Quid Pro Quo: A dark stepbrother romance

by Nenia Campbell

  There had been one from her mother, as well. Baby? Did you talk to Nicholas? She hadn't answered that one, either, typing out a response in anger that she had instantly deleted.

  No, Mom. Didn't really have time to get much talking in while I had his cock in my mouth.

  The really sick thing was, Jay wasn't sure her mother would bat an eye at her for sleeping with Nicholas to get what she wanted from him. Not as long as she was successful. Danielle Beaucroft had capitalized on their relationship before, relegating many of her guardianship duties of Nick to a teenage Jay, and she was constantly asking her to intervene once he got older, wilder, and more out of control. She'd wondered why Nicholas had gone after her mother but it was starting to sound like her mother had gone after him, rattling wasp nests.

  Jay couldn't figure out how to talk to her mother without hurling accusations or swearing, so she deleted the text without responding. Then the alarm she'd set for her laundry went off and Jay went downstairs to pop her things into the dryer, trying to put thoughts of her family out of her mind.

  On her way back to her room, movement from outside drew her back downstairs, to the window that looked out onto the pool from the lounge. Nicholas was in the water, swimming. Seventeen years ago, he'd told her that he used to swim an hour a day. It hadn't really occurred to her that he might have kept up with it.

  As she watched, he stepped out, dripping water from head to toe. He grabbed a towel from somewhere she couldn't see and began wiping his face, which caused a rippling contraction of wet muscle that sent a dull pang through her belly. His body was—magnificent.

  I should leave, thought Jay, rooted to the spot. Despite her mounting disgust with herself, she had trouble looking away. She had wondered at his tan, at his athletic build—unlike his late father, who'd had the body of an athlete gone to fat, Nicholas had stayed fit. Broad shoulders. Trim waist. Long, muscular legs. His broad chest was covered with dark hair that had become matted by the water. That was new. He must have shaved while he was swimming. When she had seen him last, his chest had been hairless.

  A chill shivered through her like ice in a glass when their eyes met through the glass.

  His mouth was moving, speaking through the satisfied smile of a man who thought he had his quarry. It looked like he was saying “come here.”

  Jay shook her head slowly, backing from the window. That was a terrible idea.

  He started walking towards the house and her heart took flight like a startled bird. She raced up the stairs two at a time and flung herself into her room just as she heard his voice calling her name. No, she thought, washed with hot shame and cold terror. Go away.

  She heard him pause outside her room. “Jay,” he said. “Open this door.”

  They both knew the door was inconsequential. If he wanted to get inside, he could. She closed her eyes as her heart continued to pound, startling when the base of her spine bumped her desk chair. “D-don't come in,” she said faintly.

  Through the wood, over the throbbing in her ears, she thought she heard him sigh before padding away.

  Slowly, Jay sank into the chair.

  She hadn't slept with many men, or even really dated much. Men frightened her—the way they looked at her body, the things they said about her, the things they wanted from her. As she got older, the demands and the comments became less frequent than they had been when she was young, but every once in a while, she'd see someone studying her and she would think, I know that look, as she rode out those instinctive waves of self-loathing.

  Dante Rojas had been different. Sweet. She'd actually gotten a crush on him because of his hands, which sounded dirty, but really, she had just loved watching him cook. He'd wanted to be a chef and was waiting tables until he could get through culinary school. He practiced at the apartment, cooking food for anyone who paid for cost of ingredients and gave him a share. Dante was the one who had taught her how to cook for herself and really enjoy doing it.

  He'd been shorter than her, 5'7”, which she told herself she hadn't minded. It was good to feel needed, wanted—but only on her terms. He'd taken her on dates. Cheap ones, since neither of them had money. She didn't mind the money. Free museum days, picnics in the park, walks around the Mission looking at things they couldn't afford; she'd loved all of it. No, what bothered her was the fact that, like so many others, he couldn't seem to get past the surface of what she was. “You're so pretty,” he kept telling her, over and over. “She's so sweet,” he told others, also over and over. Once, drunk, he had confided to her, with unusual candor, “I think you're the smartest girl I've ever dated, Jay. What do we even talk about?”

