by Kane, Jessa
I stand up from the couch, my intention to show him out, but when I try to walk past my stepbrother, his hand shoots out, gripping my waist. Stopping me in my tracks.
Conflict wages a war on his face.
I don’t breathe. Don’t move.
I should walk away, but his big hand sears my hip in the most delicious way. And up close like this, I can smell his expensive cologne, I can see the shadowy growth of his beard, hear his rasping inhales, exhales.
Slowly, he corrals me closer, into the V of his thighs, so I’m close. Facing him. My breasts become indecent things when they’re this close to his face and he’s baring his teeth at them. As if they’re offensive and beautiful and dangerous to behold. Both of us struggle to breathe.
Tristan leans close and presses his open mouth to my right breast, squeezing his eyes closed, and I feel his fingertips dragging up the curve of my calf. Those fingers move as if they have a mind of their own, passing the back crease of my knee and traveling up my inner thigh.
“You…and this body…” Tristan sais thickly. “Completely rob me of common sense.” His fingertips are moving closer and closer to my private flesh, slowing but not stopping their progress. “You were designed to torment my cock. Each and every part of you. That sweetheart voice coming from that perfect pink mouth, these little round tits…” His fingertips brush my sex and I whimper, my hands flying to his shoulder for balance. “Don’t get me started on this virgin cunt. It has my goddamn name stamped all over it. All of you does. So we’re not going to speak about kissing other men ever again. Ever. Again. Are we clear, Cate?”
His demand is galling, since he’s refused to kiss me himself. But that doesn’t stop my legs from threatening to give out. Doesn’t stop the thrill sparking inside of me. “Yes.”
My stepbrother’s middle and ring finger tease my dampening slit, moving back and forth. Back and forth. “One kiss and then you’ll behave?”
I nod—too fast—eagerness exploding inside of me. “P-please.”
My agreement has barely been given when Tristan pulls me down on the couch.
And his body rolls on top of mine, strong and heavy, his elegant suit rasping against my cheap, threadbare dress. I cry out his name, my nerve endings coming alive at the sensation of being pressed down, pinned, held captive beneath this man, his erection flush against my naked sex. Above me, Tristan groans, his jaw loosening with the sound, his left hand scraping up the outside of my thigh, his palm testing the flesh of my backside roughly.
“Oh fuck, little girl.” He rolls his hips, moaning. “You fit me so well.”
I don’t know what comes over me, but my hands are suddenly so bold. They mold to the contours of his pectoral muscles and drag down his drum tight abdomen. They unhook his belt buckle, some deep, natural part of my womanhood understanding what happens next. What is inevitable when an aroused man is on top of a woman. I want him to rut me, the way I saw Daddy do to Mama. I want to make him grunt and sweat, just like I remember from that night. Except I’d be the object of that hunger, that frustration.
I’ve almost got the zipper of Tristan’s pants lowered when he reaches down and snags my wrist, pinning it above my head on the couch cushion. “No, Cate. Bad girl.” With the opposite hand, he roughly yanks down the top of my dress, exposing my breasts. “Might be a virgin, but she’s hot for dick. Aren’t you? Look at those horny little nipples.”
“C-can you go inside me, Tristan?” I arch my back, reveling in the way he ogles my breasts. “Please. Please.”
“One kiss.” He seems to be reminding himself, instead of me. “I said one fucking kiss.”
I start to whine, needing something, anything—
And his mouth cuts off the sound.
My stepbrother’s lips are on mine.
A shared tremor passes through the both of us. For heavy moments, we remain unmoving, held immobile in the powerful grip of the attraction, the forbidden pull between us.
His lips part over mine, slanting slightly, his tongue pressing into my mouth.
He grinds that bulge against my sex at the same time.
Like a match lighting, we become frantic. Enflamed in an instant.
