Tempted By My Stepbrother

Episode 1

Hannah



“Can you shut the f*ck up? There are people trying to sleep here, for hell’s sake!”

I bang on the door harder than I planned when I got out of bed a few minutes ago.

At least the silence that follows makes the whole effort of leaving my warm blanket worth it.

I go back to my room, but I can’t sleep and start tossing and turning the same way I was doing before, while that woman seemed to be definitely in heat in my brother Declan’s room.

Then I hear voices. Apparently Declan is begging her to stay. A small satisfied smile appears on my face. If I’m going to have a f****d-up night knowing he’s with someone in the bed where I wanted to be, then he’s going to have a shitty night too.

A while later silence settles in. She must have left already. I end up laughing quietly. But if I wanted to stay safe from Declan’s rage I should have locked the door the moment I got back here. He opens the door with a single bang and is standing there with a furious look, wearing only jeans and no shirt, reminding me more and more how hot he is and that he’s the most attractive guy who’s ever walked into this room.

He comes toward me saying:

“Don’t you have a heart?”

I end up laughing and rolling my eyes as I say:

“Oh come on? She’s just another one of the girls you bring here. You’ll get over it.”

I pull the covers over myself and try to ignore his presence in the room as if that were possible, but he takes a few steps until I feel his weight on my bed. He gets on top of me, pinning me to the mattress, and pulls the blanket off my face. He really doesn’t see what he does to me or how my breathing is speeding up considerably with him this close. I look at his defined body over mine and think of so many things we could do if he at least noticed my interest… but no. I’m just the annoying little girl, daughter of his dad’s current wife, that he’s forced to put up with.

He leans down even more and looks me in the eyes as he says:

“Do you have any idea how much work it took to get Trixie into my bed?”

I just try not to focus on how his breath touching my face like that makes my skin prickle and say:

“With a sl*tty name like that, I can’t understand why it took so much work.”

He closes his eyes for a second and looks even more irritated when he says:

“Ah, if I could just do something about you…”

From the way he looks at me and the way he says the sentence, I even think there might be a double meaning in it, but I know there isn’t. He wouldn’t do that. He would never do that. He has zero interest in me I know, I already tried once and was brutally shut down by him himself.

Then he looks around my room searching for something and I follow his eyes. He stops on Tutti, my little pink teddy bear that I got as a gift a few years ago from Ashton, my childhood friend. He looks back at me and sees my face full of confusion. He raises his arm, grabs her, and slowly gets off me while I ask what he’s going to do. He just laughs maliciously and says:

“Since I don’t have anyone to satisfy me tonight, maybe Tutti can do it.”

He runs out of the room the moment he sees my fury and locks himself in his room.

I almost break down his door from banging so hard, but it’s locked and he laughs inside. Then I beg:

“Give her back to me, Declan? You know how important she is to me.”

Ashton has been my best friend since I was three years old. Declan knows he was the one who gave me that teddy bear when I turned fifteen. He really went too far this time. I whimper and he says, half to himself:

“That’s it, make that little sl*tty face for me, Tutti.”

I bang even harder on the door and he doesn’t even pay attention to me. He just says, imitating a female voice:

“Don’t worry, Hannah, Declan is so hot.”

I bang even harder on his door and he says:

“f**k, Hannah! You’re distracting me here!”

“Open the f*cking door right now, Declan!”

He says:

“Just a little more and…”

Fuck, f**k! He can’t have done that, or I’m going to hate him for real from now on. I bang on the door again. But there’s only silence inside. I’m leaning against the wall next to the door with my arms crossed, trying not to cry from anger, when he opens the door holding Tutti in his hands, smiling casually as he says:

“There. Now she’s not a virgin anymore.”

I go straight at him, hitting him while he raises his arm to protect himself and laughs. I tell him I hate him and check if poor Tutti has any dirt on her from whatever happened in there which I probably know what it was.

He crosses his arms and laughs watching me do that, then he says:

“Do you really think I did something with her?”

I look at him incredulous and he continues:

“I’m not that much of a pervert.”

I’m still stunned, but I hug Tutti tightly against my chest and he says:

“That was just a lesson so you learn not to stick your nose in my life or in the lives of the people I bring to my room.”

And he slams the door in my face, making me close my eyes. What hurt wasn’t the fact that my nose almost felt the impact of the door on my face, but every single word he said.

…

When I was twelve, my mom decided to get married again three years after becoming a widow. I don’t blame her loneliness is awful and even back then I understood that. The problem was that her future husband had a son two years older than me.

And there I was, in my teenage years, discovering first love, falling head over heels for him. One year after we met and my mom had already married his dad I decided to confess and tell him I loved him, and I even tried to kiss him. He laughed in my face and told me to go find someone else to do that with. That still hurts to this day.

He left home for a while, went to live with his mom in another city. We only saw each other on special occasions and I avoided talking to him more than necessary, even though he always looked at me with those mocking little smiles.

When he turned eighteen he moved to California to start college and I stayed home in Georgia finishing school. When I turned eighteen a year ago, our parents decided we should share the house so I could study here too the same place where his dad graduated. When I arrived the first thing Declan said was:

“You’re not still in love with me, right? Because if you are, this isn’t going to work.”

So I said:

“Not even if you were the last man on the face of the earth.”

I liked how he reacted, especially because he was with a friend. But deep down, seeing him hotter than ever, I only confirmed what I already knew I was still crazy about him. But I had to hide it and never let him know again or he would laugh at me and break me inside once more.

That’s why making his life hell has been my purpose ever since I got here, especially when it comes to women.