TASTE: A Stepbrother Romance Read online

  “Nick, I am so happy. I would really like to kiss you right away and have some wild time, but we won’t break this news until the wedding is over. It is my mom’s day and I don’t want to steal the show. Let her enjoy the glory and tomorrow morning I will tell her and Ralph about us. I am sure they will be delighted to hear about it. Mom is going to love you.”

  Nick stood there frozen, stunned and speechless. I couldn’t quite understand why he was reacting in this way. I tried to retrace my sentences and find out if I had subconsciously said something, but when I couldn’t decipher it, I had to ask Nick what was wrong.

  “Ralph is my dad.”

  Now, it was my time to be shocked and stunned. How could destiny play such a vile game? Just when I had reconciled with the one true love of my life, I found out that he was to be my stepbrother.

  I could feel the walls shaking, and I would have fallen down if Nick hadn’t caught me in his arms.

  I didn’t know what to feel or how to react. Could I ever see Nick as my brother? What would happen to the chemistry we had, the times in bed!

  There were just so many questions and no answer.

  Chapter 9: Walking My Own Path

  Life could be really cruel. I had been so happy with the news of my mom’s marriage, but nothing quite prepared me for this event. How could Ralph be Nick’s father? There are so many guys out there, why did it have to be his father!

  I couldn’t understand what to do. We had just confessed our feelings, and Nick had expressed his love. To find out that he would be my stepbrother crushed me. There was nothing brotherly to me about Nick, and after having spent too many nights learning the terrain of his body, I couldn’t quite see him as a brother, no matter what.

  “Nick, what are we going to do about this?”

  “Lacie, I don’t know, but there is no way you could be a sister to me. Man, this sucks. As much as I love that my dad is getting another shot at his life, Jesus, why does it have to be this way?”

  We both stood there inside the church, not knowing what to say or what to do. We were torn amidst the emotions. I was genuinely happy for my mother, and so was Nick for his father, but we were definitely worried about us, too.

  As the vows were exchanged, I saw Mom smiling. They were in love, one could feel that and we were too. I realized that there was nothing wrong with my dating Nick. After all, we weren’t biologically related. It was just a weird way of destiny knocking us, but there was no way I would let some chance happening ruin the true love of my life.

  I decided to talk to Nick about it before talking to Mom. Nick was my one true fantasy, and it was hard to let him go just because I had found him to be my sort-of brother.

  After the ceremony concluded, Mom called me. “Lacie let me introduce you to Ralph’s family–this is Nicholas Jackson, his son, and this is Matthew, his brother.” The list of people went on and on, and despite the wedding supposedly being a low-key affair, there were close to a hundred people.

  I signaled Nick not to tell anyone anything right away because I wanted to talk to him about the details before we discussed about our involvement any further. I didn’t quite have a plan, but I wanted to make us work. I knew that Mom would understand me after all; she always did. But even when I tried to come up with a plausible reason, it sounded a little weird, even to my own ears.

  When I saw that the guests had started moving towards the reception area, I quickly gestured Nick to meet me at the back gate. I excused myself and headed there too.

  Once we were there, I decided that I had to discuss it thoroughly with Nick. There was no way we could simply pretend and ignore the whole thing. I was pacing up and down when I saw Nick approaching and holy shit, he looked so handsome that I could still feel my toes curling. There was no way I would ever get over him, and to be frank, I didn’t want to.

  “Nick, I love you. I don’t care how weird and twisted it sounds. I want to know, Nick, what have you decided? I mean I do understand that with the marriage, things have changed, but it doesn’t change the way I feel about you. I want to know, Nick. What do you think of me, now that I am, well, your stepsister?”

  For a moment, Nick didn’t say anything, and I dreaded the worst. How was I supposed to know what was going on in his mind, but before I could come to a conclusion, Nick closed the gap between us and kissed me hot, firm, and deep. My mind reacted immediately to his touch, and I met him, stroke for stroke.

  I deepened the kiss and let his tongue invade my mouth. I allowed his tongue to get inside me, and the kiss spoke of how much we both had ached for each other.

  No, there was no way we could be siblings because there would always be this overwhelming sexual energy between us. I had the strong urge to rip apart his tuxedo and lay my fingers on his bare chest and touch him everywhere. As I bumped my body closer to him, I found that he was hard, and it pleased me to know that I was not the only one aching for the other.

  He put his fingers in my hair and took out the bow pin. My hair fell and he let his fingers lose in the curls. The kiss was still going strong and we were in no mood to part. However, it was broad daylight, and we didn’t want many of our guests to see us lip-locked in this way.

  Very reluctantly, we broke the kiss, but the urge to touch, cuddle, and kiss was stronger than ever.

  “Did you get your answer, Lacie?”

  “Yes, Nick. I did. I love you.”

  “I love you, too. I want you and I don’t care what fucking weird relation we may have just gotten into. My body craves you and it always will.”

  I gave a sigh and realized that we needed to tell our families about it. It wasn’t going to be easy, but as long as we were together, we would make it work, or at least, so I thought.

  I took Nick’s hand and asked him if he was prepared for what faced us ahead.

