Mask - A Stepbrother Romance Read online

  He nodded. “Sure, you can just drink. Me and the other boys will still do a few lines or whatever, but you don’t need to join in.”

  My stomach felt even worse now. I’d left both Manchester and Edinburgh to get away from the drug-fueled craziness that seemed to follow me around, and while I had no problem going to a normal party and catching up with friends, I really didn’t want to be around people who’d be snorting coke, dropping pills and smoking god knows what. It was too easy to slip back into old habits, and I needed to keep away from that now.

  “I don’t know, man. I’m trying my best to change, you know. That’s why I left Manchester last year.”

  Roy’s face darkened slightly. “Really? Because I heard you were even worse in Edinburgh.”

  Ah, the old rumor mill. No matter where or how far I went, it seemed I couldn’t escape it. There was no point denying this particular rumor, though, because it was true.

  I nodded. “Yeah, that’s right. I was. I thought being there would be better for me than Manchester, but it wasn’t. That’s why I finally came home to London. Another fresh start, seeing as my last fresh start didn’t really work out for me.”

  “Surely you can still lend me some cash for stuff tonight, though, aye?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t mind paying for some drinks, but nothing else. And I don’t want you or the other guys doing any shit in front of me, either. Like I said, I’m trying to change and get away from all that.”

  Roy slammed his fist down on the table. “Jesus, Jace. You’re so fucking boring now. You’re right, you have changed—but not for the better. You’re just a fucking sanctimonious asshole. Can’t even shell out for a few lines of coke.”

  “Are you fucking kid—” I started to reply, but he was already getting up and heading for the door. I closed my mouth and watched him storm out of the pub only seconds later, leaving me sitting alone.

  Boring.

  Was that all I was now? A boring old man at the not-so-ripe old age of twenty?

  All I’d wanted to do was grow up and stop fucking myself over by getting high every night. I hadn’t wanted to alienate anyone, and surely Roy could see that I was doing my best. I wasn’t sure why he had to be such a dick about it, just because I refused to give him money to pay for pills and blow.

  Then again, maybe Roy had a vague point. Just because I’d sobered up and stopped snorting shit at parties didn’t mean I was suddenly a good person. Take my new family, for example. I’d been pretty rude to Elena when I’d first met her, and I’d been even worse to Rayna, although I’d just been kidding. She obviously hadn’t thought any of it was funny, but I’d still kept going with it for my own amusement.

  Maybe I really was just a giant fucking asshole.

  On top of that, why the fuck was I so hung up on Rayna? I’d only just met her, yet every time I thought of any subject at all in the last day, my brain found some way to involve her. Sure, she’d had an effect on me when we’d met, but that didn’t mean she needed to be on my mind twenty-four-seven, especially seeing as she was about to be my stepsister. No, I needed to push her from my mind, and that shouldn’t be too hard. After all, I might very well have changed, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t still Jace fucking Wilde. I still knew a ton of people in London who were decent non-users—like the people I’d been at the party with last night—and I still had a ton of chicks available to me for a hookup if that’s what I felt like.

  That was what I needed right now. A distraction in the form of a hot body to look at and a warm pussy to slide into. I pulled out my phone and scrolled through my contacts list as I finished the beer in front of me, trying to put Rayna out of my mind and concentrate on other girls instead. I almost dialed one number—a girl I’d met only hours before Rayna at the party yesterday—but instead I pressed ‘delete’, then slid my phone back into my pocket without a single call made. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it, not when the sweet taste of Rayna’s full lips was still lingering on my mouth.

  I guess as long as Rayna was in my life, driving me crazy the way she did, the closest thing I’d be getting to any action would be sitting across from her at the breakfast table every morning with a stiff cock.

  Great.

  Just fucking great.

