Cockney:A Stepbrother Romance(22)

     



 



The arrogant, pig-headed, prick of man he's grown into has buried him completely.



"Chloe-"



"Yes, chef." I say it quietly in a voice not my own; a voice distant and forced.



Yes, you fucking prick.



"Good, now get back to your station."



What the hell happened to you, Oliver Beckett, and where did you go?





*****



We don't speak a word through the rest of the shift, or through closing.  And at this point, I don't even give a shit what happens with the Times  table.



Who cares? Fuck Oliver and his little temper tantrum. Fuck him getting  his reviews and his groupies and his Michelin stars. And fuck him  especially for doing cocaine outside with Delia, like he's some sort of  actual rock star or something.



What a joke.



I'm lost in my own little ball of negativity, scrubbing down my station, when I suddenly feel a presence behind me.



"Hey."



I whirl, and Oliver's just standing there with his arms crossed, just  grinning that incessant fucking smirk on his face at me, as if nothing's  happened between us since the previous night.



"Oh what now?"



He frowns, "Could I talk to you in the office?



I drop my jaw at him, "What am I, fired?!"



He wrinkles his brow, "What? No, Jesus. Just come talk."



"I'm still closing up, chef."



I turn on my heel to go back to scrubbing the counter down, but I gasp  as I feel him pull close behind me. His hand pushes my hair back from my  ear as he leans in, "Look, you know what that was."



"Yeah, you being a royal asshole," I toss back.



"I can't play favorites, Chlo-"



"Well you can play fucking fair!" I hiss, whirling back to him jabbing  my finger into his chest, "That was fucking ridiculous, and you know  it."



"You were out of line."



"Says the man doing drugs off the blade of a knife with his, what,  eighteen year old staff?" I sneer at him. "So what, five years later  you're still into high school girls?"



I narrows his eyes at me; "She's nineteen, and trying to get into college."



"Oh, Oxford?" I smile sweetly at him, and he grins.



"Look, you looked like you were going nuts and I just wanted to see how you were doing, dick."



He shakes his head, "You can't do that, not in here."



"What, show emotion?" I say hastily, pushing my hair back from my face pursing my lips at him.



"You know what I mean."



"No, Oliver, you're right, I know exactly what you mean. You mean you  don't want me getting attached or something, like one of your ‘girls'."



He scowls, "Jesus, Chloe, that's not what I fucking said-"



"Listen, chef," I spit out, stabbing him in the chest with my finger,  "Get over yourself." And then it all pours out; everything I should've  said the second I walked off the plane at Heathrow. "You know, this  little thing between us should have happened a long time ago. But it  didn't, and then we made up for it last night, badly. End of story."



Oliver looks away before he shakes his head turns his gaze back to me, his eyes burning into mine, "You're not letting me-"



"Listen, chef, we're good, okay?" I shake my head, and pinch the bridge  of my nose before I look up at him. Then I'm saying the words and  believing them, because I have to. Because I can't have feelings for  Oliver Beckett, not with who we are now.



"I know what you're looking for here and I'm looking for the same thing.  We're done, okay? No more games, no more back and forth. You be you,  I'll be me. In a few months I'll be out of your hair and we'll maybe  have to see each other on Christmas or something, okay?"



He tightens his jaw and glares at me, but he's silent.



"Look, I need to finish here." I look up at him, "Please."



Oliver nods and holds my stare a second longer before he steps aside and I storm away.





Well, shit; fucked that up about as royal as possible.



She's out the door before I can even change that night. When I finally  slump my way through the front door to our house like some sort of  marathon runner tumbling over the finish line after the thirty-odd hours  I've just had, the house is quiet and dark.



