Escape: A Stepbrother Romance (16 page)

I woke up at five o’clock in the morning and couldn’t get back to sleep. My body was exhausted and just wanted to rest, but my mind wouldn’t shut up. All I could do was think about Caiden. He confused and frustrated the hell out of me.

One minute he would act like a jerk and the next minute he would support me in front of my friends. Not that they were good friends, and they probably wouldn’t speak to me again, but I appreciated the efforts he went to nonetheless.

It also scared me. I could handle him being a jerk. I knew what to do when he hit on me. My body would react in a frustrating but predictable way and I just had to let my mind takeover. No matter how much I wanted a repeat performance, I knew it was a bad idea. It was becoming harder and harder to refuse him, but at least I knew what I had to do. But when he treated me like a person and showed me respect, it freaked me out even more. I didn’t know how to handle that. I wanted to let him protect me. I wanted him to hug me. To kiss me.

I shook my head violently trying to shake the thoughts from my mind. It was sick. I was sick. He would be my step-brother in a few months. It was bad enough that something had already happened between us; I couldn’t let it happen again. Why did my dad have to become engaged to Sheri? How did he even get a woman as good as her? It was strange enough he convinced Mum to marry him, but to repeat the trick with someone older and less naïve surprised me.

I lay in bed awake for an hour until I heard Sheri and my dad wake up and go downstairs. Almost an hour later, they both left the house and I had the kitchen to myself until Caiden woke up. I grabbed my laptop and took it downstairs to the kitchen.

I preferred to cook food from recipes that had been printed out because my fingers got messy while cooking and I didn’t want to get the food on my laptop. This time my computer would have to do. This recipe was one I had developed personally and I didn’t want to print it out and risk leaving it lying around.

If this recipe went well, it would be the first one on my blog, and I wanted it to be special. I didn’t have a website set up yet or even a blog name in mind, but I knew it would have a focus on desserts. Baking was huge right now, and it was the type of cooking I most enjoyed. Unfortunately, with baking the recipes were hard to get right.

With most meals, if you used the wrong amount of a given ingredient you might still have a good-looking dish at the end of it. The food might not taste great, but you could just adjust the recipe and put the photos up on your blog without needing to redo the entire thing.

With baking, if you got the recipe slightly wrong, like using the wrong amount of baking powder, then the entire thing would look disastrous. The dessert might be too flat, undercooked, or just burned. Either way it wouldn’t look good on the blog. Thankfully, Mum and I had always experimented with recipes and I had a fair idea this one would work even though we hadn’t tried it before.

I looked at the ingredient list on my laptop and got everything out of the cupboards that I would need. There were so many things to think about, I was sure I would forget something. I started the timer so that when the recipe was complete I could give my readers an idea on how long it took to make.

The timer put pressure on me to do things quickly, and I started making mistakes. I put an egg in the wrong bowl and added way too much baking powder to the flour. After fifteen minutes I decided to start again, but this would have to be the final attempt. I only had enough ingredients for one more try.

At 8 o’clock, I stopped the timer and looked around at what I had prepared. In addition to making an attractive looking plate, I’d made one hell of a mess. The kitchen was covered in flour, and in my haste to do everything as quickly as possible, I had not made much effort to put things away after I’d use them.

The kitchen looked like a bomb had exploded—nothing like the kitchen when Sheri was cooking. Not only did she make better food than me, but she was infinitely more organized. I put the desserts in the oven and started tidying up.

I’d been keeping an ear out for Caiden upstairs and just praying that he wouldn’t come down and see me with such a mess around me. I had on an old tatty apron, my hair was scrunched up, and I had food all over me. I looked a complete mess and the last thing I wanted was for him to see me like this.

A door did open, but it wasn’t Caiden’s bedroom door; it was the front door. My dad had come home.

“What’s on earth is going on in here?” Dad asked when he walked into the kitchen.

