Groaning, I roll over in my bed at the insistent knock at my door. Glancing at my watch on the bedside table I find that it’s eleven o’clock in the morning. Who the hell is bugging me so early? Everyone knows I don’t wake up until way past noon.

The knocking continues and my mom’s voice comes through the door. “Seth. I know you’re in there. I’ll keep knocking until you open the door.”

Sitting up, I rub at my face. I roll out of bed because I know she’ll be true to her word and I already have a pounding headache. Serves me right for all the beer I drank last night. I blame Tristan. Every time we hang out, I wake up the next morning hung over.

Deep down, I know I can’t lay the blame on anyone but myself. It’s been a week since that party that Allegra should never have been at, a week since I saw her look at me in a way that intensified the feelings that I needed to lock down. And so every night I’ve been drinking myself into stupidity, hooking up with random girls from school who know the score, but who want to spend a night with me anyway. Those are the kind of girls I can allow into my world, the ones who know what the fuck they’re doing.

Not sweet little innocents who have likely never been kissed.

Don’t even go there.

I click the thumb lock that we both know could be sprung with a screwdriver and open the door. My mom stands on the other side, and she does not look pleased. “What?”

“Is that anyway to say hello to your mom?” She pushes past me and into my room, though technically it’s kind of my apartment. It has a refrigerator and a hotplate even, not that I know how to cook. When I first showed up the Flynns’ doorstep, I stayed in the spare room, which was Sam’s office den. It didn’t take him long to fix up the empty apartment over the garage for me to live in, even though Mom said she’d been nagging him to get it done since they’d moved in.

Yeah. Pretty transparent. What he didn’t like was me in the same house as his daughter. Just like back in Boston—same shit, different place.

But in this case? Sam had made a good call. Cause though I had absolutely no intention of ever acting on it, because that would make me the biggest pervert on the planet, never mind asshole of the century…

Well. The fact remained that Allegra was hot. More than that, when she looked at me with those big doe eyes, I felt something… different. Like I wanted something… different.

It was fucking uncomfortable, and it was just better all around if I was out of the way.

“Good morning Mother.” I school my voice into the most polite of tones, which sounds like nails on chalkboard when combined with my thick Boston accent. She grins at me, this woman who is still kind of a stranger to me, and then clears off a stack of magazines and dirty clothes from the easy chair that’s held together by duct tape and sits down.

“You should really clean in here. Come summer you’ll have rats and who knows what living in here with you.” The Boston in her own voice has faded a bit over the last few years, replaced by a hint of a drawl that is pure Texas.

“Sweet. I crave the company.” Smirking, I grab the pack of cigarettes from the counter and light one up.

Her face creases with parental disapproval. “You should quit. You remember Uncle Ian died from lung cancer.”

Irritation flashes through me, followed quickly by a thread of panic. I’ve never been one to kowtow, but… well, this is it. I have nowhere else to go if Mom and Sam throw me out, too.

So I butt out the smoke in the ashtray. “There. Happy?”

“Almost.” She gives me her sweetest smile—the smile I’ve come to know is the most deceiving expression ever.

“What do you want?” I ask this carefully, but really, I know I’ll do anything she asks. I tolerate my real dad. But it’s always been my mom who’s held my heart. The years I spent away from her were what made me a little crazy. Not that I’d ever tell her that, though—she doesn’t need the guilt. Putting up with my father for so many years, she’s gone through quite enough.

“Come to the house for dinner tonight.” She smiles again, and I groan internally.

I’ve made a point of avoiding the house lately. For reason that don’t need to be validated by acknowledging them.

“I’m busy tonight.” My fingers tap nervously on my thigh—I want that cigarette, damn it.

She frowns. “You are not. You’re just making excuses so you don’t have to spend time with the family.”

“That’s not my family.” The reaction is kneejerk, but it’s how I feel. Sam? Well, he’s an okay guy. But I’m kinda old to start calling him Daddy.

Theo is an asshole who can’t stop strutting his stuff like some damn rooster in a cock fight. You know, cause I care.

And Allegra? Given the way I feel about her—that I feel anything for her at all?

Yeah. You know what? Let’s not even go there.

I expect Mom to be pissed off at my asshole comment, but instead she reaches for my hand in a rare show of affection. I’m not used to her touching me, not in the past few years anyway. Not that I blame her. I was pretty much a dick to her, especially after she divorced my dad. A shrink would say that I was trying to push her away all the while hoping she’d make the big play and show me she still loved me. But that shit backfired hard, and I wound up with some real mommy issues.

I’ll never forget some of the choice names I’d called her in the past, things that now make me cringe with shame. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to make it up to her.

