still at work. I'll see you tonight for some fun. call later!
I looked forward to seeing her. In the mean time I stripped down to my panties, socks and bra and grabbed an old pair of pajamas—stained gym shorts and a tank top—that hadn’t made the trip to New York with me for obvious and good reasons. Then I climbed into bed to get a cat nap in. Whatever Tessa had found for us to do, I wouldn't have much to show off if I arrived with huge bags under my eyes and slouched, tired shoulders.
***
Just as I started to doze off, I heard the doorbell and the rubber soles of Nancy’s slippers sprinting to answer it.
From her delighted scream that followed I could guess her boy was home. I was picturing James grabbing her and lifting her off her feet with one of his big bear hugs, usually reserved exclusively for Nancy. He might be a jerk with everyone else, but you didn’t dare touch his mother.
I learned that right away. It was soon after they moved in with us. We were still kids practically. I had made some nasty comment about his mother, I can’t remember what, but I’ll never forget the way he stared me down with pure fury. I was positive he would actually hurt me, physically, if I didn’t take it back. So I did. Right away. And I never said anything mean since.
As I heard the dark rumble of his voice echoing up the stairs I tried to make out what they were talking about, but it was impossible. Especially once my dad finally made it over to welcome him and added his booming voice to the mix.
I wondered if I should get up and go downstairs. My parents knew I was napping, so I didn’t have to, but I was curious to see him again. He had looked... I don't know, different on all the magazine covers. He had hit it big after his little start up my dad had bankrolled was invested in by some big Wall Street firm. I didn’t really understand what he did, but it was some sort of software that did math things that stock traders could use to make a lot of money.
Yeah, he was handsome and smart. And a total ass. Most of the time, anyway.
I was getting up to go say hello when I saw myself in the mirror—the old Allie stared back at me in her silly pajamas.
Hell no.
Maybe I would just sneak a peak at him down the stairwell and wait until I was dressed in that little black dress to have our official reintroduction. When he saw me for the first time I wanted to make an impression.
No, I corrected myself, slowly opening my door and tiptoeing to the edge of the stairs. You want to make him want you, you sick, sick twisted girl.
I saw James’s big, olive green duffel bag by the door and could hear their voices moving around downstairs. I waited until I heard his boots on the wood floor and craned my neck further. Then I saw him.
He reached down, grabbing his bag, and when he turned around he looked straight up at me.
"Well, hello little sister." He flashed his most charming smile. When he got a look at my outfit he raised his eyebrows, as if impressed. "Aren’t we looking good!?"
I gave him a sarcastic smile and retreated to my room.
So much for making that first impression.
Chapter Three
I got back in bed just in time to find my phone vibrating on it. Tessa was calling.
"Girl," I sighed into the phone. "I miss you."
"Aw, I miss you, too, sweetie. Did you just get back?"
"Pretty much. I was just getting into bed to take a nap."
"Good, you’ll need it. I’m still at work but I wanted to check in.” I could practically hear her smile through the phone. “Aww, it feels different talking to you when I know you’re home!"
"I feel so weird being here," I confessed.
"Well, Bloomfield isn’t New York," she said, putting on a thick and funny accent when she said it. "You’ll have to forgive us common folk for being so drab, darling."
I laughed.
"Okay, business. I only have a few minutes," Tessa said. "Statesmen. Tonight. Alumni thing. Everybody will be there, et cetera et cetera."
I saw myself stepping up the stained carpeted stairs of the dingy Statesmen Bar and Lanes in my new heels and my black dress and having everyone's jaw drop. I imagined Audrey Lipman and her bitchy accolades there. I hoped they had gained their freshman ten—or thirty!
But there was a problem. "We’re not twenty-one."
"They don’t really care. Anyway, I’ve been hanging out with one of the bouncers."
"Which one of the bouncers?"
She was silent. I could practically hear her chewing her lip. "Bill Houston."
"Shut up!"
