Score - A Stepbrother Romance (23 page)

W
hat the ever-living fuck
? The gorgeous brunette who’d given me the worst case of blue balls in history last night was
Sophie Ramirez?
My old best friend and neighbor from when I was a kid…Christ, what the hell was going on here? My mind reeled with confusion as I took in the sight before me, and my father’s voice boomed out from beside her a second later. Sophie’s Mom, Marie, trailed behind him, a massive diamond on her hand. Jesus. They really had gotten married. When Dad had called me to tell me the news earlier and invited me to the Ramirez house, I’d thought it was his weird idea of a prank.

“Ah, there you are. You remember Sophie, of course,” Dad said, patting her on the shoulder and beckoning me inside.

A thin smile crept across my face. “Yeah, how could I forget? How’ve you been, Tatiana?”

Her face paled, and her brown eyes nearly bulged right out of her head as my father’s forehead wrinkled.

“It’s
Sophie
, Drew,” Dad said.

I feigned an innocent expression. “Is that not what I said?”

Marie laughed. “No, you said Tatiana.”

I pretended to absentmindedly think things over. “Hmm, I guess I got my words all mixed up. Ah, I know what it is. I was just watching a movie with a main character called Tatiana. I must’ve had the name on the tip of my tongue. Anyway,
Sophie,
how’ve you been? Long time no see. It must be around eight hours since I last saw you! Sorry, I mean eight
years.
”

Two red splotches had appeared on her cheeks now, and she didn’t meet my eyes as she responded. “Um…I’ve been good. It’s great to see you again, Andrew. Or is it Drew now?”

Her voice sounded sweet, but it was tinged with a hint of sarcasm that could only be picked up by someone who knew exactly what had happened between us last night at the hotel. I still couldn’t believe it was her. When I’d first seen those sexy curves and later had those delicious lips of hers pressing over mine, I’d never suspected in a million years that the hottie I knew as Tatiana was actually my old childhood friend, Sophie. And how could I have known? She’d given me a fake name for fuck-knows what reason, and she looked completely different. There was no way I would have ever picked her as the same girl from all those years ago. The Sophie I remembered was kinda chubby with frizzy black curls, an overbite and a shy demeanor. Somehow that little girl had grown up into the goddess standing before me right now.

Judging by the look on her face when I’d walked in, she hadn’t recognized me the other night either. She wasn’t the only one who’d drastically changed. Since we’d last seen each other before me and my Dad moved away, I’d grown about two feet, gained a shit-ton of muscle and lost the shitty haircut and baby-face. I was a completely different person now. Back then, I’d been a stupid little nerd who liked collecting tadpoles and reading books. And now? Now I was the total opposite. Since I’d grown into myself in high school, I’d morphed into the kind of guy who didn’t give a fuck what anyone else thought, which of course made me seem awesome in everyone else’s eyes. The looks and money didn’t hurt either. I’d had girls lining up around the block to try and get with me since I was fourteen, and that wasn’t going to change anytime soon. Thank God for that. Since hitting puberty, I’d loved women, and it was a blessing that they loved me right back.

We all went into the lounge room, and fragmented memories swept through my mind as I took in the faded floral sofa set, the same old lamp, and the mantelpiece above the fireplace where photos of Marie and Sophie sat along with a few figurines. When we were seven, Sophie and I had dug up some clay from beside the creek that ran through our backyards and tried to make a teapot for her Mom. We’d even painted the ridiculous lump it had turned out as, and there it was, in the exact same place Marie had lovingly placed it.

I sat down next to Sophie, who seemed horrified by the arrangement, if the expression on her face was anything to go by. Dad and Marie sat across from us, both of them beaming from head to toe, and I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes. No way was this real. There had to be something else going on here. We hadn’t seen Marie or Sophie in years…or so I’d thought. I’d helped out Dad with his company whenever I wasn’t doing photo shoots or promo work, so I spent a lot of time with him. I would’ve liked to think that I’d have known if he was seeing a woman, but apparently he was better at hiding things from me than I thought.

