Step Beast Read online

  “Oh my God, do I smell food?” Frankie swung her bare feet to the side, sitting up and sniffing the air. “Is that ribs?”

  “Yeah.” Tilly smelled it now, too, and saw that the chef was standing at the giant barbeque behind the house, cooking steaks and ribs. Liv had planned the menu, of course, picking many of Beast’s obviously carnivorous favorites. Tilly had been in charge of dessert and she’d ordered tiers of cupcakes that looked like a cascading waterfall of blue frosting.

  Miles was already poking around the cupcakes, Tilly saw with a smile. Literally, he was putting his finger into the frosting, withdrawing it, licking it, and then repeating the process.

  Obviously her mother had finally given the chef the nod to start cooking, even if Beast wasn’t there yet. Everyone was getting too hungry to wait anymore. It was already six. Beast had at least called the house, saying he’d be late, couldn’t be avoided—but this was really late. It made her wonder what he was up to—not that he would tell her. Even though she knew he worked at The Block, and thanks to Frankie’s intel, she finally knew what he was doing there, he still wouldn’t talk to her about it.

  “I’m starving,” Frankie announced, standing and reaching out a hand for Tilly. “Come on, let’s eat.”

  Tilly wasn’t that hungry. She’d sampled a lot of the food already—lobster macaroni salad, Waldorf salad with raisins that were as juicy and almost as big as dates, finger sandwiches with black olives and goat cheese, curried deviled eggs—as the caterers prepared everything for serving in their kitchen. But she followed Frankie anyway, wanting to say hello to Meg and Kate, and see if she could keep Miles from denting all of the cupcakes with his chubby fingers.

  Frankie went over to the grill, holding out a plate for a big slab of ribs while Tilly greeted Meg and Kate, making sure to give Kate an extra big welcome to make up for her mother’s lack thereof. She knew it really didn’t make up for anything, but it made Tilly feel a little better, and it seemed to cheer Kate. She smiled and gave Tilly a one-armed hug—her other was still weighed down with swimming stuff. Kate was tall, thin, her features angular, her coloring dark, a stark contrast to Meg. She’d always reminded Tilly of Morticia from the Addam’s Family, only tanned, with a fuller, more sensual mouth.

  “Meg, he’s getting into the cupcakes,” Kate warned, pointing to Miles, who was oblivious to anything but frosting.

  “I’ll get him,” Tilly offered, already heading toward the dessert table. They’d put it out of the sun, near the house, to keep the frosting from melting.

  Tilly waved to Frankie, who went by balancing a plate of ribs and various salads on a cup of beer. There was a keg, of course. Liv had ordered it, because she thought Beast would want beer, and wouldn’t listen to Tilly when she explained that Beast drank good, dark, German beer. He wouldn’t touch the stuff from a keg. But Tilly’s mother hadn’t listened to her.

  “I’m gonna sit with your mom,” Frankie called and Tilly nodded, squatting down so she could look Miles in the eyes. His were big and round and as dark as the beer Beast liked to drink. They were so dark, sometimes it was hard to differentiate the pupil from the iris. His hair was dark, too, thick and curly, his face tanned from spending hours playing outside.

  “Hi Tiwwy!” He grinned at her, sucking blue dye off his finger. Miles hadn’t begun speaking until late—Meg and Kate had worried and fussed over this missed milestone—and he still used some of the phrases he’d started using as a toddler. L’s were still hard for him. Sometimes he could say them but mixed up the position, so “squirrel” became “squirlull,” or in the case of Tilly’s name, the L became a W.

  “Hey, Miles.” She reached out and ruffled his hair—it was hard not to, with all those curls. “Want a cupcake?”

  “Uh huh.” He grinned, showing white milk-teeth. He hadn’t lost any yet. “But… momma said I hafta eat a hot dog first.”

  “Blech.” Tilly made a face, picking up the cupcake he’d been poking—thankfully he’d only put holes in two of them—and handed it to him. “This is better than a hot dog, any day.”

