Mask - A Stepbrother Romance (30 page)

I gripped her hips tight as she moved back and forth on me, pulling her with each of her gyrations, and she rode me faster and faster, really getting lost in it all. She leaned down to kiss my neck, and I held her even tighter and took the reins, pumping myself in and out of her as she buried her head in the crook between my neck and shoulder. For a moment, all that could be heard in the room was the slapping sounds of our sex and the occasional groan from either of us, and just as I was sure Sasha was about to come again, I pulled out and stopped, growling a command at her.

“Get on your knees.”

She obeyed, arching her back like a cat, and I pushed inside her again, inching bit by bit until I bottomed out. Sasha began to move her hips back and forth, doing the work for me, and I grabbed and slapped her ass as I watched my cock disappearing into her tight little pussy with each movement. Every thrust left my skin buzzing with hot energy, and I took over again, clamping my hands on her curves before slamming my hips back and forth, burying myself inside her over and over. Her whole body was shaking now; the whole bed was rocking, and the headboard was hitting the wall again and again and again.

I didn’t care about the sound anymore; didn’t even care if we got caught. I sped up my movements, fucking her with wild abandon, and I coiled my hands in her hair, yanking her head back for a rough kiss.

“Come again. Come for me,” I murmured when I pulled away from her lips, edging her closer to another orgasm as I slid one hand around to her front and furiously rubbed at her clit.

The slapping sound of our bodies had become wet, and I knew it was from all of our sweat. It had been cool in here earlier, but now the temperature in the room was hotter than ever before, as if it had tripled within the last fifteen minutes. I continued to drive myself into her, pushing her towards oblivion, and the anticipation I felt tightly coiled inside was about to explode. I was almost at my limit when Sasha came again, and her moans were enough to push me right over the edge as pressure built in my groin. Ecstasy crashed over my body like waves in the sea, and every muscle tightened as my cock throbbed and swelled inside her.

Then it was all over, and I was collapsing onto the bed in a haze, sweating and dizzy. I wrapped Sasha up into my arms, and then I wiped the sweat from my forehead and upper lip. Our bodies were clammy and stuck together, hot with perspiration, and she grabbed both sides of my face and pulled me in for a quick, hard kiss.

When she pulled away, I rested my head against her forehead and took in her breathless intensity, and with that, we kissed again, slower and more sensually this time. It wasn’t because we were exhausted from the sex; it was like we’d suddenly become more in tune with one another, and the mood was more affectionate and caring.

Sasha’s earlier anger was no more. All that was left was sweet sensuality.

Emotion swirled around inside me, and I knew whatever I felt was more than just lust. With that realization, my heart began to ache. It wasn’t possible, was it? We couldn’t be together. There was no denying that I fit perfectly inside of her; that our bodies entwined in a way that was just right, but that didn’t mean we could go behind everyone’s backs and get seriously involved with each other.

Sasha finally pulled away from the kiss and fell to the side, and we lay there, breathing heavily for a while without a single word spoken. After a moment, she started to giggle nervously at the thought of what we’d just done, and I joined in. It was a great way to overcome the tension between us, because now that the moment of passion was over, all we were left with was questions.

What were we supposed to do now?

How did we really feel about each other?

What if someone found out what we just did?

The unanswered questions hung heavily in the air, but neither of us spoke them aloud. Instead, we gazed into each other’s eyes for what felt like an eternity, just allowing all of the unknowns to flow between us until Sasha’s eyes flickered shut.

I planted one kiss on her forehead before turning over onto my back and allowing sleep to consume me as well. There was always tomorrow, so we could talk and figure everything out then….if she even wanted to, that is. I wasn’t going to push her. I would rather let her come to me and tell me how she felt, rather than making her feel forced into anything. I had no idea what she’d say, but I did know one thing for certain.

I wanted her, and only her.

Chapter 11

Sasha

“…and this paper will be worth 35% of your overall grade, so I cannot stress to you just how important it is that you find a…”

I listened to the teacher droning on, allowing my head to loll slightly forward on the desk. It was a hot, boring Tuesday, and my Cognitive Psychology class was the last place in the world that I wanted to be. I kept daydreaming about the pool at home, and how good it would feel to take my clothes off and slide into the cool water.

“Psst.” Robin nudged me, knocking my arm off the desk. I flashed her an evil look because she’d almost made me hit my head, but this went completely unnoticed by her, and she simply carried on regardless. “Who are you gonna do your case study on?”

“I don’t know,” I said, groaning dramatically. Ever since
that
night with Logan, I’d been finding it difficult to concentrate on my studies. Well, it’d been difficult to concentrate on anything, really.

I’d woken up early in the morning after that fateful evening to see Logan spread out next to me, snoring gently. I’d watched him for a while, loving the innocent expression he had when he was sleeping—it was so different to his usual jaded smirking. I’d even lightly placed my hand on his chest, feeling his steady heartbeat and the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.

And that’s when it hit me.

Hard.

I was falling for him.

