Twisted Christmas

by Sara Cate

  “Don’t quote my mother while I’m still inside you,” I joke as I quickly pull out. Cora yelps before shimmying off to the bathroom to clean herself up. After fixing my pants and combing my hair for a second time, I kiss my beautiful girlfriend goodbye. I take the image of her naked and smiling in the bathroom, wearing nothing but just-fucked hair, with me on my walk to campus.

  On the way, I pass the church. If I wasn’t already late, I would stop in, but it’ll have to wait until after class now. But I still linger for a moment, staring at the steps that lead up to the doors, imagining a young, scared girl about to walk through for the first time. She could have walked into any church that night. There were two Baptist and one Lutheran church between here and her house that she could have chosen, but she walked into my life instead.

  Call it fate or divine intervention, but I believe all of this was meant to happen. Every vow we broke and sin we committed was the work of God himself. It’s so hard to argue right and wrong when my soul is finally at peace. I was a priest and she was almost a nun, and people can think being together is blasphemous and wrong, but for us, it was so very right.

  Also by Sara Cate

  Wicked Hearts Series

  Delicate

  Dangerous

  Defiant

  * * *

  Age-gap romance

  Beautiful Monster

  Beautiful Sinner

  * * *

  Wilde Boys Duet

  Gravity

  Free Fall

  * * *

  Reverse Harem

  Four

  * * *

  Bully Romance

  Burn for Me

  * * *

  Cocky Hero Club

  Handsome Devil

  About the Author

  Sara Cate is a USA Today Bestselling author of forbidden romance with lots of angst, a little age gap, and heaps of steam. Living in Arizona with her husband and kids, Sara spends most of her time reading, writing, or baking.

  * * *

  You can find more information about her at

  www.saracatebooks.com

  Always Been You

  BY Q.B. TYLER

  Copyright © 2021 by Q.B. Tyler

  All rights reserved.

  * * *

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination and used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  * * *

  Editing: Kristen Portillo—Your Editing Lounge

  “Always Been You”

  An adopted brother romance

  * * *

  Wrong. Sinful. Taboo.

  I know I shouldn’t want him.

  I know I shouldn’t touch myself in the middle of the night as thoughts of him run through my mind.

  Thoughts of his kiss, his touch, his love.

  I’d spent years obsessing over the man I thought I couldn’t have.

  But as it turns out, he wants me too.

  And he wants me now.

  So it seems this Christmas break, there will be many not so silent nights.

  Prologue

  Gabrielle

  * * *

  I am in love with my older brother.

  And before you get all weird, I’ll say that, yes, he’s my older brother but not biologically. The same blood running through my veins is not the same running through his. The blood in my veins is from a sixteen-year-old girl in Mississippi who messed around with a much older man she had no business with and had herself shipped off to a convent until she gave birth to me which I learned much later in life.

  She overdosed not too long after that.

  I wince at the harsh reality of that. But my repressed mommy issues and my potential daddy ones—given that I don’t even know a name—is not the point of this story. The point is the Calloway family adopted me when I was two years old, meaning I spent approximately two years in foster care.

  Aren’t babies supposed to get adopted instantly? What was wrong with me that I wasn’t picked right away?

  Well for one, I had colic and trouble eating and sleeping and doing anything cute that would make a couple think “that’s who we want to add to our family.”

  Secondly, I wasn’t blonde-haired and blue-eyed. Or brown-haired. Well, okay, my hair was dark brown, I guess, but so was my skin, and in Mississippi there weren’t too many people out there looking to adopt a baby that looked like me.

  But the Calloway family traveled all the way from Connecticut to meet me, and as my mom says, she fell in love with me instantly.

  For the record, by then my colic was gone.

  They had two children already and were struggling to conceive a third which is where I come into the picture. James was their oldest, thirteen and moody as hell. Then there was Monica; she was ten, and quite frankly, God’s gift to my parents—besides me, of course. She was outgoing and charming but well behaved with stellar grades and on the fast track to Ivy Leagues. The good kid to James’ bad one as she liked to say.

  James wasn’t bad per se, he was just going through that classic teenager stage where he hated everyone and everything except getting into trouble with his friends. But I’ll rephrase that, he hated everyone but me.

  In the beginning, they told me how he’d be the first to my crib when I cried. He’d pick me up and bounce me around the room and try to get me back to sleep. Sometimes it worked and he’d sit next to my bed for the rest of the night in case I woke up again.

  He helped feed me and allegedly was a pretty decent babysitter. I mean I’m eighteen now and still alive, so it’s safe to say he didn’t do a terrible job.

  As I got older, I followed him around like a shadow, and he never minded it. Of course, there were nights he wanted to go out with his friends and I threw a whole ass tantrum over not being able to go with him. But he always promised to make it up to me the next day.