  Miles glanced over at Meg—she was watching, frowning, but her attention was focused mostly on Tilly’s mother, and that was good. Tilly watched Miles peel off the paper, dropping it into the trash. His lips were already blue from the frosting.

  “Good?” Tilly picked up the other cupcake he’d been poking, licking some sugary blue frosting off the white cake.

  “Mmm!” Miles agreed, mouth full, grinning with blue stained teeth.

  She took his hand and they walked toward the table to join everyone else. Liv’s friends had all gone to get something to eat, so Meg had taken the seat beside her sister, and Kate sat on the other side of her. Frankie had pulled up the fourth chair and was happily munching on ribs, sauce on her cheeks and all over her fingers. If Tilly had done that, Liv would have had a fit, but Tilly’s mother just smiled indulgently at Frankie.

  “Do you want something to eat?” Tilly asked her mother, glancing back at the line growing at the grill. “I can get you something.”

  “No.” Liv wrinkled her nose in distaste, a hand moving to her stomach. She’d finished chemo over a week ago and was now undergoing radiation, but the treatments, no matter what they were, seemed to affect her appetite. Either she was nauseous, or she just lost the will to eat altogether. It made her usually slight frame appear gaunt. Tilly could tell she wasn’t feeling well, but she was putting on her good face for company. She could have strangled Beast for making them wait for him, for making her mother put on this charade for so long.

  “So where’s His Majesty?” Kate asked, shading her eyes and looking at the people milling around the pool. “I haven’t see him.”

  “Not here,” Tilly told her, rolling her eyes.

  “Yet,” Liv added, frowning at her daughter, watching her peel the paper off her cupcake. “You know, Mathilda, if you didn’t eat so many cupcakes, you could wear a two-piece suit like your friend, Frankie.”

  Tilly felt heat fill her cheeks but she ignored her mother’s comment, dabbing a little bit of blue frosting on Miles’s nose, making him laugh and try to lick it off with his tongue. She felt everyone’s eyes on her, like they were waiting for her to say something, to stand up for herself. That just made her want to laugh. If they thought standing up to Liv Beeston nee Garrett was a good idea, they obviously hadn’t had to live with her their whole lives.

  “You should have seen her in my other two-piece,” Frankie spoke up. “I made her try it on. She looked great! I told her she should wear it.”

  Good old Frankie. Tilly gave her a look and a little shake of her head that said there was no point in contradicting her mother. You didn’t even pick your battles with Liv, because there was just no winning. Liv had an invincible way of getting around any reasonable argument that did not suit her. Besides, she knew her mother was upset that Beast wasn’t there—and she was getting near time for her pain meds again.

  Tilly looked at her half-eaten cupcake, licking blue frosting off her fingers. Then she glanced down at Miles, who was tugging at the end of her cover-up.

  “Tiwwy,” he said, holding out his deflated water wings to her. “Hep me swim.”

  “Okay, but you’ll have to finish my cupcake.” She loved the way his eyes lit up and she gave him the other half of her dessert, seeing Liv’s thin smile of approval.

  While he finished the cupcake, Tilly blew up the wings. She sat at the edge of the pool, dangling her legs in the water. Frankie came over and sat down beside her. By then, Tilly had finished blowing up the inflatables and she put them on Miles, helping him into the water.

  “Watch him!” Meg called out.

  “I am!” Tilly tossed over her shoulder. With the water wings on, he could swim pretty well, although she cautioned him to stay near and not go off by the diving board.

  “Your mom seems to be hurting a lot.” Frankie kept her voice low, as if they might be overheard, even though the table where Tilly’s mother sat wa
s too far away.

  “Yeah.”

  “Too bad she takes it out on you.”

  Tilly shrugged. Talking about it was just going to make it worse, so she changed the subject.

  “So… how’s Erich…?”

  “Ohhhh, yeah, Erich,” laughed Frankie. “Ummm wowwww.”

