Double Attraction (Gemini Taboo Romance Series Book 1)

by Branford, Lauren

  “It was in his office.”

  “After work hours office sex... that’s pretty hot.”

  “Oh, sis,” Brea giggled. “It wasn’t after hours.”

  “You dirty little slut!” I cackled. “I’m officially happy to call you my twin.”

  “I don’t know what came over me. He’s just so... sexy!”

  “I’m so happy for you,” I said with my hand on her shoulder. Brea looked up at me and smiled sweetly.

  “I wish things were always like this,” she said in a soft tone. “I feel like when we fight, my entire world falls into the dumps.”

  “Then let’s try not to anymore,” I sighed. “I hate fighting with you, too. I’m just glad that you’ve taken my advice and started to let loose a little.”

  “Just a little,” she said.

  “Office sex and ice cream for dinner are very good starts.”

  “Maybe you can meet someone soon and we can all double date.” Her words were naive to me at first, but then I saw Rhett’s face pop back into my mind. “Have you been interested in any guys you’ve met?”

  “There was this guy last night who was hot as fuck. His name was Rhett, and he seemed so different than the rest of the assholes.”

  “Well, what happened with him?”

  “It turned out that he was an asshole,” I said, plainly.”

  “Okay... so was different about him?”

  “He kept to himself at the end of the bar, not trying to look tough. I mean, he was a biker, but still, he wasn’t exuding the gritty vibe that everyone there has.”

  “So what happened with him?”

  “He didn’t want to sleep with me, so it ended in me telling him to fuck off.”

  “That’s pretty believable,” she scoffed. Just when my sister and I were having a pleasant conversation, she decided to ruin it with a snarky comment.

  “There you go again,” I say while throwing my hands into the air. “Why do you always have to be such a bitch?”

  “Name calling?” she sassed. “I thought we were getting along?”

  “Me, too!” I shouted. “Then you have to go and fuck it all up!”

  “What did I do?” she said while looking completely confused. “We were just joking around and the next thing I know, you’re calling me a bitch. I feel like you vilify me every chance that you get!”

  “I vilify you? That’s rich. Every day you take pleasure that I’m the trashy sister, and you’re the brilliant one that our mother loves.”

  “Mom loves you, too, Arianna.” I was dumbfounded by this comment. My mother and I hadn’t spoken since I moved in with Brea. She refused to speak to me or return my phone calls, even during Christmas.

  “Earth to Brea,” I started. “Our mother thinks that I’m fucking garbage, and she wants nothing to do with me.”

  “This transition has been difficult for everyone,” my sister said in a calm tone.

  “For everyone?” What about me? I’m the one who has an actual reason to be miserable.”

  “I know it’s been hard, but I’m try–”

  “Hard? You have no idea! You think that I’ve gone off the deep end. If you went through half of what I did in the past two years, you would have killed yourself by now.”

  “I have no idea what happened to you!” Brea shouted. “You spent the past couple of years after college crying alone in our parents’ house. I hardly saw you until the day I caught you screaming at mom who is in tears on the kitchen floor. Then she worries every day because you start roaming the town late at night and sleeping with all kinds of scary looking guys!”

  “It’s my business who I sleep with! Not you or mom gets to tell me how to do that!”

  “We’re worried about you, Arianna. I just want you to see a specialist so that you can get over this depression.”

  “This isn’t a depression, Brea!”

  “Well, then, what is it? What happened to you?” There was a long pause. We stared at each other with quivering lips from the immense tension. I had kept this from such a long time from my sister in order to protect her from the truth. I knew that she couldn’t handle what happened to me, but all of the clues were so obviously there.

  “Just before I left the dorms,” I said quietly. “Everyone had left after graduation and I was still packing my things in the room to go home. That’s when two guys came into my room. They said that they were just checking things out in case they wanted to transfer to the university... I offered to show them around and right after they accepted, one grabbed me. They forced me on the bed... then they took turns on me...” Suddenly, I was nearly in tears. My sister, however, had them streaming down her face.

