My mom clicks into the kitchen, her high heels almost as high as her hair, styled in her favorite bun. She shoves a mug beneath the Nespresso, and tucks her blouse into her skirt as the machine runs.
“You don’t want any from the press?” Elijah asks, nodding toward the press on the counter, returning his focus to his own laptop. Elijah works from home, and he does all his work at the island in the kitchen. I overheard him telling my mother that he wants to work there instead of being holed up in a home office.
Mom wrinkles her nose before shooting me a smile. “Morning, honey,” she says. “The press is too strong,” she says, pulling a carton of cream from the fridge. “I like my coffee with cream. Stirred until it’s the color of peanut butter.”
Elijah’s brows lift. “How funny,” he deadpans. “That’s how Vivienne takes it.”
Heat creeps up my collar, burning the back of my neck. My words from last week come floating back to me, the image of a topless Vivienne grinding my leg as she sucks my cock.That’s how you take it, you take it all at once, don’t you, you bad girl.I feel so guilty, because of what happened on the beach but also because I can’t stop thinking about it. About the time in her room. About her, period. She’s always on my mind. She’s especially on mymind when porn is on my laptop and my dick is in my hand.
My mom and Elijah chat, planning their day so that the four of us can make family dinner happen. That’s a new thing that started when Elijah and Vivienne moved in. Every night we sit at the dinner table at seven o’clock and eat dinner together, all four of us. My mom tried to get me to sit with her at the table before, but it always seems so performative. She and I would text off and on all day, so I knew how her day was going and she knew how mine was going. A meal at a table wasn’t a necessity. But it is to Elijah, and I find myself wanting to give that to them, he and Viv both. He told my mother that Vivienne’s therapist recommended keeping the tradition of eating dinner at the table so that everything in her life didn’t change at once, so here we are.
I like it. Because I like Elijah, I like seeing my mom happy, and some days, dinner at the table is the only time I see her. She avoids me, and I get it.
Elijah pats my shoulder as he grabs my mom’s bag. He drives her to work every morning, just to have more time with her.
“Drive safe,” I tell him as I wave them off. Elijah’s smile is the last thing I see before the back door swings shut.
Knowing that I took his daughter’s virginity on the beach the first night we met would not please him. If it were me and I had a daughter in Vivienne’s shoes, I’d fucking slaughter some guy who deflowered my high school senior.
Fuck. There’s that part, too. I’ve been so focused on trying to convince myself that Elijah and my mom wouldn’t care that I forgot she’s still in high school. Just another layer to the fuckedup trifle.
Vivienne hasn’t started at Dulce yet. Her old school Dover is in the process of transferring over her credits and class information, which has her starting next week. I’m grateful that Elijah is home all the time, short of morning and evening when he takes and picks up mom. If he weren’t here, avoiding her would be that much harder. And it’s plenty hard already.
This morning when I was coming home from my run, she was sneaking down to grab a coffee. We bumped into each other in the hall, and I’ve been replaying those brief ten seconds all morning since. And now that Elijah and my mom are gone, it’s time to take care of that.
I close my computer, and head upstairs, walking light on my toes so she doesn’t hear me. When I get to the top of the stairs, though, her door is open. She’s lying on her stomach, across her bed, flipping through the pages of a magazine, shiny pages full of clothes articles and prices.
Her eyes lift to mine, then drop back down to the page. “Close my door, please,” she whispers, her tone stretched thin, frail and raspy.
“I’m just going to my room, I’m closing my door so if you want to keep yours open, I won’t bother you.” I hook a thumb over my shoulder, pointing it down the hall, where my room door waits.
She slides off the bed, coming to the doorway in a crop top and black little bike shorts, her hair down and wavy, face makeup free. Thank god I’m already heading to my room to jerk off because holy shit. She looks so damn good. Not just sexy but fucking gorgeous. She walks her hand up the doorframe, drumming her long, pink fingernails against the wood as her eyes come tomine.
Her tongue sweeps over the heart-shaped arch in her upper lip, eyes sliding to the tent in my pants. She’s only ever been with me, and that makes my chest tight, because how can a woman so gorgeous have saved herself for so long, and how can I be the lucky fool to have found her?
“Did my dad leave to take Maribel to the office?” she asks as her eyes travel the terrain of my torso, then throat, landing hungrily on my mouth.
My throat is dry, so my response sounds weak. “Yes.”
She flips blonde hair over her shoulder, eyes growing hooded. Her perfume stings my senses, vanilla and something sweet, something that makes my nipples hard and my blood pump faster. “You done bogarting my dad? Think maybe I could ask him for some help with my class selection or did you need more of him?”
Her questions slice, and when I lift my eyes from her tits to her face, I see pain twisted up in her expression. Her normally bright eyes have been dulled, lips pressed into a thin line as she continues drumming her nails along the doorframe.
“Wh-what?” She smells so good, and her nipples are poking through her t-shirt, and I’m sure mine are too. “Yeah we’re done. He was just helping me–” I stop, realizing her frustration is definitely real, I’m just not sure where it’s coming from. “I’m sorry, does it bother you that I have a bond with Elijah?”
“Elijah,” she huffs. “Yes, Reed,” she hisses, spitting my name out the same way someone tries a curse word for the first time. It sounds wobbly, she sounds unsure. “It bothers me. It bothers me because…” she lifts her hands, grabbing her head the way she does when she’s overwhelmed. “Because it’s annoying, okay? The relationship you have with him is the kind of relationship I’d want you to have with him if you were my boyfriend! I’d want my dad to treat my boyfriend the way he treats you! And now whoever I date is going to be competing with you! You ruined everything!”
I ruined everything, yet she doesn’t back up. She edges closer, the ends of her bare toes brushing against mine, sending a shockwave of virile heat up my legs. “You weren’t supposed to be my step brother.”
Her breath dusts over my lips, warm and inviting. “I know,” I breathe out, my lungs suddenly empty, chest twisted up. “I’m sorry,” I tell her, because I am sorry. Not that this is my fault, but I feel the same way.
“It was perfectly imperfect,” she says, and I know she’s talking about that night. Because I feel the same way. It wasn’t conventional, but it was perfect. Our feet in the sand, the fire dancing against her velvety skin as she laughed, the waves a soundtrack to our start. The feel of the water soaking our feet as she took me into her mouth, the noises she made when I entered her body–seeing her virginity streaked on my dick after–it wasourperfect night.
She’s etched into my thoughts, everything about that night reappears in my mind when I try to talk to other girls, and every time I attempt to relieve the ache in my dick, I think of her. Being inside her. Tasting her. Listening to her whimper and moan as I ravaged her.
“I know,” I croak, taking a step back. Elijah just left, so I know we have twenty minutes alone. I know she knows it, too. “Okay, I’m gonna go to my room now.”
She takes my shirt in her fist, and though she’s half my size, she yanks me toward her with ease. “Harrison.”