  That's a good question, Jay remembered thinking, and shortly afterwards, she had dumped him. The sex hadn't been that great, if she were being completely honest with herself, and contrary to what that bastard Nicholas thought, that hadn't really mattered, either. She wasn't going to break up with a guy for not making her heart pound out of her chest when she slept with him. But she did remember thinking, a little wistfully, how much better the sex might have been if he called her filthy names or pinned her to the mattress with those strong hands of his.

  She had never allowed herself to dwell on why she thought those things.

  When her laundry was ready, she ran into Nicholas in the hall, so suddenly that she had the unpleasant feeling that he'd been lying in wait for her. His hair was damp and so was the fabric of his shirt, which was sticking to his body like clingy film. Since he didn't smell like chlorine, she assumed he'd showered. “Dinner's coming in thirty minutes.”

  Jay tightened her arms around her laundry. “What—what is it?”

  “Salad.” Nicholas looked her over consideringly. A man studying his newest acquisition? “No dressing. I can top yours with giardiniera or you can have balsamic vinaigrette.”

  Jay stared at the wall over his shoulder as she began walking again. “Giardiniera's fine.”

  He didn't mention the pool or ask her why she'd run. Jay wondered about that as she made her bed, just as she wondered why he hadn't forced his way into her bedroom as he had so many times before. Was this another one of this games, letting her feel safe? Sitting across from him in the chilly dining room, Jay found herself thinking: is this the calm before the storm?

  She looked down at the salad, ordered from somewhere fancy and obviously prepared at great expense. The rainbow radishes had been chopped up into tiny pink rosettes and the giardiniera was fresh and lightly brined. She stabbed a piece of celery and tried to breathe.

  “When does my new job start?”

  “I'm pushing the paperwork through HR as fast as it will go. They're currently going through your background check.”

  A subtle reminder of how easily he could destroy her future? She studied the celery pierced by the tines of her fork. “And it's real? It wasn't just a ruse to get me back here?”

  Nicholas glanced at her. “I wouldn't do that to you.”

  “You once told me that you didn't even think women should work,” Jay pointed out. “You said it made a man look like he couldn't take care of the women in his life.”

  “That was a long time ago.” He picked up his glass. “The job is real.”

  “Sure.” She laughed a little bitterly. “Whatever you say.”

  The conversation, which hadn't exactly been sprightly before, died after that. They ate in silence, except for the clink of fork on ceramic, and the feel of that icy, claustrophobic atmosphere was so transportive that, for a moment, Jay almost felt fourteen again.

  She trudged up the stairs with an icy bottle of water and a heart full of dread. In her newly washed bed linens, Jay lay tucked under the covers with her hands folded on her chest and the cat curled between her legs, wondering if Nicholas was going to visit her to extract another one of his stupid payments. After all, it seemed to be all he thought she was any good for.

  ▪▫▪▫▪▫▪

  I'm going to bring you to your knees.

  Jay woke up ill-r
ested and alone, haunted by nightmares that doubled as memories. She glanced at the clock and groaned—midnight. With nothing else to do, time was already playing tricks on her in this place. She pulled her hoodie on over her tank top and wandered downstairs.

  There was a light on in the kitchen and she crept in there, thinking it had been left on by mistake. She froze when she found Nicholas standing with his hip cocked against the counter as he ate a piece of toast slathered in butter and sprinkles, just like he'd used to do as a child. Like her, he was dressed for bed, in flannels and what looked like an old band T-shirt.

  “You still eat that trash.”

  “I had an Australian nanny before you came,” he said, so casually—before you came. Clear-cut before and after. “She used to make this for me to shut me up. It's called fairy bread.”

  “Cool.” She skirted past him to get to the fridge and grabbed a water, feeling his eyes follow her out the door as she made her way to the den. Like a wolf tracking a sheep, she thought randomly, and then shuddered, wishing the analogy hadn't popped into her stupid brain.

