Second Chance Stepbrother(11)



“You can keep calling me Susan,” she says gently.

I grimace. Force a smile. “Sorry. I was just going to ask about your new job, if you’re moving back up here…”

Awkward moment narrowly dodged, we fall into easy conversation again. For a while, anyway, I’m able to forget about the sizzle in the air, the tension brewing, like the atmosphere before a lightning storm begins. All pent-up, charged energy that needs to release.

Josh comes back, but this time he sits on the other side of the fire, away from me. I should feel good about that. It should feel like relief, to not have to dodge his advances for a while. Instead, it makes my chest ache worse. Somehow, worse than his flirting, is not having him flirt with me.

But after half an hour of chitchat, Dad and Susan stand up and announce they’re heading to bed early.

“We’ll clean up,” Josh insists, and I’m stuck right back with him again, with that electricity pent up between us.

I jump up from my seat and start to collect the marshmallow bags and chocolate wrappers lying around the fire. I finish that, then return to help douse the fire, when Josh catches me. We both shoot sideways glances at the cabin, but the lights in the big cabin are dark now. There’s nobody else out here but us.

That has barely registered in my brain before he’s pulling me into his arms again, and our lips are colliding, and dammit, why can’t I resist him?

We stumble out of the fire circle, just far enough that the light from the dying embers won’t illuminate us. Then he pulls me down with him into the grass, and we collapse in a tumble of limbs, too busy kissing to notice how we’re sprawled together until we stop rolling. He’s lying on top of me, his body hard everywhere I’m soft, the contrast so right and so wrong at the same time. Wrong because it makes me want more. I want to rip off his shirt, feel his smooth skin against mine. Run my hands over every inch of his perfect, sculpted body. Let him explore me in turn, let him touch me and take me and claim me. I want his hands on my breasts, my stomach, my ass. I want him to spread my legs and slide his thick, strong fingers between my legs. I want him to part my pussy lips and explore me one inch at a time, take it so slowly that I think I’ll explode before he finally lets me come.

Thinking about all of that, I arch up against him, and spread my legs as he slides between my thighs, the thick length of his cock hard again already, digging into my inner thigh. I groan into our kiss, and his tongue slides between my lips, claims my mouth for his own.

I gasp again and pull back, just far enough to break that kiss. “Josh, stop.”

He pauses, a frown creasing his forehead. In the moonlight, he looks like the boy I kissed six years ago. He looks like that boy, but also like a stranger. A man I don’t know at all. A man I want to know, in every sense of the word.

“What’s wrong?” he murmurs.

“We can’t do this. You know we can’t.”

He tilts his head to one side. Searches my gaze. “Because our parents are married?”

“Of course,” I hiss, so low and loud that he leans back a little, laughs in spite of himself.

“Pau. It’s not like we’re really related.”

“So?!” I shake my head so hard that his eyes widen. I lower my voice again, nervous that our parents might wake up and peer out the window. It’s dark enough, and the fire has dimmed enough that I don’t think they’ll be able to see this far out from the cabin. Probably. But I’d rather not chance it. “Josh, for all intents and purposes, we’re brother and sister now. We can’t do this. It’s wrong.”

But my hands are speaking a different story. Even as I protest, they’re still wrapped around his neck. My fingers slide through his hair, trace the back of his neck.

“Paulina.” The sound of my full name makes me tense again. I want to hear him say that in different circumstances. I want to hear him scream it as he spreads my legs and drives his thick cock into me…

No. I shake my head.

He cups my cheek and leans in to feather kisses along my jawline. Trail his lips down the side of my neck. “What’s really going on?” he whispers into the crook of my neck. “Clearly you want to do this as much as I do. What’s the real problem?”

His other hand trails down my chest, his fingers tracing the edges of my breasts. Even through my bra, I can feel my nipples begin to harden at his touch.

“Exactly what I said it is,” I murmur, unable to stop myself from squirming under him.

“You don’t want this?” He pauses, and for a second I could swear there’s something almost like hurt in his eyes.

“Of course I do,” I say automatically, before I even think about it. Before I realize that’s exactly the wrong thing to say. He grins and leans in to kiss me again, but I turn my head. Let him trail those kisses along my neck instead, while my traitorous body reacts to him anyway, pulls him closer, digs my nails in deeper.

It takes every ounce of willpower to twist away from him. Especially when he’s gazing at me like he wants to devour me, pull me back to him and touch every inch of me until we’re both begging for more.

“But we can’t. If Dad sees us, if he catches me… He’ll be so upset. I can’t hurt him like that. He wouldn’t understand.”

Josh sits back. Watches me carefully, eyes searching in that way he has, like he sees straight through me. “Wouldn’t understand what, exactly?”

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