RAIL ME, RIDE ME, RUIN ME: A Stepbrother Romance

by Tabatha Kiss

  The last thing I want is to be related to him.

  “Piper?” I hear my father’s voice from the head of the table. “You’ve been quiet.”

  “Yes, Piper,” Ava adds. I look over at her and bile tempts my throat. “I know this is a lot to take in all at once, but that’s why we’re all here — together. We want you to say what you need to say—”

  “Don’t patronize my daughter, please,” my mother interrupts. She grabs the bottle of wine in front of her and starts to pour a healthy amount into her glass. “She’s not a toddler—”

  “Penny…” my father warns.

  “Oh—” my mother laughs. “I’m sorry, everybody. My bad, Philip.” She turns to me. “Yes, Piper, please tell us your opinion on your father dumping me for my best friend after sixteen years of marriage.”

  “Penny—”

  She lets out a cackle before downing a large sip. The table falls into an awkward silence. I lock eyes with Kai once again. He shrugs his shoulders and I want to slap him in the face. Now isn’t the time for his laid-back, give-no-fucks attitude.

  Hawthorne slides his glass closer to my mother. “I’ll take some of that, Penny,” he says.

  “Hawthorne,” Ava says his name with long, drawn-out syllables, “maybe you should slow down.”

  “This is slow, Ava dear,” he mutters.

  “Careful, Hawthorne,” my mother smirks. “You’re hitting on another man’s woman.”

  He chuckles loudly and brings the full glass to his lips.

  “I don’t think that’s funny, Penny,” my father says.

  “Well, you’ve never had much of a sense of humor, Philip.”

  I close my eyes, eager to disappear into thin air, as their voices continue tossing back and forth across the table. This is all a dream. It has to be. Some fever-fueled nightmare. Soon, I’ll wake up in my bedroom upstairs and life will return to normal. My father won’t be engaged to Ava Casablancas, my mother won’t be moving out, and Kai fucking Casablancas won’t be my goddamn stepbrother-to-be.

  I open my eyes to find that he’s still staring at me.

  Nope. This is no nightmare.

  This is my life now.

  ***

  “Harder.”

  The change hits before the word even leaves my tongue. He thrusts me with even greater intensity as his fingers wrap a little tighter around my hair. His cock charges in and out of me, knowing exactly where to touch and how deep to go to get me off fast.

  I whip my head around and moan his name.

  “Kai…”

  Kai Casablancas.

  My oldest acquaintance. My idiot stepbrother. My perfect boyfriend. My greatest annoyance. My favorite lover. I’ve lost track of how many labels he’s earned.

  He leans forward and smothers my lips with kisses as he sends his rod just a few inches deeper inside. I dig my nails into the wooden table that holds us up. Kai keeps his grip on my hair, tugging at just the right moments to mix the pleasure building inside of me with just a little bit of pain. We’ve barely been at it for two minutes and I’m already close to coming.

  To say it’s been a stressful week would be an understatement. The threat of finals week is always enough to make me feel a little jittery, but this week is special. It’s not just finals week — it’s our final finals week at USC.

  I started university a year later than my peers, but I was determined to catch up. Once again, I found myself with my face in a book — a rather familiar pose to anyone that’s ever met Piper Lynch, the princess of Belle Academy — and when I finally glanced up, I was a week away from being a college graduate. Oh, and not just any college graduate. I was Valedictorian. Again.

  The irony is not lost on me.

  I didn’t want this for myself. This was the life my father wanted for me and I hated it. I went to Europe three years ago, determined to reunite with my jilted mother and never come back. It was a good plan. It was working. Until Kai convinced me otherwise.

  After taking six months to travel Europe with my mother, we came back home and decided to settle down. It was far from an easy decision. I spent years planning how to escape from home, after all. To come back here so quickly and succumb to the life I despised was… well…

  Unexpected.

