Taboo Step Surrender (Steamy Twenty Book Box Set)

by Steply, Virginia

  “Oh,” I said. I felt the tension drain out of me. He had never got that last one after all. I wanted to jump for joy.

  “I was a little disappoint, because you look so beautiful in the first,” he said, nudging me. I felt cold excitement start to bloom up my body from my stomach. I pushed the hair away from my face. I liked talking to Luca.

  “I can show it to you,” I said, my voice purring contentedly. I felt warm. I pulled out my phone and flipped through my pictures, holding the screen away from him so he couldn't see it. I looked at the picture I’d taken by the pool, in my wet bra. No way, I thought, reconsidering.

  “I can’t show it to you,” I giggled.

  “Oh, come on,” he urged. I yelped as he grabbed for my phone.

  “Wait!”

  I watched as his eyes widened in surprise. “This is you?”

  I was dressed in jeans and a baggy "Stanford" sweatshirt--a far cry from the pictures I sent him. Luca adopted a suspicious expression and lifted the hem of my sweatshirt, as if to see what was really underneath.

  “Stop!” I squealed, batting his hands away.

  “Luca!” Victoria admonished from the front seat. I could feel Robert’s eyes in the rearview mirror. Victoria turned and glared at Luca.

  “It was this kind of shit that got him kicked out of his school.” She faced Luca and scolded him in rapid-fire Italian, occasionally motioning at me with one of her hands.

  Luca looked chastened. I felt bad for him.

  “I am sorry, sister,” he said.

  “It’s okay,” I said, hiding a grin. I had never let my guard down like I had with Luca, and I realized that talking to him was fun.

  ****

  The four of us settled into a corner booth at the restaurant, and our waiter, a smiling Mexican man, set menus in front of us.

  “I thought we’d treat you to some Tex-Mex for your first meal in America,” Robert told Luca.

  “This is Robert’s favorite place,” Victoria said, smiling gorgeously.

  Luca nodded, then scrutinized the menu.

  “Amelia, why don't you help Luca pick something,” Robert suggested.

  “Of course.” I scooted his direction and leaned into him. After we figured out what we were going to eat, we placed our order, and then Robert and Victoria had their own discussion while Luca and I had ours.

  “So, why did you get kicked out of school,” I asked him.

  “Ah, I don’t like to talk about it.”

  “C'mon, it's no big deal. I'm your sister now, remember?” I lightly teased.

  “Well, I was getting--I don’t know how you call it--special lessons from my English teacher, you know, because I thought I might come to America. I was sort of in trouble in anyway, like I thought I was going to get kicked out because of some other thing, so I thought if I come to America, I would need better English.”

  “Special lessons?”

  “Ah yes...my mother paid for extra lessons. But then, um...”

  Was Luca saying he fucked his English teacher? He couldn’t be. He grinned devilishly. There was definitely a language barrier between us.

  “She was really young,” he said quietly, just loud enough for me to hear. “From England. With red hair.”

  “Uh huh,” I breathed in anticipation. I didn’t know why I liked hearing about Luca’s conquests but I did. Whenever I heard the boys at school bragging about how they’d fucked so-and-so, I usually just felt bad for the girl. I was so used to rolling my eyes at boys' macho bullshit. But this was somehow different.

  Victoria looked over at us suspiciously. She butted in, changing the subject.

  “This was something I wanted to talk to you about, Amelia. Could you help Luca with some of his lessons? He still needs help with his English, after we paid for a whole year of those lessons.” She glared at Luca. He looked down at his plate bashfully.

  She continued. “You said you study to be a teacher, no?”

  “Yes,” I said, “an English teacher.”

  “Perfect,” Victoria said. My dad and Victoria both beamed at me. "You will help your new brother then." Luca and I looked at each other and smiled.

  ****

  Luca went to sleep early that night in an attempt to get his jet lag under control. I sat on the couch, aimlessly flipping through channels. I could hear Robert and Victoria in the kitchen. They were talking in hushed voices, and I turned down the TV so I could make out their conversation.

  “Yes, Robert, he is a smart boy. But he is almost too smart. He knows he can get away with things. He fucked the headmaster's daughter and everyone knew about it. It was a religious school, Robert. It took a lot of money to smooth it over. And then we pay his English teacher to make for him extra lessons, and he fucks her, too, and everyone knows about it again. We pay for a whole year of lessons, and the whole time they were fucking instead. So now his English is still bad. She was a really sweet girl, Robert. I felt so bad for her when she lost her position at the school. She had to go back to her little town in Wales. And people are so conservative there. I think maybe Luca ruined her life. He just makes scandals everywhere, but he always acts so nice. It’s hard to be angry with him. He does whatever he wants.”

