Chapter 2
CeeCee
The whole story…
Is Daddy going to be impressed? I’ve put in so much effort into his arrival, and now I’m a hot mess, literally.
The summer heat is still oppressive outside this time of year, but inside the A/C blows from every vent and I’m still sweating.
The last bit orange slices across the horizon out the wall of windows on the back side of the kitchen and I hope I never take the beauty of this place for granted.
I made a disaster of the kitchen but with a bit of help from Maria before she left to her cottage for the evening, the pans are all hanging up on their hooks again, the white Carrera marble counter gleaming and spotless, but it wasn’t like that an hour ago.
I set off the smoke alarms browning the butter, lost in the thoughts rolling around in my head as I watched it turn from gold to amber, waiting for that nutty smell to hit right before it burns.
Then it burned. And I had to start all over again.
The chocolate is the good stuff, dark and bitter, chips Trent brought back from the village when I told him I wanted to make the best cookies for Samuel’s arrival home from his trip.
I did sneak a taste of the pistachio butter while I stuffed the centers. The flavor is still sweet on my tongue as my palms sweat and my heart ticks against my chest wall like a hummingbird’s wings.
When my step-brother took over my guardianship, I was thirteen, and the first thing we did when we came home from court was to bake cookies together.
Well, mostly I baked, and he watched. Going to court was hard, but for the best.
I hate to say it, but I don’t miss our parents.
Samuel became everything I needed, and he’s so smart, it wasn’t long before we were living here in this ocean paradise in a compound with flowers, and staff, and all the things you’d expect from a billionaire’s lifestyle.
I still feel like I have whiplash going from that shabby little trailer we all lived in, to this.
Samuel built his company on hard work and the will to give us a better life.
He succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.
There’s a private airport two miles away, where Samuel keeps his newest jet.
I’m scared to fly, but he goes all around the world conducting business for his venture capital interests, as well as still sitting on the board of his original start up, TechNiPhobe, where he is the brains behind keeping hackers and other nefarious entities out of billion-dollar companies’ computer systems.
High-tech security, I guess. I don’t even have a laptop. Ironic.
That day after court as I baked, I remember him holding the spoon to my lips for me to lick the yummy chocolate batter. I’d always baked for the family, but Samuel was the only one who ever thanked me, or smiled when I messed up the kitchen or tried out a new recipe.
Our parents either ignored me, scolded me, or punished me.
For baking cookies.
I don’t remember exactly when I started calling him Daddy.
But I don’t think twice about it now. He is that to me, and even though my life went from one version of strange to another where I’m isolated here on this secluded island, where half of it belongs to us, this one is so much better because I get to spend all my time with him.
His text dinged just as I finished the delicious lunch Maria prepared, serving me on the terrace which is my favorite. He said he’d finished his work early, and he was coming home a day ahead of schedule.
My tummy fluttered like it always does when he says he’s coming home and I wanted his everything to be perfect. That’s not all though.
If everything was just so and I could distract him enough, that last line of his note would be forgotten and life would continue on as it has all these years.
The security system chirps that the front gate has opened and I swear the room starts to spin.
The entire first floor of the white stucco and glass mansion we call home smells of sugar and burnt butter when the front door opens, and my cheeks twitch and ache, I’m smiling so big.
The clink of his keys hitting the crystal bowl by the entry lodges my heart into my throat, his footsteps click softly on the marble, and it’s so hard to breathe.
Two days, this time. Two days of me sleeping in his huge t-shirt, the one that still held his smell beneath the scent of laundry detergent.
I'm standing next to the white marble kitchen island, with the cookies in a spiral on the cornflower-blue ceramic plate.
Samuel loves the plate so much, because he says it’s the color of my eyes. It was made in Florence, with a floral hand-painted rim, but we bought it in town at the pottery shop last spring when we went for a Sunday drive.
I’m wearing the dress he bought me on his last trip to New York. Cream linen, thin straps, a hem that brushes halfway up my thighs. Bare feet, because he likes that.
Toenails painted in that perfect rose-red he brings back whenever he travels to Paris, where he has the color custom mixed just for me.
Insecurity tangles around my neck as my nipples tingle and press on the fabric. It would be impossible to wear a bra and not ruin the look.
Samuel hates messes, hates when things don’t line up perfectly, so I went without a bra.
Not that I have that much to hold up if we’re being truthful, but I’ve never been self-conscious about my A-cups because the only men I ever really see are my brother and Trent, the seventy-two-year-old groundskeeper, who, from what I’ve gathered over the years, prefers the company of men and has never once given me a sideways look or icky feeling in my belly.