  Chapter 5

  Rayna

  After I heard Jace leaving the house, I headed out as well. Liana and I had chatted for a while earlier when I’d called her to tell her I’d be moving into the manor, and after we hung up, I headed to her place to get my stuff. It didn’t take long; all we had to do was pack up my things into the four giant suitcases I’d brought with me and shove them into her car to take back to my new home.

  “Thanks for your help with this,” I said as we stashed the last case in the trunk of her car. “And thanks for having me for the last week.”

  She grinned. “No worries, you can stay anytime. I’m so jealous, though. You get to move into that giant place!”

  “Don’t worry, it’s not that great,” I said with a shrug. “My new room is right next to Jace’s. Out of the billion or so rooms in that huge place, that’s where they put me!”

  Her smile grew even wider. “Ooh la la!” she said in a silly voice. “It’s like your parents actually want you two to hook up.”

  “He wishes.”

  “More like you wish.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “I told you earlier, that’s not going to happen! He’s so freaking annoying. You should’ve heard what he said at lunch.”

  I was more or less trying to convince myself that nothing was going to happen, rather than convince Liana.

  She winked. “Well, you know what they say…men are like babies. If you want them to shut up, just shove your boobs in their mouth.”

  “Liana! I’m not shoving my boobs in Jace’s mouth, let alone anything else.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Uh-huh,” she said, clearly not believing that I had zero interest in Jace anymore. Truthfully, she was right. The thought of last night’s encounter still made me tingle in the best kind of way, but I knew it couldn’t happen again.

  Not now, not ever.

  “I still can’t believe he’s actually your stepbrother,” she continued. “When you first told me your Mom’s fiancé was named Gerald Wilde, it didn’t occur to me that he might actually be related to the one Wilde guy I know.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said with a rueful smile. “We both know now, anyway.”

  “Yeah,” she replied. “Anyway, before we haul all this crap back to the manor, do you wanna grab some tea or coffee somewhere?”

  “Sure,” I said with a smile.

  We headed towards the nearest café for some much-needed caffeine, and Liana filled me in on more details of the guy she’d hooked up with last night.

  “…thing is,” Liana continued, after giving me far too many details of her sex life. “I really like him. I have for a while. I think I told you about him ages ago; he works in the accounting department at the office next door to where I work, so we run into each other a fair bit. We’ve had this flirtation thing going on forever, so it felt like last night had been coming for a very long time.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I know what you’re thinking; I always fall for guys and then lose interest. But this time it really is different. I’ve liked him for ages, and when I heard that Tom actually knows him too and was inviting him to the masquerade party, it was like…well, basically, last night just made it even worse. I actually want to be with this guy, like proper boyfriend and girlfriend.”

  I smiled as I sipped on my latte, and Liana’s expression turned dreamy as she continued. “So what did you think of him? Cute, right?”

  “I didn’t actually get to see his face because you were kissing it all night,” I said. “Plus he had that Zorro mask on.”

  She laughed and nodded. “True.”

  “Anyway, how did you leave things this morning? I was already asleep when you got back with him last night, a
nd I was still asleep this morning when he left, I think.”

  “Yeah, you were dead to the world,” she said. ”Anyway, he said he wanted to see me again, but he would have to call me to organize a date. Do you think that’s bad? Like, why couldn’t we have just figured something out this morning before he left?”

  “Well, did you actually exchange numbers? And have you heard anything from him today?”

  “Yeah, he sent me one text, but that’s it.”

  “Okay, well, even just one text is a good sign.”

  I wasn’t sure if the UK dating rules were the same as what I was used to back home, and I didn’t exactly have much experience with guys either way, so I really wasn’t the best person to ask for advice, but Liana needed to talk, so I decided that being upbeat was my best option. She obviously already had a seed of doubt in her mind, and I didn’t need to be negative and make it worse.

  “I’m sure it’ll all work out. I bet you’ll be on a date with him by next week!” I added with a grin.

