RICH BOY BRIT (A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance) (7 page)

Mom told me about the close wedding date the day after mine and Jessica’s kiss. She danced into my room in the morning (her flowing dress swirling around her like a tornado, her long hair flowing unbound to her back) and perched on the seat across the room. “Wake up, Eli!” she’d cried.

I’d jolted awake, thinking in my haziness that Jessica had been with me, holding me, and then slapped me across the face. My cheek was sore from where this Dream Jessica had struck me, but really it was from where I’d had my face pressed up against the pillow so hard it made my cheek ache. The room became real in a few moments, and I sat up. “Mom? What is it?”

And then she told me, squealing like a little girl on Christmas, no idea how this would affect me. I’d smiled and laughed with her, waited for her to go, and then dressed quickly before running downstairs to find Jessica. Mom and Andrew were going out that day for a walk in the surrounding countryside. I told them I didn’t want to go, and I think Mom was secretly glad. She wanted to be alone with her fiancé.
Some alone time would be nice
, she’d said, which meant Jessica would be home, too.

I’d found her in the kitchen, expecting electric energy to buzz between us, our masked-night chemistry to pick up now that we were alone. But when she looked at me, it was with that fake-smile look, that PR-smile look. It was the smile of somebody who smiles for a living. There was no genuineness in it at all. I’ve never been sold a second-hand car, but I’m sure if I ever am, the salesman will wear that smile.

“Hello, Eli,” she’d said, that strange smile fixed on her. She was standing at the counter, pouring a bowl of cereal. The bottle of milk trembled only slightly. “Do you want some cereal?” she’d asked calmly.

It was not as obvious or blunt as telling me point-blank that she wanted to forget what had happened like we had agreed, even after the kiss, but it had the same effect. I wanted her badly, more than I had ever wanted anybody. I wanted her so badly that it made my whole body ache when I looked at her. But she wouldn’t drop that PR-smile.

The rest of the week was the same. I’d wait for Mom and Andrew to go somewhere together, which they did a lot. They went into Bristol city center to the Hippodrome Theater, or they took drives together. Other times, Mom had to go into the city for her work, and Andrew had to do the same. Jessica and I were on summer break and so—nominally, at least—we were studying for next semester at university. But if she did any studying, I was too captivated with my obsession for her. That was what it was becoming: an obsession. But she never let me break through the wall she had constructed.

Once, I knocked on her bedroom door. She answered it in long sweatpants and a hoodie. I’d heard her rushing around the room to change into it. It had taken her more than two minutes to answer the door. Maybe I was being paranoid, maybe she
was
cold, but it was June and the hottest day of the year so far, fans were blasting around the house, and when she opened her bedroom door her face was bright red. Really, I think she didn’t want me looking at her.

“Can we talk?” I’d asked.

“About what?” she’d replied innocently, tilting her head slightly as though she truly had no clue what I was implying, as though we hadn’t made love, as though we hadn’t kissed.

“About us,” I said, and felt like the biggest cliché loser in the world.
Where are we going? Who are we? What is this?
I hated the pleading tone in my voice, but I couldn’t stop myself. I wanted her, badly. I wanted her more than I’ve ever wanted anybody.

“Us?” She bit her lip, and for a tiny second I thought the mask might slip, but then it returned, and she smiled widely at me. “I’m busy at the moment. Sorry.”

She shut the door before I had a chance to say anything. I sighed and returned to my bedroom.

And on and on and on . . .

Meeting her in the kitchen, in the hallway, in the garden, in the living room, and always the façade was up, always I felt a cold stab in my chest every time she pretended that we were nothing, until it was the night before the wedding, the night before we became stepbrother and stepsister.

I fell asleep, as I had every night for a week now, thinking of Jessica, of her lightly-freckled cheeks and her smooth pale skin and her button nose and her sky-blue eyes and her petite body and her hot moans and her soft hands.

When I woke, it was the Big Day. Music played from Mom and Andrew’s bedroom. Mom giggled. Andrew guffawed loudly. I heard Jessica’s voice . . . “Your hair is lovely, Annabelle,” she was saying. “Maybe we should try this . . .”

