Cockney:A Stepbrother Romance(54)

     



 



I want to hit him.



"Oh, no, not those Kennedy's; I wish!" He chuckles again and Reagan is laughing right along with him; loudly.



"Chet Kennedy," He says, sticking his hand like he's about to sell me a  used car. Holy shit, this is Chet the ex boyfriend? If I wanted to hit  him before, I want to knock him the fuck out now.



"Nice to meet you," I say as formally as possible, my voice frosty and leaden as I stick my hand out.



"New York Legislature; Westchester County, of course." He says, as if I  should know what even means. His eyes drop to the ink peeking out from  my cuff and I see this smirking, judging look pass across his face. I  squeeze his hand extra hard, enjoying seeing him wince. Reagan's eyes  are boring in on me, with a look on her face that I can't quite read.



"Hiii! I'm Sam!" Fuck; she's still fucking here and she's still hanging  off my arm. I glance at Reagan and see her eyes narrowing at Samantha  before she slips her arm through Chet's. My blood pressure immediately  spikes through the ceiling.



Donald and Erika are all over the two of them, gushing over every  dip-shit comment that comes out of his mouth and making sure every damn  photographer in the room gets a picture of him and Reagan with their  arms linked. Samantha is still tied around my arm, and the whole thing  is just like watching a slow-motion car-wreck in action as I stand there  with my throat feeling tight and my rage bubbling just below the  surface. I want a cigarette; hell, I kind of want a drink.



Chet's people come over and tear him away for something, and I can't  manage more than a barely perceivable nod as he tells me again how great  it was to meet me. Donald's shoots me a dirty look and taps the daily  schedule printout in his hand against his watch, as if it's my fucking  fault that Chet has us running off schedule. I finally manage to shake  the bimbo off my arm as he and Erika split, and then we're alone on the  side of the stage.



"What?"



Reagan's shooting me this thin little smirk, her eyes flashing at me; "So, Sam-"



I roll my eyes; "Not what you think."



"Oh and what would I be thinking, Hudson, and why would I possibly think that?" Her sarcastic smile is exaggeratedly fake.



"Relax, Princess, she's not my type."



Reagan bristles at the word; "And what type would that be that, Hudson?  The kind that has something besides air between their ears?" She snorts,  "She sure had me fooled."



For some reason, I grin; getting a weirdly smug sense of satisfaction  from the fact that Reagan is clearly jealous. "Well what about you and  Chet back there? You guys pick out color-schemes yet for the Lincoln  bedroom?"



Reagan rolls her eyes, "Oh give me a break-" Her eyes land on me and she grins; "What, are you jealous?"



I tense up inside, but I keep my voice cool; "What, of Chet and his  collection of polo shirts and boat shoes?" I snort; "Uh, no, Reagan, I'm  not."



"Oh, and what, is little miss Tits McGee back there supposed to make me jealous?"



I want to laugh, but the fire in her eyes stops me, and I let out an  exasperating sigh instead; "Jesus, what about our relationship would  make you this jealous seeing that girl hanging off my arm?"



"There is no ‘our relationship', Hudson" She snaps, looking fierce and adorable at the same time.



"Yeah, no shit, Princess."



I see her eyes blaze at me, and she opens her mouth to say something but  then stops herself and shakes her head instead; "We're late for the  next appearance today, let's go." She says curtly, before turning on her  heel and storming away, leaving me standing there watching her walk  away. I want to kick myself for saying shit like that to her, but  really, I know why I do it. I push her away like that because I can't  let her get close; not with the shit that I'm carrying around. Fuck; I  saw hell on Earth in the desert, so why the fuck can't I deal with this  girl?





P A S T



"What are you drinking?" Reagan's been giving me this weird look from  across the room for the past fifteen minutes while I've been giving my  condolences to the rest of her family. I've finally extricated myself  from Bryce and Logan, and some Aunt who I've never met before, and made  my way over to where she's sitting on the bottom step of the curved  staircase in the foyer.