  “Arianna, I’m so sorry.”

  “Save it,” I said while tilting my head backward so that the teardrops wouldn’t fall. “No one wants to help me.”

  “Of course we do,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell us this? I could have been there for you.”

  “Mom knows, Brea,” I said.

  “She couldn’t have known,” she said in disbelief.

  “Oh, yes she does. Now I’m just her broken little slut daughter who runs around town causing her misery.”

  “Arianna, I don’t know how that could be.”

  “Believe what you want, but that’s the truth. Everyone loves you, and they all fucking hate me.” With nothing more to say to my sister, I stormed out of the room, grabbed my jacket from the closet, and fled through the front door.

  CHAPTER SIX

  )(

  Arianna

  [continued]

  When I arrived at Mickey’s, the place was nearly empty except for a couple of bartenders and an already drunk waitress. I ordered a few beers while I sat by myself, waiting for more people to arrive.

  My mind was restless as I sat alone. I didn’t want to tell my sister about what happened, but she left me with little choice. Sooner or later, she would have to face the truth. Meanwhile, I would be in shambles at the bar, only proving that I was a mess that no one felt like cleaning up.

  After I had ordered my fourth beer, I felt a sting of emotion sweltering in my chest. The rejection was a harsh burn that I had been healing from after my mother and I lost touch. Though Brea remained hopeful, I knew that my relationship with my mother would never pick back up again.

  “Everything all right?” asked a man’s calm sounding voice. It was much sweeter than I would expect to hear in Mickey’s. I spun my chair around to see Rhett sitting on the barstool next to me. His face was more handsome than I remembered as he looked at me with a concerned expression.

  “Hey, you,” I said before I swigged out of my glass. “What’s... shakin’...”

  “Are you drunk?” he smiled.

  “No... I’m not,” I said, though, after as many beers I had on an empty stomach, it seemed entirely possible.

  “Why are you crying?” he asked.

  “Nothing out of the usual,” I said before giving a little sniffle. Rhett handed me his handkerchief, and I used it to dry my eyes. “My mother, my father, and now my sister all pretty much hate me. Soon I’m going to be homeless, living in a van down by the river.”

  “I don’t think it’ll be that bad,” he said with a jesting undertone.

  “Want anything?” the bartender asked Rhett.

  “Whatever she’s having,” Rhett replied. “Just much less of it.” I laughed a little at his joke, but the bartender didn’t seem to find it as comical.

  “I thought it was funny,” I admitted as Rhett grabbed his beer.

  “Just trying to cheer you up,” he said. “So why does everyone hate you?”

  “Because I screw everything up,” I said without telling him about the incident. I wanted to forget what happened after college so that I could move on with my life though none of that seemed possible. “But now I’m just a mooch living under the iron grip of my perfect, inconsiderate twin sister.”

  “Oh, so you’re a twin?” Rhett asked.

  “Yep,” I
hiccupped. “What a curse.”

  “When I was a kid, I wished that I had a twin.”

  “Why the hell would you want that?”

  “I was the black sheep of the family,” he explained. “I have an older brother and a younger one. Both of them are smart guys who my parents always bragged to the neighbors about. I, on the other hand, got into drinking and later drugs. I used to figure that if I had someone like me in the family, I wouldn’t be such a loner.”

  “No wonder you feel like you belong here,” I said. “This place is full of black sheep. Just most of them aren’t remotely as good looking as you.”

  “Why thank you,” he said while raising his glass. “To good looking people in a rundown bar.”

  “Cheers!” I said while lifting my glass next to his. We clanked them together, and some of the beer sloshed out of my mug and onto his lap. “I’m sorry about that!”

  “Don’t even sweat about it,” he said. “It’s just a little beer.”

  “A guy who can handle a mess,” I said. “That’s a very good thing.”