  You know the story by now. Girl meets boy. Boy is a fucking idiot, but charming in various ways. Girl hates boy. Boy makes bet with best friend to fuck girl. Girl rejects boy outright, but boy manages to pull it off. Girl and boy fuck like bunnies until girl breaks boy’s heart. Boy and girl live in gloom for half a year. Girl returns home. Boy and girl fall back in love. And they lived happily ever after.

  Sort of.

  Kai nibbles against my shoulder and I shudder beneath his passionate thrusts. My body melts for him, along with the stress of the last three years.

  It wasn’t easy to transition back into the student lifestyle, but I had a rather decent support system holding me up. My father found it in his heart to forgive me for running off and since then, we’ve actually managed to develop a rather normal father/daughter relationship. Of course, he couldn’t be prouder of me making Valedictorian again, even though I didn’t even fucking mean to.

  My mother abandoned her nomadic lifestyle in favor of coming back to Los Angeles with me. I could tell it was a rough decision for her. She’d been traveling the world for years, going nowhere and everywhere at the same time, looking to find herself after my father destroyed her life. I wasn’t sure if coming home was the right choice for her. That is, until the day Kai and I walked in on her having sex with Hawthorne Casablancas.

  Our family tree could not be more tangled. My father and his mother. My mother and his father. And us, Piper and Kai, the kids.

  Really, it’s best not to think about it.

  Moans spill off my lips as climax takes hold of me. Kai wraps his strong arms around my body and grips me still while I ride the wave back and forth on his thick cock. “Oh… fuck!” I shout.

  “Shh…” he chuckles in my ear, nervous about our location. This is a library, after all. The private study rooms aren’t meant for quickie fucks, but that never stopped us once in the last three years. He lets out one final grunt before spending himself inside of me.

  Thankfully, the library is more or less deserted. Classes are over. The only students left on campus are here for graduation and they’ve all started lining up to take that long walk across the stage to claim their degrees. I’ve been combating nervous shakes all morning and after the three-hundredth time I practiced my speech, Kai led me in here to take the edge off with a morning bang.

  “Ohh, Kai…” I coo. I push my arms beneath me to hold myself up. “God, I needed that…”

  He laughs in my ear and leaves kisses along my neck. “I know,” he says. I feel his cock slide out of me as he takes a step back to lean against the wall.

  I stand up and turn around. “What time is it?” I ask.

  “No idea,” he says as he zips his trousers up and starts tucking his once-ironed shirt back inside. Little creases leaves wrinkles around his abdomen now, but it won’t be noticeable behind the black graduation robe he has draped over a nearby chair.

  I push my skirt down and reach for my purse to fetch my phone. “Ahh, shit,” I say. “It’s almost time.”

  Kai steps forward and cups my face. “Do you feel better?” he asks.

  I force a smile. “Yeah,” I lie.

  He raises an eyebrow. “Something else on your mind?”

  I inhale deep to let the cool air chill my throbbing insides. “No,” I answer. I lean in to give him a deep, reassuring kiss. “I’m going to swing by the ladies’ room,” I say as I reach for the doorknob.

  “Okay,” he smiles. “I’ll see you in the auditorium. Hey—”

  I feel his hand on my arm and I pause in the doorway. “Yeah?”

  Kai steps closer and rests his forehead against mine. “You’ll be fine.”

  “I just want to get it over with,” I say. I scoop my gr
aduation robe off the table and hang it over my arm.

  “Enjoy it,” he says. “You’ve earned it.”

  I nod quickly. “Love you.”

  “Love you.”

  I pull away and step down the hallway, striding fast towards the restrooms. Kai thinks I’m freaking out about my speech, but it’s really the farthest thing from my mind at the moment. I’ve given a hundred different speeches to thousands of people. This one will be no different than the last.

  I push open the bathroom door and breathe a light sigh of relief when I see it’s empty. I stare at my pale, white skin the mirror. Usually, taking a ride on Kai’s cock is more than enough to make my cheeks pink and perfect, but not today. I felt a moment of blissful euphoria when he made me orgasm, but it quickly dissipated and the nausea came back with full force.

