RICH BOY BRIT (A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance) (12 page)

“This is the right plan,” I said. “Yes, definitely. But we have to agree on something. We can’t
do
anything until we have told them, okay? We can’t have sex until we’ve told them.”

He agreed, and soon after he left the room. “It’ll be easier if we don’t share a bedroom until they come back,” I said, and he left. He didn’t argue, which made things easier. I would’ve caved in if he’d argued, I knew. I loved him too much to banish him unwillingly, but he saw the sense in it, too.

I finished my glass of wine, changed into my pajamas, and climbed into bed.
We can do this,
I thought, as I turned off my lamp.
It’s only two days.

Ha! I was naïve to think that he or I could go from making love every night to not making love at all for two days. I was on my side, missing his presence in bed (and it was late, and dark, and secret) when my door creaked open and Eli’s shadow fell against the wall outside my bedroom, lit by moonlight. I could’ve snapped at him, could’ve told him I didn’t want it, could’ve told him to go away.

He walked across the room and stood over me, and then reached down and smoothed his hand down my belly and to my pussy. I gasped, biting my lip, and was too scared to talk—not scared of him, but scared that if I talked, he would ask if I wanted him to stop. And no part of me wanted him to stop. I reached down and grabbed his wrist, and led him to my clit.

He pressed his finger down as he knelt beside the bed and buried his face in my neck. He kissed and bit my skin, and heat covered every part of me. Our promise from only a couple of hours ago seemed irrelevant when his hand was on me like this, when I felt the start of an orgasm building. Suddenly, he grabbed my hips and turned me, so my feet were off the side of the bed. He yanked down my pajama bottoms and my underwear, and then pushed his face into my pussy, furiously licking my clit.

I closed my eyes, and then I was coming, hard. He slipped a finger inside of me, and I heard myself moan: “Fuck me, Eli. Fuck me.”

Eli

It was my fault that she was so nervous right now, I knew. Of course, she would have been nervous anyway. We both would have. But she would have been less nervous if our sex wasn’t in the forefront of her mind. But just like the rest of this week, the last two days had been spent in love, a large portion of which was making love. There was that first night, when she had made us promise not to do anything, and then I had immediately broken that promise, and then there was the next day, and today, and now it was evening and Mom had just texted me saying they were on their way.

“I don’t know if I can do it,” she said. She paced up and down madly, as though she were possessed by something. I knew what she was possessed by: guilt and shame. I was possessed by it, too. But not guilt and shame because we were brother and sister. We were guilty and ashamed because we knew this could ruin what Mom and Andrew had. This could ruin their happiness. But keeping quiet about it could ruin ours. We were being selfish, there was no doubt about that. But sometimes, I thought, you have to put your own happiness first. “Seriously,” she went on, twisting her hands. “I don’t know if I can. This is going to ruin their marriage. Oh, they come home, expecting a nice reunion, and instead we’re like,
surprise! You didn’t expect this, did you? Got you! Now, when are you getting that divorce?
”

“We don’t know that it’s going to be like that,” I said, trying to keep my voice as calm as possible. Jessica was nervous enough as it was. If she realized that I was nervous, too, she wouldn’t have been able to function. Jessica was an amazing person, but sometimes her nerves got the better of her.

“Yeah, right,” she muttered.

As she spoke these words, the sound of Andrew’s car sounded outside the house. Jessica’s face dropped, and her hands fell to her sides. I half-expected her to flee to her bedroom, and leave this job to me. I wouldn’t have minded. I would have done it alone, for her. Instead, she closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. When the door opened and Andrew walked in, smiling broadly, Jessica returned his smile. It was the PR-smile, but Andrew didn’t seem to notice. Andrew walked up to his daughter and gave her a big hug.

Mom walked in afterwards, and wrapped her arms around me. “Hi, Mom,” I said, not knowing how to begin. I started disentangling myself from her. She showered me in kisses and was talking at a million words per minute, trying to greet me and tell me all about her holiday at the same time. It killed me a little to interrupt her, but this situation was like a Band-Aid; it had to been done quickly. “Mom!” I exclaimed, louder than I’d meant.

She stopped, and tilted her head at me. “Yes?” she said.

“I have something to tell you.” I turned to Andrew. “And you, Andrew. Let’s go into the living room.”

Without waiting for them to answer, I walked into the living room. Jessica had the same idea; I had no sooner started to walk than I felt her at my shoulder. Neither of us could stand to pretend any longer, to laugh and joke when we wanted to scream, to smile when we wanted to cry. It had to be brought out into the open.

Without planning to, Jessica and I sat on two chairs at one side of the coffee table, and Mom and Andrew sat at the other side of the coffee table, instantly separating us, like generals looking at each other across the battlefield. But that was not what I wanted this to be at all. I didn’t want this to be a battlefield. I wanted it to be calm, and reasonable. I placed my hands on my knees, and was surprised to see that no part of me was trembling. Neither was Jessica. Maybe our bodies knew that there was no point in anxiety now.

“Mom, Andrew,” I said. “We need to tell you . . .”

And I told them everything. I didn’t go into the detail about the sex, obviously, but I told them that we’d
had
sex. I told them about the first meeting at the mask party, and then meeting again when we discovered that our parents were dating. I told them how we’d tried to fight it, how we’d tried to be brother and sister—how Jessica had tried pushing me away—and how that had failed. We hadn’t been able to fight it. I told them about how our love had exploded over these past few days since they’d been away. I told them all of it, all the while staring at the floor, all the while unable to look Mom in the eye.

