Mask - A Stepbrother Romance (4 page)

“I’m an ass who’s still got your panties, though.”

I folded my arms across my chest. “Why are you being such a prick? You don’t even know me!”

“Funny, because a second ago you were flying off the handle and accusing me of definitely knowing you, and saying that was the only reason I hooked up with you last night. I think
you’re
kind of the ‘prick’ in this scenario, wouldn’t you say?”

“Wow, you found the world’s thinnest argument, well done,” I said, my voice tinged with sarcasm.

He smirked. “So am I calling them or not?”

I gritted my teeth before letting out an embarrassed sigh of defeat. “No. I’ll be….
nice.
”

Jace grinned widely. “Good. Now let me show you to your new room.”

I narrowed my eyes and followed him up the main staircase, wondering what would happen if my Mom actually found out about what happened last night, and the thought left me ice-cold. She would be freaking
pissed.
It could ruin her upcoming wedding, and I didn’t want to be responsible for that. We’d always had an amazing relationship, and I didn’t want to mess that up—along with her relationship with Gerald—over one drunken night of passion with Jace.

“Here’s your room,” he said once we’d reached a doorway on the third floor, right near the stairwell.

“Thanks,” I mumbled.

“Thank my Dad. He’s the one who put you right next to my room,” Jace replied with a wink. “Anyway, I’ve gotta take a shower. Your stuff isn’t here yet, is it?”

I shook my head, and my heart sank as I pictured myself trying to sleep every night, knowing that Jace was only a few feet away. Even though he was clearly a sociopathic asshole, he still had the exact same effect he’d had on me last night…that crazy, panty-melting feeling, like I wanted to strip down right in front of him just like I’d started to do last night, whether he was my soon-to-be stepbrother or not.

As I went to open the door to my new room, he leaned closer to me, and for a second, I thought he was going to kiss me. I drew back, but then I felt him sliding something into my hand instead, his fingers brushing ever-so-gently against mine; so gently that I wondered if it had even happened. My hot, tingling skin, wildly thumping heart and the pink panties in my hand were proof that it had, however.

“I was only kidding before, to get a rise out of you,” he said. “I wasn’t really going to use these as some sort of stupid blackmail device. Your secret is safe with me.”

Hmm…maybe he wasn’t such a sociopath after all. Twisted sense of humor, but not a future serial killer.

“Oh, um….thanks,” I said. He turned to leave, and I called out to him, making him look back over his shoulder. “Wait. Isn’t it
our
secret? Like you said earlier, it takes two to tango.”

He grinned and winked at me. “Touché.”

For the first time today, I felt a real smile quirking my lips up. Jace was a bit of a jerk, but he was still quite amusing. So maybe living here with him wouldn’t be so bad after all…

Chapter 4

Jace

I couldn’t help but smile to myself as I walked away from Rayna. She was witty; I had to give her credit for that.

I hadn’t planned on playing games with her when I’d first grabbed those panties off the floor this morning—hell, all I’d wanted to do was find her—but the minute I
did
find her and comprehended the fact that she was about to be my stepsister, I hadn’t been able to resist playing with her. Her reddened face as she tried not to remember me over lunch was just far too adorable, and she’d made it so easy for me. There was no way I couldn’t have messed her around a little. It was too funny.

I glanced around my bedroom, surprised to see that everything was still exactly where I’d left it since I’d last visited around eight months ago to catch up with friends. I suppose I couldn’t be too surprised that Dad had ignored the room and left it as it was. It wasn’t like he cared about clearing out my junk and converting it into yet another guest bedroom when the manor already had two entire floors of guest bedrooms. The place had an insane number of rooms, and the whole estate reeked of someone with far too much money and no idea what to do with it all.

Yup, that was my Dad.

There’d been a point where I’d been a bit like that—eager to flash the cash from my trust fund with no consideration of where it had come from, just to impress people and make them think I was fucking ‘cool’ or whatever. But I wasn’t like that anymore. I couldn’t be that shallow after all that’d happened in the last year or so.

I let out a deep sigh and wished once more that I hadn’t had to leave my Mom’s place last week. I’d always felt far more welcome there than I did here at Dad’s, and it was a shame that everything else was so fucked up for me in that city. I’d been determined to change things for myself while I was there, but my plan hadn’t quite worked out, and there was nothing I could do about that now, so it was time to unpack and to accept that I was back in London for good. It may not have been what I wanted, but I could still make the best of it and start over.

I showered and began to unpack, and just as I’d finished hanging the last of my clothes in my wardrobe, I heard my phone vibrating on one of the bedside tables where I’d left it earlier. As I picked it up, I noticed a familiar face flashing on the screen—the face of a friend I hadn’t seen in quite some time.

