Hunger (A Stepbrother Romance Novel) Page 4

  I let out a groan and flopped backward on my bed, staring up at the ceiling. “Alright, fine. So give me advice. Good advice! Like, to leave him the hell alone and stop this madness.”

  “Oh, honey. You know if you wanted advice from the angel on your shoulder, you could’ve called Chelsea. But you didn’t. You called me. The devil you know.”

  He wasn’t wrong. Chelsea was my other best friend from school, but she and I never became quite as close as I had with Daniel. It was strange because Chelsea and I were a lot alike—both good girls who followed the rules and didn’t cause trouble.

  The problem was, I wanted to cause trouble, whereas Chelsea was happy with her life as it was. She had all her shit together. She even had a ten year plan. Her entire future mapped out, piece by perfect piece.

  Me? I just wanted to latch on to Daniel and go on wild adventures. I just never had the guts to do it, so instead I settled for living vicariously through him.

  “You’re right, you know,” I said to my ceiling.

  Daniel stopped pacing and I could almost hear his eyebrow raise. “Did you just say I’m right? Can you say it again so I can record it?”

  I sighed and sat up, giving him a withering glare. “Knock it off. You’re almost always right and you know it.”

  “True, but you never say it.”

  “Daniel, seriously. Please just tell me how to deal with this. Tell me how you would handle this. And how the hell can I get what I want without feeling guilty about it?”

  Sensing the severity of how badly I felt, Daniel’s eyes softened and he sat down beside me. “Jen, you know that any way we do this, you’re probably still going to feel guilty about it. It’s just the kind of person you are.”

  “So should I just leave him alone?”

  “Oh, hell no. But the trick of this is—you have to let him come to you. You can not be the one to make a move on him, no matter what. He’s a grown man; he can make his own choices. And besides, it’s not like the guy is never going to have sex again just because he was an addict once. That’s just ridiculous.”

  “So I shouldn’t feel bad?”

  Daniel pursed his lips together and shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe just a little? Because you are about to drive him absolutely insane.”

  I felt the color drain from my face as I asked, “I am?”

  Daniel grinned. “Oh yeah. Because I’ll give you my advice under one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You follow it down to the letter. You do every single thing I tell you to. I know, it sounds daunting. But I promise it’s going to work and I’m not going to make you do anything insane.”

  The grin he was wearing made me nervous, but considering I was running so low on options, I didn’t see another way to go about it. I thought back to my comparison between myself and Chelsea and steeled my resolve.

  It was my turn to be wild for once. I was sick of living through Daniel’s experiences. If this was the kind of life I wanted—crazy and exciting and full of spontaneity—there was only one way I was going to get it.

  “Okay, I’ll do it. Whatever you say.”

  Daniel’s grin widened. “Excellent. So, here’s how it’s going to play out...”

  ~*~*~

  Chapter Six

  It was a few minutes after midnight when I heard the rumbling of the car pulling to a stop outside my house. A moment later, the front door opened and closed, and I braced myself for step one of the plan.

  Granted, there was a chance that it wouldn’t happen tonight. Even Daniel had warned me that. I had to wait for the pieces to fall into place before I could begin the chain of events.

  My body was wired with nervousness but also with excitement. Even though I was kind of terrified, I was desperately hoping that I could do step one tonight. I just needed—

  Luke’s footsteps coming down the hall made me hold my breath in anticipation. I listened to him go into his bedroom and began to prepare for the plan by closing my eyes and letting my hand drift below the waistband of my sleep shorts.

  It felt so naughty to be doing this while knowing that Luke was in the room right beside me. Knowing that if I moaned just a tad too loudly, he would be able to clearly hear me.

  Which, of course, was the plan.

  But Daniel had made me promise not to fake it. ‘It has to be legit. He’ll know if it’s a show.’ So I lightly traced the lips of my core with my fingertips a few times, sending shivers up my spine before I pushed down the shorts and opened my legs.

