Cockney: A Stepbrother Romance (44 page)

P A S T

The buzzing beneath my pillow shakes me awake, and I frown as I feel sleep begin to slide away from me. I’m grumbling to myself as I pull out the offending cellphone I must have fallen asleep with, blinking at its glaringly bright screen. The number isn’t familiar, but I
do
recognize the time that says it’s 3:45 in the morning, and with a muttered swear, I reject the call and shove the phone back under my head. 

The buzzing starts again
just
as I start to drift off. “Ugh
, what?
” I groan out loud, grinding my teeth as I see the same unknown number illuminating my screen and wrecking my sleep a second time. I’m tempted to answer just to tell them where they can stick it, but instead I just turn my phone off entirely. I’m yanking the covers up around me and burrowing deeper into my sleep when I hear the knock at my dorm-room door.

What the actual fuck.

“
What?!
” I know the disheveled, skate-punk-looking kid standing outside my door, but only through faint recognition as someone who lives on my floor on the other side of the dorm. “Can I
help you?
”

“There’s, uh, someone here to see you.” He takes a sip from the atypical college red plastic solo cup in his hand.

I furrow my brow at him; “Excuse me?”

“Outside; there’s some dude who wants to see you.”

“Who?”

He shrugs. He looks high, or drunk; “I dunno, some guy just gave me a hundred bucks to come knock on your door and tell you to answer your phone.” He frowns and taps a finger to his forehead which would be comical if I hadn’t just been woken up at four in the morning.

“Wait, no, that’s not it, he said to say ‘Answer your
damn
phone, Archer.’”

I almost smirk; Hudson.

*****

“A hundred dollars, huh? Just to get me outside?”

Hudson is leaning against the side of a bright red Porsche convertible, his white oxford shirt unbuttoned at the neck and his sleeves rolled up, uncharacteristically showing off his tattoos. He grins and shrugs; “Eh, its the only cash I had in my wallet. Answer your damn phone next time.”

“What do you want, Hudson.” Ok so part of me is thrilled that he’s shown up here like this at four in the morning like something out of a John Hughes movie; especially looking like
that
with his hair pushed back and that cocky grin and those tattoos peeking out down his forearms. The other part of me though - the
sensible
part of me - is wary of this for those exact reasons.

“I want to show you something, get in.”

I raise my eyebrows skeptically; “Have you been drinking or something?”

“What? No, I don-“ He frowns and shakes his head; “No, Reagan, I haven’t.”

I cock my head towards the red convertible; “What happened to the white one?”

“I got bored. Look, just get in ok?”

“Hudson, it’s four o’clock in the morning,” I’ve been at college for all of a month, and the work is already
seriously
piling up. I roll my eyes at him; “I need to
sleep
.”

“No, what you
need
to do is get in the car.”

He’s so insistent and so earnest about it that something wants me to say yes when I know I shouldn’t, and suddenly, I’m caving.

“Let me just go change my-“

“Nah, PJ’s are fine.” He winks at me; “Com’on Archer, quit being a diva and get in the car.”

*****

Hudson, predictably, drives like an insane person, and we’re roaring over the George Washington bridge in less time than I thought was physically possible. He whips us around a van and veers off onto the Palisades Parkway, and then we’re tearing away from the city and up the west bank of the Hudson River. We aren’t talking, but the stereo is playing an old Grateful Dead record, and I almost grin at how
not
expected this choice of music is for the Armani-suited wild man Hudson.

He smirks as if reading my mind; “I’m a man of odd taste, Ms. Archer.”

“What, like drunk bimbos and sports cars?” I smirk, unable to help but get that cheap shot in; “Yeah,
so
outside the lines for rich young finance guys in New York.”

“I was going to say like night drives and girls in pajamas, actually.”

I feel myself blushing as I turn and look out the window at the inky black of the river we’re following. I don’t know what this is that we’re doing out here, but I’m suddenly
very
curious to see where it goes.

Hudson swerves off the main parkway, and then we’re speeding
up
; up a twisting, winding, and wooded road. The elevation climbs, and Hudson drives faster and higher, taking bend after bend with screeching tires until I’m holding onto the edges of my seat with white knuckles and gasping as the trees rush past us.

And then suddenly, the darkness of the trees gives way, the sky opens up, and and we’re squealing to a stop. I can still feel my heart hammering from the drive, but I gasp as I look around the parking lot lookout where we’ve stopped. I can see the lights of the whole city from here, down along the black ribbon of the Hudson River, and its
incredible.

“I just thought you’d want to see the whole Hudson.” He says quietly from the seat next to me.

I turn and see that he’s staring out at the view himself, and I grin; “Please tell me that’s a pickup line you’ve used before.”

He laughs, his whole face breaking into a wide smile; “Not on a first date, Ray.”

“Oh, is this a first date?” I smirk.

“Is it?” He shrugs; “First date and I already get to see what you sleep in; not bad I’d sa-“

I smack him on the arm with a laugh and he turns to grin at me; “No, Ray, it’s not a line; just something I wanted to show you.”

We both turn back to the view for another minute of silence. I open my mouth to ask it but then stop myself, before changing my mind again; “You show this to a lot of girls?”

A song ends on the album, and in the absolute silence of the car, he turns to me, his sharp eyes glinting in the light from the dash; “None, actually.”

