter.
“You sound like a thirteen-year-old girl,” his younger brother guffawed.
“Just give her a peck on the lips. It’s no big deal, really.”
“I still don’t know.”
“Come on, it’s tradition,” Momma Jane encouraged. “Like he said, it’s no big deal. Besides, no one outside these four walls has to know anything about it.”
“Okay, just a small peck. That I can do,” he agreed with a small nod.
Leaning in, at first, with the intentions of giving her just a quick, platonic kiss, nothing more, it was all he could do not to try and devour the girl. Standing right there. With all the others watching. The second their mouths met, it was like their lips got glued together, and his blood started to heat. It took everything within him to pull his mouth away from hers, rather than push his tongue between her slightly parted lips. Now he truly understood his reluctance to participate in this tradition. At least at this moment. And it had nothing to do with her being his stepsister.
Unsure how many seconds, or possibly minutes, had passed when he finally managed to sit her back down, he looked at his father to find him eyeing him with one raised eyebrow. He wasn’t surprised. His only surprise was in finding his stepmom hadn’t realized what was going on. Or what he was feeling. At least it didn’t seem like she had by the way she was smiling. Despite how certain he was, by the time the kiss was over, it had been rather obvious what he really wanted to do.
Turning without saying a word, he moved over and sat down on the couch beside his brother. Staring into the twinkling, colored lights of the Christmas tree, he worked very hard not to look in Emma’s direction. He was so far lost in his own head, he barely noticed when his stepmom handed him his first gift.
He’d just discovered something very important about himself. He had the hots for his stepsister. Really had the hots for her. Like nothing he’d ever felt before in his life. He was certain, in that exact moment, he was a complete goner, and no other woman would ever do for him. Ever!