I guess what they say is true - love really is blind. Felix was never meant for me. In freshers year he was with Candy and there was no chance I was ever going to get a look in. The year after that it was Alicia, Dana, Margot and Grace, and even though we shared a class together, the conversation was pretty much limited to sarcasm and insults. Over that summer Mom met Eric, while waitressing at some kind of high class event, and after that, what I wanted was finished. I can barely let myself think the way I do anymore, because I know what I want is forbidden. As hard as it is, I know I have to get over it.
Mom and Eric are getting married next month. That means Felix and I are going to be step siblings. I still can't believe it. I've had some rotten luck in my life, but this has got to be one of the worst examples of it. Not only are they going to get married, we have to live together in his huge million dollar brownstone, like one big, happy family. I'll have to be with Felix twenty four seven until I finish university and Eric gives me some pocket money so I can live on my own. That means Felix teasing me as much as he wants to, while I sit there and seethe, quietly drooling over his strong arms and firm abs, unable to do anything about it.
I guess I get this from my Mom. I guess she has a way of picking ass-holes. Eric's nothing like my dad, but he's definitely his son's father. He built his technology business up from scratch, and he's the kind of person that doesn't hesitate if he sees something he wants. He was like that with my mom, and it's those aspects I can't get enough of about Felix. What can I say? Alpha males turn me on. I can't help that he's going to be my step-brother.
Chapter 2
Felix has rigged up a chin up bar in the entrance to his bedroom. As I move my stuff into the room across the hallway from him, he doesn't stop to help me.
"We've got people that'll do that for you", he says, arms flexing as he lifts his body weight. "You look like you're struggling anyway."
If I don't look at him, he won't be there. If I don't look at him.
"If you think I'm struggling, why don't you help me then?" I say.
"Because I'm getting a kick out of watching you do it", Felix says, a smile curling up one corner of his mouth. "And besides which, I'm busy anyway."
Yeah busy being an ass-hole I think.
Why, in a six story house, I have to get the bedroom opposite Felix, I have no idea. I could have gone into the small room in the attic, that would have been absolutely fine for me, but oh no, Mom had to insist on a bigger room, so I'd have somewhere to do my Uni work.
I wrestle the boxes of my stuff into the corner of the huge room, and then take a step back to see the sum worth of my life so far. An arm around my shoulder makes me jump. Felix is standing there, his face sweaty.
"Not much is it?" he says.
"Hey!" I'm quick to respond. "Get out of here."
He doesn't. Instead he sits down on the bed and stretches out his legs. "This used to be where I kept all my gym stuff", he says wistfully. "Dad made me take it up to the attic."
"Yeah well I didn't ask to come here", I say.
"No, but your mom did though didn't she?" Felix says.
He's leaning over my boxes before I realise what he's doing.
"Hey, get out of there, that's not your stuff", I shout.
I have to grab hold of his hand to pull him away, and suddenly we are on the bed together, face to face, my heart beating. In his hand he's got one of my teddy bears. It's a stupid little bear holding a heart, an ex-boyfriend gave me for Valentine's day and although it means absolutely nothing to me, it pisses me off that he's got it. I reach for it, but Felix holds it behind his back.
"Give that back", I say, trying to rescue it from him.
"Sure, take it", Felix says, holding it too high in the air for me to reach it. I stand up on the bed to try and get to it, but Felix pushes me off. I try again, but this time he switches hands, and it ends up behind his back.
"Felix, stop fooling around", I say.
"Come on, take it Cassie. I know you want it", he says, laughing at me.
I know I shouldn't rise to it, but I can't help it. I claw my way around his shoulders, and Felix collapses on the bed, hiding the teddy bear under his back. I'm on top of him now, straddling him, trying to get the bear out from underneath him. He's far too strong for me to move him and each time I try to reach underneath, he tickles me under the arm and I have to stop.
"Give me the fucking bear", I shout, ready to beat my way through him.
"What the hell is going on here?" It's Eric. He stands by the door with Mom, looking at us both like we're crazy. "Felix?"
"Cassie?" Mom says.
I push my way off him and let him up. I know I shouldn't be looking there, but I swear his sweat pants are bulging at the front much more than they were before.
"Take your stupid bear", he says, and throws it onto the bed.
"Ass-hole", I say as he brushes past Eric and Mom, on the way back to his bedroom. When I'm alone again, I realise just how quick my heart is beating.
This goes on for as long as I expect it to. In fact, it doesn't stop. Felix's teasing is relentless. I get it at University, and then I get it when we come back home at night. Over dinner he sneers at me. He even has the audacity to pinch my bum when our parents backs are turned and then deny it with arms held high and the face of a saint when I challenge him broodily. He walks around without his top off just because Mom's told him not to, like a dog trying to mark out its territory, and as much as I try not to pay any attention, I just can't help it.
He's kind to me when Mom's around, just so she thinks he's behaving, and then as soon as we are alone, he goes back to full on ass-hole mode. I think I've worked him out, and then I realise I haven't worked out anything at all. I try and deny the feelings I have for him, feelings that I've spent the best part of the last three years avoiding, but no matter what he does to annoy me, they come back stronger than ever when he's around. I feel like I'm broken, and then I curse myself for so desperately wanting something I have no chance of ever getting. I hate him for just being there, and then I miss him when he's not around. I hate myself for falling in love with an ass-hole.
