Chapter 1: Drake

Sunday night family dinner has become a torture I look forward to. Four months of watching my stepsister across the table, telling myself I shouldn’t notice how her hair catches the light.

Tonight feels different. I pour another whiskey at the bar by the foyer, hands unsteady. I’ve drafted five different texts offering to fix something in her apartment: delete, delete, delete. What kind of man uses checking cabinet hinges as an excuse? The kind who should know better.

I wait in the bar by the foyer. Not suspicious, this is where I always retreat before these dinners. Dad’s estate is massive enough that I’ve never moved out. My own wing. My own entrance.

An entrance no one would see her use. If she wanted to.

Which she shouldn’t. And I shouldn’t want her to. God, she’s twenty-one. I’m forty. When I look at her mother—my father’s wife, for Christ’s sake—all I see is someone my own age. Someone appropriate. When I look at Marie, I see... well, what am I saying? I shouldn’t be looking at all.

I hear the front door and nearly drop my glass. My father’s estate echoes with her laugh. Bright, warm.

Innocent.

Her heels click on the marble and she heads straight for the bar. She’s on her cell phone with someone, laughing at something. Her waist-length blonde hair falls around her shoulders in satin waves.

My eyes lock onto her big, icy blue ones as she mouths the word ‘whiskey.’ That grin of hers lights up the whole damn room. I give her a slow nod, already pouring two fingers of the good stuff into a glass. The sound of her laughter is doing things to me I shouldn’t be feeling right now.

‘Bad girl,’ I mouth back, holding up the glass with a playful smirk. Jesus, she’s wearing that dress again. The one that makes it impossible to think straight. It’s white with the sides cut out, showing off her impossibly tiny waist. At five-foot-three, she’s so small compared to me.

The dress is tight across her petite chest and flares around her ample hips and cute, round ass. I think way too much about her body. It’s a perfect, petite pear shape, with a little more meat on her lower body than the top. Like the universe knew I was a small-tits-big-ass man and made a girl just for me.

I slide the whiskey across the bar as she wraps up her call, my voice low when she finally hangs up. “You’re early. Dad and Ariana aren’t even back from their wine club yet.” Perfect. More time alone with her. “How was your week, kid?”

She settles onto the vinyl bar stool beside me, and her elbow brushes mine, it sends a current through me I have to actively ignore. “Sorry, uh, my week? It was busy. Finals week, you know?” she says, and I swear I catch a flush creeping up her neck—fuck, she’s not as immune to this as she pretends to be.

My voice stays low, controlled. “You look like you survived it.” I let my eyes drift over her, slower than I should. 

I knock back half my whiskey, needing the burn. “You know, I was thinking... your place is near campus, right? Older building?” Here we go. “I could swing by tomorrow. Check your locks, windows. Winter’s coming. Wouldn’t want my favorite stepsister freezing.”

“I’m your only stepsister, Drake,” she says low with a chuckle, “but yeah, actually I’ve been meaning to text you. There’s a light flickering in my kitchen. It’s one of those fluorescent ones, so I don’t know how to change it.”

I lean back against the bar, my grin widening. Her mention of the flickering light is exactly the opening I wanted—though part of me wishes she’d needed something that required more time.

“Fluorescent ballast, probably. Easy fix.” I swirl the remaining whiskey in my glass. “I can come by after my site walk-through tomorrow. Around five? Shouldn’t take more than an hour... unless you want me to look at anything else while I’m there.”

My voice drops on the last part, just enough to make it a question with layers. I think she picks up on it because she looks away and grins.

“Oh, well, we have a maintenance man for major stuff. It takes him forever though.” She finally sips her whiskey, wincing a little at the burn. She’s still not used to good alcohol. God it’s fucking cute, that tiny reaction makes me want to wrap my hand around the back of her neck.

Jesus. Down, boy.

“Maintenance man,” I repeat, my voice edged with amusement. “Right. But does he bring booze?” I take her glass, pour a splash of water into it without asking—she’ll thank me later. “Five o’clock tomorrow. I’ll bring tools and something milder. Something you won’t wince at.”

My thumb brushes hers as I slide the diluted whiskey back. The contact is deliberate this time. She takes the smallest bit of her lower lip into her mouth. I almost don’t catch it. It almost undoes me.

“Five o’clock,” she says, finally bringing her pretty eyes back to mine. “I’ll make us dinner… if you can stay, I mean.”

My thumb is still touching hers, and I don’t pull away.

“Dinner.” The word comes out some kind of rough. “Yeah, I can stay.”

I force myself to release her hand, reaching for my whiskey instead. The guilt is already creeping in—twenty-one, my stepsister, my father’s new family—but her eyes are pulling me under.

“Don’t go through any trouble. I’m easy.” I knock back the rest of my drink, watching her over the rim.

“It’s no trouble, Drake. It’s the least I can do, you’re helping me out.” She says it with a bright smile that I swear is a little wicked. It hits me right in the chest.

“You’re playing a dangerous game, Marie,” I murmur, my voice low enough that only she can hear. When her eyes widen, I clear my throat and look away, “I mean, I might start thinking you actually want me around.”

“I want you around,” she says in a low, sultry tone that’s going to replay in my head all night.

Shit.

“Drake? Marie? You here?” Marie’s mother, Ariana, shouts from the kitchen. Her and Dad must have returned from their wine club.

Shit.

“In here, Ariana!” I call out, but my voice doesn’t break the spell between us. Not yet.

I lean in close, my lips nearly brushing Marie’s ear. “Tomorrow,” I breathe. “Wear something nice.”

She bites her whole bottom lip this time.

I pull back, putting respectable distance between us just as her mother rounds the corner. The guilt slams into me like a truck. I’m forty years old, lusting after my stepsister while her mom—my father’s wife—walks in smiling.

“How was wine club?” I ask, my tone casual, but my knuckles are white around the glass I’m holding.

It’s going to be a long night.

The whole family is here now, but it feels like it’s just us—locked in a silent, dangerous conversation only we understand.