  ‘Performing for an audience will be nerve-wracking, so lose yourself in a fantasy.’

  I though about my fantasy from earlier and imagined Luke and myself back in the pool. In my mind, I waded over to him and leaned down to take his pierced nipple into my mouth and swirl my tongue over the nub and the barbell.

  When the mental images began to calm down my nerves, I slid my finger over my opening and gasped at how wet I already was.

  Perhaps I’m a closet exhibitionist, I thought as I used some of my wetness to circle my clitoris lightly.

  The sound of Luke’s footsteps eventually stopped and I wondered if doing this tonight was going to be pointless. Then again, the desire coursing through my body said otherwise.

  Daniel had been counting on the fact that Luke would linger outside my door for a moment like he had the night before. But regardless of whether he did or not, I was now dead-set on getting myself off tonight.

  I hummed with delight when I pressed down a little harder on my clit and went back to my fantasy. Luke would twist his hand in my hair and groan as I licked at him and I’d keep my eyes open to watch the desire on his face as I slowly coaxed his cock to full hardness.

  When the sensation of my mouth on his nipple became too much, he’d pull me up gently by my hair and capture my lips with his own.

  “Ohhh,” I softly moaned as I slipped two fingers into my opening, preparing myself for the bigger intrusion of my vibrator.

  With my other hand, I reached under my night shirt and lightly pinched my own nipples, tweaking them both until they were tight and needy.

  In my fantasy, Luke’s hands traveled down my body and did the same as he kissed me—toying with my tight buds for a while before gliding around my back and down to firmly cup my ass. I pictured him lifting me easily into his arms and how I’d wrap my legs around his waist, feeling his hardness pressing right against my core.

  With a whimper, I pulled out my fingers and grabbed for the vibrator. Everything else besides my own needs forgotten, I pushed it into my core and twisted it to the lowest setting.

  “Oh fuck,” I gasped out, using my free hand to flick back and forth over my clit as the vibrations went shooting through my body. “Yessss.”

  It didn’t take very long before I felt my pussy begin to clamp down around the thick girth of the vibrator, and I began to pump it in and out of me, imagining Luke fucking me against the side of the pool.

  Imagining what his face would look like as he came was my ultimate undoing. I groaned loudly, turning my head to bury the sound into my pillow as the climax ripped through me. I could feel my walls clamp down hard against the vibrator and I whimpered as the vibrations increased the intensity of the aftershocks.

  I stared up into the blackness of my bedroom as I panted wildly, a goofy grin on my face. I had masturbated often, but never experienced an orgasm quite like that before.

  When I finally started coming down from the high of my orgasm, I turned my head to the side and felt my entire body freeze as I saw the shadow of a person under the crack of my door again.

  Oh god, he heard me. I actually did it. Daniel’s going to flip the fuck out.

  I stared at the shadow until it disappeared and I tried to imagine what his face must have looked like as he stood outside my door and listened to me masturbating. The mental picture I came up with was somewhere between extreme pleasure and pain. Pleasure at listening to me and pain because he wanted me but felt like he could
n’t—or shouldn’t—have me.

  Either way, I fell asleep with the same goofy smile on my face.

  ~*~*~

  I had a routine. Get up around nine or ten in the morning. Make coffee. Drink coffee. Every morning. Even though he’d only been here for two days, Luke should have already realized this. After all, he’d caught me in the kitchen twice in a row doing that exact thing.

  So the next morning when I got to my coffee pot and went to put in a filter, I frowned when I realized that the pot had already been set up. Already been ran.

  But the pot itself was empty.

  With a frown, I reached into the cabinet above my head and pulled down the container I stored the grounds in. My eyes widened with horror when I shook it and heard only the rattle of the scoop in the otherwise empty container.

  Oh no. No, no, no.

