Harper threw me a look, as if she were surprised I knew anything about their relationship.
“I’m not going home with you, Hayden,” Harper said. “I just thought we could talk like two civilized people.”
“You can’t have a rational conversation with an irrational asshole, Harper,” I seethed, locking eyes with Hayden. We may as well have been locking horns. “Hate to tell you that, Princess.”
The flash of camera bulbs blinded us, surrounding us in a storm of clicking cameras and flashing lights while men shouted instigating questions at the two of them.
Hayden’s face softened for a second. “Wait a minute. Where do I know you from? Why do you look so familiar?”
I didn’t want him to figure out who I was. Not then and there. I wanted her to walk away from her little reunion with at least a shred of dignity. He’d find out who I was soon enough.
“Come on.” I grabbed Harper’s arm and led her away from the shit storm.
“Where are we going?” She stumbled behind me.
“I’m taking you home,” I growled. “This night went to shit. No point in going back in the club.”
“But the cameras,” she whined.
“Trust me, there’ll be plenty of pictures of us online tomorrow.”
Valet brought Harper’s car up. She’d insisted we forgo my Ford pickup in lieu of something a bit classier, like her Mercedes. I helped her into the passenger seat and climbed in to take her back to my place.
As we sped toward my condo in West L.A., I could feel her looking at me.
“What?” I asked. “Why’re you staring at me?”
“Thanks,” she said with a drunken shrug.
“For what?”
“For rescuing me from Hayden.” She drew in a sharp breath and turned to look out her window. The city lights became a neon blur as we zoomed through busy streets. “If you weren’t there, I’d probably have gone home with him. And tomorrow? I would’ve regretted it all.”
Her hand flew to where mine rested on top of the shifter.
“Just doing my job as your big brother,” I teased.
“Do you remember that night?” she mused. Her lips formed a silent yawn. “That night, when I was eighteen, and we had the whole house to ourselves. And you got into Conrad’s liquor cabinet. Do you remember?”
I remembered it like it was yesterday. We’d spent the whole week hanging out, and that night we had a heart to heart fueled by alcohol. I opened up more to her than I’d opened up to anyone in my life. And goddamn she looked so pretty in her little floral sundress. I saw her in a whole new light that week. “Yeah, I remember. Why?”
“It was right before I signed my record contract,” she said. “I remembered what you said that night, about following my dreams and not selling out. And then you drew me that anchor. Telling me to anchor myself to something real.”
I released a silent breath, thankful that the conversation seemed to be heading in an entirely different direction.
“I should’ve listened to you, Xavier.” She leaned her head up against the glass of her window. “You’ve always been right about everything.”
“Now you’re just giving me too much credit.”
Another yawn left her pretty mouth. She was probably three seconds from passing out completely. “And the next morning, you know, the morning after we kissed and had that sort of magical night, you were gone. I was so angry at you, Xavier. I was so hurt. And so I signed the contract.”
My hands gripped the steering wheel as I turned toward the parking garage of my condo. I didn’t know what to say. I left because I felt like I’d taken advantage of her. I was ashamed. And I hated that I was starting to fall for the one girl I knew I could never have.
“I sold out, Xavier. I became the sexy virginal pop star,” she laughed. “And look where it got me.”
By the time I pulled into my parking spot, she was out cold. I climbed out and whipped around to her side, carefully pulling her out of the car and carrying her in my arms. She woke just long enough to wrap her arms around my neck and press her face against my chest as she took in a dreamy sigh.
When we got inside, I unzipped her dress and pulled one of my old t-shirts over her head before tucking her into my bed.
FIVE
Harper
The covers felt weird. They weren’t mine. And the flattened pillow was definitely not my ultra lux memory foam. The bed sagged in the center, and my lower back ached. My legs were bare.
And where was my dress?
I peeled my eyes apart, immediately stung by the glint of the early morning sun that penetrated the gap in the curtains next to the bed. Head throbbing, I rolled over to make out the form of a man with dark hair. It definitely wasn’t Hayden.
Thank God.
“Xavier?” I asked, rubbing my eyes. I removed my hand long enough to see a smudge of black eyeliner across it. He rolled over, offering me a sexy, early morning half-smile as he stirred awake.
“Morning,” he mumbled, burying his head back into the pillow.
“Why am I here?”
“You were drunk. I lived closer.” He turned his head opposite me and shimmied his bare shoulders back under the covers.
“Are you topless?!”
“I’m not a chick. Guys aren’t ‘topless’, Harper. I’m wearing shorts. Calm down. We didn’t do anything.”
I slid out of his bed. “Where’s my dress?”
“On the back of that chair in the corner.”
In nothing but a thong and his t-shirt, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to stay as-was or slip on the skintight dress from the night before. It was going to be awkward either way.
“Where’s my clutch?”
“What clutch?”
“Oh, my God. The little blue one with the fur trim? Tell me you have it.” I began frantically searching his room.
“Oh, just call it a purse. It’s out on the kitchen table.”
“Do you have roommates?”
“No. You’re fine.”
