Copyright 2015 Anne Burroughs
All rights reserved.
The characters in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
This book contains sexual and mature situations and is intended for readers over the age of eighteen.
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title page
Copyright
Table of Contents
2005
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
2008
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
2010
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
2012
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
2014
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
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Chapter One
* * *
Jenny
The sun was going down, so the light was dim when I first kissed my stepbrother Aidan—not just kissed him but really kissed him. We were both thirteen years old, and what was icky and gross a year before had somehow become something that our friends were bragging about at school. Kissing a boy meant you were cool.
I had to admit that my feelings toward Aidan were changing, too. As we hit puberty, my best friend in the whole world became more than that, and I had trouble making sense of my emotions and feelings. In the space of a year we went from strangers to best friends to siblings to… what?
We were in our secret place, a large bush with thick leaves at the edge of the small park near the woods behind our house. We discovered it one Saturday while hiding from Billy Orton, the local bully. It was shaped like a dome, and that’s what we called it—the Dome. When Aidan and I crawled in under the canopy of green, we were hidden from the world. We cut out some of the interior branches, so while it looked like thick vegetation on the outside, it actually had room for Aidan and I to stretch out and relax without being poked by branches.
We spent countless hours in our hideout, sometimes reading, sometimes playing card games, but most of the time we just talked. We talked about everything. Sports, TV, movies, and even the bigger things like religion and love. Ever since we met each other we were inseparable.
Neither of us had siblings, and we didn’t know what it was like to be a brother or sister. So when my mom married Bruce and they both started introducing us as brother and sister we loved it. Aidan was not only my best friend, he was my brother. It was a connection that was deeper than friendship.
Our trust was total, and as we faced challenges in school, at home, or with friends we would retreat to our secret place and talk about it. I loved Aidan, and I knew he loved me. It wasn’t until we kissed, however, that I became confused about what love means. It scared me.
“So McKayla was describing kissing Wade. She said it was nice.” I looked at Aidan. The moment I said the words I knew that I wanted to kiss him the way that McKayla said she kissed Wade. Aidan was so cute, and I knew I could trust him with my curiosity. But while I was telling myself that it was just curiosity the stirrings of something else made my stomach flutter.
“She’s just saying that to sound cool.”
“No she’s not. You’ve seen them. They definitely kiss all the time.”
“Not the kissing, the nice part. Do you really think it’s nice?” Aidan stared at me through the deepening shadows of the branches and leaves. He was always analytical, questioning everything.
“I don’t know. It seems like it would be… soft.” By now I was staring at Aidan’s face and lips. All I wanted to do at that point was kiss them. It actually seemed like it would be nice.
He looked down. “Should we try it?” My heart leapt, but I was suddenly so nervous that my hands were shaking. I dropped them between my legs.
“Well, it would be good to at least know what it feels like.”
“For science!” Aidan looked up, smiling broadly. He then added, “We can’t tell Mom or Dad!”
“Of course not. Are you crazy? Besides, I bet it’s kind of gross,” I said, lowering expectations even as I could barely move from anticipation. Why did I want to kiss him so badly? We were already the bestest of friends.
“Probably.” He shuffled a little closer to me. “So we may as well get this over with.” Despite his openness to us kissing I was nervous that he didn’t feel the same way about it as I did. He wasn’t shaking that I could tell, and he didn’t seem too enthusiastic about it. Maybe he wasn’t feeling what I was feeling? And with that thought I was suddenly worried that kissing him was a bad idea. What if it made things uncomfortable for us? He mentioned Mom and Dad. Was he worried about that? What if it changed our wonderful relationship?
He leaned forward with the precision of a Mythbusters experiment. He took my arms in his hands for support, which despite my nervousness made me tingle with excitement, and then leaned toward my face. It was so sudden I couldn’t stop him.
Our lips met, and all my senses except touch disappeared. I could feel his soft lips against mine, and it was like time had stopped. I pressed forward and felt him open his lips slightly and then close them. It was amazing. Was that instinct? How did he know to do that? I did the same thing to him, and I felt his hand on my cheek.
I was warm all over and those new feelings that I had saved for special moments in the shower or late at night in my dark bedroom suddenly surged forward. This felt a little too good, and that thought made me think of Aidan. He was not brash and carefree like me. He was the type to have immediate regrets. I had seen it again and again. He would say, What did I do? I’m your brother. That wasn’t right.
Aidan spread his lips, and I felt his tongue slide against my lips. I pulled away, my fear defeating my desire. I wanted to French kiss him, but I was afraid of how he would react. I was panting, but I didn’t know whether it was because I was out of breath or because my body was overheating. I slid my hair behind my ears and looked over at Aidan. He looked devastated.
