Ink

by Michaela Scott

  “Thanks for the offer, but I’m afraid I have business to attend to.”

  The photographer shoves her card into my hand as we leave, with her personal number written on the back. I thank her with a smile just polite enough to ensure that her magazine publishes my ad, and then I duck into the elevator with Amber.

  “So…where are we going now?” Amber asks.

  “I won’t need you for the rest of the day,” I say, “I’m going to start showing Haley the ropes.”

  Amber can’t totally hide the look of disgust that flashes across her features when I mention Haley’s name.

  “That girl…” she says.

  “What about her?”

  Amber looks around like she’s trying to make sure no one’s listening in, even though we’re in a fucking elevator. “I mean…I know she’s family, but it you make her partner, she’s going to be in way over her head. If I were you, I’d start letting her down easy and put her on a plane back to California before she gets too comfortable here.”

  “Well, uh…you’ve been around Haley one time. I’m her stepbrother. I think I’m more qualified to judge her competence than you are.”

  “Okay, but…as your personal assistant, it’s part of my job to see the things you miss, and I think your feelings for Haley might be blinding you to the fact that hiring her could look very bad for your company.”

  The elevator comes to a stop, and I walk straight through the lobby and out the front doors.

  “Your objection is noted,” I say, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  As Amber and I go our separate ways, I can feel her jealous eyes burning into my back. I’m starting to wonder if she’s the one I’m going to have to let down easy and get back onto a plane. That can wait, though.

  As soon as I’m alone, I pull out my phone and check to see if Haley responded to my last text.

  Nothing.

  As I look at the picture of Haley, looking stunning in her new dress and flipping me off, I realize that during the entire photo shoot, she was at the back of my mind. That was why I was so anxious to leave. Why I didn’t feel like playing sexy photo shoot with that supermodel. Why I didn’t want that photographer’s number. Why Amber’s desperate attempts to get close to me are pissing me off, not turning me on.

  I was thinking about my stepsister.

  I send her another text.

  Hey, remember when you used to tear the shirtless guys out of Hot Pink Magazine and hide them under your bed? I just finished negotiating an advertising contract with them, and let’s just say you’re definitely going to want to grab next month’s issue for your collection. By the way, when are we negotiating our contract?

  As I wait for my coffee at a corner café, Haley responds.

  You’re not the only one who can write up a contract for your stepsibling. I’ll sign your contract if you sign mine.

  Oh, man, this is just too good. If she’s drawing up a contract for me, she’s going to be signing mine in no time.

  “Mr. Fisher? Your coffee’s ready.” I look up at the barista.

  “On second thought, can I get it to go?”

  Chapter 14: Haley

  Something I’ve learned about living with Jace: usually, the best way to get him to stop teasing you is to tease him back. So on my way back to the suite, I had an idea: why don’t I write a stepbrother contract for him to sign and give him a taste of his own medicine? Maybe then he’d see how crazy this whole thing is. I giggle as I read through what I’ve put down so far.

  By signing this contract, I, _____________, Haley Russell’s loser stepbrother, agree to abide by the following rules while living with my totally awesome stepsister:

  *I will refer to her only as “Mistress,” “Stepmistress,” and “Mistress Haley.”

  *I will do all of Haley’s chores, as well as anything Haley feels like making me do.

  *I will sleep at the foot of Haley’s bed.

  *I will not touch myself without Haley’s permission.

  *I will not ask Haley’s permission to touch myself because that’s gross.

  *I will ask Haley’s permission before I hire jealous psychos to be my personal assistants.

  I wish I’d written something like this sooner; it’s insanely cathartic to write. Ever since I’d first read Jace’s contract, I’ve been dealing with this image of me as his submissive little servant, imagining all the inappropriate things he’d make me do. Now, it’s time to turn the tables.

  *When I’m out of the house, I will wear the ugliest thrift store clothes Haley can find.

  *When I’m at home with Haley, I will wear nothing but my underwear.

