Shame: A Stepbrother Romance (5 page)

I push through the bodies on the dance floor and make my way to our table at the other end of the club. I’m still sore. I keep pulling my dress down as if this is going to erase what just happened and turn me back into a good girl. My only hope is that when I return to my friends, there will be no meaningful looks from Ashleigh, or Evie nudging me teasingly in the ribs.

He left the bathroom before me, so it wouldn’t look suspicious. Plus, it gave me a chance to straighten up a bit. How easy it is to be a guy. You just zip up and go.

My fears are unfounded. It looks like no one noticed my absence as all the girls are engaged in flirting of their own with the rest of the crew. Who would suspect that I’m the worst, the lowliest, the filthiest of them all?

My stranger is fumbling through the stack of Polaroids we’ve taken and when I come to check what he’s up to, he turns and smiles at me as if we are old friends. I’m not sure if I want to faint or throw up.

“Don’t worry,” he shouts in my ear, “I destroyed the evidence.”

He hands me the pieces of a picture of me bent over his crotch. What a gentleman, I think bitterly.

At that moment, the screen on his phone comes alive through his pocket and I know it must be vibrating, because there’s no way he can hear it in this noise. He takes it out quickly, almost in panic it seems, and looks at it.

“I need to go,” he says in my ear again and tapping one of his friends on the shoulder, he waves and is gone through the crowd.

I plop myself in the booth and kick my heels off. I can’t stand these things any more. My feet sting. I’m already regretting everything. I know I won’t be able to live with myself tomorrow, so I order another drink, just to dull my thoughts for a couple more hours, while I still can.

CHAPTER FIVE

My head is throbbing as I unlock the front door to the bookstore and literally hide inside. The bright daylight hurts my eyes and I can’t even walk straight. My stomach is a mess and nothing good could be said about my looks.

I simply threw on the first clean clothes I saw this morning and took off, hoping that the fresh air will at least clear the heavy weight in my head. No such luck. My temples are pulsing with pressure and the spot between my eyebrows seems like a magnet for all the pain my body is capable of enduring.

I should have stayed in bed. That’s what party girls do, right? Responsible bookstore owners don’t, however, so I managed to drag myself over here, but now it looks impossible to greet clients or enter a single transaction in the system. I can’t afford not to open two days in a row. At this rate, I’ll be indebted to Joe, my new dad, forever.

At least it’s Sunday. There shouldn’t be an impossible amount of traffic, not that there ever is. I’ll take a few minutes to sort myself out. I keep some aspirin in the kitchen and I need coffee badly.

“I’m never drinking again,” I mutter to myself as I switch on the lights in the windowless room, which is more of a closet, than an actual kitchen.

Every time the thought of what happened in the club’s bathroom sneaks its way into my consciousness, I manage to dodge it. No, it’s not something I’m ready to face just yet. Probably that’s why hangover exists, so the physical pain you feel can somewhat mitigate the memories of what you’ve done the previous night.

Why am I not one of those people who don’t remember a thing after a night of being wasted?

I’m not eighteen. I’m twenty-seven, for God’s sake! Hangover does not agree with anyone over twenty. I pour myself a giant jar of tap water (I have no glasses here, just cups, so I use mason jars) and put a kettle on the small electric stove. Hopefully the coffee and the pill will bring me back to my senses enough to push through to my lunch hour. I’ll take a nap on one of the sofas by the fireplace then.

My misery can’t wait that long.

By the time I’ve set the tray with the coffee, a small porcelain jug of cream (
Eww, cream, whip cream, Blow Job shot… Stop! Don’t think!
) and the sugar bowl on the small wooden table, I’m already so exhausted that I decide to lift my legs up for just a minute.

The minute stretches on. Right before I drift off, I finally ask myself the inevitable question. What
was
that last night? It wasn’t even a one night stand. It was more of a twenty-minute stand. What came over me? Why didn’t I say no? I keep repeating my new mantra, I’m never drinking again, until I fall asleep.

A distant sound, a bell chiming, brings me back to reality. No! Please, no. I thought I locked the front door behind me, but apparently I haven’t. My brain is mush. It’s a customer and I’m sleeping. At the very least there is a bookcase that is currently the only thing between the poor person and the even poorer-looking me, so I’m not exposed yet.

I rise to my feet at once and feel extremely disoriented for a minute. My glasses have fallen off to the floor and as soon as I put them on and things come into focus again, I wish I hadn’t.

Or maybe what I see before me is not as shocking as it seems. It’s impossible, so it’s just proof that I’m dreaming.

It’s him.

The man from last night.

I still haven’t completely washed him off my skin yet, and here he is again, standing in my bookshop, right in front of me. It is seriously not possible and I’m about to turn and go back to my cozy spot on the sofa, certain that I’m not awake yet, when he speaks. I wince. Please, be a dream. Please, be a dream.

“Wow! Hi there, Cinderella,” he says slowly, smugly.

I’m really hoping that by that he doesn’t mean that I’ve turned back into a pumpkin, but a quick look at the gilt-framed mirror on the wall behind the counter confirms that’s exactly what he meant. I look much worse than I thought.

I’m dressed in black leggings and a huge, baggy hoodie dress. My hair is all over the place, falling out of the loose knot on top of my head. My skin is red and blotchy and dark circles frame my eyes under the thick glasses. I really want to hide somewhere and pretend this is not happening.

I remember reading somewhere that Cinderella never asked for a prince anyway. She asked for a dress and a night out. That’s what I did. I’m not even sure I asked for the particular dress I got, but I had a night out alright. Now I have to deal with the prince.

