“I’m just . . . I’m hanging my dress up. And then I’m going to bed.”
“Is that so.”
“Yes.” I look over his shoulder. “That’s . . . that’s your room?
“It’s been my room since I was a kid.”
“Oh.”
We stand there for a moment, neither of saying anything.
“Nice underwear,” he says finally.
I fold my arms over my chest, even though I’ve got my bra on.
“It’s a bit late for the modesty now, wouldn’t you say?” he asks. “My lip still hurts, you know. You took a chunk right out of it.”
I raise my chin. “Good. And you better not try anything else like that again, or I’ll be taking a whole lot more than a little chunk of your lip. I’m not exactly sure why they decided to put us in such close quarters, but I don’t plan on having anything else to do with you. Just so you know. And I’d appreciate it if you would respect that, though I wouldn’t be surprised if you don’t. All things considered.”
“You’re awfully haughty sounding, you know that?”
“That’s funny, coming from someone as self-absorbed as you are. I hardly even know you and I can tell how much of an arrogant, selfish prick you are. So I mean it—just leave me alone.”
He leans against the doorframe and gazes at me, the expression on his face difficult to read.
“What, exactly, is your problem?” he says. “I understand the whole playing hard to get and the excitement of the chase and all that bullshit, but you’re taking it a little too far, wouldn’t you say? I’m starting to think you’re bipolar.”
“What is my problem? My problem is that you’d have the nerve to ask me that in the first place! That you’d actually be able to stand there and act like you have done nothing wrong! You think I’m bipolar? Well, I think you’re a sociopath! And guess what? My ex-boyfriend is a fucking sociopath, and sociopaths might be all right in bed, but the rest of the time, you’re just a bunch of dickheads who don’t give a shit about anyone else.”
“Wow, are you sure you’re not a psych major?” He shakes his head, a look of disgust crossing his face. “You’re batty. You really are. If you want to call me a sociopath and tell yourself that I’m the most egotistical bag of shit who ever walked this earth, then fine, be my guest, but you are off your fucking rocker, darling. You really are.”
“Are you kidding me?” I take a step closer to him, then another. I want to slap that smug look off his face. “You just want to stand there and act like you’re this innocent bystander. That you did nothing wrong. But I know that’s not the truth. And I actually don’t want to know anything else about you. Because anyone who would be so completely fine with cheating on their wife—”
“Whoa!” He holds up his hands. “What?”
“You heard me.” I take another step, and am close enough to jab him in the chest with my forefinger, which is exactly what I do. “I saw your wedding ring in the hotel room that morning. You know, when you were pretending to be Mr. Chivalry by going to get me a pastry or whatever the hell it was you brought back. I know that plenty of married people out there cheat and that there’s plenty of people out there who are totally fine with sleeping with someone who’s married, but I am not one of those people! And I guess I should’ve known better.”
He grabs my wrist and jerks my arm, and, once again, it seems that he knows exactly how much pressure to exert before real pain actually sets in. The look on his face, though, is dark, and for a second I wonder if I’ve gone too far, and how loudly I’ll have to scream for someone to hear me. But outwardly, I just stare back at him. A muscle twitches in his jaw, and he’s looking at me with such intensity it feels like I’m just going to dissolve.
He brings his face right to mine. “You’re funny,” he says. “You really are. I’m not married. Never have been, as never plan on it, as a matter of fact.” He squeezes my wrist a little tighter.
“You’re just making it worse—I saw your ring. Saw it with my own two eyes.”
He lowers my arm, and then presses my hand against his crotch. I can feel how hard he is. I try to jerk away but his grip is like a vice.
“You are completely infuriating, and that is such a fucking turn on,” he whispers. “Do you feel that? Do you feel how hard your fucking antics have me? All this nonsensical bullshit you’ve been going on and on about? I’d find it tiresome with most girls, but with you . . .” He moves his head so his mouth is right against my ear. He takes a deep breath, nips at my earlobe. “I am not married. The wedding ring you saw is my father’s. You know, for the wedding they’re having tomorrow.” He presses my hand harder against him and takes a sharp breath in.
