Текст книги "Redemption: A Stepbrother Romance"

Автор книги: Jessica Ashe

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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

The man flashed a grin at me as he walked out of the convenience store clutching a large box of condoms. Caiden? It couldn’t be him. I’d been seeing his face everywhere since I lost my virginity to him last week. I must have been imagining things.

Caiden couldn’t be here. Not in my local corner shop a hundred miles from where he was staying in London.

There was no mistaking that grin, though. It screamed ‘I’m a cocky, arrogant, arsehole who’s in love with my own reflection.’

That grin had charmed most of the girls I went to school with, and a few of them even ended up going back to his penthouse in London for drunken one-night stands.

So had I. He’d grinned at me like that when I’d undressed in front of him last week just before he took my virginity.

Snap out of it Victoria, you’re imagining things. Caiden was living in London for the summer and would soon be returning home to America. Why would he be in my sleepy little town?

“You okay, Victoria?” Betty asked, as she took the bread, cheese, and cold meat from my shopping basket.

Betty had been working in this shop for as long as I could remember. When we first came here as a small child, Betty had owned the small, independent store, and she worked seven days a week all year round.

At some point, a big supermarket chain had noticed the prestigious piece of real estate in Windsor and had purchased the shop from Betty. I’d felt sorry for her at first. She’d cried when they took the sign down and changed the name, but a few weeks later she looked noticeably happier. She only had to work five days a week now and she once told me she preferred being bossed around than being the boss herself.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Thanks, Betty,” I replied.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Betty said. “That’ll be £7.65.”

“I’m just tired from the journey home,” I said, as I slid my debit card in the chip and pin machine. Caiden was no ghost. A ghost wouldn’t have given me the best night of my life. I shuddered as I thought back to the moment he entered me; temporary pain quickly giving way to wave after wave of pleasure.

I hadn’t done much that first time other than just lay there. He had done all the work, but he was the expert after all. I made up for it the second time. And the time after that.

“I’m sure your father will be delighted to have you back home,” Betty said. “I always ask after you whenever he comes in here, and he tells me how well you’re doing at school. I hear you’re off to uni in a few months? Cambridge is it?”

I nodded. I hadn’t told my dad I’d been accepted by the University of Cambridge, but he’d already gone around telling everyone about it as if it were a done deal. Typical.

“Yes,” I replied, taking the food and slipping it into my backpack. I looked behind me to check that no-one was waiting to pay. “This might sound like an odd question, but did the last customer have an American accent?”

“I don’t know,” Betty replied. “He just put the condoms down and paid without saying a word. Come to think of it, his card wouldn’t work in the pin machine and I’d never heard of the bank on the card. I guess he could have been American. I know one thing about him though.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

Betty motioned for me to lean in closer. “He’s got one hell of a nice arse and he’s just bought a big box of condoms. Why don’t you go out there and introduce yourself?”

“Betty!” I exclaimed, immediately blushing red like I was still the virgin I had been a week ago. “I’m not going to sleep with some strange guy.” Not again. Never again. “Especially not one covered in tattoos.”

Betty shrugged. “You’re going to university soon. You’re bound to do it sooner rather than later. I’ll tell you this, none of the boys at Cambridge—and that’s what they will be, boys—will get your blood rushing half as much as a man like that.”

How right she was. Caiden had done things to me that I didn’t think were possible and for the last week I had been trying and failing to replicate that experience myself. I hadn’t even come close.

“I won’t tell your father,” Betty added. “Just promise me you’ll try to live a little this summer, okay? It’s the last few months of freedom you’ll have in a while.”

“I promise. But I might stick to hanging out with friends and cooking, instead of… doing that other stuff.”

Betty smiled and shook her head. “If you make any of those pear muffins again, you be sure to stop by. Don’t be a stranger.”

I left the store and looked around for Caiden. I must be going mad. It was basically impossible for him to be here. He never left London and on the rare occasions I had spoken to him, he had made his disdain for the English countryside quite clear. Windsor wasn’t the countryside, but it was a relatively small town and to Caiden they were all the same. For him, it was London or nothing.

I couldn’t see Caiden. I sat down on a bench and tried to reassure myself that he wasn’t here and that I would never need to see him again.

In three months, I would be going to the University of Cambridge and would leave my old life far behind. No more all-girls school, no more uniform, and no more bumping into Caiden every time my friends insisted on going to a club. I would happily never go to London again if that’s what   it took to avoid Caiden.

I opened up my backpack and took out the letter that I had kept immaculately pressed between two cookbooks that I’d brought home with me from boarding school.

