HUGE X2 (14 page)

“You wanna beer?” Sammie asks and I nod, pushing it
all back down again.
 
I gulp down half
the bottle and tell myself I’ll get through dinner and then make my excuses and
leave.
 
And when I’m out of Sammie’s door
I won’t look back again.
 
It’s too hard
being reminded of the past when your present is a grind and the future isn’t
somewhere you want to travel to.

Sammie puts our delicious looking meals on the counter
and we sit on bar stools.
 
Everything
she’s put together in ten minutes tastes amazing and I barely talk outside of a
compliment until the plate is clear.
 
She’s watching me when I put the cutlery down with a satisfied
expression.
 

“You know what they say about the way to a man’s
heart?”
 
I ask, and she nods.
 
“Well, don’t go cooking for any old idiot
unless you want him to fall in love with you.”

She blinks and then blushes and that swell of
awkwardness is back between us.
 
I kick
myself for my stupid mouth as she gets up to put our plates near the sink.
 

“Can I show you some stuff?” she asks.

“What stuff?”

“Call it a trip down memory lane.”
  
She starts walking towards a door in the
back corner of the den and I follow into a short hallway and further into a
bedroom.
 
I know it’s hers because it
smells of the perfume I keep catching on the air around her.
 
The bed is huge and made up with white linens
and a chunky grey blanket.
 
The floors
are dark wood and match the dark wood of the furniture.
 
It’s not very girlie but I hadn’t expected
pink cushions or hanging butterflies.
 
Even her childhood bedroom was painted blue.
 

She goes to the closet and disappears inside, emerging
seconds later with a box.
 
She sits on
the bed, cross-legged, and motions for me to join her, the box between us.

“What is it?” I ask as she lifts the lid.
 
Inside it is a mess of papers and photos and
trinkets.
 
She pulls out the things on
the top and shuffles through them, handing me a picture.
 
It takes me a moment to realize it’s
something I drew when I was about ten years old.
 
A lioness curled up around her three cubs
with my attempt at the arid landscape of Africa in the background.
 
It’s childish but detailed.
 
I look up as she passes me more, all things
I’d drawn and left behind.
 
All pictures
of things that had fascinated me as a child, and maybe still did. Not that I’d
admitted that to myself in years.
 

She passes me a packet of photos, and her expression
is worried.
 
“What?” I say, suddenly
nervous of what I might find inside.
 

“They’re just pictures,” she says.
 
“Family pictures.”

From her tone I know that she’s concerned about how I
might react but I can’t tell her I don’t want to see.
 
I have only one picture of my mom and me as a
child, and none of Sammie and her dad.
 
I
open the packet and start to flick through.
 
The more I look, the greater the burning sensation at the back of my
throat worsens.
 
We all look so damn
happy and I can’t stand it.
 
I can’t bear
remembering all that contentment because it’s gone and it’s never coming
back.
 
The packet wobbles in my hand and
I drop it onto the comforter and walk out of the room, needing time to steady
my shaking hands.
 
I stand at the window
in the den looking over the city that has housed us both for years and kept us
apart so well.

I hear Sammie’s bare feet padding on the hardwood but
I don’t turn.
 
I feel her hand rest
lightly between my shoulders and all the love I feel for her seems to spill out
of my heart and into my chest, pulled by that small touch of her palm against
my t-shirt covered skin.
 
I swallow and
it’s so damn quiet in the room that it’s audible.

“Bran,” she says rubbing my back.
 
“It’s okay.”
 
When I don’t turn she places her other hand against my cheek and draws
me until we are facing each other.
 
I
can’t hide anything from her.
 
I never
could.
 
Sammie’s always been my best friend
and my home.
 
We stare at each other, her
eyes so sad and filled with a yearning that I know is reflected in mine.
 
It’s like the threads that had bound us
together when we were kids are fusing back together.
 
She licks her lip and the sight of her tongue
makes my dick prickle.
 
It’s a tiny
reaction but it freaks me the fuck out.
 
But then she’s got her hand around my neck and she’s pulling me towards
her and we’re hugging and it feels so good, so perfectly right.
 
She soothes me with her hand that rubs up and
down my back and her words that she whispers in my ear.

“It’s okay, Bran.
 
You’re here now.
 
We’re back
together.
 
Sammie and Bran Bran, best
friends forever,” she says just like she used to.
 
