RICH BOY BRIT (A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance)(20)

When it was over (when the condom was in the bin, and Eli and I walked naked into the lounge and collapsed on the couch) I must’ve came at least fifty times. That sounds like a gross exaggeration, but it honestly felt like that many. My pussy was sore from all the orgasms. My clit ached. My lips were tired.

It seemed strange to me, lying there with him, that I had been pretending not to feel what I was feeling right now. I had been pretending that everything was fine, that I didn’t care about him, that I was just a stepsister and he was just a stepbrother. But as we lay there, not saying anything, just listening to each other’s breathing, I knew I couldn’t do that again. Not to him, and not to me.

We had crossed a line now that couldn’t be uncrossed. Before, we had been a wolf and a lion. We hadn’t known what we were doing. It was a forgivable accident. Now, we had known full well what we were doing. We had done it on purpose, because we wanted to. And if my heart quickened at the thought, if my palms sweated—if my body told me that later, when the ache of sex had worn off, I would regret this—I didn’t have to think about that right now. Right now, it was just me and Eli, and that was all.

No shame, I thought. No regret. No anxiety. Just a sexy man and the smell of our sex.





Eli



I really thought that this would be it, that after that sex, that night—after we fell asleep together on the couch—that the time for games was over. We could face up to what we felt, and what we felt was sudden and crazy and frightening, but most of all, it was real. But when I woke, the sunlight on my face, still naked, Jessica was gone. I got dressed quickly, pulling on my clothes from yesterday. It was strange to think that, as I pulled on my pants, Mom and Andrew were in Malta, enjoying their honeymoon, completely ignorant of what their children had just done. Maybe I should be ashamed when I say it excited me, but I am not.

I walked through the house and came to Jessica’s room. I thought then that she’d simply been uncomfortable on the couch and didn’t want to wake me. I expected her to call out when I knocked, if she was awake, or to not reply if she was asleep. What I didn’t expect was what happened.

I knocked on the door, and almost immediately her voice answered. “I can’t, Eli,” she said, but her voice didn’t sound like her own. It sounded mechanical, stilted, like she was doing a bad impression of herself. “I just can’t.”

“Jessica, you sound odd,” I said. Odd was an understatement, but I didn’t want to freak her out more than she clearly was. “Is something wrong?”

“You know what’s wrong!” she exclaimed, but still in that mechanical voice. She raised her voice, hinted at emotion, but there was always something lacking in it, something vital I couldn’t quite figure out. It was like what I heard was an echo of her voice, without real life in it.

“You regret last night,” I said, keeping my voice calm. It wasn’t particularly difficult to figure out, not in the light of the morning. She had enjoyed it when it was happening, but now she’d awoken next to me, looked at me (maybe looked down at me, for all I knew), and then retreated to her bedroom.

“I—”

She stopped there, and that gave me hope, at least. Maybe she didn’t regret it. Maybe she wanted to regret it and, the fact that she didn’t bothered her. Or maybe she loved me. Or maybe I was wrong to think I could read her and it was something I hadn’t considered. I didn’t have all the answers when it came to Jessica. I think she was too beautifully complex for that. All I could do was try.

“We can talk about it,” I said, “if you let me in. I know you’re upset, confused, but we can talk about it. If you open the door, we can—” I stopped, realizing I was repeating myself. But what else could I say? “You’re going through something right now, I get that, but I can’t help you if you don’t let me in.”

“I can’t see you right now,” she said. “If I do, I’ll—” She paused, and then went on in a voice more like her true voice. “If I do, I’ll want you again. Please, Eli, just for a little while, leave me alone.”

I would be lying if I said part of me wasn’t stung by her words. I cared for her, a lot, but it was because I cared for her that I left her, walked down the hallway, to the stairs, and to my bedroom. I had no clue what she was feeling in there, I realized with an ache in my chest. We hadn’t known each other for that long. I could make good guesses, but I couldn’t actually know unless she talked to me.

All I could do was hope that she would.

I ignored the voice in my head that whispered that she would never talk to me again.





Jessica



I knew that if I let him in, I would fall into his arms without thinking about it. It was a strange problem, one I had never encountered. I wanted to talk to him about the problem, even though he was the problem. I wanted to tell him about how anxious and scared I was, even though it was our connection that was making me anxious and scared. My emotions vacillated second by second, it seemed. The strength of last night was gone; the foreboding I had felt was vindicated. I sat perched on the edge of the bed, my book forgotten on the floor, my fists clenched atop my knees.

I wanted so badly to leave the bedroom and go to him, wanted desperately to feel him against me again, but he was my stepbrother. One second, it excited me, and the thought of sneaking out there and fucking my stepbrother until we both came, hard, made my nipples erect and my clit tingle. And the next, I saw the judgmental faces of hundreds of strangers, shaking their heads, spitting at us—and Dad and Annabelle, crying loudly and forcefully (and of course they would be judging us, spitting at us, too). I made to touch myself, thinking of last night, and then was angry with myself for the impulse. I made to cry, but then realized that there was nothing to cry about . . . We just want each other! There’s nothing wrong with that! So why did I feel the tears on my cheeks?