Step Scandal - Part 1 (2 page)

Xavier

“H-hi, Xavier.” She sounded like a woman. The last time I saw Harper, she was just eighteen with newly developed tits the size of ripe grapefruits, and she looked at me in a way that instantly made my dick hard. I was visiting Conrad for a week in the summer, doing my due diligence as the only spawn of Conrad Fox and 80s swimsuit model Deidre Jordan, when Harper’s mom and my dad went out for an evening. I ended up raiding their liquor cabinet and getting my virginal kid “sister” drunk as hell before making out with her amongst other things.

After that I felt guilty as fuck and left the next morning without saying a word. I headed home and stayed the fuck away from her. She never contacted me after that, and the times we were around each other she never brought it up, which made me wonder if she hated me for it or if she was too drunk to remember the fact that my tongue was down her throat while I fingered her virgin pussy.

“Harper,” I said as my heart raced. I’d dreaded this phone call for years, feeling like a dirty piece of shit. I stayed silent, waiting for her to throw a string of expletives my way but she never did.

“I have a question,” she said, her words seeming meek, like she was almost afraid of me. “Can you come over? I mean, are you in town?”

“I am,” I said. “Yeah. I can come over.”

Shit. I mean, I at least owed it to her. Maybe she’d gone to therapy and needed to confront me or some shit like that.

***

I climbed out of my rusting blue Ford pick up after parking it in the circle drive of Harper’s beach house. I shoved my keys into my jeans and skipped up to her front door, where she was already waiting.

Enveloped in a cloud of flowery perfume with long blonde hair that covered up her enormous tits and a tank top just low enough to show off the top of her cleavage, she nervously jutted toward me, wrapping me in a tight hug.

“I haven’t seen you forever,” she said, forcibly replacing the awkward tension between us with over-the-top excitement. At least she didn’t want to slit my throat. Maybe she didn’t want to talk about that night?

“You look good.” I drank her in like a tall-necked bottle of top shelf liquor before silently scolding myself for appreciating her beauty in with the most impure of intentions. She looked like the kind of girl I’d try my hardest to score with in any other possible setting. Reminding myself of who she was, I nudged her shoulder. “Sis.”

“Stop,” she rolled her eyes, her full, fuckable lips curling into a wide grin. We only really ever spent holidays and a partial summers together, but she always sort of looked at me with those fuzzy, love-filtered aquamarine eyes that always made me do a double take of her. “Come on in.”

I followed her to a bright, airy space in the back of her house with sweeping views of the ocean. Funny, you’d think being the son of Conrad Fox, I’d be living in similarly fancy digs, but alas, Conrad didn’t give me a single penny. He paid for half my college while my mother struggled to come up with what she could. Everything else was covered my private student loans I’d signed my name with in blood.

“Have a seat,” she ushered me to a plush, overstuffed sofa where another man sat with his feet kicked out. “You remember my assistant, Elijah, right?”

I shook his hand and pretended not to notice the way he was checking me out. “I do. Good seeing you, man.”

“I’m just going to cut to the chase here.” Harper cleared her throat, her eyes shifting into mine as she rubbed her palms on the fronts of her tanned thighs. “I have a favor to ask.”

“Okay.”

“I know we have a history…”

Oh, shit. She was going to bring up that night. I knew it. I fucking knew it.

“I know things have been strained between us,” she continued. “And I realize our parents are married, and that technically makes us…”

Fuck. It was coming.

“Stepsiblings…” she said slowly. “But I was wondering if you would consider…at all…pretending to date me?”

My brows furrowed, and I cocked my head to the side thinking maybe I’d misunderstood. “What was that?”

“Elijah had this idea, that maybe if I created a scandal, a fake scandal, it might generate a little buzz and help restart my career,” she spoke with a half-assed confidence that had been tarnished and eaten away by too many young years filled with naïve hope. “I’m having a hard time getting work right now. I’m desperate.” Her shoulders fell.

I lifted my hands to my temples and began massaging them, as if that’d help the fact that my mind was completely blown. Here I thought she wanted me to come over so she could yell at me for getting her drunk and kissing her six years ago, but all she wanted was for me to pretend to be her boyfriend.

