Wicked Stepbrother (Book Three)

by Lila Price

  I keep that smile plastered on my face. “Good to see you, Jack.”

  “Tristan mentioned this place a few times, and since I have business in the area, I came here for kicks. I told Tristan he should also drop by for old times’ sake, but he was too busy.”

  Wait. “You keep in touch with him?” Immediately I wish I hadn’t asked. Best not to indulge in this. But my heart is racing anyway.

  “Tristan’s as loyal as they come,” he says. “He doesn’t drop his friends, no matter how long it’s been since we hung out.”

  No, I think. He only drops anyone he gets too close to. But I dropped Tristan first, so fair is fair.

  “Tristan and I didn’t see much of each other this summer,” I say nonchalantly. But I have to ask. I have to. “How’s he doing? I know I owe him a call, but I’ve been really busy myself.”

  I hold my breath, hoping Jack buys my explanation. I’m also expecting a horror story from him, something like Tristan just got out of jail or Tristan went to the hospital after one of his fights.

  But Jack’s smile grows bigger. “Tristan’s…good. Great, as a matter of fact.”

  He…is?

  Jack rests his beer on the bar. “I’m surprised at how well he’s doing because, let’s face it—the guy went through some tough shit. Know what I mean?”

  Since Jack doesn’t give me an accusatory look that tells me I was the shit, I stay. I listen.

  “One of his old coworkers helped to create a start up that’s been making money hand over fist, and he brought Tristan on,” Jack says. “He’s already gotten a promotion, no doubt because of the old Tristan charm.” He laughs again. “But there’s something about him lately… It’s like he’s got some purpose. I don’t know how it happened, but he started taking things seriously this summer. When you talk to him, you’ll see.”

  Would I? I don’t want to believe that Tristan’s purpose has anything to do with me…or that maybe I did end up changing him.

  I shake off the possibility as Jack adds the kicker.

  “He’s gotten himself straight, alright. Got some help for that wild streak.”

  Help. Jack has to mean therapy. Please, God, have him mean therapy.

  I’m so overwhelmed that I’m not sure how to respond to all this. Fortunately, Jack’s friends call him back over. He picks up his beer and toasts me with it, but as he goes on his way, he adds one more thing.

  “I guess I’ll see you soon then.”

  Once again, I’m at a loss.

  He notices my confusion. “Tristan’s offer went through on that house in Scarsdale. He’s having a party to show it off.”

  As Jack waves and walks away, I fake my usual happiness, hiding the pain of knowing that Tristan has moved on without me. He’s got to be with another woman now...or maybe a lot of them. He’s moved on with all those beautiful creatures I thought I could be for a short time, but I was just a fling that Tristan’s forgotten about by now.

  The more I long for what we could’ve had, the more it hurts, because, obviously, I was the last mistake he made.

  I don’t hold my breath waiting for a housewarming invitation to arrive. Instead, I spend the next couple of weeks packing some more and readying myself for school. The days tick by until I don’t have anything more to pack.

  I’ll be stowing everything in my car tomorrow and taking off afterward, and that gives me time enough to sit down and look around my room this evening at the same daisy-patterned bedspread and Paris posters on the walls. It’s almost as if nothing has changed from the beginning of vacation.

  But there’s something in the air that I’m leaving behind: dreams of what might have been. I’ve been wallowing in my sadness ever since Tristan’s friend Jack told me about the new job and the house, and it’s a welcome relief when I hear the tinny motor of a delivery truck pulling up in the driveway. Then the doorbell rings.

  In a distracted flash, I’m down the stairs to fetch whatever’s been left at the door. Since I’m not expecting anything, I barely glance at the label as I grab the envelope from the welcome mat.

  Sosie Cooper.

  Huh. There’s no other identifying information, so I close the door and lean back against it, opening the package. I shake it until a thick piece of paper with a key attached to it comes out. There’s an address neatly printed, as well as a time. 4:00. Two hours from now. But there’s nothing else inside.

