Mask - A Stepbrother Romance (6 page)

Chapter 6

Jace

I didn’t arrive home until about seven, not because I’d changed my mind and taken Roy up on his offer to get high and hammered, but because I’d needed some time to do some thinking. First, I’d gone for a walk around the streets near the pub, still trying to shake Rayna and Roy from my mind, and when that failed to work, I headed to the closest gym to do some weights and cardio. Working up a sweat always made me feel better and helped me think clearly, and as I’d been pumping weights, it became obvious to me that Roy had just been lashing out at me. This wasn’t our first argument, and it was unlikely that it would be our last. I would just have to speak to him when we’d both calmed down; try to discuss his party-hard drug habits when he wasn’t in such a bad mood.

After this revelation, I’d headed to my favorite place in the whole damn city—24 Hour Books, a bookshop that really was open twenty-four hours a day. It had everything and anything you could ever want. Despite what everyone thought about me, I loved reading. This had been obvious to everyone when I was growing up—I’d been pretty studious in school—but when some of the other guys started to tease me for being a nerd, I started to hide it, as if it was something that I should be ashamed of. I soon found alcohol and got distracted by girls, and ever since then, I’d kept my reading habits hidden, like it was some sort of shameful vice.

One of my tattoos was actually a quote from one of my favorite dystopian books—a quote which said
‘Be only you’.
I always told people it was a line from a rock song, and no one ever questioned that, but really it was said by the most badass character of all time, Billy-Joe from
World’s Over
. All of my tattoos meant something important to me, but this was one of my favorites. It was on my wrist, and I looked at it every time I needed to smile. The fact that no one knew what it meant apart from me made it even better.

There was just something relaxing about losing myself in an epic plot line when real life became too annoying to deal with, and this was certainly one of those times. I wasn’t finding it easy, knowing that some of my oldest friends were still lost in the vicious cycle of drugs; a fact that I could do absolutely nothing about. It was as if they didn’t yet realize the devastation that their addiction could cause. I didn’t want them to have to go through the life-changing shock that I’d had back in Edinburgh, but I wasn’t sure what else could cause them to change. Time and growing up certainly didn’t seem to have helped.

After buying a few books, I headed home and trudged up to my room before sitting back on my bed and losing myself in a story. Because I’d slept in so late this morning, I knew I probably wouldn’t be able to get to sleep till quite late, and before I knew it, it was past two in the morning.

“Aarrghhh!”

A feminine scream suddenly burst through the wall from somewhere out in the hall, shocking me to my core, and I dropped the novel that I’d been reading and jumped up, my heart pounding.

What the fuck?

The scream sounded like it came from Rayna, and I dashed out of my bedroom and headed out into the hallway, my mind concocting a million different reasons as to why she would be shrieking at this ungodly hour.

Giant spiders in her room.

Thieves breaking into the manor.

A fucking serial killer breaking into the manor.

The only thing I ended up finding was Rayna curled up in a ball outside her bedroom door, and I could hear frightened sobs escaping from her.

“What’s wrong?” I asked before realizing that I was going to have to be much closer to get her attention. She was in far too much of a bad state to be able to hear me from all the way over where I was.

I tentatively stepped up right next to her, my eyes scanning the hallway, desperate to find out what was wrong. “Rayna?” I whispered, reaching my hand out to touch her.

As my hand grazed her shoulder, she jumped backwards as if she’d been electrocuted. Her eyes were wild and panicked, and she gulped.

“Oh god, it’s just you,” she said.

“Always nice to see you too, Rayna.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it in a bad way,” she replied, grabbing my hand and clinging to it. “When you touched me just then, I thought you were the….god, Jace, it…it was horrible. I…I don’t even…I think I’ve totally lost my mind!”

“Shh, try to calm down. I’m here.” I crouched down next to her, rubbing a comforting hand along her back and making sure my voice sounded as calm and soothing as possible. “Tell me what happened.”

“I woke up a few minutes ago, and I was thirsty, so I went to get a drink. And I saw….I saw…”

“You saw what?”

“A ghost. I saw a ghost.”

Seriously? She actually thought she’d seen a fucking ghost?

I pressed my lips together, trying not to laugh. Even though she’d obviously just had some sort of sleepwalking nightmare, she was still freaked out, so I didn’t want to be an asshole and laugh my head off right in front of her.

