“Are you feeling alright?” I asked, one eyebrow cocked.
“Am I feeling alright?” she asked, barely holding herself back from screaming at me from the top of her lungs. “You do realize that she was a client of mine, yes? Meaning that she holds me responsible for her date going so poorly?”
“It isn’t that big of a deal,” I said, trying to wave it off. “Plenty of fish in the sea, and all that, yes?”
“No! Tristan you can’t do this! You came to me so that I could help you get yourself married, and yet the first woman I set you up with you practically brush off when she offers to blow you? You of all people refused sex from a willing woman?”
“We’ve been over this, Gwennie. I just wasn’t feeling into it, that’s all,” I said, glaring at her as I sauntered over to her kitchen. “I have every right not to want to have sex with anyone I choose for any reason I choose.”
I couldn’t deny that Gwendolyn had done well for herself, her apartment was enormous, and impeccably decorated in a fashionable modern style. I’d hardly had the time to find myself a proper place to live that was truly my own, instead invading one of our family’s less used properties in London.
“You don’t get to make that excuse when you’re the one who wants to find himself a wife!” she said, raising her voice.
I could already feel myself stirring.
“You’re going to apologize to Patricia and hope to God she gives you a second chance,” Gwen said, her face red.
“I don’t think that I am,” I said, opening up her fridge to see what she might have that I could drink. After what I’d just gone through, I knew I needed something to dull my thoughts. Sadly, the wine bottle my stepsister had been happily drinking before my arrival was all but empty. “I didn’t fancy Patricia, and I don’t think that she’s what I want in a wife.”
“Oh? And what exactly are you looking for that Patricia doesn’t have?”
“She’s not you, for one,” I said as I shut the refrigerator door.
I shouldn’t have said it. It was a stupid, insensitive thing to say, not just because it was inflammatory, but because I hadn’t thought the consequences fully through. I hadn’t spared a moment to imagine what that confession might be like on Gwen’s ears, or on her heart. Sure, I’d known for a while now that I wanted my stepsister, that I craved her in ways that were entirely unsuitable, but she didn’t know that.
Or did she? She blinked at me, hard, clearly surprised. But not shocked. Not staggered. The look on her face almost seemed to say, “You too?”
We stood in silence for a few moments, one that was weightier than I could handle. I had to say something to break it. I was never one for emotionally charged moments, especially not where the promise of sex was concerned.
“Well, I suppose this puts us at an impasse,” I chuckled.
But Gwennie didn’t laugh. She didn’t even smile. In fact, she looked downright pissed at me, like sharing a joke with me was the last thing on her mind. Like wringing my neck was the first.
“Don’t even joke about that,” she hissed, stalking away from me, eyes wild. “Jesus, Tristan. If anyone were to hear you…”
I snorted. “What, is your flat bugged?”
“With you here, it might as well be,” she answered, casting a furtive glance out the windows. “No doubt a fair few paparazzi followed you here tonight. And you never know what lengths they’ll go to.”
“Oh, yes, what a scoop,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Duke’s Son Once Again Cocks Up a Date, Goes to His Sister’s to Have a Whinge. I’m sure it’ll sell out nationwide.”
“Stepsister,” she reminded me, and I narrowed my eyes.
“Who are you reminding here, Gwennie? You, or me?”
Gwendolyn didn’t answer that. She pursed her lips and turned away from me. Thanks to the towel turban holding her hair back, I could see that the tips of her ears were turning red. Her chest was flushing the same color. I wondered where else the blood in her body was rushing. I knew my own pulse had culminated in some very intimate places.
“Look,” I said, trying to sound more gentle than I was feeling, “we need to talk about this. We never discussed—”
“There’s nothing to discuss,” Gwendolyn put in, but I went on.
“—what happened before I joined the Royal Army. What happened between us.”
I remembered it well. And no matter how much Gwennie tried to hand wave it away, I knew she remembered, too. The way her eyes glazed over when I brought it up made me certain of that fact.
Absently, she touched her lips, as if she could still feel the way my breath had been upon them in that cramped, hot pantry. Dear Lord, I’d wanted to devour her in there, hold up her tiny body against the shelves and just dive face-first into her virgin cunt. Maybe if we’d had a few moments more, that’s exactly what I would have done. I’d been a stupid boy back then, though, and I’d strutted out of there before she could give in, certain she’d follow me. I’d underestimated how stubborn my Gwennie could be. It seemed she’d only grown more obstinate with age.
My Gwennie. Shit, did I really think of her that way? Or could I chalk it up to an errant imagining, one I wasn’t totally responsible for? I knew which one I’d like to do, but what would be the truth? It’s easier to lie to yourself if you can at least suss that out.
“That was a long time ago,” she said, though the way she stared at me I could have sworn we were right back there, the both of us so ready to take one another that we could taste it. I could still recall the way she felt against my lips, how her skin had turned to goose flesh beneath my soft and caressing touches. “We were still kids.”
“Like hell we were,” I said, shaking my head as I recalled just how adult the two of us had felt back in that pantry. I could tell by the way Gwennie’s body fit against me that we had been by no means children. “We were most certain not behaving like any children I’d ever met… though I always did love playing doctor.”
“You’re such a bastard,” Gwendolyn spat, though the look on her face told me that she immediately regretted it. It was cute how much she cared for my feelings, cared about how I felt about my place in the world. “I’m sorry… I didn’t mean—”
“I know what I am, Gwen,” I said, leaning against the door of her refrigerator. “I’m not ashamed it, not like my father is. I’ve been told so many times that the word has lost all meaning to me.”
“Still, I was insensitive,” she tried to reason. “I shouldn’t have called you that.”
“And just how do you plan to make it up to me?” I asked, smiling down at her as I took a step closer. Our young bodies pressed together. I summoned the memory of her hand down my pants, holding on to my pierced cock. I could almost feel the sensation—her firm, but timid grip.
“You always know how to turn something innocent into some disgusting innuendo,” she said, shaking her head, though I spotted her lips turning up at the corners and knew that she was enjoying herself.
“It’s a special talent of mine, actually,” I laughed, drawing nearer to her once again. “One of many that I’ve already offered to show you.”
Her face flushed with color, turning it away to hide what I knew was a smile from me. Though as I pressed my body against hers, it was a gasp that escaped her lips, short and high-pitched like a mouse. I adored that gasp more than she could understand. It brought back all the memories I had of my playful, lusty games that all led up to that night.
“That offer’s still open,” I whispered into her ear. “The one I made to you all those years ago. All you have to do is take it.”
“We can’t,” she whimpered. God, we really were replaying that night, weren’t we?
Only this time, I wasn’t going to make the same mistake. I wasn’t going to let her use our reputations as an excuse. I wasn’t going to take “we can’t” for an answer—not when everything she did, from the way she looked at me to the way her body sang in my arms, told me she wanted to. That we could.
Hell, that we ought to.
“Come on, Gwennie. We’re alone. No one’s going to see. Your mum isn’t going to walk in at any moment and ruin the fun, and she never has to know. Nor does my father. We’re not teenagers anymore.”
“I thought you said we were adults back then, Tristan,” Gwendolyn murmured, squirming as I slid my prick up against her, forcing her to understand the weight of what she did to me. Her body grinding against it, however involuntarily, wrested a low groan from my throat.