First Time With My Stepbrother Boxed Set: A Stepbrother Romance Bundle (First Time With My Stepbrother Boxed Sets Book 1) (5 page)

“Only the best for my Clarice.”

My Clarice.
My face felt hot and I fanned myself with my hand.

“Forgot how much I liked wine.”

“Don't you, with the Communion and all?” That smirk. That sexy, sacrilegious little smirk.

Miles didn't shy away from his open atheism and his hatred of the Catholic Church. Like me, he went through CCD and Catholic Sunday School, memorized important saints, martyrs, and popes, and went to regular confession. At least until college. We diverged when I went off to the convent and he went to state college. A couple years older than me, Miles kept his infidel status a secret until he graduated.

“True,” I admitted. “But only in tiny thimblefuls. The priest gets to finish the rest after we get our ration. At least they use real wine still. Some churches use grape juice.”

“Blasphemy.”

“That's what I wanted to talk to you about,” I murmured from behind the rim of my wine glass.

“Blasphemy?” Miles tilted his head, offering me a half, puzzled smile.

“Sort of.” I sighed, taking another gulp of wine. “I’ve… I guess I’ve been… having
doubts
.”

The last word fell from my mouth like a brick.

“Doubts?” No more smirk. His chocolate brown eyes searched my face. “What kind of doubts? You don’t mean… doubts of faith?”

“Yes.” I nodded, swallowing more wine. Second glass gone. It really was strong. I felt warm all over, in spite of the air conditioning. So I picked up the beer instead. “Lately I’ve been questioning… everything.”

“Everything?” He blinked. “That’s quite a scope.”

“Some things more than others, I suppose.” I sighed, leaning back on the sofa and cradling my beer. “It’s been going on a while.”

“I assume you’ve… you know, prayed about it?” He leaned his elbow on the back of the sofa, his chin on his fist. “And… all the rest?”

“All the rest.” I smiled, licking a bead of liquid off the rim of my beer. Miles watched me, his gaze moving from my mouth back up to meet my eyes. “Yes. Let’s just say, I’ve availed myself of all my resources. And… the confines of the convent haven't exactly been… shall we say, conducive to dissent and questioning?”

“I can imagine.” He gave a little nod, taking another sip of his own beer.

“You’ve always been…” I took a deep breath, trying to keep the quiver from my voice. “You’ve got such a level head, Miles. And you’ve always been the best sounding board for me. I thought… if anyone could help…”

“Well…” He blinked in surprise. “I'll do what I can. I'm not sure I can quell those doubts.”

“Faith unable to withstand doubt would be weak indeed,” I quipped.

“Sounds like a famous person said that,” Miles laughed. “You probably know who, Sister Wikipedia.”

I shook my head. “Not this time, no.”

“So, little sister, tell me about your doubts.” Miles settled in, giving me an encouraging smile “I'll try not to act like the asshole.”

“How about Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor?”

“Sounds badass.” He grinned. “You're ducking the issue. Doubts. Lay it on me, sister.”

“Do you remember the summer after I graduated high school?” I asked, putting my empty beer bottle on the coffee table. I saw him shift out of the corner of my eye.

“Sure.” He reached over and picked up my bottle, shaking it. “Want some more?”

“Just wine.” I held my glass and let him fill it.

Then the room filled with an awkward silence. The clock ticked in the vast emptiness of the loft. Outside, traffic buffeted the large windows. An elevated train passed by. I wasn't sure if I should speak or not. Once I started with my confession, I knew it would gush forth from me like a volcano, an apocalypse of words. My crisis of faith hinged on what I’d done that fateful summer—and my lack of regret over those venal acts.

“Miles…” I cleared my throat, seeking sweetness in the wine. “Do you remember… do you remember what we did?”

“You mean…” He blinked. “Fooling around?”

I nodded, feeling heat flood my cheeks.

“This is about… that?” He got up from the leather sofa and I watched him take his empty beer bottle and mine toward the kitchen. I waited for him to return, this time with another wine glass. He poured himself wine, three-quarters full, and then drank half of that.

“Okay.” He took a deep breath, turning toward me again. “Let’s do this.”

“You sure?” I swallowed, looking into his eyes. They showed a blissful glaze, probably from how quickly he downed the glass of wine.

“The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak…” he muttered, blowing out a breath. “Yes, Clarice.”

His hand moved over the back of the couch to touch mine, and my whole body jolted like a livewire. I nodded, clearing my throat, knowing there was no way out but through.

