Dennis brushed off his slacks as he stood up. "Fuck," he mumbled, surveying his ruined clothes. Finally he looked up at James before glaring at me.
"It’s true," I said. "I asked him to come out here. Leave him alone, James."
But James had other ideas. He seized hold of Dennis and swung him against the car. "She’s not going to save you from this."
"James!" I shouted.
"Allie, go get in my car and shut up." When I didn’t move, he glared. "Now."
"No. I’m not going anywhere with you."
"Allie. Get in my car."
"Only if you let him go."
"Now."
"No."
James glared at me, mulling it over. Then turned back to Dennis. "If I ever see you trying to push yourself on my sister again, she won’t be able to save your ass."
Dennis nodded. "Fine. Nothing even happened man."
James let him go and turned towards me. "Let’s go."
***
We drove home in silence. James seemed to have let his rage go as soon as we pulled out of the Statesman parking lot, but not me. I was too drunk and startled and scared for Dennis to make sense of things in the parking lot. But now, in the silence of the car ride home, I had plenty of time to sort my feelings and to let what just happened sink in.
James had just invaded and ruined my life again. I couldn’t even have one night, one night to maybe get the world of Bloomfield to change its opinion of me, to move myself out from under all the wreckage James started heaping on my social life four years ago.
He must have saw my face because he said, "How can you possibly be mad at me?"
I didn’t answer him. Maybe he would figure it out himself.
But he just laughed, that deep, gravely laugh. "Incredible. She tries to get herself raped, I save her ass, and I’m the bad guy."
I stared out my window, trying not to take his bait.
"You should be thanking me. If I hadn’t thought to check on you tonight who knows what that creep would have done. Dennis-fucking-Kamp," he shook his head. "Fucking prick."
Finally, I couldn’t shut up any longer.
"You didn’t save me from anything I couldn’t handle," I snapped. "And even if you did, you’ve managed to humiliate me again in the process, which is worse than anything Dennis Kamp was going to do to me in that car."
James mouth fell open. He looked literally shocked. "How did I humiliate you?"
I shook my head. "Don’t act so thick. What do you think Dennis is going to say about what happened? That he was being grabby and my big brother came in and stopped him from date raping me?" I rolled my eyes and grunted. "No. I’ll just be a slut or a tease or whatever terrible thing he can think to say about me to make himself look better now that you humiliated him."
"He won’t say anything," James said. "Not if he likes walking, anyway."
"Would you just stop? I mean, who do you think you are? I didn’t ask you to do me any favors. God knows I’ve learned not to do that over the years."
James glanced at me as he drove.
"Ok, now you’ve lost me. What are you talking about?" he asked.
I laughed, a crazy, shrill, hysterical laugh. "Please tell me you’re kidding? Tell me you’re just trying to make me angry by pretending you don’t even realize how you totally ruined my high school life by being a total jack ass?"
James braked, the car slowing rapidly as he pulled over to the side of the road. I tensed, afraid that I may have woken the beast from the parking lot. But once he put the Land Rover into park, he turned towards me with serious eyes and said, "I’m not trying to piss you off, Allie. I know I wasn’t always the nicest guy with you, but I hardly think you could accuse me of ruining your life."
I shook my head. "Do you remember my first day as a freshman? When I asked you for a ride."
He paused before answering. "Yes," he said carefully.
"Well, after you basically treated me like garbage every senior girl decided I was fair game for torture, and after they graduated the junior girls picked up where they left off. If I told you some of the things they did to me..."
"I was just a stupid kid trying to look cool. I wasn't trying to ruin your life, Allie."
"I don’t care! And that’s just one example of a thousand others."
"Well," he drew in a deep breath, as if it was hard for him to say it. "I’m sorry."
I laughed in his face. "No, you don’t get to do that."
"What? I said I was sorry. If I really caused you that much pain, I’m truly sorry."
I stopped, my rage still frothing. But he had thrown me off balance. He actually looked sincere, as if he were really just a clueless idiot that didn’t know any better and felt bad about it now. Hell no, I wasn’t letting him off that easy.
I tried to stoke my anger, to get back on track with my rant. "You don’t get to be a jerk your whole life and just say sorry and everything is better. That’s not how it works, James. You can’t just randomly be nice and think everything is perfect. You can’t just..."
I felt his warm hand on my cheek. He turned my face towards his and he silenced me with his lips.
I pushed him off of me and slapped his face. "What the fuck! You can’t..."
He took my face in both his hands again. Leaving no room for argument or escape this time, he crushed my mouth under his.
I gave in, more than willing to melt in his hands as his tongue dipped into my mouth, tasting and teasing mine. I kissed him back, stronger, fiercer, until my lips hurt from being pressed so hard against his. He bit at them playfully, moved his wet lips hungrily across my jaw line, down my neck and back up to kiss and lick my mouth again. I felt the intensity of his need and wanted desperately to reach down and feel for it in those tight blue jeans of his. My pussy throbbed, liking the idea of squeezing that big cock. I was practically humping the air in between us when he finally, unexpectedly, broke the kiss.
