Cockney: A Stepbrother Romance (20 page)

Except all I can think about is how different
this
shower is to the one last night; the one where I had her pressed against this glass, my cock slick and hot, nestled against her pussy and her lips wrapped tight around my finger. Fuckin’
hell
, I mean I didn’t even
fuck
her and I’m this twisted up about it.

And then I’m just imagining the feel of that heat between her legs against my cock. I’m imagining her soft, plump lips wrapped sensually around my finger, her finger teasing the digit, and all I can picture is her on her knees with those lips wrapped sweetly around my cock.

I shake my head from the daydream as the water starts to get cold, grunting as I turn to shut it off. 

And I’m rock hard; as hard as I was when I made her come against me last night.

I don’t even realize what I’m doing until I’m standing, naked and dripping wet, in front of her bedroom door. I’m rock hard and just fucking
hungry
for her. I want to wrap her legs around my waist, or drape them over my shoulders and bury every single fucking inch inside this girl until I explode I want to bend her over on her hands and knees and shove my tongue as deep into that honeyed pussy of hers as I can.

The door is locked - I check - and I almost,
almost
knock before I’m suddenly shaking myself out of my delirium and realize fully what I’m doing. 

I’m naked, and hard, and standing outside my stepsister’s room thinking about fucking her bare and taking and claiming her in every possible way.

Yep, it is
time to fucking sleep.

I shake my head again as I turn away from her door and stumble back to my own room. “Go out?” “Find someone new to pick up?” I could almost laugh, except I’m pretty sure I’m too tired to. Fuck, I’m too tired to do anything but crash into my bed and slowly let the darkness drag me down, as I fall asleep with the world’s most confused erection of all time. 

*****

Sleep is a wondrous thing. Or at least, it
can
be.

I’m hoping as I wake up late the next morning that somehow actually turning my body and my mind off for a solid nine hours will fix things. I’m
hoping
to wake to clarity and the sudden epiphany that I’m being a solid wanker and that I need to go drop Chloe Caulfield right out of my head.

Hope is another wondrous thing.

And a waste of time, apparently. 

She’s off someplace before I even struggle downstairs to make myself some breakfast, and even though I want to scowl at her ducking out like that, I’m still in no place to even start to talk to her on a normal level.

“Oy, look who’s roused himself, eh?”

I blink as I step into the kitchen to find my dad slumped over the racetrack score paper by the window, smoking chesterfields.

Jesus, you can take the bum out of the East End and put him in a nice house, but you can’t take the East End out of the bum.

Laura smiles at me from the counter, where it looks like she’s mangling a pan of scrambled eggs something wicked. Hey, at least she’s trying. I can’t honestly remember a single thing my father’s ever
cooked
.

“There’s coffee, Oliver.”

I smile at her before I see my dad roll his eyes and glance down at his watch, “Tick-tock, Ollie. Restaurant going to run itself today is it?”

“It’s nine-thirty, dad.”

“So?” He scowls at me, “
I’m
up, and I went five rounds of five-card with the lads last night.” He snorts, shaking his head as he glances back to his betting paper. It’s as if somehow his being out playing fucking
poker
is
anything remotely like
the night I had last night; even
without
the whole Chloe debacle.

“Had a
bit
of a rough night last night, pop. I don’t know if you know.”

Dad just shrugs and turns to a new page of his sports paper.

“Your father called Ian this morning and heard,” Laura says. The idea of poor Ian being roused by my father’s poking and prodding phone call at whatever ungodly hour he called is half amusing, half cringe-worthy, but I grin to myself nonetheless. 

She scrapes the eggs around the pan in a way that has me wincing before she looks up again, smiling, “So
exciting
about the
Times
, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, well, a bit of a shitshow it was.”

Dad shrugs as he scans down a list of greyhound track results, “Eh, the lot of those greedy fucks can sod right off. Who needs ‘em, yeah?”

I roll my eyes as I pour coffee. “
Everyone
needs them, Dad. It’s a
bit
of a big deal to get a write up.”

“Bunch of lazy twats looking for a free meal is what that is.”

I swear to Christ, you couldn’t make this up if you tried. This is literally how my father speaks and thinks about the world. And I’d like to think I’m wise enough to know when to just shut up and let him think whatever he wants.

“So, a little nancy with a notebook gets his knickers twisted and you get the day off, eh?”

I clench my jaw, and want to say something a bit more choice, but I decide not to in front of Laura. I realize that I barely know her, but she seems nice enough; probably
too nice
for a pisser like my dad, really.

“Guess I’ll be going then,” I say thinly. My dad doesn’t say a thing.

*****

Chloe ignores me from the second I walk in the door. 

Of course
.

But where I should just roll my eyes and let it be, for some reason, I can’t. Instead I glare at her from across the kitchen, sipping my espresso and growling to myself. Because for some reason, being ignored by this girl somehow
gets
to me in ways that stupid games like this never do. 

It takes me a second, but when it hits me, it
sticks
with me. Because that’s when it clicks. What annoys me the most about her standing over there with headphones in her ears and pretending she didn’t see me walk in - pretending she didn’t see me make myself an espresso three meters away from her, glaring at her the whole time - is that games like this are
totally beneath
a girl like her. Because she’s not just
ignoring me
, she’s making a game of it. She’s making it
obvious
she is, which sort of dilutes the whole purpose ignoring someone. 

