Stepbrother Dearest(75)
The store attendant came by. “Is everything okay in there?”
“Yes!” Greta shouted.
But I knew in her voice it wasn’t. This was messing with her mind, and I’d be fucking damned if the night ended in her getting hurt.
Even though we hadn’t acknowledged what was happening between us verbally, I instinctively said, “I’m sorry.” Then, I slid the curtain and left.
***
We decided to spend the night at the hotel since we’d been drinking. After we’d both separated to shower before heading to the casino nightclub, I met Greta back at her room. When she opened the door, the sight of her in that fitted burgundy dress knocked the wind out of me again. Her hair was still sopping wet, but she looked amazing.
“Wow,” I breathed out, not intending to have said it out loud. The word had left my lips before my brain could warn me not to seem so obvious. I needed to make a joke to offset my slip. “You definitely can’t pass for an old lady in mourning anymore.”
“What do I look like now?”
“You look flushed, actually. Are you feeling alright?”
In all honesty, she looked like she’d just been properly fucked, and it made my dick ache.
“I’m fine,” she said.
“You sure?”
“Yep.”
“It felt so good to take a shower,” I said.
And by that I meant the two orgasms I gave myself thinking about an alternate ending to our dressing room encounter.
“I know what you mean,” she said.
“Do you need to dry your hair?”
“Yeah. Just give me a minute.”
I turned on ESPN and lay down on the bed.
About ten minutes later, she came out of the bathroom.
“I’m ready.”
Her hair was up, her neck was exposed in all of its glory, and I knew I was in trouble for the rest of the night.
I jumped up and turned the television off.
We walked down the hall, and the smell of the soap on her skin was invading my senses. I glanced over at her and wanted her to know how beautiful she looked when I said, “You clean up nice.” When we entered the elevator, I added, “I like your hair up like that.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. It’s how you were wearing it the night when I first met you.”
“I’m surprised you remembered that.”
I hadn’t forgotten one thing.
Not. One. Thing.
We’d started reminiscing about how I used to torture her and at one point, she said, “Well, you weren’t exactly as mean as you wanted me to believe you were.”
I returned that with, “And it turned out you weren’t that innocent.”
The tone in my voice made no secret of what I was referring to. We looked at each other with a silent understanding that the conversation needed to end there.
If I thought the night was going to get any easier once we entered the distraction of a nightclub, I had another thing coming.
***
We’d been dancing a lot. It was the most fun I’d had all night. The bass was blaring, and I could feel it pumping through me. Dancing bodies tangled together around us, but Greta and I kept a space between each other.
It was necessary.
At one point, I went to the bathroom and as I made my way back through the multi-colored flashing lights, I spotted a guy dancing very closely around her and talking in her ear.
When I returned to the spot where she was dancing alongside him, my conscience gave way to a primal and impulsive reaction. I wrapped my arm around her tiny waist and pulled her firmly back into me. She didn’t resist. My arm was still dominantly locked around her when she turned to look at me. I gave her a warning look. In that moment, we were the Elec and Greta of seven years ago. I was jealous, and I was once again making it obvious. Given the not so minor detail of my being in a serious relationship, it was unfair to expect her to accept things that I couldn’t, but she cared about me enough to let me get away with this somehow.
We didn’t speak about it, and eventually, my caveman moment passed. I let go of her, and we were back to getting lost in the music.
Everything changed, though, when a slow song had come on. People started scrambling to find partners while others left the dance floor. Somehow, it felt like we were the only ones left.
Greta panicked and started to walk away.
I couldn’t blame her, but what if tonight was it for us? I wanted this dance.
I grabbed her hand. “Dance with me.”
She looked scared but let me reel her into me anyway. A deep breath escaped me when her entire body melted into my arms. She closed her eyes as she planted her head on my chest. My heart was hammering against it as if to tell me that I was an idiot for not realizing that this was precisely what it wanted.