Chapter Nine
Sawyer
It’s lunchtime when I get a call from my father.
“Hey, dad, what’s up?”
“I assume your brothers have filled you in?”
“They might have mentioned something about the meal I missed, yeah,” I tell him rubbing my forehead. I don’t tell him about last night, Slate was out cold by the time I arrived and Onyx managed to get them kicked out for fighting.
It was pretty stressful when Kalen and the twins found me on Monday morning to moan about the family meal that I missed.
I don’t make a habit of missing them; they’re tradition.
It’s just that now, instead of having one a week with mum and dad, we now have Sundays with dad and Thursdays with mum.
My brothers were pretty up-in-arms about Sunday’s dinner.
Turns out, dad sprung the daughter of his girlfriend on them by introducing her at the dinner table.
It was a huge surprise for everyone and the boys didn’t take it well, last night's events speak for themselves. I’m yet to see how our mum’s reacting but Kalen said she roasted her in SELF class.
I might have to have a word before dad steps in.
She wouldn’t normally bully any student, but the girlfriend’s kid might be a particularly hard pill for her to swallow.
“I’ll fill you in tonight,” dad cuts into my thoughts. “I need you to come for dinner.”
“Just me? I thought we had plans as a family?” I ask. It’s not unusual for dad to have me over for tea on my own. We talk business a lot and there’s no need for the younger boys to be there.
“No. Family meal,” dad surprises me by saying. “And I need a favour from you.”
“Okaaaay…”
“I need you to get your brothers to be there.”
“Dad-”
“Please, son,” he begs and I’m done for: I can't say no.
“Sure thing. Leave it with me. I’m guessing it has something to do with the daughter?”
“Just be there.”
“Dad, I know what happened,” I tell him.
“Just make sure everyone’s there. And that your brothers play nice.”
He hangs up.
The conversation leaves me reeling. Obviously, my brothers were shocked and had a lot to say about the surprise announcement.
Kalen is already messing about declaring he has a sister to anyone who will listen.
The twins are refusing to even speak her name.
And then there’s me: I have to make a concentrated effort to mentally refer to the girlfriend as Dad’s partner, not his mistress.
So she has a kid? That’s fine by me. So long as they’re not having a kid together.
I think that would break my mum. I don’t much care about the kid.
But I can’t think of her as a stepsister.
The only curiosity I have is why she’s here at Knox Academy.
I arrive late to dinner, having had to spend most of the afternoon talking the boys into coming to the meal. It meant that my free period where I should have been marking, was wasted. I graded the assessments after school and lost track of time.
“Sorry, sorry! I know I’m late!” I call as I race into the house.
“Don’t worry! We’ll be down in a minute,” dad replies from upstairs. Ugh, I don’t want to think about why they might both be upstairs.
I bolt through the dining room without stopping to say hey, passing through to the kitchen to grab myself a beer. “Anyone want one?” I yell.
“Please!” Kalen shouts back.
“Yeah!” the twins say.
I grab three more beers for my brothers, knock the caps off, and carry them all back into the dining room, using my ass to push open the door because my hands are full.
I spin to face the table and the bottles slip from my grasp. They hit the floor and beer fizzes and spills everywhere.
“Shit!” I jump back and quickly duck to grab the beer before any more mess gets made. My eyes are wide and my jaw hangs open. What the hell is Amelie doing here?
“Bro, meet our new sister dearest.” Kalen smirks, throwing his arm around Amelie’s shoulders and pulling her in close.
“I’m not your sister,” she says through gritted teeth, throwing him off.
Kalen just laughs at her and she squirms uncomfortably under my stare.
“Hey, I’m Amelie. You must be Sawyer. We didn’t get to meet on Sunday.
” Her smile is so innocent I wonder if I’m wrong about the girl sitting in front of me.
There has to be some kind of mistake. But.
..the name...it’s not exactly common, is it?
I shake my head and bang the half-empty beers on the dining table.
“I’ll get more beers. Amelie, is it? Can you help me carry them?”
I don’t wait for her response, just assume that she’ll follow, and head back into the kitchen. When the door shuts behind her, I quickly flip the lock. I don’t want to be interrupted.
“What the hell is going on?” I demand, seething.
“Your dad is fucking my incubator. That’s my mother, to you,” she snarks. Her level of sass throws me. This is not the same cool, fun girl I hung out with on Friday and last night. It can’t be.
“I know what a fucking incubator is,” I seethe. “What I want to know is, what the hell you’re doing here!”
“It’s my birthday,” she says, eyes flashing with challenge.
Dread fills me at her words.
“How old?”
“Huh?” she pretends to play dumb. Shit. How did I not see through her acting earlier?
“How old are you today?” I push through gritted teeth. Fuck. I almost slept with a pupil. Please don’t let her be a fucking minor too. I have goddamn photos of us together...shit! I sent her a dick pic...I had my tongue inside her.
I blanch, barely holding in the bile that rises up my throat.
“Eighteen, why?” She folds her arms across her chest and glares at me.
I breathe out a massive sigh of relief. Thank fuck. I can’t even begin to think about how over my life would be if she was any younger.
“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?” I feel like my safety walls are crumbling down around me. I knew it was a bad idea to get involved with anyone.
