She walked him to the spare bedroom. “Do you need anything from those suitcases?”
“No, I’ll get those later. Don’t worry about them. The car is locked and they’re in the trunk. Hey, Nikki?”
She leaned on the doorframe. “Yeah?”
“Thanks for letting me stay. I really appreciate it. I didn’t know where else to go to clear my head.”
“You’re welcome.”
“And I think these are yours.” Stretching down to the dresser, he snagged a bit of fabric sticking out from beneath the scalloped wood.
It was her skimpy black panties that had been in the laundry basket. “Goddammit, Buddy!” she cried, snatching them from William and turning as red as a beet. She stuffed them into her pocket.
William laughed and fell back on the bed. “Sure, blame the cat.”
“It really was the cat. He strews things everywhere.”
“Mmm-hmm.” He rolled over and bunched up the pillow. “I’ll buy you a pizza when I wake up. Night, little sister.”
Chapter Three
She puttered around the house for hours, staying quiet to let him sleep and castigating herself for how much she wanted to slip into that bed beside him. The poor guy had just had his heart torn in two, and here she was thinking about sexy ways to mend it back together. She put on the television to distract herself, keeping the volume low, but every show had something to do with romance or sex.
Mad that she had covered the laundry basket, Buddy spent a long time trying to figure out how to break in. Then he contented himself by wriggling under the sofa and pulling out some of his toys to redistribute elsewhere in the house. By the time William emerged in the late afternoon, showered and looking better rested, Buddy was fast asleep at the top of his cat tree. Scratching his head, William said, “Were you sleeping this whole time, too?”
“No,” Nikki answered for him, and pointed to the toys under the coffee table, in the fireplace, and next to the door. William flopped onto the sofa next to her. He had changed into sweatpants. His chest was bare, and every muscle was cut to perfection. A thin line of hair trailed down from his navel and vanished into the sweats. Her mouth watered and she looked away.
Then she felt a warm touch on her arm and looked back. He was tracing her scar, the edge of it extending below the sleeve of her T-shirt. “If the best day of my life was going off to college, then this one was the worst,” he said. “I’m so sorry this happened to you.”
They hadn’t ever really talked about it. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“It was. You kept forgetting your keys and ringing the doorbell until I answered. I got home that day and figured you’d forgotten again, so I just left the front door unlocked. I was thrashed from finals and all I wanted was to take a nap. You were going to be home pretty soon. I never heard the guy come in. As soon as I hit the pillow, I was out.”
“You’re lucky he didn’t hurt you.”
“He was so high that he didn’t even think to check through the house for anyone before he started dropping things into his backpack. He could have raided the whole place and left with me snoozing obliviously if you hadn’t come home and surprised him.” Lifting her sleeve, he looked at the entire scar. “It’s healed really well.”
She shivered a little as he dropped his hand, and not from the memory. “It shouldn’t be your worst day. It’s not mine. You got me out of there.”
“I woke up and heard you screaming. I’d never heard anyone scream like that. It was the most terrified, horrified, helpless sound. And then I heard him roar, shut up, you little bitch. I couldn’t figure out why my dad was yelling at you like that. I was still half-asleep, and the only grown man who lived in the house was my dad so it had to be him. But he’s never said anything like that in his entire life. He’s such a choirboy about language that he won’t even say piss or fart. Then my brain woke up the rest of the way and I realized it was someone else. I started running for the living room, and I still couldn’t quite believe it when I came around the corner and a total stranger was standing there. It was like I was still dreaming. You were dead white in the corner and bleeding like a fountain down your arm, and all you had to defend yourself was a stupid little clock you’d gotten from the mantel. Is it okay to bring this up?”
She nodded. “I forgot about the clock. I’d been hurling things at him.”
“I was glad he pled guilty so you didn’t have to testify. But it’s still the worst day, Nikki. I shouldn’t have left the door unlocked.”
“William, I shouldn’t have forgotten my keys all the time. I was so scatter-brained back then.”
“You were just a kid.”
“So were you. And you thought you were being helpful.”
“I just didn’t want to get woken up.”
“Even so, there was a pretty good chance that I’d forgotten my keys yet again, and you knew that I’d be home from school within the hour.”
“You weren’t ever mad at me about it?”
Astonished, she said, “No! I was so relieved that you were there. You threw him down like a sack of potatoes and pounded him into the floor. I’ve never . . .”
“What?”
“I’ve never felt so protected in my life.” She looked at her lap. “And you were sweet at the hospital afterwards. You said I could tell people it was a shark attack.” Remembering it, she smiled. “Or that I’d gotten into a bar fight. I was a thirteen-year-old runt who still slept with stuffed animals at the foot of my bed. The idea of being in a bar fight of all things cracked me up. We hadn’t said fifty words to each other until that day, but from then on, you talked to me all the time.”
“I’d been annoyed with you before then. It wasn’t really that you’d done anything in particular. Looking back, it was more about my dad, and how sick I was of getting pulled along behind him as he floated through life.”
