Sophie

I’m your little secret.

I couldn’t sleep. I stared at the ceiling, my mind racing. How the hell was I supposed to sleep?

I was hot, so I kicked off my covers. I was cold, so I put them back on again. It was too much, having Dex here, sleeping on the floor right above me. It was too much, being alone with him in this quiet house. In the four years our parents had been married, Dex and I had almost never been alone together.

That was why I had liked the texts so much. When we were texting, it felt like… like we were alone. Like I could say what I wanted, and he would listen. It was intimate, but without him physically in the room, there were no consequences. We could talk, but that was all. Nothing else could happen.

As of tonight, the game had changed.

Get him to nail you. You know, to help you out.

He was here. Here. That incredible body, muscled and supple and hard, inside a sweatshirt and a pair of worn jeans. Because of that damned underwear ad, I knew a lot about what his body looked like. The ink on his arms. The dusting of hair on his chest. The ripple of his abs. The lines of his hips. The defined muscles in his thighs. And his ass—Oh, God, I was getting wet.

He probably has sex all the time. I bet he’s good in bed.

I knew why I couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t because I was hot or cold, or because my pillow was uncomfortable. It was because the sight of Dex had made my pussy ache, hard. In months of first dates, not one guy had had the effect on me that ten minutes with Dex did. Not even close. When he’d put his hand on me and leaned in, I’d been able to smell his skin. And in that moment my mind had raced with the insane, wild idea of unzipping his jeans and getting down on my knees. Something I’d never done. With anyone.

All yours.

No. No, no, no. Not Dex.

I couldn’t tell him my virginity problem. And I definitely couldn’t ask him to fix it. Not even to get out of my rut.

I blew out a breath and tossed the covers aside, sitting up and swinging my legs out of the bed. I checked my phone—it was three o’clock in the morning. Damn. I ran a hand through my hair. Dex might be around for a few days, but he wasn’t mine. He’d never be mine. I didn’t even know if I wanted him to be mine. His life was a disaster right now, to put it mildly. I had a job to go to, a career to build. Dex was the definition of a hot mess.

God, his body in those jeans, though. God.

Having desperate, virginal, unfulfilled fantasies about your stepbrother, it turned out, was hungry work. I wanted a snack, preferably some of the ice cream I’d glimpsed in the freezer earlier. I was wearing only a t-shirt and panties, but since it was three o’clock in the morning, I guessed it didn’t matter. I tiptoed out of the room and downstairs.

The kitchen was dark and quiet. I tried not to make any noise as I crossed the cool tiles to the counter to get a spoon.

“Can’t sleep?”

I froze. I half turned, looking back over my shoulder. Dex was standing in the kitchen doorway. From the hallway behind him came a yellow glow of light. The TV room. He’d been in there with the door closed. The soft, indirect light illuminated the glow of his bare skin. He was wearing a pair of thin cotton drawstring pants, and nothing else.

“I, um…” Words failed me. He leaned against the door frame, and I watched the muscles in his chest move. His hair was tousled, the locks inky black, his eyes blue. He was watching me.

“Me neither,” he said.

Now my gaze moved down his stomach. The line of dark hair beneath his navel led down, down, beneath the pants, which were riding low. I felt a pulse of pure lust between my legs, and realized what I was wearing—what I wasn’t wearing. I moved to turn and face him, maybe to cover myself somehow, maybe to leave.

“Stop,” Dex said.

The word seemed to capture me. I froze.

His gaze stayed on me as if he couldn’t look away. “Turn back around.”

“What?”

“Turn back around, Sophie,” he said. “Hands on the counter. I was admiring the view.”

Again, it was like his words moved me. I turned around until my back was to him and put my hands on the cold, dark counter. I stared at the kitchen window over the sink, painfully aware of him somewhere behind me. I heard him walk toward me.

I could feel him close, as if he gave off an electrical charge as he stood at my back. Then I felt him lift the back of my shirt away from the top of my panties, so he had a clear view of my ass beneath the thin cotton.

“Hmm,” he said, his voice a low growl. “That is very nice.”

I should have said something. Something like How dare you or Back off. But when I opened my mouth, all that came out was a tiny, pathetic moan.

