“There's nothing keeping me here, and besides, the tour is only four months long this time. Might as well make some money.” His voice was flat. I knew it was for more than a paycheck that he fought for his country.
“You still not over her, Ian?” I asked, surprised and ready to take advantage of any chink in his armor.
“Don't go there, Hayley,” he warned, hitting the accelerator.
“Aw, poor little soldier boy got his heart all broken,” I teased. I wanted to see him react. To see if he really did still care for his ex-girlfriend.
“Fuck you, Hayley.”
I immediately regretted saying it. It was rare that I could ever get him riled, and I only wanted to piss him off a little bit. “Yeah, well, Rachel's a bitch. Seriously, if she hasn't talked to you since then, she was no good for you anyway.”
Rachel was his ex. They had been together for over a year and he had even proposed. Except, the engagement had lasted all of a week before Rachel cheated on him and he called it off. Broke his heart completely. I had never seen him cry before that day.
“You really don't want to go there, Hayley.” He was serious as a heart attack this time. I didn't want to push my luck with him anymore, especially since we'd have to be sharing living space for the next month. I rolled my eyes, but I shut up.
I still felt partially responsible since Rachel had once been my best friend. We had been inseparable until senior year, to the point people called us “sisters.” We even looked alike. Then, something had changed in her, and even though I knew what had triggered it, it still hurt. I firmly believed that she got with Ian just to make me jealous. Cheating on Ian was right up her alley.
I knew this had to be a sore subject for him. Ian wanted a family more than anything. Something to come home to after assignment. Something that would give him a reason not to volunteer for the dangerous missions overseas, and if he did go, a reason to fight that wasn't just honor.
I glanced over at him, his grip surprisingly light on the steering wheel as he did his best to ignore me and my comments on Rachel. He was made to wear the uniform. He was all honor and excellence. A real hero. Despite how I felt, or didn't feel, or however mixed up he made me, I thought he deserved some happiness. He was a freaking war hero after all. He served his country and he deserved some happiness.
“You going to get out or what?” An easy smirk filled his handsome features as I realized I was staring at him, and that the car was stopped in the driveway. I wondered just how long I had been sitting there with a stupid look on my face.
I moved as quickly as the blush flying across my cheeks, ripping of the seat-belt and opening the door. I slid off the seat and stepped out into the cool dark. It was cool and quiet other than the crickets singing in the bushes.
“Nice undies, Princess.”
My hands went to my skirt and realized that sliding out of the jeep had caused it to ride up to the point where he could see the thong I was wearing. I pulled down on my stupid skirt and stalked toward the front door, my face hot even in the dark. Ian's laughter followed me as he closed his door.
I just wanted to get inside and go to bed. If I was quiet, if Ian was quiet, then we wouldn't wake our parents and I wouldn't have to explain my drinking habits to my dad. I was responsible, but getting drunk the first night home was never a good way to start things.
I tripped over the small welcome mat that Jenny had placed on the second step of the porch. Why it was on the second step, I had no idea- which was why I had tripped on it. Suddenly, I was all heels, drunk arms, and short skirt.
Ian caught me. Again.
I had to wonder if this was turning into a bad habit around him. I turned and put my hands on his chest. His uniform was rough under my palms and I was suddenly breathing hard and my hormones were going crazy.
He was breathing hard too. But that had to be because he had to catch me. It couldn't possibly be that he found the ugly duckling stepsister attractive. Couldn't possibly be that he had the same naughty desires and fantasies I did. No. It couldn't be that.
Yet, I wanted to kiss him. To feel his mouth against mine. My drunk brain was sure it was a good idea. I closed my eyes, willing myself to live the fantasy, just for a second. I could blame it on alcohol in the morning.
Except, the porch lights flared to life and the front door opened before I had the chance.
Chapter Three
“Ian?” Jenny, Ian's mom, stood squinting out at the two of us almost kissing on the porch.