  I fill my palm with water and take slow sips from it. I told myself I wasn’t going to freak out about it until finals were over. Then I said I wouldn’t freak out about it until after graduation, but today, my body has other plans.

  I get myself cleaned up and pull the graduation robe over my head. Unlike the shiny, maroon-colored robes of Belle Academy, these are black and plain. I don’t mind though. Black is more my color anyway. My long, raven-colored hair blends with it as I let it fall down over my shoulders.

  My fingers grip the sink as another wave of nausea plows through me.

  Fuck…

  I coat my face with cold water and stand still a few more moments until it passes. Finally, the waves end and I quickly dry my face and rush out of the bathroom to make sure I make it to graduation on time.

  One more day. I can wait one more day before I have to freak out about this.

  Chapter 2

  Kai

  “Does Piper look different to you?”

  I look to my left. My best friend, Shawn Monty, sits next to me with squinting eyes. “No,” I answer. “Why?”

  “She looks off.”

  “Off how?”

  “I don’t know.” He tilts his head to look around the black cap in the row ahead of us. “Sick or something.”

  “She’s fine,” I tell him. “Just nervous is all.”

  Shawn shrugs and gazes around. “This is going to take forever.”

  I nod and glance around the stuffed auditorium. Shawn and I sit lost amid the sea of black caps and gowns of our graduating class. As I look around, I realize that I don’t recognize a single fucking face. Not one. It’s a little culture shocking. At Belle Academy, I knew the face and bio of every single person that walked across that stage (mostly because I had been inside of half of them) but now… I don’t know any of them. Except for Mandy Black. She sits on my right with her arms crossed about her chest.

  “Hey, Mandy—” Shawn whispers across my lap. “Does Piper look sick to you?”

  “No.”

  It’s brief and direct. I glance over at her. Her big, brown eyes point straight ahead, focused on the speaker yammering away on the stage. Shawn slinks back into his chair when he realizes that’s all he’s going to get out of her. I’d feel worse for my good friend, but he kind of had this one coming.

  Shawn and Mandy have spent more time apart than dating over the last year. Honestly, I expected them to be back together by this point, but Mandy has stubbornly put her foot down this time. She’s ready for something more serious, she told me herself, and Shawn just isn’t the serious type. Even now that we’re college graduates — adults more or less — I still can’t see him settling down for any reason.

  Then again, I’m not so sure about myself settling down anymore either.

  I look at Piper sitting on the stage and a smile catches my lips. Piper fucking Lynch. My lover, in every sense of the word. Sure, I’ve tossed the word girlfriend around a lot, but I don’t think it quite covers what she is to me.

  Or was…

  Don’t get me wrong. I love Piper with every piece of me, but things between us have changed recently. At first, it was nothing but secret hook-ups, dirty text messages, and fiery bliss. Now, after three years… it’s more or less the same, but as time passes, expectations grow, too. I think Piper’s happy with how things are, but I know our family sure as hell isn’t.

  There was some serious judgment in the beginning. Piper and I are step-siblings, after all. It took some getting used to, but after awhile, it was like old news. I thought that was what we wanted all along, for everyone to just chill out and let us be, but then I was pulled into my stepfather’s study last Christmas and spent an hour getting grilled about my intentions. I guess a father gets nervous when his only daughter dates the same man for a few consecutive years.

  It’s not just Philip either. My mother began asking questions last summer after my father got remarried. That’s when our relationship jumped from interesting happenstance to cosmic joke.

  My father married Piper’s mother in a small, private ceremony at his house. There were only five people there: My father, Penny, Piper, myself, and a judge. Afterward, my mother obsessed over just how hilarious it would be if Piper and I got hitched as well. After the joke caught on, it was on everybody’s lips.

  So, where’s the ring?

  School is almost over. Settling down yet?

  Better find a good job to afford a house and put down some roots.