“Dad,” I exclaimed, wiping my dirty hands on the apron and quickly hiding my laptop when he wasn’t looking. “What are you doing home? I thought you were at work today?”

“I’m working from home today,” Dad replied. “I just had to drop Sheri off in town and I stayed for a coffee. What’s going on, Victoria? Are you cooking?”

When Dad had come in and seen the kitchen I felt like I’d been caught doing something I shouldn’t be doing. I didn’t want him to know I planned to start a food blog and therefore I didn’t want him seeing my first attempt at an original recipe. He shouldn’t have been surprised to see me cooking though.

Mum and I had cooked all the time and I’d kept doing it after the accident. We usually cleaned up before he got home, but he must have known we put a lot of effort into it. Where did he think his dinner came from every night? He must have assumed his meals were all slapped together in ten minutes with no effort.

He made me furious. Not just because he didn’t appreciate the effort I went to, but because he clearly had no appreciation for what
Mum
had done for him. After Mum’s accident he’d started eating after the work in the City and buying lots of takeout food because he was too lazy to cook for himself. And now he had Sheri to do hit for him.

“I’m cooking,” I replied finally. “I do it all the time.”

“Well you’re making a bloody mess. Clean it up would you? I can’t work from home knowing that the kitchen is in this state.”

“Well, well, what is this?” Caiden asked, walking into the kitchen.

“Victoria is cooking, apparently,” my dad said, as if I had made a mess of the kitchen solely to annoy him.

“I didn’t know you could bake as well,” Caiden said. “I know you can work wonders with a sausage though.”

I glared at Caiden and did my best to let him know I was not in the mood for any of his disgusting jokes. My father wouldn’t pick up on it unless we actually started having sex right in front of him, but I still didn’t need Caiden’s shit right now.

“I’m glad you’re both here actually,” Dad said. “I need you both to accompany Sheri and I to a retreat next weekend.”

“A retreat?” I asked.

“It’s an away day for the law firm,” Dad explained. “All the solicitors are getting out of London to do one of these teambuilding things where you climb walls and do team stuff.”

“That’s nice,” Caiden said. “Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, I’m not actually a lawyer, or solicitor, or whatever you call it. Therefore, I will not be joining you.”

“Some of the senior partners are bringing their families along,” Dad said, ignoring Caiden’s sarcasm. “I know that two of the other partners in the running for the managing partner position will be bringing their families so I want to bring mine too. Of course, you will both need to be on your best behaviour, but I’m sure you can behave for one day.”

“I’m not going,” Caiden said. “In case you haven’t noticed, I am not part of the family yet. No offense; actually, fuck that, I do mean offense. I do not want to spend the day with a bunch of old lawyers. Even in this boring old town I can find better things to do than that.”

“Your mother wants you there,” Dad insisted. He knew he didn’t have any power over Caiden, but if he thought invoking Sheri’s name would help then he was likely mistaken.

“Oh,
Mum
wants me there? In that case then I’m definitely not fucking going.”

Caiden bickering with my father gave me time to think of an excuse, but I couldn’t come up with one. The Mandarin lessons I had been pretending to attend did not take place on weekends so that did not make a great excuse.

“I’ve told you to watch your language in this house,” my dad scolded. “You’re not my son and frankly I’m thankful for that, but you are a guest in this house and while you stay here you will not swear in my presence. Understand?”

“It burns you up inside that there is someone in your life you can’t control, doesn’t it?” Caiden said. He was really laying into my father. I didn’t know where Caiden’s hatred for Dad came from, but I was thankful for it. Caiden was saying things I wished I could say. Things that had built up over the years, but that I’d kept bottled up inside.

“Fine, don’t come then,” Dad said. “I only invited you because of your mother, but I don’t want you there either. I need to make a good impression on these people, and frankly you will put people off their food.”