“Mmmm. Baby. Baby. Tastes so good.” Tristan gives me his tongue rhythmically and I curl my fingers in the waistband of his pants, tugging him hard in that same, sensual tempo, urging him to thrust against me, my thighs open like a trollop. “Little fuck-hungry girl,” he pants, in between explorations of my mouth. “Christ. I never understood it before. Men throwing it all away for sex. But hell if I don’t want to trade ten years of work for ten pumps in this pussy.”
His words wash over me like stroking silk.
I like being his temptation.
I love it.
I’m also afraid I could do harm. To his life, career, future.
But right now, I’m unable to stop.
Can’t stop purring around his tongue and tempting him with writhes of my hips, sending him promises of hedonism with my eyes. Hedonism is something I don’t even understand yet, but I would. I would if he planted that big thing inside of me and rode me hard.
“Please,” I whimper, pausing my pleas to twine our tongues together. “Please.”
Tristan growls against my lips. “Yeah. Fine. You want to fuck?” He lets go of my pinned right wrist, reaching down to lower his zipper. “Let’s fuck.”
At first when I hear the knocking on the door, I think it’s coming from next door. Or maybe the television. But no, the television is off. And then I hear my mother’s voice, calling from the hallway. “Cate, are you home?”
Tristan and I still immediately.
“If you’re done with your lessons, I thought we could talk about your new wardrobe!”
Tristan’s forehead drops to mine and he curses vilely.
Several beats of tense silence tick by.
When he climbs off me, I clap and hand over my mouth to trap a sob of frustration.
He moves jerkily, buckling his belt and adjusting the stiffness behind his fly. “This…this was my fault. Okay, sweetheart? You did nothing wrong. But…” He notices my breasts are still exposed, the hem of my dress barely covering my femininity, and he turns away with a groan. “God, you’re so fucking beautiful. Sweet.”
“I can tell her to come back later,” I whisper, shaken by his praise.
A ripple travels along his shoulder blades. “No. This can’t happen again.”
With that, he’s grabbing his suit jacket and striding for the entrance.
He stops with his hand on the door, an unspoken chance for me to compose myself—and I do, fixing my dress and standing. Crossing my arms over my hard nipples.
And then he’s gone, skirting past my mother with a terse greeting, explaining that he came to check on the progress of my lessons. My body is bereft without Tristan’s weight on top of me, without his mouth on mine, but I try and disguise it with a smile.
“Hi, Mama,” I breathe.
“Er…hi.” She sweeps me with a glance, but her expression doesn’t change. “So how do you feel about dramatic colors? I think they would be incredible with your skin tone! Can you imagine a bold red or metallic green against your tan? I’m thinking for your hair, we’ll…”
I nod along with all of her suggestions, but my mind is still fixated on my stepbrother.
Did I act too bold and drive him away?
When is the next time I’ll see him?
Will I really never kiss him again?
I have no way of knowing. Nothing seems to be within my control.
Well, that’s not entirely true. I do have the control to complete my lessons. To transform from a backwoods swamp child into a polished woman. And maybe…maybe if I do those things, I can win my stepbrother. I can become someone he’s proud to call his.
With that hope beating in my chest, I tune back in to what my mother is saying.
Starting now, I’ll take this chance seriously…and hope it pays off.
5
Tristan
A week has passed since I saw Cate and I’m at my limit.
At the very least, I need to hear her voice.
I miss it. To an uncomfortable degree.
This week has been filled with campaign rallies and on-air interviews. Meeting constituents and doing appearances at fundraisers. I threw myself into every activity with a single-minded focus, but she loomed in the back of my mind all the while—and now that I’m home in the silence, there is nothing to keep me from reaching for my phone.
Even through the mayhem, I’ve been checking in with her instructors regularly and I’m told she’s buckled down and started trying harder. No more running off into the park to fly kites or climb trees. And while I’m the one who asked her to remain indoors and focus, a fissure forms in my chest when I think of her stuck inside, dreaming of the glen.
The phone rings against my ear and I stop breathing, waiting for her to answer. It takes her until the sixth ring to do so. “H-hello?”
