STEPBROTHER Love 1 (6 page)

Chapter 10

Okay… I could do this.

I didn’t need to go hook up with one of my high school cast-offs.

Not that I had enough time to track one down or any of that.  The wedding was in three hours.  I looked at myself in the mirror.  I’d flossed and brushed my teeth, shaved and was ready to shower.

I also had the hard-on to end all hard-ons.

At times like this having a big cock was a hindrance.  If I had a little pecker, then having a raging hard-on wouldn’t be a big deal. 

But since genetics or god bestowed on me one big old cock, walking around in public with it hard was a humiliating prospect.

What was I, an animal, walking around all horned up, with no freaking control over myself?

So there it was, pointing out from my crotch, long, thick, veined like a body builder’s arm, with a gentle upward slope.

And I needed it to deflate and stay that way until after the wedding.

What I needed was a pill, something to keep me from getting a boner.  But sadly you could find someone in your circle of friends to get you Viagra, or something more potent to get you up and keep you up.  But no one dealt with pills to make you flaccid.

Guess there wasn’t much of a market for it.

So, since I didn’t have a girl to fuck, or a pill to pop, I’d have to do it the old fashioned way.

I needed to rub one out.

Not that I didn’t know how to, or hadn’t majored in doing just that every day since the age of nine, but…

But I hadn’t been able to cum while jacking off since that fucking graduation party.

One look and she’d ruined my masturbation life.

I gave myself a few strokes and headed for the shower.  There was nowhere better to stroke yourself off than in the quiet sanctuary of your own private bathroom.  I turned on the hot water and stepped under the steamy spray.

I closed my eyes and imagined the hot spray was someone’s hands, touching me all over.

I poured some hair conditioner in my palm and smoothed it over the head of my cock, and then down along the shaft.  I held my heft in my hand and started stroking.

It felt good, but not great.

I was hard… hard as a fucking brick, actually, but every time I tried to get into the rhythm, to imagine sticking it into one of the girls I’d hooked up with in the past, then my mind would flash to Cali.

Cali was now not only what turned me on, but what turned me off.

“This is fucking ridiculous!” I hissed.

I ground my teeth.

I knew what I needed to do.

If thinking about Cali was keeping me hard, then I’d have to just go with it and think of Cali while I jacked off.

Simple.

Yeah, simple, but… well, for fuck’s sake.  Simple and easy were not the same thing. 

Throwing a half-court shot was simple, but it sure as hell wasn’t easy.

I closed my eyes, leaned back into the hot spray, and started stroking myself.

The memory of kissing Cali slid into my mind like a scene from a movie: vivid, bright, and beautiful.

How she felt in my arms.

How she smelled.

How her lips tasted.

And how freaking hard I’d been.  I could have blown out the front of the shorts I’d been wearing if their fabric hadn’t been a spandex weave.

I felt my cock shudder in my grasp, and my heart started thumping in my chest, just like it had that day in the driveway.

I bit my lip and leaned back against the shower wall. My balls started to pull tight, to get that pleasurable burn they got right before I came.

In my mind Cali reached down and took hold of my cock.  It felt so goddamn good to have her holding me, for her to stroke me through my shorts.

It hadn’t happened that way, but my head had no problem imagining it that way.

“Say it,” the imaginary Cali whispered in my ear.  I could feel her hot breath against my face, could practically feel the brush of her lips.

I wanted to say it.

Just like the climax that was about to wash over, through and then out of me, I
needed
to say it.

The head of my cock tingled as she bit my earlobe.

“Say it.”

“I love you,”  I said it in chorus with the me in my head, and then I shot my load, jets of creamy spunk spurting out of my cock, swirling with the water going down the drain.

I groaned so loudly my throat burned with the effort.  I fell back against the wall and gasped as the last of my seed dripped from my cock.

Someone pounded on my bathroom door.

I grabbed a washcloth and tried to hide my still hard and huge cock, startled to the point I couldn’t speak.

Or maybe that was just the effect of having just come.

“Joshua, are you alright in there?”

It was dad…

Shit!

“I’m fine!” I sounded and felt like a teenager getting caught whacking off.

Guess you always felt that way when your parents and sex crossed paths.

“You sure?”  There was a hint of knowing humor in his voice.

“Yep, I’m sure.” I turned toward the wall and leaned my face into my arm, hiding.

Dad chuckled.  I don’t think he would be in the mood to chuckle if he knew who I was thinking about while I…

Shit, I couldn’t even think the word when dad was near.

“Okay,” he said, “your blue suit is pressed and cleaned, and there’s a new shirt and tie.  They’re on the bed.”