I only hesitated for a split-second before answering. “Hello?”

“Jacey boy!” came the overly-excited reply from the other end. “It’s Roy. I heard you were back in London. Please tell me this is true, because I’m back in the city too!”

Roy sounded so happy to speak to me that I couldn’t help but smile.

“Well, well, well….if it isn’t Roy Cummings. You heard right, I’m in London now. Scotland was a proper washout.”

Roy and I had been friends all throughout school, and we’d gone on to have some very wild parties as we’d grown older and gone off to our first year at university in Manchester, where we’d both elected to study in order to put some distance between us and our parents. There’d been lots of booze and other illegal substances involved—too much, in fact—but it had been a lot of fun. We’d had some damn good times and made some amazing memories together.

We’d drifted apart in the last year when I dropped out of my course and moved to Edinburgh to stay at my Mom’s, because I’d wanted to separate myself from all of the temptations that uni life held for me. It had just become too much, and I actually wanted to make something of my life…but that hadn’t exactly happened. Edinburgh had been ten times worse. I’d managed to find a job, but I’d fallen in with the wrong people almost right away, and my uni days had suddenly seemed tame in comparison.

I’d always had trouble with retaining self-control. Maybe that was the real reason I was playing these stupid games with Rayna—if I didn’t, I’d have no distractions, and I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from trying to have her. And that wouldn’t exactly go down well with Dad…

“What are you up to? We need to hang out, it’s been far too long,” Roy said.

I was grateful for the way he was totally skating over any awkwardness there might have been after the way I’d abruptly left uni a year ago. He was simply acting like it’d never happened, allowing us to pick up where we’d left off.

“Not much. What do you wanna do?”

“How about a drink?”

“I don’t know, man. I went to a party at Tom’s last night, and I got totally hammered. I’m still pretty hungover from that.”

“I don’t mean ‘let’s get fucked up’,” he said. “Let’s just go for a nice quiet beer at our old favorite pub down on Faversham Road. Catch up and whatever.”

“Yeah, all right,” I replied. “How about we meet at two?”

There was nothing wrong with that plan. One beer in the afternoon was pretty standard behavior.

“Yep, cool. See you in an hour, then,” he said.

I hung up and stared at the screen on my phone, wondering what my old friend was up to these days, as he hadn’t said much over the phone. If he was back in London now, then there had to be a reason for that. He hadn’t said anything about dropping out of his course like I had, so perhaps he’d transferred his course to somewhere here in London. Or perhaps he
had
dropped out, and hadn’t wanted to say anything. That’d be understandable. I hadn’t wanted to talk to anyone about why I’d dropped out when I’d done it last year, out of pride.

There was no point wondering about it now, anyway. I’d be seeing him in an hour, and he could tell me all about what he’d been up to then.

I put my shoes on and went back into the still-steamy bathroom to spritz on some cologne, and through the vent near the ceiling, I could make out the sound of Rayna talking on the phone in her room next door.

“Okay, I didn’t tell you this part of the story this morning because I was almost convinced that I dreamed it all last night. Honestly, it’s so insane, and I was so embarrassed,” she was saying. “But remember how I told you that I sort of hooked up with a guy last night? Well….he’s Gerald’s son, and he’s about to be my
stepbrother
. Can you believe it?”

A moment went by where her friend was obviously talking on the other end of the line, and then I heard Rayna’s voice again. “He’s called Jace…yes, Jace Wilde! I didn’t know you knew him. Oh my god, you could have warned me last night!”

Another pause.

“Are you serious? No freaking way! He’s going to be
related
to me, Liana. It doesn’t matter how sexy he is.”

Oh, so she thought I was sexy, huh? Not that I didn’t already know that, but still, it was nice to hear her say it out loud.

“I’d never do that to my Mom,” Rayna continued. She paused for another moment, then went on. “Yes, I know, but that was different. I didn’t know who he was last night, but now I do, so it’s not going to happen. I’ll never, ever sleep with him.”

I grinned at my reflection in the mirror and then mouthed two words towards the vent.
Challenge accepted.

***

The second I saw Roy nursing a beer at the corner table of our favorite pub, which we’d long ago claimed as ours
,
I felt my spirits lift. It was just so damn good to see him. He looked rather tired, although I was certain that I did too after the party at Tom’s last night, but apart from that he was still the same old Roy. 

I quickly ordered myself a beer and joined him before he’d even looked up from his phone to notice my arrival. Luckily the place was dead, so it looked like we were going to have some privacy for our reunion.

“How you doi…?” I started to ask before being wrapped up into a tight bear hug.

