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  CAGE

  A Stepbrother MMA Romance

  Copyright 2015 Sarah Sparrows

  Copyright Sarah Sparrows 2015

  Cover design by Ashwood Publishing

  Represented by Ashwood Publishing

  This book is a work of fiction. All the characters in this book are fictitious and any similarity to any person, living or dead, is purely coincidence.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

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  CAGE

  Sawyer Samuels – the bane of my fucking existence.

  No matter how I looked at my relationship to him, three inexcusable facts absolutely decimated me at every turn: a) Sawyer relished in his unflappably strong streak of arrogant prick when it came to me, b) he was the hottest fucking guy I’d ever met in my life, and c) for a few confusing, angry years, we shared a goddamn house together.

  You see, in their rampant cruelty, the Fates saw fit to make Sawyer Samuels my fucking stepbrother.

  With filthy good looks, a strong and handsome build, and an incredible smirk, Sawyer was an absolute force to be reckoned with. No matter how hard life hit him, he always came back swinging – and when he disappeared on me and descended into the brutal world of cage fighting, that metaphor turned literal real quick.

  My relationship with him had always been complicated. Very complicated. From the day I met him, he was a complete jackass to me, just shy of belittling me at every last fucking turn. I never knew what his problem with me was, but he seemed to get his rocks off on antagonizing me in these small, subtle mind games. I hated it. I hated him.

  Except…neither of those were true.

  I enjoyed it. It was like we were playing this constant game with one another. I was always on the defensive, and he was always on the attack, but something about the game just kept me playing.

  It was true that he was a complete asshole to me. I couldn’t stand how fucking cocky he was, with his attractive build that I saw way too often when he’d wander around the house shirtless. Then there was that stupid little smirk he had used on me all the time – the Panty-Dropper, his friends called it. It was his secret weapon – parting the legs of just about any girl he wanted. After years of endless sexual conquests and a raging need to constantly piss me off, Sawyer was so confidant, so self-assured…and he had never turned down an opportunity to pick at me.

  But I…I loved it.

  It was stupid and I knew it. I don’t know why I let him get away with it – it’s not like I couldn’t stand my ground against him. But for some reason… I reveled in his antagonistic attention. I didn’t let him walk all over me by any means, and I’d challenge him if he got out of line, but something about the weird, stupid stepsibling tension between us enticed me.

  Was that why? I dwelled on the thought, thinking back to when I was sixteen years old. Did I just want his attention?

  I was a good girl. Good girls don’t crush on their brothers…

  … Sawyer had been handsome before.

  Now, he was stupidly attractive.

  I wasn’t sure how I could much I could bear a summer alone with the cocky, sculpted jackass now. It had been easy to let the past be the past and just forget the whole mess, but then he had to come back and make life a living hell again. Now, I was going to have to figure my feelings out while trapped with the guy. And there was no way I was going to let him have that kind of power over me, not after he’d betrayed me before.

  But that didn’t resolve the looming crisis. With a couple of months living together alone, in close quarters, there were really only two options immediately visible; I really had no idea which one would be more appealing.

  Either I’d want to kill my stepbrother, or…

  I’d want him to fuck me...

  (Return to Table of Contents)

  Chapter 1 – Saffron

  Pennsylvania, Seven Years Ago

  The day that I met the arrogant prick named Sawyer Samuels, I was fresh from a year of studying abroad in England. Thanks to winning an essay competition, I’d been selected to spend a year outside the States, studying at a prestigious English academy – coming back home with a ton of stories to make high school a little more bearable. After a mad dash to the airport and most of the day up in the air, my tired body was sluggish with jet lag.

  Perhaps that’s why I took the news that I had a new father – and a new stepbrother – not particularly well.

  But I’m getting a little ahead of myself there.

  I knew that my mother was dating – that she had met a really great guy who she was hitting things off with really well. God bless my mom, she was terrible at keeping up with people. It was as if she were completely averse to technology. I could understand why she didn’t want to pay for those pricey international texts, but she would barely respond to emails, phone calls, practically anything I threw at her. The few letters I wrote her were never answered, although she’d confirm she loved them the few times I caught her.

  After spending so much time abroad, I was eager to find out about this new guy she’d alluded to – my mother had mentioned that he was a real charmer. She even happily confessed that he made her feel young again.

  That was enough for me to like the guy.