I leaned towards Sophie and murmured. “So is that what you do for fun, go out at night with a fake identity? Do you solve crimes and do other superhero stuff, or is your area of expertise focused purely on teasing the fuck out of men?”

Her face was bright red now, and she turned her head and ignored me. I found myself wondering again…what the hell was her problem? When you’ve been hitting the nightlife for a while, you learn to read signals from women as easy as traffic signs. And Sophie had wanted me last night. Oh yes, she’d wanted my body pressed up against hers, my lips crushing down on hers, my dick pushing inside her. But just as I’d gotten her out of those clothes, something had changed her mind…and thank fuck it had. I doubted my Dad would be too happy to find out I’d fucked his new wife’s daughter, even if she was an old friend of mine.

Eh, whatever. The last thing I needed to worry about at the moment was more crazy chicks, anyway. My ex-girlfriend Vanessa and I had only broken up a week ago, and dealing with the fallout from that had been enough girl drama to last me a lifetime. Let’s just say Vanessa made Norman Bates look like a nice, normal guy.

“So,” my Dad said. “Isn’t this a fun little reunion?”

Sophie and I both paused and then nodded enthusiastically, not wanting to arouse any suspicion from our respective parents.

“Well, you’re going to have the next three months to catch up on old times,” he continued. “We’re all going to be spending a lot of time together.”

The less time I spent around Sophie the better. Even sitting next to her right now and being able to smell the vanilla scent of her hair was making my cock stir in my pants, and the last thing I wanted was a constant case of blue balls. Even after she’d left last night, jerking off hadn’t helped at all. I just hadn’t been able to cum. There were a lot of girls I could have called to come and lend a helping hand, or rather a helping pussy, but something had stopped me.

“I dunno, Dad,” I replied. “I’ve got a lot of work stuff to do, so I probably won’t have a lot of time. Maybe I could come over for dinner once every few weeks or something.”

His expression hardened, and I got the distinct impression that he was about to give me a lecture. He was a nice, easygoing guy ninety percent of the time, but he wasn’t used to hearing the word ‘no’ from people. I guess I inherited that from him. In the time since his company had grown and prospered, he’d become even less accustomed to not getting his own way, to the point where he
always
did. I literally couldn’t think of the last time he hadn’t gotten his own way.

“Actually, son, you’re going to have to learn to be more flexible,” he said. “Marie and I think it’d be nice to be a family in the short time we have before Sophie heads off to college, so you’re going to be leaving the Medina house and coming to stay in the spare room here for the summer.”

I heard Sophie’s breath hitch beside me, and my eyes narrowed. “You serious?”

I’d spent my younger years in a very similar house right next door to this one, but in the last eight years I’d become a lot more accustomed to a higher-grade lifestyle. This little bungalow had some old-fashioned charm, but it paled in comparison to our place, which was basically a modern castle.

“Yes, I’m serious,” Dad said, his tone noticeably cooler now. “The spare room is a decent size, and it’s only for a few months. As soon as Sophie’s gone, you can go home. Better yet, you could even think about getting your own place.”

For fuck’s sake. Now I wasn’t just being told I had to live here for the summer, I was also being told I should move out entirely and get my own place. I had a job and a trust fund, so affording something decent wouldn’t be an issue, but that didn’t mean I wanted to move out on my own. I had a sweet deal at my Dad’s place. The staff loved me and did basically everything for me, I had my own indoor heated pool and gym equipment to keep myself in tip-top shape without having to go to a public gym, and it was prime real estate for picking up chicks. As soon as they heard that I lived just down the road from Bill Gates, they assumed I was just as rich as him and their panties practically fell off. We
were
rich, but come on…

“There’s already some furniture in there, so you won’t have to move much stuff from your other house,” Marie interjected, giving me a warm smile. “And I’m sure you remember where the upstairs bathroom is? You and Sophie can share that.”