Sinking into the cushions, William sighed. It was such a sad sound that she wanted to take his hand. “This job, that job, this house, that house, this woman, that woman . . . it didn’t stop,” he said. “It never stopped. It’s still what he does today. That’s who he is. The grass is always greener somewhere else. But it meant that I was always on the move, new homes, new schools, new friends, a new chick who was calling herself my stepmom. Were we still Christian and decorating a tree in December? Or were we celebrating Hanukkah this year since his new girlfriend was Jewish? Were we Catholics now, or atheists or pagans? It kept changing. I felt like I wasn’t anything since he was making me into everything. I had no identity. But when we were at the hospital, I looked at you and thought that I wasn’t the only one having a hard time. You were going through the same thing.”
“Yeah,” she said heavily. He got her in a way no one else ever had.
“It’s really hard when you’re a child but more mature than the people who are supposed to be taking care of you. To realize that you’re going to have to fend for yourself since your parents are so wrapped up in their lives that they can’t. It came clear to me with the doctors and nurses and cops everywhere in the hospital that my problem wasn’t with you and never had been.”
“It was good to have you there.”
“I was mad later on. Not at you. Our parents got to the hospital at last and they were just useless. Do you remember?”
“Not really.”
“Your mom was screaming and crying like a loon, insisting that you must have been molested and asking the doctor if your arm would have to be amputated. Instead of her comforting you, you ended up comforting her. Patting her back, saying over and over, Mom, I’m fine! She’d completely lost her shit. And my dad wasn’t much better. He made a manly rumble about beating up the guy who hurt you and then stole your pudding cup.”
They laughed. “Our family sucked,” Nikki said.
“It really did,” William said with a snort of derision. “I told myself that one day I’d have a family that didn’t suck. Strike one with my dad, and strike two with Shelly, I suppose.”<
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She leaned into his muscled arm and rested her head on his shoulder. He kissed the top of her head in a brotherly way and said, “You weren’t a runt, little sister.”
“I was too.”
“You weren’t. You were cute.”
“Sure, whatever. I don’t remember any boys looking at me back then.”
“I bet they look at you now.”
She raised her head with a flirtatious grin. “Maybe they do and maybe they don’t.”
“Yeah, I think it’s the first. Are you seeing anyone?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
“Because why?”
“Because reasons.”
He grabbed her finger and squeezed it in his fist. “I’m not letting go until you tell me.”
She laughed at how childish they were being. Shaking her hand, she failed to prize free her finger. “I can’t tell you. I’d be too embarrassed.”
“Now I’m intrigued. Why does this beautiful girl not have a guy?”
He’d called her beautiful. She caught his wrist in her other hand and yanked. Then somehow he had fallen back on the sofa and she’d landed partially on top of him. Her finger was free. Kissing the tip of his nose, she said, “Promise if I tell you that you won’t leave for a hotel?”
Concern filled his dark eyes. “I promise.”
“Because they’re not you,” she said, horrified to be telling the truth. Then she got off him and fled for her bedroom, slamming the door behind her.
Chapter Four
She lay in her bed, feeling utterly mortified and exposed. There wasn’t a sound from the rest of the house, not even from the cat. Was William leaving even though he’d promised? But it had been stupid of her to demand a grade-school promise like that from him. He’d come to her to sort himself out, and all she had done was drop another emotional load in his lap.
William knocked on the door. “May I come in?”
“To say goodbye?”
He let himself in, still dressed only in his sweatpants. “I’m not leaving unless you want me to. Do you want me to leave?”
“I want to have never told you that.”
“Why?”
“Because you don’t think of me that way.” She turned over as he sat down beside her. “I’m just your kid sister, or I was for six months. That’s all I’ve ever been to you. But you haven’t always been just a big brother to me.”
He smoothed a lock of hair from her forehead. “Why do you keep telling me how I feel instead of asking me? Why do you assume you know?”
She didn’t want to know how he felt because she had a good guess. Groaning, she buried her face in the pillow and hated herself for being so immature. In a muffled voice, she said, “Just forget I said anything. Please? Can we go back to the way it was?”
“I was in college when I got an email from you about your boyfriend,” William said, rubbing her back. It was a light massage around her shoulders. “It ruined my day and I had no idea why. I was sure that he was an asshole, and that he was going to end up hurting you. High school relationships usually blow up. I was anticipating all the things that could happen. He’d dump you if you wouldn’t put out. Or he’d convince you to sleep with him and then dump you anyway since that was all he wanted. Or he’d get you into drugs and your grades would fall, and you’d end up nineteen, addicted, and pregnant while working some dead-end job and living a dead-end life. I was complaining about it when my roommate took my laptop to read the email and asked where the hell I was coming up with that when all you’d said was he belonged to the AV club and swam freestyle and backstroke in junior varsity.”
“He wasn’t an asshole,” Nikki said, turning so she could breathe more easily. “He was actually very sweet. But he was such a wuss. Decent guy for a starter boyfriend, but definitely not a keeper.”
