Bad Boy - A Stepbrother Romance (6 page)

Chapter Seven

Finn

The elevator lurched to a stop. As if on cue, the lights blinked several times, the whole thing shook, and then it came to a standstill, obviously broken.

Rory and I exchanged looks. It wasn’t the first time I’d been stuck in an elevator. Having lived in a hotel for the better part of my life, this wasn’t out of the ordinary for me, so I just leaned back against the wall, sighing. Judging from all my past experiences, we were probably going to be stuck here for a while.

“So…do you come here often?” I joked, giving Rory a side-eyed glance.

She rolled her eyes and sighed in frustration. “Let me guess, the next thing you say will be that you wouldn’t mind making me come here often,” she said, making air quotes around the word ‘come’.

I chuckled. “I wasn’t going to say that, actually, but I like it. Very smooth.”

She sighed again and looked around. “We have to get out of here. I need to take Grandma home after her appointment, and then I need to get to work,” she said, pulling her cell phone out of her bag. “Ugh, I don’t even have cell service in here.”

I checked my phone. “Same.”

She looked about as happy to hear that as a hungover person going through their sent messages folder after a night of boozing. “Well, can’t you do something? You’ve always lived in a hotel; you must know what to do with elevator stuff like this.”

“Not much to do.” I shrugged, pointing towards the alarm button. “Press that and someone will rescue us sooner or later.”

“Ugh…why are you so useless?” she snapped. She was getting visibly upset now, her cheeks reddening as she huffed and puffed and continuously pressed the alarm button.

“That’s not very nice,” I replied, barely able to hide my grin.

“Well…you’re not very nice,” she said, turning to me with a flustered expression.

“Ha. What an original thing to say. You have the comedic ability of a leek, you know.”

“Shush,” she grumbled.

Her finger jabbed the button again and again, as if she expected the elevator so start moving all by itself. “That’s not going to help,” I said as she moaned in frustration.

“I don’t want to be stuck in here with you,” she replied.

I hated to admit that her words stung a little. I knew she wasn’t my biggest fan, given the manner in which we’d first met, but it wasn’t like I was some serial murderer, trying to slice her open, or a pervert peeking under her skirt with my cell phone for up-skirt creep shots.

In fact, I thought I was behaving in a civil way, trying very hard not to stare at her, which was a hard feat to accomplish. Her deep breaths were making her breasts strain against the blouse she was wearing, and the sight was tempting as fuck.

I opened my mouth to say something else, but she shut me up with a venomous look. I motioned locking my lips and throwing the key away and then watched in silence as she tried desperately to get a reaction out of the control panel in the elevator. By now, I was fairly certain the power in the panel had gone off, but of course, I wasn’t allowed to speak, so I just stared at her futile attempts with amusement.

Rory glared at me, and I innocently averted my eyes, pretending I was mesmerized by the ceiling of the elevator. She was getting more annoyed by the second, and as the minutes ticked by and nothing happened, I could feel her frustration, the air in the tiny elevator thickening with tension.

“Why is nothing happening?” she finally asked me, and I gave her a wide-eyed look, shrugging. Rory finally gave up. “Can you please start talking again?”

“Panel’s busted,” I said. “The button isn’t working. Someone will have to manually make it move again.”

“Can you do that?”

“No, has to be from the outside.”

She sighed again, groaning once she realized we were at the mercy of the always-busy staff in the hospital. I noticed she was shivering as well, which made sense. It was freezing in this elevator. Feeling like a prick for not noticing how cold she was sooner, I slid off my hoodie and passed it to her.

She gave me a quizzical look, and I shrugged. “Aren’t you cold?” I asked.

She nodded, offering me a small smile as she took my hoodie and put it on. “Thanks, Finn,” she said in a soft voice, averting her eyes from mine.

The hoodie was enormous on her, almost reaching down to her knees, and seeing that made my lips quirk up in a grin.  For a few moments, we waited in silence, but there was a nagging question in the forefront of my mind which annoyed me more and more with each passing second.

I needed to know the answer.

“Is it so bad being stuck in here with me? I mean, I know you think I’m a dirty liar, and maybe I am, but is it really
that
bad?” I asked. When Rory didn’t answer right away, I perked up, thinking of a game to play with her while we were waiting for the repairman to get us out of here. “Tell me three people who would be better company than me in a stuck elevator.”

She shot me another annoyed look, but I could see a hint of a smile on her face. “Donald Trump,” she finally said.

I gasped in mock outrage. “You cannot be serious,” I said, a hand fluttering to my chest as I sighed dramatically. “You’d be stuck here tending to his wig and listening to a political rant. Give me someone else. You can do better than that.”

“Err...” She was thinking hard now, and I was happy I’d managed to distract her.