“This is just, I’m sorry, this is weird.” I tried to laugh the awkwardness away, but it wasn’t going anywhere. “I need to kind of digest this for a second.”

“Three months,” she said. “That’s all I need. We’ll be seen together. People will speculate, and we’ll deny it all. We just need to be seen together mostly.”

“Lots of famous siblings hang out,” I said. “That’s not going to generate much buzz, Harper.”

Elijah cleared his throat.

“Okay, maybe we’ll have to, like, kiss or something too,” she muttered. “No tongue or anything. Just, you know, how they do it in the movies.”

I slumped back in my seat, trying to imagine what it would actually feel like. Harper had always gravitated toward the limelight, whereas I was perfectly happy slipping away into the background and not telling a soul who my father was. Most people knew I was Conrad Fox’s look-a-like son, but I tried to brush it off when I could. I like privacy. I liked the anonymity of being an afterthought and a familiar face that still blended in for the most part.

“I’m afraid I’m not your type,” I said, looking her up and down. Her pretty little virginal branded look was going to contrast highly with my shredded jeans and piercings and tattoos lifestyle.

“Three months,” she said again. “I’ll pay you.”

Money. Money could make a man do a lot of things. “How much are you talking?”

“What do you want? Name your price,” she said. “I realize I’m asking a lot of you, and you should be fairly compensated.”

I’d been working in my buddy’s tattoo shop the last couple years, but more than anything I wanted to open one of my own on Ventura Boulevard. The only thing I needed was enough capital to get a loan to start my business. I’d saved up a little bit, but I wasn’t making much working for someone else, and at that rate, it was going to be a good ten years before I’d be able to even think about opening a shop.

“Two hundred fifty thousand,” I said. That was the amount I’d asked Conrad for, and he’d laughed in my face. Said he’d consider if I was opening a more respectable business. Mom lived on a fixed income, nursing the residual income that came from investing her life’s work into a modest passive stream. I wasn’t going to touch that with a ten-foot pole, though she’d have probably cashed out some stocks for her only son. She shouldn’t have to do that. Not when Conrad was worth more than the gross national product of Sweden.

“Done,” Harper said, clapping her hands. Two hundred fifty thousand must have been pocket change for her, then again, she’d been working since she was a kid.

Elijah stood. “I think I earned the rest of the day off, don’t you?”

“Yeah, go home,” Harper smiled, seeming instantly relieved. Her body held more of a relaxed posture than it had before. Elijah leaned down and kissed her cheek before hightailing it out of there.

“What do you even need a personal assistant for?” I asked as soon as I heard the front door shut.

“He’s my best friend,” Harper said. “I’ve known him for years. It would be weird not to have him around. And he does work for me…when I have work for him to do. So what do you want to do with this two hundred fifty thousand?”

“Open up a tattoo shop,” I said without missing a beat.

She stood up, tugging her shirt up above her belly button as she pushed the waistband of her shorts down until it was mere inches above her panty line where a tiny little anchor was inked into her tan flesh. “Remember that?”

“I do.” It was a tat of the drawing I’d done for her the night I kissed her.

“I kept that picture you did and had it put on me,” she said, pushing her clothes back into place. “I really liked it.”

“Interesting placement.”

Her cheeks flushed. “I had to keep it hidden. You know, for my image. The record label would’ve had a shit fit if I had any hint of visible tattoos. Don’t read into it too much. What about you? Any more tattoos since I saw you last?”

I lifted up my shirt, exposing my chest where two winged drawings I’d designed covered my pecs. “Just these.”

Harper laughed. “I’ve never heard of a tattoo artist with hardly any tattoos.”

“I have commitment issues.” I pulled my shirt down. “I can’t commit to a single drawing. I’ll get fixated on one and just before I go to have it drawn on me, I change my mind. What if I won’t like it in five years? What if it loses it’s meaning? I just haven’t found the perfect one yet.”

“You can always laser them off if you change your mind.”

“Nah.” I shook my head. “They’re permanent. At least for me. Once it’s on, it’s never coming off.”

“Well, I hope someday you can overcome your commitment issues and find the perfect one.” She stood up and headed to the kitchen. “You want a beer or something?”

