Chapter 4

Iend up sending Victor three nude pictures on Monday, two on Tuesday, and a very dirty video on Thursday. It was short, but I showed him way more than I ever thought I’d show anyone, especially in a video. I always keep my face out of the shots though.

He’s becoming more demanding, and I’m nervous about stuff falling into the wrong hands, but Victor promised he wouldn’t let that happen. I deleted it off my phone as soon as I sent it though. Just to be safe.

Every time he’s glanced my way in class this week, I’ve wondered if he’s thinking about my naked body. He does a good job of hiding how he’s feeling and that makes me nervous until I get a text from him in the middle of class telling me how sexy he thinks I am.

By the time I go shopping on Saturday, I’ll have enough extra money for shoes, a dress, and maybe even some sexy lingerie. The thought makes me nervous.

Prom is the same night as my eighteenth birthday, and I don’t know if I’ll be ready to have sex with Victor by then, but maybe? I want to look good either way. Even if we don’t have sex, maybe we can go a little further than we have so far. Even if it means doing so in the back of his car. It’s not ideal, but I understand that while I’m still in school, we can’t really go public as a couple.

Besides, the secrecy makes it more thrilling.

Mom was a bit shocked when I handed her an extra three hundred dollars after school today, but Victor gave me five hundred dollars for the video. I think I’ll have plenty left over after I go shopping, maybe Mom can even get the AC in her car fixed - I know it won’t be enough money to repair all the issues the vehicle has but it’s a start.

I hate that she has to drive it around in this heat. Guilt tries to take over, and I feel ashamed for thinking about buying lingerie before giving her the money to fix her car…

I’m sitting in the bleachers at the football game on Friday night. Lizzy is on the dance team, so she’s in the locker room getting ready for the show, which means I’m alone up here. I’m not really paying attention, but I notice when someone sits next to me and look up at them.

“Cora Schaefer,” Slater Bennett says in a husky tone without looking at me. “Fancy seeing you here.”

The air in my lungs gets sucked right out as I stare up at him in shock, a shiver traveling down my spine as I try to come up with something to say to him.

“Sh-shouldn’t you be at work or out dating college girls or something?” I stutter stupidly, not knowing what else to say to the person who’s ignored me for the better part of the last three years, but he shakes his head.

“Nah, not tonight. Thought it would be good to come support my old team. Check in on you.” He seems amused by the fact that I’m completely caught off guard by his presence. Why the hell would he turn up back at his old school, tonight of all nights, and claim to be checking up on me?

I’m still staring at him, trying to figure him out, as he watches the players on the field.

Slater is the quintessential bad boy. The spoiled little rich boy with no rules and no consequences. He used to walk the halls here as if he was a God, and I guess, in a lot of ways, he was. Captain of the football team, most popular guy in school, but with this untouchable, badass air to him that seemed to make people love and want him even more.

When we were kids though, he was a nobody. New to our small town, and because of his volatile attitude and how often he lashed out, he wasn’t exactly popular.

He was nice to me though. Once upon a time. Before our parents met, fell in love, and married.

Even then, for a while at least, he was still my friend.

Then the summer before my sophomore year, and his senior year, something changed in him. When we went back to school, he was less violent, a lot more reserved, and he’d grown like six inches. Well, not really, but he’s six four now, or he was the last time I saw him. But when we were kids, we were almost the same height. Instead of being a foot taller than me, it was only a couple of inches back then.

He stopped talking to me that year but never said why. I gave up trying to ask after his friends started teasing me and accusing me of being a fangirl stalker. I just missed my friend. Because before we were stepsiblings, we had been friends.

“Oh,” is the only response I can muster, and when Slater finally turns his head to look at me, I can’t contain the butterflies that let loose inside me.

He’s stupid handsome. It’s really not even right how handsome he is. Piercing blue eyes, sharp cheekbones, and dark wavy brown hair that almost looks black.

I like the way his hair is now short on the sides and back, but long enough on top that the waves flop forward into his eyes. He keeps sweeping it to one side so that it falls to the left.

If I’m honest, I probably had a crush on him since the day I first laid eyes on him in middle school. Now he’s so tall and muscular and strong looking. It makes me wonder how else he’s grown and changed.

Subtly, I look him up and down, but my gaze catches on his jeans which are tight across his thighs and there’s no mistaking the telltale bulge encased in denim. Before I can stop the mental image, I imagine his dick.

Jeez.

He’s my damn stepbrother. Or my ex-stepbrother. I definitely shouldn’t be thinking about his dick.

He steals my thoughts right out of my head, and I just stare at him.

After a few weeks of being ignored, I stopped looking at the front door for him to come home for family dinners. I stopped paying him any attention a long time ago.

I’ve barely seen him in three years. He didn’t even return when our parents divorced. Now he’s sitting so close that our thighs touch, and he has this look in his eyes that makes me feel like a deer caught in a bear trap. I shouldn’t be feeling like this around him. He’s family.

Good girls don’t look at their stepbrothers the way I’m looking at him. They don’t think the thoughts I have.

“Football was never really my thing anyway. Dad just liked the bragging rights it gave him. Besides, I like other games now.” He smirks, as if he’s trying to hint at some kind of inside joke. An inside joke I’m not included in because the guy I shared my childhood home with is now a total stranger to me.

It puzzles me.

“Why are you talking to me?” I ask, frowning. I’m sitting at the top of the bleachers, way in the back corner, all alone. I have no idea what he’s doing here. He clearly sought me out, but why?

“I can’t talk to an old friend?” His words are innocent, but the way he asks is teasing. He’s mocking me. We were never friends. I thought we were, but the moment he got popular he ditched me. I was either totally invisible to him or the butt of his mean friends’ jokes.

When he left for college we were strangers.

Now though, his stupid sexy smirk is firmly in place, and it’s bringing back all kinds of memories. He looks so familiar, but different too. But the mean, hard glint in his eyes is making me feel like this is just some kind of trap. A stupid little trick bullies play on their victims. Surely we’ve outgrown that by now?

“You can do whatever you want,” I mutter, turning away from him, hoping whatever joke he’s playing isn’t too humiliating, and I can just get out of here and go find Victor once he loses interest in tormenting me for no reason.

“True.”

Ugh. That annoys me. He’s so arrogant and self involved. Is he worse since he went away, or have I just grown used to him not being around?

“Tell me, Cora, do you have a boyfriend?” he asks, and my heart rate kicks up a notch.

“No,” I quickly respond. Too quickly. Slater smiles, giving me a sideways look as his hair falls into his face, and he bites his plump bottom lip.

“No? Not an older guy? Someone who’s not in high school anymore?” Slater presses. I grab the bleacher, trying to keep myself from sprinting away from him. Now, this really feels like a trap.

“No, no one. I’m single,” I insist, but Slater laughs. He leans over, his breath fanning over my skin as he whispers in my ear.

“I don’t believe you. I thought you were supposed to be mine, or did you forget already?” His husky words cause my frown to deepen. I turn slowly, looking into his gorgeous blue eyes, confused as fuck.

“What are you talking about?” I ask, trying to figure out what he wants or what he’s suggesting. My mind races, trying to remember when I might have said anything like this to him, but he shrugs.

“I guess I’ll see you around, little sis.” And just like that, he’s walking away, leaving me wondering what the hell just happened. He’s gone by the time it occurs to me to tell him not to call me that.