Stepbrother With Benefits 17 (Third Season) (20 page)

"So... blowjobs as art?" I tease her.

"Blowjobs can definitely be artistic," she says, nodding.

"I think I agree with you, especially after that performance of yours..."

She sticks her tongue out at me, then she licks my cheek. I turn and kiss her, and she kisses me back. It's almost real. The kiss is real, and we're real. She's sitting with me wearing only her bra and panties. I'm completely naked now, my underwear pulled off and tossed aside awhile ago. That's all real, but...

It's not. This is pretend. It's for Scarlet's movie. It's the precursor to an act, a method to show her creative vision, to make something classic yet controversial, with a mix of eroticism and artistry.

We're doing this for her art project. We're just pretending to be a couple. We aren't actually dating. This isn't supposed to mean anything.

"Can we get under the covers and cuddle and finish watching the movie?" she asks me.

"What about..." I don't know how to ask her this without sounding like... like what? I just don't know how to ask her.

"We'll do me later, alright?" she says. "I'll show you what I like and what feels good, and then you can try it on me. Just... just later, though. Please?"

"Alright," I say.

I try to hide the disappointment in my voice, but I think she realizes it, at least a little bit. She looks away from me, afraid to say anything. Maybe she's having second thoughts. Maybe she thinks that I can't be professional, that I can't just treat this as an artistic endeavor.

"We don't have to put clothes back on, though," she says. "That's what a couple would do, don't you think? You can put your underwear back on and we can get under the blankets like that and cuddle close to watch the movie."

"That works," I say, smiling at her. "Sounds good.

After I put my underwear back on, she sneaks close to kiss me on the cheek. I move to face her, and I kiss her back. She nudges close to me, tight, holding me and kissing me. It's nothing crazy. It's not passionate or needy. It's gentle and nice. It's loving, I guess.

It's because we're friends. It's not because of anything else. I know that. I know I shouldn't try to convince myself it's anything else.

I told you this was a bad idea.

I
don't know
. I really don't fucking know. Why? Why the fuck? Seriously, Scarlet? What the fuck are you doing?

I have to tell myself these things over and over again while I nuzzle against Caleb. We're watching a movie. We're just working on getting more comfortable with each other. This is practice. We've watched movies before. We've even cuddled under the blankets before.

Caleb's my best friend. I don't fucking care if
you
don't cuddle under the blankets with your best friend. I can cuddle under the blankets with my best friend. We've never cuddled under the blankets in our underwear before, but we've kind of cuddled in bathing suits or pajamas, so what's the difference?

The difference is that I needed to stop what we were doing before, because if I didn't I was scared of what would happen next. I'm scared that I'm feeling something I shouldn't be feeling. I'm scared that I'm not going to be able to do my art project properly if I keep it up. I'm just scared.

I want to show emotional intensity, raw and powerful feelings, and what happens when a couple comes together. I want to show the awkward early stages of a relationship, followed by the honeymoon phase where everything is happy, and then some of the trouble, a little bit of drama, things becoming rough, the couple trying to make it through, despite everything, and then...

I like love. I think romance is nice. I have nothing against it, but that's not what I want for my movie. It's supposed to be a cycle. It's supposed to be symbolic of art, the beginnings of creation, and then its natural progression.

I don't know about anyone else, but here's how my usual thought process goes when I start a new art project:

First, I'm really excited. I come up with an idea I love and I can't wait to start it. I prepare everything and I begin. I get the most excited over big projects.

Next, the excitement continues throughout most of it. I can usually get halfway through something, and maybe even a little more. I'd say probably three-quarters of the way through or so, until...

I've been working on it so long that I start to question everything. I start to doubt if it's good enough. I start to think that everyone who sees it will hate it, or they won't understand it, and I've just wasted all this time on nothing. I need to push through, though. I need to see it to completion. I can't just stop. I need to realize that nothing is perfect, and if I try to fix every little thing that I hate I'll never be able to finish anything, which means I'll never start anything else ever again, either.

I'm usually relieved when it's done. I'm happy to finish it, but I also like to take a step back. I like to enjoy what I created. I like to look at it again. I can see its flaws, yes, but I can also see the beauty. I can see where I was excited to draw a specific thing, or where I tried something new. I can see where maybe it didn't work out very well, and I can see where it turned out better than I expected.