  I start to feel a little warm imagining Jace in his underwear. He loves looking at my body so much, so why can’t I enjoy looking at his? I wonder if he’s still in the same amazing shape he was back in the day, when he’d come into my room with nothing but a towel, flop onto my bed, and start reading my book over my shoulder. I press my legs together as I keep writing.

  *I will give Haley massages whenever she wants, no questions asked.

  *I will tell every woman who flirts with me about this contract

  *As punishment for making constant sexual jokes and references about my stepsister, every time I make another one, I will go down on Haley until she tells me to stop.

  Hmm. This isn’t really going in the direction that I thought it would. As I read that last clause over again, a bunch of even dirtier ideas flood into my head. I don’t dare write any of them down.

  I wasn’t trying to fantasize about Jace! I was just writing this contract as a joke, and it just…evolved.

  Could that have been what he was doing when he wrote his?

  I can’t think about this. I’m going to take a shower, focus on something else, and tell Jace that I was joking about having a contract for him to sign.

  As the warm water of the shower runs over my body, I stare at the tiled bathroom wall, trying to think about anything else but Jace.

  I’m in very, very dangerous territory.

  Chapter 15: Haley

  About halfway through my shower, I have a disturbing thought: I can’t remember whether or not I closed my notebook before I went into the bathroom. And if I don’t remember closing it, then it’s probably still sitting on the couch, open to the page with the contract on it. Not good. I turn the shower off, dry myself as quickly as possible, and wrap a towel around my body before I open the door, but it’s too late: Jace is sitting on the couch, reading my horrible, awkward, dirty contract with a calm smile on his face.

  “So if I sign this, you’ll sign mine, right?” he asks, “Sounds pretty fair to me.”

  “Wait, don’t read that!” I run over to him to try and take my notebook back.

  “Too late,” he says, “That’s one hell of a last clause. I had no idea you had such a dirty mind, Sis.”

  “It was just a joke,” I say.

  “You didn’t believe me when I said that, why should I believe it coming from you?”

  “I didn’t mean for you to see it, I don’t even know why I wrote it.”

  “You sound a lot like me four years ago.”

  “Jace, just give it to me!”

  I reach for my notebook, but Jace pulls it over his head. Holding my towel to my body with one hand, I try to snatch it out of Jace’s hand, but he keeps jerking it away from me. As a last resort, I dive onto the couch, resting one knee on Jace’s thigh as I lean over his body and try and grab my notebook. Jace lets out a loud laugh and vaults over the back of the couch, throwing me off balance and almost causing my towel to fall off.

  Jace takes a few steps back, relishing his temporary victory.

  “Since our contracts contradict each other a couple times, let’s say we do yours this month and mine next month. I think that’s an incredibly generous offer, don’t you? Let me just write that here at the bottom before I sign it.”

  Jace pulls a black fountain pen out of his pocket, and jots something down at the bottom o
f the contract. I awkwardly try to climb over the back of my couch, but it’s no use: before I can make it over the back, he’s signed his name on the dotted line in thick, black ink.

  “Jace, no! I don’t even remember what I wrote in that thing!”

  “Probably because you wrote it with one hand down there,” Jace says, pointing through the couch and between my legs.

  Then, he looks down at the contract and raises his eyebrows.

  “Oh no!” he says, sarcastic fear dripping off his voice, “I’ve violated clause 11 by making a sexual joke about you! Now I have to give you head as punishment, because that totally makes sense!”

  My heart pounds against my ribcage as I look at my stepbrother. I try to tell my body to either get my notebook back or get some clothes on and get the hell out of here, but it doesn’t listen.

  “Haley, I can’t give you head if your pussy’s facing the couch like that. You need to sit down.”

  Jace walks back up to the couch, dropping the notebook on the cushion next to me, grabbing my shoulders, and spinning me around to a seated position. My towel comes halfway undone on the way down, but I’m pretty sure I wrap it around me before he can see anything.