  Ever since my father walked out on us when I was young, it was just the two of us, and I knew that she needed that back in her life. That stone. That foundation. My mother was a strong woman, don’t get me wrong, and her endless cheerfulness could illuminate the darkest room. But too often had I found her curled up on the couch, asleep, a half-filled glass of wine on the coffee table and a late movie marathon quietly lighting the room – with the captions on, so she wouldn’t wake me. I would always find a blanket for her and drape it across her tired, saddened body, hoping that she got her rest before the next monotonous shift at the Waffle House.

  Mom hadn’t told me much about this strange suitor, but what she had told me had interested me.

  A little salt and pepper in his hair. He looks very distinguished, and he has this incredible smile, she wrote once. Chet is this big business guy, I guess. I pretend to listen when he tells me about it sometimes. When he talks, I just like to hear his thick, rugged voice. I can’t wait for you to hear it.

  I’d been worried when I hadn’t heard from her for a month and a half, prior to my return, but those fears fell to the wayside when she snatched me up from the airport herself. My mother was positively beaming. I’d never seen her so happy in my life, and I knew that my return wasn’t the only reason.

  Things must have been going fantastic with Chet.

  But I didn’t get to really ask about that. The entire drive back, she wanted to know all about Bristol. As soon as I opened
my mouth the words just fell out of me. I delighted her with first-hand accounts of the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta, and how the sky filled with large, colorful hot air balloons. I proudly elaborated on the maritime history of the city, including the important, early New World voyages that had sailed from the Bristol port. She had no idea that Bristol had been a major trade hub for nearly a thousand years. My tale continued on with the rich architecture; I elaborated on the beauty of the traditional European houses and the gorgeous and imposing government buildings; I even explained the beauty of the Bristol Cathedral, and its gothic, pale-brick twin towers.

  Funnily enough, Bristol hadn’t been my first choice – that had been my beloved dream destination, Paris. Heartbreakingly, Paris wasn’t in the cards, so I settled for the historic port city…although I was determined to make my way there as soon as I could.

  In hindsight, I should have suspected why she was keeping me so talkative. At the time, it didn’t really occur to me – in fact, nothing seemed really out of place until I pointed out our exit as we shot past it.

  “Mom, we passed our turn. Did I excite you so much about Bristol that you forgot where we live?”

  “I have something to show you, dearie,” she told me with a wink.

  I bit my lip. She hadn’t called me dearie in years, and I wondered what had made her so happy that she slipped into the old habit.

  It occurred to me that she wanted me to meet her boyfriend – and I was far too tired and jet-lagged to put up with that for too long. But I couldn’t bring myself to cut her off, or to grumble at her, and so I sat with my temple against the glass.

  Half an hour later, we were driving down a district of filthy expensive houses. The setting sun had cast a beautiful painterly backdrop behind the exquisite homes, its light bathing everything within sight under a gorgeous glow. The entire scene was unreal. Studying the two, sometimes three-story houses against the blend of oranges overtaking the sky, I noticed small details that made the entire place reek of money we would never have. Many of the homes featured thick Greco-Roman pillars, accenting the exquisite painted woodwork of the houses; they also structurally supported the sprawling, second-floor stretch balconies. Large, healthy trees with outstretched branches dominated near the street, shading the asphalt and preventing the borderline blinding light from being too obnoxious.

  The most beautiful house on the street was set back from the road, as several of them were. This house in particular was perched atop a hill, overlooking the dominion of wealthy homes below.

  As my eyes bugged out, it was this house that my mother drove towards, punching out at the small electronic panel set into a stone wall near the gated entrance.

  “Mom…is this where your guy lives?”

  “Chet? Oh, didn’t I tell you? He’s a little…wealthy.”

  “Jesus, Mom! A little wealthy? Look at this place!”

  “I know! Isn’t it great?” She pulled through the tall, black iron gate, and I peered through the rear-view mirror as it closed behind us. “Just wait until you see the inside. It’s even better.”

  “I…did you know?”

  “Oh, Heavens no,” Mom chuckled airily. “The sly feller only showed me this place a few weeks ago. He rented this middle-class place for months. It was still really nice, much nicer than what we have, but he kept this place a total surprise to me. He wanted to make sure I wasn’t dating him for the money. I didn’t have a clue that Chet was loaded!”

  My jaw remained dropped as we passed between the short, stubby trees that lined the driveway. Scattered along the hill, they coated the entire area in a layer of mystery. As we pulled ever forward, I couldn’t feel my fatigue anymore – it had been cleanly and utterly replaced with wonder.