  Anger was an understatement. I damn well knew I still had enough coffee left yesterday to make at least three pots, yet my container was now empty. Clara despised coffee and my dad always got his in the morning at a local coffee shop, so there was only one person who could have done the deed.

  I took the empty container with me as I marched to his room. With a scowl, I reached up and pounded on his door with my closed fist, my jaw tightly clenched with morning irritation.

  When he finally opened the door, he looked at me with drooping eyes and asked, “What?”

  “You look like hell,” I said thoughtlessly, then remembered why I had come to his room in the first place. “Did you drink all my coffee?” I accused as I held up the container.

  “Yeah, I needed some last night.”

  “Some? You mean three pots worth?”

  Luke frowned. “No, I had two pots. You must like your coffee pretty weak.”

  I clenched my jaw again and did my best not to grind my teeth together. “So you’re admitting to emptying out my container.”

  “Don’t you have more?”

  “No, I buy a few bags and pour them into one container. If I had more bags, I wouldn’t be here bitching at you.”

  Luke smiled lazily and leaned against the doorframe, which was when I realized he was very shirtless and that his pajama pants were riding dangerously low on his hips.

  And oh, they were some nice hips. There was a delectable looking happy trail leading into his pants and I wondered what he would do if I just ran a single finger over the fuzz.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t know that you didn’t have more. With the way you drink coffee I guess I just thought you’d be stocked up.”

  His apology softened my anger, but it didn’t solve my issue. “Sorry isn’t going to fill my coffee cup.”

  He held up a single finger, signaling for me to hold on, and turned to walk over to his nightstand. I watched the muscles of his back flex as he bent down to pick up his wallet and swallowed hard at the sight.

  It suddenly felt a whole hell of a lot hotter in this room.

  He came back and reached his hand out, two twenty dollars bills dangling between his fingers. When I just looked at him dumbly, he moved his hand closer to my face.

  “Take it. Replace what I drank and buy more. I like the kind you drink so I’d like to share it. If you don’t mind.”

  I wanted to tell him I didn’t need the money—I had a credit card for that—but I could tell it would just piss him off to deny it. I accepted the cash with a nod and said, “That’d be fine.”

  I stood in the doorway, unsure of what to say when I noticed his gaze was slowly traveling down my body. I felt my skin flush and my breathing started to get heavier as I stared at the bulge in his pants. I saw his semi-hard cock twitch and nearly jumped on him.

  But his words stopped me. “Is that all you needed? I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

  “Y-Yeah. I guess two pots of coffee probably didn’t help, huh?” I joked, forcing a laugh at the end. The sound was painfully fake and I cringed as he chuckled.

  “Probably not. I’ll see you later,” he said as he slowly started to close his door.

  “Bye.”

  After the door was closed, I immediately darted into my bedroom and grabbed my cell phone. I dialed Daniel’s number and bounced up and down on the balls of my feet as I waited for him to answer.

  “Good god, woman. It’s like nine in the morning.”

  “I need a ride and to talk. Like, right now.”

  Daniel sounded far more awake when he asked, “Did something happen last night? Stage one?”

  “Pick me up and I’ll tell you,” I promised before I abruptly ended the call.

  I smirked at the ‘I can’t believe you hung up on me! You bitch!’ text message then laughed out loud at the ‘I’m so proud! Be there in 15!’ that came right after.

  Knowing that I was low on time, I quickly ran a brush through my crazy sleep hair and pulled it back into a ponytail before throwing on a pair of jeans and a tank top. I slid into my flip flops and grabbed my purse and phone before I rushed out of the room and grabbed the grocery list off the fridge.

  Right as I was shoving the list into my purse, I heard the sound of a car door slam shut and knew my ride was here. I rushed to the door before he could ring the bell, opening it and making a ‘shush’ motion by pointing my finger over my lips.

  Daniel froze and glanced around suspiciously, crouching low to the ground like he was prepared for an attack. The sight made me laugh and I shook my head as I relocked the front door.

  “Luke is trying to sleep,” I stage-whispered.