"Leave me alone. What about you? Is Mr. Billionaire Wonderful in town?"
I groaned. "Just got here."
"Oh. Yeah. That’s so depressing.” I knew she was rolling her eyes at me. “Come off it, would you? I know your twisted little secrets."
"You mean your crazy little fantasies?" I laughed.
"Handsome. Fit. Charming. Who cares if he sleeps next door and calls you sister?"
"Only you wouldn’t care, you sicko."
"If he was my stepbrother, I would be all over it. Especially if he was worth a billion dollars."
"I don’t doubt it, but he isn’t as wonderful up close," I said.
"Here we go.” She sighed. “I really didn’t miss hearing you complain about him, so don’t feel obligated to do it now,"
"Yeah well, he didn’t throw you to the wolves you first day of high school and ruin four years of your life," I said, sounding a little exasperated.
"This story is never interesting. I’m hanging up now. I get off at ten so I’ll pick you up around eleven, okay?"
I sighed, then said goodbye and snuggled into my bed sheets again.
Tessa liked to make fun of me, but it was true. James really had destroyed my high school life in one day. Not that he noticed or cared.
***
It was the first day of my freshman year. James was a senior at the time and one of the most popular boys with his handsome charm and easy athleticism.
I was the opposite, of course. Awkward, petite, mousy, invisible.
I had been terrified by the size of the school. Everyone looked and acted so old, and the aggressiveness of the boys disturbed me. I had spent my entire life at an all girls prep school up to that point, and James was the only soul I knew on the entire campus.
I was hoping that he would do me a favor and let me be seen riding home with him in his truck. It might have made it easier for me to make some friends, or at least avoid being tortured by the older girls. To be seen with him would be a sort of stamp of approval.
It took all my courage to run out to the parking lot after the bell rang and ask him. But to my horror he shook me off, nearly knocking me over in the process, and laughed in my face. "Go take the bus, freshman."
I blushed, embarrassed, and hurried back into the building with my tail between my legs, but not before half the senior girls saw what happened.
James had basically told the world it was open season on me as far as they were concerned, and the girls didn’t hesitate to take his cue. And while the girls at my prep school had done some mean things to each other, these bitches didn’t stop at mean. They went straight for humiliating. Four years later and I still hadn’t gotten over some of the things they had put me through that first year.
“But that was the old Allison,” I said out loud as I snuggled into my bed, too tired to go through all that again.
Even so, my high school ghost was raging around the room.
***
When I woke up it was black outside, the white Christmas lights blinking into the falling snow. I pushed back on my comforter, sweating. As I lay there trying to revive myself, I listened to the house. The heat clicked off. I heard the sound of silverware and glasses clinking.
I reached under my pillow for my phone. It was almost nine already. The cocktail party had started.
I needed to shower.
I went into my bathroom and started running the water. While it heated up I stripped naked a
nd waited, still groggy and half asleep. I was about to step under the spray when I saw there wasn’t any soap or shampoo. I checked under the sink but there wasn’t any there either.
With a groan I wrapped myself in a towel. I had only been gone three months! Why did they have to move all my shit? I hadn't brought any of my stuff, thinking it would still be here. I'd have to go use the guest bathroom, where at least Nancy kept little sample sizes of soaps and shampoos for guests to use.
I peaked into the hallway. The lights were on, but all the sound was coming from downstairs. When I was sure no one was upstairs, I dashed for the guest bathroom, evading my stepbrother’s open door, just in case he was still around.
In my hurry to hide myself again, I went straight into the bathroom and closed the door behind me.
"Hello, 'sis'." I jumped at his gravely voice, nearly dropping my towel in the process. I turned around without thinking.
James was standing on the shower mat, drying his naked body. My brain registered the wet hard lines of his chest and muscles, the bulk of his six-foot-three body making an immediate impression. I could feel my core flush with heat as I became aware of our mutual nakedness.