  “Jesus,” Robert said pensively. I could picture him closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose, the way he did when he was really exasperated. “Are you worried at all about Amelia? What do you think he'll do to her?”

  “No. He wouldn’t do something like that, not with Amelia. And Amelia is such a good girl, she wouldn't allow it. That’s why I want her to help Luca with his English. Robert," her voice lowered an octave with concern, “I don’t know if they will let him back into Italy. He has just made so much scandal.”

  “I’ll make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid,” he growled.

  “Thank you, Robert,” Victoria said, and I heard them kiss.

  We pay for a whole year of lessons, and the whole time they were fucking instead, so now his English is still bad. I tried not to laugh. Victoria made Luca out to be really naughty. And I guess in a way he was; he was probably devastated to find out I was such a goody-two-shoes.

  I felt a thrill crawl up my spine. Was he really as bad as he sounded? Not being able to return to Italy made him seem like an outright criminal. He didn’t seem that bad when I talked to him. So what if his English teacher was dumb enough to fall for one of her students?

  ****

  I closed the door of the library study room behind me. I was twenty minutes late, and Luca had been waiting for me patiently since school let out at 3pm.

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” I said.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I will just have terrible English now.”

  “You’re English is actually pretty good.”

  “I think it’s pretty bad. Everyone here talks with a funny accent, too. I’m not used to it.”

  “We’re in Texas, honey,” I drawled. Luca put his English homework on the table, along with a copy of The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. I looked at it blankly.

  “You’re reading that?!”

  He shrugged. “Yeah. I actually read English pretty good. I don’t understand everything, but it’s okay. I like literature, it’s what I want to study.”

  “Okay. That’s a really good book.”

  “Why you sound so surprised?” he asked with an edge of anger in voice that took me by surprise. “Everybody thinks I am so shallow, that I just fuck girls and make scandals. Even my mother this way. Then I meet Elizabeth, my English teacher in Bergamo. Do you think we just fuck? We like each other--we like the same things--I had someone to talk with literature about. This is her book that she gave to me. I still think about her every day, and this is the only thing I have from her.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t have to be sorry. Just teach me English, so I don’t talk so bad.”

  “Okay,” I said, chagrined. I plopped the heavy grammar book I had ordered fro
m Amazon on the table. "Let’s get started.”

  A couple hours flew by. Luca wasn’t anything like I expected him to be from our flirtations over the internet. He was a great student and he didn’t seem to have any trouble concentrating.

  After wrapping up the lesson we walked out to my car. “Thank you, Amelia,” Luca said.

  “Sure, no problem,” I said. “I’m sorry about what happened at your school in Montebelluna.”

  “Montebelluna,” he stressed, correcting my pronunciation. “Someday I will teach you Italian.”

  “I don’t think I’ll ever get rid of the Texas accent."

  “Don’t. It sounds nice."

  We arrived at my car. “You’re a lot different than you seemed at first,” I said.

  “You are, too,” Luca said. “I saw you around school a little today. You and Julia.”

  “Oh.”

  “America is weird,” he continued. “Some of the kids act really mean. It is different in Italy.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I think everything in America is kind of a popularity contest. Maybe it’s different in other parts of the country, I don’t know. But that’s how it is here, take it or leave it.”

  “Yes, that is what it seems. Everything here is about status.”

  “Yeah. Back when my mom was still alive we were kind of poor and we lived in a really small town. It was totally different. No one cared about how much money you made, or how cool you were, or what kind of vehicle you drove, or whatever. It was totally different back then.”

  “You have a boyfriend?” he asked offhandedly. I shifted with embarrassment.

  “No,” I said, pulling my hair out of my face and starting the car. I was glad it was dark, because I could feel my face getting hot.

  “No?” Luca sounded genuinely surprised. “Why not? You are really beautiful, if you don’t mind me saying it.”

  I could feel myself getting really red now.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Boys don’t ask me out.”

  “Well, I am sure you will have boyfriends soon, in university.”

  “That’s what everyone tells me,”

  “You can’t just be serious all the time, Amelia,” Luca said, with a serious edge to his voice, “You need to have some fun, too.”

  “Easy for you to say. You have all the girls you want. I heard your mom and my dad talking about you. You sound like you’ve been around.”

  “I don’t have all the girls I want. The girl I want is in England somewhere. I am never going to see her again.”

  ****

  “How is your tutoring of Luca going?” Robert asked me one morning as we sat in the Starbucks drive-thru, just the two of us.

  “It’s going well,” I replied. “He’s smart, so he’s easy to teach.”

  “I know I probably don’t have to tell you this, but be careful with him. He’s got a reputation.”

  “I know all about his reputation. I don't think anything of it. He's a nice boy and I don’t want to hear his 'bad reputation' mentioned again,” I said testily.

