Stepbrother Beloved

CHAPTER ONE

MAGGIE

“WELL,” SHE said, “I think you’re being ridiculous. I mean, sure, he’s your brother. But step, Maggie, step.” She took a sip of her mojito. “And god is he hot,” she murmured, almost too soft for me to hear.

Not that I needed reminding.

One thing I like about my best friend Jamie: she’s never afraid to call it like she sees it. We were at a bar drinking mojitos and talking about Thanksgiving vacation. Tanner was coming home tomorrow. It had been months since I’d seen him, years since I’d spent any real time with him. And I missed him with the kind of pain that got worse once relief was finally in sight.

“So did you meet anyone at school? All those freshman parties can be intimidating…but fun,” she said, with a twinkle in her eye.

“I…I didn’t go to any of them,” I admitted.

“What did you do, spend Friday nights studying or something?” Jamie was incredulous.

“Well, yeah. You know how important it is for me to do well. I want to be climbing that corporate ladder like yesterday, and I’m going to need great grades to succeed the way I want to.”

“Life’s not all about work,” said Jamie, taking a long swig of her drink. “But I think you know that.”

I looked down at the floor, unsure of how much to tell. “I’m just…not in the market for a relationship right now,” I said. “And you know I’m not really a hook-up kind of girl.”

“Mm hmm. I have a pretty good idea what’s stopping you,” she said. “But if I remember right, it was you who started the feud, right?”

“I wouldn’t call it a feud, exactly.”

“Okay then, what would you call it? Didn’t you call Tanner a useless hippie and throw a cupcake in his face?”

Jamie made it sound funny, but I couldn’t laugh. Tanner and I gotten to be best friends as kids—our parents got hitched when we were ten. We built tree-houses in the woods, forts under the bed, and played games all day, every day. But now he was grown up, and still acting like a kid. Still spending all his time running around in the woods, not getting a real job or finishing college.

“I just…I just think that when you get to a certain age, you have to act like an adult. You know, work for a living.”

“But Mags, how is any of this your business? Why can’t Tanner figure out his life himself?”

“Look, you didn’t grow up in our family so you don’t understand. Our parents were total screw-ups. They inherited a decent chunk of money and squandered most of it on stupid investments. Couldn’t hold down jobs because of drinking or acting like jerks. If there’s one thing they taught me, it’s that being responsible is important. It’s number fucking one. So seeing Tanner, of all people, meandering along with no focus…it drives me kinda insane.”

“Mm hmm,” said Jamie. I could see my tirade had not convinced her. And I knew deep down I was being snotty about something that was just a distraction. The truth was that once we hit puberty, Tanner and I had not been able to get along. I would get bitchy, and he would disappear. Just being in the same room with him was so unsettling to me that I would blurt out stupid stuff, and god he could be so annoying with all his environmental Mr. Green talk. Recycling just wasn’t that interesting, not as something to talk about all day. I felt irked just thinking about how he used go on and on about global warming.

And the thing was, we barely saw each other. He was always going off on long trips, hiking this or that mountain range, or at the boarding school he got shipped off to when he was thirteen. Those days of making our own little world of games and make-believe were long over. But we couldn’t seem to figure out how to have a relationship now that we were all grown up, in the rare times we were together.

“Well, I’ll tell you, dear Mags, I think things would be going better for you if you’d just go ahead and get laid. He doesn’t have to be the love of your life, he really doesn’t. Just get that cherry popped and see if you don’t feel a little more relaxed about life.” She looked over my shoulder at a guy coming in the bar. “Take that hunk o’ beef right there,” she said, a little too loud. “He could probably rock your organized, neat little world and pump some joy into it, even if only for a night.”

“I’m not looking for only a night,” I said in a low voice. Jamie periodically went on campaigns to convince me to lose my virginity—and actually, I didn’t tell her this, but I wanted to lose it. My body sure as hell wanted me to lose it. But I felt too loyal to Tanner to be with anyone else. Even though he had no idea how I felt about him.

No. freaking. idea. At all.

And I knew it would never work. It was wrong in ten different ways, so I was never going to tell him.

Noon. That’s what popped into my head the instant I woke up, because that’s when Tanner was supposed to get home. I jumped out of bed and took a long hot shower, soaping myself in every nook and cranny, letting my hands slip and slide over myself, thinking only of my brother.

My stepbrother.

Oh god.

But come on, we weren’t actually related, not by blood. I didn’t think a relationship with Tanner would be any different than one with a hypothetical boy who lived next door, who I’d grown up playing with. Whether our parents would agree, I didn’t know, or care.

I love being naked in the shower, breathing in the steam, slippery as a seal. My fingers found my nipples and gave them a caress, then a pinch. I let my hands run down my ribs, swirl soap around my hips, and then between my legs. Yep, I’m a virgin, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t done any exploring on my own. In fact I’ve been quite the Vasco de Gama when it comes to knowing my body and what it likes. My fingers parted my lips and I used a knuckle to rub against my clit, the skin on my back nearly burning because I had the hot water turned all the way up.

Then I had the inspiration of a lifetime. I got on my back, lying on the floor of the shower, so the water beat down on my pussy, and oh my god I wished I’d thought of it ages ago. The hot water was pulsating on my lips and clit and I rocked my hips into it, loving the feel of the hot water jetting on me. I could feel everything down there swelling, my breath getting shorter, and I stuck a finger in my vagina as deep as I can, hitting the back wall, and I could feel my pussy grip that finger as I slid it in and out, wishing it was more than a finger.

I wondered what it would feel like, having a cock enter me, slam into me, and my breath got even shorter. I pretended the pulsating water was a tongue that couldn’t get enough of lapping me, and that thought brought me right to the blissful edge.

I put my feet up on the tiled wall and let it happen, let the pleasure break over me, slowly moving my hips, imagining Tanner beside me, Tanner climbing on top of me, Tanner’s cock nosing up to my tender throbbing opening and then pushing inside, hard as a rock, and we’re both out of control, delirious and frenzied. The water is streaming off me, my body starts to tremble, and I’m trying to think of some other guy, a movie star, anybody at all…but it’s only Tanner I see, beloved Tanner whose touch I crave.

The orgasm crashed over me and I was shaking and trying not to moan loud enough for anyone to hear.

Oh, god, it was so good. I couldn’t wait to have real sex, it must be so amazing.