The envelope had the University of Cambridge logo in the corner, so there had been no mistaking what was inside. The official acceptance would come from UCAS soon after, but Cambridge insisted on writing to all applicants separately if they were accepted.

I looked at the letter again. The dean praised my application using generic language which he clearly sent to all applicants and then confirmed that I had been accepted for a place to read—not study, read—Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. PPE. The same course my dad had taken decades ago.

At the bottom of the letter, the dean had scribbled a few words next to his signature. “I loved your personal statement. You’ll be a great addition to our university.” That was a nice touch, but I couldn’t shake the suspicion that he wrote that on every letter.

My personal statement had been one of the strongest parts of my application. My expected A-level grades were two A stars and three As. Good grades without a doubt, but fairly standard among Cambridge applicants.

My personal statement definitely had an emotional element to it. I wrote about my experience after my mum was nearly killed in a car crash. She’d spent months in intensive care and, even though she was now out of hospital, she had never been the same since. She’d get better one day, but that could be years away.

My dad had somehow arranged for a divorce the second she was deemed capable of giving consent, and I’d chosen to live with him. Not because I got on with my father better than my mother—I couldn’t stand him most of the time—but because my mother could barely look after herself. I didn’t want to inflict more pressure on her while she recovered.

I stood up and began the short walk home. My bag was heavy with the books and food, so I decided to run across the busy street by the corner shop instead of walking up to the crossing. A gap in the cars appeared, so I quickly darted across, my head constantly looking both ways.

I made it two-thirds of the way over when I saw Caiden again. Only from behind this time, but it was unmistakably him. I’d recognize the triangular shape of his back anywhere and the tattoo on the back of his neck was visible even from fifty feet away. He was walking in a different direction to me, but that was him.

A car horn blared and snapped me out of my trance. I was still standing in the middle of the street and a car had come to a screeching halt in front of me. Well done Victoria. You’re mother’s nearly killed in a car accident and yet you decide to stop in the middle of a busy street.

I waved a hand apologetically and skipped to the pavement. I turned to look at Caiden again. He’d turned around and was now walking straight towards me. He was looking down at his phone and hadn’t seen me.

I lowered my gaze and kept walking back towards my house. My hand gripped hold of the Cambridge acceptance letter and I tried to focus on the task at hand. My father had summoned me home for an urgent meeting, but I had news of my own to tell him. I didn’t want to go to Cambridge. I didn’t want to go to university at all. Not yet at least. Maybe not ever. That was going to be tough news for him to take.

I approached another road to cross. In just a few minutes I would be back home. Back in my childhood house for the first time since Christmas. The road was quiet, but I still flicked my head both ways before crossing. Nothing like nearly being run over to make you more cautious crossing the road.

My right foot moved to step out onto the road when I felt a finger tap me on the shoulder. I stopped and turned around. Caiden. I looked straight into the deep blue eyes of the man that had taken my virginity a week ago. The eyes that I’d gazed into as I orgasmed with a man for the first time.

“Hi Vicky,” Caiden said. “You miss me?”

–

“What are you doing here?” I snapped at him through gritted teeth. No-one was around to hear us, but you never knew if there was a nosey neighbour looking out the window.

“You were much more pleased to see me last time,” Caiden said, his grin still lighting up his smug face. “If I remember correctly, you walked in and started getting undressed immediately. By this point I could already see those pert little titties of yours. Are you going to get your tits out for me again? I wouldn’t mind another look even though they are a bit underwhelming.”

Underwhelming? He hadn’t seemed underwhelmed with them last week. He hadn’t been able to take his hands off them. I thought back to how he grasped them firmly while I’d been riding him. His thumb and forefinger squeezed my nipples until I moaned and dug my nails into his chest. He’d sucked greedily on them and even used his teeth on my nipples as they stiffened in his mouth. I’d pressed my nails deeper into his chest as the pain shot through me, but I never told him to stop. I didn’t want him to stop.

“You need to get the hell out of here,” I yelled, not bothering to keep my voice down anymore. “Why are you following me anyway? How do you even know where I live? Are you stalking me?”

“You really think I’d stalk you? You have a high opinion of yourself, don’t you? I don’t make a habit of chasing after women—they chase after me. Even if I did, I certainly wouldn’t bother with you, although given how little you moved that night, I reckon you’d be quite easy to catch.”

“Why are you following me then?” I asked. I tried to ignore his insult, but it rang true. The first time we fucked I’d just lain there and let him have his way with me. I had been so overcome with what was happening, it hadn’t occurred to me to do anything. I’d more than made up for it the second time though. And the third. Hadn’t I? He’d seemed satisfied enough at the time, but I was probably kidding myself. How good in bed could I have been compared to all the more experienced women he usually slept with?

