Stepbrother Catfish: The Complete Series (12 page)

“She’s gone now, you can come out.”

I feel a burst of relief that the danger of being caught is over, but my heart still aches. That must have been Andrew’s girlfriend and he had the perfect opportunity to break up with her.

He didn’t.

My knees wobble as I get to my feet.  The stack of shoe boxes next to me topples over.

God, I feel so fucking stupid. I swipe my hand across my eyes. I’m soaked with tears.

“Are you okay?” Andrew’s head pops into the closet.

I suck in a sharp breath. Am I okay? Is he freakin’ serious?

“No, I’m not okay.”

“Did you get hurt?” Andrew looks to the shoe boxes and then to me.

“No,” I say simply.

“I see.”

His concern for me immediately pisses me off. He just had me hiding in his closet as if I was something to be ashamed of. As if I wasn’t worth standing up for. The low boil of anger in my blood is drying up my tears. I’m starting to get righteously mad.

His body fills up the doorway. He spreads his feet as if to block me. If I want to leave, I’ll have to go through him. He has me trapped.

“Hailey, can we talk?”

I eye him up and down, “What’s there to talk about?”

“You’re mad.”

I am angry, but it’s not entirely directed at him. I’m more angry at myself for being so naïve and gullible. I know I’m the one who got myself into this mess. Andrew is what he is, and I was reminded of that very clearly when he was talking to that Tiffany chick.

“Who’s Tiffany?”

“Are you jealous?”

I bite my lip.
Of course I am, you idiot.
But I don’t say that. I shake my head instead.

“You’re not jealous? Not even a little bit?” Andrew pushes.

I shake my head again.

He takes a step into the closet. For some reason, it makes me want to take a step back.

“Do you not care for me, Hailey?” Andrew asks. Why does he look like that? So intense. His eyes are locked on my face as if they are waiting… waiting for something.

Lying makes me so uncomfortable. I want to squirm under his scrutiny. The tables have turned so quickly. I’m acting out of pure self-preservation. Why is my anger fleeing when I need it?

“No,” I say quietly. I wish it were true.

“I care for you.”

Damn him, why is he doing this?

“I don’t believe you,” I try to say quietly but my voice cracks.

I can feel the threat of tears stinging my eyes. I need to get out of here before I break down in front of him, again.

“Just the thought of you with another man makes me want to break something.”

He takes another step towards me.

I’m so tempted to start throwing his own shoes at him. He takes yet another step.

I snap at him, “What do you want from me, Andrew?”

He stops and his lips pull down into a scowl, “Call me AJ.”

I cross my arms over my chest, “No, Andrew.”

“Please don’t do this, Hailey,” Andrew says, his voice suddenly desperate.

It catches me off guard. I blink at him.

“Me do this? This is all you.”

“Please, Hailey.”

Dammit, I don’t understand him. How can he plead with me like that? I look at his face, at his sad, puppy dog eyes and I’m starting to feel sorry for him. This is bad, this is so bad.

I need to get out of here. I can’t trust myself with him. He has a magical ability to make me do things that are bad for me, that I know are not in my own best interest. It’s like there’s something more at work here and I’m helpless against it.

If I stare into his eyes for too long or if he somehow manages to touch me, I’m done for. Just the thought fills me with uneasy energy. I try to step around him but, of course, he steps in front of me, blocking my path.

“Don’t leave.”

I should leave. I should push past him and make a run for the door. Instead, I find myself asking, “Why should I stay?” As if I just want him to give me a good reason.

“Because we have an agreement.”

Seriously? I blink at him in disbelief. “I should stay because of the agreement?”

Andrew nods, looking utterly serious, “Yes.”

I’ve had enough. I don’t know what I was hoping for… one last chance for him to somehow make this right, perhaps. It certainly wasn’t him throwing our agreement in my face

“Get out of my way,” I snap and try to push past him.

He has the nerve to grab me by the shoulder to stop me, “No, Hailey. I can’t let you leave like this.”

I try to push his hand off of me, “Let go of me.”

Why is he making this so hard? It’s already hard enough as it is.

His fingers tighten on my shoulder, then I feel him trying to pull me closer.

“Hailey, I love you, please don’t leave.”

I hate it. I hate hearing him say he loves me. I feel the tears again, but I can’t hold them back. What did I do to deserve such torture? How can he be so cruel?

“Please don’t cry, baby.” He starts to wipe the tears from my cheeks, but I turn my face away.

“Why are you doing this to me?” I ask.

“Because I love you.”

I stand there, trembling beneath his grasp. Hearing him say he loves me again has me sobbing.

“I don’t believe you.”

“Look at me, Hailey.” Andrew grabs me by the cheeks. I try to look everywhere else but at him but his entire face fills up my blurry vision.

“I love you. I’ve loved you from the moment I first laid eyes on you.”

Staring into his eyes, I believe him, even though I really don’t want to.

“Then why didn’t you break up with Tiffany? Why do all this?”

I’m so sick and tired of these damn games. I’m sick of this emotional rollercoaster I’m trapped on. I’m going to emotionally puke if I don’t get off of it.

Andrew pulls back and looks away. For a moment I think he’s going to let me go. His hands drop to my shoulders. Then his eyes capture mine again, and there’s such torment in them, it hurts my own soul.

“When you agreed to our arrangement, you didn’t ask if I had a girlfriend. I don’t see how it changes the situation.”

“It changes everything,” I sob at him.

