Authors: Astrid Lee Donovan
When I woke up the next day, my head was slightly blurry with my hangover, but my main source of worry came from the memory of what Mitch and I had done last night. Jesus. My body filled with a mixture of horror and arousal as I remembered the way his fingers felt inside me, the way his body moved gently against my own. Arousal, because it had been one of the best orgasms I’d had in years and my body wasn’t going to let me forget it soon, and horror, because it was my fucking stepbrother who’d given it to me. I wondered if he was lying across the hall, thinking the same thing. Some part of me just wanted to forget the whole thing, to pretend it had never happened, because that would be a whole lot less complicated than facing up to my stepmother’s son and telling him that actually, I kinda liked him, and did he like me to? Not to mention what would happen if we told our parents about it- I’m sure Eva would have a field day. She’d probably do some kind of study just on us.
I swung my legs out of bed, adjusting my old high school pyjama top so that it didn’t show any cleavage. The last thing I wanted was for Mitch to be ogling me over breakfast. Though I prayed he’d be a little more discreet than that.
I walked through to the kitchen, plastering a big grin on my face, and managed a chirpy “good morning!” Eva looked up from her paper, and shot me a big grin.
“How are you doing today, Zoe? Not too hungover?”
“No, not too bad. Why, how’s Mitch?” I noticed he wasn’t at the table. Was he avoiding me? I wouldn’t have blamed him.
“No, he’s off meeting some of his cousins from the train station. He’s been up since early, very restless. Must be the party.” She shrugged, and turned back to her paper. My dad poured me out a cup of coffee and handed it to me.
“You’re the last one up, Zoe, lazybones. But that’s okay, I could probably use some big strong muscles like yours to put up the gazebo?” He offered. I knew that he and Eva liked to keep busy whenever they threw big family gatherings, as it was a way to avoid the stress of actually spending time with their relatives, whether they would admit it or not.
I took my coffee, and shook my head. “Sorry, Dad. You’ll have to try Mitch and the cousins for that one. I’m firmly on buffet duty with Eva.” I place a hand on her arm and grinned at her. “Even though you should clearly be getting catering in.”
“Catering my backside,” she replied curtly, “If I can do it myself, I’m not going to pay someone else good money to do it for me.”
I held my hands up. “Can’t argue with that logic.”
“So, Mitch and I on the gazebo, you two on food, and the four of us trying to hold everything together. Sound good?” My dad held his thumbs up at us, looking for some encouragement.
“Sounds good,” I nodded back, secretly relieved that I wouldn’t be spending the day outside with Mitch and my dad.
And it turned out that hiding out in the kitchen with Eva was a lot of fun. I didn’t get much of a chance to cook back home, and I took my time icing cupcakes, rolling pigs in blankets, and trying to keep my hangover at bay. Munching on piles of tiny greasy snacks proved helpful, even if I was worried about fitting into the dinner dress I’d purchased for the occasion - after all, you could never be sure when the man of your dreams would turn up, right? That’s what I’d told myself when I packed it, even though I hadn’t really envisioned the man of my dreams being Mitch at the time.
Slowly, the whole family began to arrive - Eva’s brothers and sisters, my cousins and Aunt Paula, as well as a handful of family friends and neighbours. It was one of the reasons I looked forward to coming home so much - just the buzz of people and smell of home cooking was enough to make me feel relaxed. And I missed socialising with people who weren’t in my brilliant but cliquey advertising social circle, people who didn’t have any of the pretentions of the city. It was kind of a relief to be able to throw off the shackles of my day-to-day working life and just be my old-school self again.
I excused myself from some chat with Mitch’s cousin Mike to go get changed, my heart spinning with anticipation. After all, this wasn’t exactly how I’d seen the night going. I actually had someone to dress up for, no matter if that person was actually sort of my stepbrother. Sliding the floaty halter neck over my body, I looked at myself as the fabric drifting down over my legs, hitting just below the knee. Grabbing a brush from my bag and quickly running it through my hair, I parted my highlighted blonde locks down the middle and arranged them so that they fell artfully down to my breasts. Slicking on a spot of dark plum lipstick, I took a step back and inspected myself in the mirror. Yeah, this was about as far as I was going to get from sitting around in my pyjamas cooking all day.
I hadn’t really spoken to Mitch all afternoon- for whatever reason, he’d always been coming in just as I was going out, even if we did exchange secret little looks in the meantime. I didn’t know want I wanted to say to him, but I knew it was important, and I felt like he had me on his mind too. How could we not be thinking about last night? After ten years spent half-liking each other, we went, over the course of an evening, to fooling around on the sofa. That kind of stuff doesn’t just happen. It needed working out, and there wasn’t anyone I could talk about it with other than Mitch. My friends would assume I was kidding if I called them up, and I obviously couldn’t bring this problem to my immediate family. They’d freak out, and anyway, it would distract attention from the point of the gathering - the celebrate Eva and Dad’s anniversary.
