Despite the deep ache in my core, I jerk my hand out from between my legs and wipe my fingers on the sheets without even thinking.
When I sit up, wetness oozes out of me, soaking my already drenched underwear. I glance over at the nightstand and grab my phone, sighing in relief when I see I still have two hours before I need to wake up.
With a groan, I fall back in bed and manage—somehow—to fall asleep again.
I don’t know what triggers these dreams, but I really wish they’d go away. They’re making things very complicated. And I have no idea what I’m going to do if they don’t stop.
Chapter 3
Jude
My eyes skate over the Range Rover’s console, and I shake my head when I see the time. This is bullshit. She’s ten minutes late. I open the car door and stalk over the drive to our Georgian-style estate.
Trust her to make me wait. Never mind the fact that I’m doing her a favor taking her to school. Never mind that I barely got any sleep last night, because she was playing her music so fucking loud.
If she’s busy preening in front of the mirror, I swear she’s walking to school.
She can’t hear me from the kitchen, so I sprint up the stairs. On the landing, I call out, “Harper?” a second before I knock on her bedroom door. It swings open to an empty room. Her en-suite bathroom door is open a crack. Steam and the sound of running water spills out.
She’s still in the fucking shower?
Every cell in my body is telling me to leave her behind, to go to school, to let her get herself out of this fucking mess. But even if we leave now, we’ll both be late regardless of how many traffic signs I blow through. And as much as I hate myself—and her—for it…my father gave me a direct command. He wouldn’t hesitate to take away my car.
He’s done it before.
I hurry over to the bathroom and push open the door. I expect her to be in the shower, a pane of frosted glass between us and some steam for good measure. What I didn’t expect was to see her palm pressed against the glass. Or to hear her soft pants.
Air swirls around from the opening door, shifting some of the steam that had been shielding her from me. I catch a perfect snapshot of her naked body, one hand shoved between her legs, her head thrown back as if she’s on the cusp of a climax.
I start backing out of the bathroom, but I’m not fast enough. Harper turns to the glass and presses her forehead against it as her body shudders, a muted, “Fuck,” escaping from her lips.
Then, as if she senses eyes on her, her lashes flutter open and those hypnotic blue eyes fix on me. “Jude?” she squeals, throwing an arm across her breasts, the hand between her legs clamping over her pussy. “What the hell are you doing?”
Watching you rub one off, princess.
I drop my eyes, letting out a muffled, “Christ,” as I clap a hand over my eyes. Pointless when I already have a Polaroid of this moment seared into my mind for eternity. I turn my back. “You’re late,” I tell her evenly.
She stutters out, “And that gives you the right to barge in here like that?” I hear her snapping a towel off the rails before she barks, “Get out!”
“If your ass isn’t in my passenger seat in the next sixty seconds, I’m leaving without you.”
I’m halfway across her bedroom when she slams the bathroom door closed.
A minute later she sprints out the manor’s front door and races over to my Range Rover. She has her backpack in one hand, her shoes in the other. Her white school shirt is buttoned up all wrong and not even tucked into her pleated gray skirt. She winces when she slams the passenger door closed behind her.
“Seat belt,” I mutter.
She bites her lip and eases her backpack to the floor between her feet before putting on her seat belt.
“Next time you want to get off before school, wake up earlier.”
“Fuck off, perve.”
I chuckle at the dark look she gives me before she starts prepping herself. I watch her progress from the corner of my eye, a sour grimace carved onto my mouth. She’s silent the entire ride except for the occasional rustle of clothes or huff of breath as she puts on her shoes, re-buttons her shirt, drags her wet hair away from her neck, and subdues it into a ragged ball on the top of her head.
I expect makeup to appear next, but either she forgot it at home, or she’s decided not to risk taking out an eye as I race us to school. Christ, I can’t stop thinking about what I saw back there. It’s all kinds of wrong, but at that moment, she wasn’t my stepsister. She was just a good-looking girl getting off in the shower. It’s the kind of thing wet dreams are made of.
Minutes from school, my curiosity gets the better of me. “So how often do you rub one off?”
She freezes in the act of rummaging through her backpack. Hopefully still looking for her makeup. “Mind your own business.”
“Because it kinda looked like you knew what you were doing.” We stop at an intersection, and I lean to the side without looking at her, taking a loud sniff from the air. “And you fucking reek.”
“Fuck you,” she mumbles.
Through some small miracle, we arrive at school seconds before the homeroom bell.
Harper’s got her backpack in her lap, ready to go, but starts fumbling with the seatbelt, trying to get it to unlock.
“Didn’t have those back in the trailer park?” I ask quietly.
She lets out a frustrated growl and turns her face away when I lean back inside the car, grab her buckle, and unlock it. She smooths back a hank of hair that’s escaped the messy prison on top of her head.
I open her door in case she starts fumbling with that too. But before she can climb out I grab the roof of the car with one hand and lean in close, forcing her to make eye contact. “I’ve got practice till three. You’ll have to keep yourself busy until then.” When she says nothing, I grin at her. “That won't be a problem for you though, right?”
Crimson stains her cheeks, and her blue eyes narrow with anger. “Lay off, would you?”
I pat her cheek. “See you later, Sis.”
Chapter 4
Harper
My first day at school goes as well as expected. My homeroom teacher calls me “Harpy” Dearth by accident, which I just know is going to stick like shit on Velcro. I get lost on my way to my first class and piss off my science teacher, Mr. Monroe. But no day is complete without a little trauma, like spilling a cup of coffee all over my brand-new white school shirt, turning it transparent so everyone can see the black bra I stupidly decided to wear.
So while I’d promised myself when I arrived at Dearth Manor and saw my gorgeous new house and my perfect new family that I was going to change, that I was already a new person…
I guess I wasn’t ready to turn over a new leaf just yet.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
Wine slops over my hand as I jerk in surprise. I’m in the manor’s pool house. I had to wait around until Jude had finished football practice, and we’ve been home like ten minutes. I didn’t figure he’d already be fucking stalking me.
I don’t turn to the door. “Leave me alone, Jude.”