“What’s wrong?” He asked.
“This— This is just a bit too much.” He lowered his head, and I could see that I had betrayed him. Me, his best friend. The one whom he could trust with every secret. I was even the wild one. All that, and I couldn’t trust him to see what a French kiss was like. I felt miserable.
“Okay,” he replied, his voice almost a whisper.
I grabbed his arm. “Look, Aidan. I’m just kind of thinking a French kiss is maybe going too fast.” That made him look even more depressed. “Hey!” I said brightly. He looked up at me. “We wanted to see what kissing was like, right?” He nodded. “We did that.” I looked him in the eyes. “And I loved it!” He smiled a bit. “So how about this: If we get to be seniors in high school, and we still haven’t French kissed someone we’ll French kiss each other.” Aidan looked at me but didn’t say anything. “For science!” I added.
He smiled. “You promise?”
“I promise. If we are both seniors and haven’t had some slut or douchebag stick their tongue in our mouths,
we’ll teach each other this French kissing thing.”
“You make it sound kind of dirty.”
I gave him my best “are you kidding” look. “Two words: McKayla and Wade.”
“Good point!” He laughed.
We spent the rest of the night talking about our slutty and douchebaggy classmates. But even as we made fun of our classmates who were caught French kissing or feeling up our other classmates, I couldn’t stop thinking of Aidan. Thinking of his kiss still made me tingle. When did he become so cute? And he was tall, too. When did that happen?
In the end, as the days faded into the past, I was glad that we stopped when we did. The more I thought about that night, the more I realized that Aidan’s disappointment was over the failed experiment and not any kind of desire to kiss me. He thought of us as brother and sister, after all.
That realization made me sad, because I adored kissing Aidan. I had nothing to compare him with, but I just knew he was a fantastic kisser. In fact, I started to think of him as I took showers and when I was alone in my bed.
The fact that we were brother and sister made me feel guilty. My soft lips kiss clearly wasn’t the same as his Mythbusters kiss. Aidan had the strength of character to be above the indecent thoughts that were starting to fill my mind about him. In the end, I doubted he saw me as anything more than his best friend, and I would never do anything to threaten that, because he was also my best friend.
So I kissed pillows and called them Aidan. It was the best I could hope for.
Chapter Two
* * *
Aidan
Jenny and I were closer than any brother or sister by blood could possibly be. When we first met there was the barest moment of awkwardness, but then we realized that we both loved the show Dexter (which neither of us were supposed to be allowed to watch). So we retreated to my dad’s media room and talked for hours. Sure, it started with Dexter, but then we talked about school and life and before we knew it, Jenny’s mom had come up to get her, and I felt a sadness, like a part of me that I never knew existed was being taken away. And that was only our first day together.
I’ll never forget our first Summer. Everything we did we did together. We went to movies and spent hours discussing them. We played sports together. We were constantly playing practical jokes on each other. She was funny, devious, smart, amazing, crazy, and my best friend. She was pretty, of course, with her light blonde hair and amazing smile, but I didn't really think of that much at first. She was just fun.
We were going through puberty, so it was natural that we just asked each other questions. I asked her about her period, and she asked me about how weird it must feel to walk around with a penis, and then I would say the same thing about breasts, and as time went on we asked more and more personal questions.
Not because we were trying to shock each other, but because we were curious and wanted to learn, and we trusted each other. Who else was I going to ask about breasts? Mom? Can you say yuck? Look it up on the Internet? Sure, but that’s not the same as hearing it directly from someone who has them.
The thing is we didn’t even realize we were moving into dangerous ground until it was almost too late. We asked, and we answered. It was unemotional. At least I thought it was until the day we kissed.
It built up slowly and then suddenly we crossed the line. It was like when we first visited our lake house in the summer. Every time it would be as hot as an oven on the inside, and dad would turn the air conditioning up to max. Jenny and I would be in shorts and t-shirts, sweating in the heat, trying to ignore it by watching TV or talking or playing a game. And then, with no warning, I’d shiver and suddenly realize it was ice cold inside. The gradual became the sudden.
For a year, Jenny and I became closer and closer, and then we decided to see what it was like to kiss. It was a practical, normal question that we trusted each other to answer. So we kissed. I leaned in, and as our lips touched, I shivered and became aware that without my realizing it the temperature had changed.
I was nervous and felt my stomach flutter. Suddenly my clinical analysis of what a kiss felt like turned into wanting nothing more than to keep feeling Jenny’s lips against mine. I didn’t know what to do. We now knew what a kiss was like, but this was so much more, and I didn’t want it to stop.