  The TV was newer than the model he'd had before and now, instead of just cable, which he still had, he also had a couple of subscriptions. She saw that he'd been watching Vikings on Hulu. Rolling her eyes, Jay clicked to How the Universe Works and started up the Planets from Hell episode until her mind was filled with thoughts of ice and fire and darkness.

  And Nick.

  She straightened almost before she felt the slight dip behind her back. She looked up in alarm to see him leaning over her. His arms were folded over the back of the couch and he was close. Close enough for her to feel the heat radiating from his bare arms against her back.

  On the screen was a planet that had been sucked into the gravitational field of its own star, and was slowly being devoured alive.

  “You still watch these.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Can I watch the world burn with you?”

  “They're not all burning,” Jay blurted, which wasn't exactly permission. It wasn't exactly a denial, either, though, and she felt her limbs turn to water when his mouth formed a smile.

  “I'll get some wine.”

  Wine? Sitting here and drinking wine with him on the couch that he'd fucked her on when they were young might be the stupidest thing she could probably do.

  But he came back before she could summon the courage to get to her feet, holding two empty glasses and a bottle. “Oh good. You're still here.” He handed her the two glasses as he reached into the pocket of his pants and pulled out a wine opener. “I thought you might run away again,” he remarked, opening the bottle with a sound that made her jump.

  “I didn't run,” Jay lied, and he gave her a sardonic look.

  “Well. It's foolish to even try.” He filled a glass with sloshing liquid the color of a pigeon's blood ruby. “I know this house like I know the back of my hand, and I have all the keys.”

  Keys. A wintry chill whirled through her. Another reminder that she wasn't safe.

  She stared at the bottle, not recognizing the name of the winery. “I see you've moved on from sneaking your father's scotch.”

  “Mm-hmm. Did you want something harder? I'll give it to you.”

  Jay felt her face flush. “N-no.”

  Nicholas laughed, nearly spilling the wine as he filled the second glass. “Jay, you bad girl,” he said, in a dry tone that made her face burn even hotter. “What a dirty mind you have.”

  Heat seemed to drip down her throat. That smile, at once taunting and dangerous, was like a twisting blade in her chest. “If you're going to be like this, I'm leaving.”

  “Sit down and drink your wine, blue jay.” He handed her what seemed to be a very full glass. The smell coming off its surface was scaldingly sweet. “I want to see the cosmos.”

  I already brushed my teeth. She stared at the TV, clutching her wineglass as his arm gradually slid from the back of the couch to settle around her waist. The narrator was talking about a planet that didn't rotate, where one side was permanently scorched by its sun and the other was encrusted by the cold freeze of space.

  Beneath her clothes, the skin he was grazing seemed to scorch and freeze. Guiltily, she looked up at that half-wall that dipped over the den like the bridge in a spaceship where anyone could peer down and catch them in the act. Only no one's here to catch me now, she thought, touching the neck of her sweatshirt to make sure it was still zipped. I'm all alone.

  “You made me watch so many of these.” Nicholas sipped his wine, eyes on the TV, taking in the computer-generated planet as the screen zoomed in. Smoking oceans of lava and ice-cracked darkness. His fingers kept stroking her through her sweatshirt, describing lazy, abstract patterns through the thin material. “Do you have any idea how many Eyewitness shows you made me sit through as a kid? Sometimes I still find myself humming the hook to Bill Nye.”

  “I thought you hated them,” said Jay, lifting the glass to her mouth.

  “If I'd hated them, I would have wrecked the tapes and hidden the remote from you. That's what I did to your mother. I was always throwing her tapes in the trash. She used to say someone should slap me. I'm sure it never occurred to her that that someone would be you.”

  His hand drifted a little lower, settling over her hip. Jay swallowed hard. “You deserved it,” she said, surprised to taste wine on her tongue. In her nervousness, she hadn't realized that she'd started compulsively sipping it. It was sweet, which made it go down easier despite the intense burn of the alcohol. “You're completely heartless.”