  Jace takes his sweet time walking around the couch, grinning like a cat that has a mouse trapped beneath its paw.

  He isn’t actually going to try and go down on me, right? He’s just trying to make me nervous…right?

  I bite my lip and look up at Jace, who’s standing directly over me, eyes fixed between my legs.

  “I’m sorry for making a sexual joke about you, Stepmistress. I guess I should change into my uniform before I start.”

  “Jace…” I say in a weak voice, transfixed by my stepbrother as he starts to pull his clothes off.

  Back in Connecticut, I saw Jace shirtless all the time, but this is completely different. Not only because his skinnyish eighteen-year-old body totally filled out into a chiseled grown man’s. That’d be surreal enough, but the tattoos really take it to another level. Every inch of his upper body is inked, covered in snakes, tigers, flames, swords…and it’s all ridiculously detailed, woven together like a giant tapestry. It must be the work of a master artist, probably the most expensive one money can buy. The more I look at it, the more details I notice. I’d probably have to get up close and stare at Jace’s body for hours to see every detail. Is it messed up that I want to? Biting my lip, I force myself to look away from Jace’s naked upper body, only for my eyes to land in the worst possible place.

  As Jace pulls his jeans down, I can’t help but stare at the insanely huge bulge stretching his boxer briefs to the absolute limit. I know Jace can see me staring, but it still takes all my energy to rip my eyes away and force myself to look back up at his face.

  “Remember, tell me when to stop.” Slowly, Jace kneels down in front of me, resting his hands just above my knees. Then, in one smooth, fluid motion, he bends down between my legs. I press my thighs together, but Jace pulls them right back apart again. Luckily, the important parts are still covered by my towel, but if Jace pulls my legs any farther apart, he’s going to be able to see everything.

  And he’s probably going to find out how wet I am.

  I squirm as Jace presses his face into my thigh. Kisses it. Bathes it with his warm, soft breath. I try to say something to Jace, probably the dying ghost of an objection, but Jace starts running his tongue up my thigh, and it only comes out as a moan.

  This is so wrong! If this is a joke, it’s way past anything Jace has ever tried with me before. There’s teasing, there’s trying to get under my skin, and then there’s…foreplay. There’s no other word for the way Jace licks my thigh, slowly moving closer and closer to the heat between my legs. If I don’t stop him, there’s no doubt in my mind that he’s going to pull my towel up around my waist, bury his face into my folds and actually start fucking me with his tongue.

  I have to stop him! I have to…

  I close my eyes and take in the feeling of Jace’s mouth on my lower body, feeling all of my objections melting away. Then, at the last possible second, I come to my senses, open my eyes, and take my notebook in my hands. I pull out the page with the contract on it and rip it in half.

  “Stop!” Jace pulls back, kneeling in front of me.

  “The contract is void. I just ripped it up.”

  Jace looks at me for a few more seconds with a devastatingly sexy look in his eye. Then, he breaks out laughing, and I kick him hard in the chest. “You should have seen your face!”

  And just like that, the mood in the room is different. If we weren’t both mostly naked, it’d be like any other time Jace just played a really stupid prank on me. Jace sits on the floor, and I pull my towel further down over my legs, trying to ignore the ache that’s still burning between them.

  “We’re even now,” says Jace, “I found your contract, you found mine. The only difference is that I didn’t run away.”

  Jace looks down at my feet for a few seconds. He looks wounded…almost vulnerable, and it catches me off guard a little. Did I hurt his feelings when I left for San Diego? Back then, I didn’t know he even had feelings.

  “Jace, I left town for a lot of reasons. It was a chance to be my own person, see new places, make new friends…”

  “Right, but you wouldn’t have done it if you hadn’t found the contract. You would have stayed with me.”

  For a few seconds, both of us are silent.

  “That’s true,” I say.