“Okay!”

It got so quiet I thought dad had left.

“Hey, buddy?”

I know I shouldn’t have liked him calling me buddy.  He’d called me that since I could remember.  It was a leftover from childhood.

But it still made me feel good when he said it.

“Yeah, dad.”

“I’m glad you made it.  Wouldn’t have been any good at all without you here.”

My eyes started to burn with welling tears. 

I laughed. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

“Don’t mention it,” was all I could come up with.

Stupid, sad, pathetic me.

“Well,” dad said, “I’ll be waiting down stairs.  We can take my truck, and then you can drive back with Cali in Suzy’s car when we head off for the airport.”

I perked up and stepped out of the shower, wrapping a towel around my waist.

“So I get to drive Suzy’s Camaro?”

I pulled open the bathroom door and smiled up at my giant of a father.  He’d been a star forward at Notre Dame back in his day.  Now he managed people’s retirements.  His colleagues said he was brilliant at it.

Dad got a knowing grin on his square mug.  He’d cleaned up pretty goddamn good.  Not a bit of stubble on his face, his hair slicked back like freaking Superman, and his tux was spotless, wrinkle free, and fit him perfectly.

“You’ll have to discuss that with Cali.  I imagine Suzy already gave her the keys.”

I tried not to let any expression show on my face.

“I’ll bribe her then.”

Dad chucked me in the arm as he walked out of my room.  “You do seem to know what she likes.”

“What?”  I said it too loud and dad turned around and looked at me with surprise.

He shrugged.  “I just meant you did a great job picking out her graduation gift, you really know her.”

Oh, yeah… the gift.

“I guess that’s what a brother’s for,” I said before my mind could consider my words for me.  “I mean, a stepbrother.”

Dad walked over and pulled me into a bear hug, lifting me off the ground and making my ribs and spine creak.  “You were right the first time.” He hugged me even harder.  “You two are like real brother and sister.”

He put me down, held my face and looked down at me with such pride in his eyes, and then turned and walked out of my room, swiping at his eyes as he turned down the hall.

I’m a fucking shit-weasel…

I was going to make that look of pride evaporate right off his face.

I was going to break everyone’s heart.

Including my own.

Chapter 11

Cali

I had never looked prettier.

Beautiful, actually.

In my daffodil dress, with my hair and makeup done flawlessly, and the happy smile induced by being in contact with my mom right then.

Mom was oozing happiness.  It radiated from her like light from the sun.  And I, and everyone around her, was helpless in her orbit.

I just couldn’t stop smiling.

I was exhausted too, so I didn’t seem to have the energy to get worked up over Joshua or anything else that could have gone wrong today.

We were at the church, which was just stunningly gorgeous.  And in a surprise turn, my entire team from Chapel Hill showed up, dressed to the nines, and bearing gifts for the happy couple.

They fussed over my mom, helping her secure her veil, draping the thing down her back as she stood up, and wrangling the train of the dress as she made her way out of the room and down the hall to the Sanctuary.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph all looked down from the stained glass windows.

The church was midsized as churches went, but it was packed with wedding guests, all turning in unison as a harp started playing Pachelbel's Canon.  Mom walked slow and gracefully down the aisle, me in tow.  I tripped about three steps in, but didn’t fall on my face—thank god.

The preacher, Paul, and Joshua stood up front, and as we got closer, I saw that Joshua had indeed cleaned up.  He was clean shaven, hair combed back in immaculate waves, and his suit hugged his body… well, it clung to him way too well.

His eyes caught mine and he smiled.

It was the sexiest, naughtiest smile I had ever seen.

I almost toppled over because of that smile.

My knees got weak again and I swear the room started to fade out to white.

But I shook it off, bit the inside off my cheek as hard as I could, and walked over to stand beside my mother.

I was not going to faint.

No way in hell!

Mom and dad turned toward each other, and I turned with them.

And there stood Joshua, looking hot and sexy and just too beautiful for words.

“Dearly beloved,” the preacher began, and I tore my eyes from Joshua and paid every bit of my attention to my parents tying the knot.

Chapter 12

Joshua

The ceremony went off without a hitch, mom crying as she kissed dad, dad scooping mom up and swinging her around like a rag doll.

They looked so goddamn happy I thought I was on the verge of crying, which would have been just priceless.

But then I looked over and Cali wasn’t standing there anymore.

I looked down and there she was, passed out on the floor.

I dashed over and knelt by her side.  She looked like a freaking angel, her hair flung out in ringlets around her head, her eyes closed and her face serene.

But she was white as a sheet.