  Nicholas let out another one of those low, humorless laughs. “You wouldn't be the first to call me that.” He swirled the wine in his glass lazily. “Although it does hit a bit harder coming from you. I think you're the only person who ever thought there might be an ounce of good in me.”

  “Is that why you did all this? Did you want to prove me wrong?” Do you hate me that much?

  “You want to know why I did what I did? Because you were the town golden girl and I wanted you all to myself. And I thought if I knocked you off that pedestal, you might finally come crawling to me—and you did. Because of course you did. You were always so goddamn noble, so utterly consumed by what others thought of you. So eager to fucking please.”

  “Fuck you,” she said heatedly. “You blackmailed me. You made me a prisoner.”

  “You're not a prisoner. I'm not going to stop you from leaving the house. You can go where you please.”

  A pulsar swiveled on the screen, bathing its three orbiting planets with dead, sterile heat as it boiled away their surfaces under gravity and radiation.

  Jay felt like the surface of her was being boiled away, too. Under the compression of her inexplicably growing anger, she could feel something hot and shameful churning in her belly, turning over and over again like a vicious star.

  “So I could leave,” she said. “Right now. You would just let me walk away.”

  “If you came back.” He rubbed the hem of her tank top back and forth, brushing bare skin with each pass. “We have an agreement. You know what I want from you.”

  Jay said nothing. His hand settled on her bare waist, branding her with its heat. “It may surprise you to learn that as enjoyable as it would be crushing your mother to a litigious pulp, I'm really not all that interested in destroying your sterling reputation. But the risk has to be a little painful and there are always consequences when there is a failure to repay.”

  “So you're willing to hurt me,” said Jay. “To get what you want. Just like before.”

  “We have an agreement,” he repeated steadily.

  “Then I am your prisoner. I just happen to have a really long chain.”

  He sighed. “If that's how you want to see it.”

  I'm going to ruin you either way.

  Jay looked down at her wineglass and noticed, with some chagrin, that it was empty and the television no longer seemed quite as sharp or clear. My head feels like a fish tank,
she thought nonsensically. As she sat up, shifting Nicholas as she moved, she had an image of her thoughts sliding around in her head like wine in a glass. I'm tipsy.

  “Is this about revenge?”

  He looked at her, eyes flickering blue in the light of the television. “Revenge for what?”

  “I don't know.” She drew her legs up so she was sitting on her calves and felt more of that embarrassing dampness kiss her thighs. His hand was still under her top and she felt it slide over the grooves of her spine. “For what I did to your father.”

  Nicholas plucked the empty wineglass from her fingers and set it on the floor. “To be honest,” he said, “I was more upset about you leaving than I was about my father dying.”

  “After what you did to me, you couldn't possibly be surprised that I'd leave.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Well, I was. It felt like you punched a fucking hole in my chest.”

  “Poor little rich boy.” She swayed slightly, seduced by her anger. She was so angry. Where all this anger was coming from, she wasn't sure, but it made her feel hot and dangerous, ready to combust. “It was always about you. You, and my mother, and your fucking pervert of a father.”

  “How could I resist that mouth?” It felt like she could only half-focus on his hand skating higher up her spine, she was so transfixed by the drugging poison of his gaze. “It tastes so sweet,” he said, just grazing her lips with his, “but the things that come out of it are so bitter.”

  “What—”

  His mouth sealed over hers and she found herself sitting astride his lap, as his tongue tangled with hers, lips cruel and biting. A rough kiss that tasted of hot, sweet wine. She nearly groaned.

  His cloth-covered erection was digging into the softness of her inner thigh. Just as she became aware of this, Nicholas jostled her legs apart, and then he was pressing against her even more intimately, putting unbearable pressure between her legs. Suddenly, any movement became torture. He let out a rough breath as his palm circled around her ribs, fingers plucking at her nipples just hard enough to make her stomach clench.