  “And why’s that?”

  “Because I’m the biggest mess you’ll ever meet.”

  “I doubt that,” he said with a smile. “I’ve seen some pretty sad looking people back in the day.” My eyes wandered to his handsome face before drifting down his torso. Under his black jacket, Rhett was wearing a fitted black v-neck t-shirt. I could make out his well-defined pectoral muscles. They seemed to be calling me from inside of his tight shirt.

  “I wanna lick your pecs,” I growled.

  “You want to what?” he said, nearly spitting out his beer.

  “Your pecs...” I said. “I wanna lick ‘em.”

  “How much have you had to drink?” he asked.

  “This is my fourth,” I said and then I finished the beer. “Done. Everyone says that I’m a lightweight, but I know that I’m not.”

  “I’m going to have to agree with everyone else,” he said.

  “You know... I’d date you if you wanted to.”

  “Thanks,” he said with a worried expression. I could tell that he wasn’t interested. Being that I couldn’t take any more rejection that night, I decided to walk home.

  “I’m going to leave,” I said. “Don’t tell the bartender, but I didn’t bring any cash with me tonight.”

  “This isn’t the place to do that,” Rhett laughed as he pulled out a money clip. He put the cash on the counter and stood up from the barstool.

  “Thanks for getting me.”

  “No problem,” he said. “I’ll drive you home.”

  “I’m gonna walk,” I said as I stood from the bar. Suddenly, I felt that my legs were gelatin. “Okay, maybe you can take me.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” Rhett said as he grabbed my hand. It felt nice for him to hold my hand as we walked through the bar that was filling up quickly with people. Just as I left, I caught sight of Jesse, who gave me a grimacing stare. Just when I went to flip him off, we were outside of Mickey’s in the cool night air.

  “Where’s your bike?” I asked.

  “Right over here,” he responded as he walked over to a black motorcycle on the road. His helmet slung on the top of the handlebars. The bike was a designer with fire hand painted on the sides.

  “Cool ride,” I said.

  “Thanks,” he responded before handing me the helmet. I pushed it on my head and followed him onto the bike. After I had given Rhett the directions back to my sister’s place on the other side of town, he seemed to get there in record time.

  “Want to come inside?” I asked. “I’m pretty sure that my sister is asleep by now.”

  “Sorry, I can’t,” Rhett said.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s just probably better that I don’t,” he said.

  “Fine,” I grumbled as I got off the bike. “Thanks for the ride.”

  “Of course,” he said as I handed him back the helmet. Rhett waited for me at the bottom of the stairs to make sure that I got into my apartment. After stumbling through the door, I heard his bike speed off into the distance.

  The apartment was much warmer than outside, and the heat caused my head to hurt. Feeling hungry, I moved toward the kitchen to grab something quickly. There, I pulled out a box of cereal from the cabinet along with some milk. Before I could gather the bowl, I felt dizzy. Though I tried to keep my footing, my brain throbbed inside of my skull. Suddenly, I plummeted onto the tile floor.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  )(

  Brea

  When my alarm sounded in the morning, I could hardly get myself to crawl out of bed. After the fight with Arianna, I barely had any sleep, and my head hurt from all of the worrying I had done that night. In my morning stupor, I thought that I might kill for an extra hour of sleep.

  When I dragged myself out of my bedroom, I saw that Arianna’s door was still wide open. More than likely she had gotten drunk at a sleazy bar and ended up in bed with an unsavory character.

  As soon as I walked into the kitchen, I noticed that the scene had gone awry. Cereal was scattered all around the countertops, and the refrigerator door was open with a puddle of water pooling at its base.

  “Oh, Arianna,” I griped as I walked groggily into the room. Suddenly, my foot caught something and I tumbled onto the kitchen floor. When I looked back, I saw my twin sister lying on the floor. Her clothes looked disheveled as she twisted around her body.

  “Uh...” she groaned from the floor next to me. I found my footing again and decided to prod her awake.

