Fade Back (A Stepbrother Romance Novella) (5 page)

I
t was only
a few blocks to Fitz’s apartment, a surprisingly light space above an old upholsterer's shop. So that's why he smells like fine leather, Becka thought as he led her up the stairs and into the airy loft. The night sky blinked above them through the skylights, and as at Dickie’s, Fitz’s framed designs hung all over the walls. They were barely through the door when they were all over each other again, lips interlocked and legs intertwined, leaning against the doorway and grinding their hips together through their all-too-clothed legs. 

They were breathing heavy, fumbling with flies and buttons and buckles, desperate to feel the heady press of flesh on flesh. She tore open his shirt, snaps clacking and buttons tearing loose from their moorings and clattering across the hardwood floors of the apartment. 

"Do you want me on
this
floor?" Becka grunted happily as Fitz’s calloused hands pulled off her shirt and gripped around her back, unclasping her bra. 

"I just want you. Wherever you are." And he dropped to his knees and slid Becka’s jeans and panties down, his tongue immediately lapping at Becka’s pulsing clit, sliding between her soaked folds, hands running up her abs. She looked down to see Fitz gazing back up at her, tongue buried inside her, his painfully erect member long and starkly pink against the flooring. 

"Don't make me come too soon this time. Oh, Fitz, those were four very lucky gals…” Becka moaned, writhing in ecstasy against the raw brick wall of the apartment. She let herself slide down the wall until she was kneeling beside Fitz. They both dropped to the floor onto opposite sides and, almost synchronized, buried their mouths between one another’s legs, him—again in her pussy, her—swallowing his turgid member, gripping tight buttocks with urgency as they entwined in the most frenzied sixty-nine.

Fitz extricated himself, and while Becka continued sucking him, he reached for a condom from the sideboard drawer. Becka watched from her vantage point in Fitz’s lap and squirmed in anticipation. It was a brief moment after the wrapper tore and she watched the sheath sliding down Fitz’s cock, and after a farewell lick she grabbed his legs and pushed him onto his back. Becka straddled herself above his hips and lowered her aching sex onto his impressive length. Fitz gasped and clutched at the wall behind him, that sexy throaty grumble escaping his pouting lips, just egging Becka on. He held her gaze, and Becka drove herself again and again up and down his length, watching the colors on his skin dancing in the bleak light of the hallway. His eyes pleaded for Becka to keep going, to ride again and again, before she could stand it no longer, sliding her fingers between her folds, with her hips spread over his stomach, shuddering when she came. Seeing her so overcome with pleasure, Fitz could hold back no longer, and as she continued grinding on his manhood, he filled the rubber up to bursting. He whimpered like a puppy as Becka slid off, still gently squeezing her breasts, tweaking her nipples and trying to avoid her fresh tattoo. 

She leaned down and kissed him, and Fitz opened his arms to enfold her, pulling her against his hirsute chest as they both gasped for breath.

"One of these days, I'm going to get you all the way to a bed,” Fitz sighed, and Becka giggled in his arms before twisting around to face him. 

"You could get me to your bed right now,” she murmured and kissed him deep. It was still a few minutes before they managed to scramble up and make their way to the bedroom, but when they got there, they didn't leave again for hours and hours.

T
he next morning
, the sunlight streamed through the skylights, and Becka could smell coffee and toast wafting up the galley stairs to the bedroom, an open platform perched above the living room. Fitz’s home was even more elegant than Becka had half-remembered in the flurry of last night's passion. Tasteful and understated, with a certain grungy flair, Becka lounged back on impossibly fine sheets and wondered where a man like this had been hiding. He was a stone cold fox and a catch to boot. And that body... they'd barely slept as it was, the grey light of dawn creeping up on them as they lay toying with one another, positions and configurations leading their kaleidoscopic twirl across the bed. As Becka had discovered more and more about this heavenly body before her, she found herself falling deeper and deeper into that thing she'd been calling lust.

But she knew lust. This wasn't just a lust. The smells and sounds of breakfast drifting past her, made by a man she wanted to ravage and be ravaged by... she felt like she might be able to call this love. It seemed crazy to her. She hadn't known him a week ago. Though wasn’t it how any relationship had to begin? With people you’ve only just met? But now, all of a sudden, Becka couldn't imagine her life without him. Without seeing him, feeling him, eating breakfasts made by him, Becka’s whole life to this point felt like a memory. She knew she'd come back to her senses eventually, but for now, she just allowed herself to be totally, madly, besotedly crazy in love with Fitz, and it felt amazing. She hugged a pillow tight and smelled his shampoo mingling with what was definitely bacon. Bacon. Her new boyfriend was bringing her bacon. This was too incredible. 