  He always delivered.

  When I was six years old, he went to his prom and I was devastated that I didn’t get to put on a pretty dress like his girlfriend, Luna, who I hated because I wanted to be the only girl in his life. But the next day, he told me to put on my prettiest dress and he set up a makeshift prom in our living room. With a cake and punch and everything. I was even crowned Prom Queen.

  I was seven when he left for college and I cried myself to sleep every night for three months. Even though he called and texted and emailed, it wasn’t enough. I missed him so deeply. I missed him in a way that I assume was similar to missing a parent. Looking back, I wonder if him leaving stirred up feelings of being left by my birth parents.

  Remember, I am a black girl with a white family; I knew I was adopted early on.

  James never moved back in after college, except for that first summer. I was eleven then and it didn’t seem like he had the same amount of time as before. He was always working and didn’t have time for me and my Barbies like he did before. I even tried to sit next to him while he did work and write in my journal to seem more grown up. He would just chuckle before getting on the phone barking about numbers.

  So now you can see how being around James all my life has created a bit of a complex, right?

  I was fourteen when my older brother also became my first crush. He came home from New York for the weekend with way more facial hair, biceps and tattoos, and for the first time, I saw him as a man. He scooped me up in his arms like he always did and squeezed me and feeling all of those muscles and hard abs pressed against me made me feel like I was going to faint.

  I knew it was wrong
and taboo, but I knew nothing would come from it. So, I felt safe, only living out this fantasy in my dark and twisted mind. But sometimes, late at night when the air was still and the house was quiet, I’d explore my body. Pretending it was his touch, his fingers, his mouth on me.

  Somewhere in that same deep and twisted space, I imagined that one day, we’d cross that line. And in those moments, I damned my soul to hell for eternity because I knew given the chance, I’d take it.

  Chapter 1

  Gabrielle

  “You have got to get your ass over here, like now, there are so many hot guys here. I’ve died and gone to hot guy heaven… Actually hell because not one of these guys here looks like an angel,” my best friend Harper, chirps into the phone, talking a million words a second, probably brought on by too many cups of jungle juice. It’s the last week of school before a month long holiday break, and I’m stuck in the library because, of course, I have a final on Friday and can’t get wasted like ninety-percent of the freshman class who have already completed their finals. Not to mention it’s fucking statistics, which I’ve struggled with all semester. I’m teetering on the line of a B plus—the lowest grade I’ve ever gotten, so I’m doing everything I can to maintain my A- in the class.

  “Harp, I’m at the library, I told you,” I whisper into the phone before darting my eyes around the room to make sure I’m not disturbing anyone. There’s a blonde girl sleeping on her textbooks one table over and a guy at the other end of my table with his AirPods in and music blasting so loud I’m surprised he hasn’t burst an eardrum.

  “But that cute guy from our business class is here!” The music is loud behind her making her scream into the phone.

  I pull it away and put the phone in front of my lips. “It’s too loud, text me,” I tell her and hang up before she can protest.

  The bubbles appear instantly, and although I have zero interest in the guy from our business class, I know Harper does, and I feel bad that I’m not there to be her wing woman. The thoughts instantly float away when my phone buzzes again. I can’t even stop the embarrassingly large smile from crossing my face when I see his name and picture on the screen.

  “James.” I smile. “I’m at the library,” I whisper, even though nothing short of death could force me to cut a conversation short with him.

  “Hi, beautiful.” I can hear the smile in his voice too, just like whenever he talks to me. I fucking melt. It wasn’t a surprise to hear this praise from him. He’s always told me how beautiful I am and how perfect I am. If I even had an inkling that he is as fucked up as I am, I would think he’s flirting with me. But there’s no way.

  James is perfect.

  He doesn’t make mistakes.

  “Have you left the library this semester? I swear every time I talk to you, you’re studying.”

  It’s true, I spent my first semester at Columbia University with my head in the books, probably going to only two or three parties total. I partied my way through my senior year of high school and by graduation, I was over it. I had an older brother and sister who influenced me probably far too early which means by the time I got to college it all felt very been there, done that. Besides, I wanted my parents to be proud of me. I wanted Monica, who’d become practically my best friend despite our eight year age difference, to be proud of me. Most importantly, I wanted James, the love of my life, to be proud of me. At twenty-nine, he’s one of the youngest stock brokers at his firm and is flying up the ranks; he may even be a vice president by the time he’s thirty-five.

  He’d gone to Columbia for both undergrad and grad school, which is only part of the reason I pushed so hard to go here myself. The other part is that James lives a stone’s throw from my dormitory, and if I ever need space or quiet time to study or a hot bath, I can show up at James’ penthouse apartment.

  “My last final is tomorrow,” I whisper, “and it’s goddamn statistics.”

