Step Scandal - Part 1 (3 page)

Xavier

Saturday night we hit up some club in downtown L.A. at Harper’s insistence. Evidently she was ready to get the show on the road. Dressed in a black skintight number that barely covered her ass and the pinks of her nipples, we sat in the VIP lounge with candles illuminating our table and bottles of Moet and Chandon on ice. Apparently this was her place, and the owners always gave her the VIP treatment whenever they knew she was coming.

“Wanna dance?” she cooed, slipping a pink straw between her cherry lips. It was her third drink, and we’d only been there an hour and a half.

A group of girls walked past, and I could’ve sworn I heard them mutter something about, “Isn’t that Xavier Fox?” Of course that would happen. No one said two shits about Harper.

“Why the hell not.” I stood up, reaching down for her hand, and led her to the dance floor where some hip hop number that completely called for intense grinding and fully clothed sex on the dance floor began to rattle out of the speakers. She backed her tight little ass up against me, bumping it into my crotch and making my cock tingle with a threat to harden if I didn’t quickly think about golf or some shit soon.

In her drunken state, she grabbed my hands and slipped them around her, and while she probably meant to place them around her hips, she landed a little high and placed them just beneath her bouncing tits.

Flashes of what I could only assume to be camera phones blinded my vision, so I let my hands do the seeing for me. All I saw was pitch black in between blinding lights, but my hands felt the body of a curvaceous young woman I was technically not supposed to be touching in that way.

I pulled her into me, running my hands down the length of her curved body and slipping my lips down to her exposed neck, peppering soft kisses into her skin. All for show of course. She spun around to face me, resting her hands on my shoulders as we danced, and smiled as if to tell me to keep up the good work.

The second the song ended, she grabbed my hand and led me back to our little private booth.

“I never knew you could dance,” she shouted over the music.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.” I took a swig of my beer and glanced around the packed room. “I think people were taking pictures of us.”

“Perfect.” She smiled and reached down to find her glass.

“Don’t,” I took it out of her hand. “Drink some water.”

She pouted her bottom lip.

“I know you’re nervous, but fuck, Harper.” I shook my head, taking another swig of beer. “Slow down.”

She sat back, brushing the blonde hair from her face and drew in a deep breath. Suddenly her eyes scrunched. “Is that – is that Hayden?”

I followed her gaze to a guy in a khaki linen suit with a flock of giggly, scantily-clad girls around him like a thick fog. “Yep.”

I’d kept tabs on the two of them from afar while the dated. And by “from afar”, I meant clicking on gossip website articles that happened to show up in my newsfeed. I never went actively looking for that shit, but it seemed to be everywhere while they dated. I didn’t know much, but from what I gathered, he’d cheated on her. A lot. And he seemed like the Lord of the Douchebags.

My arm slipped behind her shoulder, and I pulled her close. I leaned down, nuzzling my face into her neck and drinking in her sweet perfume. “Should we let him know you’re off the market?”

She nodded vigorously, though she kept her gaze on him. I’d recognize a girl with a still-broken heart from a mile away. Her lips found mine in the dark of the club, and my hands cupped her face as we made out sans-tongue. It was fucked up how natural it felt, but we both just went with it. Maybe our “acting” genes were to blame.

“Harper?” a man’s voice interrupted our fake make out session. I peeled myself off her and turned toward the voice. Fucking Hayden McDaniel.

“Oh, hi, Hayden,” Harper said, her cherry lips swollen.

He glanced at me as if I were familiar. A lot of people did that. I had that face they just couldn’t place until they realized who my dad was.

“How’ve you been?” he asked. He slid his hands into his pockets and peered around the room, looking like the king of all royal asshats. His smug look belonged to a man who still secretly pined for Harper, but didn’t want her to know.

“Good,” Harper said, staring at him like he was some kind of teen idol. I wanted to tell her to wipe the smile off her face before I replaced it with another heart-attack-inducing kiss right in front of that asshole.

“Wanna go outside? It’s kind of loud in here,” Hayden said. His eyes traveled to me, and his face fell slightly when he saw the look I was giving him. “If that’s okay with your
boyfriend
here.”

