Step Beast Read online

  “Right.” She paddled to the side of the pool, hanging on. She was right in front of one of the pool lights—she could feel its heat. Her blocking it put both of them in shadow as he turned toward her. With all the drama, Tilly had almost forgotten they were both completely naked. Almost.

  Now they seemed to move infinitesimally closer together. But it might have been just from the usual undulations of people keeping their balance in a pool.

  “I have a confession to make.” She bit her lip, considering. She shouldn’t tell him anything. She’d kept her mouth shut for weeks, just like he wanted her to. She’d avoided him. She’d let him have his sordid secrets. Maybe it was the alcohol talking. Or the drama with Frankie. Or maybe she was hoping her own confession might prompt one of his own. A little quid pro quo.

  “When you…” She swallowed, taking a deep breath. “When you punished me. Spanked me…?”

  She looked at him, seeing him incline his head at her words. So he was listening.

  “It made me wet.” Fuck. There it was, out there for the world to see. Or Beast, anyway. And to her, that was the world. “I didn’t understand it. I still don’t. If someone had told me in advance that I was going to get a spanking, and that it would make me feel… uhhh… like that?”

  She shook her wet head, feeling heat rising in her cheeks, glad for the darkness.

  “No way. But…” She watched his face carefully, but it was as enigmatic as that of a cigar store Indian. She decided to risk going on. “That club. The Bottom Floor. The things I saw… I can’t get them out of my head. It made me feel… oh hell, I don’t even know…”

  She sighed, looking to the moon for answers. “Funny, you think by the time you’re my age, you don’t have any new feelings to discover. But the way I feel now… it’s like I’m a baby foal, tottering around, figuring out how to walk again. Everything feels so new and alive and… exciting…”

  Beast again said nothing, but he was quiet, eyes fixed on her, and it was clear, at least, that he was listening.

  So she ventured to say just a little more. “When you spanked me… Beast, I felt things… things I don’t even remember feeling when you and I were together, that summer—”

  “Don’t talk about that summer.” If he’d been open, listening, before—now he closed up, shuttered himself in. Gone in an instant.

  “Please don’t tell me not to talk about it.” Tilly swallowed, reaching for him, putting her hands on his shoulders. “I’m so tired of not talking about things. That summer… don’t you remember?”

  “I don’t want to remember.” He peeled her hands off his shoulders, holding her at arm’s length. “It was the worst summer of my life.”

  Crushed by this, Tilly stared at him. All the breath left her body.

  He didn’t stare back. He let her go, leaving her to tread water on her own as took a watery step backwards. There was a pained look on his face, as if her words had truly wounded him. Well, his had hurt her, too. Tilly turned away to go, not wanting him to see the tears in her eyes, but then she felt the vice-like grip of his hand on her arm.

  He spun her back towards him, pulling her easily into his embrace, and lowered his face to kiss her. His mouth slanted across hers, a sound like a wounded animal tearing from his throat as his tongue slipped between her lips, heat seeking heat. She cried out, too, melting into him, arms going around his neck, surrendering to his strength.

  Then it wasn’t just their mouths exploring, but it was their hands, too. His big hands roamed everywhere on her body, and she could hardly bear to break their kisses to whisper how much she wanted him, to beg him to take her, God, please, please take her, here, now…

  “I haven’t been with anyone since you left,” she whispered against his soft, full mouth, his teeth grazing her lower lip, his hands full of her ass, lifting her against him. This was her confession, finally, given up in the darkness against the heat of his body. “I haven’t even thought about anyone but you. I don’t care if it’s wrong. I can’t help it. I don’t want to help it. Frankie keeps trying to get me to date other guys and… all I can think about is you.”

  Beast groaned. His hands and mouth stopped exploring her, but he still held her tight in the circle of his arms, tucking her head under his chin so she couldn’t see his face.

  “Tilly,” he whispered hoarsely, holding onto her so tight it was hard to breathe. “You know we can’t. We just can’t. Nothing’s changed.”

  “Don’t say that.” Her words were muffled against the skin of his chest. She kissed his collarbone, licking beads of water there. “Please…”

  “No.” The word went off in her head like a shot. She felt herself go limp against him. “It was a mistake. We never should have. I never… should have…”

  “Please.” She lifted her face to look at him, eyes wet in the moonlight. “Oh my God, please don’t do this. I know you love me.”

  “Tilly.” He shook his head, his voice full of gravel. “Don’t.”

  “I know you want me.” Boldly, Tilly reached down for Beast’s cock. It was hard, long and thick. She squeezed it demandingly, rubbing her thumb over that delightful new piercing of his, and Beast groaned as if he was as much in psychic pain as in physical pleasure.

  “Do you feel that?” Her own voice was throaty, full of sand and heat. “I know what you want. Your body tells me everything I need to know.”

  He shook his head, but she heard his sharp intake of breath when she squeezed his cock in her little fist.

  “You’re lying to me.” She accused him softly. “And to yourself.”