For more than just one night, I have to listen to him in the bedroom across the hall, with girls he's brought back from dates, the sound so heavy it carries through the thick walls, and then I have to hear him talk about them in the morning, like they didn't mean a thing to him, and he only went with them because he could. Those nights, I find my hand working even more furiously back and forth between my legs, my eyes closed, dreaming of Felix.
The closer we get to the wedding, and the closer I get to never being able to be with him in the way I dream about, the more I seem to need him.
Most of the time he walks around like he doesn't know I even exist, and then he'll do something innocuous, or I'll see some reaction or look on his face that'll make me think, did I see what I thought I saw, or am I just imagining it?
One day he catches me coming out of the shower, and he gives me a look that makes me think he's waiting for me to ask him to come into my room. I don't of course. I wouldn't dare anyway, but the second I hesitate, the grin is back on his face and the moment has already passed.
Another time we're fighting over something, close again like the day I moved in, and the look we share hangs between us like the moment two lovers are about to kiss for the first time.
‘What?' I say angrily, wanting him to confess my secret back to me so we can share it.
Felix shakes his head. ‘Nothing', he says, and again I think I've imagined it.
I'm trapped. I'm trapped in my own head, and I've nowhere to go. Mom thinks we are getting on well together. Eric too. For all intents and purposes we are. I don't want for anything but the single thing I know I can't have.
Chapter 3
Mom looks gorgeous. I don't think I've never seen her look so happy. Eric's rented a house in the countryside to the north of the city, bigger than anything I've ever seen in my life. There must be a hundred
rooms in each wing and more land than the state of Rhode Island. The ceremony takes place in the courtyard garden to about three hundred gathered guests, some of whom are well known celebrities. Beyond my mother, Eric, Felix, and their occasional house staff, I know next to nobody.
I stand next to Felix in a dress than cost more than the car he drives, and feel inordinately proud of the woman my Mom has become. She's chased her dream and it's paid off. I can't help but look at Felix and wish I had the capacity to do the same. Felix smiles back and gives me a wink. I think I see a tear in the corner of his eye.
Afterwards, staring out from the porch of the massive house into the darkness and nothingness beyond, couples dancing away in the courtyard to my right, Felix approaches me.
"Hey sis", he says.
"Don't call me that", I insist.
"Well, it's sort of true, isn't it?"
"Are you drunk?"
"No", Felix lies, before taking another sip of his drink. "It's weird though isn't it?" he continues. "I've never had a sister before. Didn't think I'd ever have one."
"Stepsister", I am quick to remind him.
"It kind of changes things between us", he says, not really looking at me. "You know, if you and I ever wanted to-"
He doesn't finish, but already my heart is beating faster.
"Wanted to what?" I say, my voice almost breaking on the way out.
"Nothing", Felix says, "doesn't matter."
I can't work out if he's fooling around or not. It's a pretty sick joke if he is. But then if he's not...
"You are drunk", I say.
"Yeah", Felix confesses.
I watch him empty his glass onto the grass and disappear towards the dance floor. A moment later he's stumbling back to me.
"Listen", he says, hanging back a little. I watch him cast a glance over his shoulder at the dance floor behind him and then look back towards me. He bites his lip and shoves his hands in his pockets. I've never seen him nervous like this. "Do you want to dance with me?" he asks me finally.
"Me, with you?" I say, pointing firstly at my chest and then finally at his, astonished he's actually asking me.
He smiles and looks up to me. "You can dance can't you?" he says.
I look at him, look at the ground and then look back up. He's holding his hand out now, encouraging me to join him.
Fuck it I think. I don't know what this is, I don't know what's happening, but fuck it. I'm going to dance with the Prom King. "You should get drunk more often", I say and then reach out to take it.
Felix leads me to the dance floor, and for the first time in my life, I feel like the Prom Queen taking her first dance. I know it's not anything like that, but I can't help but dream. You don't know how long I've lusted after this man and now here he is leading me to the dance floor. I know he's doing it as my stepbrother and not my partner, but it's the best I'm going to get and I'm not going to let it go to waste. I've no idea whether it'll ever happen again.
Felix finds a spot and pulls me in close to him. It's late enough in the night for the music to be the kind you can hold and rock people to. Eric and Mom have already left for their honeymoon in the Caribbean, and the rest of the party are spread out amongst the estate. There are seven or so couples dancing with us, a few more looking on.
"Loosen up", Felix says, the palm of his hand spread out across my back.
"Sorry", I say, immediately trying to do that.
"Is that your heart?" Felix says, "I can feel it beating. Are you nervous?"
"No", I lie.
We dance for a while. It's the first time Felix hasn't been a dick to me in almost all the time that I've known him. Suddenly he stops.
"Are you alright Cass?", he asks me. "You're as stiff as a board."
"I don't know", I say. "I guess I'm just not used to you not being an ass-hole, that's all", I say.