“Yes it is, Seth. If you would just give them a chance. I’ve always regretted not having more children. But here you have a brother in Theo and a sister in Allegra.” She smiles at me and I wince.

How do I tell my mom that I really, really don’t think of Allegra as my sister? That I never have, not since the day I rang the doorbell to this house and she answered it, dressed in a little yellow sundress, with glasses perched on her nose?

I wished I’d known more about her before I’d come to Galveston—that way I would have had some warning. But I’d been expecting some dorky kid sister with frizzy hair who played with dolls or whatever else young girls door. Not a sassy redhead who’d looked at me not like I was dirt, but as though she was trying to figure me out with that busy little brain of hers.

Yeah. If I’d had some warning, I would have seen her as a sister figure from the start. Instead I’d mistaken her for a freaking babysitter, never imaging she was my brand new sister—I’d responded to her like I’d never responded to another human being.

Joy to the fucking world.

And now, no matter how much I actively try to suppress it, the little witch still sneaks into my dreams. That the way she looks at me sometimes, with that bitchy expression while she’s blushing, makes me hard. Just catching a whiff of her shampoo drives me crazy.

Nope. Can’t be confessing that shit. They’ll toss me in jail.

And I’d give them the key. That girl? She has no business with me, or anyone like me. I glower as I think of the asshole she’s been not so secretly crushing on. She deserves better than a guy like that.

And dinner at the house—being around Allegra? It’ll just cause her to show up in my dreams again tonight. Not good for anyone.

So I pull my hand away and run it through my mess of hair. “I’ll think about it.”

“Please do.” Mom stands, wipes her hands on the thighs of her shorts. “I’m making chimichangas. Your favorite.” She smiles, and then pushes out the door, shouting over her shoulder as she goes. “Clean your room!”

I snort, a suppressed chuckle. Once she’s gone, I light up another cigarette, but butt it out almost instantly. It’s lost its allure. I remember Uncle Ian too fondly. He used to take me fishing when I was a little boy. I sit down on my bed and rub my face. I could go back to sleep, but it seems I have a job to do. I have seven hours to figure out a way to get out of the dinner invitation without upsetting my mom.

It’s around six o’clock in the evening, and I’m standing at the open patio door, listening to the clatter of dishes inside, the smell of spices from my mom cooking. I obviously haven’t figured out how to dodge this dinner without pissing my mom off. Or maybe deep down I want to be here. I know that’s what my mom is thinking when she spots me loitering and smiles.

“There you are. Just in time.”

Allegra, who had been helping my mom with a salad at the kitchen counter, turns and looks at me. I enter the kitchen, feeling nervous all of a sudden, though I hide it beneath a surly sneer. I never get nervous. I’ve always done what I wanted, when I wanted, however I wanted, but Allegra’s gaze always makes me rethink all of my life strategies.

I must have been a masochist in a former life, cause it makes me fucking uncomfortable. And yet I keep coming back for more.

I follow my mom into the dining room where Sam and Theo are already seated at the table. She sets down the plate piled high with chimichangas, then takes a seat beside Sam. Allegra sets down the salad and sits by Theo, and I close my eyes against the image of her in her tight little white T-shirt.

Bad Seth. Really, really bad.

Taking the remaining chair beside my mom, I sit down across the table from Allegra, which is not ideal. It’s only the third time since my unexpected arrival that I’ve had a meal with these people—my so-called family. Most of the time I eat in my room, not wanting to spend any significant time around Allegra. With how I feel about her, its best for everyone involved that I keep my distance.

“Good to see you at the table, Seth,” Sam says.

I nod, not entirely trusting myself to speak, but my mom elbows me in the side for my bad manners. Again, that panic snakes through me, and I clear my throat, wanting to make her happy. “Thank you, sir.”

I almost choke on the sir, but the fact is, Sam’s okay. He makes my mom happy, so that’s something.

“Well, let’s dig in,” my mom says. Reaching for the platter, she passes it around. Despite my unwillingness to be here, the smell makes my mouth water, brings back memories, and I cast a sideways look at my mom, wondering if that was what she intended.

She winks at me. Yeah. Of course it was. Sneaky woman.

The dinner is filled with good food and light conversation, the latter had by Allegra, Theo, Sam and my mom. I manage to answer a few questions with more than a grunt. My mom is proud of this; I can tell by the way she looks at me from time to time. What are you doing after high school, Seth? Don’t know yet. Do you have any interests? Music. Oh, you want to be a musician or something? I have a friend who works at a studio; I should introduce you. I guess.