“Either this place is haunted, or I’ve lost my mind and started seeing things,” she continued.

I wasn’t sure what to say, so I ended up awkwardly patting her hand for a moment before speaking up again. “Do you wanna come hang out in my room for a while to calm down? Might make you feel better if there’s someone with you.”

I half-expected her to assume that I was trying to use her fear as a way of getting into her pants, but instead she nodded. “Okay. Thanks.”

Jesus. She
really
thought she’d seen something. Why else would she be too scared to be alone right now? The fact that she was actually choosing to join me in my bedroom showed just how petrified she was.

I helped her get up, and as I grabbed her hand, I swore I could feel a spark shooting up my arm. My cock stirred in my pants, and I tried to will the feeling to go away. I couldn’t be getting turned on right now; it wasn’t the right moment. In fact, it would never be the right moment for that with Rayna, because she was about to be my sister. So tonight I would be polite and I’d help her out, but that would be it.

If only I could stop thinking about her gorgeous legs and pert tits. If only her hazel eyes and curvaceous body didn’t filter into my every thought and every fantasy. If only I could stop wanting to touch myself over the thought of what it would be like to actually be with her; if our encounter the other night had occurred under different circumstances and we hadn’t stopped.

Looking at her frightened face right now, I realized it was going to take all of my willpower to make that happen. There was a deep, primal tug inside of me, begging me to rescue her, to make her feel better, to claim her for good and make her mine.

Shit.

Life with Rayna as my stepsister was going to be fucking hard….and it wasn’t the only thing that was fucking hard.

Chapter 7

Rayna

Jace’s room was nothing like I expected. I wasn’t sure what I’d thought, really—maybe pictures of scantily-clad women plastered all over his walls, dirty plates everywhere and a whiskey bottle sitting in the corner somewhere. I thought it would really scream ‘Jace’, and from what I’d been told about him, partying and sex was all he was about.

Instead, the room was smartly-designed and clean. Granted, he’d only just moved back to the manor, so maybe he simply hadn’t had time to trash the place yet, but still, it was refreshing to see a young guy with such a nice room.

The first thing I spotted was a seriously cool record collection. I’d never thought of him as a Beatles or Rolling Stones fan, and vinyl and old-school rock didn’t fit with the image that I had of him in my mind. He seemed more of a hardcore raver type like every other young guy these days, but there was obviously more to him than met the eye, and I really needed to stop trusting my assumptions, as they were so clearly wrong more often than not these days.

I wandered over to the record collection and scanned the albums for some of my favorites. I could see him watching me curiously from the corner of my eye, so I started to hum Octopus’ Garden, just to show him that I was cool with his tastes. I wasn’t sure why that was important, but despite everything, I still wanted him to like me.

“I know, I know,” he said with a grin. “My taste in music isn’t exactly cool.”

“What?” I replied. “What do you mean? I love all of these bands, especially the Beatles. Octopus’ Garden is actually one of my favorite songs. I heard this orchestral version of it once, and it was amazing. Honestly, I can actually picture myself walking down the aisle to that version of it one day, if I ever get married.”

Even though I was babbling—about getting married, no less—it was nice to talk about something else other than what I’d just seen out in the hallway. My heart was still pounding but my legs were no longer trembling, and I felt warm and safe in Jace’s presence, and while we hadn’t exactly been friends since our first few encounters with each other, that seemed to be quickly changing. I was glad for that.

“Really?” he replied, arching a brow. “I’ve spent half my life being teased by my mates because I don’t
only
like the trance music that we used to listen to when…”

His voice trailed off, as if he couldn’t bear to finish that sentence.

“When you went out?” I asked. I already knew that he had a wild history, so that news wasn’t exactly going to bother me. “You know, sometimes I used to go out and act stupidly with my friends too. You should’ve seen the number of cocktails we got through on Spring Break a few months ago.”

“Yeah?” he replied with a grin. “I can just imagine you on Girls Gone Wild.”

A warm blush crept over my cheeks. Did that mean he was picturing me dancing on tables and flashing my breasts at random guys? I’d never gone
that
far with my vacation antics.

“Very funny, Jace,” I mumbled. For some reason, his comment had also made me imagine all the girls he was used to hanging around at parties—the girls who liked to get wild and flash their bodies for the cameras. He’d probably had sex with hundreds of them, considering how hot and desirable he was, and the thought drove me insane.

