3
COLBY
My head pounds with a headache that most people would assume was alcohol induced, but I know differently. I don’t get hangovers. I don’t do weaknesses. I’m a man who handles his business and maintains control, even under the influence of mind-altering substances.
No, my headache is Ellie induced.
And Sebastian induced. And Micky doesn’t get off scot-free. He’s the idiot that dragged me into that fucking closet. Admittedly, he didn’t know Ellie would be the one who stumbled into Sex Fest 2022. I know that for sure. I was the only one who knew Ellie had arrived at the party, and she was supposed to be in the den. Micky had his eyes on Alexandra from his business class. The same Alexandra who spent the last two months asking him a million questions about what it’s like to be an identical triplet. Like any of us know any different.
My brothers have been around since before I was even conscious of myself. They are such an intrinsic part of me. I sometimes feel it when they hurt themselves.
Micky was convinced Alexandra wanted to know what it’s like to get between identical triplets. It wouldn’t be the first time, and it won’t be the last. For some reason, it’s a popular fetish, one that we’ve mostly been happy to indulge in. I mean, who wouldn’t want to get involved in that kind of kinky fuckery.
Stupid high school games should be relegated to high school, not dragged into our college years, where we should always have our wits about us when it comes to sex.
Ellie has the same length of hair as Alexandra. She’s roughly the same height and build, too. Who the fuck would have known the difference in the silent darkness of the closet?
I didn’t recognize her whimpers. She’s our stepsister, for fuck’s sake. That’s not the kind of thing any self-respecting stepbrother would know about the girl who lives across the hall.
I’m not a creep. I don’t hang outside her door listening for that shit.
As far as I’m concerned, Ellie’s sex life is her own business.
At least, that’s how I felt before last night.
Before I rested my lips on her neck and felt her tremble. Before I breathed in the soft floral scent of her warm skin, I forced her little hand to my cock and felt that hint of eagerness to explore.
See, Ellie was nothing like I thought she’d be. Instead of pushing us away when she found out there were three of us in the closet, she warmed to the situation. She let us discover what it took to get her off, and she came like a river.
At least, that’s what Micky said. He was the one who got to taste her pretty pussy. And Seb got his lips around her tight little nipples.
And me?
I got to whisper in her ear and feel her trembling response. I got to hear just how much she enjoyed everything we did to her.
And when Dornan yelled for her through the door, it was me who felt her flinch.
Fuck.
At that moment, my life flashed before my eyes because there are things that happen between two people that it’s impossible to come back from, and holding your stepsister still while your brothers make her come is one of them.
Shit.
I rub my temple, closing my eyes against the bright sunlight illuminating the yard of our family home.
Family. Even thinking about the word makes my head pound harder.
“Colby, can you take this salad to the table,” Lara says. Lara, Ellie’s mom, has no idea what happened last night. No idea of the real reason Ellie has been up in her room all morning.
Ellie never misses breakfast, especially on the weekends. Lara makes the world’s best pancakes, but only on Saturdays, in case we learn to take them for granted.
Not that there’s any chance of that.
Now it’s lunch, and she still hasn’t made an appearance.
“Sure,” I say, reaching out to take the large wooden bowl that is almost overspilling with crisp lettuce and juicy red tomatoes. My stepmother smiles brightly at me, her deep brown eyes filled with approval. Eyes that are almost exactly the same shape and shade as her daughter’s.
“And come back for the potato salad.”
“I’ll get that,” Sebastian says, jumping up from the sun lounger he was reclining on.
“You boys are so helpful,” Lara says. “Unlike my lazy daughter. Where the hell is Ellie?”
I turn to Seb and find his eyes widening. “There was a party last night,” I blurt. “Maybe she ate something that didn’t agree with her.”
“Ate something?” Lara rolls her eyes. “Do you boys think I was born yesterday? Since when do they serve food at frat parties? In my day, bowls of chips were the only things edible at those events.”
“Not much has changed,” Micky says, but I don’t miss the way his tongue darts over his top lip like he’s imagining savoring the taste of Ellie all over again. The fucker thinks he’s clever.
“There was pizza,” I say quickly. “And you know what those cheap pizza places can be like…no hygiene.”
“Maybe I should go up there and check on her?” Lara says, glancing up at the house, even though Ellie’s window is at the front.
“You have your hands full,” I say quickly. “I’ll go.”
Seb’s eyebrows shoot up so quickly that it’s comical, and I get why. I’m not exactly the man you send anywhere to offer soft concern and sympathy. I’m the man you send when you need shit done. Give me a task to complete, and I’m in my element. Finding out if someone has the shits or is just hiding away from three men she orgasmed all over would be better suited to anyone other than me.
But I can’t send Micky. Lord only knows what he’d say. He’d probably apologize and then tell Ellie he was hoping Alexandra would come into the closet. And Seb’s go-to style under pressure is to make a joke of everything. Not what this situation needs.
“Well, that’s so kind of you,” Lara says. “Especially when Ellie’s probably just being her usual uncooperative self.”