"I'm not."



She frowns at me as she sips on the cup of what looks like coke but  smells suspiciously like something else; "Well, it's a funeral, you  probably should be." She clearly has been, as she leans into me and  holds my gaze in that slightly glazed way a good couple of drinks will  do to you. She sighs and looks into her cup; "Sorry, I forg- It's just  sort of weird being back here without him, even if he was barely every  here anyways."



I nod, intimately knowing the feeling she's describing, since it's how I  feel about everything, every day I wake up after coming back from what I  did; "Yeah, I know the feeling." She's still staring into her cup, so I  try and change the subject; "Hey so how's art history going?"



"Renaissance Art, and I switched to Political Science."



I can't help but grin, knowing how much the Old Man would have smirked at that one; "Hey, that's pretty coo-"



"Do you want to go for a walk?" She's looking up at me with that same  look on her face that I can't quite read, thought I can see a flare of  wildness there that always manages to drag me into her.



"Uh, sure?" No, bad idea, bad fucking idea asshole! I've been around  enough girls in this exact same precursor to a mistake to know what "do  you want to go for a walk" means. But when she stands and offers her  hand, I'm still grabbing ahold and getting up to following her as she  leads us away from the crowd. I follow her up the staircase and down the  hallways, and I almost want to say some quip about ‘interesting walk,  up here where your bedroom probably is' but I don't because that would  be crass, and that's something I'm working on.



But we don't go to her room anyways. We end up in the huge second floor  library that's practically two stories in itself. She's running her  fingers over the spines of leather books, almost wistfully, and when she  looks back over her shoulder at me and smiles, I'm lost. She opens the  double doors at the end of the room to the private stone terrace and  steps out.



Idiot; you fucking asshole idiot this is such a dumb fucking move.



I need to leave. What I should be doing is turning right around and  heading right back to that crowd of mourners downstairs morning my  friend and her Father. But instead, I follow her out into the night air.



She takes a deep breath and lets her head drop back as she stares up at  the stars, and she's so fucking beautiful and so fucking sad standing  there that I want to put my arms around her and tell her I'm here, but I  know I can't and shouldn't do that; not here, not now, not ever.



"It's nice out here; nice and quiet." She turns and smiles at me; "Sorry, I just couldn't be in there anymore."



I shrug; "I don't really do crowds either."



She smiles and turns, and walks over to the stone balcony on the edge of  the terrace. I'm tongue tied; me, for the first time ever at a loss of  what to say; "He was a great-"



"I don't really want to talk about my Father right now."



She turns, her hands behind her as she leans back on the balcony,  looking perfectly broken and like the perfect fix all tossed into one  beautiful package. She smiles at me and bites her lip in this sexy,  innocent way as she slowly raises one of her hands from behind her and  starts to beckon me with one finger.



No. Stop. Stop it.



But I'm ignoring that voice inside my head as I walk in slow motion  towards her. It's like I'm walking underwater, in a dream, as I put one  foot in front of the other, and before I know it I'm standing right in  front of her. Her eyes are huge, and blue, and looking up at me with  such sadness and such determination, and I can smell the lavender of her  shampoo in her hair, and before the world can move another inch across  it's starry path, I'm kissing her. It's fire, and passion, and it's  everything I've ever imagined kissing someone who matters feels like,  and it's like my whole life gets hit with a reset button; like I know  after this I can start clean.



She moans into my mouth, the sound both soft and completely sexy at the  same time, and I find myself growling as I push myself against her. Her  hands are at my neck, pulling at my tie and unbuttoning my shirt, and my  hand is sliding over her thigh. I'm pushing her dress higher, feeling  her shiver and whimper into me as my hand trails up until I feel lace,  and heat, and-



Protect them.



The words hit me like slap across the face. Fuck; I can't do this. I  want to do this with every single fiber of everything I am, but what the  fuck am I doing?