Sensing that he might’ve gone too far, Jace changed the subject. “Would you like a cup of tea? It’s supposed to be good for shock, and you looked pretty damn shocked out there.”

I couldn’t help but smile at this. “I swear you English people use tea as the answer to everything. We hardly ever drink it in America. I mean, some people do, but coffee is way more popular.”

“Yeah, but you’re not there now, are you?” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “You’re here.”

“True. Well, if you’re offering, then yes, I’d love some tea,” I said. “Thanks.”

“Sure. I’ll be back in a moment. Try not to get attacked by any poltergeists.”

“Not funny!” I said, but a smile was still creeping over my face anyway.

As he left the room, I took the opportunity to have a better look around. I wasn’t exactly snooping, it was more like investigating. I was trying to get a fuller picture of who Jace really was, and it was damn near impossible because he kept on surprising me.

My eyes kept fixating on the massive bookshelf sitting on one side of the room. From the looks of it, he was an avid reader across almost every major genre, which once again seemed so out of character for the guy I’d heard so much about. Seeing this other side to him made me wonder if we actually had a lot more in common than first met the eye. We both liked things that made us a little different to most other people our age. We both liked old-school music and reading, and from the look of his film collection, we both liked cheesy eighties movies as well.

I quickly turned away from the shelf as I heard Jace walking back up the stairs a few minutes later. For some reason, books felt more personal than music, and I didn’t want to look like I’d been going through them, so instead I sat on the bed and pretended to look at my fingernails.

As Jace stepped back through the door, confused emotions began to swirl around in my mind. If I’d hoped that finding out more about Jace would put me off him, then I’d been terribly wrong, because everything I learned about him just made the feelings that I was trying desperately to ignore stronger and stronger.

I could feel my body heating up as my core throbbed with need, and I watched him set the cup of tea down on one of the bedside tables before stretching and yawning. As he stretched his arms above his head, his T-shirt lifted slightly, and I could barely even choke out the words ‘thanks for the drink’ as my gaze went straight to his hard muscles. God…we’d only had one brief hookup the other night, and he was already like a drug that I couldn’t quit.

As I picked up the teacup, I tried my best to push my feelings aside for what felt like the hundredth time, and I reminded myself how my Mom would react if she knew how I was lusting over the guy who was about to be her stepson.

But then my eyes connected with Jace’s again, and all of that just flew right out of the window…

“Do your tattoos mean something?” I blurted out, desperately trying to find a safe topic to talk about. I wasn’t convinced that anything involving me looking at his body was a good idea, but it was too late now. I’d already spoken.

“Yeah, most of them,” he replied.

“Can you tell me about them?”

He eyed me suspiciously for a moment. “Rayna Silva, are you trying to get me naked?” he said in a teasing tone, before lifting his shirt and pointing to a tattoo on his chest. “Just kidding. Anyway, I got this one first. It’s the worst one I have, but I was eighteen and stupid and all of my friends were getting them. It was the only one I got out of a book.”

“Where did the rest of them come from?” I asked.

My own skin was a blank canvas, completely untouched by ink, and I’d never been tempted to get any, but looking at all of the artwork drawn on Jace, I could see why some people liked to have tattoos.

“I designed them myself,” he said, as if this was the most innocuous statement on earth. I was completely blown away by that—his work was fantastic. The designs covering his chest and arms were amazing, like nothing I’d ever seen before. “This rose here, I drew for my Mom. And this little thing here, I designed when I finished my first term at uni.”

“Wow, you’re really talented.” I shuffled closer to him to get a better look. “You should totally be an artist or something.”

“Thanks. I do like drawing and designing the tatts, but it’s more of a hobby. On the creative front, I’ve actually always been more interested in writing. Even did an elective class on creative writing and publishing while I was still at uni.”

I still didn’t know why he’d dropped out of college, but now didn’t seem like the right time to ask, so I asked another question instead.

“Is that what you’re going to do, then? Become an author?”

He stiffened at this. “No. That’s just a pipe dream. I know I’m not doing much at the moment, but I need to figure something out soon, and it has to be serious. A real job. I’m interviewing at some of my Dad’s friend’s finance companies soon. If all else fails, I’ll just work at his company.”

“Well, that’s good, but being an author isn’t a pipe dream if you’re seriously talented, and I bet you are. I mean, look at all these books,” I said, gesturing at his shelf. “People who read a lot are usually pretty good at writing.”