But it doesn’t feel like friendship when I’m
distracted by her soft breasts pressed against my chest and the curve of her
hip under my palm.
 
When her lips graze
my ear I think it’s an accident.
 
She’s
whispering close after all.
 
But the soft
feel of it, that little graze, makes me sigh and then she sighs too and I know
it wasn’t an accident.
 
“I love you,
Bran,” she whispers, her mouth now so close to my neck I can feel the wetness
of it against my skin.

The air feels alive with something.
 
It’s our history swirling around us like a
vortex that’s drawing me closer to her when I know I should be pulling
away.
 
Fuck.
 
None of this was part of the plan but I can’t
stop the way my hands want to feel the skin of her back and slip inside her
blouse.
 
Her hand grabs at my shoulder,
molding the muscle there as if she needs something firm to keep her
grounded.
 
I can hear her breathing hitch
as I stroke across the silkiness of her back.
 
With my face pressed into her neck I can almost pretend this isn’t
really happening. It feels like a dream, a fantasy that will be gone when I
open my eyes.
 
She’s like an angel
visiting me in purgatory and her sweetness and strength just make me want
more.
 

I know I shouldn’t.
 

I shouldn’t be here.
 
I don’t belong in her perfect life.

I shouldn’t want her.
 
She’s my stepsister and it’s wrong.

I shouldn’t.
 
But I do and I can’t stop myself.
 

Chapter 5

Samantha

Oh
my god.
 
I can feel Bran shaking against
me.
 
He’s trembling like a leaf as his
fingertips graze my spine.
 
It feels so
good to be in his arms, so right.
 
It’s
like slipping into your most comfortable clothes, like a custom made suit.
 
He feels perfect but it’s Bran, my
stepbrother, and we shouldn’t be doing this.
 

But I want to.
 
Like the song, my minds telling me no but my body has other ideas.

His breath gusts against my skin and he’s gone still
as though he’s warring with himself too.
 
I feel like I’m standing on a ledge and just one little step is gonna
take me into oblivion, and it’s scary but I want to fall into him. I want him
to catch me.

“Bran,” I breathe and his lips graze my bare shoulder,
revealed by my silky blouse.
 
“Oh god,” I
say.

“Sammie,” he says, like he’s in a dream, but this is
real.
 
It’s so, so real when I inhale the
scent on his skin and it explodes something in my mind.
 
Everything about him is familiar but
different.
 
I can’t get a grip on what’s
happening.

His fingers are running up my side, thumb slipping
around the front of my ribs, so slowly I can’t take in air.
 
One move and he might stop.
 
One move and we might both come to our
senses.
 

Oh, I don’t want him to stop.
 

I know the moment he realizes that I’m not wearing a
bra.
 
His thumb grazes the underside of
my breast and he goes totally still again.
 
Seconds tick by, a siren passes outside at a distance, and we exist like
mannequins in an erotic window display.
 
I’m panting and the sheer
want
I feel inside eclipses all restraint and sense.
 

I’m lost.

“Don’t stop,” I say, kissing his neck and running the
very tip of my tongue over his skin.

His thumb runs upwards until it finds its goal; the
very tip of my nipple.
 
He’s so still
again and I can feel the skin puckering and my breast aching for more.
 
When the tingling has stopped he presses down
hard and it feels so good I moan.
 
His
hand grips my flesh, squeezing, kneading as his chest rises and falls against
my palm.
 
He feels like a coiled
spring.
 
Inside, I am too. Ready to
unfurl and surrender at any second.

“Oh, fuck,” he mutters as I slip my hand under his
shirt, marveling at the swells and dips my hand discovers. He’s like a rock, a
beautifully sculpted hunk of mountain.

My mind is going crazy.
 
Brandon has his hand on my breast and his
mouth on my neck and I’m pawing at him like I’ve been starved of men for
years.
 
I suppose I have really.
 
No boyfriend I’ve had has come near to the
level of closeness I felt with Brandon.
 
I’ve never loved anyone like I love him.

“Tell me to stop,” he whispers and he sounds like he’s
in real pain.
 
Is this hurting him?
 
The desperate tremor in his voice pierces the
fierceness of my drive for more.
 
All I
want is for Brandon to be in my life again.
 
If this feels wrong to him, if he doesn’t want it, I can’t take him
somewhere that might drive us apart. I couldn’t bear for that to happen.

