12
COLBY
“Ellie, I want you to go with the triplets to get the things we need for Harry’s barbeque,” Lara says, sounding stressed.
“How come?” Ellie asks.
“Harry was supposed to help me, but he’s got other more important things to do.” The last part is said with dripping disdain. “And let’s just say the triplets have a tendency not to get everything I put on the list.” Lara looks pointedly at Seb, who shrugs and grins. She’s not wrong. My brother always takes the opportunity to buy things that aren’t on the list and charge it to our dad’s card. Maybe Lara thinks Ellie will rein Seb in.
“Sure.” Ellie glances at Micky. As their eyes meet, her cheeks turn a rosy shade of pink, and I immediately narrow my gaze. There’s something different about my brother this morning. I caught him humming on his way down the stairs. And now Ellie is looking at him softly rather than with her usual daggers.
I didn’t see them acting particularly friendly yesterday. If anything, Ellie was her bristling self. But she’s different today.
Interesting.
“I’ll drive,” Ellie says quickly.
“No way,” I object. “There’s no way your trunk will fit everything.”
“Are you seriously going to get into a my-trunk-is-bigger-than-yours is competition with me?” Ellie rests her hands on her hips. I expect to hear frustration in her voice, and malice, but instead, there’s a smile dancing at the edge of her pretty lips, and amusement in her tone.
Has the world slipped off its axis without me realizing it?
“My trunk is definitely bigger,” I say, smirking.
“My trunk is the same size as his,” Seb murmurs, just quietly enough that Ellie’s mom doesn’t hear. Micky shoots him a warning glare.
Also interesting
“Here’s the card,” Lara says, fishing around in her large designer purse and pulling out a shiny Amex to hand to her daughter. “At least Harry’s going to make some kind of contribution to this get-together…and the list.”
Ellie takes both, watching her mom with one eyebrow raised. It’s not only the frustrated, angry way Lara is talking about dad–it’s been bubbling between them for the last month–but also that Lara is trusting her daughter.
The world really has slipped into another dimension.
“Come on, huge trunk guy.” Ellie nods in my direction and sashays out of the kitchen and towards the front door, flicking her hair over one shoulder.
Seb snickers. “I’ve never heard it called a trunk before.”
“Get your mind out of the gutter,” I grunt as I follow Ellie, my eyes fixed on her ass and the way it jiggles in her cream sweatpants. The sliver of bare skin between the gathered waist of her pants and the cropped black tee she’s wearing is so tantalizing I lick my lips. I imagine pressing kisses along that inch of skin, making her shiver. Then I shake my head.
Off limits, I remind myself and then decide that they are my two least favorite words.
I’d like to test Ellie’s limits. I could take her to the edge again and again and hold off giving her a release until she’s begging. I could push her into doing things that make her cheeks flame, knowing that she’d love every minute of giving over her control to me.
She’s sassy as fuck, but I felt how much she reacted to my dominance in the closet. She was like putty in my hands.
Ellie forces her feet into her sneakers, grabbing her purse from the hooks by the front door. I take a little longer to get ready as I search for my Nikes amongst my brothers’ mountain of huge shoes and then sit to tie the laces.
“I thought it’s supposed to be girls who take the longest to get ready,” Ellie snorts, her hand already on the front door.
“These divas don’t count,” Micky says. When I turn, he’s stuffed his big feet into sliders.
“You’re seriously going to the store in socks and sliders?” I ask.
“I’m on trend,” he says. “Ask Ellie.”
“It’s true,” she says. “Not saying I love the trend or anything, but all the celebrities are going out like that these days.”
I make a disapproving sound. “Next, you’ll tell me that mullets are coming back into fashion.”
“Yep,” she says, grinning. “Check on Insta. All the fashion influencers are rocking mullets.”
“No way,” I say, my mouth hanging open. “You’re lying.”
“Nope,” Ellie tucks a curl behind her ear, and her eyes drift to Micky again. The slight blush I spotted in the kitchen paints her cheeks. What the fuck is going on?