“Hey, Mom. Would you hold the door open? I think Hayley might be too drunk to walk.”
That jerk. He just sold me out.
Jenny opened the door up, revealing her to be in her pajamas. The door to our parent's room was open, but my Dad wasn't sleeping on his side of the bed. A book was there, but I could hear Dad snoring on the couch in the living room.
“Hayley.” Jenny said my name with just the right amount of parental disappointment to make me feel awful. Despite not actually being my real mother, the effect was still strong. “What is your father going to say?”
“I'm fine.” I pushed Ian away and stood up as straight as I could. “I just had a couple of drinks at the bar to celebrate my birthday with friends.”
Jenny raised one eyebrow. Ian definitely got that skill from her.
“And these heels are hard to walk in, okay? Besides, why is there a welcome mat on the porch step? Those are supposed to go by the door.” I walked through the door, working very, very hard to walk in a straight line to the stairs leading to my bedroom.
“Goodnight Hayley,” Jenny said, shaking her head and heading back to her bedroom. “Goodnight Ian.”
I nearly tripped on the first step but managed to make it without falling or looking too stupid. The door to Jenny's room clicked shut and I met Ian's eyes. Even in the dark I knew what color they were.
“Goodnight Princess,” he said quietly before breaking contact and heading to the kitchen.
I stuck my tongue out at his back and stomped up the stairs to my room.
***
The ceiling was exactly the same as it was when I was in high school, down to the strange little crack that looked like a bunny riding a Pogo stick. I groaned slightly and kicked off my covers. The alcohol had worn off and now I couldn't sleep. But I could hear Ian moving around in his room through our shared wall.
I wondered if he was still wearing his ACU's or if he was naked. I hoped naked. I liked the idea of him naked.
NO, I chastised myself. BAD THOUGHTS. WRONG. HE'S YOUR BROTHER!
Still, the image of his muscular ass was hard to get out of my head.
I pulled the pillow up around my ears, trying to block out the sounds of him moving around. His room had a private entrance that was separate from the house, but the room shared the main wall with mine. Unfortunately, that wall was crazy thin.
I had hated it when he lived here with me. I could hear every moan of pleasure from the girls he brought home. Dad and Jenny had no idea how many girls he had driven to orgasm in there. But I did. Because I heard every one of them and wished it was me.
Just thinking about it made my stomach clench with desire. I'd had a huge crush on Ian my freshman year of high school, long before our parents became a thing. I had about as much chance at him then as I did now. Zilch. Unfortunately, the crush never went away, no matter how hard I tried.
I closed my eyes, trying to fall asleep, but all I focus on was memories.
***
“Seriously, look at Ian's ass.” I gave a happy sigh.
“You seriously have a thing for him don't you?” Rachel asked, looking up from her homework. The cool fall breeze blew through her long dark hair and ruffled the pages of our notebooks. We were supposedly sitting out on the bleachers doing homework, but in reality, we were checking out the the football team at practice.
“What? He's hot.” I grinned at her. She was my best friend and the only person I didn't feel stupid smiling in front of with my brac
es.
“Never gonna happen,” she assured me. “You're a skinny freshman and he's basically a football god.” She shrugged and pretended to write something down, but her eyes were on the tight ends running around on the field.
“I know,” I replied with a resigned shrug. “A girl can dream though.”
My eyes instinctively went to him. He was tall and broad in all the right places. And three years older and the star of the football team and always surrounded by cheerleaders. I, on the other hand, was an awkward girl with braces and a love of photography.
We did have one class together, though it didn't do anything for my unrequited love. Spanish class was a nightmare and a dream. A dream because I could gaze at him, but a nightmare because he loved to get me riled up. He flat out refused to call me anything but Princess since I was the only freshman in the entire class.
I hated the nickname, but loved the fact that at least he had one for me. I tried to console myself with that- even if he snickered at everything I said and tried to find a way to make fun of me at every opportunity. He was a total jerk, but I couldn't help that my girl parts responded whenever he was near.