I tugged his t-shirt down past my ass anyway and left his room to find my clutch. When I popped it open to make sure the contents were all there, my phone flashed with a text message from Elijah.
DID YOU SEE THE PICS YET???
I clicked on his message, which contained a link to Celebrity Gawker Blog.
IS HARPER BLISS DATING HER STEPBROTHER?!
Five pictures accompanied the blog post along with a detailed article speculating about how either our parents were divorcing so that we could be together or that our being together caused their divorce. The article was mostly about our parents, but the pictures were all us.
547 comments so far. Holy shit.
The night before was like a drunken, cloudy haze, and I wasn’t sure exactly what happened besides the fact that I needed a whole lot of booze to do it. Talking about faking a relationship with your stepbrother was a whole lot different than actually faking the relationship with your stepbrother.
I thumbed through the pictures. Us dancing. Us holding hands. Us walking outside the club together. Us kissing. I zoomed in on a picture of us kissing, then zoomed in again. Was that? Was that tongue?
I stormed into Xavier’s room and pulled the blanket off him. “Look!”
“What?” he popped his head up, his black hair shooting every which way. He grabbed the phone from my hands after rubbing his eyes. “What am I looking at? Is this us?”
“It’s your tongue!” My hands flew to my hips as I practically spit the words at him. “We agreed. No tongue. This isn’t real, you and me!”
“My bad, Harper,” he laughed, pulling himself up and out of bed. The second he stood up, his cock seemed to have pitched a tent in his thin gray sweats. If I looked close enough, I could’ve probably seen a perfect outline of the tip of his cock.
“Oh, God.” I shielded my eyes. “Put it away. Now.”
“You sure you’re not a virgin?” He sauntered out of his room and into the bathroom, where he left
the door partially open as he pissed.
“Have you no decency?” I yelled from his room as I tore his t-shirt off me and tugged my dress back on.
“Wow, not even a couple and we’re already fighting.” He flushed the toilet before washing up and then re-entered his room just in time.
“Take me home.”
“Yes, Princess. Anything else I can do as your humble man servant?”
I hurried to the door, my clutch in hand, and stepped into my shoes. I crossed my arms after a minute of waiting. “You coming?”
He emerged fully dressed and smelling like a fresh spritz of the sexiest cologne ever made. I’d never forget the way he smelled the night we fooled around years ago. “Ready.”
We walked to his car in silence, and when we emerged from the parking garage, a whole bevy of paparazzi and flashing cameras awaited us. Xavier flashed a huge smile on his face and slipped his arm around me.
“Lean into me,” he said. “Come on. Make it look real.”
I scooted closer to him, resting my head on his shoulder long enough for the paps to get a few pictures, but the second they left us alone I sat up. “Why’d you kiss me with tongue last night?”
“You’re still fixated on that shit?”
“And why did you kiss me that night?” My bottom lip trembled, and it took all the strength I had to fight off the wave of tears beginning to burn my eyes. “You were the first guy I ever let touch me like that. I probably would’ve done everything with you. Why’d you leave the next morning?”
“It was wrong.”
“And how’s it any different than what we’re doing now?”
“I don’t have my hands down your pants.”
“But you put your tongue in my mouth.”
“What, you got a points system for everything? Are we in junior high? Does tongue in mouth equal real life boyfriend?” His words were terse and tight, as if he regretted ever kissing me at all. “Besides, our parents are divorcing. We won’t be related much longer. And for the record, I never looked at you like my stepsister. When I look at you – when I kiss you – it’s like kissing any other woman.”
He still didn’t tell me why he left, though it’d been six years. I knew I needed to get over it. It was just that, I was starting to fall for him. And the way he looked at me that night, even though we were both drunk, I was sure he was falling for me too.
And then he was just…gone.
“Here’s your stop.” He slammed the shifter into park after pulling into the circle drive of my house. We climbed out of my Mercedes, and I headed toward the door as he ambled to where his blue Ford was parked.
“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” I called out.
He stopped dead in his tracks and cocked his head my way, turning on his heel before charging at me. “We’re doing this.”
His chest was mere inches from my chin. He towered over me, and I suddenly remembered the way it felt when his hands and lips were all over me. I half expected him to claim my mouth the way he did before, but he didn’t. The tension lingered between us, thick like a haze neither one of us could see through.
“It’s too late now, Princess,” he said, his voice low and determined. “There are pictures of us plastered all over social media. There will be questions. A feeding frenzy of publicity. Just like you wanted. And I’m going to be right there beside you, fanning the flames of the fire you so badly wanted to happen.”
I swallowed the lump in my suddenly dry throat.
“You wanted this,” he said. “Remember that.”
His hands raised to cup my face, his fingers gently digging into the nape of my neck as he lowered his mouth to mine. Xavier kissed me long and hard, the way a soldier would before going off to war. My skin flushed and my stomach fluttered as my lips welcomed his.