Harper looked at me, raising her eyebrows as if to ask permission. I cocked my head to the right and gave her a piercing glare, as if to tell her ‘no’ in not so many words.

“I’ll be right back. I won’t be gone long,” she promised. She tugged on the hem of her tight dress, pulling it down and smoothing it out as she stood up to follow him outside.

A few minutes later, she still hadn’t returned. I finished my beer and spun the rim between my thumb and pointer as a restlessness stirred in my legs that eventually forced me to rise up and go find her.

I wanted my fucking tattoo shop. And more than that, I didn’t want her to get her fucking heart smashed again by that dick wad.

I left the club and headed out front where a line of hopefuls stood a half –mile long waiting to get inside. Searching for her, and I ignored the burn in the pit of my stomach that told me she’d left with him. It shouldn’t have bothered me like it did. After all, this was just an act, and she was a grown woman allowed to do whatever she pleased.

“Don’t fucking lie to me!” a woman’s voice yelled from down the street. I turned only to see Hayden and, to my relief, Harper going at it. At least verbally. Had he touched a hair on her head, I’d have kicked his ass so hard he’d shit blood for a week.

“What’s going on?” I pulled my shoulders back, resting my hands on my hips and staring down my nose at the tool in the linen suit.

“Mind your own,” Hayden said, reaching for Harper’s arm and pulling her toward him, though it was more possessive than protective.

“Is he bothering you, Harper?” I asked, ignoring him.

“We were just talking,” she said, pulling herself away from him and looking crestfallen, like he’d hurt her all over again. She stood equal distances between us as she crossed her arms guardedly.

“Harper, baby, come with me,” he said. “I’ll take you home. You belong with me.”

“She
belongs
to you?” I scoffed. “Is that why you stuck your dick in everything from here to Vegas when you two were together?”

Harper threw me a look, as if she were surprised I knew anything about their relationship.

“I’m not going home with you, Hayden,” Harper said. “I just thought we could talk like two civilized people.”

“You can’t have a rational conversation with an irrational asshole, Harper,” I seethed, locking eyes with Hayden. We may as well have been locking horns. “Hate to tell you that, Princess.”

The flash of camera bulbs blinded us, surrounding us in a storm of clicking cameras and flashing lights while men shouted instigating questions at the two of them.

Hayden’s face softened for a second. “Wait a minute. Where do I know you from? Why do you look so familiar?”

I didn’t want him to figure out who I was. Not then and there. I wanted her to walk away from her little reunion with at least a shred of dignity. He’d find out who I was soon enough.

“Come on.” I grabbed Harper’s arm and led her away from the shit storm.

“Where are we going?” She stumbled behind me.

“I’m taking you home,” I growled. “This night went to shit. No point in going back in the club.”

“But the cameras,” she whined.

“Trust me, there’ll be plenty of pictures of us online tomorrow.”

Valet brought Harper’s car up. She’d insisted we forgo my Ford pickup in lieu of something a bit classier, like her Mercedes. I helped her into the passenger seat and climbed in to take her back to my place.

As we sped toward my condo in West L.A., I could feel her looking at me.

“What?” I asked. “Why’re you staring at me?”

“Thanks,” she said with a drunken shrug.

“For what?”

“For rescuing me from Hayden.” She drew in a sharp breath and turned to look out her window. The city lights became a neon blur as we zoomed through busy streets. “If you weren’t there, I’d probably have gone home with him. And tomorrow? I would’ve regretted it all.”

Her hand flew to where mine rested on top of the shifter.

“Just doing my job as your big brother,” I teased.

“Do you remember that night?” she mused. Her lips formed a silent yawn. “That night, when I was eighteen, and we had the whole house to ourselves. And you got into Conrad’s liquor cabinet. Do you remember?”

I remembered it like it was yesterday. We’d spent the whole week hanging out, and that night we had a heart to heart fueled by alcohol. I opened up more to her than I’d opened up to anyone in my life. And goddamn she looked so pretty in her little floral sundress. I saw her in a whole new light that week. “Yeah, I remember. Why?”