Great.

“Is this really okay with Sophie, though?” I asked in a last ditch attempt to get out of it.

Dad and Marie looked expectantly at Sophie, and she blushed. “Um. Sure, I’d love to have you,” she said. “Err, have you stay here, I mean.”

The flustered expression on her face instantly made me rock hard.

“Okay,” I said, knowing by the look in my Dad’s eyes that I didn’t have a choice in the matter anyway.

He looked satisfied at my response. “Good. Well, why don’t you two go upstairs? Sophie can show you where the spare room is in case you’ve forgotten. After all, it must be…seven or eight years since you were last here?”

“Eight.”

“Yes, well, have fun,” he said, dismissing us with a wave of his hand. Typical. He’d been here all of half an hour, and he was already taking over and ordering us around like it was
his
house.

Sophie stood up and walked towards the stairs without so much as a word to me, and I followed her. She walked down the hall and stopped outside a door before turning back to face me.

“This is the spare bedroom,” she said, tapping on the door.

“Uh-huh,” I replied. “And where’s
your
bedroom? That’s the one I’m most interested in getting into.”

I already knew where her room was. I just wanted to screw with her.

“Don’t be a dick,” she said.

I affected an innocent expression. “What makes you think I’m being a dick,
Tatiana
?”

“Stop calling me that,” she hissed. “God, I can’t believe how you turned out. You used to be so nice.”

I grinned. “I’m still nice.”

“No, you’re not. You’re arrogant, and I can’t stand arrogant people.”

“Hmm, let’s see…last night you approached me with the very clear expectation that I’d automatically want to take you home and fuck you. Yet
I’m
the arrogant one here?”

Sophie didn’t reply for a moment, and my grin grew wider.

She wasn’t exactly wrong in what she’d said, though. I knew I was kinda arrogant, but at least I had the goods to back it up. No longer was I the skinny ten-year old kid who got teased and bullied at school. It was amazing what a few years and a regular strength training workout plan could do. I was still young, but according to one of my most recent lays, I was already a man in the way that mattered the most. I’d been told that I was the kind of guy that women held up as some sort of benchmark that other guys could never reach. The kind of guy who made them feel like they’d been sleeping with boys until they met me. The kind of guy they conjured up in their minds when they lay in bed late at night with their purple Rabbit vibrators.

However, flattering as it was to hear, I wouldn’t really give a shit if that all changed overnight. So I was good in the sack, so fucking what? There had to be more to life than that. To be fair, it helped my rep a lot to have people saying that kinda stuff about me, so I could hardly complain.

“Whatever. Look, let’s just get this straight right now. We used to be friends, but a lot has changed since then. We’re both different people now,” she finally said, her dark eyes flashing with irritation.

I very obviously gazed at her cleavage. “You got that right. You definitely never used to have
those.
”

She crossed her arms, but that only served to push her tits higher. “Grow up. Anyway, as I was saying before you interrupted, we used to be friends but we’re not anymore. So let’s just try to stay out of each other’s way for the next few months.”

“Fine. You know, ‘bitch’ really isn’t a good color on you.”

She glared daggers at me but didn’t seem to have a comeback, and then she flounced away all in a huff. I knew I was being childish. There was no need for me to push her buttons, but something about annoying her made me hard as steel. Back when we were kids, we’d sometimes do stuff to annoy each other just because it was funny. It wasn’t funny anymore. Oh no, now it was more sexually charged than amusing.

All in all, this was shaping up to be a very interesting summer…

I
was having
the most incredible dream. Warm kisses trailed down my chest, and a hot wet tongue lapped at my delicate brown nipples, teasing them until they were stiff nubs. My core throbbed as a big hand spread my lower lips, and I heard a soft groan as a thick finger stroked up and down my slick folds. The finger began to pump into me slowly, making me squirm, and I cried out a second later as the finger left and a thick cock took its place in my warm tightness.