I push at him, but he stands his ground. I hit him and he captures that wrist. I lash out at him with my other hand and I get a good, solid punch in before he captures that one as well.

“This changes nothing, Hailey. Nothing.”

I try to yank my hands out of his. His fingers only tighten.

“It changes it for me.”

“Why does it change it for you?”

“Because I didn’t know you were cheating!”

I didn’t ask him if he had a girlfriend because I assumed he didn’t have one. I can’t even count how many women he’s paraded through the office, never dating one for more than a week, at most. I just assumed if he had a girlfriend, I would have known about it. It would have been big news around the office.

“You didn’t ask if I had a girlfriend,” he repeats and I groan at him.

He pulls me closer by my wrists, bringing me almost into his chest.

“You didn’t ask because you didn’t care, did you?”

“I care!”

I look up at him. I hate being so close. He towers over me and makes me feel so small. His eyes are dark as they bore down on me. I so want to squirm. The way he looks at me both terrifies me and excites me in the same breath.

“Tiffany doesn’t matter, forget about her.”

His head dips down as if he’s going to kiss me. I turn my face away.

“I can’t forget.”

“Let me help you, then.”

His lips touch my neck and oh, how my body responds to it. I hate it. I hate that he has such power over me. That he can bring me to pleasure even when I’m angry at him.

“Let me go. I don’t want to forget.”

Andrew sighs, his breath warm as it rolls over the moist spot he just left with his kiss. But at least he stops kissing my neck.

“If you had known I had a girlfriend when I made you my offer, would you have not accepted it?”

I try to imagine how I would have felt in that situation. Would I have accepted the offer knowing he had a girlfriend? I honestly don’t know. Part of me wants to say no. But the way he weakens me, I know part of me may have still said yes.

“I don’t know,” I admit and it feels a lot like defeat.

“She means nothing to me, nothing,” he says adamantly. “You mean everything to me, Hailey, everything. I don’t just want you, I
need
you.”

How can he say such a thing? How can he completely disarm me with such honestly? Instead of feeling pleasure from his words, I only feel more hurt.

“I don’t understand this. I don’t understand why you’re doing this.”

I’ve never understood cheating. If you don’t want to be exclusive with someone, why not just break up with them? Why doesn’t he just break it off with her?

“I thought I could get you out of my system.  I thought that if I could finally kiss you, taste you, and make love to you, that I would stop being tormented by the desire to do it. After that first night, when I still wanted you, I thought that one week would be enough. Now… now, I’m starting to believe it will never be enough. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get enough of you.”

I remember him telling me when he proposed the arrangement in the first place that he just wanted a week. He only needed a week….

“So where do we go from here then? What do you want out of this, Andrew?”

He winces when I purposely call him Andrew again. I get the feeling I might as well have slapped him.

“You promised you would stay with me.”

Between his professions of love and keeping track of what I thought I was agreeing to compared to what I actually agreed to, my head is spinning. My tears have slowed and now I’m starting to feel that bit of numbness I usually experience after being really upset.

“And if I keep my promise, then what? Where do we go from there?”

“We both get what we wanted.”

I don’t even know what I want anymore, but I bite my lip to keep from telling him that.

“I’m sorry for all of this, Hailey. You don’t deserve it.”

Damn, he’s going to have me crying again. I think he realizes it because he pulls me closer and starts rubbing my back. I let him. Right now, I’m weak like that. He’s breaking me down, brick by brick.

“I’m an asshole and you don’t deserve any of this shit I’ve put you through. I don’t deserve you.” He sucks in a ragged breath and releases it as he says, “But I need you.”

The way he says he needs me sends a shiver down my spine and prickles across my skin.

“I need you, only you. You are all I care about.”

He steals a kiss from my lips. I don’t want to feel my body roaring to life with his touch. But it does. I don’t want to feel myself giving in as his tongue pushes past my lips. But I can’t help it.

I want to forgive him, I realize, as it goes from me letting him kiss me to me kissing him back. Right now, forgiving him is easier than walking away.

His tongue tangles with mine. Soon I find myself pressing myself into him and wrapping my arms around his neck.

I was meant for this. On some deeper level, my body just knows it was created to mold against him. My breasts were meant to press into his chest. My hips were meant to meet his hips. All our nooks and crannies align at all the right angles, in all the right places.

He kisses me long and deep. It’s as if he’s showing me with his mouth all the things he’s unable to say. It’s as if he’s trying to kiss away all the pain. Lulling me into a haze of pleasure that dulls the emotional ache.

His hands slide down my back ever so slowly, as if he’s committing me to memory. My back arches instinctively as his fingers trail down my spine, thrusting out my breasts. I never think of my breasts unless I’m with him. I never remember they exist until moments like this. I realize now that they feel heavy and wanting. I want him to touch them.

He grabs two handfuls of my ass and pulls my hips into him. The hard bulge trapped inside his pants grinds into my belly. I gasp into his mouth. How did he get hard so quickly? He hungrily swallows the gasp.

His strong fingers suddenly curl and dig into my cheeks. I rise up on my tip toes in response. As I lower back down his bulge slides along me. My nerves are alive with the friction.

The sting of pain from his digging fingers starts to bring me back to reality. He senses me pulling back from him. While his right-hand squeezes me harder, pulling me back into him, his other hand lifts and becomes entangled in my hair as he grabs me by the back of the head.

His kiss intensifies. I’m trapped in his grasp with his one hand on my head and his other hand on my ass. His grip is unbreakable and he’s pulling me in deeper and deeper.