I realized I was at a point-of-no-return, and it scared me. She was my sister. My best friend. I shouldn’t have been thinking that way. I didn’t know how I missed that I was feeling that way. It shouldn’t have seemed so natural to me. It was wrong.
But it wasn’t wrong. I knew that.
So I trusted my feelings, and I trusted Jenny, and I gave in. I touched her face to let her know that this wasn’t an experiment any more, and then I decided to kiss her deeply, with the passion that I saw in the porn videos I snuck glances at while I had my online time alone.
Jenny pulled back, and as I opened my eyes I realized what a horrific mistake I had made. She didn’t feel the same way. She hated me. I was her brother, and I did something gross. She said we were going too fast, but I knew what she meant. I went down a forbidden path.
But then she surprised me.
She made a promise that if we hadn’t French kissed each other by the time we were eighteen, we would French kiss. I knew it was a stupid promise meant to make me feel better. Eighteen was like ages away, and she still seemed horrified at me. But she was my best friend, and I trusted her. The fact that she didn’t say to me that going further than a kiss wasn’t out-of-bounds left me with a little bit of hope. It was the best I could hope for.
Chapter Three
* * *
Aidan
We grew apart, but we didn’t. We were still best friends and spent a ton of time together, but high school pulled us in different directions. I hung out with the swim team more and more, and while Jenny came to every one of my meets, she didn’t share the same friendships that I did with my teammates. She was an extraordinary artist, and the artist types that she hung out with weren’t my friends. I don’t know, it didn’t feel strange. I guess we became comfortable in not having to constantly be near each other.
It was fine until Jeremy Adkins asked Jenny to the prom. He was a senior swimmer, so he was used to seeing her at the meets, but she was a sophomore. It just didn’t seem right to me. She said yes and suddenly Jeremy was buddies with me, even though I was JV, and the seniors had nothing to do with the JV team. I should have liked my newfound prestige, but I hated it.
About a week before the prom, Jenny had come to say goodbye to me after a meet and hung around a bit to talk to Jeremy. He kissed her on the lips, and I felt my knees go weak. The image was seared in my brain. He was in his swim trunks, and Jenny was in her tight jeans and a t-shirt. Jeremy was about my height, six feet or so, and Jenny was only about five four. She had her head back and was on her tip toes as they kissed.
The worst part of all was that unlike my kiss, she smiled after Jeremy kissed her.
She left and Jeremy wandered over. “Dude, your sister is so fucking hot.” I glared at him, and he raised his hands. “Sorry, man, I can’t help it. Come on, you have to have seen her naked. You know what I’m talking about.”
“She’s my sister, Jeremy.” I said, gritting my teeth. The truth was that I did think she was hot. I fantasized about her constantly, but I wasn’t going to share that with anyone, least of all the meathead standing next to me.
Jeremy shrugged. “Man, just calling it like I see it.”
I was pathetic. Jeremy wasn’t a bad guy, but the night of the prom I was only worried about one thing: He’d French kiss Jenny. I was sixteen and had seen every possible variation of sex online and here I was worried about a French kiss. And why? Because I so badly wanted to be the one to kiss her. Oh, shit, who was I kidding? I wanted to do more than kiss her, but she had only promised me a kiss, a French kiss, and I was banking my pathetic future on that promise. It was stupid.
Mom and Dad let Jenny stay out until one o’clock, w
hich I thought was ridiculous. The prom was over at eleven. Did they want to practically invite Jeremy to fuck Jenny? So I tried to play video games and pass the time while she was out dancing and whatever else she was doing. At points I would pace the floor picturing what Jeremy was doing to her, wishing with all my soul that it was me doing those things instead.
At midnight the front door opened. I walked out to see her. She stood in the doorway talking to Mom and Dad. Her long blond hair was up, and she had this beautiful black dress that revealed just the top of her breasts. The light from the porch was behind her, and she looked nothing more than like an angel, shrouded in diffused light.
I walked over. “So how did it go?” I asked, interrupting Mom. Jenny gave me a look and shook her head slightly. Something was up. My heart fell. I just knew she not only French kissed Jeremy but that they had sex, too.
“Aidan, please don’t interrupt,” Mom said.
“Sorry. Jenny, I’ll be in my room. When you’re done getting grilled by these two, come let me know what really happened.”
“Aidan!” Dad looked at me sternly. I smiled and wandered away, the bravado of my facade covering the devastation that I felt in my heart.
Jenny walked into my room a few minutes later and closed the door behind her. She had her high heels in her hand. She looked exhausted. She fell back on my bed, and I couldn’t tell if she was happy, sad, or what. I figured I’d rip the bandage off. It was for the best.
My Stepbrother's Promise (Contemporary Stepbrother Romance) Page 1