Heated desire flooded me, and I looked up to see a shadowy man buried inside me. It was dark in the dream, but I could make out the outlines of his muscular contours, and I ran my fingers over his chest to curl them around his neck before pulling him down for a passionate kiss. I wrapped one leg around his hips, lifting myself up to a different angle, and then a wild streak took hold of me. I flipped the man onto his back and straddled him, his cock still buried deep inside as I began to move my hips back and forth, enjoying the delicious fullness. I might have been an inexperienced virgin in real life, but in my dreams I was a wildcat.

The man groaned again as I rocked my hips, and he lifted himself to his elbows so he could nip at my full breasts. My breath hissed out in shallow bursts as I rode him, and he dropped a hand to my pussy, rubbing and rolling the sensitive nub between my legs as the growing knot of tension tightened in me.

“Oh yes…” I gasped. “I’m going to come.”

My voice broke away in a moan, and the man muttered something.

“What?” I asked breathlessly.

“Get up,” he repeated. “It’s morning.”

“No…I don’t want to,” I replied as he rubbed his thumb against my swollen clit and tweaked my nipples with the other hand. He leaned forward and moved his mouth over my ear, and then he started yelling.

“What…what the hell are you doing?” I said, pushing him away. He kept yelling, only now it sounded more like shrieking.

Just as I saw the man’s face in my dream, I awoke with a start to the sound of the alarm on my cell phone going off, and I grumbled and switched it off before burying my face in my satin pillow again.

It was Drew.

The man screwing my brains out in the dream had been
Drew.
Ugh, ugh, ugh. What the hell was wrong with my mind? Why was this happening to me?

I’d spent the last week trying to get used to the fact that my Mom was now married to our old neighbor, and on top of that I was being forced to share the house with Drew, my old friend and new enemy. It was so humiliating having him here. Every time we ran into each other on the way to the bathroom or kitchen, he’d call me Tatiana because he knew how much it pissed me off, and I’d remember the shameful way in which I’d speedily dressed and run out of his hotel room. Okay, so giving him a fake name at the club was a bit immature, but I’d had my reasons. It was way more immature for him to keep bringing it up.

The worst part was how obviously attracted I was to him, despite what a douche he was being. I wished there was some switch in my brain that I could flip and no longer feel a thing for him, but instead I had to put up with dreams like the one I’d just woken up from.

Sighing, I showered and dressed for the day before heading downstairs to find my Mom sitting at the kitchen table, dreamily staring off into space.

“Morning, Mom. Where’s everyone else?”

She looked at me and smiled. “Morning, hon. Tony’s at the office, and Drew said he had some early photo shoot at some beach somewhere. I’m not sure exactly where. Do you want some coffee?”

She went to stand up, and I waved my hands at her. “It’s okay, I’ll make it.”

Once I had a steaming cup of joe and a croissant in my hand, I joined her at the table.

“There’s something I’d like to discuss with you,” she said before taking a sip of her own drink.

“Uh-huh?”

“It’s about my land.”

The land she was referring to had belonged to Mom’s family for several generations now, and it had been passed down to her when she became the only remaining family member alive, aside from me. It was a huge expanse of land east of where we lived, and she’d held onto it for two main reasons: sentimental value, and the fact that the land had been essentially worthless up until a year ago. If it had been worth something, she might have considered selling it to help keep us afloat after my Dad disappeared, but that hadn’t been an option.

Several real estate moguls had begun developing the area around it, and we’d been told her land was probably worth a small fortune by now. She still hadn’t sold it, though. It was a beautiful place with a forest on the far side and mountains beyond that, and the only structures that stood on the whole area were a cluster of small wood cabins that had been built by her family years ago.