Just my stepsister giving my mom advice on her hair, I thought, terror gripping my chest, making me want to sink into the bed and lose myself in dreams where Jessica and I kissed and held each other and didn’t have to play these games.

Jessica

I had to fix it, to make the situation livable, and I hate confrontation. Confrontation brings a person out in the open, brings them out so all their faults and insecurities can be scrutinized and attacked, and the idea of that didn’t thrill me at all. The night after the kiss, after we almost did something we might regret, I lay awake, heart pounding, thinking of how to fix it, how to make it better, how to make it
livable
. I knew that we couldn’t do what we wanted. That was a ludicrous idea. We could only do what we wanted in a perfect world, where Dad and Annabelle weren’t getting married, where pretty soon we weren’t going to be brother and sister. So I decided to pretend that everything was normal, to pretend that he and I had never kissed.

It was hard. I had to force myself to smile when I wanted to open up to him. I had to make myself mutter platitudes and play the stepsister role with all my might. And beneath it all, always, there was another version of me trying to break free, a version which wanted Eli, wanted all he had to give, wanted to kiss him, touch him, be with him. Dozens of times I felt the urge to reach out and touch his face, to feel his skin in my hand, but I always held back. I knew it was wrong. I couldn’t do it, no matter how badly I wanted to.

Dad and Annabelle were too happy, too in love, for their children to mess it up. So I stayed in my room as much as possible, hunched over an Eliot or a Hardy or an Austin or a Hemingway, losing myself in the words, my hands aching from gripping the pages for so long, my eyes burning from hours and hours of reading. It was all a way to escape—not him, but myself, my feelings. I could smile and pretend as much as I was able, but it didn’t stop me from waking in the middle of the night, reaching out for him in my sleep, still horny from a dream when he was naked (tattoos sun-bright in the dream) and fucking me hard. It didn’t change the way my skin pricked each time I thought of that night. It didn’t change the way my mind lurched in recognition each time I thought of the way he’d quoted George Eliot to me.

I knew that if circumstances were different, we could be close. We could be lovers, maybe more than lovers.

I joined Annabelle in her bedroom on the day of the wedding. She and Dad did not want anything outlandish, anything over-the-top. Annabelle had long hair, and I helped her style it so it wouldn’t get in the way of the back of her dress, which was low-cut almost to her tailbone. I braided it for her and set it—like an elaborate ornament—atop her head. And even here, doing this, I couldn’t dissociate the simple task of braiding hair with Eli. It was
his
mother I was helping, and it was
her
son I wanted, badly.

“Thanks, Jess!” she beamed, looking at me in the mirror.

I saw my own face, how tired my eyes looked, how my lip trembled for a moment. It was like looking at somebody else, somebody playing a role. And I was. I was playing the role of a woman who had no interest in her soon-to-be stepbrother. I was playing the role of a woman who didn’t dream every night of the muscles and sex and tattoos and endless orgasms.

“No problem!” I beamed back, smiling widely.

She did look beautiful with her hair and her dress. Her dress was a mixture of traditional and stylish. She had the long flowing bottom of a traditional wedding dress, but the low-cut back of more modern styles. I made to help her with her makeup, but she laid her hands atop mine. I felt a stab of guilt in my chest when I saw this happy bride with her hand on mine. She doesn’t know, I thought. She doesn’t know that I fucked her son. She doesn’t know I want to do it again, that we
both
want to do it again.

“You’ve done enough,” she smiled. “I can handle this. Why don’t you go and get ready, sweet?”

“Okay,” I mumbled, and left the room.

I walked through the house, my heart beating race-horse fast for no outward reason (but all the time thinking of Eli, of that night, of the lion and the way he touched me, of the orgasms and his rock-hard cock), to my bedroom. I was about to walk into the room when I heard two things. The first was Annabelle squealing as Dad entered the bedroom:
“Andrew, you’re not supposed to see the bride before the wedding!”
The second was Eli, clearing his throat behind me.

