His Omega Deal: Owned By My Stepbrother

Chapter 11 Keep It Down

Lydia’s POV

Dinner continued like nothing had happened. Like his mouth hadn’t just been against my ear, and his words weren’t still echoing somewhere at the back of my mind, hot and unwelcome and impossible to shake.

I sat there smiling at my plate, pretending my hands weren’t trembling around my fork.

“Tell me everything about Santorini,” Xander said, leaning toward my mother with an attentiveness that made my stomach turn. “Dad barely gave us any details.”

“Oh, it was breathtaking,” Elena gushed, launching into a story about white cliffs and blue domes and a sunset Charles had apparently cried at, which made Charles protest loudly that he most certainly had not cried, only that the wind had been strong that evening.

Xander laughed at exactly the right moment. He refilled my mother’s wine before she even noticed her glass was low. He complimented her dress, some soft, flowing thing she’d bought in Athens, and told her it suited her better than anything he’d seen her in before.

“And how’s the hospital treating our girl?” Charles asked, turning to me with genuine warmth, the kind that made guilt curdle low in my stomach. “Xander tells me you’re settling in well.”

“It’s been an adjustment,” I said carefully, choosing my words like they were landmines. “But I’m learning a lot.”

“She’s a natural,” Xander offered smoothly, before I could say anything else. “Sharp. Good instincts. The other interns could learn a thing or two from her.”

I nearly choked on my wine. He hadn’t so much as looked in my direction at Hopkins all week, and now here he was, singing my praises to our parents like he’d personally mentored me through every shift.

“High praise, coming from you,” Charles said, clearly pleased, clapping a hand against the table. “He doesn’t say that about just anyone.”

“No,” Xander agreed, his eyes flicking to mine across the table, something unreadable and dangerous glinting there. “I don’t.”

He was good at this. Frighteningly good.

Watching him, I almost forgot the man who had cornered me on a cliffside in Mauritius, the one who had whispered filthy promises into my ear not five minutes ago.

This version of him was warm, easy, generous with his attention, the perfect son playing the perfect part.

Which one was the mask? I still didn’t know. Maybe neither. Maybe both.

Every so often, his eyes would drift to mine across the table, and something would flicker there, something private and knowing, and my whole body would react before my brain could catch up. A slow curl of heat low in my stomach.

A shiver I had to disguise as a shrug.

I hated how easily he did that, how little effort it took him.

By the time dessert was cleared, Charles was yawning and Elena was suggesting they get some air on the balcony before they headed up to bed. They stood up together, Charles’s hand settling naturally at the small of her back, and disappeared through the glass doors, leaving me alone with the dishes and the man I was apparently contractually obligated to sleep with.

“I’ll clear up,” I said quickly, already gathering plates, desperate for something to do with my hands.

Xander didn’t answer, he just watched me from his seat, that same unreadable calm expression settling over his features, and let me retreat to the sink.

I turned the water on too hot, dipping my hands into the soapy basin, focusing on the plates, the silverware, anything that wasn’t him. My heart was still hammering from dinner, from his mouth against my ear, from the ridiculous performance of family we’d both just put on for two people who had no idea what kind of monster sat at their table.

I didn’t hear him move.

I told myself I was fine. Told myself the worst of the night was behind me, that I’d survived the dinner, survived his hand at the small of my back, survived every loaded glance across the table. A few more minutes of dishes and I could slip away to the guest bathroom, splash water on my face, and pretend the last hour hadn’t happened at all.

One second I was alone at the sink, and the next, his teeth were grazing the curve of my neck, his chest pressed flush against my back, his hands braced on the counter on either side of me, caging me in completely.

I gasped, my hands flying out of the water. “Xander–”

“Shh.” His voice was low, rough against my ear, edged with something dangerously close to hunger. “Keep it down.”

“Your parents are right there,” I hissed, my pulse spiking with panic and something else, something I refused to name. “On the balcony. They could walk in any second.”

“Then you’d better be quiet,” he murmured, and I felt his mouth curve into a smile against my skin.

I tried to twist away from him, tried to put actual distance between us, but his hand slid to my hip and held me steady, firm and unyielding, and my body betrayed me instantly, leaning back into him before I could stop it.

“This is insane,” I whispered. “Someone will see.”

“No one’s going to see anything,” he said, his fingers finding the hem of my dress, “if you stay quiet.”

My mind screamed at me to shove him off, to march to that balcony and tell my mother everything, consequences be damned. But I didn't do that.