  If there was something to make me glad about leaving Bristol and coming back to Pennsylvania, it was this freaking house.

  A tall, lanky teenager was loitering at the front door when we pulled up. Standing on the landing with his back against a pillar, a cigarette stuffed between his lips, he wasn’t even gazing at us when we pulled up. I could see his thick, sandy hair through my window. It stood in a barely-managed puff. He looked like my type of guy – aloof, a little edgy, just the right balance between handsome and I don’t give a fuck.

  Right as I was thinking this, he turned and gazed right at me. He looked into my eyes for a moment, taking one last puff of his cigarette before putting it out in the mounted ashtray nearby. In that instant, he passed out of view as we parked in the carport, next to a pricey-looking sports car.

  “A little young for your tastes, I’d say.”

  “Oh hush, you,” Mom cheerily told me. “I’m afraid that I might have forgotten to mention Sawyer. Place nice with him, okay? He’s nicer than he looks, I promise…”

  She’d been wrong about people before. I hoped that she wasn’t off the mark with this guy, either.

  And that went double for the guy’s father.

  We let ourselves out of the car, and Mom clicked down the carport door as we cleared the roof. While it tucked our underwhelming vehicle out of view, I glanced up at Sawyer. He was sizing me up, a glum look on his face.

  “Thought you told me she was pretty,” he told my mother as we met him at the top of the steps.

  “Oh, behave,” she chided him. “You said you were going to be on your best behavior. Where’s your father?”

  “He’s inside. Real keen on meeting you,” he turned to address me, flashing a coy little smirk.

  If not for his previous line, I would have been flattered. Now that we were right on top of him, I could see that he dressed in baggy clothes that hid his build. He wasn’t lanky at all – in fact, I could sense that he had the foundation for an incredible body beneath those clothes. When he wasn’t slumping, his shoulders were broad, powerful – and when I made the logical mental deductions to his sagging clothing, I realized that with minimal effort he could probably have an awesome body.

  “I’m sure he is! It’s about time he met my daughter,” she continued as she started walking to the front door.

  “Riiiiight. I’m sure this is going to be a blast,” he muttered under his breath, turning away from me.

  I almost opened my mouth to demand what he meant by that, but Mom was already crossing the landing up to the door, and I wanted to keep close to her for now. Swallowing my words, I scampered off after her – but out of the corner of my eye, it seemed as if Sawyer were looking at me.

  Checking me out?

  I didn’t have time to think about this, because the door opened for us. Inside was a man who looked almost exactly like a much older, more distinguished Sawyer – but a Sawyer who had taken serious care of himself. With a broad, powerful build, Mom’s boyfriend bore the telltale lines of frequent smiling across his strong, chiseled face.

  “Welcome, welcome!” He positively boomed in a firm baritone. “Come inside, let’s get a look at you…”

  He passed aside, holding the door wide open, and we stepped into the rich, exquisite house.

  Mom was right. It seriously was better on the inside. But I didn’t have a lot of time to dwell on the pristine, way too expensive interior.

  “I’d you to introduce you to Chet…” my mother warmly told me.

  I happily reached out to shake his hand, but he pulled me into a strong hug instead. Surprised, I was taken aback by the strength of his arms as he embraced me. He was as handsome as she had told me in her few email responses – although way too old to be anything more than “Mom’s boyfriend”, and he wore a strong whiff of what smelled like expensive cologne.

  But Mom hadn’t finished her sentence, apparently. “…Your new father.”

  Pennsylvania, Present Day

  ”I don’t get why you’re doing this!” I complained bitterly, scraping my worn sandals off my heels with the toes of the opposite foot. “It’s not like I’m a teenager anymore…I’ve been an adult for years. I can take care of myself, you know!” The sandals clattered against the tile a
s I leaned forward, my elbows on the counter with my feet dangling against my barstool.

  “Perhaps it’s time you started acting like one, then.” My mother’s eyes were mischievous as always, but her lips were drawn down in a grimace. The contrast threw me off as she quickly appraised me in a glance. “You’re always out doing Heavens knows what with boys, coming in late at night…besides, it’s our wedding anniversary! I’d hoped you would have been happy for us.”

  She knew damned well I only ever went out to the club with my girlfriends, but I knew better than to try and argue the point. It never went well. “Mom, you know how badly I want to go to Paris! I’ve always wanted to eat–”

  “Yes, yes, how did it go? Eating French cheese, sipping French wine, lounging in the rolling grass of Southern France…did I get it right?”