I lumber to my feet and follow as Ellie trots down the front steps, light on her feet as though she’s about to head into a jog. She’s by my SUV in a flash, but I slow, turning to my brother. “What the fuck is between you and Ellie today?” I mutter.
His eyes shoot to her immediately and then to me. He has a rabbit-in-headlights look about him I recognize immediately. It’s the same look he had when I caught him eating my Halloween candy. The same as when he wore my new sneakers that I was saving for best and got them covered in mud. His guilty look.
“Nothing,” he says quickly, but I don’t believe him at all.
“It better be nothing.”
“Why? You jealous?” he asks.
“There’s nothing to be jealous of, is there?” I say, glaring.
Seb comes up behind us, clapping his hands against both our shoulders. “Come on, brothers. Our stepsister is waiting. And I’m sure she doesn’t want to hear us bickering like a bunch of toddlers.”
When I unlock the car, Ellie climbs into the front passenger seat and slams the door. Micky and Seb glance at each other, but rather than being pissed that she’s taken the shotgun position, they grin.
Nothing is quite as it should be.
“I don’t know what the fuck is going on today,” I say. “But I don’t like it.”
Ellie grabs a cart at the supermarket and leads us inside like a mom with three errant kids in tow. She gives each of us a few items to find, and we separate to search them out. I grab three cases of beer and carry them back to where I last saw Ellie. On the way, I bump into Micky holding a stack of bags of chips. “I know you, Micky,” I say. “You better tell me what’s going on.”
I can’t,” he says. “I promised. But you’ll find out tonight.”
“What do you mean, I’ll find out?”
“You’ll find out,” Micky says. “That’s all I can tell you without breaking a confidence.”
“You know what dad always says. The most important people in our lives are our brothers. No one else matters,” I remind him.
“Yeah. But you not knowing for a few more hours won’t kill you,” Micky says. “You just have to be patient.”
“Patience is not a virtue I possess,” I admit, not for the first time.
“Then it’s one you’re going to need to cultivate,” Micky says.
“What does Colby need to cultivate?” Seb asks, appearing behind us like the ghost of Christmas past.
“A sense of humor.” Ellie’s voice carries from the next aisle. We can hear her but not see her. I swear she has the hearing of a hawk.
“She’s got you there,” Seb laughs. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that one.”
“Let’s just get this shopping and get out of here,” I grunt, hating the feeling that I’m out of the loop when it comes to my brothers and Ellie—hating that she’s managed to get between us, even if it’s just for a few hours. “I don’t like this,” I grumble over my shoulder as Micky heads off in the other direction. I watch him leave, noting the slight swagger to his step. The swagger that comes with getting laid.
That can’t be it.
There is no way Ellie and Micky have hooked up.
I sound big-headed in my mind when I decide that if she wanted to hook up with any of us, it would be me first.
We might have a fractious relationship, but I’m the one who’s had the most contact with Ellie. Surely that would count for something.
But as I watch Micky and Ellie for the rest of the shopping trip, I’m not so sure.
There is a weird chemistry between them like they have shared a secret. And I’m not talking about a PG-13 secret.
When we return to the house, Ellie wanders up to the front door and disappears inside, leaving us to unload the shopping. That’s fine by me. What the hell is the point of being a big, strong man if you can’t work your muscles in order to assist the fairer sex? All afternoon, Ellie helps her mom prepare amazing-looking salads and appetizers, leaving only thirty minutes to get ready before the guests arrive. After my shower, I descend the stairs expecting Ellie to be still holed up in her room, but she’s welcoming the first guests–some of my dad’s workmates.
And she’s a knockout.
Tight black denim shorts with shredded hems and an emerald green top that only has fabric at the front and ties in tantalizing crisscrosses at the back. Her hair hangs in waves that my hands itch to grab hold of.
I imagine her on her knees, mouth open for my thick cock, my hand twisted into her long, soft curls. It would make directing the depth and speed so easy, and in my fantasy, Ellie takes it all so well.
A voice clears behind me, and I whip around to find Seb’s eyes on Ellie’s ass, too.