“You sent a pretty upset email when you two broke up in senior year.”
“I spent two days crying over him and then I was absolutely fine. I spent more time freaked out that that indicated I was going to be just like Mom, love ’em and leave ’em. I want to get married once in this lifetime. Just once.”
“And then you went to college and I heard all about the next one, whatever his name was. I liked him even less. I’d call you to talk and he’d pick up your phone, start going on and on about himself when I hadn’t asked. Major ego. He thought that he was the greatest guy ever, and why would I not want to get to know him? Then he’d hand over the phone and I could hardly talk to you with him responding to every conversation in the background. He couldn’t stand that he had to share your attention with someone. I could just see ahead to future Thanksgivings if you married him and I came over for the holiday. He’d be at the head of the table carving the turkey and seizing control of any conversation that didn’t have him as the star. Was he always like that? Talking at you instead of with you?”
“No,” Nikki said. The massage felt divine. “If I was having a shitty day and tried to talk about it, he’d go off and find someone else to listen to his day instead. So then I’d email you and bitch. You always wrote back something sweet and supportive, and you gave good advice on how to handle it.”
“I was thrilled when I got your text that you two had broken up. Shelly and I were together by that point, and she asked why I was smiling. I explained and she said that that shouldn’t be making me so happy. But it did. He wasn’t good enough for you. Neither was the guy in high school. I didn’t think anyone was.”
“You’re a very protective older brother.”
“It was more than that.”
She rolled onto her side. He leaned over her on the bed, his arm going over her waist and his fingers splaying out on the blanket. “You never said anything to me,” she said.
“I was in a relationship with Shelly. What was I going to say? You and I were many miles apart by then, and I thought I was in love with my girlfriend. No, I was in love with her. But I’d fallen in love with someone who didn’t exist.”
She had wondered for years if it would feel weird to kiss him. Their shared history might raise its head and stop her from enjoying it, reminding her that he had once lived down the hallway from her in the same childhood home. But her body certainly wasn’t having a platonic reaction to him at the moment. Her skin was prickling all over at his proximity.
“It was nice having a little sister,” William said. “I liked getting to play the part of older brother who knew everything, even if I really didn’t. But maybe that’s not the way we need each other anymore.”
She had to know. Sitting up in the bed, she kissed him on the lips. Her heart began to pound, and a jolt passed between her thighs. His arm was still in the same place, but now it was grazing her breast. Even with a few inches between them otherwise, she could feel the heat radiating off his bare chest.
Although he was responding to the kiss, he didn’t come any closer. When she broke away, she said, “Is this freaking you out?”
“No,” William said.
“Then why are you holding back?”
She got a full smile from him then. He’d been holding back in case it was freaking her out, but since it wasn’t . . . He pushed her back into the pillows and lay down atop her, one of his legs landing between hers as they kissed. Her head spun from the storm of sensations: the weight of him pressing her into the bed, his lips on hers, the soaring of her heart and the sizzling of her skin under his fingers. She’d thought that she’d been excited to make love with her other boyfriends, but no, there was no comparison to how she was feeling with William. Her panties had been getting moist since he first started to massage her shoulders; now they were drenched.
He fondled her breasts as he kissed her, light touches when she needed firm. She put her hands over his and pushed him in hard. He took the lead from there, squeezing them possessively and then slipping his hands up her shirt to remove it. She lifted her head and he dragged it off. Chucking it off the bed, he tugged
down the cup of her bra and kissed her bare breast. It was a wet kiss, his tongue swirling around her nipple. She gasped at the shock of it, arching her back to his mouth and squeezing her thighs around his. Her other cup came down and he squeezed that breast as he kissed the first.
His breath was coming fast. She rose onto her elbows so that he could unhook her bra. Flinging it away, he returned to her breasts and pushed his thigh up tight against her groin. Her muscles contracted with pleasure, but she couldn’t stand having the soaked panties pressed against her. Reaching down, she tried to lower her shorts.
He pulled away from her nipple with a pop and sat back. Gathering the material of her shorts, he yanked them down and took the offending panties with them. Those went flying. Then she was fully nude and stretched out before him. But he still had on his sweatpants, the front of them bulging. “Bring that here,” she said.
He lowered the sweatpants and his hard, thick cock swung free. When she tried to rise, he pushed her back. Then he settled on his side, reversed on the bed, and brought his mouth to her pussy. His tongue snaked into the wetness and she groaned. Hungry to please him in return, she took the tip of his penis into her mouth. They gyrated together, his tongue lashing back and forth as she took him in a little deeper with each pulse.
It grew so intense that she had to move her head aside to gasp. Now he was bathing her with the flat of his tongue and she liked that . . . more than liked that, she loved that . . . he rolled them over, putting her on top and feasting on her from beneath. She wrapped her hand around his cock, which was slick from her saliva, and pumped at him. Something fluffy and black caught her eye at the doorway. It was Buddy, who vanished around the corner with her bra trailing between his legs. That fucking cat.
Stepbrother Romance: The Complete Box Set Page 2