I like showing my art to other people and seeing how they react. That's the best part. I like making people smile or think or wonder about something.

That's all perfect and great, except if I kept going with Caleb, I know it would have been a mistake. It was beginning to look a lot like...
something else.
I don't know what. I just don't fucking know, and I'd appreciate it if you'd stop fucking looking at me like that and shaking your head. I'd really fucking like you to stop telling me that I have feelings for Caleb, because obviously I have feelings for him.

He's my best friend. Why wouldn't I?

I just wonder how it would feel with him between my legs. I'm curious if he would be gentle, if his tongue would lick and tease me like a delicate flower, or if he'd try and devour my essence like a man possessed by instinctive lust. Maybe a mix of the two?

I wonder how it would feel to hold him like that, to grab his hair and pull him closer to me. I wonder how it would feel to stop thinking about my art project and just give in to the moment. I wonder how it would feel if we were actually dating, if we were a real couple, and we were...

I mean, we're not going to be. I know that'd be weird. I know Caleb knows it, too. It doesn't matter if we're close and you think that we're a little too close, because it's not like that. It's really not like that, so stop fucking thinking it is. I don't like you.

I know why this is happening. I know exactly why.

Caleb breathes softly while I nestle against him. I listen to his heart beating, my ear pressed against his chest. He shifts a little and wraps his arm tight around me, pulling me close. I like being close to Caleb. He's the only person I've ever liked being close to. He's the only one I've ever felt like I can be close to. There's a lot of reasons for that, but I don't know if you'd understand them. It's hard and it's complicated.

It's nice, too, but... I think it's confusing me. I think it's giving me the wrong idea about a lot of things.

I've never told anyone this before. Caleb and I promised to keep it a secret. It was just once, sort of. I mean, we did it a couple of times, but we were just experimenting, and it wasn't like what just happened.

We've had sex before. I guess maybe you'll think this is dumb, but I lost my virginity to Caleb. I wanted to lose it to him. I wanted it to be with someone who cared about me, even if... I mean, I didn't expect him to care like that. I didn't think we were going to get married or anything.

We're friends. I love him like a friend. He loves me like a friend, too. We've never really said that before, but I know it's true, and I know that's how it is.

This is hard, though. I'm confusing things, messing everything up, and I think I'm screwing up my vision for my art project because of it. While it's supposed to look real and passionate in the movie, in reality we're supposed to be casual and friendly.

You can't create art with just passion alone. You need skill and dedication. You need to know how to create exactly what you see in your mind's eye, to make a perfect replica of a dream that would otherwise exist only in your heart and your soul.

I can do that. With Caleb. With anyone, really. I could go have auditions and do the same thing with anyone else that was serious about participating in my project. That's how this is supposed to be. Yes, I
want
to do it with Caleb, but I
should
be able to separate my wants from the needs for the project and do it with anyone else, too.

Casual. It's supposed to be like a job. I can be passionate, but I need to be dedicated and professional, too. It's a necessity. It's...

It's really fucking complicated, that's what it is.

I don't know what you'll think about this, and I don't know if I should even care. If I need to be casual and professional with Caleb, then I should consider trying to be casual and professional with someone else, too? Right? I don't know who yet. It's not a matter of narrowing it down right this moment, it's just a matter of realizing that this is art and nothing else.

I need to do what's best for my art project. I'm allowed to be emotional, but I can't let my emotions get in the way of masterful creation.

Caleb and I aren't even dating. It's not real. We're pretending to be dating in my ex tape, because that's kind of the entire point, but that's it. It's not like I'd be doing anything wrong if I was with someone else. If I did it safely, if there were condoms involved. I'd only have sex with Caleb without a condom, because I trust him completely. But...

I don't know. I'm not sure right now. I'm going to think about it more later.

The movie is over. Caleb turns off his laptop and puts it on his desk without getting up. I grab him and cling to him. When he moves back to lay down in bed, the laptop gone now, I kiss him. I kiss his neck and his chin and his cheeks, but not his lips. I can't kiss his lips right now. I just can't.