“What? That it’s my birthday today?” Her sarcasm drives me crazy, but her fire turns me on. Fuck. That’s so fucking wrong.
“Quit playing games. You obviously knew who I was. What are you playing at?”
She shrugs her shoulders and her indifference makes the red mist come down. I try hard to breathe through the rage, but my hands curl into fists involuntarily.
“I did you a favour,” she startles me out of my anger by saying defiantly.
“How?” I reluctantly demand.
“I overheard that teacher in the toilets. She was bragging about how she planned to seduce you. She’s only interested in your money. I saved you.”
“How do you figure?”
“I lifted her phone, changed the location to the pub. Borrowed her car to meet you. Made sure she couldn’t show,” she says with absolutely no remorse whatsoever. I don’t know if I should report her, punish her myself, or be grateful. As it stands, I’m pretty impressed. Shit, shit, shit.
“What the hell is going on?” I ask quietly. “You knew who I was. You did more than just save me from Miss Hart.” My voice is low, alluding to last night.
“I...wanted information on Friday. I didn’t meet any of you yet and I was nervous. I wanted a heads up before I came to tea on Sunday.”
Suddenly she looks so vulnerable and sorry that I want to scoop her up into my arms and reassure her. I don’t though. I can’t. I’m in enough trouble as it is.
“And last night? Are you trying to get me fired?”
“No!” she insists, eyes wide. “There was a real connection. I didn’t expect that when I came on Friday. I wanted to see you, I wanted to do what we did-”
“Look, Amelie…” I hastily interrupt. “It goes without saying that you can’t text me anymore. You have to delete my number,” I tell her calmly even though my heart is racing and I can barely stand.
“No.”
“No? What do you mean no?” I frown. Did she misunderstand me?
“I’m not deleting your number. And it was you who started texting me,” she tells me with a defiant tilt of her chin. “It was you who wanted to get a room.” I feel sick when she reminds me.
“Amelie, look-” I begin, trying to reason with her.
“Trying to have sex with a minor is not good for you. And I have all your sexy little messages - and pictures - on my phone. So you’re going to be doing exactly what I say from now on.”
“Yeah well, luckily for me, I think you’ll find the age of consent over here is sixteen, not eighteen,” I tell her firmly. No way am I about to be blackmailed over an innocent mistake.
I pull out my phone, bring up her details, and holding the phone right up to her face so she can see, I hit delete. As I turn to leave, she stops me in my tracks.
“And sleeping with a student? Is that allowed in this country? Cause it’s kinda frowned upon where I come from.”
My heart stops.
“I didn’t sleep with you,” I force out slowly from between my gritted teeth. I can feel my temper rising, my control slipping.
“I would beg to differ after last night. I do have the picture of us in bed together,” she challenges. She approaches me slowly, a real swing to her hips and if I wasn’t so mad, and so scared of the power she has over me, I’d be turned on.
She has me backed against the door, chest touching mine, breathing hard. It’s a role reversal of Friday night. The memories flash into my mind, unwelcome, and Christ help me, my dick stirs to life. Fuck, fuck, fuck!
When she reaches up on tip toes and presses against me, I’m certain that she’s going to kiss me.
But she doesn’t. She whispers “but you wanted to” in a low sultry voice that makes my dick rock hard.
It takes me a moment to realise that she’s talking about me wanting to sleep with her, as in, go all the way.
I’m fairly certain we would have had sex, multiple times, if it wasn’t for the SOS call from Kalen.
When the haze of lust clears, I’m angry.
Enraged. I’ve worked too hard to throw it all away on jailbait.
I grab Amelie by the hips and swing her round so that our positions are reversed.
I’m so angry I can’t see straight. I’m not thinking.
It’s auto-pilot when my hand shoots out and fastens itself around her neck.
Her eyes widen, but I don’t think it’s in terror. My fingers flex, tighten, apply a little pressure.
“You’re not blackmailing me, Amelie,” I growl.
She gasps softly and I use everything I have in me to hold on to my anger. I can’t kiss her. I can’t do this. She’s my dad’s girlfriend’s… fuck it. She’s my step-sister. She’s my student. I can’t.
I shouldn’t even want to.
But I do.
I drag my eyes down her face and I stumble when I see she’s biting her lip. She gives a tiny little moan and trembles under my touch. Oh God. Is she turned on by this? Did she just…?
She can’t have. No way. I did not just make my step-sister - pupil - fucking come by choking her in my father’s kitchen. No. No way.
I drop her faster than it takes me to blink and race to the other side of the kitchen, breathing hard. I need space, air and distance from this temptress.
For a second, Amelie doesn’t move. She’s leaning against the door, panting as hard as I am. I can see her erect nipples pushing through her school shirt. Why the fuck is she wearing her uniform to her birthday dinner? And when did school skirts get so short?
“Thanks for the orgasm.” She smiles lazily. “I think it was your best one yet. Bye for now, big brother.” She winks, blowing me a kiss when she recovers.
I watch her - I can’t tear my eyes from her - as she unlocks the door and sashays back into the dining room. Her ridiculously short skirt swings with every step she takes and I realise that she’s wearing stockings and suspenders. My dick is like steel.
I am so fucking fucked.