Free STEPBROTHER: Bad Boy Blues (Taboo Romance) by Ora Wilde

I felt a skittish tingle emanate from my tummy, pulsating throughout the rest of my body.
     
    “You’re not one of them,” he said.  “You’re... different.”
     
    Oh great!  Now I know he’s like everybody else who thought of me as some kind of weirdo.
     
    “You’re very much different, Betty,” he continued.
     
    Betty. The second time he recited my name like that.
     
    “You’re...” he paused as if he was unsure whether he should proceed or not.  “You’re one of a kind,” he finally concluded.
     
    His words dazed me.  It was a fuzzy kind of trance, though.  One that hit me right in the heart and melted my entire being.
     
    “What do you mean?” I asked.
     
    “Before me and my dad moved in, I was in a really bad place.  Sometimes I feel I still am.  But whenever you’re around, I start to believe that I can be someone else completely.  Someone I can be proud of.  Someone better.”
     
    Was I hearing those correctly?  From him?  From my stepbrother?
     
    “Then why do you keep treating me like I don’t exist?”
     
    “Not all the time.”
     
    “Sometimes?”
     
    “It’s because I don’t know how to react to how you make me feel.”
     
    “And how do I make you feel?”
     
    “The same as how I make you feel.”
     
    “And that is?”
     
    “I don’t know.  I’d like to assume it’s something good.  I feel it in the way you shiver whenever I touch you.  The way you breathe whenever I whisper words to your ear.  The way you smile that delightfully uncomfortable smile whenever I tease you.”
     
    He noticed.  All the small things like those... he noticed.  I gave myself away.
     
    “And you laugh at my vulnerabilities?” I asked nervously.
     
    “No,” he answered strongly.  “I adore them.  They make you real.  And the real you is beautiful.”
     
    How was I supposed to react to a man who has poured his heart out the way he did, with words that will resonate in my mind for days and months and years to come?  How was I supposed to react to a kind of honesty that was both brutal and doting?  How was I supposed to react to someone who, in essence, was telling me that he wanted me... just as much as I wanted him?
     
    “This...” I began to say, stuttering and confused and afraid, “this isn’t right...”
     
    “I know.  I’m frightened too.  But if this is wrong, I don’t ever want to be right... ever.”
     
    In the darkness of our seclusion, I tried to look at his eyes.  My sight has adjusted to the absence of light and I could see his handsome face a little clearer that time.  He wasn’t smiling.  He wasn’t frowning.  He didn’t have that scowl which I used to abhor but have grown to cherish.  He was looking at me intently, yearningly... passionately.
     
    He was sincere.
     
    And I believed him.
     
    I don’t know where I got the bravery which I had at that moment... whether it was from the alcohol or from compulsions of my heart, it didn’t really matter.  I wanted to tell him how much I appreciated his genuineness... I wanted to tell him how much I appreciated him.
     
    So I drew my face closer to his, tiptoeing a bit to bridge the inches that separated us.  He met me halfway, and his warm lips touched mine.  He wrapped his arms around me and hugged me so tight that I felt that our bodies became one.  His lips began to explore the surface of mine, every millimeter, every rim, every area he could find.
     
    I looked at him once more and saw his eyes closed.  I closed mine as well.
     
    I opened my mouth and his tongue went in, probing inside, looking for my own tongue to spur and to tickle and to feel.  His hand went to my nape and he pushed my head nearer to his.  My arms held his waist and we were locked in an impassioned embrace, one that neither of us wanted to break, that neither of us wanted to end.
     
    But with a sudden clicking sound, it ended.
     
    We both opened our eyes to see that the darkness is gone and lights