“Vicky, didn’t you say you had plans that day?” Caiden asked. I hadn’t said anything to him, but I could see the look of encouragement in his eyes. He wanted me to speak up to my father, but I froze and didn’t know what to say. “Didn’t you say you were going to cook a big family meal? I know I was looking forward to it.”

“I… I…” I started.

“She can cook any time,” Dad said dismissively. “Besides, she’ll still be cleaning up this mess by the time the away day rolls around. I don’t want to hear any more discussion on this. Victoria, you will be there. Caiden, you will not. End of discussion.”

Dad walked out and left me alone with Caiden who had a look of disappointment in his eyes. I preferred it when he was mentally undressing me.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I said. “It’s easy for you to speak back to him. He’s my father. I can’t talk to him like you do.”

“You don’t have to swear at him,” Caiden said. “Although I have heard you swear and it’s beautiful. Fuck me, fuck me,” he said, mimicking my groans from the night we spent together. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t speak up to him. Why do things you don’t want to do? Life’s too short.”

“Sometimes we do things we don’t want to do to make others feel better. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s called not being a selfish wanker.”

“Screw that. I do what I want. As long as it’s not hurting anyone else I don’t see the problem with it.”

“Bollocks,” I said quietly. The swear word felt awkward on my lips.

Caiden laughed. “What did you say?”

“You heard me. I said ‘bollocks.’ You like to pretend you’re just some carefree guy who does what he wants and who he wants, but that’s bollocks. I’ve seen you watching the History Channel. I’ve seen the thick hardback books on medieval English history that line your bookcase. You enjoy studying history, but you’re too scared to admit it because that might spoil your image.”

“Now who’s talking bollocks?” Caiden said, saying ‘bollocks’ in a bad English accent. “You want to be a chef and yet you’re still going to the University of Cambridge to study some pointless course and become a lawyer like your dad. I saw you earlier. I came downstairs and watched you while you were cooking. You might not have noticed, but you had a smile on your face the entire time.”

“I enjoy cooking,” I said. “But it’s a hobby. We can’t all make a living from our hobbies.”

“Well, I still think you need to spend more time doing things you enjoy. Like me.”

Caiden closed the gap between us so that I could feel his breath on my face. I backed up against the kitchen counter but didn’t push him away.

“Get away,” I pleaded unconvincingly. “Dad could walk in at any minute.”

“There’s nothing to see. Not yet. It’s not like I’m kissing your lips and squeezing those pert titties in my hands.”

“Stop it.”

“I’m not doing anything. I’m not reaching my hand up your skirt and touching your wet panties. My fingers aren’t working their way between your slick folds and entering your tight cunt.”

My gasp as he said that word gave me away. I was dripping wet between my legs, and now he would know it if he didn’t already.

“We can’t do this,” I said quietly. “You’re going to be my step-brother.”

“Who cares? I don’t. I’ve had a taste of your pussy and I want another one.”

“Go and have a cold shower,” I said. I needed one myself, but had a feeling he would try to follow me in there.

“Fucking hell, Vicky. You are driving me crazy and not in a good way. I’m not just going to go away. You want me, and I’m not going to stop until I have you. Just remember that.”

Caiden went upstairs, and just a few minutes later I heard the shower running. My legs were weak, but I ran up the stairs to my bedroom and crawled between the sheets. I couldn’t hold out any longer.

I grabbed my pocket vibrator from the bottom drawer and turned it on before placing it inside me. I used my fingers to rub my clit while the vibrator stimulated my tunnel. The vibrator felt shallow compared to my experience with Caiden. I pulled the vibrator out and finished myself off with my fingers. It didn’t take long, and I was done before the shower turned off.

The vibrator had been a joke present from the girls at school a few years ago, but it had done a good job for me over the last couple of years. Now it felt inadequate. If I had any chance of surviving the summer without succumbing to Caiden I would need something a lot bigger. When the orgasmic glow had faded from my face I went back down to the kitchen and opened up my laptop.