  I see that the address is in Scarsdale and…

  That’s where Tristan’s new house is supposed to be.

  With my mind swirling, I tell myself that I’m a fool for suspecting the impossible: that this is Tristan’s way of inviting me back into his life, whether it’s to show off how he’s moved on from me or…

  Or what?

  I slip down the door and sit on the floor, pulling my knees toward myself. My heart is blipping out some kind of code that I can’t decipher. I think it’s trying to tell me to be careful, but I also hear—and feel—an urgent message to go to Tristan.

  Just to see why the hell he would contact me after everything.

  Should I be a smart girl and stay away? Or should I listen to my heart and go?

  Even though my common sense is blasting at me, I can’t resist. If I don’t go, I’ll always wonder, and I can’t live with that. So I put on a sundress and text my parents that I won’t be back for a while, then hop into my car before I can change my mind. I blindly drive to Scarsdale, to a neighborhood where the lawns are big and manicured, where the houses are made of stone and the driveways wind up to carports.

  I guide my car up the slight hill past flowerbeds and then get out at the door to the house. My heart’s throttling me, my head telling me to run while every other part of me is shouting to knock, knock on that door.

  I do, and what I see next robs me of oxygen.

  It’s Tristan, and he’s been waiting for me.

  10

  He’s different, yet the same, his hair combed back from his face instead of wild, his athletic body dressed in a finely tailored suit, his arms full of roses. Most stunningly, there’s something in his eyes and demeanor that’s changed.

  It’s like he’s got some purpose, his friend told me.

  And I’m that purpose. I know I am.

  “How did you know I’d come?” I ask.

  “I didn’t.”

  His voice hasn’t changed—it’s still got those rough edges, the low persuasion that enthralled me from the start. Yet there’s a new heartfelt sincerity there, and it’s pulling me in even farther.

  He goes on. “I was hoping you’d give me another chance, even if I didn’t deserve one.”

  “You’ve always been deserving.” I keep looking at those red, blossoming roses. Each bud seems like a beating heart to me. “You only had to realize it.”

  “It took you for me to do that.”

  I can’t get my fill of him, and I keep staring. This is a fantasy, right? This is every dream I’ve had coming true right here and now.

  He sees that I’m not here to fight him, that I’m only shocked and happy enough to start bawling at any moment. Slowly, he reaches out to me, and when he touches my cheek, I close my eyes, savoring this. How many times have I yearned to feel him again? How many times have I told myself it wouldn’t ever happen?

  “You were right about me,” he says. “All of my anger, all the violence… It came from my experience with my mother. I’m still working on how to deal with the past, and I’m realizing that I don’t need to be controlled by it, but I’ve come a long way in such a short time, thanks to you.”

  Once again, I’m afraid that if I move, everything will fall apart around me.

  “After that night at Shady’s,” he says, “when you were ready to have Brent call the cops on me… That was when I woke up. There wasn’t anywhere I could go from there. I knew that I couldn’t live without you, and I couldn’t live with the past anymore, either.”

  I breathe, but nothing shatters. Tristan is still right here with
an emotion flaring in his gaze that I can finally identify.

  My pulse speeds up, waiting for him to say it.

  He strokes my hair back from my face. “Actually, I was awake even before that night. When I heard what you said to me the last time we were together. When you told me that you loved me.”

  “You heard that?”

  “Yeah.” His smile is everything. “I couldn’t bring myself to say it back to you, even though that’s what I felt, too.”

  He’d told me that he cared for me, but now…

  Now is what matters the most.

  His gaze burns into mine. “You’ve been the only person I’ve ever trusted, Sosie, and after I left, I kept hearing you telling me that I needed to talk to someone. So I did. And you know what? The sky didn’t fall. And I’ve actually got a hell of a job now—one that allowed me to buy this house for us.”

  My heart beats hard against my ribs. “For us?”