I knew people tended to get nervous and claustrophobic in situations like this, and I wanted Rory to stay calm. If joking around was the way to do that, I was willing to swallow my pride and make fun of myself.

As long as she felt safe.

“Britney Spears,” she finally admitted, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “Circa 2007.”

“What?!” My voice was appropriately horrified as I glared at her. “You’re saying you’d rather be stuck in here with a derailed pop princess suffering a breakdown than with me?”

“Definitely,” she said with a grin. By now she was having fun with the little game we were playing, and all traces of her nervousness were long gone. “At least she’d entertain me by singing her greatest hits.”

“Oh, I do believe that is a challenge.”

My eyebrows shot up as I looked at her, and Rory groaned, knowing what was coming next. “Please, Finn, no…”

“OOPS!” I yelled at the top of my lungs and dramatically pulled her closer. She laughed, shaking her head. “I did it again…got lost in the game!”

I nudged Rory and she smiled at me, the cutest thing in the world. I winked, getting on with the song and shaking my ass as I sang the lyrics. Pretty soon, I had her doubled over with laughter and slowly joining in for the chorus.

“Oh baby, baby!” she sang, shaking her ass. Obviously, my eyes were glued to her behind at this point, and she caught me looking and blushed a deep shade of red. She didn’t scold me like I expected she would; instead she just kept laughing and singing into her invisible microphone.

It was probably the most ridiculous thing that could’ve happened in a broken down hospital elevator, but at least it got rid of the awkward tension between us. By the time we hit Lucky and were through Toxic and Work It, we were both laughing our asses off.

“You’re totally the next Britney,” Rory said, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes.

“Thank you,” I replied with a grin, which I followed up with a regretful expression. “They said that on X Factor as well, but even though I slept with Simon, I never had my big break.”

Rory laughed again, doing that adorable thing where she snorted, and I couldn’t resist any longer. She was so cute, so beautiful, so damned sexy. I needed her closer.

I grabbed her by the waist, and her laughter came to an abrupt stop as I pulled her towards me. She swallowed hard, looking up at me as I pressed her against my hard body. I made sure to keep her away from my erect cock, not wanting to scare her too much. But goddamn, I needed her close to me.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered against her lips. She took a sharp breath as she realized just how close I’d brought us. “I couldn’t stop myself.”

She trembled like a leaf in my hands as I hovered only an inch away from the delicate skin on her neck. I wanted to kiss her so fucking badly, but I needed to keep myself in check. Rory wasn’t fighting me just yet, but she’d made it very clear on other occasions that she wanted nothing to do with me…and I couldn’t blame her for that, given the terrible impression I’d made on her so far.

Fuck, why did it have to be so hard?

“I know I shouldn’t,” I whispered, trailing a finger down her neck as she moaned under my touch. “I know it’s wrong to want this.”

“Finn,” she breathed under my lips, goose bumps rising on her tender skin as she turned her head to the side. “Please, I don’t think...”

“I know any second now, the elevator will start moving again.” I kept going as her voice trailed off, my lips murmuring the words against her neck. “And then we’ll come out and play the good little stepsiblings again. But just for one minute, I want to pretend we don’t have to.”

“Oh god,” she whispered, turning her head so she was facing me again. And that was the hardest thing—having to look into those big, beautiful brown eyes and not be able to permanently claim the girl that owned them for my own.

“Will you be very, very bad with me, Rory?” I murmured. “Only for one second, I promise.”

I thought she’d say no.

I was wrong.

She looked into my eyes, and before I had a chance to do anything else, she stepped up on her tiptoes. Time stood still as our lips met, slow and hesitant at first before melting together in a sweet, innocent kiss.

Instant chemistry.

She still wants me
. The thought exploded in my mind like a thousand fireworks going off, and I deepened our kiss, finding a new desperation in my heart, a need to have Rory even closer. My hands pulled her in by the waist until her breasts were crushed against my chest, her hips grinding against mine. She was so small compared to me that I had to lift her a little so she could reach my lips better. A surge of heat straight to my cock made me curl my fingers in her hair, and sweetness swirled in my mouth from the incredible taste of her lips and tongue.

I kissed her, knowing it was probably the first and last time I’d be doing so. Her lips were feverish, nibbling and molding to mine, and her tongue slipped inside my mouth, dancing with mine and easily convincing me that this. Was. Fucking. It.

It would never get better.

Rory Villanueva was it for me. I’d only known her for a couple of weeks, but that much I already knew. It was a damn shame nothing could ever really happen between us.