"I’m sorry," I said. Without thinking I looked down his chest and at his cock.
My mouth hung open. I stared. He wasn’t aroused, but he was as big as some of the boys I dated in high school when they were. And he looked handsome, like a marble statue but rendered in the most delicious flesh. There was nothing the least bit awkward about his nakedness, or maybe it was just that he wasn’t the least bit awkward about it. He stood there, arrogant, grinning like a tomcat.
Finally he took the towel down from his wet head and covered himself, drying between his thighs.
"You shouldn’t have looked, Allie," he said, shaking his head seriously.
"Oh my god," I started to apologize, trying to turn my eyes from him and find the door handle.
He grimaced and cupped his cock and balls through his towel, giving his sizable package a playful squeeze. "Now you’re going to have to live the rest of your life comparing every guy to this."
A warm throb of pleasure filled my pussy.
I had to get out of here before I melted, but before I did I glared at him, straightened my back with all the confidence I could fake, and said, "Believe me. It’s nothing to get worked up about."
Calmly, I turned, grabbed the nearest sample soap, opened the door and left. But with the door shut behind me I pulled my towel tighter around my narrow body and sprinted into my bedroom, mortified.
I should have just rinsed off and not worried about the soap.
***
In the bathroom, the hot water had filled the room with steam. I unwrapped myself from the towel, tucked my hair into a shower cap, and stepped under the warm spray, wanting to wash away the embarrassment. How was it that I saw him naked, and I was the one that was ashamed? How did he do that?
I turned, letting the water massage my chest. My breasts were sensitive and the water felt good. I ran my hands over them, grazing my nipples. The throbbing hadn’t stopped between my legs, and I wanted desperately to reach down and touch myself, but I wouldn’t do it. I had managed to go the past year without giving into fantasizing about him and I wasn’t going to start up again now.
But all I could think about was what his cock would look like when he was aroused. I let my imagination wander. I saw him standing in the bathroom, stroking himself for me until he was thick and hard. He dropped his towel and then tore mine off. He grabbed me, running his hands all over my body, pinching my breasts and gripping my hips. He turned me around, forced me over the vanity, pushing this hardness between my thighs...
I had to stop this!
I held my breasts, massaging them in my hands and tugging at my nipples with my fingers. I imagined they were his hands fondling me. I let a finger trace a line down my belly and between my legs. Just a light caress. Nothing more. But soon my fingers were sliding along and between my wet folds, rubbing and grinding against my mound. Even with the water running, I could feel I was wet with my own juices. I slipped a finger deeper, imagining his hard body pressing me against the wall, trapping me there while he shoved his hard length between inside of me.
As I rubbed myself, I thought about my days back in high school. This wouldn't be the first time I touched myself while thinking of him.
I thought of that time when I was still a virgin, when I heard him sneak in with some bimbo from high school. I had never even seen a pornographic movie at that point, but the girl moaned like a professional. My brother kept trying to keep her quiet, kissing her and telling her to shut up, but the wall we had shared was thin. I had furiously played with myself while thinking of myself making those kinds of noises underneath him, and it had been a favorite fantasy of mine for a long time.
I kept rubbing my pussy, thinking that if he were in this shower with me, I'd be making those sounds now. I braced myself against the wall of the shower as the first orgasm of the day coursed through my body. My mouth opened in a soundless scream as I remembered the sounds she made, the way she seemed to lose control.
I had done this more often than I cared to admit, even to myself. My senior year, a boy named Justin had teased me. He barely held a candle to the way that James had gotten under my skin, but I had fallen for it all the same. After he had seen Tessa and I at the movie theater, he had offered us a smoke. He made fun of me for coughing, and we started talking. Tessa left shortly after that, but I stayed.
It was one insult after another with him, and it had somehow worked on me. I had followed him back to his car. He had known that I wanted to get fucked, but he hadn't known that I was a virgin. In the dark back of that car, I had imagined James crawling on top of me. Even as the boy fumbled with his junk and showed me just how inexperienced he had been, I had been imagining James, and I tried my best to moan like that slut I had heard him fuck.