“Oh man, it’s just so great to see you,” he said. I was happy too, of course, but Roy just seemed over the moon. “Uni really wasn’t the same without you, when you dropped out and all,” he added, finally allowing me to sit down.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, you know, it just wasn’t the same. It got boring, even the parties weren’t the same.”

I had no idea what to say. When I’d left, I hadn’t considered everyone I was leaving behind, and now I felt a little bad about it. I’d just been focused on myself, and it was fair to say that I’d acted a little selfishly.

“Well, I still love parties. Just not
those
kinda parties.”

My concern must have been etched into my features, because Roy grinned. “Sorry, man, I didn’t mean to make you feel like shit. It was just different once you left, that’s all. Anyway, how’s things?”

I shrugged. “All right, I guess. My Dad’s getting married again, so I’m having to deal with getting to know yet another fiancée.”

He snorted. “Seriously? He’s getting married
again
? Jesus, who is it this time?”

“Some American woman he met online. She’s actually quite nice.”

“Any kids you have to play nice with?”

“Err…” I hadn’t planned on bringing up Rayna, but I couldn’t exactly lie to my friend and tell him Elena had no children. “Yeah, a daughter called Rayna,” I finally added.

“Young?”

“Nineteen.”

Roy arched his eyebrows, and his eyes glimmered with amusement. “Is she hot?”

“She’s all right, I guess.”

He laughed. “Bullshit, man. I can tell by your expression…she’s fucking fit, isn’t she?”

I grinned. “Fine. You got me. Yeah, she is.”

“So are you gonna try to get in there?” Roy asked, and then his expression changed. “Oh, shit. You already did, didn’t you? You dog!”

“Nah, I didn’t.”

Well, it was half true. Rayna and I had been interrupted mid-hookup by her realizing who I was, so I hadn’t actually slept with her, even though we’d definitely been about to fuck each other’s brains out.

“You totally should.”

“Nah. That’d just be awkward,” I said. I was still lying. Fuck the awkwardness; I still wanted her. I just didn’t need everyone else to know that.

“Like that’s ever stopped you in the past. You fucked Lyndon Turner’s sister in his own bedroom when we were seventeen, remember?
That
was awkward.”

“True,” I said, nodding and grinning. “But this is different. Rayna’s gonna be
my
sister.”

“I guess. But you clearly like her, at least enough to keep trying to change the subject away from you wanting to screw her.”

“Well, she is pretty cool,” I admitted, before trying to make a joke to get off the subject. “She’s got that special ‘didn’t pepper-spray me’ quality I’ve been looking for all these years.”

Roy chuckled. “Sure, like you’ve ever had any issues getting chicks to like you. She’s probably already in love with you. Anyway, speaking of chicks, I totally forgot to tell you, Kristy dropped out of uni too. She got married to some lawyer.”

“Kristy Miles?” I said, remembering the hot leggy blonde that Roy and I had always fought over in a silly banter type of way. I’d actually hooked up with her a few times, but I’d never told my friend that. I’d always allowed him to believe that he was still in the running for her affections.

Unfortunately for Roy, he’d been in my shadow the whole time we’d known each other; since sixth form. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Kristy didn’t even know who he was. Where I was charismatic and took care of my body, he’d always been shyer and a little tubby—though that had changed. Now he was erring on the side of too skinny.

“Yeah, her. Fucking hottest girl around, right?”

“Mm,” I said in a noncommittal voice.

Truth be told, the thought of Kristy didn’t make me feel the same twinge in my cock that it used to. Even though I’d only met Rayna yesterday, she was already cemented in my mind as the hottest chick I’d ever laid eyes on, and some bleached-blonde girl with zero aspirations—like Kristy—couldn’t hold a candle to her. It didn’t surprise me at all that she’d married a lawyer and dropped out of her course—she’d always struck me as the type of girl who was only at uni to find a husband.

Rayna, on the other hand…she was different. In our brief conversation at Tom’s party, she’d mentioned that she was studying law, and she’d actually sounded passionate about it.

“Hey, do you remember that night she dared me to jump in the pool at that party, but because I was so fucked off my face, I thought it would still impress her if I pushed you in instead?”

We both chuckled at this memory. What I didn’t tell him was this actually did work as a seduction technique….only not in the way he’d intended. It’d worked for me after he’d passed out on one of the sun lounges. Apparently Kristy liked the ‘drowned rat’ look on me, because she’d dragged me into one of the bathrooms at the party house and practically begged me to do her over the sink.

“Oh, and do you remember when we went to that rave at the Armstrong’s farm?” Roy continued, obviously excited to be reminiscing with me. As much as I’d rather talk about where he was with his life now, this subject was still fun to think about all the same.

“Yeah, that farmer went apeshit when he found us in the barn with his daughters,” I said with a nod and a snort of laughter.