"Ah', Felix says. "You're beginning to like me."
"I wouldn't go that far", I say.
Felix pulls me close again. He directs my hands behind his back so they rest just above his bum, while he hugs me and puts one of his close to mine.
"You know I watched you", Felix whispers into my ear. "You think I didn't notice you, but I did."
He's swaying me gently, hips close into mine. An elderly couple to our right smile at us as we sashay past. Something about being this close to him feels so right.
"You?", I say, beginning something I don't know if I'll have the courage to finish. "Why are you such an ass-hole?" I say instead.
Felix laughs. He doesn't pull away so I get hot breath on my earlobe. I want to lose myself in it.
"All men are ass-holes, especially the ones with money", Felix says cryptically. "You should know that already."
"I know that already", I say. "What I don't know is what you're telling me, or why."
"Because I want you to know", Felix says. "Because I can't not tell you anymore."
"So you can laugh at me some more?" I ask, trying to break away.
Felix pulls me to him. "It's not like that, Cass", he says. "Believe me."
His arm moves down my back, tracing the contours of my body. Subtle, sensual movements of skin on skin.
"What is it like?" I ask, humoring him. Desperate to know.
"Ah", Felix says and draws me even closer. "I like you", he whispers softly into my ear, the words trickling gently into me like light rain through a forest canopy.
I try and pull away now, but Felix holds me tightly. I want to look him in the face to see if he's teasing me. I want to know it's a lie for fear of it being true. Like me how? I want to say. What does that mean?
"Now you are being an ass-hole again", I say instead.
"Don't pretend you don't like it", Felix says confidently. He spins me around so I'm facing the other way, one arm around my waist, the other stretching for my neck. "Don't pretend you don't like me too."
I let him hold me like that, and we dance for a while in silence, close together, couples passing by on either side like falling stars. When what he's told me has finally sunk in, I have to stop and look at him. I need to see his eyes and know for sure. I break away from him, fighting to let him release me. I think he thinks I'm going to run away. I don't. I step back a pace so there is distance between us, hold my hand out so he doesn't advance and then slowly look up to him. Couples continue to dance around us. Some even take the initiative and dance through the gap we have left. It doesn't matter. Nothing else matters now. I shake my head and put my hand up to my mouth.
"Cass", Felix says.
"Why are you telling me this now?", I stutter.
"It seemed like the right time", Felix confesses, a little shrug of the shoulders by way of excuse or apology. Casual, like always.
"The day our parents get married, you tell me that you like me?" I stutter on the word 'like', struggling to push it out. Having it form at all in my mouth an odd and unusual sensation.
The words hang in the air.
"Cass, I-", Felix begins. "I don't know what to say."
"You fucking idiot", I shout.
I want to hit him. The corner of his mouth is curling up in the way that I hate I love about him. I close the distance and push him hard in the chest. "You arrogant fucking ass-hole", I shout at him.
"Cass, calm down", Felix says.
People are coming over to see if we are alright. Felix tries to put his arm around me but I don't let him this time.
"Three years I've looked up to you", I shout. "Three fucking years, you don't look at me once and now this. Here? What the fuck is wrong with you?"
I'm pushing him again.
"Cassie, I'm sorry", Felix says. "I shouldn't have said anything at all."
"Too fucking right you shouldn't have said anything", I say, but he has. He has. "Too fucking right."
I'm crying, storming across the grass away from the courtyard and towards the woods. I'm crying and squashing the hem of my dress into the mud. At the edge of the tree line he catches up to me. He
turns me around forcefully and it happens before I can stop myself. For a long time we just stay like that, lips pressed together, tongues fighting greedily against one another, until I pull away, shocked, shaking. Felix looks at me, a flash of fear trapped momentarily in his ice blue eyes. It's happened.
"Fuck", I shout at him, "fuck off, now", and run quickly towards the trees.
Chapter 4
It's dark here, where the lights of the house don't reach. I don't know where I'm going, but it doesn't really matter. I want to get away, as far away as I possibly can from him.
"Cass", he calls after me. "Wait."
I turn momentarily, enough to make me lose my balance. It takes one false step to disorientate me, and one more to send me to the ground. My dress tears across the side as I fall, revealing the bare skin of my thigh underneath it. I want to get up, continue to run away into the darkness, have the earth swallow me whole, but for some reason I can't. I see my shoe, several metres away amongst some tree roots, the high heel cracked. A moment later, Felix is standing over me.
"That doesn't look all that comfortable down there", he says.
I look at him, his perfect body, his beautiful hair, his incredible smile. I can't do anything but smile, defeated. No matter what I do, I'll never win. Felix will always get what he wants. Maybe if I let him, I'll get what I want too.
"I broke the dress", I say.
"I see", Felix says.
My thigh shines in the darkness like moonlight.
"Are you going to help me up?" I ask him.
"Are you going to let me?" he counters.
I wait for a moment and then stretch out my arm. Felix takes it, and pulls me to my feet.
Stepbrother: Alpha Billionaire (Taboo First Time Billionaire Stepbrother Romance) Page 2