As I played with my clit in the shower, I wanted to moan just like I had then. For a moment, I lost myself in the moment, and a tiny squeak left my body. As I realized how many people could hear me if I had a full-on orgasmic moan, I swallowed a gasp and took my hand away. I couldn’t do this. I was going to drive myself crazy.
I rinsed off quickly. I needed to get clothes on. Right now.
After I dried off, I walked naked to my bureau and picked out panties and a black lace bra. It had a hot pink bow tie between the cups and would go perfectly with my new dress. After I slipped them on, I studied myself in the mirror hanging on the back of my door.
The cups were pushups, and made my firm little breasts look more tempting than they deserved to be. The black lace thong fit nicely, and when I turned, I saw that they made my little butt look rounder. Yet again, I was amazed at what the right clothes could do for a girl. At the thought, I remembered my heels and Nicole’s promise, and decided to slip them on and see if she was right.
After buckling the straps, I stepped back in front of the mirror and turned side to side, studying the attractive shape of my calves, feet, and ankles in the black heels. But most impressive was the way it made by butt look so firm and pert. If I never fully understood the appeal of good high heels before, I did now. They made a girl look ready to breed, her legs shaped desirably, her butt in the air as if ready and willing to bend over and be taken at a moment's notice. I wondered if that had been the intent of their designers all along.
I hoped someone worth hooking up with would be at the bar tonight. I was way too horny to come back home drunk and sleep in the room next door to James’s without getting some relief first. In fact, maybe I’d just ask Tessa if I could crash at her place...
Someone knocked on the door and I covered myself instinctively, trying to remember if I locked it. "Allie? Are you coming down soon, dear?"
But it was just my father. "Just getting dressed, Dad."
"Okay, we’re waiting for you to do the toast so try to hurry."
I told him I would and slipped my
black dress out of the plastic. I held it up over me.
"Ready or not," I said.
Chapter Four
"I just want to thank all of you for finding the time tonight for James. I know it’s Christmas Eve tomorrow and everyone’s busy, but we appreciate it."
My dad was standing in the middle of our living room, holding a glass of whiskey in his hand with an arm around James. James was a good head taller. Next to him my father almost seemed like a boy.
James was his usual composed and confident self. His hair was immaculately groomed with his face cleanly shaven. I could see the lines of his body, unable to stop myself from remembering those same lines wet and naked in the bathroom. He was wearing a simple grey v-neck sweater that hugged his athletic torso and a pair of dark blue jeans. On another man it would have looked ordinary, but on him it looked... wealthy, was the word that came to mind.
He had an easiness about how he moved and spoke that only people who never had to worry about money could have, yet he had been like that well before he had any money. His mom was not rich. The money in our family came from my father. Or it did. Dad was small potatoes compared to James now.
I smoothed my dress with my hands and leaned against the wall, listening as my father went on with his toast.
"As you all know this has been an important year for James. All his hard work has really paid off in a big way. But we couldn’t care less about how much the IPO in the spring is going to be. We’re just proud to to call such a unique and special man our son. So here’s to James, and long may his success continue. Here, here."
The crowd echoed him, and with the clink of glass on glass everyone said their cheers and drank.
James stepped forward next, looking around the room. "Thanks everyone. But my dad is too modest. If it wasn’t for the seed money he trusted his sixteen year old stepson with all those years ago we wouldn’t be standing here today. And of course, my mother, Nancy—that beautiful lady hiding back there—Mom, please take a bow. No a real bow, like this-" He demonstrated his best courtesy to general laughter. "Seriously, you are the most incredible woman I have ever know, and if it wasn’t for your strength and love I would never have found the courage to trust my instincts and build my business when everyone else was going off to college. I love you, Mom."
A Baby for My Billionaire Stepbrother Page 2