“It was right before I signed my record contract,” she said. “I remembered what you said that night, about following my dreams and not selling out. And then you drew me that anchor. Telling me to anchor myself to something real.”

I released a silent breath, thankful that the conversation seemed to be heading in an entirely different direction.

“I should’ve listened to you, Xavier.” She leaned her head up against the glass of her window. “You’ve always been right about everything.”

“Now you’re just giving me too much credit.”

Another yawn left her pretty mouth. She was probably three seconds from passing out completely. “And the next morning, you know, the morning after we kissed and had that sort of magical night, you were gone. I was so angry at you, Xavier. I was so hurt. And so I signed the contract.”

My hands gripped the steering wheel as I turned toward the parking garage of my condo. I didn’t know what to say. I left because I felt like I’d taken advantage of her. I was ashamed. And I hated that I was starting to fall for the one girl I knew I could never have.

“I sold out, Xavier. I became the sexy virginal pop star,” she laughed. “And look where it got me.”

By the time I pulled into my parking spot, she was out cold. I climbed out and whipped around to her side, carefully pulling her out of the car and carrying her in my arms. She woke just long enough to wrap her arms around my neck and press her face against my chest as she took in a dreamy sigh.

When we got inside, I unzipped her dress and pulled one of my old t-shirts over her head before tucking her into my bed.

Harper

The covers felt weird. They weren’t mine. And the flattened pillow was definitely not my ultra lux memory foam. The bed sagged in the center, and my lower back ached. My legs were bare.

And where was my dress?

I peeled my eyes apart, immediately stung by the glint of the early morning sun that penetrated the gap in the curtains next to the bed. Head throbbing, I rolled over to make out the form of a man with dark hair. It definitely wasn’t Hayden.

Thank God.

“Xavier?” I asked, rubbing my eyes. I removed my hand long enough to see a smudge of black eyeliner across it. He rolled over, offering me a sexy, early morning half-smile as he stirred awake.

“Morning,” he mumbled, burying his head back into the pillow.

“Why am I here?”

“You were drunk. I lived closer.” He turned his head opposite me and shimmied his bare shoulders back under the covers.

“Are you topless?!”

“I’m not a chick. Guys aren’t ‘topless’, Harper. I’m wearing shorts. Calm down. We didn’t do anything.”

I slid out of his bed. “Where’s my dress?”

“On the back of that chair in the corner.”

In nothing but a thong and his t-shirt, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to stay as-was or slip on the skintight dress from the night before. It was going to be awkward either way.

“Where’s my clutch?”

“What clutch?”

“Oh, my God. The little blue one with the fur trim? Tell me you have it.” I began frantically searching his room.

“Oh, just call it a purse. It’s out on the kitchen table.”

“Do you have roommates?”

“No. You’re fine.”

I tugged his t-shirt down past my ass anyway and left his room to find my clutch. When I popped it open to make sure the contents were all there, my phone flashed with a text message from Elijah.

DID YOU SEE THE PICS YET???

I clicked on his message, which contained a link to Celebrity Gawker Blog.

IS HARPER BLISS DATING HER STEPBROTHER?!

Five pictures accompanied the blog post along with a detailed article speculating about how either our parents were divorcing so that we could be together or that our being together caused their divorce. The article was mostly about our parents, but the pictures were all us.

547 comments so far. Holy shit.

The night before was like a drunken, cloudy haze, and I wasn’t sure exactly what happened besides the fact that I needed a whole lot of booze to do it. Talking about faking a relationship with your stepbrother was a whole lot different than actually faking the relationship with your stepbrother.

I thumbed through the pictures. Us dancing. Us holding hands. Us walking outside the club together. Us kissing. I zoomed in on a picture of us kissing, then zoomed in again. Was that? Was that tongue?

I stormed into Xavier’s room and pulled the blanket off him. “Look!”

“What?” he popped his head up, his black hair shooting every which way. He grabbed the phone from my hands after rubbing his eyes. “What am I looking at? Is this us?”