  “Yikes. I know how you are with math. You need some help?” Visions of us acting out a teacher student fantasy come charging through my brain and I slam my eyes shut before it gets too far. “And Gab, it’s almost midnight; you know I don’t like you walking home by yourself at night.”

  “Who says I’m by myself?”

  He chuckles. “I know damn well Harper isn’t with you. Besides, I saw her Instagram story that she’s at some party.” I briefly wonder why my best friend and older brother are friends on social media but James told me it was purely to spy on me and the company I keep. Harper thinks my brother is the hottest man on Earth so I understand her incentive to be friends.

  “I have other friends, James,” I snap. Harper is my closest friend and also my roommate, but I do have other friends.

  “Gab, I didn’t mean it like that, I just don’t know a lot of college kids with your work ethic. It’s late and the Thursday before the holidays, most people are out partying even if they do have a final tomorrow.” He sighs. “Let me come get you and you can study here. I even cooked.”

  “You cooked?” James Calloway can do a lot of things but cooking is not one of them.

  “Okay, I got takeout. The point is you don’t have to.” I chuckle because whenever I do go to James’ apartment, I cook a week’s worth of meals for him because he really does survive on takeout and Red Bull.

  “What did you get?”

  “Chinese from the place we like.”

  My stomach grumbles at the thought as I think about the fact that the Adderall I’d taken is starting to wear off and I am actually kind of hungry now.

  “Okay, I’m at Milstein,” I tell him, referring to the undergrad library that’s closest to my dorm room. I start packing up my stuff and he chuckles.

  “I knew it. Okay hurry up, I’m outside.”

  “You’re here?”

  “Yes, I worked late and knew you had a final tomorrow, so I thought I would swing by just in case. Come on, I’m hungry.”

  I throw the rest of my books in my backpack and slide my computer into its case before moving towards the exit.

  “Okay, see you in a second.” I end the call and immediately turn my camera on selfie mode. My hair is down, but I put on one of those headbands I typically use to work out in to keep it out of my face. It’s a little longer than my shoulders and I always keep it straight and sleek as opposed to letting it go natural. I know I should be prouder of my naturally curly hair, but more than likely years of growing up in Connecticut has me apprehensive about letting my wild tresses go free. Every once in a while, during the summer, I’ll wear it curly if I’m at the beach or the pool or on vacation, but for the most part, my flat iron is my best friend.

  I pull some Chapstick out of my bag and swipe the cherry balm over my lips and pop in a piece of gum as I enter the elevator and begin to descend to the lobby.

  I make my way out of the elevator and into the massive lobby and nod at the guard before making my way towards the door. “Gabrielle!” I hear just before I get to the door and turn to see Miles Carson, a junior in one of my business classes, coming towards me. He’s wearing a Columbia lacrosse hoodie and a pair of sweatpants that really doesn’t do much to hide what he’s got going on underneath. I avert my eyes instantly and feel the embarrassment creeping up my neck; I hope it’s not one of the few times you can see a faint blush tinting my cheeks.

  “Hey, Miles.” I wave. Miles looks like Zach Morris from Saved by the Bell if he spent way more time at the gym and less time fighting with Slater and half the guys at Bayside over Kelly Capowski. So yeah, in short, he’s hot—and evidently packing.

  Seriously inappropriate crush on my brother aside, of course, the man is fine. Annoyingly enough though, he knows it.

  “How do you still look gorgeous after spending God knows how long in the library?”

  I shrug and pull my Moncler coat tighter around me. “That’s sweet. You have a final tomorrow too?”

  “At eight-thirty in the morning. Kill me now.”

  “I’m sure you’ll do amazing,”
I tell him. I wouldn’t exactly call us friends. We worked on a group project together earlier in the semester and I tutored him for a few weeks so maybe he feels like flirting with the nerdy black girl is his way of saying thank you. I don’t really care either way.

  “Are you heading back home tomorrow?” he asks, and I kind of want to wrap up this conversation because the anticipation of seeing James is giving me that tingling feeling that makes me high. “Because we’re throwing a party at the house. You should come by. I’ll get you a house cup.” He smiles. I’ve learned having a house cup is a very big deal. Basically, I won’t have to wait in line for a drink all night. It’s also usually a sign that the person is sleeping with or dating whoever provided such a cup and since I do neither with Miles, I have to politely decline.

  “Yeah, I’m leaving right after,” I lie. Truth is, I’m crashing at James’ place tomorrow night and we’re going to drive home together Saturday morning.

  “Damn, well maybe next time.” He pulls me into a hug and I reciprocate because I’m a hugger and it feels harmless enough. But the murderous glare I see my brother giving us out of the corner of my eye as he moves towards us has me second guessing myself.