My heart wanted him, and I was developing real feelings for him. Not just lust-filled feelings—real emotions. Succumbing to his advances the night before had made that fact stand out like a sore thumb, and I had no idea how to feel about it or what to do.

If I stayed in bed with him and he woke up, he would be able to see my feelings written all over my face. I couldn’t have that. Things between us were complicated enough without me turning an insignificant one night stand into a much bigger deal. I had no doubt that he did this sort of thing all the time, and that I was nothing more than another notch on his bedpost. All the words he’d spoken to me last night had been music to my insecure ears, but I was willing to bet that he’d said the exact same words to a hundred other girls to get them into bed as well.

If I remained in here, I was opening myself up to all kinds of humiliation.

So I stood up quietly and crept naked across his bedroom floor, grabbing my clothes from where they’d fallen in a fit of passion the night before as I went. Then I retired to my own room, where more than one overly emotional tear had fallen.

I wept into my pillow, but not because I regretted any of it—there was no room for that, he’d been amazing—but because I was so damn confused. Normally I wasn’t a crier, but there was something about the mixed bag of emotions that I was feeling right now that made it necessary. I’d cried until I’d fallen asleep once more in the late hours of the morning.

After that, I’d acted standoffish with him whenever we bumped into one another in the house or at college, just so he wouldn’t know my true feelings. He’d caught on, and he barely spoke to me now, choosing to go out of his way to avoid me. Each cold shoulder stung like hell, and every time I caught his eye, I saw a coldness that wasn’t there before, which told me all that I needed to know.

He was done with me.

He’d had his wicked way with me, and now he was onto the next. Strangely enough, I actually missed the teasing, the pranks, and the constant manipulation. Anything would have been better than nothing. It made me feel so cold, so numb and empty, especially after I’d just been forced to admit to myself how much I liked him.

The regret soon began to creep in. I’d wished more than once for the friendly, flirtatious camaraderie, and now, I even missed the stupid arguments we’d once had. At least they were something.

Now I had nothing.

I kept telling myself to stop thinking about him; to push him to the back of my mind and move on with my life. If he didn’t want me, then he wasn’t worth it. Plenty more fish in the sea, and so on. But his hot, muscular body kept creeping in when I least wanted it, such as in every single one of my classes…

“Sasha? Are you all right?”

Robin brought me back into the present moment, and I instantly felt my cheeks burning with embarrassment.

“Uh…yeah, sorry,” I mumbled, fixating my eyes on my feet. “I was just daydreaming.”

“Hm, okay.”

Clearly she didn’t believe a word out of my mouth, but she was choosing to let it go in the way that only a best friend could. She assumed she’d get it out of me at some point, but I wasn’t going to let her. I couldn’t tell her about all of this; it was just too much, and too damned shameful. After all, Logan was my freaking stepbrother, yet I’d still jumped his bones at practically the first opportunity. It wasn’t exactly incest, but it was still wrong on some level.

“I thought you said you had an idea for your assignment the other day?” Robin asked, still pressing me about the assignment.

“Oh. Yeah, that’s right,” I replied.

Her comment had just reminded me; I’d been thinking about this assignment only last week, and I’d had a brilliant idea.

“I was thinking about doing the case study paper on Lo…er, I mean, my new stepfather, George,” I continued. I’d almost said ‘Logan’s father’ but I didn’t even want to say his name in case Robin somehow gleaned my secret from that alone. “He’s high up in politics, uber-successful and rich as hell.”

“What’s the angle?”

“Well, remember when we read that paper which suggested that successful people are more likely to have sociopathic tendencies, and that’s what helps them get ahead? Of course, I don’t actually think George is a sociopath, but it might be cool to do a psychological profile on him from that angle. I could compare and contrast some of the traits he has that have led to his success with traits that actual sociopaths have?”

I posed it as a question because I really wanted Robin’s advice. This was a slightly risqué project proposal, which could either do really well or fall flat on its ass. Only Robin was brutally honest enough to tell me if it was a good idea or not.

“Oh. My. God.” She punctuated every word, waving her hands around for dramatic effect. “I
love
that idea! Oh hell, now I’m going to have to come up with something amazing, just to try and compete.”

She was talking quite loudly, but the rest of the class was already filtering out of the lecture theatre, so no one paid us any attention.

“Cool. Coffee?” I said, wanting to escape the stifling room too. It was one of our rituals to go and get a tea or coffee after class, no matter how hot it was, and today I needed it more than ever.

“Sure.” She linked her arm through mine. “I think you have some interesting gossip to tell me, anyway.”

With that, she smiled coyly before skipping off ahead.

“What do you mean?” I shouted behind her, but it was too late, she was already gone. A million and one prospects filtered through my mind, but I couldn’t think of any gossip I’d heard that would be interesting to Robin. She only enjoyed it when it was
really
juicy.

By the time I reached the main campus café, Robin was already seated over by the left window with two coffees in front of her. “Sorry, I just couldn’t wait!” she said.

“What are you so excited about?” I asked, sliding into the seat next to her. She was almost bursting, and I had no idea why. She always got this way when she had some exciting information or gossip to tell me, and it always—without fail—made me feel nervous, even when I knew it had nothing to do with me whatsoever.