“It’s nothing,” I say, already making my way to the sliding doors. The house is my father’s. He and my mom bought it when we were little. They stretched themselves financially to make sure we each had our own rooms, and there was a spare room for when our grandparents stayed over to help. Now Ellie occupies the spare room, and mom’s place in the master suite has been filled by Lara. I don’t blame dad for remarrying when he lost mom. He couldn’t deal with the demands of three teenage boys and keep his sanity and employment. Lara stepped in to run us between school and extracurricular activities. She fed us, clothed us, and ensured we kept our grades up; for that, I’ll always be grateful.
I wonder if Ellie feels the same about our dad. Not that he’s played much of a role in her upbringing outside of putting a roof over her head. I get that his effort would have been a lot less visible for her.
There’s always been a prickliness to Ellie within this house that doesn’t fit with the person she is around friends and at college.
As I climb the stairs, I remember the person she was in that closet with strangers. A different version of Ellie that I’ve never seen before and never expected to feel up close and personal.
Just the thought of her soft moans has my cock hardening in my pants, and the memory of Dornan’s booming voice disrupting our moment makes me seethe with anger. Fuck.
It’s so wrong to view Ellie sexually. I’m her stepbrother, and that should put any kind of relationship off limits. Forget how furious my dad would be, and her mom. Lara would never look at my brothers and me the same again.
But I can’t stop reflecting on the soft fragrance of her skin or the way she clutched at me as she came. It’s like she opened a box of secrets and let me rummage around, and now I’ve seen what’s in the box; closing the lid is impossible.
How can we sit opposite each other at breakfast and not remember what happened at Dornan’s party? How can we chat with our parents as though nothing happened?
At the top of the stairs, I tip my head from side to side, stretching out my neck as though I’m limbering up for a game. My hands instinctively flex into fists before loosening again. I bounce up onto my toes and then inhale a deep breath. It’s not that I fear facing Ellie. Not in the slightest. But for the first time ever, I’m worried about how our interaction will go. Things between us have always been frosty. In the beginning, I tried so hard. I wanted her to feel comfortable in our home. I wanted her to like us, but she always held back, so I stopped trying. Will it be worse now we’ve overstepped the sibling line?
Will she hate us? Will she blame us? Does she regret what happened?
Or worse. Will she feel violated?
The thought that she might look back on last night with regret or worse causes my heart to do a fucked-up thud that feels black with dread.
Standing with my hand poised to knock on Ellie’s door, I close my eyes for a second, making a vow to whoever might be listening that if this goes okay, I’ll be a better man. I’ll try harder. Work more. Volunteer more. Be kinder.
The thump of my fist on the wood is abrupt and loud, and I crane my ear to the door, so I can hear better. There’s no noise inside, then a muffled ‘go away’ emanates from deep in the room.
“Ellie, you need to open this door,” I say with as much conviction as possible. I’ve learned that a stern and confident voice can compel people to act.
“Leave me alone,” she says, but it’s after a pause.
“Your mom is worried about you. If you don’t open the door, she will come up.”
More silence, but then I hear a shuffling sound, as though Ellie’s dragging more than just her sweet ass across the wood floor.
When the lock rattles in the door, I take a step back.
It’s opened just a crack, and a disheveled Ellie peers around the white-painted wood so that all I can see is a half-closed eye, messy curls, and a pair of pretty but scowling lips.
“I’m not coming down,” she says. “You and your brothers know why. How about you keep my mom at bay…you always know how to twist her around your finger.”
She tries to push the door closed, but I shove my foot into the gap. “We didn’t know it was you,” I admit.
“And you think I did?” she hisses.
“So it’s nobody’s fault, is it? We’re all adults. We just need to get on with it. Pretend it never happened.”
Her dark eyes stare into mine as though she’s trying to dig past my words, deep into my thoughts and the truth of how I’m feeling. “And that’s easy for you, is it?” she asks.
There’s no right way to respond to her question that’s been tossed into the crackling air between us like barbed wire, designed to snag and tear. Saying yes means it meant nothing to me. She meant nothing. Saying no means that I’m hung up on her in a way that’s past the boundaries of acceptability.
“I’m trying,” I say, treading a middle line. “That’s all any of us can do.”
She blinks, shocked. “Just tell mom I’m exhausted. Offer to bring me food. That should be enough to get her off our backs.”
I nod once, folding in my bottom lip to moisten it. If I closed my eyes, I could conjure the taste of her skin. If I was alone in my room, I could make myself come so hard recalling the press of her rounded ass against my cock. But I can’t do any of that. I just need to forget and find a way to ensure Lara doesn’t come up here to bother her daughter.
“Okay.”
Ellie nods and looks down at my foot. I didn’t know eyes could move flesh until my leg reflexively retracts.
“It never happened,” she whispers, her eyes still lowered to the ground.
“But it did,” I say instinctively. Denying it doesn’t seem right. Not when I can still feel the ghost memory of her body pressed against mine.
“Forget it happened then,” she says.
When her eyes meet mine, they’re the color of a moonless sky. “What if I can’t,” I say.
Her lips part as if there are words on the tip of her tongue that want to break free, but she thinks better of it and traps them again, narrowing her mouth.
As the door slowly closes, I shake my head. Ellie Franklin might want to lock herself away and deny her seven minutes in heaven, but I can’t pretend it never happened.
Not to myself and definitely not to her.