  “Yeah, I hope so…” Liana trailed off, and then her face brightened. “Anyway, back to what we were talking about earlier—don’t worry about it being awkward living with Jace. He’ll probably annoy you for a while and then move on to the next girl he feels like screwing with. He’s a bit like that.”

  I felt a twinge of sadness at that news, but I didn’t let it show. “Oh?” I said, putting on my best ‘I don’t really care’ voice.

  “Yeah, I think so. I mean, I don’t actually know him all that well. I’ve only met him a few times over the years. I mostly just know about him from stuff Tom’s told me.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  “Yeah. Tom went to high school with him, and apparently he was a really nice guy for most of their time there. Studious and helpful. He was the guy who was friends with everyone. But something must have changed around about the time they were in sixth form, because he suddenly became this massive douchebag man-whore, shagging just about everyone, and throwing these crazy parties.”

  After today’s encounter with Jace, I could definitely picture the ‘douchebag’ part of that story being true, but the rest? I couldn’t believe people had once described Jace as ‘studious and helpful’, and I couldn’t picture that earlier high school version of him at all.

  “Anyway, after sixth form he apparently moved to Manchester for uni, then….I don’t know. All I know is he’s back in London now.”

  “Yeah, he told me he dropped out of uni and moved to Edinburgh for a while, and only came back to London a week ago.”

  “I wonder why he dropped out of uni. He might’ve been a party animal, but he was still a really smart guy.”

  “Hmm…yeah.”

  Who the hell was Jace Wilde? To me, he’d gone from sexy stranger to douchebag soon-to-be stepbrother in the short time I’d known him, and to others, he’d gone from a good guy to man-whore party animal within the last couple of years. So who was the real Jace? Asshole or nice guy?

  And why did I even care?

  ***

  By the time I was home at the manor and finally finished unpacking most of my clothes, I was still confused as all hell about Jace and any feelings I might have towards him, and it suddenly hit me just how tired I was. I was pretty sure that I was still a little bit hungover from the night before, and the only way to deal with that was going to be to sleep it off, even though it was still very early in the evening.

  I climbed into my new king-sized bed, luxuriating in the soft Egyptian cotton sheets beneath me. I wasn’t used to sleeping in this kind of luxury, and I was enjoying it far more than I cared to admit. I’d never wanted to be one of ‘those’ people who cared too much about money, but I finally understood why people were willing to pay extra for high thread counts and huge beds with memory foam mattresses. It was like sleeping on a cloud.

  I flicked the TV on the other side of the room on, switching to a random chick flick which I intended to watch for a while as I rested, but before the opening sequence had even finished, I was already fast asleep.

  I knew I was dreaming as soon as I pictured Jace and I locked in a passionate embrace, and it was nice to be able to act on my feelings without any worries about consequences, because it wasn’t real. I was perfectly aware that it was still wrong, but at the same time, it was fine for me to fantasize over in my own little dream world.

  The kissing quickly turned into something more and we began to run our hands over each other’s bodies, slowly at first, then frantically as we stripped each other. His stubble rubbed my chin, sending little frissons of excitement through me as goose bumps broke out on my bare arms, and I moaned into his mouth as he suddenly picked me up and carried me to an enormous bed.

  Before I knew it, we were both naked and he’d slipped inside of me, hard and fast. He slid out and grabbed my arms a moment later, rolling me over, and the next minute, I was riding him like there was no tomorrow, losing myself in all of the sensations coursing through me. I held my hands steady on his hard chest as I straddled him, building up to a crescendo as moans spilled from my lips. For a moment all I could hear was the slapping sound of skin against skin as I bounced up and down on him, and I bit my lip as heat rushed to my core.

  Just as I was on the brink of having the most intense orgasm ever, the door burst open, and Mom and Gerald came in, screaming and shouting at us, telling us that we’d ruined their wedding with our antics. Their yelling became louder and louder until I had to cover my ears to stop my head from exploding out of sheer shame.

