Escape: A Stepbrother Romance (8 page)

“The shower’s free,” Vicky said, as she strode into the lounge holding a bagel before collapsing on one of the seats. The seat furthest away from me.

She’d slipped into a tight pair of jeans and a halter neck top which gave me a generous look at her chest. I knew she would dress more formally if she left the house, so I decided to stick around in the lounge for a little while and make the most of the view. At least there would be some advantages to living here this summer.

“Thanks,” I said. “I think I’ll just watch the end of this.”

Vicky frowned when she saw what I was watching. “If you have a fetish for women in tight corsets, you’re better off watching drama shows like The Tudors. You won’t see much flesh on a History Channel documentary.”

“If I wanted to see women dressed like 16th-century virgins I wouldn’t have to look very far, would I?”

Vicky shook her head and looked down at her chest. Damn it. Why did I say that on the one occasion she was actually wearing some revealing clothes.

“I can go and add a few more layers if you like,” she said. “But I am rather hot after the shower, so if it’s okay with you I’ll dress like this for a bit.”

“Fine,” I grumbled. First, she had an unwelcome effect on my cock and now she was affecting my brain as well. “I didn’t know you were into bagels?” Vicky was devouring her second bagel with an enthusiasm that Sheri would have enjoyed witnessing.

“I didn’t think I’d like them either. Perhaps it’s just the ones your mom makes.”

“There’s nothing special about what my mom does,” I said. “She’s just a cook who happened to get lucky. I don’t know why you worship her so much.”

“I don’t worship her; I admire her. Her recipe development is better than anyone else’s I know of, especially when it comes to healthy desserts which happens to be my favorite to cook.”

I groaned and made a point of going back to watching the TV. There was nothing worse than listening to one of my mom’s fans go on about how special she is. Especially when they spoke about recipe development. If they knew the whole story, they wouldn’t be quite so enthusiastic.

“You would appreciate her more,” Vicky continued, “if you enjoyed cooking and didn’t have some immature rebellious streak that made you want to detest your mother.”

“Having a realistic impression of my mother is better than being a daddy’s girl and doing everything I’m told like you.”

“I’m not a daddy’s girl,” Vicky said.

“Is that so? I bet every major decision in your life has been made by your father. Did you want to go to an all-girls boarding school? Do you really want to go to Cambridge for college?”

“Cambridge is not a college, it’s a university,” she said, making some distinction that meant nothing to me. “And of course I want to go there. It’s one of the best universities in the world and studying there will set me up for the rest of my life.”

“What is it you’ll be studying there?”

“PPE. Philosophy, politics, and economics.”

“Sounds stimulating,” I said sarcastically. “Although I have to admit, I’m intrigued as to how those three things can be combined. I find politics and economics rarely mix and philosophy is a different field entirely. What kind of career would you go into after that? Sounds like you would be a jack of all trades, master of fuck all.”

“A PPE degree from the University of Cambridge sets you up for a career doing whatever you want,” Vicky replied. “Well, maybe not a doctor or anything like that, but I will have a lot of opportunities. I’ll probably become a lawyer in the City.”

I laughed loudly. “A lawyer in the City? Doesn’t that happen to be the exact same thing your father does?”

“It’s a good career,” Vicky insisted. “I’m not going to not do it just because it might look like I’m following in my father’s footsteps.”

“Except you don’t want to do it, do you? I saw the look on your face when you spoke to your father about being accepted to Cambridge. I’ve never seen anyone look less excited about going to a prestigious university as you did then.”

“I’m just a little nervous, that’s all. You wouldn’t know about that, because you never had to work hard in school your entire life for something like this. You just have it all handed to you on a plate.”

“Well I’m sure mommy and daddy must be very proud of you.”

Vicky’s gaze immediately sunk down to her lap and I realized my mouth had engaged before my brain again. Vicky’s mom had been distinctly absent from all conversations about her father getting remarried and I had a feeling I knew why.

“Your mom… Is she…”

“Dead?” Vicky asked, finishing the sentence for me. I nodded. “No, she’s not dead.”

“I take it you two don’t get on well. I mean, you don’t seem to like your dad all that much, so if you chose to live with him I’m guessing the alternative was even worse.”

“I love my mother more than you can imagine,” she said, solemnly. “But I can’t live with her. She’s not well.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“She was in a car accident about three years ago. Some moron thought his text message was more important than my mom’s life and his car slammed into hers on the motorway. He escaped unscathed of course, while my mom ended up in intensive care. She’s a lot better now, but she needs a lots of support.”

“Is she still in hospital?”

“No, her sister looks after her. She lives in Manchester. I speak to her as often as possible, but I don’t get to go and see her very often. She’s still in a bad way, but I keep up-to-date on what is going on. God, I’m not enjoying giving her the update on dad marrying your mom.”

No wonder she didn’t like hearing me badmouth my mother. People always told me I should appreciate having her around and I knew that was true, but it didn’t make it any easier to spend time with her. She was a fraud and the more successful she became the more I found myself hating her.

“What are you going to do with your last summer of freedom? I asked, eager to change the subject.

“Lots of cooking,” Vicky said. “I’ve been living in a dorm with a small kitchen for years so I intend to make the most of this one while I am here.”