  “It will be challenging, Nick. They might be disappointed and shocked. Are you prepared for it?”

  “I would do anything for you, Lacie. The times I spent without you have made me realize how much I love you. There is no way I can spend my life without you in it. We will make it work, honey.”

  I hugged Nick, and I wanted to do a lot more so badly. The time spent without him had been so terrible that I couldn’t imagine a life without Nick in it. I had no clue how Mom would react, but I really prayed that she would understand me.

  ***

  It was hard to find a suitable time to break the news to Mom. I could sense that Nick was as tense as I was, and we were both clueless of the way our parents would react. I knew that it wasn’t the best of time to break the news, but then again, we really didn’t have much of a clue when the right time would be.

  I tried to find an appropriate chance, but Mom was surrounded by too many guests. I found myself getting awfully tense, and though I knew that I was grown up enough to make my own decisions, there was something that kept tugging at my heart.

  “Don’t work yourself up, Lacie. I will be there for you. I am not going anywhere,” Nick said. I looked around, and when I found that there was no one there except us, I stole a kiss. I would never get tired of kissing him.

  “Why did you buy the orphanage? Were you angry that I left without even letting you explain?”

  “No, Lacie, I wasn’t angry,” he replied. “There is no way I could be angry with you. It was after you left that I realized that this wasn’t a casual fling for me. I won’t lie anymore. When I first started seeing you, it was nothing but a sexual fantasy for me. There was something about you that made me want to touch you. I was infatuated with you. I wanted to sleep with you, and so I pretended to be the kind of guy you would like. It wasn’t until you left me that I realized this was more than just a casual affair. I realized that the orphanage meant a lot to you.”

  I was surprised to hear this, but I let him continue.

  “I was looking for a way to forgive myself. I tried calling you, but it looked like you had blocked me. I went to your home, but your apartment was locked. That was w
hen I decided to talk to Leslie. She didn’t pick up my call either. I could feel my whole life shattering, and the only person with whom I wanted to talk about how much it was hurting was you. It didn’t take me long to realize that the ache I was feeling was love,” he continued.

  I was trying to hold back tears at this point as he spoke.

  “I won’t lie to you. I have been with a lot of people before, but there is something about you that meant more than just sex. Of course, the mere thought of getting inside your body makes me hard, but what I feel for you is more than just sex. I love you completely.”

  It was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard, and I couldn’t hold back anymore. I could feel the tears glistening in my eyes. I had never felt so beautiful before, and I had never felt so sure about my feelings for anyone like this before Nick.

  “Nick, you make me feel beautiful. There is no one I would rather be with. I want to kiss you and make love to you, right here, right now. I want to love you every day and every night, and I want to spend the rest of my life waking up next to you.”

  Nick kissed me deeply once again, and I didn’t want the kiss to stop. We were busy touching each other and kissing when a voice jerked the two of us.

  “Lacie! Nicholas! What are you two doing?”

  As we broke the kiss and stared at the direction where the voice was coming from, I found my mom standing there with a flabbergasted expression on her face.

  “Shit, this is not going to go well. We’re so fucked. It is going to be harder to explain,” I murmured to myself, and Nick echoed my sentiments.

  Mom was fuming when she approached us, and I could see the disgust on her face. “Lacie, are you crazy? What the fuck were you doing? Don’t you now Nicholas is your goddamn brother now! Have you really lost it?”

  She turned to Nicholas and hesitated, debating what to say. They didn’t quite have a formal introduction yet, and Mom wasn’t quite aware of how much she should say. However, judging from the look on her face, she was equally disgusted by him, too.

  “Mom, we need to tell you something,” I said with a shaky voice.

  “What on earth are you going to tell me that will justify what I saw? God forbid, have some mercy, Jesus!”

  “We love each other,” Nick and I said at the same time.

  The look on Mom’s face was that of sheer horror and exasperation. It was as if someone had sucked life out of her. She couldn’t quite believe what she had just heard.

  Nick gestured for me to be quiet and he went on to tell her how we had met, the way we had known each other long before coming to the wedding. He even mentioned that we had slept together, and that we were in love. “There is no way we can behave like siblings, because we love each other, more than anything else.”

  Mom stood there, shocked and silent.

  “Lacie, you need to leave. This can’t happen. Whatever happened between the two of you is your past. Nicholas is your brother now. You simply can’t date. The sooner you understand that, the better it is for you.”

  “She is not my biological sister,” Nick retorted, “and I am never going to see her as one. I have slept with her, and I intend to sleep with her again and do it for the rest of my life. Just because you married my father doesn’t mean I need to give up on the love of my life.”

  I stood there looking at Mom and Nick, not knowing how to sort out the mess, but I was sure I was not letting Nick get taken away.

  Chapter 10: The Eternal Kiss

  Mom looked at both of us angrily and stomped out of the place. She understood that trying to convince us was a lost cause, because we were too deeply in love to settle for any alternative.

  “Nick, what are we going to do?”

  “Don’t worry Lacie—there is nothing that can separate us. If they do not accept the love we have, we will settle somewhere else. I am sure they will eventually come to terms with it after some time.”

