Chapter 5 – Leslie
It was disturbingly quiet from then on. Mason must have taken our truce to heart and taken the partying elsewhere, but the silence was almost as disruptive as the music had been. A few nights later, unable to sleep, I decided to go for a swim. It was late, almost midnight, and the house was quiet, the pool lit a dark turquoise by the fairy lights that hadn’t been taken down after the wedding. My bathing suits were in the wash, but I figured there wasn’t any harm in swimming in my panties and bralette, especially if my parents were asleep and Mason was at Tiffanie’s.
Just the thought of him with her filled me with an agitation I loathed. I loathed him. He was my stepbrother. Maybe if I said it enough times, I would begin to believe it.
As I swam laps in the warm, dark night, I heard a splash. I stopped swimming, treading water as a shadowy figure approached me. But I recognized the height, the build: Mason was a big guy, lean but tall, made of muscles. His blonde hair was dark from the water as he swam toward me.
“If you try to kill me, I’ll get you arrested,” I told him, trying not to show him any fear. “And then poof! There goes Harvard for real this time.”
“Big words for the girl trapped in the pool with me this late at night.” His eyes glittered in the moonlight, like they’d swallowed the stars.
If I wasn’t careful, they’d swallow me up, too.
I backed away.
“I’ll scream.”
He started to respond, then shook his head, splashing me with droplets of water. “Too easy.”
I didn’t bother to ask what he meant, just waded over to the edge of the pool, determined to escape him.
“Not so fast, butterfly,” he said, swimming up behind me and grabbing me by the waist. His hands—warm and hard and huge—wrapped around my bare midriff, sending tingles through me. Briefly, I wondered what else of his was warm and hard and huge, before shaking the thought away like a swimmer dislodging water from their ears. Nothing good followed that thought, no matter how objectively hot my stepbrother and tormentor was.
“Let me go,” I told him, careful to keep my voice steady.
“Maybe I don’t want to,” he told me, and the words struck me as unbearably honest.
For a moment, neither of us spoke. He tightened his hold on me, and leaned his head into my shoulder, breathing heat into my ear and making me squirm back against him.
And then I had my answer. He was hard, and warm, and felt pretty huge behind me.
“You don’t want to do this,” I told him. “You hate me, remember?”
He sighed, rotating his hips so his cock rubbed hard against my ass. “That’s right, butterfly. I hate you. This here,” he jerked against me again, “is hate, pure and simple. Want to hate me back?”
“Mason, if you don’t let me go…”
He released me, taking a step back. Suddenly I felt cold all over, and completely confused. My body ached, my thighs trembling, and I… I desperately needed to come.
I hated myself for it.
“Fly off then, butterfly. Go on, I won’t chase you.” His final words were a dark, terrifying promise. “This time.”
I fled.
For the restof the night, I tossed and turned, dreams filled with the disturbing heat of Mason’s hands all over me. Appalled at myself—not only was he an asshole, not only did I have Spencer, but he was my stepbrother—I never fell back asleep, just paced my room and tried to decide what to do. Mason was problematic, but I couldn’t lay all the blame on him. Because on some deep, dark, fucked up level, I clearly wanted him.
Holy. Fucking. Hell.
The next morning, he was being obscenely nice—for him. I tiptoed down the stairs to the kitchen, hoping I’d miss him—only to hear the noise coming from the pool.
Great. All of his seven million friends were here. And probably Tiffanie. And that, my friends, was jealousy I felt, damn it.
He was my stepbrother. I was going to hell.
The sliding door to the pool opened and Mason was there. I did my best to ignore the way water dripped down his chest, pooling at his abs. One droplet continued to slide down to his treasure trail.
Obviously, I’d failed.
He didn’t call me out for my ogling, though. Just moved toward the fridge, opening the door and grabbing a bottle of water. He uncapped it, chugging it down, and I once again tried and failed to ignore the way his throat worked, Adam’s apple bobbing as he drank.
Finally, he wiped his mouth. “Come outside,” he said, voice gruff.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Leslie. Come outside.”
So, maybe not nice. But more welcoming than he had been before.