I glanced at my watch. I had to be to work soon. Friday nights were usually our busiest night of the week. “I should get going.”

“Oh.” She didn’t try to hide the disappointment on her face, and I almost felt bad. “Thanks for coming. This went a lot better than I thought it would. I thought you were going to hang up on me when I called you.”

I shot her a look. “Why would I hang up on you?”

She slinked one shoulder up, her pretty blue eyes landing on the wood floor. “I don’t know. You weren’t really that nice to me growing up.”

I stood and worked my way toward her, realizing how much I towered above her when we were close. She stared up at me through long, dark lashes, her cleavage spilling out from her paper-thin tank top like an invitation for me to do all kinds of naughty things to her. She was all woman.

And yet, she was still my stepsister. Though not for much longer, but still.

She bit her lip as she stifled a smile, and I instantly recalled how inexplicably giddy she’d act around me when we were younger.

But damn, she was a sweet girl. And she’d grown up to be sexy as fuck.

Without warning, my hand flew to cup her soft cheek, and as if in slow motion, her lips began to part as I lowered my mouth to hers.

Harper

Xavier tasted like mint and a hint of clove cigarettes. Every nerve ending in my body lit up like an electrode the minute his lips hit mine. It felt just like that drunken summer night six years before, only this time I was completely coherent.

Our lips danced, and my mouth opened to invite his tongue inside, but he pulled himself off me before it could go any further.

Releasing his hand from my face, he leaned back, his lips curling into a smile. “Don’t act so surprised.”

“I wasn’t expecting you to kiss me.” My fingers grazed over my swollen, blood-rushed lips as my lungs gasped for air. I could feel the color draining from my face as I tried to wrap my head around what just happened. “You could’ve warned me you were going to do that.”

“Listen, Princess,” he said, running his hand along the faint stubble that lined his strong jaw. His honey maple eyes flashed with the intensity of a lion ready to strike. “You want my help. Here’s how it’s going to go. This is going to look as real as possible. You have to get used to me kissing you.”

He took a step toward me, backing me up against the wall.

“When I touch you,” he said, slipping his hand around my waist. “It has to look natural. Not forced.” He lowered his mouth to mine, though he didn’t exactly kiss me. He teased and toyed my bottom lip between his teeth. “When I touch your mouth, you have to look like you’re enjoying it.”

His right hand slid down my hip, grabbing a handful of ass through my shorts and causing my heart to skip a few beats in the process.

“I thought we were only going to kiss when cameras are around?” I said, breathing in his leather and tobacco scent.

“We have to practice,” he said, claiming my mouth again. “You might be a good actress, Princess, but no amount of acting in the world is going to wipe that conflicted look off your face. The one you make when I touch you.”

I hadn’t even realized I was doing it. A mix of confusion and delight. That’s what it was. The way he touched me forced my legs to clench together, stifling off the wetness that gathered in my panties. But the confusion came because I wasn’t supposed to enjoy it. Not like this.

He lowered his glance to my tank top, where my nipples were standing at full attention through the sheer fabric. “We’re making progress.”

My cheeks flushed red-hot as I bit my lip. I could barely look at him. “My body always responds that way when I’m being…teased.”

“Aren’t you a virgin?”

“No,” I huffed, almost insulted. “I’m twenty-four. And I dated Hayden McDaniel for two years. You think he’d have stayed with me that long if I didn’t put out?”

“Look, I have to go to work now.” He slipped his hand into his pockets and jingled his keys. “Are we clear on everything or do you need more practice? I’m not being facetious, Harper. I want this to work. I have goals. You have goals.”

“You’re sure you’re okay doing this? I mean, what about our parents?”

He pushed a gush of air out of his lips and shook his head. “When have I ever given a shit about what Conrad thinks about anything?”

“And we’re clear on the rules?” I asked, needing just one more confirmation that we were both on the same page. “No sex. No real kissing. No tongue. No…”

“Harper, I got this,” he said, cocking his head to the side as he slicked his hand through his jet black hair. “I’m going to make this shit look so real, you’re going to have a hard time telling the difference.”

Xavier flashed me a wicked smile before showing himself out. I grabbed into the back of a nearby armchair to steady myself, my knees threatening to give out from under me.

What the fuck just happened?