I’m suddenly failing to see why we’re in separate rooms right now.
I’m up out of bed before I can even second guess it; walking right into the bathroom connecting our rooms with no shirt on and my cock making a tent out of my pajama pants. I think about knocking for a probably less than a second, before I just put my hand on the doorknob and burst right in.
She freaks the fuck out.
I almost laugh at the mad scramble as she screeches and yanks the blankets up around herself; “Are you INSANE?!” She hisses at me, her hair wild around her freckled, bright red face; “What the fuck are you doing in here?!”
I grin at her as I close the door behind me; “Shhh, mom and dad’ll hear.”
She wrinkles her nose at me and hugs the blankets closer; “What are you doing in here, Knox?!” She swallows heavily, still catching her breath.
“Oh, please; don’t play games.”
“What?”
“These walls are pretty fuckin’ thin, Paige. I mean, you know, just for the record.”
If her face was red before, it goes positively magenta now as I pretty much tell her flat out that I know she was hoping to God I didn’t. She actually almost looks like she’s about to cry as she cringes and drops her face into her hands
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.” She shaking her head into her hands, her red hair framed around her face as she starts to squirm her way down into the covers.
“Hey! Don’t sweat it, it’s cool!” I’m suddenly seeing this starting to backfire, quickly; “Paige, I’m serious.” She looks up at me miserably, just for a second before she looks away, biting her lip and looking as mortified as I’m sure she feels; “Look, we’re both adults here. You want me, clearly,” She cringes; “And I-” I nod at the bulge in my pajama pants, and I see her eyes drop there and go wide; “I obviously want you, so what’s the matter? We’re two consenting adults, and we’ve got a stupid summer stuck here until we both never see each other again. I’m failing to see the downside here.”
She’s still bright red and utterly silent as she shakes her head and hugs the covers to herself. OK, she’s nervous; I freaked her out, I get that. Time to slow it down a teeny bit.
I slowly walk towards the bed. She’s not moving, and her eyes locked onto my hard-on; “Let’s go slow then, we can-”
“Knox, I-” She bites her lip, looking up at me with those big blue eyes as I sit on the side of her bed.
“What is it?”
“Nothing,” She says quickly, pulling the blankets up to her chin and staring at me big, wide blue eyes.
“Nothing?”
I grin as I lean closer before I see her mouth go tight and her hands clench tight on the sheets; “OK, jeez,” She mumbles; “I mean, I’ve never- you know.”
“What, with parents so close?” I grin, leaning in and seeing her eyes get wider as I move close. She’s not pulling away, and I can see the thrum of her pulse in the soft white skin of her neck; “Relax, let’s just see what hap-”
“No, Jesus, Knox.” She suddenly looks up at me sharply; “I mean I’ve never…” She trails off, and suddenly it all just clicks.
Oh, fuck.
She can’t be. She’s eighteen fucking years old; there’s no way she-
“Wait you mean you’ve never had casual-”
“I’ve just never, OK?” She snaps, before she quickly looks away.
Fuck, that’s it. Little miss perfect is a virgin. Of course she is, and here I am being a giant douchebag trying to crawl into her bed like this.
“Shit, Paige, I didn’t-”
“Look, it’s nothing, OK? I’m not a fucking leper or something, I’ve just never had sex” She narrows her eyes at me; “And I not going to with you, so just get out, God. And fucking knock next time.”
“Yeah, I should-”
“Go!”
“OK! OK! Jesus.”
*****
If I was having trouble falling asleep before, I’m fuckin’ insomniac after that. Because it was driving me crazy enough just thinking about all the dirty, lurid things I wanted to do Paige McCauley as it was. But why is it that knowing little miss perfect is a virgin even hotter?
I’m silent at the breakfast table the next day; silent and relieved that Knox is still in bed.
I can not believe he heard. Like, can’t even begin to process how utterly mortifying it is that my own stepbrother heard me using a vibrator with him in the room right next room. I crunch my cereal slowly and sip my coffee, trying not to think about last night out by the pool or up in my room; about how quickly I could feel myself get caught up in his whirlwind.
Or about how hard he was; how big he looked inside those pajama pants.
Or how ready he was to just do it like that. I mean we just met for crying out loud! What does he think, that he can just stroll into my room looking all hot and shirtless like that and just suggest that? It’s just like back at the Music Hall, with his blatant little insinuation that I “come have some fun” in the damn men’s room bathroom with him. I mean honestly! It’s so...gross; so arrogant and so crude to think any girl would ever just jump for something like that. Who even asks that?