Shit
, she hadn’t eaten anything.

“Cali?” mom’s voice called out with immediate worry.

I looked up and tried to dissuade her fear with a smile.  “I guess she forgot to eat today.”

Chapter 13

Cali

My head hurt and my mouth felt like it was full of cotton.

When I opened my eyes the lights seemed really bright, and then suddenly it went dim.

Joshua was sitting beside me, holding my hand in both of his.

For a moment I liked that, and then just as suddenly I didn’t.

He wasn’t supposed to be doing that.

I pulled my hand out of his.

He turned to look at me, those incredible faded green eyes of his homing in on me.

I gulped.

“Good, you’re awake.” He reached over to a table behind him and grabbed a small carton of orange juice and a straw, opening both, putting them together, and then holding it out to me.

I blinked at him.

“Go ahead,” he said, scooting his chair closer, holding the straw to my lips.  “Drink it.”

I raised my hand—boy, that was hard to do, and what was up with the shaking?

“What happened?”

Joshua got this worried look on his face, and then sighed.

“You forgot to eat today, didn’t you?”

I blinked as I tried to remember.  I had a muffin this morning… didn’t I?

“Did I…?”

“You passed out,” he said solemnly.  “One minute mom and dad said their
I dos
, the next you were on the floor.”

I closed my eyes and groaned.

“Don’t worry; I snapped a few pics for posterity.”

I opened my eyes and glared at him.

He held up his free hand. “I swear, I didn’t do anything but pick you up and carry you in here.  Someone had some glucose gel in their purse, so I squirted some on your tongue.  I sent a couple of your teammates out to Arby’s for a sandwich and fries for you.  They’ll be back soon.”

He held the orange juice back up to my lips.  “So please drink this.  It will make you feel better, and when mom and dad come back in here in a minute, they won’t freak out at how bad you look.”

I took a long drink of the cold, sweet juice.  “How bad do I look?”

He smiled, that sexy, aggravating smile of his.

“Good enough to eat.”  He blinked and got this surprised expression on his face.  “I mean, you just look a little pale.”

I took the juice from his hands and finished drinking it.

Joshua sat there, looking nervous.  Looking sinfully gorgeous.

Looking like he was going to say something that would blow up in our faces.

I needed to get up and get out of there.  So what if I’d passed out at my parents’ wedding?  I’m sure that wasn’t a rare occurrence.

Well, I guess there were fewer people doing it at their parents’ weddings, but weddings in general had to be a hot bed of fainting.

I looked at him, still surprised at how handsome he looked.

“You cleaned up well,” my mouth said before my brain could veto it.

“Well, our parents only get…
Christ
, I can’t say it with a straight face.”

We both laughed, and I started to feel better.

“Tell me they finished before I…” How to say it?

“Before you hit the floor?”

Yes, that’s exactly
not
how I wanted to say it.

“Yeah, they had kissed and everything by then.”

Thank you god.

“But they haven’t done the whole marching back up the aisle as man and wife yet.” He scrubbed the back of his neck with his hand.  “They’re not going anywhere until you’re able to go with them.”

My heart zinged with their love, pounding happily in my chest.  But then it fell to the floor.  Someday, someday soon, I was going to kiss this man again.  I was going to kiss Joshua again.  And when I did…

I’d tear apart our family… again.

I felt tears well up in my eyes.

Joshua leaned in and brushed one of those tears from my cheek as it fell, leaving his hand there, warm and comforting, against the side of my face.

The sound of someone turning the ancient doorknob broke us from our reverie, and we moved apart as if we’d practiced it a million times.

Mom and dad rushed through the door, both still dressed like the bride and groom from atop a wedding cake.

“Thank god,” mom said as she hugged me and kissed my forehead.  “You had us so worried.”

“I’m sorry I passed out at your wedding,” I said, my voice hoarse with bottled up emotions.

Someday I’ll explode.

“No worries,” Paul said from behind mom.  “It was getting pretty boring there for a while.  Your nosedive livened things up.”

I looked to my mom imploringly.  “I fell on my face?”

Mom smiled and shook her head.  “He’s just joking.  You were lying on your back.”

“Looked like you were sleeping,” Joshua said, his voice gravelly, his eyes focused on me.  “A sleeping angel.”

Mom blinked and she and Paul turned to look at Joshua.

I glared at him.

He tore his eyes away from me—it seemed with some difficulty—and closed them as a rueful expression took over his face.

When he opened those eyes again there was a playful spark dancing there.

“You know,
Little Miss Tightly-Wound
would always look angelic.  It’s just her thing.”

I heaved a silent sigh of relief.