It didn't take long for Becka’s nagging interior monologue to start spoiling her enjoyment. As an anxious and introverted child, she'd given that nagging voice too much leeway, and even now she had trouble silencing the unbidden thoughts she most feared barging in and trampling her bliss.

Yeah, but how long before you screw it up? That 'four women’ thing was probably some line, and you fell for it. He didn't even need a line with you, you're so sad and desperate for him, you'd have gone home with him no matter what he said. He just likes toying with you. Because you're a silly little girl and you don't know what you're doing. 

Becka lay on the bed and could do nothing to stop it when her mind began racing through worst-case scenarios. Here she was, being laughed out of Fitz’s apartment.

Or settling down and getting fat.

Letting him tattoo her neck and forehead.

Having a baby.

Abandoning her own life and everyone in it for Fitz.

Watching TV and eating bacon.

Getting cheated on.

Of all these worst-cases, that one was the worst. It wasn't something Becka had worried about up till now, not since her high school boyfriend had cheated on her. She didn't commit to anyone since then, or them to her. She didn't have boyfriends. But it was different with Fitz. She couldn't imagine feeling this close, only to discover some other girl was as close as him. That anyone else would share what she was sure they were going to share.

This being Becka’s first real experience with jealousy, she went a little overboard with it. But because she was alone in a strange bed, she couldn't get up and just start cleaning like she would in her own home. She just had to ride out all these hypothetical situations and deal with her sudden investment in another person's business. With this storm brewing inside her, it was inevitable that when she noticed Fitz’s phone beside the lamp, blue speck of light glowing, she reached for it. 

It was none of her business. Of course, it wasn't. But still...

She ignored the new notification, just Karen checking some schedule thing or something. She moved on, barely conscious of her actions, to the message history. She didn't know what she was looking for. Old girlfriends? There were only four. Proof of promiscuity? They’ve only known each other for a week. What then? She had no idea, but she was compelled to keep scrolling, to find something, and if she'd paid closer attention to what the voice in her head implied, to try to ruin this. Three seconds into a potential relationship, and here she was, trying to find some reason to ditch it. 

But what she found in the pictures folder shocked her so much that she didn't hear footsteps on the stairs. She was eyeballs-deep into an album dryly titled ‘Mother’ when she heard Fitz’s throat clearing behind her. He stood in a pristine black flannel robe holding a tray covered in assorted comestibles, and a skinny vase with one crimson poppy, red as a sheep's heart, teetering on its spindly stem. He appeared faintly bemused, but acutely disappointed as he looked down on Becka, who was so shocked she couldn’t squeeze out a single word. 

"Find anything interesting?" Fitz asked, his tone giving away nothing as he set down the heavy breakfast tray. 

“I… I'm sorry. I didn’t… I mean…”

"It's fine. I mean, it's a massive invasion of privacy for someone I just met but, yeah, I get it. You're not trying to steal my bank account numbers are you? No? Well then, cool, I guess."

“Fitz, did you… did you change your name at some point in your life?” Becka asked, her voice shaking.

“Oh, did you see some messages from my mother on there? Yeah, she calls me Jerry. My full name is Fitzgerald, you see. I go by Fitz in my professional circles, so all my friends now call me Fitz. But I’m babbling. Are you okay? You seem pale.”

"I don't know."

“Are you worried that I have a dual life or something? I'm a regular guy, don’t worry. And you’re good—you totally swayed the course of this conversation from your snooping through my phone into my name changes.”  Fitz’s tone was harder than Becka anticipated, crystallizing under her still shocked gaze. "Look, I get it. You're curious. You want to know about me. But all you have to do is ask. I will tell you. I have nothing to hide and I don't lie. I think maybe you're just a little young and green to understand how things can work with grown-up relationships and interactions..."

In this moment, every one of these words sounded like they were in a fog. Hours later, long after she'd torn through the apartment's tiny lobby, pulling on her jeans and her t-shirt, she'd realize Fitz had no clue why she left.