  It makes me cringe every time. Piper isn’t the issue. I plan on her being in my life for a long time, no problems there. But the idea of settling down is a death sentence to me now. I can’t imagine myself that way. Husband, wife, kids, dog, and picket fences. It may have been plausible when I was younger, but now… that’s crazy talk. That’s boring. That’s… ordinary. Some men can look into the eyes of the women they love and see that life peaking back at them. I look into Piper’s eyes and I see…

  I see her head leaning against the window, sleeping lightly as the train car shakes gently down the tracks. I see the sun setting on the horizon of a passing vineyard behind her. I see a one-way ticket to anywhere we want to go.

  “I’d like to introduce this year’s Valedictorian, Ms. Piper Lynch!”

  My eyes jump back on the stage. Before I can clap for her, I hear the loud whoops and hollers from the seats far behind us. I follow the voices and chuckle when I see my father and stepmother on their feet, waving their hands and whistling for her. Even my mother and Piper’s father are standing next to them in celebration of her. It’s strange to see the four of them being so friendly together after so many years of battles and feuds. But I guess that’s family for you.

  “Thank you, Dean Rogers.”

  Piper’s voice brings my attention back to the stage. I look up at her and a wave of nostalgia washes over me. Years ago, this was all that Piper was. It was an act, mostly, but no one knew that at the time. Piper seemingly lived for the spotlight and all the attention it brought her. Nowadays, she’s much more private and quiet. I like her better now.

  Her lips curl with a quick smile as she gazes out at the students sitting ahead of her. I smile back at her, knowing that she probably has no idea where I am in the sea of black robes, but that’s fine. It’s been a long time since the days when I used to watch her, when I could see her but she couldn’t see me. Somehow, watching her sleep every night doesn’t feel the same as this.

  Piper takes a deep breath and pauses as her eyes suddenly spot me. She smiles again, but this time, it strikes her eyes, the way it always does when she smiles just for me. We share a silent moment in time, gazing at each other, ignoring the other thousands of eyes watching her as well.

  She finally looks away and flawlessly transitions into her speech.

  An oddness takes hold of me. There’s something strange in the way she moves, something I can’t quite pin down.

  Maybe Shawn’s right. She does look a little different.

  ***

  “You okay, buddy?”

  I turn around as my dad walks into the room. “No,” I mutter. I look out the window again and watch as the movers carry boxes in
to the moving truck one-by-one. “I am objectively not okay.”

  He throws on a sympathetic face. “Oh, come on, Kai. It won’t be that bad.” I feel his hand slap against my shoulder. “You’re gonna get to live in a big mansion with a pool and a maid. It’ll be great.”

  I slowly look at him and he quickly loses the fake smile. “Why can’t I just stay here?”

  “I wish you could, Kai,” he says, “but judge says no. I have to do a lot of traveling over the next year for work and I can’t leave a minor home alone for weeks at a time.”

  “Still…” I glance around the empty room. “I grew up here. I don’t want to leave.”

  Dad traces the same pattern around the room with his eyes. “I know, but…” he sighs. “Sometimes, things don’t go exactly as planned. Life is gonna throw some curve balls at you. Right now, you and I… are just going to have to make the best of a few bad pitches.”

  “Just doesn’t seem right is all.”

  “And it’s not,” he says. “Listen, buddy…” He steps closer and throws his arm around my shoulder. “One of these days, you and I are going to look back and we’re going to laugh at this. I promise.”

  “I highly doubt that, Dad.”

  “I’m serious. That day is not today, but someday, it will be today. Okay?”

  I nod, but I don’t believe a word of it. “All right.”

  “In the meantime, I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing and you’re going to go live with your mother… and the man that’s fucking her.”

  I cringe. “Jesus, Dad…”

  “I’m sorry, Kai,” he says. “I’m a bit bitter. But hey — you’ll have Piper to hang out with. She’s… a nice girl.”

  I chuckle and shake my head. “Yeah, right.”

  “You’ve been friends forever. I’m sure you guys can bond over this.”