  “That good?” Tilly grinned, keeping her eye out for Miles, splashing in the shallow end by the stairs. “He must be. I hardly ever see you.”

  “I know, my bad.” Frankie bit her lip, giving her friend a guilty look. “But oh my God, Tilly, he is… so…”

  “So?” Tilly prompted, splashing Frankie’s legs with absurdly blue, chlorinated water. “So what?”

  “Kinky.” That’s what Frankie settled on. “So very kinky.”

  “I guessed,” she said, shrugging again when Frankie gave her a raised eyebrow look. “I mean, he owns the club. Although I suppose that wouldn’t prove anything either way.”

  “Oh, he lives the lifestyle all right. All that stuff you saw in the basement—he really does it. He’s got his own dungeon at home. St. Andrew’s cross and more. He wants to train me to be a submissive.”

  “You? A submissive? That’s a laugh.” Tilly did laugh, until she noticed Frankie wasn’t.

  “Yeah, well.” Frankie squinted, looking over at Miles kicking his way from one side of the shallow end to the other. “I guess you can never tell what certain people will trigger inside you.”

  “He’ll need to start with a muzzle for your smart mouth,” Tilly teased, nudging her with her hip. “Your ex couldn’t stand it when you talked back.”

  “Ex? What ex?” Frankie smiled.

  “That’s the spirit.” Tilly snorted. The way Frankie talked about Erich made her curious. She’d been afraid to ask for all the gory details, but now she kind of wanted to know. “So… kinky? Like, how kinky?”

  “Oh, kinky.” Frankie smiled to herself, a distant look in her eyes. “He’s got all sorts of fun ideas. And toys! And leather harnesses. And whips. And crops. And paddles.”

  Frankie leaned away, pulling her bikini bottoms aside a little, showing Tilly. She had a fantastic tan line, but underneath her suit were several fading red welts and bruises.

  “Hurts so good,” Frankie whispered, grinning at Tilly’s wide-eyed stare.

  “Miles, stay in the shallow end!” Tilly called out, waving him back toward the stairs. He stuck his tongue out, which made her laugh, but he obeyed, paddling back.

  Frankie’s talk of Erich—Tilly was getting all the gory details now, including way more information about Erich’s man-parts than she really wanted to know—made her remember Beast locking her into the office at The Block. It made her remember the spanking she’d received. She could remember exactly how it felt, his big hand coming down on her bare ass, the way he’d forced her to count out her punishment.

  Tilly wouldn’t have admitted it, even to Frankie, but she’d done some secret searches on her laptop for BDSM. The sites she’d found had been both scary and exciting. She’d only done it a few times, careful to wipe her search history. Just in case. But her real and only link to that strange world was her memory of how she had felt, how wet she had become when Beast spanked her.

  Tilly was curious and turned on by this brave new world. And she was surprised by herself. If only her mother knew what her sweet, innocent boy was doing—that he was a practicing dom. But no. It would probably kill her—literally. There was plenty that Liv didn’t know—and plenty she didn’t want to know. Tilly would never tell her.

  But she did feel a twinge of resentment at the fact that Beast would receive no rebuke for being late to his own party, while Tilly had been castigated for eating a cupcake.

  Miles continued to splash in the water as Frankie and Tilly dangled their legs over the side of the pool. Tilly’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of her mother coughing. Frankie gave Tilly a knowing look.

  “Yeah, she’s been doing that more and more,” Tilly murmured as she got up to go to her mother.

  Meg was already taking care of it, saying she’d take Liv into the house to lie down for a while. She sent a servant ahead to prepare Liv’s room. They had nurses standing by inside, waiting with the wheelchair, but Liv refused to allow them to bring it outside. She insisted on walking into the house.

  Tilly watched her mother leaning heavily on Meg as they walked away. People were watching her go, some of them calling out to her, asking if she was okay. Tilly knew that probably really bothered Liv, but there was nothing to be done about it. Tilly did her best to reassure everyone, to play the hostess in Liv’s absence, but she wasn’t nearly as good at it. She had the feeling everyone knew that Liv was sick, and horribly disappointed she’d planned a party for a son that never even bothered to show up.