“I told you, I’m not following you.”

“You just happen to be in my home town on the day I am coming home for the summer? That would be one heck of a coincidence.”

“Stranger things have happened,” Caiden said. “Like a silly little virgin coming up to me and asking for sex even though she’d seemed like a stuck up little madam before.”

“I wasn’t a virgin,” I lied. I hadn’t wanted him to know, but it had probably been obvious. Perhaps I should admit to it. At least then I would have an excuse for not being good enough in bed.

Why did I care what he thought of my performance? The entire point of that night had been to loose my V plates to someone I didn’t care about. It’s not like I wanted to sleep with him again. Did I?

“You were a virgin, but that’s fine. I consider it part of my civic duty to deflower as many English virgins as possible before I go back to the US.”

“Why don’t you just shove off back to the States then? I think I speak for all English women when I say we don’t want you.”

“ ‘Shove off?’ ” Adrian asked, mocking my choice of words. “Aren’t you the polite one. I think the words you were looking for were ‘fuck off.’ You remember that word, right? Fuck?”

“I don’t need to use vulgar language to get my point across,” I replied, crossing my arms over my chest and pushing up my tiny breasts in the process. Not that he could see them anyway. I wore a cardigan that was buttoned up enough to completely cover my chest even though it was easily warm enough to go without.

“Oh really? In that case, when I took your virginity you should have been saying ‘oh yes, put your penis inside my vaginal canal with more speed and pressure.’ Was that what you said? I’m sure it was more along the lines of ‘oh yes, fuck me. Fuck me. Harder, harder.’ ”

I cringed as I thought back to the third time we’d fucked that night. The second time I had been on top of him and ridden him hard, but I’d still not said a lot. The third time, something had come over me and I’d moaned in the same way porn stars did. Presumably.

What if someone in the room next door had heard us? I must have sounded like a complete slut.

“I’m going to walk home now,” I said slowly. I was blushing furiously, but there wasn’t much I could do about that so I ignored it. “Don’t you dare follow me.”

“Vicky,” Caiden said as he grabbed my wrist.

I turned and yanked my hand free from his wrist before placing both hands on his chest and pushing him hard. He stumbled back with a shocked look in his face and ended up in the bush behind him.

I nearly apologised out of habit, but then forced a smile and turned for home. My childhood house was located off the main roads and down a long driveway. We lived on the outskirts of town, and with such a long driveway we were fairly secluded from most other houses. I often saw envious looks from nearby residents as they peered up the driveway to catch a glimpse of the house and the surrounding land.

As I walked up the driveway, I noticed a second car parked next to my dad’s silver Mercedes. My knowledge of cars extended to recognizing the difference between some with three doors and some with five, but that was about it. This car looked brand new and more expensive than my dad’s which meant he would soon go out and buy a new one soon. He hated having friends with a nicer car than his.

The new car had the familiar logo of a rental company on the back window. Rented cars were a familiar enough site around London, but not many tourists came visiting our little town.

I dug my keys out of my bag, but the front door opened before I needed to use them. My dad stood in the doorway and beamed with pride at seeing me return. Something must be wrong. Dad never looked at me like that. He would never say as much, but he didn’t actually like having me at home. I got in his way. The last time I’d come back he’d completely forgotten about it and gone on a golfing holiday to Italy with some friends.

“Victoria, welcome home,” he said with feigned enthusiasm.

It was then I noticed the woman standing behind him. A blonde lady, with a generous bosom, and an even more generous helping of make up. My first thought was that she looked like a TV personality. My second thought was that I recognized her. I was right on both counts, although I mainly knew her face from books not television.

The woman smiled at me and held out her hand. “Hello Victoria, I’m Sheri Ramsden.”

“I know who you are, Ms. Ramsden,” I replied, shaking her hand excitedly. “I’m a big fan.” Sheri was a famous chef and I had one of her cookbooks in my bag right now. I just barely resisted the temptation to ask for her autograph until I knew why she was here.

Sheri looked over my shoulder and her face turned sour. “There you are,” she said sternly. “Where have you been?”

I looked over and saw Caiden standing there openly holding his box of condoms.

“Don’t panic, I’m here now,” Caiden said calmly, walking into my house as if he owned the place. “So what was it you wanted to talk about? This had better be important, Mum.”

Dad ushered us all inside and told Caiden and I to go and sit in the lounge. I didn’t intend to be alone in the same room as him, but when Sheri walked in as well I decided it would be safe to follow.

