I arched my back and felt my hips rock against his, felt his erection hot and unyielding against my thigh. I struggled to pull my arms from his grip, to touch him the way his left hand was touching me, sliding down my side, caressing my hip through my skirt. When his fingers met the bare skin of my upper thigh, I gasped into his mouth, felt his tongue dig deeper while my heart split open and released all of the feelings I'd been keeping back for so long.
Butterflies had taken flight in my stomach, battering at my belly with nervous wings and tightening places low in my body, places that I hadn't even realized could ache like this. Oh God, I didn't think anything could ever ache so bad and feel so good at the same time. That is, until Flor's fingers found my panties, the black silky ones with the lace that I'd put on just because. A lick of flame raced up my spine as he touched me and I found I could barely breathe, let alone think. I knew my dad and stepmom were upstairs, that finding us like this would destroy them both, but I couldn't stop. I didn't want to stop.
Flor pulled back a fraction of an inch, just enough that he could whisper my own name against my lips.
"Abigail."
As quick as it started, it stopped.
"Abi, is that you, honey?" I heard my dad's voice a split second before I snapped my eyes open and found the lights in the stairwell flickering on.
Florian released me, much the same way the guy at the party had, like I was hurting him, burning him too hot, scorching him too deep. Like I was dangerous.
His eyes mirrored back a look of hurt, of longing, that I knew was plastered across my own face. I dropped my arms, crossed them over my chest. Ice was seeping into me at that look, at this taboo breath that was passing between us. We both knew we couldn't have what we wanted, and that we never could. I reached out, just once, a single hand grasping for a love I knew could be, but Florian didn't reach back. Instead, he backed up, chest rising and falling with rapid breath, his lips still moist from the touch of my own. And then he turned toward the front door and left. Just like that.
"Yeah, Dad," I called back, fighting to keep my voice strong and steady. I didn't want him to find me down here like this, panting and red cheeked and moist lipped and … hurting. I slid to the floor as tears stung my eyes again. "I'll be right up." I put my forehead against my arm and waited for the emotions to pass.
But they never did.
And Flor never touched me again.
We never even spoke of it.
I set the box down on the counter and eyed Flor's ass as he bent over and set a second, much smaller box on the floor with little care or consideration as to what was inside. I didn't mind scoping him out anymore. I had long given up on anything happening between us. I mean, our parents were head over heels in loco love with one another and they even referred to us as "their kids". It would kill them if they even knew I thought my stepbrother was hot.
"Um, hello," I said, knowing the exact look Flor was going to toss over his shoulder. Ah ha! I was right; it's a scowl. "It says fragile on it. It also says bedroom." I put one hand on my hip and smirked, knowing how frustrated I was making him, forcing him to carry the smallest boxes while I shouldered the largest ones. Call it a case of raging feminism or what have you, but I liked pissing him off. Big tough guy that he was, I let him carry in the pillows and the lamps while I hauled in the pots and pans, the kitchen stools, and the boxes of books – with great glee, mind you.
"How the hell was I supposed to know?" he said, letting his scowl relax into a smirk as he leaned back against the counter. "Maybe it said fra-gee-lay. I thought it was fucking Italian." He stood up suddenly and snapped his fingers, breezing past me before I could get out another word, make fun of him for his infatuation with a A Christmas Story. I decided to follow after him and try anyway.
"Can't even come up with your own jokes?" I asked, following quickly behind Florian and down the steps to the street. I don't know what was putting the pep in my step – the fact that I got my first place or the fact that I could tell I was getting under Flor's skin. "Have to pull material from old movies? That's pretty sad there, Flor. How do the girls at the shop take that? Or are they even cultured enough to know what A Christmas Story is?" I hated mentioning the girls at my stepbrother's tattoo studio, even as a joke, but Flor's 'groupies' were a fact of life that I'd since learned to deal with. Each one like a thorn in my side, I thought as I continued to scope out his ass. It was watch from afar or do nothing at all. At this point, the absence of Florian in my life hurt more than his distanced presence.
Flor climbed into the back of the moving truck and grabbed a box before pausing and glancing over his shoulder at me. I noticed it was a heavy one and stepped up, putting my arms out like I thought he was trying to hand it to me. He scowled again and I smiled.
"What do you take me for?" he asked, raising his dark brows in a way that made my toes curl. "An idiot? That's my pre-sex question right there. Tell me about the leg lamp or I don't take you home tonight. Works like a charm."
"Oh, I'm sure it does," I replied, smothering the surge of jealousy that threatened to take over me and kill my mood. Flor and girls and … sex. This was yet another thing I'd learned to deal with. I wasn't his, and he wasn't mine. We could never belong to one another and much as I fantasized about him staying celibate for me, pining over me every waking day and night, it wasn't going to happen. I was a big girl; I knew that and I could handle it. Or at least I thought I could.
I took a deep breath and smoothed a hand over my curls, hoping they hadn't already dissolved to stray strands of fluff in the blustery afternoon air. Addison was going to be here any minute, dragging her longtime boyfriend and his brother along for the ride. She'd promised me this one was cute, tall enough to wear heels with, and had a brain at least three times the size of my brother's. "I bet they just can't wait to dive into bed with an underdeveloped boy who still watches his favorite Christmas movie every night before bed."
"Not every night," Flor said, pulling the box from the truck and purposely sidestepping around me. He leaned in and breathed hot breath against my ear, making me shiver. "Just on weekends. And who said I was underdeveloped?" I kicked him lightly with my bare foot and climbed into the truck, searching for a very specific box that had somehow gotten lost in the fray. Inside was my long ago dismantled shrine to my stepbrother: a series of pictures and notes and gifts that he'd given me over the years. I used to keep it all in one of the bottom drawers of my dresser, but after … the 'incident' as I liked to refer to it, I put it all away in a box, taped it up and hadn't looked at it since. Unfortunately, it had somehow ended up on the truck even though I'd meant to throw it away. For three years it had sat on the top shelf of my closet collecting dust. I was lucky the bastard never found it, nosy little asshole that he was. Once, I'd come home to find him sitting on the edge of my bed, an unlit cigarette between his lips, and a condom I'd gotten from my sex ed class clutched between two of his fingers. It had taken me an entire hour to convince him that I was actually still a virgin, not that it should've been any of his business anyway.
I felt a frown crease my lips as various Florian flavored anecdotes flashed through my memory, several of which involved Flor's bare ass as he screwed whoever happened to be the flavor of the week. Why could he never manage to close his damn door?! I wondered as a hot flush lit up my cheeks.
"Boo!"
I nearly jumped out of my skin, spinning to find Addi standing on the street with her hair in pigtails and her shirtsleeves rolled up, ready to move her stuff into our new place. Even dressed as practically as she was, she was still stylish in a way I could never be – partially thanks to her longterm friendship with a drag queen named Theo. That man was the epitome of glamour and, although I might not ever admit it, I was horribly jealous of his ass. It wasn't fair for a man to be so much prettier than me.
I clutched a hand to my chest to still my beating heart and felt a grin split my lips. Here I was, knocked out of my reverie by the best friend I hadn't seen in person more than a half dozen times in the last few years. With Instagram, Skype, and Facebook however, it didn't feel like it'd been more than fifteen minutes. Probably because it hadn't. Pretty sure I'd snapped a photo of Flor's ass and texted it to her when we'd first gotten here, not that she appreciated him the way I did. Honestly, I was actually a little suspicious that she wished him an untimely death at the jaws of rabid wolves.