  Tilly thought she could detect Beast relenting a little, and continued. “I know you better than anyone else. And I know you love me. I know you do. You want me. Admit it.”

  “No,” said Beast, lowly, eyes closed against it.

  “Yes,” she insisted softly, wiggling in his arms, trying desperately to guide him, to sink the heat of his cock into her soft, waiting crevice. “You do.”

  “No!” he shouted, pushing her violently away. “You think you know me? You don’t know me! If you knew—”

  Tilly stumbled and floundered in the water. She was shocked by the intensity of Beast’s rejection and for once, she couldn’t hide her tears. She was glad for the darkness, glad her face was already wet, but still, she couldn’t hide the sobs that came rising up from her throat. She sobbed, groping blinding for something to hold onto, finding the edge of the pool.

  “Tilly!” he called.

  She scrambled out, skinning her knee on the concrete.

  “You’re wrong,” she choked as she grabbed a towel, wrapping it around her shivering body. It was hard to talk. Hard to breathe. “I do know you. You’re the selfish bastard who used his stepsister for sex and then left when it got complicated!”

  “No!” Beast’s face fell. “Tilly, no. Listen. You don’t—”

  But Tilly was already running away.

  Chapter 9

  Something’s wrong.

  Nothing but darkness. Tilly heard Frankie snoring beside her on the bed. Her friend had been passed out, already changed into a camisole and boy shorts, by the time Tilly finished her shower and went back to her room. Tilly had just covered her with a blanket and curled up beside her on the bed. She’d had too much to drink and she was exhausted. Physically and emotionally. Sleep—forgetting—felt like the right thing to do. The best thing.

  The only thing, really.

  But now she was awake again, and there was no reason for it. Just darkness and Frankie snoring and drooling on the mattress beside her. Frankie was going to have a hell of a hangover in the morning. Tilly might, too, although she’d been drinking less enthusiastically than her friend. Tilly found her phone and checked the time. Three-oh-six.

  Tilly shivered. She realized she’d gotten a little too much sun and was slightly burned, even though she’d kept her cover-up on for most of the day. And of course, her mother would be sure to mention that in the morning.

  Ti
lly needed to pee. Maybe that’s what had woken her.

  Then she heard him.

  Beast was dreaming again, and they didn’t sound like good ones.

  She hoped he was being chased by giants and stabbed by demons. He called out, yelling something unintelligible in his sleep. Tilly got up, her bladder aching. She couldn’t ignore it, as much as she wanted to just roll over and go back to sleep, escaping the pain rising in her chest.

  Tilly, wearing panties and a camisole, made her way to her bedroom door in the dark. She and Frankie had been trying on suits before the party, and they hadn’t bothered cleaning up before they went downstairs. The door was closed, but she could hear Beast anyway, moaning and thrashing. Dreaming something awful.

  Good.

  Tilly walked past Beast’s room heading towards the bathroom at the end of the hall, not deigning to even look in. Beast mumbled, shouted something, using those words that weren’t words, just short sentences of unintelligible urgency. She hurried past, going into the bathroom to pee. He’d warned her not to bother him at night again, and she hadn’t. She’d woken up a couple times over the past month or so, hearing him calling out, but she’d ignored it, pulled her covers up over her ears and going back to sleep.

  She washed her hands at the sink, blinking at her reflection in the dim light. Her mother had carried a nautical theme throughout the whole bathroom, from the charts of the continents on the wallpaper to the red lighthouse night light. Tilly hadn’t bothered turning the overhead light on. She made her way back down the hall, hearing the sound of Beast breathing, deep and even.

  She eased her way past his door, padding quietly on the hardwood in her bare feet.

  “Tilly!” He called her name, clear as could be.

  Pausing, stunned, she turned her head toward the sound, waiting for more. Was he awake? Calling for her?

  “Nnngggggg!” The noise was low and just a sound. Then, “Noooo!”

  He was still dreaming.

  Go back to bed, Mathilda.

  Her mother’s voice. Tilly ignored the voice in her head and took a few steps into Beast’s room. His window was open, curtains blowing in the summer breeze. Moonlight spilled in—full tonight—making his bed look like an illuminated sea of white sheets and covers. He floated in the middle on his back, one arm thrown over his head, the other resting in the middle of his chest. She looked down at his sleeping face, feeling her chest growing tighter with each breath.

  Attempting to swallow down the feeling that filled her, Tilly told herself that she hated him. He was an arrogant, pig-headed, controlling prick. That hadn’t changed. But the truth was, she didn’t hate him. Everything she’d told him outside in the pool, stripped naked and vulnerable in his arms, had been true. As much as she tried to deny it, even to herself.

  A breeze whooshed the filmy curtains inward, bringing the scent of summer to Tilly—freshly cut grass, the chlorinated smell of the pool—and she took a deep, shuddering breath, filling her lungs. How many nights had she come into his room like this that summer? Too many to count. Night after memorable night. They always told each other in the morning that it wasn’t right, it couldn’t go on, they made promises not to do it anymore…

  But when night approached, a hot breeze wafting through open windows, a fever would come over her—and him, too. It hadn’t just been her. Sometimes the night stretched on, unbearable, until one or the other of them broke first. There had been some brief, futile days of real resistance. He would whisper, “No, Tilly. We can’t.” She would whimper, “Beast, I can’t stand it. We can’t keep doing this…”

  But that never lasted.

