STEPBROTHER ROMANCE BOX SET: Romance Stories For My Hot Stepbrother, My Younger Stepbrother Soldier & Dr. Stepbrother (Romance, Alphas Bad Boy Soldier ... Forbidden Short Stories, Military Romance) by Andrea Niles, Trudy Valdez Page B

shifts.
    The kiss broke, and Darren pulled back enough to look into her eyes.
    "I don't know how I get this far into the day without touching you," he said, voice coming out a little breathless. "Every time I look up and see you I want to drag you down here and ravish you."
    Andrea laughed softly, eyebrows lifting up toward her hairline.
    "Ravish? This isn't a Harlequin romance."
    He kissed her just to shut her up, as she knew he would. This kiss was longer, slower, stretching out between them until she wished that she didn't have another six hours left on her shift, because what she really wanted to do was pull him over to the empty bed and take things a whole lot farther. She wasn't stupid enough to do it.
    When they broke off again, they were both panting. He dipped his head to brush kisses up her neck while she tipped her head back against the wall and curled a hand around his shoulder for something to hold onto.
    "It's not that long," he said against her skin, as though he could read her thoughts. He sounded like he was trying to convince himself as much as he was her. "A few more hours."
    A few more hours could be very long, Andrea wanted to argue. But he knew that. She didn't point it out.
    His hand was sliding reluctantly downward, out of her shirt, and Andrea let her own fingers etch a line down his back, nails scratching lightly through his clothing and making him groan low and hot against the place where her shoulder met her neck. He was half-hard. She smiled over his head.
    "Are you sure you're going to make it?" she teased.
    The laughter that bubbled up against her skin sounded a little rueful.
    "Not entirely," he said.
    He lifted his head and looked down at her, and his mouth curled into a smile, a grin with an utterly wicked edge. Andrea's breath caught in her throat. "Are you sure you will?" he asked.
    She nodded, though she wasn't any surer than he was. Six hours. That wasn't so long in medical professional time. A fraction of a shift. But her nipples were hard against her bra, and between her thighs she ached for him.
    "Yes," she said, despite that, because she had to; because it was what he wanted to hear.
    "Yes," he agreed, leaning down to kiss her once, briefly. “You will.”
    His mouth dragged up along the line of her jaw.
    "You will," he breathed against her ear, making her shudder with the heat of his breath. "Because I say you will."
    Andrea swallowed hard. Darren pulled back. His grin had disappeared, hidden once more behind a facade of professional calm, but she could still see the glint of it in his eyes.
    "Tonight," he said. "I'll make it up to you."
    And then he was gone, sliding out the door and leaving her alone in the room to wait for her heart to stop pounding, for her breath to come a little slower. She ran a hand over her hair to make sure it wasn't disheveled, tugged the hem of her shirt back into place.
    When he had been gone for five minutes, she stepped out into the hall to go attend to her own duties. The slide of her thighs against each other, the pressure of the movement on her clit, was a delicious torment, and she allowed herself to indulge in it for a moment before she forced her attention back to work. Duty called.

Chapter 3 –Anticipation
     
     
    The end of her shift came slowly. Time was a relative thing, and even with the nonstop running that her job demanded, it didn’t move with the speed she would have wished. She pushed away thoughts of what would come later, when they were at last alone in the luxurious privacy of Darren’s apartment. A nurse couldn't afford to be distracted.
    At long last, it was over. Andrea clocked out and went to her locker to change into her day clothes, gathering up her things and stepping out into the humid warmth of a San Diego night. They hadn't ended up too far from home, either of them. Andrea had always liked California, though she preferred the warmer summers and more temperate winters of the southern cities to the foggy chill of their