“It’s your tongue!” My hands flew to my hips as I practically spit the words at him. “We agreed. No tongue. This isn’t real, you and me!”

“My bad, Harper,” he laughed, pulling himself up and out of bed. The second he stood up, his cock seemed to have pitched a tent in his thin gray sweats. If I looked close enough, I could’ve probably seen a perfect outline of the tip of his cock.

“Oh, God.” I shielded my eyes. “Put it away. Now.”

“You sure you’re not a virgin?” He sauntered out of his room and into the bathroom, where he left the door partially open as he pissed.

“Have you no decency?” I yelled from his room as I tore his t-shirt off me and tugged my dress back on.

“Wow, not even a couple and we’re already fighting.” He flushed the toilet before washing up and then re-entered his room just in time.

“Take me home.”

“Yes, Princess. Anything else I can do as your humble man servant?”

I hurried to the door, my clutch in hand, and stepped into my shoes. I crossed my arms after a minute of waiting. “You coming?”

He emerged fully dressed and smelling like a fresh spritz of the sexiest cologne ever made. I’d never forget the way he smelled the night we fooled around years ago. “Ready.”

We walked to his car in silence, and when we emerged from the parking garage, a whole bevy of paparazzi and flashing cameras awaited us. Xavier flashed a huge smile on his face and slipped his arm around me.

“Lean into me,” he said. “Come on. Make it look real.”

I scooted closer to him, resting my head on his shoulder long enough for the paps to get a few pictures, but the second they left us alone I sat up. “Why’d you kiss me with tongue last night?”

“You’re still fixated on that shit?”

“And why did you kiss me that night?” My bottom lip trembled, and it took all the strength I had to fight off the wave of tears beginning to burn my eyes. “You were the first guy I ever let touch me like that. I probably would’ve done everything with you. Why’d you leave the next morning?”

“It was wrong.”

“And how’s it any different than what we’re doing now?”

“I don’t have my hands down your pants.”

“But you put your tongue in my mouth.”

“What, you got a points system for everything? Are we in junior high? Does tongue in mouth equal real life boyfriend?” His words were terse and tight, as if he regretted ever kissing me at all. “Besides, our parents are divorcing. We won’t be related much longer. And for the record, I never looked at you like my stepsister. When I look at you – when I kiss you – it’s like kissing any other woman.”

He still didn’t tell me why he left, though it’d been six years. I knew I needed to get over it. It was just that, I was starting to fall for him. And the way he looked at me that night, even though we were both drunk, I was sure he was falling for me too.

And then he was just…gone.

“Here’s your stop.” He slammed the shifter into park after pulling into the circle drive of my house. We climbed out of my Mercedes, and I headed toward the door as he ambled to where his blue Ford was parked.

“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” I called out.

He stopped dead in his tracks and cocked his head my way, turning on his heel before charging at me. “We’re doing this.”

His chest was mere inches from my chin. He towered over me, and I suddenly remembered the way it felt when his hands and lips were all over me. I half expected him to claim my mouth the way he did before, but he didn’t. The tension lingered between us, thick like a haze neither one of us could see through.

“It’s too late now, Princess,” he said, his voice low and determined. “There are pictures of us plastered all over social media. There will be questions. A feeding frenzy of publicity. Just like you wanted. And I’m going to be right there beside you, fanning the flames of the fire you so badly wanted to happen.”

I swallowed the lump in my suddenly dry throat.

“You wanted this,” he said. “Remember that.”

His hands raised to cup my face, his fingers gently digging into the nape of my neck as he lowered his mouth to mine. Xavier kissed me long and hard, the way a soldier would before going off to war. My skin flushed and my stomach fluttered as my lips welcomed his.

And when he came up for air, he said, “See? I promised you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rossi St. James is a twenty-something young woman with a passion for Oreos, crazy, twisted stories, and hiking trails with her two yellow labs, Sunny and Cloudy. When she’s not writing, you can probably find her scouring Pinterest for inspiration for her next book. (That’s pretty much all she uses Pinterest for anyway, as Rossi St. James cannot cook, sew, or craft).

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