“So why was it just sitting there on the table? Why wasn’t it in a box or something?”
“It was in a box. If you’d looked a little harder, you would’ve seen the little black box right next to it. I took it out to look at because my mother was curious whether or not it was the same one he had when he was married to her.”
I try to pull my hand away again but he’s not letting go.
“That’s total bullshit. Who would use the same ring?”
“Some people would. If it had been in the family for a while, say. Which it has. The ring my father wore when he was married to my mother was made by my great grandfather, who was a goldsmith.”
“Oh.”
“But it’s not, in case you’re wondering. I don’t know what he did with that ring. Probably put it in a safe deposit box or something. Who knows. Who cares.”
My cheeks start to flush. “Well . . . I jumped to conclusions, then.”
“That would be a drastic understatement.”
“But that still doesn’t mean I want to—”
He doesn’t let me finish. He lets go of my wrist and grabs my hips, lifting me up onto the bathroom counter. My breath catches in my throat as my shoulders collide with the mirror. He’s kissing my neck, his hands all over me, and I wrap my legs around his torso and run my hands through his hair.
“I don’t want to be doing this,” I gasp, but we both know that’s not true. And if he’s not actually married, then . . . it’s not as bad. And he’s not technically my stepbrother yet.
He starts moving lower, kissing my collarbone, between my breasts, making a trail of kisses down my stomach. He doesn’t take my g-string off, but just pushes it to the side before he starts swirling his tongue over my clit, sliding first one, then a second finger into me. I arch my back, pressing against the cold glass of the mirror. As he moves his tongue over me, his fingers inside me, I look out the bathroom door, into the room I’m staying in, where the door is slightly ajar. Anyone could walk by at any moment. They’d have to actually push the door open a bit to be able to see anything, but the bathroom light is on, making me feel like I’m under a spotlight any anyone could be watching.
But any concern I have about that is quickly diminished by that pleasurable tingling that’s threatening to overtake me like a rogue wave. I have to bite down on my lip to keep from crying out, and I do so hard that I taste my own blood in my mouth. I twist my fingers around his hair, wrap my legs around his neck. He groans, and the vibration of the sound reverberates throughout my whole body.
He pulls his head back just a little, takes his fingers out and rubs the slickness over my clit then back down to my pussy, sliding one finger deep inside me, just once, before pulling it back out and tracing that same path, over and over.
I am about to come. I am about to have the most intense orgasm I have ever had. I can feel it in the air, inside me, it’s like this static electricity, crackling and fizzing and building to this ferocious culmination—
He stops.
All of a sudden he stops, pulling his hand back, his head back. He stands, and I slump down against the mirror, my ass sliding off the side of the counter, my hips bucking. He stands there, watching me pant and writhe.
“All right, darling?” he says after a moment.
&n
bsp; “What . . . why . . . what are you doing? Why did you stop?” My voice is shaking. He wipes the back of his hand across his mouth, licks one of the fingers that had just been inside me. But he doesn’t make any move to continue.
“Please,” I say. “That felt so fucking good. That was incredible.”
“What was?”
“You. What you were doing. I can’t . . . you can’t just stop like that. I feel like I’m going to explode.” And I do. It’s like there’s this energy in me, that energy and sensation that had been racing toward a climax, is now just circulating through me on this endless, frenetic loop. My inner thighs tremble. My brain feels as though it can’t form a coherent thought, other than to beg him to touch me again.
“Please,” I say.
“What was that?”
“Please.”
“Please what?”
“Please . . . touch me again. Do whatever you were doing. Or fuck me.”
He starts to unbuckle his pants. “You want me to fuck you?”
“Yes.”
He pushes his pants down. “Say it.”
“I want you to fuck me.”