  Frankie and Tilly watched Miles in the pool for a while, their conversation more subdued. It wasn’t long after that that Meg and Kate came down and decided to leave. Miles was reluctant to go—Tilly offered to watch him, let him spend the night, but Meg said no. She didn’t want Miles around while Liv wasn’t feeling so well, she said. Even when Tilly promised they’d stay in her room—on a whole different floor—Meg wouldn’t let him stay.

  “Bye, Tiwwy,” Miles whispered in her ear, kissing her cheek. “Wuv you!”

  “I love you too, little man,” Tilly whispered back, tickling him, making him squeal with laughter. “Come back soon. We’ll make popcorn and watch Frozen.”

  Once Meg and Kate left with Miles, the party really started winding down—and Beast hadn’t even showed up! Tilly texted him twice, but got no answer. He didn’t even call. Whatever was going on, she thought, it better be a goddamned emergency. If Liv wasn’t going to tear him a new one—and Tilly knew she wouldn’t, especially now that she was drugged up and probably out of it—then she would

  Once everyone was gone and the servants started cleaning up, Frankie and Tilly sat by the pool again, dangling their feet. They were both quiet. Of course, Frankie knew, she always did, how Tilly was feeling. Tilly might be good at hiding it from other people, but not with her.

  “I know what would make you feel better,” Frankie said, nudging Tilly with her shoulder.

  “What?”

  “A bar raid.”

  “A bar raid?”

  “A bar raid.”

  Frankie was right. Just the idea was already making her feel better.

  Simultaneously, they cried out like they had when they roomed together at Holyoke, “Bar raid!” as if announcing a cavalry charge. Tilly made a trumpeting sound as Frankie laughed and they splashed out of the water and through the French doors into the house. Tilly had been sad to see Miles go, but decided it was better this way. No children should be present when Holyoke girls were engaging in a bar raid.

  The girls lounged by the pool getting drunker and drunker, talking about the party, talking about college, talking about men—especially Erich, with whom Frankie was clearly obsessed—and laughing their heads off. The servants had cleaned up, and while half-expected her mother to send a message down, when she didn’t, Tilly assumed Liv had really worn herself out. It was eight o’clock by then, the sky starting to turn the same colors—purple, pink, orange—as Frankie’s bruised behind.

  That’s when Beast finally showed up.

  Chapter 8

  “Where the hell have you been?” demanded Tilly, sitting up on her elbows and squinting at her stepbrother as he approached. He was in his bathing suit—had he stopped somewhere to change? She wondered. He approached them barefoot, wearing just a pair of trunks.

  “Where’s your mother?” He glanced around, dark brows drawn, but it was just Tilly and Frankie. “I didn’t see any cars when I drove up. Did I miss the whole party?”

  “Of course not,” scoffed Tilly, gesturing all around the pool area. “The guests are all here. They’re just invisible. Don’t trip over them on your way to the grill to tell the invisible chef what you want.”

  Frankie giggled a
t this. Tilly noticed Frankie eyeing Beast’s perfect abs and his muscular thighs.

  “Fuck,” Beast swore under his breath, shaking his head impatiently at Tilly’s little joke.

  “You missed Meg and Kate and Miles. Have you ever even seen a picture of him?” Tilly sat up, crossing her arms and glaring at him.

  “Damn it.” He sighed, shaking his head again and running a hand over his short-cropped hair. “And Liv?”

  “She had a coughing fit and went to bed.”

  Beast gave a low groan and sat beside Tilly on one of the lawn chairs. She wanted to ask him what had kept him, why he hadn’t shown up, but she knew better. He wouldn’t tell her. Not that it mattered. Liv wouldn’t demand any explanations. She wouldn’t even reproach him, Tilly thought, listening to Beast and Frankie make small talk.