At the sound he stepped swiftly forward and pressed his body against my back, pinning me to the counter. His feet came between mine, making my legs spread a little, and his arms braced around me, his hands gripping the edge of the counter next to mine. He was hot as a furnace. I could feel every inch of him, every flex of his chest and his stomach. His hips pressed me boldly forward so I couldn’t move, my own hips trapped between his and the counter’s edge. He lifted a hand and drew my hair back, away from my neck, and leaned in so I could feel his breath on my skin.

“I have a question for you,” he said.

When he spoke, I could feel the vibration in his chest. My eyes drifted closed.

He lifted the hem of my t-shirt in the front this time, drawing it slowly up my body until the bunched fabric was above my breasts, the bottom edge just covering my nipples. My breasts weren’t very big, and I knew they were jutting out as I arched my back, the nipples hard as diamonds. He slid his fingers beneath the t-shirt’s hem and rubbed over their hard peaks.

Oh, God. He was touching me, his fingertips warm on my nipples, and the jolt of sensation went right between my legs. I squirmed against him, and he responded by pressing his hips harder into me, pinning me more forcefully to the counter. I felt the rasp of his beard against my neck. He rubbed my nipples again.

“Those first dates you go on,” he said, his voice low. “Do they turn you on?”

I could do nothing but pant for breath. When I didn’t answer, his hands left my breasts and trailed slowly down my body toward the waist of my panties.

This was Dex. Dex. His hands were on me, his body hard against me, after all these years of watching him, of looking at him and wondering what it would feel like. Now I knew.

“I’m asking,” he said, his warm fingers sending shocks over my skin. The way he pressed against me cradled me, and I leaned back into his body as his arms flexed and his hips pressed against my ass. His cock was hard, and I could feel its big, hot outline through the thin fabric between us. “I want to know if any of those guys make you hot. If they make you come. Do they touch you, Sophie? Do you let them?”

“No,” I breathed. He was touching me lower, lower…

He gripped my hip with one hand and pulled me back, away from the counter, pressing me tight against his cock. The other hand slipped inside my panties, and he stroked my pussy.

The jolt of pleasure was so intense that I bucked against him, making a strangled sound. He held me steady as his fingers probed me gently, parted me, touched me expertly. His breath came heavy in my ear.

“Fuck, sweetheart,” he rasped. “You are so fucking wet.” He swirled my juices over my clit. “Who is all this for? Your hot date?”

“No. No. Dex—God!” I strained against him, pressed myself into his hand. He responded by circling my clit. My head dropped back against his shoulder as I shuddered, the pleasure spiraling through me, my heart pounding.

“Do they touch your pussy?” he said in my ear, holding me steady, stroking his fingers into me.

“No.”

“Do they fuck you?”

“No.”

“Do they make you come?”

“No. Fuck, Dex, please!” I was begging him, and I didn’t care. His breath in my ear, his fingers inside me, his hard cock pressing against my ass and my lower back—I didn’t care. I wanted all of it. I wanted more.

“Ssh,” he whispered. “Just relax into it, Sophie, and I’ll give you what you want.”

How did his fingers know just how to touch me? How did they know exactly what to do? I gave in to it. I arched my back and spread my legs and closed my eyes and let him rub me, harder, his fingers moving up and in tighter and tighter circles around my clit, hitting just the right spot with just the right pressure.

And then I came, crying out and gasping, my hands bracing against the counter as my body clenched, over and over, my ass pressing back into him. He gripped me hard and held me upright with one hand as the other stayed inside my panties, stroking me and then cupping me, his whole hand on my pussy, possessive. He gave a low, feral growl in my ear, and I nearly sobbed with relief. Then his hand left me and both hands gripped my hips. My back grew cold as his body retreated. He held me for a minute as I regained my balance on my wobbling legs.

“You okay?” he said.

“Yes,” I managed.

His hand briefly brushed the back of my neck. “Go to bed, Sophie,” he said softly. “Good night.”

And he left me there, still panting, my hands gripping the kitchen counter, my shirt pushed up, my panties soaked. I stayed there as his footsteps climbed the stairs, and I heard the click of his bedroom door closing without another word.