“You really do enjoy cooking, do you?”

“My mom I used to do it together before the accident.”

I heard Sheri and Royston’s voices as they walked down the stairs. I considered making a dash for the kitchen, but I didn’t have enough time to get across the living room before they saw me.

Another ‘family conversation’ was imminent and I hadn’t exactly enjoyed the first one. Surely this one couldn’t be as painful, could it?

I sat there trying my best not to shiver while I waited for the heating to kick in. The house was always so cold in the mornings and even a hot shower hadn’t helped warm me up. I usually threw on a thick sweater until about ten or eleven in the morning, but Caiden kept teasing me about dressing frumpy, or ‘like a Virgin’ as he so eloquently put it, and I wanted to prove to him that I could show some skin once in a while.

At first, I slipped on some yoga trousers and a skimpy top without a bra, but the trousers showed off a visible panty line and my stiff nipples were clearly visible through the top. In the end, I settled for wearing a halter-neck top with jeans. The outfit was not even remotely sexy, but at least I would be showing Caiden some of my chest. I couldn’t handle an entire summer of teasing about being a frigid virgin, least of all by the very man who had taken my virginity just a week ago.

The outfit worked better than I expected. Caiden turned his attention from the history show he was unexpectedly watching and looked at my chest for a few seconds at a time. He thought he was being subtle, but I kept catching his eyes lingering on me just a little longer than was normal.

I had no idea why I was deliberately trying to arouse him. The guy was a creep and always had been. I knew he was a player when I slept with him, but the whole point of that night was that it was a one-off. I was not supposed to see him again ever, let alone spend the entire summer living with him. It wouldn’t just be the summer either. There would be family dinners for Christmas and I would be home every Easter and summer as well. Would we have to start doing Thanksgiving meals as well? I suppose that wouldn’t be too bad if Sheri was going to cook, although we’d be the only ones in the neighbourhood having a big meal on a Thursday afternoon in November.

What I couldn’t handle was Caiden hitting on me all the time and generally acting sleazy. I still cringed when I thought of him sniffing my panties and smelling my wetness. I’d been wearing those panties all day yesterday and overnight. I knew for a fact that I’d been wet when he confronted me in the kitchen and then again overnight when I dreamt of our night together. Those panties would smell like me all over and now Caiden had them.

After my shower, I snuck into his room and found the panties under his pillow. I grabbed them and was nearly out the door when I changed my mind and put them back. I told myself I just didn’t want him knowing I’d been in his room and that he would just get another pair anyway, but the truth was I didn’t mind if he had them. I pictured the look on his face as he smelt them. Would he look like he had when he’d eaten my pussy all the way to my orgasm? I wanted to see that face again and I hated myself for that.

Even ignoring the fact that Caiden would soon become my stepbrother—and that was a bloody big thing to ignore—I hated that I had become the cliché virgin who falls for the guy she first sleeps with.

I hadn’t been able to think of anything else other than that night since it happened. At first, I told myself it was only natural to dwell on the first time, but it wasn’t the sex that occupied my mind most of the time. It was Caiden.

I might have been innocent, but I wasn’t entirely naïve. I knew I was just infatuated with Caiden because he was a bad boy and not because I actually had any feelings for him. However, knowing that was one thing and actually getting him out of my mind was another entirely. If the magazines I read were anything to go by, what I needed now was another man to take my mind off him. As soon as I got to Cambridge and started dating Oliver I would probably not think of Caiden again.

Except Oliver was boring. He was easy on the eye but not attractive. Not to me at least. He was a good man on paper but I couldn’t imagine him between my legs. I couldn’t imagine him kissing every part of my body and moving down from my breasts to my belly to my pussy before working his tongue into my hole with expert precision. Oliver wouldn’t have me coming like Caiden did.

I looked at Caiden as he watched TV and imagined what would happen if I told him to take me again right here, right now. In my head, I pictured him shrugging and saying something like ‘okay, I guess I have nothing better to do’ and then walking over to me. He would take my legs and force my knees apart, before pulling off my jeans and panties in one smooth motion.

He would probably kiss me first and pay attention to my breasts, but in this fantasy I imagined placing my hand on his head and pushing him straight between my legs for him to eat me again. I’d come in minutes, maybe even seconds. I’d been dripping wet since I woke up and it wouldn’t take much to set me off. Even trying to watch that stupid history program he had on didn’t dampen the flame between my legs.

My fantasy whimpered out as I imagined how he would have to go and get a condom from upstairs in the bedroom before coming back down to fuck me. It said something about my brain that even in my fantasies I imagined my parents coming down and interrupting us before Caiden could come back with the condoms.

My imagination might be lacking, but it was at least realistic. I heard my dad and Sheri come down the stairs and quickly moved my hand from between my legs. I hadn’t even noticed that I had been touching myself outside my jeans, but when I looked up at Caiden he was still watching the TV and hadn’t noticed either.

Sheri and Dad came into the lounge and sat on the sofa. Were we going to have to play happy families every day for the entire summer? Usually Dad did his thing and I did my thing. That was the way it had been since Mum’s accident and it was how I liked things with Dad. I could pretend to be close to my father when others were around, but that was only for a few hours at a time. If I had to keep up the doting daughter act for the entire summer I might just go crazy.