When I was done, silence stretched. Neither Mom nor Andrew said a thing. But they were not crying, screaming, or shouting. I risked a look at Jessica, and saw that she was looking down, too. She felt me looking at her, and met my eyes. I offered her a small smile of encouragement; she smiled back.

Then I turned, looked up at Mom and Andrew, and waited. I waited for the caustic words, the knife-like retorts, the hateful gazes. I waited to be told we were awful people. I waited for a divide to open up that could never be passed. I felt the start of a horrible argument coming on, like a wave building on the horizon of a small town, the townspeople readying themselves for the impact.

But, thankfully, my feelings were wrong.

I had underestimated Mom’s kindness.

She leapt across the table and wrapped her arms around me, more forcefully than she had when she’d entered through the door. “Look at you!” she cried. “You’re looking at me like I’m going to desert you, like I’m going to hate you! You silly boy! How could you think that of me?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a similar scene happening between Andrew and Jessica. Jessica was crying, but there was a relieved smile on her lips. “We don’t want you to break up,” she muttered.

“This is about love,” Andrew said, kissing his daughter on the cheek, “not about
title
. We’re not breaking up. I’m married to Annabelle, and I’ll stay married to Annabelle. And you don’t have to break up, either.”

“He’s right!” Mom barked, causing me to jump. She was so eager to prove that she still loved me, that this changed nothing, that (bless her heart) she was almost frightening. “You are in love; Andrew and I are in love. There is nothing wrong about that. So much love cannot possibility be wrong. Don’t look so worried!”

This went on for some time, with Mom and Andrew repeating themselves many times, but the message was always the same. They still loved us; they weren’t breaking up; Jessica and I were free to be together. I met Jessica’s eye through the fray, and she smiled warmly at me, and I smiled back.

Is this real?
her expression seemed to say.
Tell me it is real.

It’s real,
I smiled, as Mom repeated herself for the tenth time.
You don’t have to worry anymore.

Jessica

As the days passed and Eli and I became more comfortable together—began to turn into a real couple—I realized something. I could not return to the US. I could not leave him. But, equally, I could not abandon college. I had worked hard to get into college, and I loved literature too much to simply leave it. When I mentioned this to Eli one night, I didn’t expect him to do what he did. I didn’t expect him to fix it so that we could be together.

But he did.

I was in my bedroom, leaving over a book, absorbed in the words. But not like I used to be absorbed; I didn’t throw myself into the world of the book because I found the real world unbearable, as used to be the case. I loved my life in the real world now. I wouldn’t sacrifice it for anything, even a life buried in books.

Eli walked into the room, a wide grin on his face.

“What is it?” I asked, putting the book aside.

He knelt beside me and took my face in his hands. “Mom has a friend on the board of my university,” he said, his words coming fast, jarring. “She has just got off the phone with her friend. If you want, you can transfer—and stay in Bristol for the coming semester, and the semester after that, and the semester
after
that!”

“And we’ll be together?” I said, my chest becoming warm at the prospect.

“Always,” he said, he brought my forehead to his lips. “Always. What’s your answer?”

What a silly question, I thought.

“My answer is yes, obviously!” I laughed.

I didn’t realize I was crying until he kissed the tears away.

(BONUS BOOK #1)

CHANCE

(A Stepbrother

Romance)

By

Mia Carson

COPYRIGHT © 2016

All Rights Reserved

CHAPTER 1

Claire got out of the cab and looked in horror as Trent, her fiancé, held a woman in his arms and kissed her lovingly on the lips in front of his house. She wanted to run or close her eyes and pretend the man she had been dating since after high school, for three years, was not kissing another woman the day before their wedding. But even the darkness that would come if she closed her eyes was insufficient to rid her confused mind of the event unfolding in front of her.

He stroked the woman’s face and spoke soothingly to her; he was so engrossed in their conversation that he didn’t see Claire until she had seen too much. By the time he did see her, her cheeks were drenched with tears. She remained motionless as he ran towards her.

“Claire, this isn’t...”

She looked up at him, feeling like a zombie. She felt nothing, heard nothing, saw nothing except the woman who stood uncomfortably a few feet away from them.

“Look, I can explain,” he told her. But there was nothing he could say to make the situation right.

“I wanted to see you one last time before tomorrow,” she said as the tears poured down. “I’m such an idiot.”

“Claire,” he said softly, his eyes pleading with her. “I never meant for this...”

“You’re fucked up, Trent, and you know it. Just fucking leave me alone!” she said as she walked away.

“Claire!” he called after her, but she didn’t stop. “Let me at least give you a ride home.”

“Fuck off,” Claire said, just as she stumbled into an older man on the pavement, but he caught her as she did.

“You okay, ma’am?” the man asked. “Can I help you?”

“I just need a cab,” she sobbed. “Please just get me out of here.”

“This way,” he said as he led her to the yellow and black checkered cab around the corner.

She composed herself long enough to give him her address, but try as she might, she could not get the image of Trent kissing another woman in public out of her mind.

“We’re here,” the cabbie announced a few minutes later as he pulled up to her driveway.

She looked around as if scared. She rummaged in her bag in search of her wallet. “Hang on,” she said as she moved the items in her bag.

“It’s on me,” he told her. “Don’t worry about it.”

“What?” Her eyes looked dazed as if she were unaware of who she was or what she was doing there.

“The ride. No charge.” He smiled at her and reached for the lock on the door.

Her eyes were wild, almost as if she didn’t understand him. When it registered in her brain that he thought she needed the help, she said, “No, I have money...”

“I know,” he answered. “But this one is on me. And ma’am, any man who makes a woman cry isn’t worth her tears.”