A while back, a friend of hers had asked to borrow the cabins every summer to set up a small summer camp for underprivileged children, and she’d allowed it on one condition – that we got to help out. As a result, we often headed over there for a few days in the summer with snacks, supplies and a boatload of fun activities for the kids to do. It wasn’t your usual summer camp that lasted for several weeks and had counselors; the adults that worked there did so on a volunteer basis only, and it only ran for a couple of weeks. It was a lot of fun, looked great on my college applications, and honestly, the best part was that it just felt good to do something nice for the community. Call me clichéd, but seeing smiles on the faces of those kids made it all worth it.

“You’re not selling it, are you?” I said anxiously.

She laughed. “Of course not! I’d never sell it. No, it’s about the camp.”

“Oh?”

“Well, a couple of the volunteers can’t start on the day we wanted, so we’re short on adults to supervise. I was thinking that maybe you and Drew could head up there next week and help out? It’d only be for a day or two.”

The thought of having to go camping with Drew made me want to tear my hair out, but I was willing to bet he’d say no to the whole thing anyway. It’d probably just end up being me who went up there to help out.

“Sure, I’ll go,” I replied.

“Thanks, honey.”

I nibbled on my croissant for a moment before looking up at her again.

“Mom…” I said, my voice hesitant. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about as well.”

“What is it?” she asked, her eyebrows knitting together in concern.

I bit my lower lip before continuing. “Sorry to change the subject, but it’s just…I was just wondering if this marriage to Tony is actually legal. You know, because they never actually confirmed that Dad died and all.”

She smiled. “Of course it’s legal, sweetie. Do you think someone who has as many lawyers as Tony has would get married without checking first?”

A blush crept across my cheeks. Of course. It was a stupid question. It was clearly too early in the morning for my brain to be functioning properly. Mom reached across the table and put her hand over mine.

“Your father’s been missing for a little under seven years, and usually the time it takes to have someone declared dead in absentia is exactly seven years,” she said. “But they make exceptions for situations known as ‘imminent peril’. Things like plane crashes, when it’s assumed the missing person probably died. And the boating incident your father got himself into was classed under that. He’s been legally dead for a long time now.”

She never referred to him as ‘your Dad’ when she spoke to me about him. It was always ‘your father’ in a stiff voice. Any other person might not have picked up on such a small detail, but to me it was glaringly obvious. She hated the man, and honestly, I couldn’t blame her. I knew it was an awful thing to say I couldn’t stand my own father, but if people had seen the horrible monster he truly was behind closed doors, then they’d understand.

One of the only people who probably really understood was Drew, as much of an asshole he was these days. Seeing as he’d grown up next door, he’d been all too aware of what went on in my house during my younger years. He’d probably heard my Mom crying, my Dad’s shouts before he smacked her in the face and dragged her by her hair to the ground so he could kick her…and he’d also heard the shaky, wailing sounds of my terror as he crouched in my playhouse with me. The backyard playhouse was the one place I could escape to when I was frightened. The entrance to it was far too small for a tall, heavy man like my father to get into, so whenever I was afraid, I’d scurry into there and turn a flashlight on and off three times. If Drew saw the flashes from his window, he’d make an excuse to his Dad to come next door, and he’d comfort me for as long as I needed.

We never actually spoke about it outside of those moments. It was just something that happened. Most people thought my Dad was a great guy, and they had no idea of the awful things he did to my Mom when they were alone in their home. Although she was short and physically weaker than any man, my Mom was still the strongest person I knew. She’d tried so hard to make sure he never abused me, only her. I didn’t want to hurt her even more, so I’d never told her what he did to me when she wasn’t around to stop him or take the brunt of his anger for me. One time, he’d put a cigarette out on my leg because I’d taken too long to find his favorite ashtray for him. I’d hidden the burn from my mother under a band-aid and told her I scraped my leg falling off my new bike, because I knew if I told her, she’d say something to him about it and earn herself another drunken beating from him.

The day he’d disappeared off that boat had been the happiest day of my young life, as awful as that sounds. I thought Christmas, Easter and the Tooth Fairy had all come at once when my Mom told me he wasn’t coming home. We no longer had to live our lives in terror, constantly walking on eggshells around him so as to not set him off.