Through it all, Allegra watches me with those fierce green eyes of hers, just taking it all in, and it’s enough to make me squirm in my chair. I don’t like that she’s regarding me with interest… and after that incident at the party, that moment… yeah, I’ve got to nip that shit in the bud.

I don’t want her to be thinking about me, wondering what makes me tick. If I ever told her, she’d run as fast as she could. And it would take everything I had not to chase her.

Theo also watches me, but it’s not with interest. I can see a loathing there. It’s hidden from most everyone around him, but not from me. I can recognize a fellow predator when I see one. It doesn’t bother me at all, so I make sure to smirk at him in return. Theo is no more than a blip in my life and I would dismiss him with a wave of my hand.

The rage in his eyes is brief, a flicker and then it’s gone. But it’s enough to send a chill to settle on my skin. Not for myself—I’ve dealt with far worse than pampered Theo Flynn before.

But it’s not the first time I’ve seen those little flashes, that darkness seeping through the golden boy façade. It makes me uneasy—I don’t know what it means, not really, but I damn well know that I don’t like the idea of it around my mom.

I really don’t like it around Allegra.

With her, it’s subtle. He watches her with this intentness, every time he thinks no one is looking. A person could almost mistake it for the over protectiveness of a brother for his little sister.

I don’t like it. I don’t like the way he tries to hide it. Because I see him. I know. And it’s the reason I stay.

I hightail it out of the main house as soon as I can after dinner. It’s abrupt, but I know my mom will just be happy that I came over at all. And everyone else just expects me to be rude.

That gives me pause, where normally it wouldn’t. I don’t like that idea, that I’m living up to other people’s expectations of me. But the reality right now is that I needed to get the hell away from Allegra. Away from the sugar sweet scent of her skin.

“Fuck.” I’m keyed up, wound tight after not only struggling to play nice all evening with people I’m still pretty fucking unsure around… but mostly because being around stepsister dearest drives me absolutely fucking insane.

As I stride up the staircase inside the garage and slam through the door to my little apartment, I can feel my fingers flexing and clenching of their own accord.

I need some kind of release, to vent these feelings. I could call Tristan, which is what I would normally do. We’d grab a case of beer or some whiskey—we both have fake IDs that I made us, but we rarely get carded. And we’d go find a party, have some fun. Hook up with someone hot.

My hand slides into my pocket, hovers over my cell phone. Honestly? I’m tempted to skip right past the first part of that idea, and move right on to the sex. Losing myself between a willing girl’s thighs will soothe this ache… as long as I’m inside of her, anyway.

The phone stays in my pocket, even though my fingers clench around it. There are countless girls listed in that phone, and I don’t consider it ego knowing that any one of them would come right over and give me what I need, if I just call.

I don’t keep myself aloof from most people just to tap into the inexplicable attraction of girls to bad boys. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the side benefit.

I think again of Ashley, my hookup from that party last weekend. She’s a little wilder than most girls I know, and isn’t afraid to show it. Like most guys, I find her silky chocolate dreads and multiple piercings to be pretty fucking sexy.

Even better, she’s not the type to cling. She doesn’t want a relationship. She’s kind of like me, actually—when she gets an itch, she wants to scratch it.

And the way she uses her mouth could make a guy’s head explode.

She’s about as different from Allegra as she could possibly be. And that’s ultimately what has me pulling my phone out of my pocket.

But is it really fair to use one girl to drive thoughts of another out of my head?

Whether it is or not, I’m pretty sure I’ve got to do it. Distracting myself is the only way to avoid what my feelings for Allegra could become.

What they must never become.

I hear the light footfall on the stairs before I can even pull up my contact list. Too light to be Sam or Theo, not that either of them would ever come up here, and not the familiar cadence of my mom.

My gut tightens as the knock sounds. I swear I can smell spun sugar, traveling in on the thin ribbon of space underneath the door.

Allegra.

Every muscle that I have tightens, and I find myself holding my breath. If I don’t say anything, maybe she’ll think I’m not here. And the hilarity of that doesn’t escape me—the big bad boy from the rough end of Boston hiding from the sweet, sheltered young girl.

But when said sweet girl has such a life-changing effect on the boy… drastic measures are necessary.

There’s a pause, and I start to relax, thinking that it’s worked. Then I hear something scratching against the door, and before I know it, Allegra is pushing her way through, screwdriver in hand.

“Did you just use a screwdriver to open my locked door?” I gape at her a bit. I’m not usually at a loss for words, but this—this is typical of what she does to me. Throws me off my game, doesn’t take my shit.

She arches an eyebrow. “Obviously.” Tucking the tool into her back pocket, she crosses to me, holding out a small plate. On it is a thick slice of chocolate cake, and my mouth waters. I tell myself it’s from the cake and not her.

