The Stepbrother Bargain (Book 1) (4 page)

But my body was drowning out my mind’s
protests, my skin flushing,
every
sense on high
alert.
 
A moan escaped my lips.

“I know you want me,” he said. “I know
you want to fuck me.
 
You always
have.”

I tilted my head back and his lips brushed
against my collarbone.
 
My legs
went rubbery, and I felt like maybe they wouldn’t be able to hold me up.
 
Cage’s hands pushed my dress up even
further.
 

“I could slide inside you right now,
little sister,” he breathed.
 
“I
could take that pussy and make it mine.”

I didn’t even pretend to try to stop him
as he pushed my dress up even higher, so that it was bunched around my waist,
my panties exposed.
 
His hand moved
from my ass to my thigh, and he grabbed my thong and pushed it to the side.

The cool air of the elevator hit my clit,
which was already swollen and hard.

Cage started to undo his belt, and my
heart sped up, my head swimming.

He was going to fuck me.
 
My stepbrother was going to fuck me,
right here in this elevator.

“Wait,” I said, as he unbuttoned his
pants. “Cage…”

“What?” he demanded, his green eyes
bright with
lust.

“I… I just … I want you to know I’m a
virgin.”
 
I wasn’t sure why I was
saying the words, why I would want him to know something so humiliating.
 
It was probably my natural inclination,
already making excuses for why I might be bad at something.
 
Cage had been with tons of women,
beautiful women
, the kind of women who had perfect bodies
and knew exactly how to please him.

He pulled back and smirked.
 
“Good try, little sister.”

“No, seriously,” I said.
 
“I’ve never… I’ve never done this
before.”

Doubt clouded his face and I saw a bit of
the lust flame out of his eyes.
 
“You’ve never done what before?”

“Had sex.”

My skirt was still bunched up around my
waist, my panties still pushed over to the side.
 
The want for him still pulsed inside of me, but now it was
tempered.
 

He frowned.
 
“What kind of sex?”

“Um, any kind.”
 
I wasn’t going to pretend I was one of those girls who had
done ‘everything but’, the kind of girls who went around giving blow jobs left
and right but had never had actual sex and so therefore still considered
themselves virgins.
 
Not that I
judged those girls – but I didn’t want Cage to think I’d had any kind sex
when I hadn’t.
 
What if I was bad
at giving
blow jobs
?
 
Like I said, Cage had plenty of experience, and I wanted to
warn him that I might be a disappointment.

But it turned out I didn’t have to worry
about letting him down.

Because he released me, his hands
returning to his pants and buttoning them back up.

He reached out and punched the button on
the elevator, letting it start its descent back down to the first floor.

I rushed to readjust my
clothes,
pulling my dress back down and shifting my
underwear back over.

“Cage – “ I started, but the
elevator doors opened, and he walked out into the lobby before I could finish.

I watched as he disappeared into the
throng of people, leaving me staring after him.

***

When I found the banquet hall, there was
a hand-lettered gold sign outside that indicated the room was for the Sutton/Croft
rehearsal dinner.
 
The room was
smaller than I’d imagined – I figured my dad and Renee would have gone
all out and invited as many people as they could get away with.

I rummaged through my purse and pulled
out my phone, checking the time.
 
8:00.
 
The
exact time dinner was supposed to start, and yet there was no sign of my dad or
Renee.
 
Of course they would decide
to be fashionably late for their own dinner.

I walked into the room. The long dark oak
table inside was set beautifully with delicate china and shiny silver
tableware.
 
The tablecloths were
white and immaculate, the centerpieces a dramatic mix of blue and orange
tulips.
 
The table was only set for
twelve, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
 
Less people meant less people I’d have to interact with.
 
Of course, that also meant there would
be more of a chance for people to focus on me.

My
parents
friends, The Yassos, were standing over by the window of the room, wineglasses
in hand.
 
Mr. Yasso was wearing an
expensively-cut
suit, while Mrs. Yasso had on a chic-looking
navy blue lace sheath dress that hit right at the ankle.
 
I tried to slip back out of the room
before they saw me, but before I could, Mrs. Yasso saw me and made her way
over.

“Grace!” she said.
 
“How nice to see you!”
 

I saw her eyes flick down to my dress,
and a slight look of disapproval crossed her face as she took in the plunging
neckline of my black cocktail dress.
 
If I thought I’d been self-conscious about it back in my room, I was
even more self-conscious about it now.
 

“Nice to see you, too,” I said.
 

“It’s nice to see you’re keeping some of
the weight off,” she said.
 
Then
she leaned in close to me, and I smelled her breath, a mix of nicotine and
wine.
 
“You should try that
Crossfit.
 
It helped me get in the
best shape of my life.”

“Good idea,” I lied.
 
“Have you seen my father by any
chance?”

“He went to the catering office with
Renee,” she said.
 
“Some kind of
mix up with the prime rib.
 
Personally, I never thought they should have had the wedding in Clifton,
but of course it wouldn’t do for your father to have his wedding somewhere
other than here, what with him being a local celebrity and all.”
 