“Mm. I guess.”

I was about to mention some good online creative writing courses I’d heard of, but Jace’s expression suggested that the subject was already closed. “Okay, so what does ‘
Be only you’
mean? Is that an inspirational quote of yours?” I added hurriedly, pointing at another one of his tattoos.

I smiled as I spoke, trying to bring back the light atmosphere that had been surrounding us before I’d mentioned the publishing career thing.

“It’s from my favorite book.” He said this hesitantly, as if he wasn’t sure how I would react. “
World’s Over.
Have you ever read it?”

I shook my head. “Never heard of it.”

He walked over to the bookshelf. “Would you like to borrow it? I think you’d like it.”

“Sure.”

He returned to the bed and handed it to me, and I took it from him, touched by the kind gesture. Books were a personal thing; at least for me, and I’d only ever lend ones I owned to people I liked and trusted. “Thanks,” I said softly.

We fell into a comfortable silence for a few moments, before Jace brought up what had happened earlier again. “I hope you don’t mind me asking, and I swear I’m not calling you a liar or anything, but could you tell me again what you saw in the hallway?”

I could understand him asking this question. I sounded completely insane, claiming to have seen a ghost, but I knew the woman I’d seen in the hall hadn’t been my Mom. On top of that, the manor’s housekeeper and maids didn’t live at the manor, so none of them would’ve been sleeping here.

“I woke up needing a drink, so I left my room to get one, but as I got out into the hallway, I saw a woman standing near the stairwell. She was just staring at me, and she had this long white gown on. Look, I know it sounds crazy.”

“Just a bit. Anyway, go on.”

“I was so scared, and I barely even knew what I was doing, but I crouched down on the floor—I guess as some sort of reflex action. Then I shut my eyes and screamed, and when I looked up, she was gone.”

“Is it possible you were sleepwalking? Maybe you just had a really bad dream where you were seeing things in the hall, and then when you screamed, you woke yourself up and actually found yourself out in the hall because you’d sleepwalked out there.”

I shook my head. “No. I know I was awake. I know what I saw, and I’ve never sleepwalked before.”

He didn’t have to believe me—of course, it’d make it much easier if he did—but I knew the truth regardless. Someone or something had definitely been out in the hallway. I wasn’t exactly a massive believer in the supernatural, but now I was questioning everything.

“Okay, okay.” Jace lifted his hands up in defeat, but I could still see the small smile playing on his lips. “Before Dad leaves for that trip tomorrow, we’ll ask and see if he knows anything. This place is bloody old, so who knows? Maybe we have a friendly manor ghost.”

“She didn’t exactly seem friendly from the way she was staring at me. Anyway, where’s your Dad going?”

“He and your Mom are going away for a few days, remember?”

“No?”

Jace’s forehead wrinkled. “What time did you go to sleep tonight?”

“Six.”

“Ah. That explains it. Dad called me while I was out earlier to tell me what was going on. Apparently your Mom left just after six. He said she got a call from an American friend of hers who also lives in London now, and they were going to have dinner. Anyway, her friend ended up inviting her to stay for a few nights at the new bed and breakfast place she owns, as a sort of pre-wedding gift. She invited Dad too, but he had too much work to do in his office, so he told your Mom to go on ahead and spend the night there tonight, and he’s joining her tomorrow. They’ll be gone for three days.”

“Wow, okay. I thought she’d wake me up to tell me something like that.”

He shrugged. “She probably figured she should let you sleep and then just call you and let you know tomorrow. Anyway, like I said, go and ask Dad about the history of this place tomorrow, before he leaves. I’m sure he’ll help get this ghost situation of yours sorted out in no time.”

I nodded. “Thanks, I’ll do that. I feel like such an idiot, but I swear I saw something.”

He patted me on the shoulder. “I know. Anyway, you’re clearly exhausted, so why don’t you try to get some rest?”

“Um….I don’t know if I can.”

I was tired, but I wasn’t exactly keen on returning to my room and being alone right now.

“If it makes you feel safer, you can sleep in my bed. Don’t worry, I’ll take the sofa,” he said, gesturing towards the black leather couch on the eastern wall of his room.

“Are you sure?” I asked, embarrassed at how childish I was being. Next I’d probably be asking to have a night-light installed in my room.