  “It’s so stupid,” Jace says, “It was exactly like what you just did. I made it to deal with how I felt about you, and you just found it…I wasn’t going to show it to you unless…”

  Jace falls silent for a long time. Then, he gets up from the floor and starts picking up his clothes.

  “Unless what?”

  Jace reaches for his shirt, but I stand up from the couch and grab his wrist, holding him in place.

  “Unless what?” I ask again.

  “Unless something happened between us.”

  “Did you think that something was going to happen between us?”

  “I thought it was inevitable. Two people can’t have feelings that strong for each other without something happening. Unless, you know, one of them runs away.”

  “Jace…”

  Jace looks me up and down.

  “Why don’t you change out of that towel?”

  “Good idea,” I say.

  I walk into the bathroom and drop the towel to the floor, leaning naked against the door as I try to make sense of what Jace just told me. Too bad I’m not exactly in a rational straight of mind; my thigh is still wet with the water of his tongue, and my knees are trembling with the memories of his touch.

  But that doesn’t mean anything! Any cute guy who laid me down on a couch and tried to give me head would leave me horny like this. My body doesn’t care that it was my stepbrother’s face inches away from the flesh between my legs…

  Jace knocks on the bathroom door.

  “Need any help in there?” he asks.

  “Um, no, I’m good!” I jump into my new dress and open the door to face Jace.

  I don’t realize that I’m wearing the dress he bought me until I see the look on his face. Somehow, I feel more exposed now than I was in my towel.

  The sight of me in the tight, skimpy dress he bought for me brings a smile to Jace’s face. “Holy shit, Haley.” I’m not exactly sure what to say to him.

  “How did you know it was going to fit me so well?”

  “I didn’t know it was going to fit you this well,” Jace says, “Turn around.”

  I look up at Jace for a few seconds before making a slow circle, letting him enjoy the sight of me dressed exactly how he wants me. When I face him again, Jace takes my hand and pulls me out of the bathroom and into the center of the suite.

  I catch our reflections in the glass of the suite window as Jace leads me out into the center of the room. Jace catches me staring at the mirrored window, so he lea
ds me right up to the surface.

  “Do you need a mirror to see what we are?” Jace asks, wrapping his arm around my waist. Instinctively, my body pushes into his.

  “Well, take a good look.”

  My mouth hangs open as I look at the girl in the mirror. She’s softly biting her lip, shifting from foot to foot, and leaning into her stepbrother’s touch.

  Jace swings me around so that my body presses into his as he wraps his arms around me. Then, he pushes me against the window, face inches away from mine.

  “Haley, do you know how fucking crazy it makes me to spend all my time around a gorgeous girl who responds to everything I do?”

  Jace’s hand moves downward into dangerous territory, dancing along the outside of the place where my thigh meets my hip.

  “Of course I respond to you when you’re being sexual…but you’re my stepbrother, Jace. If we, you know, did anything, and my dad found out, he could pull his money out and bankrupt you.”

  “Okay,” says Jace, “But tell me, honestly, that you don’t like it when I touch you.”

  Jace’s hand moves up to my breast and squeezes it, fingers traveling into my dress. Instinctively, I reach up and guide Jace’s hand away from my chest, and he frowns and releases me, walking towards the door of the room.

  “Jace, wait!”

  My stepbrother turns to look at me.

  “Um…you don’t have to go,” I say.

  “No, you’re right. Messing around like this is dangerous, which means that I can’t be around you right now.”

  Jace leaves the suite and closes the door behind him.

  Messing around like this? Was that Jace’s idea of messing around? Running his tongue up my thigh? Holding me up against the wall and trying to pull my dress down?

  Anger, lust, and uncertainty swirl through my body like a whirlpool. Part of me wants to catch up with Jace and tell him exactly where he can shove his arrogance, and part of me wants to catch up with him and drag him back inside so we can finish what he started.

  I need a quiet, secure place to think, so I head into Jace’s room and lie down on his bed. The distant noise of the city is totally muffled here, so there’s nothing that can get between me and my thoughts.