  He nodded and we quietly crept over to the car together like idiots, even though we both knew that we were well out of Luke’s hearing range.

  Once we were on the road, Daniel said, “So you better be ready to explain why you woke me up at this ungodly hour of the morning. But first, you should probably tell me where the hell we’re going.”

  “Grocery store. Need coffee.”

  “So you’ve reverted to caveman speak due to lack of caffeine? I see. Well, we’ll run over to Starbucks first. I could use something myself.”

  The ride was quiet until Daniel shouted our order into the drive-thru box. After we had our drinks in hand and were heading towards the grocery store, he demanded, “So, tell me. What happened last night?”

  “I did stage one,” I admitted with a blush.

  “So he heard you? You’re sure?”

  “Positive. He was standing outside my door when I was... finished.”

  Daniel squealed excitedly and clapped his hands together for a brief moment before returning them to the wheel. “That’s excellent! Only two more phases to go.”

  “I wish you’d tell me the stages in advance,” I said with a pout.

  “That would ruin the fun!”

  “Only for you.”

  “Exactly! Plus, I know you. You’d overthink the plan and try to come up with bullshit ways to derail it. Just relax and do what I say. Three easy steps and he’s yours.”

  I raised my hands, surrendering myself to his wisdom. “If you say so. I just hope you’re right.”

  “Oh, don’t you worry about that. I am right. But for phase two, we’re going to need to make a little stop before we hit the grocery store.”

  “Where are we stopping?”

  Daniel glanced at me with a raised eyebrow. “You got your credit card?”

  “Yeah.”

  There was the evil grin I was becoming accustomed to seeing. “Wonderful. You see, stage two is a two or three day stage. Today, we’ll be stopping by the mall to hit a few stores and get you a couple of slutty outfits. For the next few days, you will wear what I tell you, when I tell you.”

  “Oh god,” I groaned. How did I not see this coming? “Are you going to make me look like a slut in front of my dad and Clara? Because they’ll say something.”

  “No. Your dinner attire will be entirely appropriate. But I’ll stay over for dinner tonight and we’ll justify your new look by saying I gave you a makeover today.”

  I blinked a few times,
then turned to look at him incredulously. “That’s....That’s actually brilliant. Where do you come up with this stuff?”

  “I’m an evil genius,” he said breezily. “It’s in my blood.”

  “You really are,” I agreed with a chuckle.

  ~*~*~

  Chapter Seven

  “Shopping with you is like a damn sport. I’m exhausted,” I said when we pulled up to my house a few hours later.

  As if the mall hadn’t been hellish enough, Daniel had whined during the entire grocery trip, demanding that I rush through the store so we could get back to my house and start plotting phase two. It was stressful trying to gather all the things on Clara’s list while Daniel was constantly there nagging me to get a move on.

  Thankfully, we were done. Now we just needed to unload everything into the house.

  “I’ll take the clothes to your room then be back to help you with the groceries.”

  “Alright,” I agreed as I began to load up my arms with bags, leaving myself a free hand to unlock the door with.

  When I got to the door though, it turned out to be pointless. Luke threw the door open and stared at me with that same intensity he always had, his eyes freezing me in place for a long moment before they flickered away to the bags in my hands.

  “Let me take those,” he said as he reached to take the grocery bags away from me. “I’ll get the rest, too, if you want to start putting things away. I’m not sure where everything goes.”

  Daniel slipped past us with a hushed whisper of, “How domestic,” before slithering down the hallway unnoticed with the bags containing my new outfits.

  I followed Luke into the kitchen and started putting things away as he went to retrieve the rest from Daniel’s trunk. Daniel reappeared and helped me restock the cabinets and cupboards and I crossed every item I got off the list and started a new one with the few items that I hadn’t been able to find at the store.

  I noticed Luke standing near the bar, watching us with a furrowed brow.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “How do you know where everything goes?” he asked Daniel.