Dad went to make some cups of tea for everyone, which immediately put me on edge. Dad was acting far too nice; he never made tea, even when we had guests. When Mum was around he would tell her to do it and now that she no longer lived with us he would usually have me make the drinks.

Sheri sat down on the middle of the sofa, but didn’t look entirely comfortable. She wouldn’t look at either Caiden or me and she kept picking at her fingers as if nervous.

I sat down in the armchair that used to be Mum’s favourite seat and Caiden sat on the ottoman. He immediately pulled out his phone and began typing away as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Surely he must be wondering what was going on as well? Or did he already know?

I’d grown up in this house yet right now I felt like a stranger, especially with Sheri sat to my left. I’d admired her ever since I started taking cooking seriously and it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that I wanted to be like her one day. On any other occasion I would be delighted to have her in my home, but Caiden had ruined that for me.

He didn’t even have the decency to take his shoes off before coming inside. How could he be Sheri’s son? Sheri always looked immaculately dressed and, while that was sometimes for the camera, she still carried an air of sophistication about her that was the polar opposite from the debauched way Caiden looked and dressed.

In addition to the tattoo on the back of his neck, I could also see the ones going down his entire right arm all the way to the wrist. I thought back to when I had first seen him naked and remembered that the arm tattoo was connected to the one on his neck. He also had a tattoo on his right calf although that was covered by his jeans at the moment.

Next to Caiden on the ottoman was Caiden’s large box of condoms that he had just thrown down there as if it was just a pack of gum. We’d only had sex a week ago and I distinctly remembered there had been at least five condoms left in the packet when I bailed from the hotel in the morning. Obviously he hadn’t been lying when he said I didn’t keep him satisfied.

I felt a twinge of jealousy in my chest as I pictured him with other women. I didn’t care about the ones before me. I’d picked him solely because he had experience with other women. Well, that and the biceps that my eyes couldn’t look away from. And the muscular back. And the messy, dishevelled hair that just begged for me to run my hands through it. Just those things.

I ached as I pictured other girls pulling his hair as they fucked. In my head, I heard Caiden tell them how much better they were than me. He probably screwed them in all sorts of positions we never got to like ‘doggy style’ and… other ones. They’d probably given him head too.

Why hadn’t I given him a blow job? I’d been so selfish. No wonder he had to get his satisfaction elsewhere after me. I remembered going down towards his penis and seeing it close up after we’d screwed. It was a good job I hadn’t seen it in its full glory before he put it inside me; I’d have chickened out and run a mile.

I’d heard the rumours of him being well-hung, but I hadn’t known what well-hung truly entailed. Say one thing about me, when I do things, I don’t do them in half measures. I didn’t lose my virginity to a fellow virgin with an average penis. I lost it with an experienced guy with a monster cock.

Finally Dad came back into the room carrying a tray with four cups of tea on it. I raised my eyebrows at my dad’s shoddy attempt at impressing his guests. He clearly still had no idea where the nice china was, so the four tea cups were all mismatched mugs of different shapes and sizes. He brought out some biscuits and encouraged Sheri and Caiden to dunk the biscuits in the tea “as is traditional in England.”

Dad had never dunked a biscuit in his life. If he had, he would have known that you don’t give Rich Tea biscuits to someone inexperienced with the art of dunking, which encompassed most Americans. That was just asking for a “Code Spoon” situation. At least let them get started on Hobnobs or Digestives as a practise run.

Fortunately Sheri rejected the offer of biscuits while Caiden just shoved one in his mouth without dunking. My father smiled awkwardly at him and sat down close to Sheri. Very close to Sheri as it turned out.

“Thank you both for coming today,” my father began. Was he speaking to Sheri and Caiden? Or me and Caiden? “As you have both no doubt noticed...” he trailed off as he caught sight of the box of condoms. Caiden just stared at my father as if it were the most normal thing in the world to plonk a box of condoms down in a stranger’s house. “As you have no doubt noticed, we have a big announcement to make here today.”

He was talking to Caiden and me. The big announcement was coming from Dad and Sheri. I might have been a virgin as of just seven days ago, but I wasn’t completely naive. Sheri’s knee was nearly touching my dad’s and the way they were angled towards each other meant I shouldn’t have been surprised by what I was about to hear.

“Sheri and I,” Dad said slowly, “have been spending a lot of time together recently and have grown rather fond of each other.”

Oh God, don’t say it. Don’t say it. I glanced over at Caiden, hoping to see him looking as horrified as I felt, but he just smiled at me. He knows what’s going on and he doesn’t care. He thinks it’s funny.

Sheri looked like she was about to speak next. The whole thing had clearly been rehearsed so that they could take turns. “Royston and I—” Sheri started, before Caiden interrupted.