“You should pick a more reasonable dreamboat,” Rachel advised me, looking out at the field. “Like Aiden. There's a real yum.”
“He's okay,” I said, watching Aiden, tall and thin with almost bleach-blonde hair run across the field. He was nothing but a boy compared to Ian.
“Okay?” Rachel held up the back of her wrist to my forehead as if checking for a fever. “He's a little bit better than 'okay.'”
“Oh, I see how it is,” I replied. “You have a thing for the sophomore in your computer class.”
Rachel stuck her tongue out at me. “He's way better than Ian.”
“He's hot, don't get me wrong, he's just not that bright.” I shook my head. “I share homeroom with him, and let's just say that he's not going to get an academic scholarship if the football thing doesn't work out.”
Rachel scoffed, tossing her long dark hair behind her. “Like that matters.”
“To you, maybe. I like to have a little conversation with my sex, thanks.”
She pointed her pencil at me like a teacher. “The point is that the sex is so good you don't need conversation.”
Our eyes met and we burst into giggles. We were both virgins with no prospects of that changing anytime soon. Especially not with Aiden or Ian. We just weren't in their league.
***
Oh, how things change, I thought with a sigh. Senior year changed everything.
Aiden and I became a couple after I helped him with his community college Spanish class. Things between the two of us just kind of fell into place. And Rachel had hated me for it. Three years of friendship lost over a guy. A guy that didn't even stick around the moment Ian came back from war and suddenly became my brother. I never even had sex with Aiden.
I lost my best friend and my boyfriend all in the same two weeks after Christmas.
For Christmas, Dad brought Jenny back from Vegas as his wife. It wasn't exactly the Christmas present I had been expecting, but I thought I could handle it. They both claimed it was a spur of the moment kind of thing. I just wished Dad had chosen to randomly marry some stranger that wasn't Ian's mom.
It hadn't been bad at first. I liked Jenny. She was sweet, and a little high-strung, but tolerable. Since Ian was off on deployment, I didn't have to deal with him. To be honest, the idea that we were siblings didn't even hit me until he showed up and started living in they extra room above the garage.
That was when the nightmare really started.
Ian decided that he had to play the part of the super protective big brother. Which would have been fine if he hadn't caught me making out with Aiden in the driveway and scared the crap out of him. It would have been fine if Aiden hadn't broken up with me because he didn't want to piss Ian off. I couldn't even get a date to Senior Prom because Ian's big brother act scared them all away.
It wasn't fair.
I spent my senior spring semester listening to Ian ravage girls through the wall while I couldn't even get a single date because of him. I had to listen to him send them into orgasm after orgasm while I stayed an innocent virgin. I hated that I wanted it to be me.
I'd been so happy to leave for school that I started my photography program in the summer instead of waiting for the fall. I had to get out of there. I had thought I was safe. That it was just a period that I had to go through, but that it was over.
I couldn't have been more wrong.
Every trip home I took back home, Ian was with a new girl. A new girl I had to listen to through the wall and be reminded that I had never felt that way. That I had never had sex with any man, let alone an Adonis like Ian. That I had never orgasmed at all without my vibrator. Yet, Ian got every single one of his girls off. The screams were too visceral to be faked. Too real.
I stopped coming home for longer than a day if he was home. Listening to him on the other side of that wall and knowing I could never have him, that it was now totally forbidden was just too much. He still annoyed the crap out of me, finding ways to get my temper stoked or teasing me until I couldn't control the blushes. It was easier just to avoid him.
The worst blow had come in October. It was Jenny's 45th birthday and my Dad threw her a huge party. I had to go. And so did Ian. Except Ian brought his brand new fiance. A girl that I had been trying to avoid for the past three years. Rachel.
The things I had heard her moan through that wall for three nights made my stomach clench and roll with jealousy and agony.