I scoot back so I’m all the way on the counter. He comes forward, cock leading the way. He pushes my legs apart, lifting one of my knees, then the other, and resting them over his shoulders. He leans into me. Once the head of his dick is in, he thrusts his hips forward, and goes all the way in, his lower torso pressed right up against my ass. He fucks me like that, hard and fast, my tailbone grinding against the hard marble of the counter.
My breath comes in shorter and shorter gasps the harder he fucks me. That frenetic energy that felt like it had no place to go earlier is building, centered right in the deepest part of my pelvis, radiating out in all directions. His shoulder muscles strain, the veins in his neck stand out. He’s growling something into my ear that might be words or maybe it’s just nonsense, I can’t even tell anymore because that feeling exploding through me like an earthquake, shockwaves of pleasure rolling down the length of my body. I clench my fists, curl my toes, and bite down on the hard bulk of his shoulder muscle to keep from shrieking. Jai comes a minute later, hips bucking, his back slick with sweat. He lets my legs fall off his shoulders and he sort of collapses on me, and we half sit-half lie against the bathroom counter like that for several minutes, our bodies entwined, and it’s like I can’t tell where mine ends and his begins. And as my breathing starts to regulate, I can’t help but wonder how it is that something could feel so good yet be so wrong at the same time.
Chapter Fourteen
Emma
I wake up, and for a second feel as though I can’t move. It’s like my brain is sending the signals to my limbs, but they’re all in such horrific pain that they’re just lying there, motionless. My entire body aches and I realize I’m lying on a cold tile floor, a bathroom floor, to be exact, Jai next to me, my head halfway resting on his upper arm, my neck bent at insanely awkward angle.
And someone, my mother, I believe, is calling everyone for breakfast.
“Ouch.” I lift my head a few inches and the pain shoots down from my neck all the way to my lower back. Jai stirs. We’re both naked. He’s got an erection. My mother’s voice is getting closer.
“Emma? Jess? Jai? Breakfast is ready!”
“We have to get up!” I whisper. The thought of my mother pushing open my bedroom door and seeing us lying on the bathroom floor, me naked, seeing Jai and his erection is the impetus I need to get moving, despite the violent protests from my body. It’s not even from the sex—well, okay, maybe a little—but from passing out on the bathroom floor, which is all fine and good when the post-coital endorphins are freely flowing through you; not so much many hours later, however.
“Come here, you,” Jai says, reaching for me. I scramble out of his grasp.
“My mother could walk through that door at any moment. Get back in your room!”
“She’s been going on and on about us getting acquainted—we could show her we’ve really taken her advice.” He grins, reaching for me again, but I just dart out of the bathroom, pulling the door shut behind me. For all I know he’s going to lie there and jerk off and not care who happens to see.
I fling the sheets back on the bed and jump in, my head hitting the pillow just as my mother knocks softly at the door.
“Emma? You awake?”
“Sort of,” I say, trying to sound groggy, which isn’t too difficult, considering.
The door opens partially and Mom pops her head around. “Zack and I got up early and made breakfast. And it’s getting late enough that I don’t feel bad waking everyone up and asking them to come down so we can all have breakfast together, while the food is still hot. Just throw on a pair of those yoga pants you love and a tank top or something—no need to get all dolled up. Not yet, anyway.”
She winks and then disappears. I lie there for a moment, long enough to hear her knock on Jai’s door and start to give him the same spiel. He says something in return that I can’t quite make out and she starts chortling. Oh my god. I don’t know if I will make it through these next two weeks.
Forcing myself to get up, I throw on a pair of yoga pants and a t-shirt. I want to go back into the bathroom to at least splash some cold water on my face, but I’m afraid I’ll bump into Jai in there and we’ll end up—
Stop it.
I can’t let myself think about any of that anymore. Because if I think about it, the likelihood of it happening again is greater and greater. And I don’t want that. Well, maybe part of me does, but I can’t let it happen. I can’t just give in to some primitive, animal desire. This is what I repeat to myself over and over as I go downstairs, the aroma of coffee luring me toward the kitchen.
