I nodded, needing him. “Yes.”
“You might bleed.”
“Then I’ll bleed.”
“You always remember your first. That’s what everyone says.”
“That’s why it has to be you, Hunter.”
He seemed to be trying gallantly to do what he saw as the right thing. But that ship had sailed. He was already inside me. If he left me now, there would be murder to pay.
I pulled him harder. His cock moved another half inch into me. There was more pain, but much more pleasure. My juices lubricated his passage. Only a little farther to go, and I could already sense the bliss beyond.
“You probably won’t come.”
“I will.”
“Angela—”
I pulled his face toward mine. I kissed his face, then his cheek, then his ear. I ran my hands through his messy hair.
“I will,” I whispered.
The last of his resolve broke. He pushed all the way inside me. I clenched. The sensation was so foreign; I felt full, completely and totally invaded. A part of him was inside me. I’d never known anything like it. So intimate. Nothing compared.
“I’ll go slow,” he whispered.
“Don’t.”
“I want it to be good for you.”
“It is good for me, Hunter. Because it’s you.” A wave of pleasure shot through me as he withdrew, then entered again. “Be quick.”
It didn’t take long. He fucked me furtively, like a thief in the night. And I did come, twice. His cock, in my pussy for the first time, was too uncomfortable to be truly arousing, but his mere presence was still enough. I watched him. I watched him as he fucked my virgin pussy, his face barely under control.
My stepbrother.
My great taboo.
I had to press my face into a pillow to keep from screaming his name.
We hadn’t used a condom. There was no time to think or plan or be wise. He came inside me, and when my next period came after that, I realized how lucky we’d been. But it wasn’t a night for sanity. Or wisdom. Not a night for sense or restraint.
He pulled away, and it wasn’t awkward or strange or wrong, once our breath returned to normal.
We fell asleep, still naked, hand in hand.
But I woke the next morning under the sheets, my modesty restored, and Hunter gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
ANGELA
Hunter’s phone vibrates and breaks our kiss.
The air is uncomfortable for a few pregnant seconds. We’ve never quite revisited all that happened between us as kids, even though it’s been heavy over our heads like clouds while we’ve pretended we’re friends.
I want to joke about vibrators as his phone buzzes again, but it feels too near the bone.
Hunter fishes it out and looks at the screen.
“It’s Samantha.”
“Your girlfriend,” I say.
“Yes, my girlfriend.”
“She probably wants to get going.”
He’s already told me that she’s coming here, that she and Duncan are both at some hoity-toity thing just one building over and that we can all ride to the restaurant together in Hunter’s limo.
But Hunter just stares at his phone. It goes to voicemail, but she must not leave a message. Instead, Samantha sends a text.
For no reason, Hunter looks up at me and says, “We’re breaking up.”
I put my hand on my chest — which, thanks to this pretty dress and miraculous undergarment, is generous and bursting with alluring cleavage. The new necklace dangles in place, and I find my mind straying to our brief kiss: something broached yet arrested by the phone call and too late to continue.
“But we’re not even going out!” I reply, laughing.
“Me and Sam. We’re breaking up.”
But we’re going to dinner with Sam. How uncomfortable.
“Does she know that?”
“I don’t even like her, Angela. I never really have. Duncan set us up. She’s ‘right’ for me, in his mind. Because everything is about appearances and perception.”
“So you’re not really together?” For some reason, the idea that Samantha is a fake girlfriend thrills me. I think of the photos. She’s beautiful. I don’t like to think of Hunter’s hands on her for real.
“No, I mean …” he stammers. “We’re together; I just think she’s a horrible person.”
“Ah. Respect. The foundation of any successful relationship.”
“No, I mean … she’s …”
I wait, wondering.
“I’m not that guy, Ang,” he blurts. “I’m really not the guy the media shows me to be.”
“I haven’t seen a lot of media on you actually.”
“I’m not just about the money. It was always about the music, and the business. But Duncan, he’s different. We need an image. We need to be a certain way. And Samantha, she just likes me for —”
“That’s your business,” I say, putting a hand on his arm to pacify him. “It’s not mine or anyone else’s.”
“It’s complicated. Samantha is helping us with PR and media relations. But we’re kind of entangled, what with business and pleasure mixing, and …”
“Pleasure?” I say the word like a joke, though it hurts.
“We’re a bad fit. I just want you to know that.”
“Okay.”
“I’m not that guy.”
Now that he’s repeated it, I wonder if he’s talking to me or to himself. Press on Hunter is thin as far as I’ve seen, and I’ve actively searched. I look around his apartment and remember the boy he used to be. I wonder if anyone accuses Hunter of selling out and changing with his money … or if Hunter’s only accusing himself.
His phone vibrates with another text.
“The limo’s here.”
We take the elevator down. It’ll go all the way to the bottom, to the limo waiting in the garage. We stop at the lobby instead. The doors part, and a stunning blonde enters with a handsome black man. Hunter introduces us, and we all shake hands. By the time the doors open another floor down, Samantha has air-kissed around me, and we’re apparently old friends in the way Samantha understands the word — which, I suspect, is quite different from my definition.