One word out of her mouth and a hot simmer starts in my belly. “Cate. It’s Tristan.”
“Oh.” She exhales and the sound bathes my ear. “Sorry, I’m still figuring out how to work this thing. How…how are you?”
Her accent is still there, but slightly less noticeable.
Why does that make me frown?
“I’m well. And you?”
“Very well, thank you,” she answers formally.
I swallow pins and needles. “Are you happy with the new instructors?”
“Yes. Especially the one who brings popcorn. The kind you heat up in the microwave. When she leaves, the whole apartment smells like it.”
“Will work for popcorn?”
She hums. “Oh yes.”
I sit down on my bed and toe off my work shoes, a mixture of calm and urgency inside of me. Calm because I’m finally speaking to my stepsister. Urgency because I want to do so much more. Want to be there with her, feeling her with my hands. Tasting her with my tongue.
I have been working around the clock, because any time there is a quiet moment, I hear her whimpering. I feel the soft, wet petals of her cunt on my fingertips. I feel the twist of her grip on my pants, how she yanked me into the cradle of her thighs. Needy and horny. Perfect. If her mother hadn’t knocked on the door when she did, I would have spent the last week sneaking into that apartment to fuck her. Again and again and again. I would be obsessed.
You are obsessed.
You think of nothing but her.
Every. Waking. Moment.
“Tell me what else you’re learning,” I choke out.
“Pronouncing my words. How to cross my legs like a lady and make small talk about things like vacation spots and holiday plans.” I hear her pacing around the apartment, close my eyes and try to see her. “I’m also learning a lot about local history and how to weave it into conversations. That’s usually when I start to fall asleep.”
I chuckle. “I don’t blame you.”
“You don’t? You must need to know everything about Connecticut history to be the governor.”
“I know more about policy and law. How they pertain to the current residents, as opposed to the past ones.”
She fakes a snore.
I bark a laugh, unable to remember the last time I laughed when it wasn’t specifically for the cameras or humoring a potential donor. “Am I boring you? Fine. Dazzle me with your local history knowledge.”
“Yes, sir,” she says primly, and those words almost make me growl. “I’m told that girls my age will be very interested to know that the woman who wrote The Hunger Games and the woman who wrote Twilight are from Hartford, so I should try and bring it up to engage them, if given the chance. And if I’m speaking to someone older, perhaps they might be more excited to know Katharine Hepburn is from this town.” She sucks in a breath. “If I’m speaking to a man, I should quote Mark Twain and let him take the conversation from there.”
“Why would you be speaking to a man?” I snap.
“I…don’t know. It has to happen sometime, doesn’t it?”
Not if I have anything to say about it. I just manage to keep those words from rolling off my tongue and blurring the lines between us even more, but they’re a vow made in my own head. A solid one. “You’ve managed to remember a lot, Cate,” I mutter, massaging my eye sockets with my thumb and forefinger. “That’s very impressive.”
“Especially considering I don’t know who any of those people are.”
“You will.” I stare up at the ceiling. “This must be like learning a new language for you.”
“A little. But…Mama seems happy. She’s been coming to see me almost every day.”
Not for the first time, discomfort stabs me in the gut. These lessons shouldn’t be about making us happy. They should be about making Cate happy. Are they? “Sweetheart…”
“It’s been kind of weird seeing her all the time,” she half-whispers, derailing my train of thought. “I can’t tell if she’s really interested in me…or if she just feels guilty for walking out when I was in high school.”
A pang catches me in the chest. God, this poor girl, left all alone. Every time I think about it, the whole thing threatens to drive me mad. “I can’t speak to her guilt, but I know she’s glad to be part of your life again.” I pause, knowing I should keep this conversation from going too deep. From bringing us closer when a barrier has to remain in place. But in the end, I can’t deny my thirst to know everything about her. To be her confidant. To be her…everything. “Were you angry with her all this time? Are you angry now?”