I stepped back out into the hall, catching my Dad’s eye as he came in from the barbecue outside.
“Zoe! You look lovely. Are you having a good time?” He asked as he approached me to give me a peck on the cheek. I could smell a hint of beer on his breath, but I wasn’t going to begrudge him his good time, especially when I knew that Eva (who was a teetotaller) would be watching like a hawk in front of the grill to make sure none of her food got ruined.
“Thanks Dad. And yes, I am, though I could do with something to eat!” I linked my arm through his and allowed him to lead me outside, where there were some twenty people milling around, holding on to paper plates towering with the food I’d helped prepare. My heart leapt into my throat as I saw Mitch - he was wearing smart jeans and a blazer, engaged in some serious conversation with my Dad’s sister. No doubt she was trying to set him up with one of my cousins, as she always did. I approached briskly, hoping to intercept the conversation before Paula became too married to the idea of how cute Mitch and Jas would look together.
“Hey, Paula,” I greeted my aunt, wrapping an arm around her waist. “Do you mind if I steal Mitch for a minute?”
“I think he was about to make his toast, dear!” Paula exclaimed, and I glanced up at Mitch who was staring down at me apologetically.
“Yeah, I promised Mom.”
“Cool!” I nodded. I saw Mitch’s eyes travel down my body, taking in my generous cleavage and the hint of leg I was showing off in strappy sandals.
“Maybe I could just wait ten minutes. After all, no-one’s going anywhere soon, and I don’t want to distract anyone from Mom’s food…” Mitch placed an arm around my shoulders, guiding me back inside, back to my room. My heart was pounding. I recognised that lusty look in his eyes from last night, and I had a pretty good idea of where this was going.
Pulling the door shut to give us some privacy, Mitch slid his arms around my waist and pulled me close to him, growling in my ear as he ran his nose along my skin.
“God, you look so fucking hot, Zoe.”
I reached up to pull his face in line with mine. “So, about that talk…?”
“Oh, fuck the talking. If you want this, I want this, and we can figure out the particulars later on.” His voice was harsh and serious, and I wondered if I was seeing the side of Mitch that had everyone in his college falling over him. I assumed so - after all, who could say no to that voice, that face? Grasping my face between his hands, he kissed me, his mouth firm and urgent on mine. This wasn’t like last night, where we’d had time to luxuriate in each other - this was a time-pressure situation, and it was totally hot. We were still standing up when I felt his hand undoing the halter at the back of my dress, letting it fall to the floor around my feet.
He pulled away to look at me, biting his lip as he ran his strong hand down from my collarbone to my waist, brushing across my exposed nipples. “All this time, I thought you were just some corporate college-grad without an adventurous bone in your body…”
“Hey!” I snapped. Sure, I hadn’t exactly thought the most flattering things about him before this had happened either, but I didn’t announce them to him.
“…But here you are about to have a quickie in the middle of a party.” He qualified his statement, and my heart leapt when I realized that I was right - we were seriously about to fuck for the first time. It felt both weird and appropriate that we were doing it in my old bedroom, but I didn’t have time to linger on that thought for long as Mitch began to strip off in front of me.
I watched, mesmerised, as he took off his shirt and jeans, revealing a toned, taut body that I never would have expected from him. I stepped forward, nervous, and ran my hands across his arms, feeling the muscle under my fingers. He shivered slightly, and I giggled, feeling a little intoxicated by the desire he felt for me. I had never felt more wanted in all my life as he wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me against him, nothing but his boxers between me and his ever-growing cock.
Reaching down, I slid my hand in his underwear, wrapping my fingers around the impressive girth of his erection. His hands found my ass, groping and grabbing at the flesh beneath the thin layer of my cotton panties- it felt so good to just
feel
each other, to feel our hands touching and caressing and enjoying each other’s flesh. Being this intimate with Mitch was still kind of a shock, but feeling his thick cock in my hand made it that much more real. Dropping to my knees, I removed his erection from his trousers, allowing my breath to dance over his sensitive head before I swirled my tongue around him and took him into my mouth.
He let out a soft moan, a sound that seemed to echo through my head, as I held him inside me, moving my tongue up and down his shaft and feeling his eight inches swell even stiffer. Reaching down to caress his balls, I felt his hand in my hair, guiding me down further, until his cock hit the back of my throat. He slowly flexed his hips, sliding back and forth in my mouth as my tongue fluttered across his cock head. As I got into the task, I slid a hand down between my legs, suddenly taking notice of the needy pressure building in
my
groin.
He opened his eyes and glanced down, seeing my hand in my panties. “Oh, so it’s like that, is it?”
Before I had a chance to ask him what he meant, he had pulled me to my feet and spun me around so that I was half bent-over my bed. He ripped my panties down, and I heard the rip of foil behind me. Holy shit, we were about to fuck. I arched my back to allow him easier access to my pussy, my heart thumping and my palms sweating with anticipation. Was I this horny because I hadn’t had sex in a while, or because I knew it was Mitch about to screw me? A little from column A and a lot from column B, I surmised, as he positioned his head at the entrance to my slit. Maybe it was the forbidden nature of our encounter, but I couldn’t remember a time when I’d felt more turned-on.