I had a suspicion that Rachel had been the loudest one yet just to rub it in my face that she was with Ian and I wasn't. Aiden was long gone, but Rachel still had to one-up me. Girl knew how to hold a grudge.
Hate boiled up in my stomach at the thought of her. It wasn't just that the two of us had once been friends. It wasn't because she had broken Ian's heart. It wasn't because she was a lying, cheating bitch, but because she got something I wanted and could never have. Ian. And while the two of them were together, she had done nothing but flaunt it in my face.
“Oh, look Hayley. Look at Ian's ass. It's still just as tight as it was when he was playing football, isn't it? Do you still sit and watch him from the bleachers?”
I still could feel the mortifying look Ian had given me as he ate his mother's cake and his fiance made his stepsister look at his ass.
Except now, she didn't have Ian anymore. She had everything and threw it away. I couldn't help but feel a little bit smug about that.
I rolled over onto my side. Ian's room was quiet now, but all I could think of was his ass. In his football uniform. In his dress greens. In his ACU's. His perfect, muscular, taut ass.
It was going to be a long night.
Correction, it was going to be a long month.
Chapter Four
“Who says I want to go to counseling with you, Sam?!”
“Who says that you should?!”
A door slammed so hard the whole foundation of the house rattled. The fight was loud enough to wake me up from a wonderful dream about Ian's ass. I sighed and kept my eyes closed against the morning sunshine and the quiet of a fight not finished.
Things were not looking so great for Jenny and my Dad. Honestly, I was surprised they'd lasted this long. A drunk night in Vegas at a real estate conference isn't exactly the type of thing that a lifetime of love and support is supposed to based on.
Not that I had ever had high hopes. Jenny was wife number four for my dad. He picked great women, but had a bad habit of jumping into marriage with them way too soon. I'm sure it had emotionally scarred me in some way, but I did my best not to let it jade my thoughts on relationships too much. I suspected there was a connection between that and my still being a virgin, though.
My head was pounding and I needed a shower. I could smell the bar still in my hair and I knew my sweat was full of alcohol. I counted to three to mentally prepare myself to get up and th
en did my best to slither out of bed to the bathroom across the hall.
Half asleep, I opened the door to the bathroom and found myself staring at a very wet, very naked, Ian.
The clear glass shower hadn't fogged up yet, so I could see everything. His eyes were closed as the water sluiced down his head and to his muscled chest. My mouth dropped open as I followed the sweet V of his muscles to a very large, very long erection.
He ran his hands up and down his entire length, sudsy bubbles dripping from his cock. He caressed his shaft, working himself with pleasure and I couldn't stop staring. My panties were suddenly drenched with desire. Maybe it was the lingering alcohol in my body, but I was halfway to stripping and getting in the shower with him. My inner muscles tightened at the though to being skewered by his throbbing cock.
Ian groaned slightly and sped up the motion of his hand. I couldn't move, couldn't tear my eyes away from him. I knew I should leave, but watching him jack off was the most erotic thing I'd ever seen. I wondered if I'd actually get to see him ejaculate, see that semen spray from his body. I even began to imagine it spraying into my own body, like in some of my fantasies...
“Fuck...” Ian whispered into the falling water. His ass tightened as his hands made his cock grow even more. “That little skirt...”
A little whimper of desire eeked out of me. I couldn't help it. He was so fucking sexy and hard and everything I could ever imagine wanting. I didn't mean to make a noise, but I did.
Ian's eyes popped open and his hand stilled as he slowly turned his head to face me.
“Hayley?”
My eyes fluttered back and forth between his delicious cock and his face. I didn't know what to look at. My brain was too filled with lust and surprise to come up with any words. Ian didn't even bother to cover himself, instead just letting me flounder in my own embarrassment.
“I'm so sorry, I just...” I closed my eyes, trying to center myself, but my brain refused to work. All I could think about was jumping on that cock and riding him until he came hard inside of me. “Just let me know when you're done so I can shower.”
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