  “I wish Nick, I wish! I really can’t live—"

  My sentence was cut off midway as I heard a very loud noise. “Nicholas Rudolph Jackson, where are you?”

  This was the first time I had heard Nick’s full name, and I could very well understand how furious Ralph was. He was fuming when he came in and looked at both of us with disgust.

  “Are you out of your mind? How could you even think about dating your sister! Nicholas, this disgusts me. I expected a lot better from you.”

  “Dad, she is not my sister. We were dating before I came to know about your marriage. In fact, I proposed to her in the church itself, as we didn’t know that our own parents were getting married. I am really happy for you, and I am glad that you are choosing to take another shot at your life, but this doesn’t mean that I can give up my love. We are not biologically related, and I have every reason to love her. Absolutely nothing will make me feel otherwise.”

  “What is so hard to understand, Nicholas? This is not the way it works. You can’t date your goddamn sister!”

  “She is not my sister, Dad. She is your stepdaughter, but that doesn’t make her my sister. Did I object to your marriage when I came to know about it? When I could be understanding enough to not let my feelings hamper your love, why can’t I expect the same from you?”

  Nick had a point, but no matter how hard we tried, our parents were simply unable to be convinced. They felt that we were committing a sin, but one needs to understand love is not a sin. There is no way people can rule out the existence of love. The fact that Nick and I had been in love even before we were stepsiblings solidified the point that we couldn’t just change the way we felt for each other.

  I felt helpless, as I didn’t want to be the reason my mother’s marriage would start out troubled, but there was no way I could let my love for Nick fade away. I prayed for God to show me a way to sort out the mess, but it looked like I was stuck in a place with no exit.

  As I kept thinking and wondering about all these things, the stress began to take its toll, and my mind started spinning. I could feel the whole world swirling, and even before I could say anything, I found myself falling in an endless state of darkness.

  “Nick,” was perhaps the last word I said before I fell to the floor, unconscious.

  ***

  When I woke up, I was in a room, and I saw Nick, Mom, and Ralph sitting next to my bed.

  “Babe, are you okay?” I heard Nick ask, and I nodded my head.

  Mom was the next one to ask if I was alright, and so did Ralph. Before I could form a coherent response, I ended up crying, and tears rolled down my eyes. Nobody needed to ask me the reason for my tears, as they were all aware of it.

  “Lacie, darling, I don’t know what to say,” my mother whispered and kissed me on the forehead. “I love you and I hope you know that. It is just a very ugly situation we all found ourselves to be in.”

  “Love is not ugly, Mom,” I whispered and she nodded. I did understand that she was in a terrible position, but was it so hard to understand love?

  “Mom, I am in love with Nick. We aren’t biological siblings. What is so hard to accept? Even if we part ways, do you really think it is possible for the two of us to treat each other as siblings after the feelings that we have?”

  When no one replied anything, Nick came closer and sat by my bed and took my hand in his. “I am not leaving, Lacie, no matter what,” he stated. He then pressed his lips on mine and kissed me right in front of our parents, expressing what he meant. I kissed him back and our tongues danced together.

  We were not apprehensive of what others would think, because we were in love, and that was all that mattered for us. Mom and Ralph turned away, as they didn’t quite know what to say. It was really hard for them.

  “I will think about it. I will need some time. Is that alright with the two of you? Do you promise not to do anything reckless?”

  We both nodded, and Nick whispered in my ears, “Don’t worry honey. I have condoms.” I couldn’t help but smile. Nick was literally a sex god.

  Ralph
and Mom were supposed to leave for their honeymoon. I knew that both of them were a little apprehensive, but we were both grownups, and there was nothing that they could do to us. They hugged us and asked us to be sensible and not to do anything foolish, then left. Mom promised to think about it on her honeymoon, and when she came back, she said we would find a way amicably as a family.

  I knew that no matter what they decided, our decision was made. Life doesn’t always gives everyone a love story. Now that I had one, there was no way I was going to let it go. However, I simply nodded for the time being and let her go.

  ***

  After seeing them off, we both sat down in Nick’s car, and he looked at me with his predatory eyes that promised a hot time.

  “What are you looking at, Nick?”

  “That cleavage and those nipples that are screaming my name.”

  “Nick!” I blushed.

  “I can’t wait to worship your body again. We’re going to do it right now.”

  “Now, in the car?

  “What? Do you doubt me or my skills?”

  Nick rolled up the windows of the car and revved up the heater. It started getting really hot, between both the heat and our chemistry, and I expressed it to him.

  “Lacie, darling, why don’t you take off your clothes if you’re feeling so hot?” he teased, then took away my top in a flick. He then took off my bra and hungrily cupped my breasts, and the sensation of his touch tickled them.

  I moaned in delight, and he kissed the top of my nipples and lowered the seat so I could almost lie down. He climbed over the top of me and buried his face in my neck. He kept kissing me passionately, and I took off his coat and shirt and rubbed my fingers on his bare neck. Nick stuffed his fingers inside my panties and rubbed me under my skirt. I was swollen and wet, and he loved the way my body reacted to his touch. He unzipped his pants and quickly slipped a condom on, and without wasting another moment, he stuck his cock inside me.