  I sat up in my bed, suddenly more wide awake than I’d ever been in my life. All of the confusing and conflicting emotions from my dream were still whirling around inside of me, and I was horny and ashamed of myself all at once. It almost felt like the dream had actually happened.

  I glanced down at the bedside clock to see that it was only a quarter past two in the morning, and I groaned. Why was I awake so early? It was then that I remembered that I’d actually fallen asleep at about six P.M., so it made sense for me to be waking up around this time. Dammit. I tossed and turned in my bed for a while, trying desperately to get back to sleep before giving up and deciding to go and get a glass of water. I stepped down onto the warm floor—Gerald actually had floor heating installed under the floorboards in the bedrooms, something I’d always assumed was a myth before moving here—and shuffled across my room. Now that I was standing, I realized that I was still foggy-headed and very tired, so I figured that once I’d had some water, I’d probably be able to fall right back to sleep.

  I quietly pushed open my bedroom door and crept towards the stairwell, rubbing my weary eyes, and when I eventually opened them, I spotted a strange shadow on the ground. My heart practically leapt into my throat at the sight, and I allowed my eyes to travel up the shadow to find out what it was attached to.

  Then I saw it. Or rather…I saw her.

  A ghostly-pale woman clad in a flimsy white gown stood under the moonlight, staring at me with wide dark eyes. It wasn’t my Mom, and it definitely wasn’t one of the manor maids, seeing as none of the staff lived on site. So who—or what—the hell was she?

  As I stared back at the woman, my mind instantly reflected on every single horror movie I’d watched at all the girly sleepovers I used to have with my friends back home, and my mouth went dry as I recalled the few movies we’d seen that were about haunted old English manors. My heart seemed to stop beating for a few seconds, my limbs started to tremble and I felt my body collapse from underneath me, hitting the floor hard. I was shaking with horror, my chest constricting under the weight of it.

  I knew it was probably all a dream, because there was no such thing as creepy manor ghosts, but it was a dream I couldn’t wake up from. I could hear a horrible shrieking noise, a shrill sound that painfully burst through my eardrums, and I clamped my hands over my ears and squeezed my eyes shut, willing it all to be over. Then I realized that the screaming was coming from me, and I opened my eyes again, only to see that the woman
was gone and the hallway was totally empty.

  So that was that, then. One day of living under the same roof as Jace Wilde, and I’d officially lost my damn mind.

  Chapter 6

  Jace

  I didn’t arrive home until about seven, not because I’d changed my mind and taken Roy up on his offer to get high and hammered, but because I’d needed some time to do some thinking. First, I’d gone for a walk around the streets near the pub, still trying to shake Rayna and Roy from my mind, and when that failed to work, I headed to the closest gym to do some weights and cardio. Working up a sweat always made me feel better and helped me think clearly, and as I’d been pumping weights, it became obvious to me that Roy had just been lashing out at me. This wasn’t our first argument, and it was unlikely that it would be our last. I would just have to speak to him when we’d both calmed down; try to discuss his party-hard drug habits when he wasn’t in such a bad mood.

  After this revelation, I’d headed to my favorite place in the whole damn city—24 Hour Books, a bookshop that really was open twenty-four hours a day. It had everything and anything you could ever want. Despite what everyone thought about me, I loved reading. This had been obvious to everyone when I was growing up—I’d been pretty studious in school—but when some of the other guys started to tease me for being a nerd, I started to hide it, as if it was something that I should be ashamed of. I soon found alcohol and got distracted by girls, and ever since then, I’d kept my reading habits hidden, like it was some sort of shameful vice.

  One of my tattoos was actually a quote from one of my favorite dystopian books—a quote which said ‘Be only you’. I always told people it was a line from a rock song, and no one ever questioned that, but really it was said by the most badass character of all time, Billy-Joe from World’s Over. All of my tattoos meant something important to me, but this was one of my favorites. It was on my wrist, and I looked at it every time I needed to smile. The fact that no one knew what it meant apart from me made it even better.