He tries to move so I will, but I don't. Just his neck, his chin, his cheeks...

I kiss his ear and I whisper to him. "Can I sleep in your bed tonight? Like we used to?"

"Of course you can," he says, smiling at me. "Remember when you used to sneak in my house at night? You'd climb up the back of the garage to get to my window, then keep knocking until I opened it?"

"Yeah, but you were an asshole and ignored me sometimes," I say, laughing.

"Yeah, well, just at first. It was late. I didn't want to get in trouble."

"If you didn't want to get in trouble, you shouldn't have let me in."

"If I didn't let you in, you would have kept banging on my window for hours, and if I still didn't let you in you'd stomp and pout and glare at me the entire next day."

"Probably," I say. "You would have deserved it, though."

"That was fun," he says, smiling. "It was fun back then."

"It's still fun now," I say. "Just different."

He nods and I nuzzle close to him. It's a little different from how we used to sleep together. I never used to mean to sleep close to Caleb. We started with me sleeping on the other side of the bed, both of us facing away from each other, but usually we'd end up together by the time we woke up. He used to say I did it on purpose, and I used to tell him that maybe he did it on purpose.

Neither of us did it on purpose, though. We just kind of ended up that way. We shifted and turned in our sleep, trying to get comfortable, and we ended up being comfortable when we were together. It's not a bad thing or a weird thing. It's just how it was. If that's how it's going to always be, why not skip the rest and just go to bed comfortable?

Caleb's my friend. That's it. He's my best friend. Please just stop fucking judging us. Stop thinking there's anything else happening here, because it's not.

Y
ay
! Ethan and Ashley are back together!

There might have been a few misunderstandings along the way, but I think it ended up working out well. I hope you like it, too!

I wanted to make this one a little different and intense in a lot of ways. I thought I'd mix things up and make it a little crazy, too, haha. Hope you don't mind that one! I know it got a little, um... worrisome, I guess, with the whole Ashley talking with Kevin part, but I hope you weren't too worried. Ashley's a good girl with some bad girl tendencies, but they aren't too bad.

I think her decision was cute and fun, too. Just flying out to Ethan so she can slap him and punish him and... yeah, I'm not sure that was punishment for anyone, except I guess maybe Ethan's forearms at the end. I'm pretty sure his hair will grow back, though, don't worry.

I hope you liked the added bonus scenes with Caleb and Scarlet, too. I kind of wanted to give a little perspective on why Scarlet did what she did in Ethan's room and what she was thinking. I'm not going to say that it's the right thing, but she's confused and trying to cope with what's going on with Caleb, so...

All of this is the start of something more, though! Caleb and Scarlet will be going with Ethan and Ashley to Ashley's college, and Jake's going to hopefully finally get what's coming to him. Actually, there's a lot of hints in here about what might be happening there, but I don't want to spoil it by giving it away. Everything will tie together in the end, though.

There also might be a few more people joining those four on the plane than they originally planned. There's going to be a secret addition that no one really thought of, but it should be fun and interesting. We shall see!

There's one more book after this one to finish up the Season Three series, and I'm working hard on it now. It's probably going to be a little longer, like this one was, because I want to pack in as much as I can to get it all out there for you. It should bring everything to a close pretty nicely.

I do have some ideas for future books with Ethan and Ashley, but I'm not sure if I'm going to start a new season or not after this. We shall see. Would you like one? Definitely let me know if you would! You can email me or contact me on Facebook and tell me what you'd like to see.

You can let me know by reviewing the book, too! I like reading what everyone thinks about Ethan and Ashley. It's a lot of fun.

Are you glad they're back together now? What did you think of Ashley's "punishment" for Ethan? How about Scarlet and Caleb? There were some interesting reveals going on in their bonus scenes, but they haven't really talked about that much yet. Do you want to know more about that?

Let me know what you think, and I hope you loved this episode a lot!

Don't forget to sign up for my VIP readers list if you haven't, too. You'll get first notice on when my next book is released, so you'll never miss a thing. Season Three will be coming soon and I'll have more Ethan and Ashley for you then.

Bye for now!

~Mia

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