After going back upstairs and changing into a bikini, I grabbed a towel and headed outside, hesitantly picking my way through the drunk, laughing, gyrating bodies to a lounger and laying out on it. I waited, chest tight, for Mason to do something fucked up and prove to me I’d been wrong to trust him, but he and his friends just splashed around in the pool. Exhausted from the stress of the past weeks, I ended up catnapping on the lounger, waking up intermittently when I felt his glare from across the pool.
They were at least keeping it down today, enough so that I could put in my airpods and drown them out with the soundtrack to Mulan. I loved Disney movies, something I knew Mason would mock me for if he knew—not that I gave a shit.
Half asleep and lost in a dream of tender, featherlight touches on my hips and neck, I was startled when I heard, “Hey, Leslie, why don’t you join us in the pool?”
I opened one eye, pausing the music. Emory was standing above me, grinning. Mason stood in the pool, while Tiffanie hung off his back and smiled at me. I wanted to say no, to close my eyes and ignore them, but I heard my mom in my head: Give him a chance. Try to make friends, hon. Do it for me.
He was trying, after all.
So, sighing, I rose off the lounger.
And my bikini slid right off my body, leaving me completely naked in front of a bunch of strangers and my douchebag stepbrother.
Laughter rang out around me. People lifted up their phones, taking photos of me, stark naked and glaring. The only person who didn’t laugh was Mason—he looked like he wanted to kill me, instead.
I didn’t know why he was so angry, when humiliating me had clearly been his idea.
I shut my eyes, willing the tears away. Yes, I was naked. Yes, it was likely my naked self was going to end up all over the internet and likely destroy my reputation.
I’d had enough.
“You win,” I called to him. “I’m the idiot who fell for our ‘truce,’ but you win. You can have your house back. I’m getting out of here today.”
With that, I turned and headed inside, naked, head held high, trying to ignore the splash, high pitched yelp, and pounding footsteps behind me.
Mason caught me around the waist just before I could slip inside the house. I fought him as he dragged me into the kitchen, and continued fighting him when he grabbed his zip-up hoodie from off the back of the chair and forced my arms through it before zipping it up all the way to my neck. It dwarfed me, falling down to my knees. I glared up at him, refusing to be grateful for no longer being naked, refusing to cry.
“What are you talking about, butterfly?”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s not enough to humiliate me—you have to destroy my life, too.”
He whipped me around to face him, fisting my hair in his hand—just like he’d done that night in the pool house.
“Don’t be so sure of that.”
“What, you deny what just happened?”
He didn’t respond.
“I think it’s interesting that you’re trying to deny having any part in it, when it was your girlfriend and your best friend who did the honors. Or are you saying you didn’t know they were going to strip me?”
He stared at me, jaw working, and a secret, pathetic part of me lifted in hope that he’d say no, that he’d apologize, that he’d wreak vengeance on them for once instead of me.
But he destroyed that when he jerked his head up and down.
“God,” I whispered, “Why do you hate me so much? What did I ever do to you?”
“You ruined me,” he said. “Irrevocably.”
I assumed he meant I’d ruined his life, just by merely existing.
So I also jerked my head. “It’s mutual.”
“I doubt it.”
What the hell did that mean?
“Anyway, you can’t go anywhere. Where are you going to go? Last I checked, you didn’t have a job; you and your mom live off my dad’s money.”
I glared at him as I texted Bea.
Can I please come stay with you for the rest of the summer?
I know I’ll have to sleep on the couch, but I’m desperate
The stepdemon still causing you trouble?
you know it
yeah, you can come stay here
but what will your mom say?
I’ll think of something
“Watch me,” I told Mason.
“Oh, butterfly,” he murmured, shifting his hand to stroke my cheek and forcing me to shiver from the sensation of his hands once again on my bare skin. “I’m always watching you.”
And that’s what he did—watched me, as I stormed up the stairs, packed my bags, left a resolute voicemail on my mom’s phone—they were in the city for a show and she probably wouldn’t get the message until later—loaded up my car, and drove off.
I didn’t even see Mason on my way out. If I had my way, I’d never see him again, except for the requisite family holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and, I assumed, his wedding one day where I’d be required to see him marry some poor woman who deserved better than him.
But otherwise, freedom stretched ahead of me. Freedom from his torment.
Turned out I was wrong.