Chapter 2
COLT
The morning sun beats down on my back as I repeat the news that’s going to drive me insane. “Three weeks…”
Jim grins, wrapping his arm around Katherine at the breakfast table. “The cruise leaves tomorrow. Last-minute thing. Early flight to Miami, then we board.”
You’ve got to be kidding. Three weeks alone with her. I grip my coffee mug harder than I should and hear the ceramic cracking under the pressure. Cracking like me.
“You’ll look after Lily, won’t you?” Katherine asks, her eyes hopeful—hopeful and so innocent. If only she knew the terrible thoughts running through my mind. “She’s only eighteen, and this is a new place…”
“I’ve got it.” The words snap out rougher than I’d intended, but I keep my eyes off Lily. I can’t look at her, sitting there in a thin yellow sundress that’s been haunting me since she came downstairs this morning.
“Yeah, it’ll be fine…” Lily says softly. I make the mistake of allowing my eyes to move to her and see she’s looking right back at me, her green eyes causing my chest to tighten. “Right, Colt?”
I feel a forbidden rush of blood between my legs and quickly push back from the table. “I’m gonna work on the bike.”
The garage is my sanctuary, but even here, surrounded by oil and metal, I can’t escape her. Her soft giggle floats through the walls as she helps her mom pack. Her voice carries on the quiet wind when she speaks. She’s everywhere, flooding every inch of the lake house that used to be mine.
I hurl myself into my work, hoping to distract myself from these forbidden thoughts. The motorcycle needs a new carburetor. That’ll take my mind off her…I hope. Something to focus on that isn’t the way her auburn hair catches the light or the way her dress sculpts the curves of her waist.
I’ve seen thousands of women in my life, but this one hits me like a punch to the guts. I’ve never believed in angels, but now I have proof of their existence.
I work until my muscles burn, until my hands are sore, until sweat drips into my eyes. Suddenly, I hear a sound behind me. “I brought you lunch.”
My body freezes at her voice. I glance back and see her standing in the doorway of my garage, the one place I told her not to come. She’s holding a plate looking so adorable and sweet—like one giant mistake I can’t allow myself to make.
“What’d I tell you?” I growl. “I told you to stay away from the garage.”
“You missed lunch. And breakfast,” she replies as she steps inside and sets the plate down on my workbench. “It’s a turkey sandwich with Swiss and some honey mustard. Your dad said you’d like it—”
“Lily.” Her name feels like danger on my tongue. “Get out of here.”
She looks perplexed for a moment, but instead of leaving, she moves closer—closer enough that I can smell her shampoo, floral and sweet, completely alien to this space. “Why do you hate me, Colt?”
Her question hits me like a punch to the gut. Christ, if only it were that simple.
“I don’t hate you—” I start to say, then stop.
I can’t tell her the truth. That she’s on my mind every second since she stepped out of the car.
That I’ve been taking cold showers to try and keep myself from being hard around the house.
That even the distance I put between us and the hard work I lose myself in doesn’t help me from thinking about her.
“Then why can’t you look at me?” she asks. I bite my teeth together in frustration. Never in a million years could I have seen this coming. I’m trying not to get involved with my stepsister.
Because looking at you makes me want to do things I shouldn’t. Because you’re eighteen and innocent. Because you’re my stepsister and totally off-limits.
That’s what I want to say to her. But all I can manage is, “It’s complicated.”
She sort of laughs, but there’s no humor there. “No, it’s not. You took one look at me and decided I wasn’t worth your time.”
God, if she only knew. If she had any idea how much of my time she was actually consuming. How she’s invaded my every thought. My every breath.
“Lily, that’s not—” I turn to face her, and wow, what a mistake.
She’s even closer than I thought. So close I can see the tiny little freckles across her cheeks and nose, the way her plump teenage breasts rise and fall with each breath.
Either she’s wearing a push-up bra, or her tits are phenomenal. “You…should go.”
“Yeah?” she asks confrontationally. “Why don’t you make me?”
Her defiant tone is all it takes to cause my control to snap. I step forward into her space, back her up against my workbench, and seize the edge with my hands on either side of her—not touching her, just caging her in. Her jaw drops, her rosy lips tempting me like two slices of ripe strawberry.
“You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into, little girl.”
She lifts her chin in defiance. “Ah, so I’m a little kid again?”
No. No, she’s not. She’s a fully blossomed woman, with soft curves and tempting lips and everything a terrible man like me would want to corrupt. She shines like the sun in that yellow dress, and I loom over her like a shadow, ready to swallow her whole if she lets me.
“Our parents—”
“Are leaving tomorrow.” Her voice drops to a whisper. “And then it’s just me and you. Alone.”
Me and you…
The words echo in my head like a blessing and a curse. I step away and turn my back to her before I do something I can’t take back.
“Leave me alone, Lily.”
“Eat your lunch,” she says softly. “And then I’ll leave you alone.”
I eat, but she doesn’t leave me alone. Not really.
Sure, she leaves—technically. But even after she’s gone, her presence still lingers.
