Stepbrother Inked(15)

My lips twitched at the words. Older brother. Yeah. Yeah. Great.

"It's a beautiful piece," Addison chimed in, popping a green olive in  her mouth and dropping the toothpick in glass bowl my stepmom had set  out for that explicit purpose. "I've never seen anything like it."

I dropped my shirt and tried to keep smiling, but my nerves felt pulled taut, stretched thin. I almost couldn't breathe.

"I'm just gonna step outside for a minute," Florian said, flashing my  dad another smile he didn't mean. I watched him walk to the French doors  in the back of the kitchen and open them, letting in a rush of cool air  and the sound of crickets. Once he was gone, the atmosphere in the room  seemed to settle.

"Well, you know I don't like tattoos, honey, but I also know that you're  an adult and I can't do anything to stop you. But I beg you, don't get  any where any decent employer is going to see it." My dad cast a look at  Florian's mom and I just knew, if she hadn't been in the room, he  would've added one of his signature anti-Flor barbs, something like you  don't want to end up like your brother, do you?

I sighed and nodded, letting my dad think he'd won for the moment.

As he moved away, taking Rhonda and my stepmom with him, I paused and  stared through the glass of the back doors, searching for Florian. He  was sitting on some patio furniture, staring off into his mother's  garden. His inked fingers clutched the cigarette and brought it to his  lips, leaving me to wonder what it was he was so upset about. Obviously  there was something going on with him.

I shook my head.

I didn't know why I was even thinking about it; Florian would never confide in me.

I turned around and found Addison watching me sadly. Was I that obvious, that pathetic?

"Come on," I said to her, feigning a cheerfulness I didn't feel, "let's go eat."





"It was the worst family dinner in the history of bad family dinners,"  Addison was saying with a laugh as she shuffled a deck of cards and  passed out a hand to me, Patrick, and Dorian. "I mean, after we sat down  at the table, it was all about Rhonda," Addi scoffed and then shook her  head as she continued, "and her relationship with Florian. Not that he  offered up much of anything but a grunt. Abi's dad and Flor's mom just  grilled her for like an hour and then it was over. I've never been so  relieved in my life."                       
       
           



       

I frowned and picked up my hand, pretending I didn't care that she was  right. It was a horrible dinner. I looked up and smiled at Dorian, glad  that I'd let Addi convince me to invite him to the Ducks game. She'd  also been right about that; it had been a blast. Dorian was so  considerate and funny and sweet, everything that Flor wasn't. His only  flaw  –  and I was trying really hard not to see it as a flaw  –  was that  he hadn't tried to kiss me yet. Not once. Not even close.

Hmm.

It had been awhile since I'd had sex and even then, I'd only done it  maybe six or seven times. I have to say, it was a hell of a lot easier  to forget about sex when I'd never had it. Now that I had  …  I shook my  head and tried to bring myself back into the conversation.

"Abi?" Addi asked, leaning over and peering into my face with a raised brow.

"Yeah, uh, what?" My best friend sighed at me.

"Whatever happened to Flor's dad?" The question took me by surprise.  Flor's dad. To be honest, I actually knew little to nothing about him.  Flor didn't talk about him and his mom had only ever mentioned him in  passing.

"He was a client of hers," I said, knowing how taboo that was. Flor's  mom was a psychologist and her patients  …  well, I have no idea how she'd  ever ended up with one of them. I explained that to the others and  watched their expressions as they all thought about it, about a  forbidden love, one that crossed boundaries and made people  uncomfortable. Just like my attraction to Florian. "I guess a few days  after Florian was born, he went off his meds and disappeared. I don't  really know anything else about it."

"Eight years later, she met your dad, fell in love, and then they became  that couple," Addi said, digging her fingers into a bag of Doritos and  swiping a handful. "The lovey-dovey, way too perfect, together forever  kind, so sweet they make you sick."

"I mean, that's good, right?" Dorian asked, looking down at his cards  and then up at me. His green eyes were pretty, but they didn't hold any  heat. I made myself smile back at him. "You have stability, parents who  actually give a damn about one another, that's pretty rare."

"It would be a good thing," Addi continued, slightly buzzed on a beer  too many. "If Abigail wasn't in love with her stepbrother."

"Addison!" I shrieked, kicking her under the table. "I am not in love with him." The words sounded like a lie, even to me.

"Okay then, well you want to fuck him, at least."

"Addison," I moaned, doing my best not to make eye contact with either  of the boys at the table. "You must be worse off than I thought. No more  beer for you."

"Abi, look, I'm just trying to get this out there, so Dorian knows what  he's getting himself into." I felt heat creeping into my cheeks and  raised my gaze to find Dorian looking at me with curiosity, not  judgment. Thank God. If I was honest with myself, that was the thing I  feared most: being judged on my feelings for Florian. "All I'm saying is  that you're not the innocent little lamb that you appear to be. Live a  little, okay?"

An hour later, Addison and Patrick had disappeared into her bedroom,  leaving me and Dorian on the couch in the half dark. The overhead lights  were off, but the white Christmas lights that Addi liked to keep year  round illuminated the large space, hanging in loops on the bricks across  from us.

"Tell me more about yourself," Dorian said, his right arm wrapped around  my waist, his fingers brushing the bare bit of skin below my shirt,  right over my tattoo. His touch was warm, but not scalding. I felt  comfortable, not like my skin was about to split in half and leave me a  bleeding, ruined mess on the floor. It was an interesting change of  pace. "I mean, what do you want in life?"

I giggled a slightly alcohol induced giggle.

"Is this where you ask me what my major is?" Dorian laughed and pulled  me closer, clearing his throat in an awkward sort of a way that made me  think of my high school boyfriends.

"Well, uh, what is your major?" he asked and I laughed again, loving the  way the booze was going straight to my brain. I refused to let my mind  think about my mother, how she'd been an alcoholic. What she'd done  didn't have to affect me, not one bit.

"I haven't exactly decided that yet," I admitted. "I'm just focusing on  my gen ed right now, and I'll figure out the rest later. What about you?  A degree in computer science is  –  " Dorian cut me off with a kiss,  leaning over and pressing his lips to mine. I was a little surprised,  but I kissed him back, my body desperate for the touch of another. Not  just another, but Flor. I pulled Dorian closer, opened my mouth and  encouraged him with my tongue.                       
       
           



       

When he groaned and pushed forward, laying me against the couch  cushions, it wasn't him I was thinking about, but my stepbrother.  Instead of pale green eyes, I saw sharp ones, and instead of red hair, I  saw ebony, curled my fingers in that thick darkness and pulled. Dorian  was putting his hand up my shirt, feeling my skin, touching my tattoo.  He moved his mouth from mine and started kissing my neck as he settled  himself between my legs. Already I could feel his erection pushing hard  and insistent against me.

He wants me, I thought, dreaming of Flor, thinking of Flor, aching for him. I know he does.

"Oh, Flor," I whispered, realizing when Dorian froze what I had just  said. My eyes widened as Dorian pulled back, removing his hands from  under my shirt as he stared down at me. There it was, in his dilated  pupils and slack jaw, his parted lips and frustrated facial expression:  judgment.

"Wow," he said, climbing off the couch and straightening out his shirt. I  followed after him, fixing my own clothes and running my tongue along  my swollen lips.

"Dorian," I said, but when I reached out to touch him, he pulled away.  "Dorian, wait." He turned away from me and moved towards the front door,  grabbing his boots off the floor and his coat from the rack. "I'm  sorry. Look, can we start over? Can we just talk."

He just shook his head at me, grabbed the door handle and glanced over his shoulder.