RICH BOY BRIT (A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance)(17)

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.

“Let’s go!” he laughed.

“You said it!” Annabelle giggled. “Let’s go and get hitched!”

Eli stared out the window as Dad pulled away from the house. I watched him for a few seconds from under my fringe. He looked handsome in his suit. I could almost trick myself into thinking that he was my prom date, and he and I would end this night with romance. But this wasn’t our day, it was Dad and Annabelle’s, and so I turned away from him and gazed out my side of the window, watching the highway speed by at seventy miles-per-hour.

When we arrived at the ceremony hall—a large function hall built on the outskirts of a hotel—Eli climbed silently from the car. I climbed out, too, and then Dad whisked Annabelle into his arms, laughing all the while, and jogged off toward the entrance, leaving me and Eli alone for a few precious seconds.

“Eli,” I said, and even as I said it I knew I should go along with the performance, should follow Dad, but I needed to know. The question would hound me otherwise.

He turned and raised his eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“Are you mad at me?”

“No,” he said, and stepped forward. He cast a quick glance toward the hall. Dad had set Annabelle down now and was kissing her over and over on the lips, both of them giggling manically like young lovers, and looking the other way, away from us. Eli leaned in and, before I could do anything (or maybe I purposefully didn’t do anything, maybe I wanted it), kissed me on the cheek. It was a quick kiss, but left a warm impression on my skin.

“I’m not mad,” he went on, “because I know you’ll make the right choice.”





Eli

Watching them get married was like playing tug of war within my own chest. On one side of the rope, there was the part of me that couldn’t believe how happy Mom was, knew she deserved it, and was happy for her. She was normally content, but never this euphoric. Her relationship with Andrew had allowed her to reach new heights of happiness. On the other side was the dread and the guilt, knowing that by doing this they were unknowingly changing the relationship of me and Jessica. But then . . . what sort of relationship was there, really? I had told her she’d do the right thing. That seemed like the extent of it.

“I do.”

I didn’t know whether to smile or scream. In the end, I followed Jessica’s lead and smiled widely.

“I do.”

My smile grew wider, so that when Mom looked at me she saw her smiling son, and not a man who had mixed feelings about what had just happened. I turned to Jessica, trying to make eye contact with her. She’d shown me her panties, and, damn, I wanted her again, badly. I wanted her so badly I could’ve taken her in the church. I seriously think if she’d turned to me in that moment and kissed me, I would’ve kissed her back, even with Mom and Andrew there. But of course she didn’t. She was too anxious for that. She was probably glad just to get through the ceremony without incident.

I turned back to the happy couple and returned their smiles. The three friends Mom had invited—all artsy, hippie types with colorful clothes and long hair and a live-free-and-peacefully vibe about them—clapped and sang softly. Jessica clapped, too, but I thought there was something forced in her clapping. It was too eager. It was disproportionate. It was like the clapping of a person who really wants to convince you they’re happy.