Escape: A Stepbrother Romance

Copyright © 2015 Jessica Ashe

Escape is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons or their likeness is entirely coincidental.

This book contains mature content, including graphic sex scenes and adult language. Please do not continue reading if you are under the age of 18 or if this content is likely to offend you.

All characters in the book are 18+ years of age, not blood related, and all sexual acts are consensual.

All Rights Reserved.

Thank you to everyone who helped make this book possible. I won’t name any names, but you know who you are. I wouldn’t have been able to do this without you.

Join Jessica Ashe’s mailing list to be notified when new books are released. You will also have the opportunity to purchase future books at a discount and receive free Advanced Review Copies.
Click here to join
. I will never send you any spam.

Escape tells the story of Victoria and Caiden. Victoria is English and therefore her chapters are written with British English spelling and idioms. Conversely, Caiden is American and therefore his chapters are written with American English spelling and idioms.

The man flashed a grin at me as he walked out of the convenience store clutching a large box of condoms. Caiden? It couldn’t be him. I’d been seeing his face everywhere since I lost my virginity to him last week. I must have been imagining things.

Caiden couldn’t be here. Not in my local corner shop a hundred miles from where he was staying in London.

There was no mistaking that grin, though. It screamed ‘I’m a cocky, arrogant, arsehole who’s in love with my own reflection.’

That grin had charmed most of the girls I went to school with, and a few of them even ended up going back to his penthouse in London for drunken one-night stands.

So had I. He’d grinned at me like that when I’d undressed in front of him last week just before he took my virginity.

Snap out of it Victoria, you’re imagining things.
Caiden was living in London for the summer and would soon be returning home to America. Why would he be in my sleepy little town?

“You okay, Victoria?” Betty asked, as she took the bread, cheese, and cold meat from my shopping basket.

Betty had been working in this shop for as long as I could remember. When we first came here as a small child, Betty had owned the small, independent store, and she worked seven days a week all year round.

At some point, a big supermarket chain had noticed the prestigious piece of real estate in Windsor and had purchased the shop from Betty. I’d felt sorry for her at first. She’d cried when they took the sign down and changed the name, but a few weeks later she looked noticeably happier. She only had to work five days a week now and she once told me she preferred being bossed around than being the boss herself.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Thanks, Betty,” I replied.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Betty said. “That’ll be £7.65.”

“I’m just tired from the journey home,” I said, as I slid my debit card in the chip and pin machine. Caiden was no ghost. A ghost wouldn’t have given me the best night of my life. I shuddered as I thought back to the moment he entered me; temporary pain quickly giving way to wave after wave of pleasure.

I hadn’t done much that first time other than just lay there. He had done all the work, but he was the expert after all. I made up for it the second time. And the time after that.

“I’m sure your father will be delighted to have you back home,” Betty said. “I always ask after you whenever he comes in here, and he tells me how well you’re doing at school. I hear you’re off to uni in a few months? Cambridge is it?”

I nodded. I hadn’t told my dad I’d been accepted by the University of Cambridge, but he’d already gone around telling everyone about it as if it were a done deal. Typical.

“Yes,” I replied, taking the food and slipping it into my backpack. I looked behind me to check that no-one was waiting to pay. “This might sound like an odd question, but did the last customer have an American accent?”

“I don’t know,” Betty replied. “He just put the condoms down and paid without saying a word. Come to think of it, his card wouldn’t work in the pin machine and I’d never heard of the bank on the card. I guess he could have been American. I know one thing about him though.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

Betty motioned for me to lean in closer. “He’s got one hell of a nice arse and he’s just bought a big box of condoms. Why don’t you go out there and introduce yourself?”  

“Betty!” I exclaimed, immediately blushing red like I was still the virgin I had been a week ago. “I’m not going to sleep with some strange guy.” Not again. Never again. “Especially not one covered in tattoos.”

Betty shrugged. “You’re going to university soon. You’re bound to do it sooner rather than later. I’ll tell you this, none of the boys at Cambridge—and that’s what they will be, boys—will get your blood rushing half as much as a man like that.”

How right she was. Caiden had done things to me that I didn’t think were possible and for the last week I had been trying and failing to replicate that experience myself. I hadn’t even come close.

“I won’t tell your father,” Betty added. “Just promise me you’ll try to live a little this summer, okay? It’s the last few months of freedom you’ll have in a while.”

“I promise. But I might stick to hanging out with friends and cooking, instead of… doing that other stuff.”

Betty smiled and shook her head. “If you make any of those pear muffins again, you be sure to stop by. Don’t be a stranger.”

I left the store and looked around for Caiden. I must be going mad. It was basically impossible for him to be here. He never left London and on the rare occasions I had spoken to him, he had made his disdain for the English countryside quite clear. Windsor wasn’t the countryside, but it was a relatively small town and to Caiden they were all the same. For him, it was London or nothing.