The chauffeur is waiting with Hunter’s sleek black car, holding the door open for us. We pile in and sit across from one another. Samantha and Hunter are on one side, Duncan and I default to the other. Samantha puts her hand on Hunter’s knee. His eyes keep flitting toward me with something like apology.
The ride to the restaurant is filled with small talk, and I find myself glad that Hunter tried to inoculate me ahead of time with the knowledge that he’s “not that guy,” because with these two around he’s definitely not the guy he was ten minutes earlier. He’s all false smiles and glad-handing.
I hear him say things that sound nothing like Hunter — classy, patrician statements that assume wealth and privilege. I keep reminding myself that it’s just the company. I have to remind myself that I’m almost doing the same, when I can find the poise and vocabulary. I find myself able to understand what Hunter said: I don’t know that I like these people, but by observing my behavior and expressions from the outside, you’d probably think I do.
When we arrive, Samantha, closest to the door, waits for the chauffeur to open the limo. Duncan moves around her to exit first then takes her long-fingered, limp-wristed hand to help her out in an over-the-top gesture of chivalry. This is how it must always play out. Samantha surely never exits without a human handrail.
After a moment, I realize that Hunter isn’t rising to follow Samantha. I’d assumed he’d go next and I’d go last (perhaps accepting a hand for assistance), but apparently not. I flex to rise, but before I get far, Hunter gives me a look and speaks through the open door at Duncan.
“Duncan.”
“Yeah, man.”
“We forgot Angela’s purse.”
I’m about to object. First of all, I don’t need my purse because there’s
no way I’m paying for my meal. And second, my purse is in Hunter’s pocket. He stuck it there when I nearly tripped over my new heels getting into the penthouse elevator. It’s a tiny thing, brand new, purchased today. I can still see its small shape in his coat from where I’m sitting.
Hunter gives me another look. This one, I flat-out recognize. I remember it from my youth, when this wealthy tycoon across from me was my despised delinquent stepbrother: Keep your mouth shut.
“Oh,” Duncan says. “That’s too bad.”
“Our reservations aren’t until eight. We’ll run back.”
Duncan looks at his watch. “We won’t get much time to settle in.”
“What time is it?”
“Seven,” Duncan says.
“There and back. We should be able to be back by eight, and settle in during the first course. Open the wine, okay? Let it breathe.”
Duncan nods. I can’t see Samantha, but for some reason I imagine her hands are fixed to her hips. I feel guilty somehow, because I get this unfounded impression that Samantha just got annoyed at me and my stupid, plebeian, purse-forgetting ways.
“All right. We’ll be here,” Duncan says.
The driver closes the door, locking us in well-lit silence. Hunter orders his limo back to the penthouse, then touches a button to raise the privacy shield.
The limo pulls away from the curb. Hunter fixes me with his serious brown eyes.
“You have my purse. “It’s in your pocket.”
“I know.”
“So why—”
He puts his hand on my bare knee.
“Samantha is important to our business, but she’s Duncan’s contact, not mine. He paired us up because he thought I needed someone respectable. Someone a guy like me is ‘supposed to’ be with.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“But I’m not that guy, Ang.” His other hand finds my other leg. It feels warm.
Something stirs inside me. “I know you’re not.”
He isn’t right now anyway — the fake-smiling, slogan-spouting thing he was while the others were in the car notwithstanding.
He slides to my side of the car. His body is flush against me.
“And I don’t want to be with someone I’m supposed to be with.’”
“Oh.”
“I want to be with someone I’m never supposed to be with.”
“I—”
But Hunter is already kissing me.
My eyes sigh closed. His hand on my thigh moves higher, and I find myself transported, traveling effortlessly back in time. I’m back in my old living room — my current living room, back in reality, away from the splendor. I’m an eighteen-year-old girl again, before my first time … then during my first time, when it was all so new. My heart was just as nervous then, twittering like a little bird’s.
“I want you, Angela,” he whispers.
His hand is on my breast. My nipple hardens under his palm. I feel my lips blush, wanting his lips back where they belong.
“I want you, too.”
“I’ve always wanted you.”
“I’ve missed you, Hunter. It hurt so bad when you left. After we—”
“I didn’t want to go,” he interrupts. “I had to go.”
“I didn’t want you to go. To leave me.”
“I left everything, Ang. There was no other way.”
My hand finds his chest, my fingers sliding between the buttons of his fine shirt.
“I don’t care about them. I only cared about me. You left me.”
“I was taking advantage. I couldn’t control myself.”
I’ve thought a lot about that — about how his abandonment, in a way, probably felt to Hunter like a sense of grim duty. He’d always been self-effacing; he’d always hated himself; he’d always thought I was somehow better, that I was innocent and helpful, that I needed his protection. But I’m not a little girl anymore. I’ve grown stronger. I’m more than my mother’s daughter, and he’s more than his father’s son. We are our own people, and I don’t need protection from anything. Especially from Hunter Altman.
“Then don’t control yourself,” I say.
He pulls back long enough to meet my eyes. I see lust, held too long at bay. I see desire. I see his haunted, hurting past. I see how much he wants me, and maybe even how much he loves me.