I panted, staring at him, feeling my lips swollen, my nipples peaking so hard they hurt, my belly aching with a horrible empty feeling. I wanted him inside of me. But I didn’t want to make love or have sex. I wanted him to fuck me, to feel the weight of his hard body against mine, to feel his marvelous cock thrusting deep into me with his violent desire until he came inside of me again and again.
I squirmed on my seat, waiting for him to grab hold of me, desperate to feel the heat of his touch again.
He stared back, his breath just as short as mine.
"We better get home," he said, finally, his eyes not letting mine go.
I nodded, nervous and scared but still shaking with lust. "Yeah. Yeah, okay."
He turned away and put the car in drive, then pulled back onto the road. I sat back straight in my chair, fixing my skirt, trying not to think too directly about anything, trying not to think how wet the leather seat underneath of me was going to be when I got up.
When we got home we went to our separate rooms without a word.
I didn’t bother to get out of my dress before crawling into my bed. I was so exhausted, but it still took hours to fall asleep.
Chapter Six
When I woke up in the morning my mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton. My body ached everywhere, but the constant pounding headache behind my eyes was the worst of it. The cheap beer at the Statesman did awful things to the human body. I wished now that I would have just stayed home. But of course, that had nothing to do with the beer or my hangover.
It felt like a dream, but it was no dream. I touched my lips. They felt puffy and sore from James’s hard kisses, but under my fingers they seemed normal enough. Normal but changed. It seemed impossible for me to get out of my bed, to dress and go downstairs. Life as a normal girl was impossible for me now. He was my brother.
I pulled my sheets up over my head, not wanting to face the day or the black twisted thoughts that were clouding the air and choking me. Waves of contradicting emotions ran over me—the intoxicating joy of knowing he wanted me, if
only for a minute in his car last night. The gut-tearing nausea of knowing I could never have him, that it was impossible, that it was wrong.
I rolled over, smothering my face in my pillow until I drifted back asleep.
When I finally did manage to get myself out of bed, I avoided James. He must have had the same idea because we only crossed paths at dinner and on Christmas morning when we had breakfast and exchanged gifts—just clothes and DVDs and simple little things, like every year.
After that, it was even easier to avoid him. Because he left.
I came downstairs after a nap—the day was dark and it was snowing pretty heavily—and Nancy told me he was gone. Apparently he had business things to take care of. "He wouldn’t even let me drive him to the airport," she complained.
So, he didn’t even bother to say goodbye.
Good. It was better that way.
We could avoid each other until next year and by then everything would have been forgotten. Right?
I spent the rest of the day vegging and trying not to think about James. But, of course, I did just the opposite. I went over everything that happened again and again, combing through the details, trying to enhance and remember those that were blurred with drunkenness. Trying to make sense of him, to imagine what he might be feeling.
Yeah, right. I couldn’t even figure out what I was feeling!
Was he running away because he was ashamed, like me? Because he felt something he was afraid of feeling? Or did he really not care at all? Was I just projecting my own feelings on to him? And if I was, what did that mean about how I felt?
I wanted to scream, to run away from my thoughts, but wherever I went they followed.
I waited another day for the weather to clear and decided it was time for me to go. Maybe the air in New York would cleanse me. But before I left, I drove by Tessa’s for a final dose of girl talk and a big hug.
I picked her up and drove us to the coffee shop on main street, debating whether or not it would be a good idea to tell her everything that happened as I drove. She knew about Dennis—I’m sure everyone knew about Dennis by now—but she didn’t know about what happened on the side of the road on the way back home.
The wheels crunched to a halt on the hard-packed snow as I pulled into a parking spot.
"All right," Tessa said. "What is going on with you?"
"What do you mean?"
We got out of the car and walked to the coffee shop. "Please, girl. I could hear that look on your face over the phone. What happened with James after you guys left?"
I glanced at her in shock.
"Oh shit!" she shouted, just as we walked inside. That drew a few stares and a few shaking heads from a table of older ladies. "I was just fishing!" she said under her breath. "Spill. Now."
"After I get something hot to drink," I promised.
We ordered and I picked the table furthest in the back and farthest from any eavesdroppers. Then I told her, with all the detail I could, what had happened.
There was a pause after I finished. It unnerved me a little bit. "What? Why are you so serious? You’re freaking me out," I said, sipping at my mocha.
"Okay, look," she said, leaning in, much too solemn for my liking. Tessa was never serious. Like, ever. "You have two options here. Option one, forget it happened, go on with your life, and in a few years neither of you will care or remember some drunk kiss the day before Christmas eve. Probably."
"And option two?"
"Do you need an option two?"
"I’d like to hear it," I said, evasively.
Tessa grimaced. "Yeah, that’s what I thought."
"What?"
"So do you like, love him? Or just want to fuck him?"
I almost spat out my mocha. "Do I what?"
"Come on. Seriously. All this ‘I hate you so much’ crap I’ve been listening to for the last five years, it’s textbook. No fucking around. Be honest. Are you or are you not in love with him?"
I held my cup with both hands and stared down at it.
"I don’t know. There is something about him, I guess. I mean I feel something," I sighed in frustration. "It’s complicated..."
"Okay, let me just shut you up right there. Option two is you go to Boston, confront him, and tell him you want to jump his bones."