And when he came up for air, he said, “See? I promised you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rossi St. James is a twenty-something young woman with a passion for Oreos, crazy, twisted stories, and hiking trails with her two yellow labs, Sunny and Cloudy. When she’s not writing, you can probably find her scouring Pinterest for inspiration for her next book. (That’s pretty much all she uses Pinterest for anyway, as Rossi St. James cannot cook, sew, or craft).
Email me anytime at [email protected]. I’d love to hear from you!
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LETTER / THANK YOU FROM THE AUTHOR
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Love,
Rossi
PS – If you haven’t yet read CRAVED by the ALPHA BILLIONAIRE, I’ve included a small sample. Page ahead!
SAMPLE of CRAVED by the ALPHA BILLIONAIRE
Entire series available now!
ONE
MAISIE
None of what happened that night was my fault.
I couldn’t help that hours earlier I’d walked in on my boyfriend of five years fucking the living daylights out of my stepsister. I couldn’t help it that I immediately proceeded to drive to the only bar in our one stoplight town that just so happened to be connected to the only hotel in town. And I couldn’t help that the hotel just so happened to be housing a man from New York City who looked an awful lot like Ryan Gosling.
I also couldn’t help it that said Ryan Gosling twin was hitting on me something fierce. Or a least it felt like he was. I’d been drinking since the moment I sat down at the scratched wood bar.
“I’m going to go ahead and stop you now,” I said, trying not to slur my words after my second double vodka. “You’re really hot and all, but I’m not in the market for whatever it is you’re peddling right now.”
He inched closer to me, a slow smile simmering on his impossibly kissable lips. “You don’t have the slightest clue what I’m peddling.”
“You just got done telling me that you’re some fancy pants businessman from New York City who got stranded in our itty bitty town because your private jet is having mechanical problems,” I said. “So you’re staying here for an indeterminate amount of time, and you’re bored. You want a hook up. I can read between the lines. I may be drunk, but I’m not stupid.”
I slammed the rest of my drink and sat the glass down on the table, silently deliberating about whether or not I needed another. The room was slightly off kilter, but I fully intended to drink until I numbed the pain and forgot what it looked like to see my high school sweetheart’s pale white ass bobbing up and as my spread eagled stepsister screamed out his name in pleasure.
And then he had the nerve to finish inside of her before I had a chance to bolt out of there. The vision of his clenched ass cheeks and strained neck as he moaned like a wild animal while simultaneously releasing himself inside her was forever burned into my mind.
I shook my head, as if that could rattle the memory out of there. It seemed weird that I didn’t cry. Not once. I didn’t shed a single tear. Maybe I didn’t love him as much as I thought I did? It was being lied to. That’s what stung the most.
“Louie, another vodka tonic, please!” I called out.
He prepared another drink for me and slid it my way. “You going to stay the night, Maisie? You’re in no condition to drive home.”
“Maisie,” the businessman said slowly. “That’s your name.”
I’d refused to tell it to him earlier.
“Thanks a lot, Louie,” I mumbled. I took a sip of my fresh drink and let it burn as it trickled down my throat. “So what’s your name? Since you know mine now and all.”
“Sawyer,” he said. “Sawyer Thomas.”
“Oh, wow, just like that now we’re on a second name basis,” I said, eyeing him up and down. “That’s smooth. Still not telling you mine though.”
He raked h
is fingers through the side of his sandy brown hair, his hooded hazel eyes honing in on me like two sexy, concentrated lasers. Through my inebriated state, I couldn’t tell if he was amused, intrigued or annoyed with me. Maybe it was a little of everything.
“I don’t want to have sex with you,” he said.
I cocked my head to the side, my lips spreading into an amused grin. “Way to be blunt.”
“You’re a little mouthy for my taste,” he said. He turned away from me, focusing on the T.V. above the bar that played highlights on some sports channel. The glint of his diamond cufflink caught the pale bar light above as he spun his drink with his fingers.
“You probably like ‘em quiet so you don’t have to hear them complain about that poor excuse for a cock you’re packing,” I said. My cheeks reddened. I never spoke to strangers that way. It wasn’t my nature, and I was raised better than that. I was drunk. I was angry. I was taking everything about my shitty day out on this very attractive man who just so dared to make small talk with me at a hotel bar.
Sawyer turned around slowly, an incredulous look on his face. “Wow.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, my hand rushing to his shoulder. “Really. I’m so sorry. That was completely uncalled for. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry.”
I wanted to leave. I wanted to pretend that I hadn’t been an annoying, drunk bitch to this poor stranger. I wanted to go home and forget I’d ever stepped foot inside the Moonlight Lounge connected to the local Best Western. But I couldn’t leave. I’d been drinking heavily all night, and Louie wouldn’t allow it.
“Excuse me,” I said, grabbing my purse and stumbling out of the bar. I made a bee line for the hotel lobby where I promptly reserved a suite and headed to the elevator. I fully intended to take off all my clothes, soak in a hot bath, wrap myself in a fluffy, white robe and order a pizza. If I was still coherent after that, I’d probably raid the mini bar.
I found my room and pulled the keycard from the paper envelope.
“So we meet again.”
Step Scandal - Part 1 Page 3