“I can practically hear the filth dripping from your mind,” he whispers.
“You think you know it all.”
“If there were no consequences, you’d be all over that like a deadly contagious rash.”
Ignoring my triplet, I stride into the kitchen, trying to leave my stupid fantasy behind.
Consequences. What the hell does Seb know about those? He lives his life with a foot over the line, and whenever trouble bites him in the ass, he laughs it off or laces his excuses with a joke or two. He gets away with so much more than I ever could. I don’t like the bitter taste of resentment that I find sticking my tongue to the roof of my mouth, but he’s right that I wish I could throw all consideration of consequences out of the window and take life a little less seriously.
“Colby, grab this platter and take it out to your dad,” Lara says, thrusting a huge tray of raw meat into my hands. “He should have started grilling an hour ago.” Grateful for the distraction, I stride into the yard, finding my dad and assorted friends hanging out and drinking beer like they don’t have care between them.
“There he is,” my dad says proudly.
“Colby, you’re bigger every time I see you,” Mr. Conolly, our old neighbor, says.
“All my boys are training hard,” Dad says.
“I bet they eat you out of house and home.” Mr. Conolly raises his beer as if to say cheers. Behind me, someone laughs in a light and tinkling way. When I turn, Ellie is out in the yard. Our eyes meet, and she brushes her hair over her shoulder, looking straight at me as though she read my mind in the hall and is now taunting me with the very curls I want to grip.
“I’ll check if Lara needs me for anything else,” I say, wanting to get away from Ellie’s temptation. Before the closet, I could keep my urges under control. Now, it’s as though everything has been unleashed. I’m a rabid dog, circling my prey, desperate to draw on my previous instincts and failing.
And that’s how it is for the rest of the night. Ellie enters my orbit, shining as bright as the sun, and I skulk off like a dark planet or frigging wormhole, desperate not to obliterate her. At one point, when we’re wedged together by the crowd and making my excuses would be too awkward and obvious, I find myself offering for Ellie to present the work we did for Professor Anderson’s class.
“Are you sure?” she says. “Shouldn’t we do it together?”
“You came up with more of the ideas,” I tell her. “You should have a chance to earn extra credit.” So she doesn’t think I’m turning soft, I add, “plus, I’m already acing that class.”
“Of course you are.” She shakes her head, her mouth tugging at the side as though she’s trying to work me out. It’s not possible to do. I live inside my fucking head, and I don’t know whether I’m coming or going half the time.
“Colby,” dad yells across the yard, and I finally have an excuse to move on.
I work hard to stay away from everyone messing with my head for the rest of the evening.
I don’t even talk to my brothers when the party is over. I stomp up the stairs to my room and close the door. I throw off my smart clothes and slump onto my bed, resting my head on my hands while I stare at the ceiling, breathing as fast as if I just ran the last nine yards.
Slowly, the house quiets while I contemplate the next few years of living with a perpetual boner and fighting to stay clear of Ellie whenever I can. There will be a whole lot of cleaning up to do in the morning, but for once, we’re all too spent.
For once, too, I don’t slide into sleep immediately. My mind churns over those minutes in the darkness of the closet. I recall every moan and movement, every twitch of pleasure and moment of resistance. It’s like the sweetest torture because I want to jerk off and relieve the buildup of tension in my balls, but it feels wrong. Those images are too laced with reality. An image of Ellie laughing tonight, her face bright with amusement, tangles its way in, and nothing feels right.
This is not who I am.
I don’t give in to temptation. I have the self-restraint of a monk and the self-control of the best athletes in the world. I know what’s good for me, and I stick to the straight path. Deviation is for the weak.
Except, when the handle turns, and Ellie appears in my doorway dressed in nothing but a lacy nightdress, her beautiful hair hanging in soft waves, I know that all of that self-restraint and self-control is about to be obliterated.
Because there is no way I could resist this girl, ever.
She is my kryptonite. My sweetest temptation.
I was right about there being something between her and Micky. And now there’s going to be something between us, too.