  He nods. “The entire time we were apart, I’ve worked to forge a new life, a new identity for myself so that I can be worthy of you.”

  My God.

  My legs shake, and I lower myself to my knees before I fall. He bends down with me.

  “I want,” he says, “to be worthy of someone who’s as amazing and beautiful inside and out as you are.”

  He nestles the flowers in my arms and cups my face in his hands.

  “So what I’m getting at is this.” His voice goes ragged. “I love you, Sosie. I love you whether it’s dark or light outside. I’ll love you no matter who thinks it’s wrong or right, because to me, it’s the rightest feeling there is. You and me, me and you.”

  It’s too much to hear him echoing all my dreams, and tears take me over. He’s looked into my soul, and I’ll never find anyone else like him. And when he reaches into his pocket to bring out a tiny box, I drop the roses and press my hands over my mouth.

  He opens the box to reveal a glittering diamond ring.

  “Marry me, Sosie. Be with me. Let me love you the way you deserve to be loved. For the rest of your life.”

  I try to say yes, but a sob rushes out instead. He kisses me anyway, drawing me to him with such conviction and passion that I cling to him. When I come up for air, I answer with my own kisses against his mouth.

  “Yes,” I say. “Yes!”

  Because he did change for me. Changed for the both of us.

  In the past, we would have ignited one another, our kisses desperate, our clothes almost melting off our bodies as we rushed to consume each other. But now Tristan handles me with care, stroking the hair back from my face again, smiling down at me.

  “Yes,” he says, as if it’s the most precious word imaginable.

  Then he scoops me into his arms, making me gasp, kicking the door closed behind us and carrying me out of the foyer to a bigger room where there’s no furniture, only thick carpeting and a view of a pool. He eases me down in front of the sliding glass door, and after I sit, looking out of the window, he cozies up behind me, enfolding me.

  “Our future,” he whispers into my ear.

  Yes, it is, and it’s beautiful. It was always meant to happen.

  “You did good, Tristan,” I say, snuggling back into him. “So good.”

  He kisses my neck, enflaming me just as he’s always done. He rubs my arms, then slips his hands over my ribs, to my stomach, and holds me back against him some more while the sun lowers itself over the horizon. Then, just as the light starts to ember the sky, he slips up to cup my breasts, handling me slowly, because this time, we’re not thinking that this is our last time together—this is our first.

  Tristan and me, me and Tristan.

  He turns me on with every caress, makes me heat up as he slides my dress over my head then languidly strips off my bra, then my panties. As he leans me back so he can kiss me into oblivion, he explores every inch of my skin, here, there, more and more. He massages me until I’m squirming, eager, so ready for him.

  In back of me, I hear him undoing the zipper of his trousers, feel his cock nudge me.

  “I did good alright,” he says, tracing a finger up my spine. “I got myself the best there is.”

  As I shiver with anticipation, he lifts me, and my legs instinctively part to straddle him as he sits me back onto his cock, sliding in and making me moan in ecstasy.

  The echo of my pleasure fills the room, and as he moves me up and down on him, I think about the night when we couldn’t make any sounds in my room. Forbidden, naughty, temporary. But now we can be as loud as we want in this house, our house. And I’m as loud as I can be, bracing my hands on his bent legs, working myself on him slowly, so slowly and deliciously while hearing his excited breaths behind me.

  As if he can’t stand having me face away from him, he lifts me again, turns me around and drives back into me so that we’re looking into one another’s eyes as we love one another fully. Completely. Eternally.

  It’s as if there’s a rumble in the air, a coming storm that I didn’t see outside, but inside me it’s about to break open. Thunderclouds expand in my core, rattling and grumbling, growing in pressure, heat rising, and then, with a force that rocks me, lightning strikes. Singed, I cry out and out while watching Tristan, who’s already come, who’s already watching me to see the pleasure we feel together.

  Our future, I think while I ease down from my climax to embrace him. As he holds me close, the sweat on our skin makes us stick together, bonded forever.

  In love and in it for good.