  That whole summer—she’d been seventeen, going on eighteen. Beast had been home from his first tour in Afghanistan, just barely drinking age, but already a man who had seen far more horror and tragedy than any man should ever see, who had experienced losses, both at home and overseas, that would have broken most men.

  His dreams had started then, and she had gone to him in the night, just like this. She had put her arms around him, offering him comfort. And that comfort had, somehow, escalated to…

  She didn’t hate herself for giving in to her feelings. She didn’t hate him, either, as much as she would have liked to blame everything on him. It was like something had happened, the moment their flesh touched. Resistance evaporated. Struggling only made things worse. Even when he told her no, even when she said no more, they somehow found themselves locked in each other arm’s at the end of the day.

  “Ahhh Tilly,” Beast groaned, shifting on the mattress. He was still asleep, eyes closed. His foot caught the covers and that pulled them down from his waist, away from his body. He was sheened with sweat and she saw him naked, hard as a rock.

  She stared at his smooth, muscled skin, wet in the moonlight, beaded with sweat like he had a fever. His cock stood straight up, rising high from a dark nest of hair. His piercing glinted in the moonlight, a silver ring she could have hooked her finger through. It was a thought that excited her. He had called her name twice, and she realized he must be dreaming about her, and he, himself, was like a dream.

  She moved closer, her knees touching the edge of the bed. Reaching her hand out, she let her fingertips graze his calf. He didn’t move. Her palm moved over his flesh, the muscle hard and corded underneath. His knee was cocked to the side and her palm slipped smoothly up his inner thigh.

  She could still taste his kisses in her mouth.

  It had been so long. So very long.

  Tilly’s hand had a mind of its own. She ghosted her fingertips over the soft, sensitive skin high up on his inner thigh. He trembled for a moment and she wondered if he was still dreaming. She knew she should go back to her room, leave him alone. Leave this alone, whatever it was.

  But she was so tired of being alone.

  And until she was in his arms again, she hadn't realized how much she'd missed him. It was like coming up for air, lungs bursting, after being underwater for ages. That made her remember earlier in the pool, how he had pulled her to him and kissed her. She’d sensed the desperation in him, how much he'd been holding back, until he finally started giving into what he really felt.

  If he hadn't done that, if had been all her, she would have believed him when he told her no, but he had wanted her. His mouth might lie, but his body didn't. Even now, he was hard, calling her name in his sleep.

  Tilly reached a little higher, to the inside of Beast’s thigh. He trembled for a moment. She knew she should leave him alone. It wasn’t right. She thought of how he had held her in the pool, what had passed between them. His rejection was a lie. It had to be. He had loved and wanted her once—and he loved and wanted her still. She was sure of it, even if he tried to hide it, deny it. The weight of the denial—not just this one thing, but everything, so much that Tilly sometimes felt like her whole life was a lie—stopped her breath.

  It was like suffocating.

  That reminded her of how it felt to be in his arms, to kiss him. Like breathing again, after almost drowning. And that’s how much she wanted him. That’s exactly what it felt like—if she didn’t act, if she didn’t do something, she would drown.

  Tilly sat on the edge of the bed, reaching out for him. His cock was glorious—hard, thick, fully upright—and she wrapped her hand around the length of his shaft, squeezing gently. Beast moaned in his sleep, and Tilly moaned, too, biting her lip as she slid her hand up, toward that tempting new piercing, so strange and exotic.

  He shifted, letting out a little sigh when she flicked her thumb over that silver ring piercing his frenulum, a thrill straightening her spine. Her pussy clenched, aching, so fucking empty it hurt. God, she couldn’t resist him. Not like this. It was so wrong, doing it like this, while he slept so heavily, dreaming.

  “Tilly.”

  She startled when he said her name, a hoarse whisper.

  He’s dreaming about me.

  Was he dreaming? Still asleep? Or waking?

  She didn’t want to bre
ak the spell. Her hand moved slowly, lightly, up the shaft, from the base to the fat, swollen, circumcised head. What would that little ring feel like, rubbing against her clit? She wondered. Her clit throbbed in response, and Beast’s cock jumped in her hand, like he was reading her thoughts.

  Oh, she was so wet. She wanted him so much it hurt. She cupped her hand over her mound, through her panties, biting her lip to keep from crying out at the heated tingle that sent through her. She told herself she shouldn’t, but even as she scolded herself for being a bad girl—because that was really what was going on in her head—she was wiggling out of her underwear and climbing on top of him.

  She knew she was flirting with danger—he had a loaded gun on his night table, for God’s sake—but that somehow excited her even more. He would wake up and find her, not just in his bed, but impaling herself on his stiff length. And then what? Would he deny her then?