  “Get up, please,” I said while shaking her with my hands. Instead of listening to me, she rolled in the other direction, revealing clusters of cereal that had collected under her body. “Great. Well, at least you didn’t bring a guy home with you.”

  “He... he...” she mumbled. “He didn’t want me...”

  “Are you sure?” I asked as I lifted her drunken body from the floor. “Because you smell like beer. Don’t those guys love a drunken girl?”

  “Uh...” I could tell that I lost her. Still, I needed Arianna to walk back to her room so that I could clean up the mess that she had made before I got ready for work. When she finally stood to her feet, I guided my sister carefully into her bedroom. Naturally, her bed wasn’t made, so I hardly had to peel the sheets back for her to lie on the mattress.

  “I’ll leave you a glass of water by your bed,” I said. “I just need to take a shower first.” A part of me expected an answer; however, she just slept with her head across her pillow. It was just another morning with me cleaning up after Arianna.

  As much as I felt the instinct to worry about my sister, I tried to focus on Gavin. My heart fluttered as I thought about seeing him at work that day. Perhaps we could take another break and do a round two in his office. Quickly, I rushed into the bathroom to get ready.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  )(

  Brea

  [continued]

  The first couple of hours in the workday were packed with phone calls. Though I anticipated seeing Gavin, he was nowhere to be found. Around noon, we were able to peel ourselves away from the office. Nariah and I went down the street to a delicatessen for some lunch.

  “Spill the beans,” she said before biting into her sandwich. “I didn’t get a chance to talk to you yesterday. What happened to you, girl?”

  “I know, I’m sorry,” I groaned. “I had a lot going on that day.”

  “Let me guess,” she said after swallowing a mouthful. “You had so much fun on your date two nights ago that he fucked you silly. Then you came home to see your sister passed out with some trucker on your couch.”

  “Wow,” I sighed. “Is my life that predictable?”

  “She brought home a guy?” Nariah said while lowering her gaze at me. Her long, braided hair swooped over her shoulders. “I would beat the hell out of my sister if she did that to me.”

  “Not exactly,” I said. “However, I did have the pleasure of picking her drunk as
s off of the floor this morning along with her cereal and milk.”

  “You do too much for that girl,” Nariah sighed. “What about Gavin? How did all of that go?”

  “He took me to Alexandria’s for dinner.”

  “Oh, shit!” she said. “My husband and I are still on the wait list for that place. Did you at least you get some play from your playboy?”

  “That I did,” I said.

  “Girl, tell me everything!” she squealed. “Where did it happen?” I couldn’t tell her the truth, so I decided to smooth it over with general details.

  “At his place,” I said while believing that his office didn’t make that technically a lie.

  “Very nice! I bet you were floating on cloud nine!”

  “That I was,” I said as I reminisced about Gavin and I grinding together on his desk. “Just when I thought that Arianna couldn’t possibly ruin my night, she freaks out on me!”

  “Over what?”

  “She told me so much heavy stuff...”

  “Elaborate, please!”

  “I shouldn’t because it’s very personal.”

  “I completely understand.”

  “Without going into too much detail, let’s just say that I know what’s been bothering Arianna all of these years.”

  “Oh, yes,” sighed Nariah. “She finally told you about her assault?”

  “Wait, what?” I gasped. “Am I the only one who didn’t know about it?”

  “Brea,” Nariah said as she looked into my eyes. “It was so obvious that your sister had been through extreme trauma. You said that she came back from school and was a mess.”

  “Yes, I know,” I sighed. “We both went to the same college, but... I don’t know... it’s all so confusing.”

  “The best thing you can do is to be there for your sister.”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to do all of this time. I keep putting her needs in front of mine, including paying her half of the rent and giving her money. I’m so broke that I’m always miserable!”

  “That’s where you’ve got it wrong,” Nariah said while shaking her head. “You need to take care of yourself first.”