  “Okay, that's fine. I just want to protect you, that’s all. You and Luca are spending a lot of time together.”

  “I know, because he wants to learn better English. That’s the only reason.”

  “Just be careful. I know you don’t--”

  I was irritated now. “Do you really think I would fuck my stepbrother?” I bristled.

  “Amelia!” Robert looked at me with surprise. “Language.”

  “What? I’m not twelve anymore. He’s serious about learning, and I want to teach. I’m not doing anything wrong, and you’re lecturing me.”

  “I just care about you, sweetheart. You’re all I have of your mother.”

  “All I do is study anyway, so it doesn’t matter if I spend a bunch of time tutoring some Italian kid.”

  “Okay, okay, okay. I just want you to be careful.”

  “Boys don’t ask me out anyway. So you have nothing to worry about.”

  Chapter 3

  It was one week before the end of the semester. Luca and I had just finished up a studying session and were walking back to my car in the dark.

  “Can you drop me off at the Walgreens on the way home,” Luca asked. “I have to buy something. I can walk home from there.”

  “Sure,” I said. I enjoyed the time I spent with him, but the rush I’d felt when I first met him was gone. And he seemed totally hung up over the English girl, anyway. “Your English is getting a lot better.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “So we leave for Aspen next week--are you excited?”

  “Yeah."

  “You don’t sound very excited.” The truth was, I wasn’t. I just wished there was something more going on in my life. Like a boyfriend, maybe. Luca, sadly, turned out to be a goody-two-shoes like me.

  “Oh!” Luca said excitedly. “I forgot to tell you: I can’t study together tomorrow. I’m going out with a girl.”

  “Great. Who is it?” I asked, trying not to show the obvious distress inside me.

  “Carrie St. Simone.”

  Carrie St. Simone. One of the most popular girls in school. Go figure. She’d been dating the starting quarterback on the football team until last week, when she unceremoniously dumped him in a move that had left everyone tittering about it in the hallways since it occurred. Her father owned a company that made pipefitting tools used in the oil industry, and was even richer than Robert.

  I gritted my teeth and tried to fight the emotion welling inside of me. Just like I had feared, he was being adopted by the popular kids. I realized at that moment that I had been holding on to a fantasy about getting with Luca, and now it was evaporating in front of my eyes.

  “Well,” I said, “I hope it all goes well for you tomorrow.”

  “Thanks, Amelia. And thanks for taking the time to tutor me. I really appreciate it. Not many people would do that.”

  Chapter 4

  Aspen, Colorado. Home of billionaires, trust-fund ski bums and scary cougars with fake boobs. We came every year, and every year the place was just as gloriously obnoxious as it was the previous year.

  Our charter plane touched down on the runway of the tiny airport, in the middle of a dramatic snowscape, with 14,000 foot mountains rising into the sky in every direction.

  “Bellissima,” Luca whispered to himself as he looked out the window.

  I turned sourly back to my phone. I was texting Julia, telling her how much I hated Luca for going out with Carrie. She was commiserating, as usual. The one upshot of having miserable friends was having someone to complain with.

  At least I wasn’t stuck in Pittsburgh like Julia was. The moment I stepped out of our chartered jet and into the snowy paradise that awaited us I was guaranteed to forget my disappointments; at least for a little while.

  “Amelia, you are coming here for every winter?”

  “Yeah,” I said, looking up for only a second. Luca kept trying to talk to me but I was having none of it. I got up impatiently as soon as the plane taxied to a halt and grabbed my bags.

  “I was thinking you would have the black people to carry your bags, because you are so rich,” Luca said, poking fun at the history of the American south which was the last subject he studied in his history class.

  I giggled, despite the fact that I was trying to stay angry. I remained silent.

  “Okay,” Luca said. “Whatever. And you know, the black man has a long...” he made a motion near his crotch indicating the penis. I rolled my eyes.

  “I think a little of the cazzo could make you happier, no? You have been acting angry towards me lately.” I decided to ignore him and walked off the plane carrying my stuff. If Luca had been more of a gentleman, and less of a player, he would have helped me with my things.

  ****

  We hit the slopes at nine the next morning. Actually, Luca and I hit the slopes while Victoria and Robert slept in. Victoria had a typical European attitude towards alcohol, which is to say she foun
d American attitudes towards drinking overly-restrictive, and we had stayed up late polishing off a few bottles of Italian wine which Luca had brought with him in his luggage, duty free. It still hadn’t been enough to loosen me up, however, and I had gone to bed early, claiming I felt sick.

  I had hoped the booze and the late night would put him out of commission until later in the day, but no such luck--he was up as soon as he heard me clattering around downstairs, and raving to go ski.