The music starts up again as we both sit back in our seats and just stare off into the predawn as civil twilight crests over the city; and its
wonderful
.

P R E S E N T

OK, so being around Hudson is hard.
Ugh
, I need to get my mind out of the gutter; it’s
difficult
I should say, being around him. Mostly because the only thing I can think about
at all
is that cock of his I saw when I stumbled into the bathroom. I mean, it’s not enough that he’s rich, cocky, muscled and criminally attractive; the guy has to have an big dick
too
?

I mean honestly, it’s distracting.

He
of course seems to have have totally moved on from seeing, well, whatever it is he thinks he saw. Although at this point, I’m fairly sure he knows
exactly
what he saw; and heard. I cringe a little, thinking about gasping his name out as my orgasm ripped through me, and then seeing him just
standing there
, staring at me. Whats worse is that I can’t I get my damned mind off of that image of him standing there totally naked and
completely
hard. And why can’t I help but wonder what or who he was thinking about that got him that way?

His back is to me, as he reads through business emails of some kind on his phone in my living room, and I find myself chewing at my lip nervously, my mind a whirlwind. I mean, would it
really
be so bad?

YES!
The voice in my head screams, shaking me from my idle day-dreaming and making me realize with a  blush that I’ve been
staring
at Hudson’s back for the past five full minutes.
YES
, it would be bad like ruination of public image bad. I mean
sleeping
with the guy in charge of donating campaign funds? It’s not illegal or anything, but they’d fucking
crucify
me for that in the papers. I can almost see the headlines now, something like “Silly Little Rich Girl Predictably Bangs the Guy With Money; Bows Out of Campaign”.

No, fuck that. What I
need
is to get images and thoughts of me banging Hudson out of my head,
now
. Of course, the pathetic amount of time it’s been since I’ve been involved in
banging
of any kind makes me groan, and I know that’s part of the problem. I mean there was Chet - yes,
Chet
, like something out of a fucking Archie comic - but that was over six months ago, and even then it was barely a thing. It was barely a thing so much that when I heard the whispers about him fucking his intern like a walking cliche, I remember feeling more sorry for whatever college poli-sci major had to lay there and fake it now that I wasn’t doing it than I did for myself. Erika, my “brand manager” (God I hate that title), of course want’s me to get back together with him, and is always talking about how much of a “complimentary companion” he is for a “power-woman” like myself.

Yeah, because “complimentary companion” has “sexy” written all over it. And
again
my mind instead thinks of the hard-bodied, cocky Hudson. Hudson with the tattoos and the obnoxious bad-boy chip on his shoulder; Hudson with the dangerous glint in his eye and the fucking
missile
hanging between his legs. I’m pretty sure it would give Erika an aneurism if I announced that
he
was going to be my new “companion” of any kind.

I’m still mulling all of this over in my head when Chelsea comes over later with takeout sushi. 

“So what do you think, Hudson?”

I grumble into my yellowtail maki. I don’t know if I’m pissy because she’s decided to include him in what
was
going to be a sister get-together, or that she’s somehow getting along with him
swimmingly
. Or maybe I’m just
generally
feeling
on edge because of the Hudson situation as a whole.

“Your ex sounds like a dick, Chelsea,” He’s saying as he takes a bite of salmon. He sees me staring at him and grins as he makes an extra big show of sensually slurping the piece of fish between his lips while Chelsea is looking down at her own food. I make a face at him, which only gets him grinning more and more my own pulse beating faster.

“Aw, thanks Hudson!” I’m still making my stink face at him when Chelsea looks up sees me, before she turns and nods her head at Hudson; “You know, you can always come hang with me if my sisters being a bitch, Hudson.”

He chuckles right along with her as I stuff seaweed salad into my mouth and look away. It’s not
flirty
between them - she’s acting like more of a kid sister and him more like a conspiratorial brother than anything like
that
- but it’s still getting under my skin. It’s as if their closeness brings out some sort of bizarre jealousy in me, which is stupid because I don’t want or need to be close to Hudson.

Keep saying that to yourself and maybe you’ll start to believe it.

I’m interrupted from battling my inner dialogue by Chelsea poking me in the arm with a chopstick; “We should ask his opinion on
your
ex, Ray.”

I blush as Hudson arches an eyebrow at me, a grin teasing his perfect lips; “Ex-boyfriend, huh?” Yeah, I definitely haven’t mentioned Chet to Hudson.

“Let’s…
not?
” I’m staring daggers at my sister, but she’s either not getting the hint or just ignoring them anyways. 

“Oh com’on! I bet Hudson has a ton to say about you and Chet.”

I groan inside as Hudson grins wickedly at me; “
Chet
?” His cocky, smug mouth cracks even even wider as winks at me; “Oh, yeah, I think I’ve got
loads
to say about ‘Chet’.”

“
See?
” Chelsea gives me a sassy look as she reaches past me for the ginger.

“I’m
sure
you do.” I say icily.

*****

“So,
Chet
, huh?”

We’re cleaning up the kitchen after Chelsea leaves; Hudson rinsing out wine glasses and me drying them. It’s
weirdly
domestic, and probably the last thing I could ever imagine spending my Wednesday night doing with billionaire playboy Hudson Banks.