She’s silent a moment. “I was angry at first, because we needed her help. I couldn’t care for Daddy and go to school at the same time. But over time…I don’t know, I became glad for her, that she found what she wanted. I decided the anger wasn’t useful. And now…”
“What?”
“I think I see her as more of a long-lost friend, rather than a mother,” she whispers. “Is that terrible?”
“No, baby. Nothing you think or feel is terrible.”
She sighs in relief. “I just don’t much have the need to tell her secrets or ask her advice. I learned how to do everything on my own and stopped needing her. I don’t know how to start again, even though I can tell she wants me to.”
“Cate.” I sit up, wishing more than ever before that she was sitting in front of me. Better yet, in my lap. So I could rock her, hold her tight. “This situation is hard for you. You’re the one who gets to decide how to handle it. Okay?”
“Okay,” she whispers. “I’m sorry for talking your ear off. You’ve probably had a really long day and here I am clobbering you with celebrity factoids and girl feelings.”
Mainly the day was long because I couldn’t see you.
“I love talking to you,” I say gruffly, against my better judgment.
Listening to her soft inhales on the other end of the phone, my cock starts to harden and I have no choice but to reach down and massage myself, like a depraved bastard. One who can’t stop lusting after his stepsister.
“I love talking to you, too,” she says breathily. “Tristan?”
“Yes, Cate.”
“That show came on again,” she whispers. “With the kissing. Remember?”
Jesus, just hearing her say the word kissing out loud has me lowering my zipper and reaching inside, tracing the thick line of my erection. “What about it, baby?”
Several beats pass, her breaths sawing in and out in my ear. “When I watch them kissing and t-touching, it makes me feel funny. For a long time after I see it.”
I press the phone face down on my bed, so the receiver won’t pick up my groan. But this is the point of no return, isn’t it? I’ve already been pushed past the edge. No way to stop myself from guiding us deeper into forbidden territory. “Do you know how to touch yourself?” I ask. “Until that funny feeling goes away?”
“No.”
My head falls back, lust beating like wings in my loins. “FaceTim
e me, baby. I’ll help.”
* * *
Cate
Am I crazy admitting these things to Tristan?
He’s already stayed away for a whole week. If this pushes him further away, it would kill me. But I need someone to talk to about this. This…torturous tickle between my legs. For some reason, I can’t bring myself to broach the subject with my mother. She already looks at me like I’m some kind of science project.
Tristan told me to FaceTime him and thank goodness I learned how to do that yesterday. I press the button now and his face comes up, handsome, unshaven and painted in shadows. Eyes heavy lidded. Behind him is a headboard. He’s in his bedroom? That fact alone brings that tickle back with a vengeance, makes me feel flushed and overwrought. The way I felt when we kissed on the couch, his large body pressing me down.
“Hi,” I murmur, as if we haven’t already been talking for ten minutes.
“Hi.” His tongue travels along the seam of his mouth. “God, Cate, you look gorgeous.”
“Thank you.” My cheeks heat at the compliment. “How are you going to, um…help me from there?”
“Christ, I shouldn’t be doing this.” He laughs without humor. “But if the alternative is driving over there and fucking you in person, this is the lesser of two evils, right?”
I don’t know how to answer that, so I hold my breath and wait, praying he doesn’t decide to end the call. Praying he doesn’t think better of helping me.
“Go to the bedroom,” Tristan rasps. “Take off your panties and put the phone somewhere I can see you. All of you.”
I’ve been sitting on the couch and I shove to my feet now, breathless to reach the bedroom. Once I’m there, I turn in a circle, looking for a place to put the phone. After a failed attempt to balance it against a pillow, I prop it against the lamp on my side table. I can see myself in the small rectangle on the bottom right-hand corner of the screen.
I peel off my panties to the tune of my stepbrother’s groan. Without underwear, I’m wearing nothing but a loose crop top that doesn’t even reach my belly button and he leans forward, his breath turning shallow while he inspects me on the screen.