“Can I ask you something else?” I said after taking a long sip of coffee.

“Of course.”

“Why didn’t you leave him? All those years and everything he did to you. You could’ve just taken me and run away.”

She sighed. “It wasn’t that easy, Sophie. Trust me, I considered it a million times. He was a nice guy when we got married, believe it or not. A couple of years in, it was like he just snapped. He made me quit my job, he controlled what I wore, what music I listened to, the way I did my hair…everything. Then the physical abuse started. By the time you were four, he was a total sociopath. A far cry from the man I thought I married.”

She paused and then continued. “I told him I was going to leave, and he just sniffed and said we could go, but he’d find us and kill us if we did that. I was terrified he’d go through with his threats. So I stayed. I tried to make sure he never hurt you. For years, I thought about getting us both away and finding somewhere to hide so that he couldn’t get to us, but then he disappeared and I didn’t even have to worry about it anymore.”

Her story made my stomach lurch, and I dropped my croissant, no longer hungry at all.

She looked at me for a long moment and then continued. “That’s why I’ve always tried to stress how important education is for you. I hadn’t finished my degree when I married him, and I had no real qualifications outside of the job I was working at the time, which was an entry-level reception job. When he left and I had to work again to support us, it was very hard for me to get back into the workforce after taking so much time off. I’m lucky I’ve already made it this far in just seven years, but it wasn’t easy having to spend time away from you to do it.”

I looked down at my coffee cup, and she squeezed my hand. “I never want you to go through that. That’s why I’ve been so tough on you when it comes to your studies. But you know I wouldn’t do it without a good reason.”

“I know, Mom,” I replied. I took a deep breath before continuing. “I think…I think I will accept the place Caltech offered me. I know it’s your dream school for me.”

She smiled widely. “So you’ve finally decided? That’s great, honey. I’m so proud.”

Truth be told, I still wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to go to Caltech, or even study engineering at all. I’d always been pretty good at math and physics, but that didn’t mean I particularly enjoyed it or wanted to spend the rest of my life doing it. My real passion lay in writing, and what my Mom didn’t know was that I spent countless hours creating all sorts of different worlds and scenarios for the characters I invented on paper. But that was a pipe dream. For every five hundred people that dreamed of being an author, only one or two ever made that dream a reality. Mom was right. I needed to focus on studying something sustainable; something that would support me if I ever needed it. Writing could just be a hobby for me.

Speaking of that hobby, with all the turmoil in my life at the moment, I was feeling quite inspired. I drained the remainder of my coffee, kissed my Mom on the cheek and then headed back upstairs to my room. I managed to get down a whole three thousand words on my laptop before my cell phone buzzed next to me at around lunchtime. It was Lana.

“Hey!” she said after I answered. “Are you still coming tonight?”

“Tonight?”

She made an impatient clucking sound with her tongue. “Cerie’s cousin is having a party, remember? You’re coming, right?”

Crap. With everything that was going on, it had totally slipped my mind.

“Oh, right. Of course I’m still coming. Can you pick me up?”

“Sure. I’ll be there at about eight. See ya then!”

I spent the rest of the afternoon writing more. When giving writing advice, a lot of authors said that it was best to write what you know, and I was really taking that advice to heart judging by the story that was coming to life on the pages of my word processing program. It was about a teenage girl who’d been thrust into a world of denial and mental gymnastics when she was forced to live with a sexy new stepbrother. Hmm, I wonder where the inspiration for that came from?

All jokes aside, there was one major difference between this story and my real life. In the story, her stepbrother was actually a nice guy deep down, and they were going to have a nice happy ending. There was no way anything like that was going to happen between me and Drew. I was going to keep my head down when he was around and try to avoid interacting with him as much as possible, and when college came around, he’d be out of my hair for good. I’d probably have to see him occasionally at events like Christmas and Thanksgiving, but I could manage that.