I didn’t want to go to college.

Our parents pushed me, but I remained unsure. Intelligence and standardized test scores weren't an issue. Cliché as it might have been, I felt like I still had to find myself. So that summer, I stayed home. I didn’t work, I hadn’t applied to colleges. I just stayed home.

Miles also lived at home, commuting to the city for his internship at a big corporate firm. He oozed ambition and a mercenary attitude. He talked about it leading to getting into a prestigious MBA program, preferably somewhere like Harvard or Wharton. But he also delighted in blowing off work and coming home to swim. For all his drive and ambition, he also displayed the morals of a shameless sensualist.

“Man was not designed to work in cubicles,” he told her from his lounge chair.

The internship made him a repository of
Office Space
and
Fight Club
quotes.

“Both of those movies are the same, Clarice,” he insisted.

“Didn't see either of them,” I said, flipping the page in her book. “Don't care.”

We were home alone that summer.

His father had married my mother. Both came from “society,” albeit the rarefied Catholic merchant aristocracy. Despite our moneyed background, Miles's father threw himself into the medical field, working as the head of thoracic surgery at the big downtown hospital. Miles regularly had lunches with him, since the internship was a brisk walk to the hospital. My mother came from money, but she devoted herself to philanthropy and humanitarian endeavors.

After attending my high school graduation, they left for a three month vacation in Europe.

“They're secretly swingers,” Miles whispered into my ear one night.

“Shut up! Gross!”

Typical Miles, acolyte of the flesh.

On that summer day, I was in a chaise lounge by the pool, adjusting my sunglasses and soaking up the afternoon rays. I wore a tiny black bikini. I wouldn't have dared wear something so scandalous when my parents were home. But even if I wore a more conservative one-piece, I would get looks from Miles. He couldn't keep his eyes off me. Part of it came from his paternal side, his desire to protect his little stepsister. Although another part came from a desire for conquest.

He wanted me and I wanted him.

We both knew it was wrong.

I’d confessed my feelings to our priest, Father Walsh, and he counseled me into entering a convent. He knew of one particularly suited to my needs in an isolated area of Kansas.

I think I saw it as the perfect solution. No worries about college. No more hot nights wrapped up in damp sheets, tortured by thoughts of my stepbrother. The convent was real—and I could actually go there. Escape. The perfect solution. That’s what it felt like to me, and that’s how I talked about it to Miles.

“Is that what he said? Really?” Miles scoffed when I told him. “Get thee to a nunnery!”

Then he laughed again.

“Fuck you!”

“Language! Your Mother Superior wouldn't like that. Bet she would strip you to your panties and give you a spanking. Don't believe me? It could totally happen. I've seen proof. There are movies on Pornhub.com that show what happens in nunneries.”

“Convents. And gross. You're such a perv. Is everything about sex with you?”

“If it involves sex with
you
.”

“Asshole. Stop twisting my words around!”

Every conversation was an argument, much to the annoyance of the live-in maid and her daughter. They kept to themselves when our parents left. Probably for the best. It seemed in those lazy hot afternoons we reverted to a feral, yet more innocent, state.

Miles wallowed in the pool and I worked on my tan.

I closed my eyes and tried to clear my mind.

Another season of debutante balls and marrying an heir to a fortune?

No.

Going to college to study? But to study
what?
And what about all the parties, the drinking, the peer pressure? No.

The convent? Father Walsh mentioned the place out in Kansas. But that's so far. I'd miss Miles. I'd miss
certain parts
of Miles.

Cold water hit my body and I screamed.

“You bastard!” I yelled.

“Not much of a bikini if it doesn't get wet,” he said. With his arms folded beneath his chin, he stared at me from the pool.

“Maybe I
should
go away to a nunnery or whatever.”

“And miss all this?” He scoffed, pulling himself out of the pool.

Water beaded over his muscular chest, running in rivulets down to his navel. And further.

He plopped onto my chaise lounge.

“Be careful,” I snapped, closing my book.

He shook his head like a dog, sending more water onto me.

“Stop it!” I said, not sure if I meant it or if I was kidding.

“Make me.”

Only then did I notice his hand on my stomach.

“What are you doing? Don't.” I tried to keep my voice even. He may have worked in an office and stared at a computer screen for hours on end, but his rough hands energized me. In another life, I could see him working on a chain gang breaking rocks, his body all sweaty from the noonday sun. Paying for his sins.

“Penny for your thoughts,” he said.