Of course, there’s the darker thought too; the thought that for a second there, for a very brief half second, I wanted it.
I can feel myself getting red-faced right there at the breakfast table even just thinking it right now, but I know it’s true. For a half second, I was tired of being the goody-two-shoes. I was tired of being who I was and all that came with that, and for a half second, I wanted to just let go. I wanted to let go like I did at that show where I pretended to be someone I wasn’t; the show he saw me at.
God, what the hell is it about Knox Shepherd that has me changing the way I think about even myself?
“Ahhh, Knox, good to have you join us.” I look up sharply at my father’s words to see Knox in sweats and mercifully a shirt this time, shuffling into the kitchen. He catches my eye, and for just a second, I think that just maybe I’ll see even an iota of regret there. I think for one flash of a second that maybe I’ll see some sign of there being a real person in there who feels embarrassment for acting like a total caveman.
He winks at me.
Yeah, nope; new day, same Knox.
“I trust you slept OK in the makeshift room, Knox?” My father says, glancing up from the paper; “The other wing should be ready by next week, but your mother and I just didn’t want to put off the move any longer.”
Knock smiles innocently at my father as he pours himself a cup of coffee; all smiles today without a trace of the attitude and disdain from earlier, I notice.
“Oh, yes sir, I caught a ton of Zeeeez’s last night.”
I want to push my face into my cereal. He’s accentuating the “Z” sound on purpose; he’s making vibrator sounds.
In front of me.
To my dad.
What is wrong with him?
My dad gives him a strange look and a half smile, thankfully not catching the crudeness in his joke; “Well, you’ve got a few days to make yourself at home around the estate, and then I was thinking tomorrow you’d be going out to the fields with Mike, one of my chief foremen.
“Bizzzzz-zy as bees, huh Mr. McCauley?” Knox says with a big shit-eating grin, accentuating the “z” sound again.
Oh my God, he needs to stop this, now.
My dad just shakes his head though with a curious smile before he looks back at his paper. He doesn’t know what Knox is really doing and what he’s really talking about here.
Of course he doesn't; he’d kill him.
Knox grabs half a bagel from the tray on the table and blows me kiss before he saunters back down the hallway.
I somehow manage to gulp down the rest of my coffee in record, near-mouth-burning speed before I grit my teeth, set my jaw, and go after him. What happened last night is mortifying and so very unfortunate, but I am not going all summer with Knox Shepherd playing these fucking games.
&nb
sp; I catch up with him upstairs in the hallway outside our bedroom doors, grabbing him by the elbow and yanking him back; “Are you out of your fucking mind?” I hiss, glaring at him and fully realizing the crazy in my own voice.
He grins at me; “Woah! Watch the dirty mouth, princess!” He leans close and winks at me;, “Unless you want me to do something with it, that is.”
Heat flashes across my face and I hastily look away; “Why are you always so crude?”
“You just bring it out in me I guess,” He says, sighing dramatically before he suddenly starts to yank his shirt off right there in the hallway.
“Uh, what the hell are you doing?” I stammer, trying not to let my eyes linger like they really want to on his sculpted abs, or his tattoos, or the deep grooves in the v of his hips. I shake my head and force myself to stare at the wall next to him.
Knox just shrugs, tossing his shirt into his room; “You know, not all of us grew up with a pool big enough to have it’s own zip code in the backyard. It’s summer in Texas, Paige. It’s hot as fuck outside, and I apparently don’t have to go slave in the salt-mines for your dad just yet. I don’t know about you, but I’m going swimming.”
Before I know it, he hooks his thumbs into the waist of his sweats and shrugs them right off his legs, right there in the hallway, until he’s just standing there in his grey, skin-tight boxer-briefs.
Oh my God, why am I standing here watching this?
“Enjoying the show?”
I blush furiously and scowl at him; “No.”
“Liar.”
OK, why does someone who spends this much time being such a prick have a body like that? I mean it’s like he’s fucking photoshopped or something with his lean, sculpted muscles, the swirling ink across his shoulder and down his arms, and those briefs hugging every single…
Ooookay, walk away; walk away right now.
“You coming?”
I swallow; “Excuse me?”