I shower alone that night; her door shut and my mind on the activities  of the previous night. "What I was looking for there?" I mean what the  fuck is that supposed to mean? I angrily grab the soap, growling at my  reflection in the mirror - a reflection sans a jaw-droppingly-naked  Chloe this time - and think about it long and hard. Really, what am I  looking for with Chloe? Feelings? A damn relationship? I mean, Christ,  She's my- she's-



Fuck, no; it's not even possible, even if I wanted it. And I don't, of  course. I mean, this is me we're talking about; I don't do clingy,  messy, dramatic relationships. Hell no. But - shit, I don't know,  something's different with Chloe. The sort of different that I can't get  out of my head; the kind of different that's imbedded itself in my skin  like a tattoo.



I was denied by this girl five years ago. Denied. I mean, that never  happens to me. I've basically never been shot down, never been told "no"  to. When I see a girl, and I want her, I can basically bet that I'm  going to be hearing her screaming my name later. So, there, that's it;  that has to be why I'm obsessing over this. Chloe's the one girl that  said no, and I can't deal with that. She's the prize I was denied five  years ago that I'm still fucking chasing.



Fuck. That.



There are literally a million other girls in the city of London I could  be out fucking the hell out of right now. A million other lays to get  Chloe out of my head; a million other faceless women to replace her.



I look up and meet my own eyes in the mirror through the steam of the  shower, tightening my jaw in resolve. Fuck it, that's the move; leave  this shower, get changed, drink an espresso or something and just go  fuck something.



Except all I can think about is how different this shower is to the one  last night; the one where I had her pressed against this glass, my cock  slick and hot, nestled against her pussy and her lips wrapped tight  around my finger. Fuckin' hell, I mean I didn't even fuck her and I'm  this twisted up about it.



And then I'm just imagining the feel of that heat between her legs  against my cock. I'm imagining her soft, plump lips wrapped sensually  around my finger, her finger teasing the digit, and all I can picture is  her on her knees with those lips wrapped sweetly around my cock.





I shake my head from the daydream as the water starts to get cold, grunting as I turn to shut it off.



And I'm rock hard; as hard as I was when I made her come against me last night.



I don't even realize what I'm doing until I'm standing, naked and  dripping wet, in front of her bedroom door. I'm rock hard and just  fucking hungry for her. I want to wrap her legs around my waist, or  drape them over my shoulders and bury every single fucking inch inside  this girl until I explode I want to bend her over on her hands and knees  and shove my tongue as deep into that honeyed pussy of hers as I can.



The door is locked - I check - and I almost, almost knock before I'm  suddenly shaking myself out of my delirium and realize fully what I'm  doing.



I'm naked, and hard, and standing outside my stepsister's room thinking  about fucking her bare and taking and claiming her in every possible  way.



Yep, it is time to fucking sleep.



I shake my head again as I turn away from her door and stumble back to  my own room. "Go out?" "Find someone new to pick up?" I could almost  laugh, except I'm pretty sure I'm too tired to. Fuck, I'm too tired to  do anything but crash into my bed and slowly let the darkness drag me  down, as I fall asleep with the world's most confused erection of all  time.



*****



Sleep is a wondrous thing. Or at least, it can be.



I'm hoping as I wake up late the next morning that somehow actually  turning my body and my mind off for a solid nine hours will fix things.  I'm hoping to wake to clarity and the sudden epiphany that I'm being a  solid wanker and that I need to go drop Chloe Caulfield right out of my  head.



Hope is another wondrous thing.



And a waste of time, apparently.



She's off someplace before I even struggle downstairs to make myself  some breakfast, and even though I want to scowl at her ducking out like  that, I'm still in no place to even start to talk to her on a normal  level.



"Oy, look who's roused himself, eh?"



I blink as I step into the kitchen to find my dad slumped over the racetrack score paper by the window, smoking chesterfields.



Jesus, you can take the bum out of the East End and put him in a nice house, but you can't take the East End out of the bum.



Laura smiles at me from the counter, where it looks like she's mangling a  pan of scrambled eggs something wicked. Hey, at least she's trying. I  can't honestly remember a single thing my father's ever cooked.