RICH BOY BRIT (A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance)(25)

She moved around, and then I moved with her. She laughed loudly, throwing her head back, and soon I was laughing with her. I couldn’t help myself. We spun and jived around that clearing like we were putting on a show, our old feelings from that first night spinning and jiving with us. When she moved, I saw the wolf, and then I saw her, and then the two of them became one. I didn’t have to decide, I realized as we danced, between the wolf and Jessica, because they were the same person. Jessica had a range of emotions that I could only be in awe of, but I could reach it, yes, I could reach it if I gave myself wholly to her.

These feelings moved through me as we danced, as she laughed, and as I laughed with her.

Finally, the dance ended. She fell forward into my arms, giggling, and then looked up at me and kissed me on the lips.

This was my stepsister, but that seemed less and less important as the seconds ticked by. She was my stepsister, but more importantly, she was my lover. What we were doing was wrong, and yet it felt right. What we were doing was a disaster, but it felt like a miracle. It was the worst possible thing we could have done; it was the best possible thing we could have done.

A light breeze found its way through the trees and blew against my legs, the hair standing up, and the birds looked down on us, chirping, and the insects buzzed in the shrubbery everywhere. I held her close to me and kissed her on the forehead, over and over. “I love you,” I said, a little surprised at the conviction in my own voice. I had not planned on falling in love. I had not planned on falling in love with anybody, let alone my stepsister. But it had happened now, and there was nothing to do (I told myself, convinced myself) but embrace it.

And I would embrace it. We would embrace it. I looked down at her, into her bright, sparkling, sky-blue eyes, and saw that she felt the same. She wanted to embrace our lust, our love, just as much as I did. But we were not as free as we felt in our hearts, and we had to consider Mom and Andrew. Always, we had to consider them. We needed to know how they would react, if they would divorce, if it would ruin everything.

We both loved our parents, and wanted them to be happy. But did their happiness outweigh ours? Was it more important? If I had asked this question before I met Jessica—if somebody had given me all the facts and asked me to answer objectively—I would have said yes, of course. But love, I was discovering, wasn’t objective in the slightest. I knew one thing; I felt another. And what I felt above all was that, no matter what, I would never, ever, let Jessica slip away from me.

If I had to bring everything tumbling down, I wouldn’t lose Jessica.





Jessica



We walked through the woods down the main path once again, away from Paradise Bottom and along the ridge that overlooked River Avon toward Nightingale Valley. We didn’t say much, once again, because we didn’t need to. Something had happened in the woods, just after the Lindy Hop. We’d just looked at each other, and it was like whole conversations were being spoken with that simple exchange. I will never leave you, his expression seemed to say. You can be sure of that, Jessica. I will never leave you.

It might sound strange that I believed I could read exactly what he meant simply from his expression, but I really could. A closeness had developed between us that was completely at odds with common sense, and neither of us cared. If common sense was something that would keep us apart, common sense could go to hell. We walked through the sun, beside the trees and the flowers, until we came to Clifton suspension bridge and the entirety of Bristol, laid out beneath us.

We looked down at the city for a short while, and then moved away. I remember thinking that somewhere, down there, amidst the countless buildings, was the hotel where a wolf and a lion had met, and now here Eli and I were. But I couldn’t find the hotel. It must’ve been somewhere in the far distance, out of view.

Eli kissed me just behind the ear, sending warm tingles down my neck as we walked back down the lane which would eventually lead us home.





Jessica



We had been living in a dreamland right up until two days before Dad and Annabelle returned. We had thrown ourselves into each other with a force that basically told the entire world (or would have, if we ever left the house): We want each other, and we don’t care what anybody thinks! That was how we thought—what we whispered to each other in the dead of the night, sore and satisfied from sex—what we told each other when anxiety attacked. But as the days wore on, the topic of Dad and Annabelle became more and more relevant. They would be back in five days—in four—in three—in two—in two . . .

I paced up and down the bedroom, daylight waning outside, as though the sun itself wanted to speed the confrontation along. I had bitten my thumbnail down to a stub, and when I looked at the other nails of this hand, I saw that they were gone, too. I looked at my other hand; there were no possibilities there, either. I threw my hands up and continued to pace. I felt more than saw Eli come in.

He walked to where I was pacing and stopped me with his firm body. The dagger-marked hand rested on my shoulder, and I when I looked up I saw that he was staring intently into my eyes. I wished, not for the first time, that I could stare into those eyes forever. It would have been convenient to beat back the world—to fight off the impending firestorm of Dad and Annabelle—by staring into his eyes, by losing myself in them, by shunning time and just being happy for a while longer. But eventually he spoke, ruining the spell, and I remembered once again that soon something would have to be done.