His hand is higher on my leg. I feel my dress riding too high on the limousine’s seat. There’s a draft from below, right up against the pretty little panties I made him turn away from when I purchased them on his tab. The panties that part of me secretly kind of hoped I was buying for him in the first place.
“You’re sure?” he says, echoing his question that fateful night during my eighteenth year. He’s thinking of our first time all those years ago, and how his leaving after must have hurt me.
But if I say no to Hunter now, it’ll kill him. I can feel his hardness as my hand brushes his crotch. I can feel his urgency, and see the need in his eyes.
I prove my certainty by unfastening his pants, freeing his cock, and bending at the waist to wrap my lips around it.
Hunter moans. His head tips back. And at the same time, his hand crawls higher, now up under my dress, his fingers drawing intoxicating lines across the fabric of my moistening panties. I’m practically soaking them, I’m so wet. I yearn for him to pull the panties aside and properly touch me, but for now he’s just teasing, one finger under my dress and the other palming my left breast as it hangs behind my sucking mouth.
I stop for a second to look at his dick before swallowing it again, battling an intoxicating unreality as it hits me: I’m sucking my stepbrother’s hard cock. I’ve never actually done that before, since we skipped foreplay when we were just teenagers. My legs want to spread wider at the thought, inviting him deeper, begging him for attention.
Soon, Hunter will have my panties off and be sliding this big, thick shaft deep inside me.
All those nights spent with my fingers on my clit, rubbing myself into one climax after another. All those nights spent wondering if Hunter wanted me as badly as I wanted him. All those days I watched him, fighting emotions I knew we both felt, feeling his eyes on me.
Then one blissful night, its morning breaking my heart. And afterward, all those years with him running and me hating, with him hiding and me pretending I’d never cared. But now we’ve finally moved on.
He’s the Hunter I always knew. The Hunter I always wanted. The Hunter I’ve always secretly loved.
He pulls me up and pulls my dress down to expose my breasts. I wonder what he thinks of them now. He saw them before but they’ve grown a little larger, changed with years gone by. I was eighteen then; I’m twenty-nine now. So many years lost between us.
“You’re beautiful, Angela,” he whispers.
I slide my dress higher around my hips then slip my panties over my heels, leaving the shoes on because I don’t feel like undoing the straps. He’s seen what’s there before, too. Things have changed; now I shave bare.
Hunter’s eyes widen. His cock, still out with my hand idly stroking the glistening head, gives a little twitch. His hand moves to my sex with as if with a sense of wonder, his finger tracing between the lips and coming away wet. I shiver at his touch, feeling as if I’m opening like a flower—like something needful, wanting him inside me after all these forgotten and denying years.
He’s between my legs. I slouch down as he touches my nipples, touches my warming pussy. His eyes are on me, and I’m burning with the need to feel him inside me.
My fingers find his hard shaft, its surface still slick with my spit. I wrap my hand around it and use it like a leash to pull him toward me. My body wants to writhe; I push my hips up and touch his hot tip to my pussy.
Hunter does the rest, pushing his cock inside me, filling me at long last.
“Oh, God, Hunter. I’ve wanted this forever.”
“I’ve wanted it, too.”
He leans forward as he thrusts. He kisses my lips, then my ne
ck, then my tits.
I watch his face. While he slides his shaft into me, I reach up to unbutton his shirt, watching his bare chest and sculpted midsection. My hands run across the ridges of his hard body while he fills me.
I feel my climax building, but never want it to end.
I come anyway, my back arching, my newly manicured nails raking red lines across his chest. My orgasm touches every part of me; it curls my toes, makes me arch up and breathe against him. My pussy grips him harder. Contractions tear through me.
I’m delirious. I can’t stop watching him, seeing him. The thought keeps repeating that this is Hunter inside me all over again, that this is my stepbrother, but the old taboo no longer scares me. It thrills me. I will no longer live by their rules. This is between us. It’s always been between us.
My clenching pussy causes Hunter to moan. I feel our pressure increase, the head of his dick running thrills up and down my length as he fills me. He tips his head back, and I can see him approaching his peak, so I ride it with him. I push back. I grip him harder. Finally, he moans and slams into me. My hands grip the small of his back, holding him tight.
When it’s over, he kisses me—one final long, lingering time—and slips out of me, rolling to sit on the limo’s seat beside me.
I look down. We’re a mess, and we still have dinner plans.
But we have time, and this has been too long coming.
We reach the garage.
Hunter tells the driver to head back to the restaurant.
And we do it again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
HUNTER
I feel guilty coming back into the restaurant and seeing Samantha sitting at the table, but only a little. I’ve been trying to break up with her for a while now, and doing so has felt like trying to tip a boulder from the top of a hill. Once I give her a hard enough shove, she’ll roll all the way down, allowing her self-serving attitude and reprehensible personality to drag her down to the bottom like snow falling from a mountain. There’s never been much of a secret between Sam and me: I’m using her for sex, and she’s using me for personal advancement.
Still, looking at her as Angela and I approach, I can’t help but think I’m a son of a bitch.
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