"That’s not a real option," I told her. "Have you forgotten a little detail? He’s my brother."
"He’s your stepbrother. So what, you two are a little freaky. Who cares?"
"Uhm, the rest of Western society?"
"Fuck them. What did they ever do for you? You think the world is going to do you some favor because you were a good girl who didn’t fuck her brother?"
Tessa’s voice was too loud. An old lady three tables over glanced at us. Tessa shot her a sarcastic smile. "Sorry, I’ll try to keep it down, grandma."
"Jesus, Tessa."
"I’m just telling you how it is. He’s not your brother. His mom fucks your dad and he lived in your house for a while. Some people won’t like it, but there’s always something people aren’t going to like about you."
"I just... I don’t know. I mean he was on the cover of a fucking magazine by the cash register! He’s a billionaire now, he doesn't have a shortage of girls to pick from. And even if he had the same feelings that I think I do for him, how could he act on them? He’s under a spotlight now. People will find out."
"Whoa, stop the fucking cart. You’re getting way ahead of yourself. Keep it simple for now. Go to Boston. Go and see him. Tell him, jump on him, whatever. Depending on what happens up there, we can sort out all that other stuff afterward."
"Do you really think I can do it?"
"No. I don’t think you have the balls to do it, personally. Which is a shame because I think this thing is a lot more serious than you’re telling me or maybe than your even telling yourself."
"All right. Thanks for the advice. No, I mean it. But can we just talk about something else now?" I said. "I don’t want to drive myself crazy when I have an eight hour drive on my own to look forward to."
Thankfully, Tessa let me drop it, and after a little banal girl talk and a really big hug, I drove her home and got on the thruway, headed towards my apartment in Manhattan.
Chapter Seven
I spent the next two weeks distracting myself until classes started again and I could lose myself in my studies. I cleaned the apartment in places light hadn’t touched for months. I scrubbed pots and pans until they looked new. I emptied the refrigerator and cleaned out the freezer. I polished floors and wiped down the walls. When my roommate, Nicole, got back the day before classes, she was delighted with the apartment but seemed disturbed when I told her I had done the cleaning all on my own.
"But why?"
"To distract myself," I admitted. She gave me a curious look, but didn’t probe any further.
Finally, the morning came when classes started again and it was time to get back on campus. I felt I had done as much as I could to wash my Christmas break from memory and was feeling upbeat about what the second half of my freshman year had to offer.
I had a nine-o’clock lecture in Tisch Hall. I was up at seven to shower, do my makeup and hair and pick out the right outfit—a dark pair of tough-weave denim jeans that fit my thighs and butt snugly and a camel sweater with a soft plunging neckline. I wore a pair of white boots with a matching white peacoat, knitted cap and scarf over it for my wintry walk to class. After I ran out of things to clean, I had allowed myself to give in and go shopping to kill the time.
I was still waiting for dad to see the statement...
Dressed, feeling fresh and looking forward to another semester in my new life, I left and started my brisk walk toward Tisch Hall. It was still dark outside, the sun low and hidden under a steel-gray sky of clouds. Half way there I decided it was too cold to make it in one shot, not with the wind cutting around the buildings, and turned into the yellow warmth of a coffee shop to get something warm.
I ordered my usual ci
nnamon latte, and while I waited in line to pay, I dug through my purse to find my punch card. I was pretty sure I was due a free one after this.
"That’ll be four-twenty-one," the cashier said.
"One second, I have a card to stamp," I said, rushing now to find it in the mess of my purse. There was already a line and everyone was tired and grumpy with lack of sleep behind me. I found myself wishing I had spent some of my break organizing my purse instead of the apartment, but finally I spied the corner of the white card and pulled it out.
Only it wasn’t my coffee card.
TO ALLIE
FROM JAMES
Merry Christmas!
IOU one present
I stared at it just long enough to register what it was, then crammed it back into my purse along with the thoughts of James that it immediately summoned.
I handed the girl a credit card instead.
"Can’t find it?" the girl asked as she swiped my card.
"No, it’s lost in there somewhere, though."
"Should I stamp a new one? Or you want to come back later. I’ll remember you."
"Sure, no. A new one is okay," I said, distracted. I took my receipt and my coffee and fled back into the cold, wanting to be in motion, as if I could keep ahead of my thoughts if I walked fast enough.
But by the time I found a seat and the the professor started his lecture I couldn’t think of anything else but my jumble of desires and fears. They clung around the place in my brain where James lived. Once I let myself think about him again I realized that the entire break I had been hoping, somewhere in the back of my mind, that he was going to reach out to me. That he would show up on my doorstep, his face pinched pink with the cold, the snow flakes sticking on his messy hair and broad shoulders, a confession of desire on his lips. Or even better, a wordless embrace and a crushing kiss...
I took out the IOU from high school again, running my fingers over the card as the closest thing to a plan formed in my mind since I had fled Bloomfield for New York.
You do owe me, you bastard.
I put the card away carefully, shouldered my bag, and excused myself as I moved towards the aisle and left. I would get notes from someone later.
A Baby for My Billionaire Stepbrother Page 4