I pull my hand from under his shirt and use them both
to cup his face and bring his eyes to mine.
 
They flick over me, trying to read my expression, or trying to tell me
things I just can’t read.
 
The vivid
blue-greenness of them stuns me momentarily.
 
“It’s okay,” I say.
 
I stand on
tiptoes and kiss his cheek, then pull him into a hug again.
 
I feel his hand slip from under my blouse and
I want to weep with frustration, but I don’t.
 
I let him hold me tight and I tell him that I love him and that nothing
would ever change that.
 
I feel his
fingers nestle into my hair and we stand like that for the longest time while
inside my heart feels like little pieces of it are peeling away, petals falling
from a wilting rose.
 

I have this terrible feeling that when Brandon leaves
my apartment I’m never going to see him again.
 
I want him so much but everything feels jumbled.
 
Love and sadness from our past seems to have
translated itself into longing, not just for a rekindling of friendship or a
sibling relationship but for something more.
 
Maybe I should just say ‘fuck it’ and lead him to my bedroom and let him
take me like I know he really wants to.
 
I can feel how hard he is against my belly and the pulse between my legs
is like a living thing.
 
But if I do,
there will be no chance of us keeping in touch.
 
I know Brandon.
 
He stayed away
from me all this time for a reason.
 
I
don’t want to give him any more.

“I’m sorry,” he says.
 

“Don’t be,” I say.
 
“It was me as well.”

He pulls away and looks over the skyline as though he
can’t bring himself to look at me anymore.
 
It all hurts so much.
 
Worse than
when I watched him drive away the first time because then I believed we would
be reunited soon.
 
Now I have so little
hope.

“I should go,” he says so seriously, still not looking
at me.

“Stay,” I say.
 
“We can just talk.
 
Or watch a
movie.”
 
I know I sound desperate but I
can’t help it.
 

He looks at me then with so much sadness in his eyes
that my heart crumbles.
 
I’ve got a
molten lump in my throat and a geyser of tears waiting to be let loose.

“I need to go,” he says, reaching out and stroking
over my hair.
 
Bran looks me over like
he’s trying to take a mental photograph.
 
With the little remaining composure that I have left, I smile.

“Okay,” I say.
 
“It was good to see you again.”

“Yeah,” he says.

“Will you give me your number?” I ask.

He looks down at his feet and shakes his head.
 
“It’s best that I don’t.
 
I don’t want you getting mixed up in my
life.”

“I already am,” I say.

He shakes his head again.
 
“You’re a sight for sore eyes, Sammie,” he
mumbles and then, as though he’s finally awakened from that dream, he heads
towards the front door.
 

When he gets there he pauses and turns, holding onto
the handle.
 
“What was it like?
 
The wombat?”

“It was heavy.” I laugh, sounding slightly manic.
 
“It was warm and wriggly with the thickest
fur coat you ever saw.”

He smiles, just a small flicker of it on his lips, and
then he leaves without saying goodbye.

I wait, watching him walk towards the elevator, taking
a mental picture of my own.
 
He’s got a
swagger to his walk that I hadn’t noticed before and the longest, thickest
thighs.
 
Everything about him is strong
and powerful, except perhaps his heart.
 

When he’s inside the elevator he looks up at me and
nods, then the doors close and he’s gone.

In the morning everything seemed to be going so
right.
 
When I saw Brandon in that cell I
thought I’d find a way to have him back in my life for good.
 
But now he’s gone again and I just can’t hold
it together anymore.
 
I cry, not just
dainty tears but terrible ugly crying because I hadn’t realized how empty I
felt until he came along and filled that gap inside me so perfectly.
 
And ripping himself out again has only made
it worse.
 

I slump onto my couch, hugging my big velvet cushion
and wiping my face with tissues from the coffee table.
 
But as I exhaust myself, I start to feel
angry.
 
Who the fuck does he think he is,
making decisions for us and letting me have no say in the matter? He thinks he
can just walk out of my life again and I’m not going to fight for him to
stay.
 
I’m feeling vulnerable, but I’m a
warrior in my work life.
 
I can battle
for him.
 
And if he doesn’t want anything
more than friendship, we can be step siblings again.
 

All I want is my Brandon back in my life.
 
And I’m gonna try my hardest to make it
happen.