“Your name’s Royston?” Caiden asked, incredulously. “Fucking hell.”

“Caiden,” Sheri snapped. “Watch your language. Royston and I,” she stared at Caiden, challenging him to make another comment, “are an item.”

“I asked Sheri to marry me,” Dad said, taking hold of Sheri’s hand. “Much to my surprise and delight, she has agreed to do me the honour of becoming my wife.”

“You’re getting married?” I asked. Even though I had predicted what my dad had been about to say, actually hearing the words leave his mouth had been a shock, and my words sounded unusual as I asked the obvious question.

“Yes, dear,” Dad said. He never called me ‘dear’ but apparently being nice to me was part of this new dynamic we would have to get used to.

“So we’re all... family now?” I asked.

“Don’t worry sweetie,” Sheri said. “I have no intention of replacing Stephanie.”

I didn’t care about Sheri replacing my mother, because there was no way in hell she could ever do that. I admired Sheri and would probably grow close to her, but she wasn’t my mum. As long as I kept in touch with Mum and spoke to her regularly, Sheri would never take that role from her.

Dad had been slowly removing all signs of Mum from the house anyway. All the old furniture that she loved and cared for while Dad was at work, was being replaced by new, modern pieces that felt out-of-place in our old home.

No, I didn’t care about Sheri replacing my mum. What I cared about was sitting to the right of me. Caiden pursed his lips and blew me a kiss when Dad and Sheri weren’t looking.

He was loving every minute of this. What’s more, this news clearly hadn’t come as a surprise to him. Caiden was the type of guy to take everything in his stride, but even with his reckless, carefree attitude, news as big as this should have come as a shock. But he knew. How long had he known for? Had he known when we slept together?

Caiden had been reluctant to sleep with me. That had come as a shock. He didn’t have any standards as far as I could tell, and yet that night he had hesitated. Surely I couldn’t be that repulsive?

I had a slim figure and even though my breasts were small they were at least pert. I got more than enough wolf whistles walking down the street to maintain some degree of confidence in my figure.

Had he hesitated because he didn’t want to have sex with his new step-sister? Why the hell had he let this happen? I shivered and felt a sudden—and urgent—need to throw up. I didn’t care about my dad marrying Sheri. I’d long since ceased caring about what Dad did. But Caiden as a step-brother? That was too much.

“Are you okay?” Sheri asked. “I know this can’t have been easy for you to hear, but we didn’t know how else to break the news. Your father wanted to tell you over the phone a few weeks ago, but I thought it would be better in person.”

A few weeks ago. A few weeks ago would have been perfect. If I had known a few weeks ago I would never have slept with Caiden. I’d still be a virgin, but at least I wouldn’t have slept with my… I couldn’t even think it.

“Yeah, sis,” Caiden said, drawing the short syllable out longer than I would have thought possible. “It’s not that bad having me for a brother is it?”

Dad and Sheri were looking at me, so Caiden took the opportunity to bring his fingers close to his mouth in a V-shape before running his tongue between them.

I quickly crossed my legs as I thought back to that night as he buried his head between my legs and ran his tongue up and down my slit, exploring my folds before sucking gently on my clit.

It hadn’t taken me long to come. I’d finished on his face and had seen the visible evidence of if as he came back up to kiss me. I made him wash his face first, because I’d been repulsed at the thought of tasting myself on him.

Now he was sat there reminding me of what he had done to his step-sister. He might have hesitated before agreeing to fuck me, but he’d obviously decided to go ahead and screw me anyway.

“Don’t call me ‘sis,’ ” I said, through gritted teeth.

Our living room was huge and yet right now it felt smaller than the dorm room I’d spent three years in and only just escaped. Blood rushed to my head as I struggled to focus. All the chairs in the room seemed to be squeezed together. Dad and Sheri were staring at me with concerned looks on their faces, but Caiden was just grinning.

“But you are my sister now,” Caiden said. “Don’t worry I’m sure we’ll get to know each other and come to be best of friends.”

I stood up on weak legs and the room came back into focus. Everyone was sat down calm and collected as they had been this entire time. I took a deep breath before speaking again. “I am not. Your fucking. Sister.”

Dad screamed at me for my choice of words, but I heard Sheri tell him to lay off as I fled into the kitchen for a glass of water.

I can’t be his sister, or stepsister, whatever it’s called. I can’t be, because if I’m his step-sister then that means he is my step-brother.

I quickly drank a glass of water which helped with the dizziness, but not with the reality of what just happened in the living room. No glass of water would change the fact that I had lost my virginity to my step-brother.