His lips found that spot again, just below my jaw, and this time, he didn't just graze it. He opened his mouth, a slow, deliberate pressure against my pulsing vein, and my knees nearly buckled.

His teeth scraped, just enough to make me shiver, to make a sound I bit back instantly.

"That's it," he approved, his voice a rough purr. "Silence."

His fingers were at my hip, tracing the line of my dress before finding the hem. His touch was electric, a current that shot through me, straight to my lower belly. He didn't ask…he never did.

He hooked a finger under the silk and began to lift, a slow, inexorable journey up my thigh. The air, cool against my flushed skin, was a stark contrast to the fire of his touch.

Higher. His knuckles brushed against the lace of my underwear, and I jolted, a choked-off gasp escaping my lips.

"Xander, don't," I pleaded my voice low, but it held no water.

"Your mother is telling your father about the frescoes," he said against my ear, his words a contrast to the chaos he was creating. "He's pretending to listen. We have time." His thumb brushed over the damp lace, a knowing, possessive stroke. "And you're already so wet for me."

The shame was a hot flush, but it was replaced by the need that followed, a wave so powerful it left me breathless. He lifted me with ease, my back coming to rest against the cool marble of the counter.

My legs dangled for a moment before he was between them, his hands firm on my thighs, pushing them open, spreading me for him. The vulnerability was absolute. The position was one of complete surrender.

He knelt.

The sight of him on his knees before me, his dark head bent, his shoulders a broad, solid wall between my legs, was so hot it made my brain short-circuit. His eyes met mine as he hooked his fingers into the sides of my underwear, and he held my gaze as he slowly, torturously slid them down my legs.

Then, he lowered his head.

The first touch of his tongue was a shock of pure, white-hot sensation. A slow, deliberate stripe through my folds.

I threw my head back, a silent scream building in my throat, my hands flying from the counter to tangle in his hair. The silk strands were impossibly soft between my fingers.

I should have been pushing him away. Instead, I held him to me and spread my legs wider.

He found my aching c**t, circling it, slow at first, then faster, building a rhythm that was maddeningly perfect.

His tongue was clever, relentless as he explored every inch of me, tasting, lapping, as if he couldn't get enough, as if this was the only thing he'd ever wanted. The sounds were obscene in the quiet kitchen–the wet, slick noise of his mouth on me, my own ragged, silent breaths.

I could feel it building, the familiar, terrifying pull in my core. My toes curled in my heels, my thighs began to tremble around his head.

I was so close, balanced on a razor's edge of pleasure and hatred. I hated that it was him, detested that he was the one pulling these sounds from my throat, these shudders from my body.

I despised him in a way that was almost as overwhelming as the pleasure.

Just as the wave was about to tip, as the pressure in my stomach coiled into a tight, white-hot knot, a voice drifted from the balcony.

“Lydia? Are you almost done in there, sweetheart?”

Panic poured over me like ice water.

I scrambled to fix my dress, smoothing down the fabric with shaking hands while he pulled back really fast, leaving me gasping, my body screaming in protest at the loss. The orgasm that had been seconds away receded, leaving a hollow, aching void within me.

I looked at him, my chest heaving, my vision blurry with unshed tears of frustration. The anger I felt was a physical thing, a living beast inside me. He saw it. He saw everything. And he smiled.

A slow, sly, utterly triumphant smile. He brought the back of his hand to his lips, wiping away my juices so casually that it was more insulting than any word he could have said, and then he stepped back like nothing at all had happened.

“Almost done, Mom!” I called back, my voice cracking embarrassingly on the last word.

By the time Elena and Charles stepped back inside, I was scrubbing furiously at a plate that was already clean, my face flushed, my hair slightly disheveled, my heart still racing. If either of them noticed, they said nothing.

Charles announced it was getting late and that they should head back to their own place, and Elena hugged me tightly at the door, telling me how happy

she was that Xander and I were finally getting along.

“I knew you two just needed time,” she whispered against my hair, squeezing me once more before pulling back. “Family takes work, but look at you both already.”

I forced a smile so wide my cheeks ached with the effort. “Yeah. Look at us.”

Getting along. Yeah right, if only she knew how right, and how horribly wrong, that phrase actually was.

Xander walked them to the elevator himself, playing dutiful son right up until the doors slid shut behind them, and for one blissful moment, I thought I might actually escape unscathed.

Then he turned, that same maddening smirk tugging at his mouth, and leaned close enough that his breath brushed against my ear one final time.

“They’re watching,” he murmured, nodding toward the security camera blinking quietly in the corner of the hallway, “so try not to look like your cunt just got sucked by your stepbrother.”