When she didn’t answer immediately, I raised my eyebrows. “Well?”

Robin sat back, folding her arms whilst giving me a peculiar look—the kind that made me feel like she could see right into my soul. Sometimes I was almost convinced that she could. She seemed to know me better than I knew myself, at any rate.

I suddenly realized why she was being so weird.

This gossip was about
me
.

Oh, shit. Maybe Logan was going around bragging about how he’d slept with me a week ago. Maybe everyone knew, and Robin was mad that I hadn’t said anything to her about it. I guess it was finally time to come clean, even though I wasn’t ready to talk about it.

It’s not like I really had a choice.

“Okay, fine, before you say anything…it’s true. I slept with him,” I said, looking down at my lap as if some sort of answers might be found there.

Robin wrinkled her nose. “Wait, what? I thought…well, that’s not what he’s saying.”

“Huh?”

“Jason Lowry. A couple of hours ago in my criminology lecture, I overheard some girl saying that she’s friends with him, and he told her he went on a date with some girl called Sasha, and something really weird happened with her stepbrother that made him run away as fast as possible. I assumed it was you, because you went on a date with him a week ago, and…well…your name is Sasha and you have a stepbrother, so duh. I’ve been waiting for you to tell me what on earth happened that night!”

My heart sank. Of course. The gossip she’d heard had been about me and
Jason
, not me and Logan.

Robin finally seemed to cotton on to what I’d previously said, and before I could reply, she spoke up again. “Wait, you just said you slept with him. So Jason is lying...you guys
did
actually sleep together?”

My cheeks were practically on fire, and I shook my head. “No. It wasn’t him.”

She wrinkled her forehead. “Then who?”

I leaned forward and whispered his name, my voice barely even perceptible over the buzz of the café. “Logan.”

“
What?
Logan as in
that
Logan? Your stepbrother?”

I waved my hand to shush her as a group of girls flashed us strange looks from a nearby table. “Yes. But keep it down, please. Someone might hear.”

Robin nodded, but she was still struggling to contain herself. “I knew this would happen. I could just tell. So what happened, and when? What was it like?”

“Last weekend. I don’t really know how it happened,” I said. “We were fighting about him ruining my date with Jason, then suddenly we were kissing. Then we were naked, and well…the rest is history, as they say.”

I remembered Logan’s soft tongue trailing all over my body, making me feel things that I never had before. It had never been anything like that with Travis. He’d always made it more about himself, but with Logan, it had felt wonderful to be so desired; so needed. I also remembered the expression he’d had on his face after we’d finished. He’d rested his head against mine so we could look into each other’s eyes, and somehow, that had been even more intimate than the sex itself.

But then I remembered the cold shoulders and the turned heads, and an iciness crept up my spine.

“He’s so hot!” Robin exclaimed. She stared off into the distance for a moment before snapping her focus back to me. “What does this mean now? Are you together? Is it gonna happen again?”

She winked at me, shimmying her shoulders. I was sure she was trying to make me laugh, but it didn’t feel funny at all. I had unreciprocated feelings for Logan, and there was no denying that it hurt like hell.

“No, I think he’s done with me,” I replied. I sounded utterly defeated as I finally said the words out loud. “It’s been weird since it happened. He hasn’t said anything to me.”

“Well, of course it’s been weird. It’s always weird after the first time,” she said, as if this were the most obvious thing in the world. “You need to talk about it. You obviously like him, and you really deserve some happiness after what you’ve been through.”

Travis’ unwelcome face popped into my mind, making me shiver. Was I acting this way because I was so afraid of getting hurt again? What he’d done to me with Becca was terrible, but Logan wasn’t necessarily the same. In assuming he was, I might’ve thrown out the baby with the bathwater.

Then again, it didn’t matter. We were stepsiblings, and it was best that we end whatever dalliance we had, even if that meant nipping something real in the bud.

“There’s no point,” I said with a shrug. “Because of our family. That’s just too huge for us to ignore.”

Sure, we probably shouldn’t have done what we did, but sometimes things were too intense to ignore. That’s how it had been that night, but it didn’t mean it had to happen again. I could control myself…right?

“I guess,” Robin replied. She didn’t look entirely convinced. “But there has to be a way around that. I mean, he’s not your real brother or anything. Have you tried speaking to your mother about it?”

Ha!
Yeah, right
. Even the mere thought of telling my Mom about this filled me with dread. There was just no way she’d be cool with it, and as for Logan’s father…well, that was just another level of awfulness entirely. If the media somehow got wind of the fact that his son and stepdaughter had screwed each other’s brains out, then it could have a serious impact on his political career.

“No, you know how she is…” I began to speak, but Robin was having none of it.

“She wants you to be happy, you know. If you tell her what happened, she might be mad at first, but I think she’ll eventually consider it carefully and put you first. I know you think she wouldn’t, because she can be so flighty and weird sometimes, but I’ve seen how much she loves you. Sure, she may have not always been a perfect mother, but then who is?”