But before I can reach the kitchen, my mother intercepts me and redirects me to the patio. Now that it’s daylight, I can see how close the house is to the lake. It really is right in the backyard, the sunlight glinting off the deep blue water, making it sparkle and shine like a giant sapphire. The backyard lawn is achingly vibrant green, and even though the lake is right there, there’s also an enormous in-ground swimming pool, with rocks and a waterfall, like something you’d expect them to have at the Playboy Mansion.
“It’s a great place for a swim.” Jai’s tone is light and friendly. He comes and stands next to me, close enough that our shoulders are almost touching but not quite. I take a step to the side, putting more distance between us.
“The lake or the pool?” I ask, trying to match his easygoing tone, and failing miserably. My own voice sounds uptight and forced.
“Both. And I would like to reiterate my father’s offer last night. If you’re at all interested in going out on the lake—be it by boat, jetski, or any other means—I’d be more than happy to take you.”
“You’re so sweet!”
Jessica has appeared, wearing a sleeveless purple sundress, looking like she actually enjoyed a decent night’s sleep and didn’t wake up naked on a cold bathroom floor. She beams at me. “I guess we lucked out getting such a nice stepbrother.”
Mom and Zack come out before I have a chance to reply, Mom carrying a serving plate heaped with scrambled eggs, Zack with pancakes and bacon.
“Good morning, good morning!” Zack says heartily as he sets the stuff down on the table. “Have a seat and let’s dig in! Steph and I are so happy that we’re all here together. It really is something.”
I move to sit as far away from Jai as possible, but the table isn’t huge so I don’t have many options. Mom and Zack are at either end, so I am left with either sitting across from Jai, or sitting next to him. I try to wait for him to sit down before me, but he’s gazing out toward the lake, with what I believe to be a faux-faraway expression on his face, like he’s reliving some especially wonderful lake memory. Jessica sits down to my mother’s right. I can sit next to Jess and have Jai be across from us, or I can go to the other side of the table and take the chance that he’s going to sit next to me. And I can’t decid
e which is worse: being next to him or across from him, having to look directly at his face.
He, apparently, though, is doing his best to make me choose first.
“Em?” Mom looks at me. “You going to sit down, sweetheart?” She pats the empty spot to her left, and now I have no choice but to sit there. Jai waits another few beats and then comes and takes the seat next to me. Mom hands me a plate and I dish myself up some eggs, some bacon, and a pancake. After my scant dinner of oysters last night, I figured I’d be ravenous, but sitting so close to Jai is really the only thing I can focus on, and my stomach twists into a complicated knot.
“This looks delicious,” Jai says, and his own plate is heaped with food. He pours himself some coffee from a silver carafe. “Can I pour you some coffee? I’m normally a tea drinker myself, but I know how much you Americans love your coffee.”
There’s the tiniest of smirks as he says this.
“Oh, Emma does love her coffee,” Mom says.
“No,” Jessica says as Jai fills my coffee mug without waiting for me to actually say yes. “Emma likes coffee-flavored drinks.”
“And what is that distinction?” Jai asks, filling the mug.
“She doesn’t like the actual taste of coffee, but rather coffee enhanced with sweeteners and accessories. I, on the other hand, do love the true taste of coffee. So fill her up!” She pushes her mug across the table and Jai grins.
“Ah. I see.” He pours Jess a cup and then sets the carafe down. He looks at my cup. “If that’s true and you’re going to add sugar and milk, then I do believe I overfilled your mug.”
“It’s fine,” I say. I shoot a look at my sister, who is sipping her un-doctored black coffee. “And I don’t see what the problem is with drinking coffee with cream. Which is how I take mine—just cream.”
“Ah, a cream lover.” Jai grins.
“It’s like,” I continue, doing my best to ignore him, “saying that you don’t actually like hot dogs if you put ketchup and mustard on them. But who doesn’t put ketchup and mustard on their hot dog?”
Side Swiped By My Step Brother Page 9