A girl like Chloe Caulfield is
way
above playing games with a knucklehead like me, and that’s what gets under my skin like a splinter.

I nod at Ian when he pokes his head into the kitchen, and grin when he glares at me. Yeah, there’s the face of a six a.m. Barney Beckett wake-up call if I ever saw one. He coughs and makes a nodding gesture for me to follow him back out to the empty dining room.

“Oy, heard you got a call from room service bright and early this morning,” I grin, sipping at my espresso as I step around the tables stacked with chairs, “Sorry about that.”

He glares at me before he snorts and shakes his head. “Eh, no worries. I make Jerry take just about every call I get from your old man, I don’t think he can actually tell us apart.”

I laugh.

“Listen though, there’s another call I got just now you should know about.”

“Oh? What’s it now?” I roll my eyes, “Barney changing the whole theme of the place to a topless chips shop?”

“Your pastry cook is putting out feelers.”

I freeze, espresso cup midway to my lips, “Huh?”

Ian nods. “Got a call from Sean over at
Maxwell
, checking out her references.” He glares at me, “Ollie, I don’t have to tell you how hard it is to find a decent pastry cook right now.”

She wants to quit? Over one fucking argument?
I can feel my teeth grinding together as I glare into my coffee cup.

“Look,
make nice
, okay?” We can’t be changing over staff in between
Times
reviews; you
know
that.” Ian shrugs, “Besides, I
like
her.”

“Oh, well, in that case-” I roll my eyes at Ian, “And
why
is she so high on the Ian Johnson opinion meter?”

“Because she serves your shit right back to you, that’s why,” Ian says with grin and a raised eyebrow.

Cocky git.

“I’ll handle it.”

“
Nicely
, Ollie.”

“Oy, you want me to tell you how to manage your fucking wait staff?”

Ian laughs as he heads towards his office, “Play nice!” He calls back over his shoulder.

I stand amongst the empty tables of the dining room for another minute, stewing things over. She’s looking for another
job?
Already?

Let her
, the voice inside says with a shrug;
Why not? Weren’t you bitching about how living AND working with her was messing with your head?

And the voice is right; I
should
just let her do what she wants. I should call Sean back right now, give her a glowing recommendation, send her on her merry fucking way, and then go fuck half the waitresses on Ian’s staff. 

That’s
what I
should
do, when it comes to Chloe.

...Of course, I’m not always that good at doing what I
should
do, am I?

*****

So, she wants to play games?
Fine
; bring it. I can play kid games too. 

Games like walking back into the kitchen, heading directly for my little office, and text messaging her with descriptions of
every
single thing I want to do to her. 

It’s amazing how graphic you can be in a text message these days. Emojis are downright
filthy
if you use them right.

I’m completely aware it’s a bit of a mixed message after my behavior last night when I yelled at her like that, but let her stew on it. Let her think about my dirty, crude, filthy messages all day and night while she tries to work. Let her try and get orders out while I’m texting her the places I want to put my tongue, or where I want to screw her. 

Let her try and think about swapping jobs when I tell her how hard I am, or how I’m dying to pull her panties off with my teeth and taste the honey between her legs.

Of course, I get absolutely
nothing
back; not even a look my way even though I
definitely
catch her looking at her phone at least half a dozen times throughout the shift with wide eyes and pink cheeks.

Okay, so I don’t get a
literal
response back, but watching her cheeks go bright red as I send her another detailed description of my cock or some other dirty position is certainly just as good.

It’s a start, at least.

*****

“Okay, you need to
stop it
.”

I grin as I finish pulling my sweaty t-shirt off in my office and turn to see her standing in my doorway. She may have just worked a fairly grueling shift, and she may be frowning at me, but damn if she doesn't looking sexy as
sin
standing there in jeans and a tank-top with her hair cascading down her shoulders.

“What do you
want
, Oliver?” She says, crossing her arms over her chest and scowling at me.

It’s not doing a thing to make her any less hot.

“Haven’t I been making what I want fairly clear all damn day?” I say with a grin, “Oh, wait, you
do
get cell service in here, right?”

She rolls her eyes. “You can’t
text
me like that. It’s inappropriate.”

I shrug, “I disagree.”

“It’s sexual harassment.” 

I give her a look, loving that forced heat to her eyes that says she’s trying to convince herself of what she’s saying about as hard as she’s trying to convince me. 

“Don’t you think we’re a
bit
past that?”

Her face flushes scarlet. “
Do not
remind me.”

“So what is this about you working for Sean over at
Maxwell’s
? What, I yell at you
once
and in the kitchen and you decided you can’t stand the heat?”

“No, I woke up and realized I didn’t need to spend my time fooling around with an
asshole
.”

“How about ignoring me? That part of the deal?”

“Looks that way,” she snaps.

I roll my eyes.

“Look, it’s not appropriate, okay? What we did-” She blushes again and drops her eyes as she pushes her hair back from her face, “We
can’t
do things like that, Oliver. Our parents-”

“Are grown adults, Chloe; sort of like us.”

“It’s wrong.”

“Keep telling yourself that, sweetheart.”

“I have to go.”

“Oh
c’mon!
Look, stick around, okay? I promise I’ll be good.” She arches a brow at me and I grin. “Okay, I’ll make a
solid
effort to be good at least. Don’t go over to
Maxwell’s
, we need you here.”