“Ready?” He asked gently.
I could only manage a nod again, as he slowly eased himself into my pussy. Jesus, he was big - I could feel myself stretching to accommodate him, my sex balancing between pain and pleasure as he fed the whole of his impressive cock into me. He held himself inside me for a moment, as if savouring the feeling, and then he began to move.
“Play with yourself, Zoe. Just like you were when you were sucking my dick. I want to feel you come on me.”
His words were harsh, but it was that harshness that made me so keen to obey him. I reached down and began to circle my clit again, the external stimulation combining with the internal in a way that I’d never felt before. Fuck, this was good. No matter how much I wanted to hang on to this sweet, frustrating pleasure, I could feel my orgasm growing within me. I tried to grind my hips back into his cock, desperate to feel him deeper, harder, anything that would tip me over the edge. Pressing down hard on my clit, I let out a groan, and felt my pussy clench around his thick erection.
“Ah!” I heard him cry from behind me, as he slammed his hips against mine one more time, pushing himself deep inside me and gripping on to my tits with his hands. I felt his cock twitch as he reached his climax, before he slowly pulled himself out, releasing his grip on my body. Exhausted, I flopped forward on to the bed, all my panic and stress and wondering about today lost for a moment. Nothing mattered in those few seconds we spent post-orgasm, our bodies thankful for each other.
Chapter Five
“Shit, the speech!” His words broke my reverie as he hastened to gather his clothes together and get back outside. I sprang up too, wondering how long we’d been gone, and grabbed for my dress. Had anyone heard us? No one would suspect anything was going on, would they? We couldn’t have been gone more than twenty minutes. Surely. Oh, crap.
I hastily dressed myself, demanding that Mitch wait for me so I wouldn’t have to out there in my just-fucked state and face my family. He was hopping up and down at the door, waiting for me, when I finally got my dress done up and hurried to meet him. Even in the panic, I couldn’t help but notice how good he looked, and his eyes softened before I could get the door open. He leant down and pressed a kiss against my lips, before slowly drawing back as if he was savouring the taste of me.
“I’ve wanted to do that since I saw you yesterday,” he smiled shyly, in a most un-Mitch-like fashion. Was he giving me the whole romance thing I’d been so firmly sure he couldn’t? The butterflies in my stomach certainly agreed. Before I could linger on that thought any longer, I hurried him out the door, getting him to the garden just in time for my Aunt Paula to triumphantly shout, “here he is!”
Eva grabbed Mitch’s arm, handed him a small glass of champagne, and stepped back to let him do his speech, even though he was still a little out of breath. For once, I was actually looking forward to one of Mitch’s traditional family speeches, the kind that came at every gathering because he was the best out of all of us at public speaking. Raising his glass, he waited patiently for the hubbub in the garden to die down a little. Soon, all eyes were on him, and he began to speak.
“So, we’re all here today to celebrate the tenth wedding anniversary of my dear Mom, Eva, and her husband George,” he began, nodding at Eva and my Dad, who were standing hand in hand a few feet away. “I guess I was always meant to hate my step-father, but I just didn’t have it in me, old man.” My Dad smiled broadly.
“I want to keep this quick, because I’m sure we all want to get back to our drinking and our big piles of barbecue that my mom will be furious over if we don’t finish every bite. So, congratulations George and Eva. You’re proof that sometimes the people we love turn up when we need them most, in the most unexpected of circumstances, whether it’s after divorce, or a decade of knowing each other.” His eyes darted to me, and I felt a surge of affection suddenly move through my body. He continued. “Without you, I wouldn’t have the extended family I have in front of me today, and for that, thank you both.”
He nodded and smiled, taking a sip of his champagne, and shot a look over at me once the applause had died down. I looked back at him, trying to figure out what the feelings exploding across my entire body were trying to tell me. But I thought I already had a pretty good idea.
I’m not saying it was the easiest thing ever, dating my stepbrother who lived several states away, but we made it work. We kept things quiet at first, flying out to see each other whenever we could, until he found a decent job designing comic book covers in my city. He moved out to be nearer to me, and soon we were dating just like any other couple, even if we did tend to be quiet about how we met.
And yes, we did eventually tell our parents. I think Eva had suspected for quite a while, because she didn’t seem all that shocked by the revelation, but either way they both took it surprisingly well. I think they were just stunned that we hadn’t gotten together sooner, all things considered.
And so that was that - Mitch and I fell in love. It seemed appropriate that the first time we’d connected was at a tenth anniversary party, especially now that we were heading for two years together. One thing we were always very careful not to mention, though? The fact that we hooked up halfway through a family barbecue. Because no matter how close you are to your relatives, there’s some stuff they don’t want to hear.
THE END