The taste of the sandwich in my mouth, the floral scent of her shampoo in my space, even just some kind of invisible pull in the air like her body calling out to me.
I’m too damn old to be getting this turned on by a girl, especially one who’s about to be my stepsister.
I’m almost thirty. I should have learned to control my dirty thoughts by now.
But when it comes to Lily, it’s like a switch gets flipped inside me, and all I see is her spreading her legs open and me burying my cock in her tight little hole.
I wonder if she’s a virgin. In fact, the thought tortures me for the rest of the day while I try to work. If another man has put his hands on her, I’ll—
A sudden crack snaps me out of my daydream, and I look down to see that the handle of my hammer has snapped in my grip, which has tightened to the point the old wood could no longer take it. Not to mention my wood that’s straining against the buttons of my fly.
When evening comes, Jim and Katherine are packed and ready, going over last-minute instructions over dinner: emergency numbers, credit card for groceries, normal parent stuff.
Except nothing about this is normal. Especially when Lily’s foot ‘accidentally’ brushes against mine and I have to bite back a growl as she licks sauce off her thumb like a seductress.
I have to excuse myself and escape up to my room early. But the walls in the lake house are thin, and I can hear her getting ready for bed—drawers opening and closing, her closet door, the shower running.
Christ, the shower…
My mind nearly blanks at the thought, then quickly fills in the details. Countless things I should not be fantasizing about: Water sliding down her skin, her soaked hair trailing down her back, her towel dropping to the floor…
When I lie down, sleep will not come. I just stare up at the ceiling, knowing she’s across the hall, less than twenty feet away. Thin walls are all that separate us. Thin walls and a lifetime of reasons why I can’t get up and cross that distance.
I can’t fucking take it. I’m tenting under the sheets with thoughts of what I’d do to her if she was here. There’s only one way I’m going to get to sleep tonight.
Giving in, I spit on my hand and lift up the sheets. My hard-on is thick and standing up straight like a flag pole. My whole body shivers as I take the tip in my palm and begin stroking to the thought of my stepsister’s dress kicking up in the wind.
“Lily…” I whisper, keeping my voice quiet enough that she can’t hear. “That’s right. Suck on it.”
The image of her down on her knees with my cock in her mouth fills my mind. I reach down and grab her tits, feeling their supple youth. My fantasy envelops me with thoughts of her mouth’s warmth and wetness. I’ll teach her just how I like it and how to please me.
I’ll kiss down her stomach until I reach her pussy, and then I’ll inhale deeply, take her scent into my lungs before plunging my tongue into her hole. Knowing I don’t have long before I explode, I grab a fistful of paper towels from the nightstand.
If any other man has touched her…
“I’m gonna come,” I whisper, imagining her eyes go wide as I explode into her mouth. “Swallow it. Yes.”
I cover my crown with the towels, catching the spray of cum that erupts from my cock. Barely able to contain my growl of ecstasy, I bite down on my cheek as my hips buck off the bed.
If only she were here.
I slump back down, panting like a maniac. Christ, what am I going to do now?
The next morning, our parents leave in a whirlwind of chatter and luggage. My dad pulls me aside before they get in the cab. “Look, I know this is a little awkward,” he says quietly. “The whole instant family thing, but she’s Kathie’s daughter. So watch out for her, okay? She’s special.”
Oh, isn’t she just?
I nod, not trusting myself to reply. If he knew what I want to do to his precious little stepdaughter, he’d kill me.
And then they’re gone, and the house feels instantly different. Charged with electricity, like the air before a lightning storm.
Lily stands on the porch, waving until the cab disappears around the corner. She’s wearing shorts today, framing her legs that seem to go on forever, and a raggedy tank top that keeps slipping off one shoulder. She turns to me, and something in her face has changed.
“So? What now?”
Now I spend three weeks in hell, trying to fight not taking what I want most in the world.
“Now you stay on your side of the house,” I answer. “And I’ll stay on mine.”
She shrugs and steps closer, her tank top slipping as she moves, exposing more of her chest. No bra today. “And what if I don’t want to?”
“Lily—”
“What if I want to be where you are?” she asks, taking another step. Her nipples harden beneath the fabric, like two tasty little gumdrops. “What if I’ve been dreaming about you since I first saw you?”
I shake my head and look at the floor. “Stop.”
“You feel it too, don’t you?” She’s too close now, trying to get my attention with those gorgeous eyes. “You want—”
“Don’t tell me what I want.” My voice comes out like a roar, desperate and strong. “You have no idea what goes through my head when I look at you.”
I can see her start to smile out of the corner of my eye. “No? Then tell me.”
Yeah, right. Tell an innocent little girl like her about my fantasies? I’d scare her to death. No way I can tell her how I’ve pictured her mouth wrapped around my shaft, her little virgin slit just waiting to be penetrated.
My blood flows primal through me like my most basic instincts just dying to be let out of their cage.
“Go inside, Lily.”
I don’t expect her to listen, but for once, she actually does. Only as she passes, her hand brushes mine, deliberately. The electric spark that shoots through me could power New York City for a week. “Three weeks, Colt. We’ll see who breaks first.”
God help me.