Even bad boys can have a sweet tooth.

“Take it.” She jiggles it a little in front of my face. Like an automaton, I do, and we stand there, both of us entirely still, with a plate full of cake in between us.

Cake. I’m fixated on the cake. It’s like a lifeline, something to hold onto while the thundering of my pulse in her presence makes me weak.

“So…” Needing to break the tension, I turn around, deliberately casual, and place the plate on the battered coffee table. “Did you come here with the intention of breaking in, or do you always carry tools in your back pocket?”

She tries to hide her smile behind a wave of that gorgeous red-gold hair. “I figured you wouldn’t answer. But I…”

“Wanted to bring me cake?” Yes, I tried to put space between us, but like magnets, I find myself moving back. Her eyes widen a bit as I do, and though I try to ignore it, knowing that I affect her makes me feel ten feet tall.

“Yes.” Her chin lifts defiantly. “I wanted to bring you cake. And you’re so damn stubborn, so set on rejecting me, rejecting all of us, I figured you weren’t going to answer.”

There’s something she’s not telling me—and I really want to know. I take a step forward, deliberately invading her space, savoring her little intake of breath.

“You could have just left it outside the door.” I arch an eyebrow at her, watch her face flush.

“No, I couldn’t.” Rather than deflecting, she looks up at me and smirks. “It would attract raccoons.”

God, but I love that she never backs down.

“What if I’d had company?” I stress the last word, making it clear just what kind of visitor I’m talking about. Her face flames scarlet, and I have to resist the urge to reach out and trace my fingers over a hot, smooth cheek.

“Well then, I guess I would have just gotten an eyeful of something I don’t much want to see.” Her chin quivers a bit, and I watch as her gaze drops… down from my face, over my chest, and down.

Down.

Blood roars through me, and the air grows heavy. I know she’s thinking the same thing as me… what it would feel like to have her come across me, naked, aroused.

Hard.

Ready.

“Allegra.” There’s something sparking between us here that overrides my common sense. I give in, and rub a thumb over the sweet curve of her cheek, draw my fingers through her hair. Her sweet smell intensifies, drugging me, making me stupid.

“Why did you bring me the cake?” She lifts her chin, looks into my eyes, runs the tip of her tongue over her lips.

Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck. Must not.

“I never said thank you for last week. For the... for what you did for me. At the party.” She’s trembling as if she wants to look away, but like me, she can’t seem to.

“Even though I was an asshole the next day?” If I move any closer, I’ll be able to feel the fan of her warm breath on my face.

Her lips quirk up in just the ghost of a smile. “You’re always an asshole, Seth. It’s part of your charm.”

She tilts her head to one side, her vibrant eyes blurring a bit. It’s one of those picture perfect, movie moments, and if she was any other girl, I’d kiss her. Funny that it’s kissing her that I dream about, and not any of the dirty things that I’ve actually done with other women.

She inhales, or maybe I do, and I hear alarms start to scream in my head. This is it. This is going to happen. I’m going to kiss her. I can’t help it.

She deserves better than you, Thorne.

It’s as though I’m outside my own body, shouting at myself… the good angel on my shoulder triumphing. For so many reasons, this can’t happen.

“Okay. Well, now you’ve said thanks. You’ve delivered your… offering. You can go.” I don’t want to look like I’m retreating by stepping away, so instead I draw on every last bit of strength that I possess and curve my lips into a cruel smile.

Allegra jolts, torn out of that heavy cloud we’d been floating in just a moment before. For a moment, as her face reddens with embarrassment, she looks like she might cry, and I feel like the biggest asshole to ever live.

Then her jaw clenches with temper. Very slowly, very deliberately she narrows her eyes, then looks me up and down, lingering in one very specific area.

I curse out loud as she looks right at my obviously hard cock, clearly outlined beneath the thin denim of my jeans.

“Why do you push me away?” She licks her lips, and I can all but see the surge of bravery that she’s conjuring from within herself. She’s going to make a move. My cock rejoices, and the rest of me slams up walls so fast it hurts.

“You’re smarter than that, Allegra.” I manage to grind out from between my clenched teeth, and whether it looks like I’m retreating or not, I take a deliberate step back to put some space between us. “Don’t do this.”

“I want to.” She looks up at me, her face set in stubborn lines… her painfully young, innocent face.

I don’t want to hurt her. But this just can’t happen. I’m going to have to be coarse.

“You think you’re ready for what I want? You think you can handle this?” Crudely, I grab at myself, emphasizing the hardness of my nearly painful erection. Her eyes widen, and I know I’m on the right track.