“Hi,” I manage to mumble. “What on earth…”

“Am I doing here?” he interrupts, the half smile never leaving his face as he inspects me from head to toe. “I came by to check on my little crush from last night.”

It’s one thing to have primal sex with someone in the obscurity of a club’s bathroom when you are drunk, and it’s completely another to have to face a man who is clearly out of my dorky league in real life, when I’m sober and hungover. Now, in the daylight, I finally get a good look at him and what I see doesn’t make me any more comfortable to be in his company.

He is tall, that I knew from last night, but now I see just
how
tall he really is. His dark blond hair is messy in that styled magazine sort of way that requires time in front of a mirror. His eyes are dark blue and clear, not a hint of hangover in them. His clothes are impeccable. Jeans, a shirt and a sports coat, all coordinated and expensive looking.

How come some people look like him the morning after a party and then everyone else looks like me? Or slightly better than me. Right now I’m convinced no one looks as miserable as I do standing in front of him and trying to shrink inside my hoodie dress.

I turn my back to him and start gathering the tray with coffee things from the table just so I don’t have to face him. I’m hoping that if I give him enough time, he’ll simply leave. In the back of my mind, I’m still hoping it’s a dream.

“How do you know I work here?”

“Does this look familiar?” he says and I can’t help but turn to look.

He is holding the Polaroid picture of my phone number written in the bathroom stall. It might have even been the same bathroom stall we fucked in last night. I cringe inside. So, he was not just destroying evidence last night. He was fishing.

“I took my chances,” he says and to my horror, follows me to the kitchen. Does this man have no boundaries? And what is he still doing here after he’s seen what his Cinderella really looks like?

“Actually, I don’t believe in chances,” he continues, “I googled the number. It was listed as the contact for this place. Do you own it or something?”

“I do,” I grumble. I don’t see where this is going.

“Impressive, Cinderella. So, where’s the porn section?”

I almost choke. What? How dare he even bring up anything sex-related, not to mention porn? I was seriously hoping the odd episode from last night can be safely erased from both our brains now that we’ve seen each other in real life.

“You mean the self-help section?” I say.

“Is that where you hang out?”

Oh, super, now he is openly insulting me.

“No, just figured anyone looking for porn at nine in the morning on a Sunday must need some help.”

He laughs. I don’t know why, but I smile a bit. His laughter is so genuine, so unrestrained that it’s contagious. His lips reveal two rows of pearly teeth that make him even more attractive.

“So, about last night…” he says and I freeze.

“Ugh, no, please,” I say, the desperation obvious in my voice. “No talk of last night. It’s too early. And how are you not feeling sick?”

“I don’t drink.”

“Well, technically, I don’t drink either.”

“Right,” he says and laughs again. Damn him!

Why am I even still talking to the guy? And why is he still here?

He picks up a random book from the nearby shelf and starts leafing through it, pretending to read.

“So, you don’t drink in clubs,” I say before I can stop myself, “You just go and have sex with random people and then leave?”

“Why? Isn’t that what you do?”

Okay, I give up.

“Is there anything I can help you with? I have a ton of work to do. I don’t have time to chat,” I say and sit behind the counter, pulling out a large ledger. He is pretending to be reading and I’m pretending to be writing. What a peaceful Sunday morning!

“No, you don’t,” he says and looks at me with that mocking glint in his eyes that seems to be ever-present. “There’s no one here. I know bookstore fans are rabid, but it looks like they’ve all had some good times last night and are not ready for books yet.”

“Well, I’m not ready for meaningless chat either,” I snap. I wonder if I’d have been so unfriendly if I didn’t look like shit right now. I just need to get him out of here as soon as possible. I need to be alone.

“Fine,” he says and plops the book on the counter, “I’ll get that.”

I look at the title. It’s a tour book of French monasteries. How fitting! I roll my eyes, but I’m not going to turn away a sale, as fake as it is, so I ring it up.

“By the way, your friend Michelle has invited my buddy David to a wedding next weekend. I think they’ve hit it off last night.”

“Good for them,” I say, “Do you want this gift wrapped?”

“Yes, please,” he says and picks up a small souvenir book with wise quotes about motherhood from the counter. If he gets that too, I feel like I’m going to scream at him.

“I know I left kind of in a hurry last night,” he goes on, “so the real reason I’m here…”

“Perfect, there is a real reason and you didn’t just urgently need to pick the best French monastery.”

“The real reason,” he continues, unfazed, “is that I wanted to give you a chance to invite me too. I know we didn’t exactly exchange contacts last night.”

I stop wrapping his useful purchase and look at him.

“Are you serious?” I say, genuinely shocked.

“Why not?”

“Why would you assume I would ever want to see you again?”

“Because you had so much fun with me last night and wanted to do that again some time?”

“Do
that
? Believe me, I
never
want to do
that
again, ever. If you can’t tell from looking at me right now, what happened last night… That’s not really who I am.”

He walks around the counter and without a warning grabs me by my waist and picks me up from the office chair. I’m so stunned, I can’t even react. He deposits me on the desk and spreads my knees, his hands grabbing my ass and suddenly pulling me forward. I end up glued to the front of his jeans that are once again bulging under the pressure of a growing erection.

I immediately feel weak and as if I’m made of rubber, the familiar tingle stinging my clit.

“I think that’s exactly who you are,” he says in a low, husky voice and squeezes my ass, pushing himself into me.

I moan against my will.

I only let it go on for a moment, before I regain my senses. What is wrong with me? Am I really spreading my legs for anyone who tells me to? Well, to be fair, it’s not just for anyone… The thing is, I look disgusting, I feel disgusting and, most of all, I am convinced this is definitely not me.