She cleaned her apartment top to bottom while she frantically thought of what to do next. Then she sent an email to Dickie’s Emporium canceling her appointment for the following day.
Coward
, she thought as she emptied her dishwasher,
you couldn't even call
.
You sent an email!
But Becka just couldn't face Fitz. She felt like an idiot, and that wasn't something she was used to lately. She was used to
not
feeling like an idiot, and that's how she wanted to feel now. She reached for her phone and ignored the missed call from Dickie’s Emporium. Instead she typed in Jerome’s name and asked where they'd be partying that night. Jerome replied immediately that he'd come right over to get ready. Becka replied that she was just jumping in the shower and would leave the front door unlocked. 

Anything to distract her from the truth she’d discovered on Fitz’s (no,
Jerry’s
!) phone. The truth that he was her long forgotten stepbrother.

B
ecka refused
to think of what to do about her discovery. Her father, with whom she had a standing once a week brunch date each Sunday, was away on a business trip to London, so she didn’t want to bother him. He’d been married two times since Becka’s mother passed away when she was only five. The first time, he married an evil bitch named Mandy, when Becka was seven. That union wasn’t long-lived—only one year—much to Becka’s relief. The second time her dad married, three years later, it was to an overly educated college professor Eleanor, who moved into their suburban home and took full control of their up-to-that-point blissful life. She had a son, who was seven years older than Becka. Jerry. Or Fitzgerald, as Becka now realized (did she ever know his full name?). Her then pimply and skinny eighteen-year-old stepbrother didn’t get along with his mother and spend most of his time at his dad’s, so it was no wonder that neither of them even recognized each other now. Once he’d graduated from high school, he’d moved away to a different state and never visited, having completely forsaken his relationship with his mother. And Becka now realized she had forgotten that her father’s second wife’s last name was Dixon.

She didn’t blame her stepbrother for not getting along with his mom, since she never managed to find a common ground with her stepmother either. As far as she remembered, Eleanor kept in touch with her son via emails and occasional texts, and a few times she’d flown out to see him.

Judging by the photos Becka had found in the ‘Mother’ folder on Fitz’s phone, their strained relationship never recovered. All the pictures were old, and none of them showed the mother and the son together.

Her dad never mentioned Jerry either, so it was no wonder that Becka had no clue who Fitz was when she came to his tattoo studio.

But what to do now? She’d had sex with her stepbrother. More than once. Eleanor was going to blow her lid when she found out. And what about dad? What is he going to say?

Which is how Becka found herself getting ready to go out again. To force the unending questions out of her mind. To stop obsessing about what to do. Because she had no clue.

Fitz was probably right about her being just a kid. This was what she knew, and she couldn't change just because some cute guy had a few heart-warming insights about her personality. She was a party girl. She liked dancing. She liked flirting with cute guys and drinks and VIP lounges. She liked taut pecs and thin shirts and pretty faces. She was going out tonight, and Jerome was helping her get ready. Becka tried to ignore the realization that in place of Jerome’s black eyes she persistently saw Fitz’s swampy green ones, and simply loaded on more pre-going out drinks.  

They rolled into Lux looking good, and more than a little drunk. Becka ordered more than she usually would and knocked back another drink every time she thought of Fitz. She avoided vodka-cranberry. None of the gorgeous assembled men knew her well or cared enough to notice. She danced like she usually did, enthralling swarms of of the sexy and not-so-sexy denizens of the dance floor. 

The lights were a feast for her dazzled senses, and the lasers cutting lurid fans across the smoky ceiling made Becka forget, as they always did, any cares and worries beyond her immediate needs. She needed to drink and dance and forget, to rub against strangers and be adored. She kept her crew close in tow as she raced from bar to bar, room to room, floor to floor. Lux was a massive complex, and Becka felt determined to re-discover every inch of it, to root out every gorgeous man in the place and flirt with every last one. She didn't just
want
this: she needed it.

Her phone beeped, incessantly it seemed, with messages from Fitz she was in no state to check. The night grew fuzzier and so too did her memories of these messages, the texts swimming before her eyes until she couldn't be bothered trying to decipher them. She still didn’t know what to do. 

Her party-girl conscience was drawn to its wants: another drink, another song, another guy to flirt with. Her party-girl conscience buried all that doubt and complicated fear and paved it over with new level ground on which it built its fantasies. And so, almost miraculously, the pervasive fear of the unknown Becka felt ever since she left Fitz’s place was transformed into yet more evidence of her awesomeness.  

After one more drink, she said to herself over and over, she'd go home and try to figure out what to do, to make it right, to be mature. But then another great song would come on, or some guy would be staring at her all puppy-eyed and grinding through a chorus with her, and she'd lose herself to it again.