Stepbrother's Secret

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?”