She’s so young. There’s chemistry between us, there’s no denying it. The most electric chemistry I’ve ever known.

But her head is full of romantic notions about sunsets and flowers and losing herself sweetly.

Even if I could give that to her, even if it wasn’t so very, very wrong, that’s not who I am.

“Seth.” Allegra whispers, and I almost crumble. I need to get her out of here, now.

“Kitten, if you knew what I want, you’d run screaming into the night.” I grin, deliberately making the expression cruel. Her lower lip finally, finally starts to tremble. “That’s right, baby. Run on home. You’re not ready for this. A girl like you never will be.”

“Kitten? You condescending asshole. Fuck you, Seth.” Turning, she runs from my apartment, not even bothering to close the door behind her. I listen to her steps thundering down the stairs, throwing my head back and groaning with agony.

I’ve never been what I call a good person, but if I believed in a deity, I’d ask what I’d ever done to deserve this fresh kind of hell.

“Get over it, Thorne. It’s for the best.” Still, I find myself crossing to the window, just to make sure she gets into the house okay.

A moment after I take my place by the glass, I see the fiery stream of her hair, cascading behind her as she runs out of the garage. She’s obviously crying, and it’s like a knife twisting in my gut to know that I’m the cause.

“Allegra. Stop.” The arrogant tones of Theo make their way to my open window, and I tense as Theo appears, clutching his sister by the upper arms to halt her progress. “What happened?”

“Theo!” Allegra wails in the overly dramatic way that only a teenage girl can, and throws herself into the arms of her brother—her blood brother. I’m distracted for a moment, wondering where Theo came from.

He’d… yeah, he’d appeared out of the early evening shadows at the side of the garage. What the hell had he been doing? There was nothing there but a bunch of trash cans and a family of raccoons that Sam could never seem to get rid of.

But it would have been a perfect place to hang out and wait if he’d followed Allegra from the main house.

Something about that makes my hackles rise. It should be reassuring, the big brother just keeping an eye on his little sister when she went to visit the volatile new member of their family.

But as I watch him pull that same little sister into his arms for a hug, I find myself still more disturbed.

The smile on his face—it’s not what I’d expect a brother to look like when comforting his little sister. It’s almost… I hesitate to say orgasmic, because that’s just so very wrong.

The hug breaks. He smiles at her, ruffles her hair. And then very, very slowly reaches out to straighten the strap of her camisole, which has fallen down over her shoulder. He lingers over the touch, and I just know. I know why he’s always made me so unsettled.

It makes me sick. It makes me want to vomit.

Allegra continues into the house. And as soon as she’s gone, Theo looks up at the window where I stand, as if he knew all along that I was watching.

“Sonofabitch.”

He should look ashamed. He should look guilty.

Instead… instead there’s rage, that same rage that makes me want him the hell out of this house, this house that I don’t even belong in.

“Seth!” I hear him roar my name, and then he’s on the stairs up to my place, coming for me. And I push away from the window to meet him, body tight, fists already clenched. I’m ready for this. Ready for blood.

“Stay away from Allegra!” Theo’s voice bounces off the walls of my small place as he shoves through the open doorway, already swinging at me. They’re trite, those words, or at least they would be if they were said for the right reasons.

I dodge his swing, and jab my elbow into his stomach. Theo’s big—a big, blonde football- playing, all-American Ken doll. But I’m big too, and more than that, I’m mean.

His breath explodes from his chest as I drive into his solar plexus, and I wrap my arm around his neck, driving him down to the floor. He bucks, continuing to throw punches. A few land as we roll, and I feel warm liquid trickle from a split in my lip, smell the coppery tang of blood. I think he’ll give up soon—I’ve known his type before, more concerned with themselves than with anything else. But he’s almost manic, frantic in his attempts to subdue me.

“Maybe I should be the one telling you to stay away.” Finally pinning him to the floor, I straddle his hips, my hands planted on his chest to keep him in place. His eyes shift as he takes in the meaning of my words.

“She’s mine,” he finally hisses, still bucking, trying to get free. And the absolute certainty in his eyes makes me cold. “Mine. Mine.”

“What do you mean, yours?” I know better than to let go, yet hearing him actually confirm what I only suspected a moment ago is… sickening. It turns my stomach. Slowly, I pull back, away from this disgusting facsimile of a man.

He crabwalks back, putting space between us, and grins as he wipes blood away from his own mouth. His face isn’t so perfect now… more like a Ken doll in a horror movie.

“You know exactly what I mean. Maybe better than anyone else.” He smiles again, and I clench my fists, ready to drive one into his face. But he continues, and what he says stops me in my tracks.

“Who are you to judge me? You’re her brother, too.”