I turned and he stepped forward. I knew I had to keep up the façade, had to smile my fake smile and pretend that this was what it looked like, pretend that we were not connected. I forced my lips to twitch upward, but as I did so I found myself looking at his dagger-marked hand, at the hand which had touched my clit. An image, burning, strong, thrust itself into my mind, of Eli moving forward and moving his hand up my thigh, lifting the hem of my dress and clamping his hand down on my clit. I felt the heat, my clit pulsing, hungry for it. But he didn’t do that. He just stood there for a few moments, watching me.

His eyes trailed to the tops of my breasts, lingering there for a moment, and then moved down to my bare legs. I knew it was wrong, I knew that I was supposed to be the good sister, the nice girl, the girl who plays along in this elaborate play, but even so, I reached down and lifted the hem of my dress. That was the true me coming out, I think. I could hear Andrew and Annabelle at the other end of the house, laughing, and I knew I would hear them if they decided to come to this side of the house. I wanted to be desired by him. That was the truth. I lifted the hem of my dress and showed him my panties, which were pink and lacy. His beautiful earth-brown eyes widened when he saw them, and he took a step forward.

I dropped the dress. The madness passed. Idiot, I thought. Why would you do that? Idiot! I’d worked so hard this past week at pushing him away, and here I’d done the
one
thing that was sure to bring him closer. “Don’t,” I whispered, the fake smile gone from my face. I was revealing my true self, the self that wanted nothing more than for him to ignore me and push me into the bedroom and suck my nipples, grab my ass, spank me,
fuck
me. “Don’t, Eli.”

He ignored me and stepped close, looming over me. The sun entered from behind him, from a small window set into the wall opposite my bedroom, and when he stepped close to me his shadow fell upon me, making me feel small. But it was not small in a frightened, diminishing way. It was good to feel small near him because it reminded me of how big he was.

He looked down at me with hard eyes. “You can’t fight it forever,” he said. “Sooner or later—”

The laughter stopped, and a sound like galloping came from the direction of Dad and Annabelle. I took a step back. After a moment—just as Dad and Annabelle turned the corner in the hallway and came into view—so did Eli. “Are you not
ready
yet?” Annabelle asked, looking at her son. He was wearing shorts and a tank top, as he often did about the house.

“Sorry, Mom,” he mumbled, but his eyes didn’t leave me. His gaze lingered on my body, and then he snapped his head around to his mother. “I’ll get ready now,” he sighed.

“Me, too,” I said quickly, shutting the door behind me.

I ran across to my bed and threw myself onto the mattress. I was horny and guilty at the same time, the result being that I felt a strong urge to masturbate, but would have felt dirty if I’d touched myself. I lay on that mattress until I knew that it would cause problems if I didn’t get ready, and then quickly applied my makeup.

When I joined Dad, Annabelle, and Eli at the front door, it was like a perfect family scene. Here was the bride and the husband, desperately in love, who could barely stop looking at each other long enough to address their children. And here were the children, going along with it all so peacefully, becoming a real brother and sister! That must have been how Dad and Annabelle saw things at that moment, but I couldn’t bring myself to.

I kept thinking about how I had lifted my dress, about how the men and women back home would call me a slut, about how they’d call me even worse things if they knew what I’d done with Eli one masked night. But I didn’t regret it. I was nervous as hell—everything trembled, and there was a deep pit in my belly like disastrous foreboding—but I didn’t regret it. I
wanted
him, even as I told myself otherwise, even as I acted against it.

He was right. I couldn’t fight it forever. Sooner or later—

But I wouldn’t think about that now. Dad herded us out of the house, his eyes glittering with tears of joy, one hand on his fiancé’s shoulder with the other waving us toward the car in his eagerness to get to the ceremony. Eli and I climbed into the back seat. Dad’s car was large, and the middle seat was like a gulf between us. I wanted to reach across, to show him I cared, but Dad looked into the rear-view mirror with that smile of absolute happiness.