Then Joshua leered as he said, “She’d
never
do anything naughty.”

Bastard…

Paul held his hands up in a time out signal.  “Okay, you two.  It’s still our wedding day, so keep on getting along, okay?”

Joshua gave me a long, intense look, his expression softening around his eyes.

“Five by five,” I said.

Joshua rolled his eyes.  He knew I was a
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
fan from way back.

Paul turned and looked askance at Joshua.

Joshua leaned back in his chair and raised his hand.  “I swear to behave for the rest of the day.”

I noticed his other hand was almost covering his crotch.  So was he swearing on his…

I closed my eyes and mentally berated myself for thinking about his…

Oh, Jesus Christ!
  Could I think of
anything
besides his crotch?

I heard my inner voices giggling as my cheeks started to burn.

My inner voices were mean, hateful bitches… they were also apparently two years old.

“Well,” Joshua said, sotto voce, “at least her color is picking up.”

That’s it!
  I was going to strangle him the second I got him alone.

***

The thing about passing out at your parents’ wedding: everyone tries to feed you everything in sight for the rest of the stinking night.

Yes, I’d forgotten to eat, causing my blood sugar to drop and for me to hit the floor with a resounding thud.  That hour long work out to Daily Burn’s crazy exercise lady probably didn’t help at all.  And the stress: from the wedding and seeing family and friends…

And Joshua…

And Joshua…

Joshua.

I was hungry when we all finally made it to the reception.  Mom and dad made me sit at their table while Joshua foraged/gathered two heaping plates filled with chicken, roast beef, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, dressing, boneless ribs, buttered rolls, and gravy on absolutely EVERTHING.

I was filled to the point of bursting within fifteen minutes.

The bad thing was that since I was so full, I felt lazy and didn’t feel the need to get up from the table.

So every ten minutes or so some well-intentioned aunt, uncle, niece, teammate, or
perfect stranger
brought me a plate of food, a sugary dessert, or a glass of orange juice.

By the time I finally digested my first meal enough to venture getting up and walking around, I was surrounded by at least twenty plates of food.

Wouldn’t you think, if a girl was surrounded by that many plates of food, that you wouldn’t be getting her any more food, any more plates?

I got up just as my aunt Marie brought me a plate of stuffed peppers.  I begged off and headed for the back of the dining hall.  I needed to go to the restroom.  I needed to freaking lie down and never eat another thing for the rest of my life.

“And where do you think you’re going, princess?”

I stopped in my tracks and cursed the god that presided over aggravating stepbrothers.

“Just taking a much needed bathroom break,” I said as I turned to face Joshua.

“Aha…”  He crossed his arms over his chest…

What a nice chest.

I put my hands on my hips and stared at him with open hostility.

“I don’t need any company while using the restroom.”

Joshua smirked, maybe one of the most irritating expressions I’d ever seen.

“You sure about that?  I can be all kinds of useful in cramped, tight spaces.”

“I bet you are,” I said.  I wanted to smack him again.

I wanted to smack him so hard that he’d fall over backward, landing on his head and exploding into a cloud of powder-fine dust.

But Joshua still followed me to the ladies’ room, and waited for me outside.

I took care of business, and felt pretty good until I caught sight of myself in the mirror.

I was still pale like two percent milk, and I had smudged mascara under my eyes.

I cleaned off the black with a wet paper towel, but the pale would not come off no matter what I did.

Joshua was slouching against the wall outside the restroom.  He looked dapper and charming and so delicious.

I closed my eyes for a beat, trying to remember why I was mad at him, and then shot him my most venomous glare.

Amazingly, he didn’t collapse or run in fear.  He just popped up on his feet to his full height and then offered me his arm.

Huh?

“I thought, since you’re not in danger of passing out again right now, that we could have a dance.”

I just stared at him, my mouth falling open.

A subtle change came over his face, and suddenly I saw a raw, vulnerable Joshua, his eyes showing hurt.

“I’m not good enough,” he said, looking away. “Is that it?”

Not good enough?

It hurt my heart to see that pain on his face, to hear him say those words.

He was best guy I knew.

He was my brother, and I loved him so much.

I reached out and took his hands in mine, pulling him out onto the dance floor, and entangling his arms around me before drawing my arms up around his neck.

I looked into his eyes as the music played a slow, pulsing song I was pretty sure was on the
Fifty Shades of Grey
soundtrack.

“Never say that again,” I whispered, and then rested my head on his chest, feeling his heart beat against my cheek.

Whether I should or not, I was falling in love with my stepbrother.

And no matter what anyone thought, there wasn’t a better man in the world.