I pulled on my hoodie to reveal a sliver of her skin at the shoulders. So innocent, yet so very hot in that forbidden moment. I loved that she was wearing my clothes as well, already feeling possessive and loving my scent on her skin. I could barely feel the hum of the elevator coming back on; wasn’t even aware of the tiny space moving until I heard the ping. The door opened but still, I didn’t want to move away from Rory.

“Rory? Is that you?” a familiar voice interrupted us, and we sprang apart like someone had just dumped a bucket of ice cold water on top of us.
Fuck
.

We were totally busted.

Chapter Eight

Rory

Oh, fuck.

I usually never said the F-word, even silently in my mind, but this was a moment for cursing. My friggin’ grandmother was standing in the main hospital lobby, peering at me…and I’d just been kissing Finn.

What the hell was wrong with me? I didn’t like him. I certainly didn’t want him.

Bullcrap
, part of my mind told me.
Of course you do. He might be a giant dickbag half the time, but you can’t deny how sexy he is.

Okay, so maybe that was true, but it didn’t change the fact that it had been a huge mistake. Not only was he a self-confessed liar, he was my damned stepbrother.

I just hadn’t been able to resist him as he stood so close to me, gazing down at me with those smoldering eyes and murmuring sweet nothings into my ear, making shivers run down my spine as heat exploded between my legs. Try as I might to fight the urges and resist him, I hadn’t been able to in the end, and I’d even been the one to kiss him first.

Oh, yeah…I was the one who’d pressed my lips to his, not the other way around.

Everything about him had felt unbelievably intoxicating, and I’d had to work hard to stay on both feet, because believe me…I’d actually wanted to swoon. Finn’s hands on my waist alone had made me so wet that I’d been afraid it would soak through my panties, and I could still taste and feel him now; the way his lips had crashed against mine, the way his tongue had darted inside to taste me. A shock had zapped through me when he’d done that, running all the way down my spine in a sinful line. His fingernails had dug into my scalp as he fisted my hair and pulled me closer, and it had felt as though every part of me was waking up after a long sleep.

All that from one kiss…a kiss that I already regretted with every inch of my being.

Something horrible suddenly occurred to me. My mind had been too blank to even consider this earlier, but I had no idea if Finn was even single now. I hadn’t seen Candice around the hotel at all since I’d moved in, but that didn’t mean she was out of the picture entirely.

Great. I’d become the worst version of myself—the kind of girl who kissed a guy when she wasn’t even sure if he was single. All because I couldn’t resist Finn’s charms.

I was turning bad, just like him.

My cheeks burned with shame. “Um…I…” I stuttered something in my Grandma’s direction, and it was then that I noticed she didn’t have her glasses on. They were in her hand; she must’ve taken them off to give the lenses a quick polish.

“Are you okay?” she asked. “When you didn’t meet me back up at Dr. Cummings’ office, I decided to come down here looking for you. Then I saw that one of the elevators was broken, so I figured you’d been trapped in it. I’ve just been waiting for you here.”

I exchanged a panicked glance with Finn. Was Grandma just pretending like she hadn’t seen what we’d been doing, or were her eyes genuinely
that
bad without her glasses?

“I…um…I’m okay, yeah,” I replied. “Sorry for the wait.”

“Oh, it’s not your fault. I was just worried,” she replied. She slid her glasses back on as she spoke. “Oh, hello, Finn. I didn’t even realize that was you. I was wondering why Rory was straightening a random man’s collar.”

Thank you, God,
I silently prayed.
Nice save.

“Um. Yeah, his collar was sticking up, so…yeah,” I mumbled stupidly.

I felt awful for lying to my own grandmother, but what choice did I have?

“Always such a helpful girl,” she said. “Now, I suppose you never got that Jello, did you? Come along, we’ll get some now. Finn, are you joining us?”

“No!” I said, a little too quickly and a little too loudly.

Finn gave me a strange look before turning back to my grandmother. “Sorry, Mrs. Villanueva, but I have to get to work, so I can’t,” he said in a stiff voice.

I stepped out of the elevator and turned to face him. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, not meeting his eyes. “I can’t do this…I just can’t.”

Then I turned and strode towards the cafeteria, only turning back to make sure my Grandma was following me. Finn was still staring at me, an intense gaze in his eyes, and it occurred to me that I was still wearing his jacket. I was too ashamed to walk back over and give it to him, but I supposed I could ask one of the maids at the hotel to return it to his room later so I didn’t have to awkwardly face him.

As I entered the cafeteria, I turned my head back over my shoulder again. This time, Finn was gone. I felt a stab of guilt for running away from him in the way I had, but I had no idea
why
I was feeling guilty for that. It was
Finn
. He was a prick, and it had just been one stupid kiss. It didn’t mean anything to either one of us. Right?

Wrong,
the annoying voice in the back of my mind told me.
Totally dead-set wrong.