“Swimming, princess.” He says, taking a step towards me and leaning his arm against the doorframe of his room right next to me.
“I have to go practice the piano,” I say quickly.
“Of course you do.”
“Yeah, I do, actually.”
Knox smirks; “Because your dad told you to.”
“Because I’d like to succeed at it and at life,” I say heatedly, trying to pointedly ignore the fact that he’s leaning in closer to me because I know that he’s just doing it to get to me flustered.
It’s working.
“So play what you want to.”
Why is he so fucking irritating? Why is he so challenging at every step?
“Because…” I trail off as I feel his scent invade my senses and feel his hand come up and brush across my arm; “I just can’t, OK?” I say hastily.
“You need to lighten up.”
“Oh go swimming, dick,” I huff, finally moving back and away from him.
“You can watch if you want, princess.” He winks and saunters over to the staircase; “buzz buzz buzz!” He hollers over his shoulder with a laugh.
I groan and drop my face into my hands as crude, tattooed sex-god Knox clad in just his skin-tight boxer briefs casually makes his way across our marbled-floor, double-staircased, crystal-chandelier foyer, throwing vibrator jokes over his shoulder.
What the hell is happening?
“So what’s life like up in the castle, man?” Justin’s hunched over his coffee table, hard at work rolling the joint.
I sip my beer and shrug; “Boring.”
He grins, looking up from his handiwork; “Yeah but rich boring.”
“I guess.”
OK, yeah, he’s right. It’s amazing what just a little time spent up in the McCauley mansion does to your sense of perspective and normalcy. I hadn’t even realized how much I’d let it just become the everyday norm until I was driving back out to Garland, past the strip malls and the shitty apartment blocks where Mom and I used to live, just sitting there baking in the desert.
“How’s your new dad?”
“Dude! Have some fuckin tact, man!” Justin puts the pot down long enough to punch Mark in the arm, shaking his head.
Mark shrugs and gives me a guilty look; “Sorry. You know what I mean though.”
I’m not totally sure why I’m even still hanging out with these two idiots after graduating high school.
“Yeah, it’s fine, don’t worry about it.” I take a slug of my beer; “He’s alright I guess; super fucking strict, but alright. He wants me to work for him though, which is total bullshit.”
Justin rolls his eyes; “Aww, poor baby. The billionaire oil tycoon wants to give you a job; cry me a fuckin’ river man. Plus your mom is marrying him, that basically guarantees you a cushy office job somewhere doing nothing but banging secretaries and taking lunch meetings.”
“Aww, man, plus that chick!” Mark reached over from the other side of the couch and prods Justin in the arm before he gives me a nod and thumbs up; “Bro, that chick is hot.”
For some reason, I can feel my jaw tense at his words; I can feel my fist tightening around the aluminum can in my hands; “What chick?”
Paige? How the fuck would they even know-
“C’mon dickhead, Joe McCauley’s daughter! We looked her up online as soon as you told us about your mom and him.”
Justin nods at me, finishing the last twist on his joint; “She’s pretty fine man, in like, a weird way.”
I can feel the heat rising inside of me, something that almost feels like anger welling up and threatening to burst out. What the fuck is this? What am I, getting territorial or some shit?
Mark laughs; “Aww man, too bad you can’t hit that, huh?”
Keep cool; stay fucking cool. They’re just horsing around. I drain the last of my beer down my throat, forcing myself to keep it together; “Says who?”
Justin sticks the joint in his mouth and lights it, letting the smoke curl up as he takes a drag; “Says she’s your sister, man. Even you aren’t that big of a horn-dog.”
I shrug the coolest, most nonchalant shrug in the history of mankind as I take the joint from him and take a pull; “Who says I’m not?”
My two buddies turn and look at each other before suddenly cheering and high-fiving each other like a couple of idiots.
“Oh shit, dude!” Mark is looking at me like I’m the second coming of Christ or something; “No way!”
“No!” I roll my eyes; “Of course I haven't.”
Justin smirks; “Yeah, and you won’t.”
“Wanna bet?” It’s a stupid thing to say, but I can feel the beer and the joint hitting me.
Justin shakes his head, blowing smoke out threw his nose; “Oh, please, not a fucking chance.”
“I dunno man, the same ‘not a chance’ you gave him on Luke Roberts’s mom?”
I wince at the name while the two of them crack up like a couple of animals.
Crude: A Stepbrother Romance Page 4