Her voice was laced with bitter
jealousy.

“Yes, well, I better go make sure
everything’s okay.”
 
I pushed by her
and out of the room.
 
A little ways
down the hall was a sign that pointed me toward the catering and
event planning
department, and I followed the corridor until
I found the office.

I could hear Renee’s voice coming from
inside, raised and angry, and so I stopped for a second, lingering outside the door.

If there was a problem with dinner, Renee
was probably causing a scene.
 
I’d seen
her do it a million times – read everyone the riot act and make people
who were just trying to do their jobs completely uncomfortable.

If that’s what she was doing this time, I
didn’t want to be a part of it.
 
It
was bad enough I’d had to deal with it growing up, whenever we were shopping in
a store or Renee thought she was getting bad service in a restaurant.
 

“…
just
deal with
it,” I heard her saying as I came to a stop outside the office.

“I don’t want to just deal with it,” a
male voice said.

 
Cage.
 

He must have gone looking for my parents,
too.
 
I frowned, wondering why he
was taking his mom’s side
 
--
usually he hated when his mom berated some poor salesperson or waitress, even
going so far as to go up to them later and apologize for the way his mother was
acting.
  

“She needs to stay with you,” I heard him
say now, his voice deep and stern.

My stomach did a flip.
 
Was he talking about me staying in his
room?

“She can’t,” Renee said.
 
“She can’t stay with us, Cage.
 
There’s just no place for her in my
house.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it,” Cage
said.
 
“She can sleep on the futon
or in the downstairs guest room.”

“The guest room has been turned into an
office,” Renee said. “And I can’t possibly ask Ava to have Grace sleep on the
futon in that room with her.
 
Ava
is a very light sleeper.”

“Forget it,” Cage said.
 
“I’ll just get Grace her own room.”

“The hotel is completely sold out,” Renee
said.
 

“Dan,” Cage said, apparently decided to
appeal to my father.
 
“Are you okay
with this?”

Up until this point, I’d had no idea that
my dad was even in the room.
 
Which
was typical of him – whenever Renee was around, she was the one in
charge.
 
It had always been that
way.
 

“I’m sure we can work something out,” my
dad said.

“No, we can’t work something out,” Cage
said.
 
“She can’t stay in my
room.
 
I want her out.”

“Then you shouldn’t have agreed to let
her stay there,” Renee said.
 
“She’s twenty-one years old, Cage, she should be able to get her own
hotel room.”

“You know that’s not fair,” Cage
said.
 
“She’s trying to get through
school.
 
And in case you missed it,
Mom, school is pretty fucking expensive when you have no family support
whatsoever.”

I swallowed, not sure how he knew I was
trying to get through school.
 
Had
my father mentioned it to him?
 
Had
Cage asked about me?
 
I’d heard
things about
him,
of course, about the streaming video
service he’d started after college, about all the cool original programming
they were coming up with – the most recent being a drama about two young
men who had been recruited to join the terrorist group ARCAN.
 
 
It had been how Cage had made all his money.

And then of course, there was Cage’s
social life, which was splashed on the cover of every tabloid, especially when
he’d been dating Cari Caldwell, a hot new up-and-coming country music star everyone
was interested in.

But to think Cage knew what I was doing,
that he might have asked about me … it made weird warmth
radiate
through my body.

“Don’t swear at me, Cage,” Renee said.
 
“You’ve really overstepped your bounds
this time.”

“Dan,” Cage said.
 
“Are you going to grow some balls
finally?
 
Are you going to stand up
and say this is unacceptable, not letting your daughter
stay
in her own goddamn house?”
 
He was
yelling now, and a couple of hotel guests gave a curious glance into the
catering office as they passed by.

“Well – “ my dad started, but Renee
caught him off.

“Cage, that is enough!” she said.
 
“You do not come here and start talking
to me and your stepfather that way.
 
If you have a problem with the way we’ve chosen to raise our children,
well, then, that is your problem.
 
We
are the parents.
 
We will do as we
see fit.
 
And if you don’t want
Grace in your room, then you can tell her to leave and find her own place to
stay.”

“She has nowhere to go!” Cage said.
“That’s not my problem and it’s not yours,” Renee said.

“I’m sure Grace will figure it out,” my
dad said.
 
“She always does.
 
She’s a fighter, my Grace.”

I felt that familiar pang I got whenever
my dad talked like that.
 
She’s a
fighter, my Grace.
 
I didn’t feel
like a fighter.
 
I felt like a
complete fuck up.

“She’s fighting because you two are
trying to fucking drown her!” Cage said.
 
He was really mad now, his voice getting even louder, the emotion
obvious.
 
“Even after her mom died,
you two were just –”

“That is
enough!”
Renee said, her voice just as raised as her son’s.
 
“You need to calm down, Cage, and you
need to calm down now.
 
You will
not come to my wedding and attack me.
 
And if you can’t learn to control your behavior and your temper, then
I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“I’m already gone,” Cage said.

And then there he was, in the hallway,
his eyes locking on mine before I had to chance to get out of there.