  Epilogue

  “Happy engagement!” says my friend Cleo, hugging me.

  She’s just walked through the door, and as we pull apart, she hands me a small, wrapped box. I haven’t seen her since summer ended and she went back to school, but she’s made a special weekend trip to the house Tristan and I share.

  It’s just a matter of time before one of his friends is bound to start falling at her feet, because she looks amazing in a short plum-colored skirt and high leather boots that are perfect for the beginning of fall. Her curly dark hair is swept up, her big brown eyes bright as she scans the room and finds Julia by the roaring fireplace. They wave to each other, and Julia gestures for Cleo to join her in conversation with some of the wait staff from Shady’s and a few of Tristan’s coworkers from the start up.

  “Where’s your man?” Cleo asks.

  “In the usual place. Brent and Tristan are addicted to that pool table. Julia and I are almost envious of the attention it gets.”

  “And here I thought it was bad enough that the boys left you and Jules behind for each other. If you add a pool table to their bromance…”

  “Hah.” I mock punch Cleo’s arm. But it’s true that, somehow, some way, Tristan and Brent put aside their past and actually became friends. Brent’s even closer to Tristan than he is with me now, but I think that’s by design since Brent is enough of a gentleman to think about how Julia might react to him hanging around his former crush. We were never more than friends, but I like how he’s so kind and considerate of her.

  Cleo looks around the rest of the room while saying, “Jules better get an engagement ring on her finger before that pool table gets one from Brent.” Then she glances at my own ring. “I’ve been thinking—I’d like one of those, too, but in rubies. I dig rubies the most.”

  “You really should find a man first.”

  “The odds are good tonight, don’t you think?”

  With a wink, she sashays off toward Julia, and I laugh, then head toward the gift table to add her present to the pile. Afterward, I make sure everyone has a champagne flute for the upcoming toast, and just as I’m satisfied with the situation, I see Tristan.

  He’s sauntering out of the hallway with Brent, who walks the rest of the way into the room. But my guy leans against the wall, his hands in his trouser pockets as he grins. The remnants of the bad boy come out as he gives me a hot, slow look that makes flames shoot through me. It’s so hot that I’m ready to lead him upstairs to our bedroom and forget
these guests.

  But when a waiter hands us champagne flutes and I hear someone tapping a utensil against a glass, I tear my gaze away from Tristan and toward the sound.

  Brent is standing near the bar, where the catering employees have returned from circulating champagne around the room. He adjusts his tie before he speaks.

  “Tristan has a hundred different friends who could’ve stood up here and made a toast…and I kind of wish one of them were doing it instead of me.”

  Everyone laughs. I sense Tristan coming up behind me, and when he rests his hand in the small of my back, I sigh. He rubs his fingers against the base of my spine while I slowly turn to mush.

  “What can I say?” Brent smiles at Julia as she sidles up next to him. His heart is in his eyes, and so is hers. “This coming year is a big one for our couple. Sosie’s going to have a wedding and a graduation. As for Tristan, he’s going to rule Manhattan at the rate he’s going.”

  More laughter, and my gaze catches my parents’. They’re across the room, laying low. They’ve come a long way in accepting the reality of Tristan and me—we’re even having brunch tomorrow morning—and I’m grateful that they’re trying so hard. It wasn’t easy when their friends found out about this stepbrother/stepsister matchup, but they’ve stood by us, sometimes reluctantly, but always definitely.

  Brent raises his glass. “I finally realized why Tristan asked me above all the others to lead this toast. Tonight and every night forward is about overcoming the past, so let’s not only drink to that, but to a blazingly bright future for Tristan and Sosie. Cheers!”

  “Cheers!” says everyone.

  We drink, then Tristan and I accept their congratulations, but the first moment we have to slip away, we do.

  Tristan shuts the study door behind us, taking me into his arms and kissing my lips, my ear, my neck.

  “We can’t do this during our own engagement party,” I say between short breaths.