That’s one of the reasons Daddy trusts him here with me when he’s gone, I’m sure.
The peaks of sensitive flesh rasp against the fabric.
I tell myself they’re pointy and tingling from the AC blowing on me from the vent above, and not from the view of my brother when he steps through the archway into the kitchen, looking as handsome as ever.
He’s in one of his dark gray suits with a white shirt, open at the collar. Casual for Samuel.
I swallow the saliva gathering under my tongue at the way his jawline hardens, the furrow along his brow deepening when he checks his phone one last time before he slides it onto the table, which makes me smile.
It means he’s done with work. At least for a while. And I’ll get him all to myself. His hair’s a little wild, a dark strand falling onto his forehead. He’s tan. Sharp. Built like something carved out of marble by someone who knew exactly what they wanted.
Then his eyes find mine, and things between my legs clench.
Tray up. Chin high.
Look what I did for you, Daddy. Look how good I am.
“Hey.”
That’s all that comes out. Besides the wetness leaking into my panties.
My smile quickly drops when his eyes track away from mine. “Why was the alarm off on the front gate?”
“W-What? I don’t…” I stammer. I never go near the front gate. It’s half a mile away, and unless I’m with Daddy or Trent, I know better than to walk outside, especially with the workers here. “Maybe Trent forgot to set it?”
Samuel makes this deep growling sound in his chest.
I hold the tray higher, shamefully hoping to turn this moment back around to the homecoming I’d hoped to give him. “I… I made you cookies?”
He stays silent, scanning the kitchen over my shoulder, his jaw tight.
When his gaze swings back, whatever I’m holding onto inside my chest starts to crumble, then roars back to life when he steps forward, those long strides closing the tense space between us.
“You’re a good girl. I know you try to follow the rules, and like I said in my note, things are going to change. They have to change.” His nostrils flare, and I think of our complicated history.
His dad married my mom, and they were a match made in hell.
His eyes are frost-blue to the point of being almost white, and mine are cornflower blue, so not that different, but that’s where the similarities end.
His hair is deep coffee brown, neat but wavy and swept to the side, where mine is blonde and ringlet-curly.
I have a whole bunch of freckles, but Samuel’s skin is tanned and clear. His cheeks and jaw are covered with a hint of scruff like the men on the covers of Maria’s books.
He licks his lips, then nods, taking a cookie. “I’m sorry, baby girl. I just don’t like you being here without the alarms on, especially with me away. Anything could have happened.” He takes a bite, and his eyes close for a second. “Fucking delicious. You changed the recipe? It’s sweeter.”
Heat climbs my neck at the praise. “A little adjustment. H-Have some cappuccino.” I nod at the counter where I have a cup waiting.
If I wait on him like this… does that mean I’ve done whatever it is I’m supposed to do now that I’m an adult?
As if Samuel reads my thoughts, he shakes his head. “Cookies and cappuccino are not going to be enough, I’m afraid.”
“Enough…for what?” I shift from one foot to the other, and my pulse kicking up. When he takes a step forward, I take a stumbling step back.
A small smirk lifts the corner of his lips.
“CeeCee.” My name in his mouth feels like a hand around my throat, and I take another step backward, forcing my smile to stay put. “Why are you trying to get away?”
"I'm not—" I lie, taking another step until my spine hits the door frame. The solid oak digs into the small of my back.
My pulse hammers in my throat, between my legs, in the soles of my feet. Some dumb animal part of my brain is already halfway up the stairs, already turning the lock on my door.
But the rest of me? The part that wore this dress without a bra? That part stays right where I am.
“You know what I’m talking about.” He closes the space and I have no more space for retreat. His body heat reaches me before he does, and I swallow down the saliva flooding my mouth “Don’t tell me you didn’t understand the note.”
Does he want me to pay the price of being an adult? R-right now? What does that even mean?
"I… I understood," I lie.
But, a tingling realization dawns. Does he want…
No.
Not my brother. Not…sex, from me.
I shake away the intrusive and clearly ridiculous thought.
"I know you did.” His voice is strained as his hand comes up, and his knuckles brush my collarbone and my body jerks. "Now, cookies are nice, but it’s time you showed me something else. What’s going to change now that you’re an adult? Your big brother has done a lot for you, hasn’t he?"
“Yes,” I chirp, but my lungs suddenly feel too small. I’m gushing down there again.
The swollen slickness and heat at the apex of my thighs throbs. I’m sure he knows what he’s doing to me, too.
My shame. My thoughts. What being this close to him does to me.
He knows everything about me. Better than I do.
“Good, now show me what you can do for me. Other than bake cookies.”