Copyright © 2014 by Sabrina Paige

Cover Model Lance Jones

Photograph by Shauna Kruse, Kruse Images and Photography

Cover Design by Cormar Covers

Interior graphics by tatiananna/depositphotos

This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity to real events, people, or places is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced or distributed in any format without the permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations used for review. If you have not purchased this book from Amazon or received a copy from the author, you are reading a pirated book.

All quotations used in this book are part of public domain works and/or translated copies existing in public domain. The author acknowledges the trademarked status of products referred to in this book and acknowledges that trademarks have been used without permission.

This book contains mature content, including graphic sex. Please do not continue reading if you are under the age of 18 or if this type of content is disturbing to you.

NOTE: All characters in the book are 18+ years of age, non-blood related, and all sexual acts are consensual.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Mailing List

Other Books By Sabrina Paige

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About the Author

For my husband. If I weren't married to you, how in the world would I be able to write a book called Prick? You are always inspirational.

For Emma, always. Hopefully this book will help defray some of the costs of your therapy as an adult.

For the authors and fans who have become my online family. I can't possibly thank you enough for your support...and for all the laughter along the way. I can't imagine that anyone has a more fun job than this. In particular, I owe Joanna Blake, Cora Brent, Jordan Marie, and Jess Peterson my undying thanks and gratitude for the copious amounts of nagging, feedback and ideas about the book, and for talking me down when I am freaking out.

Many thanks to Sabrina's Sirens for their tireless efforts and to the other fans who tell their friends about my books, and even hand-hold me as I navigate social media.

For my readers. I hope you have as much fun reading this as I had writing it.

That fucking prick.

A smirk spreads across his lips, the movement excruciatingly slow, almost as if he's not the least bit surprised to see me. He looks so satisfied with himself that it’s all I can do not to walk up to him and slap that stupid smug smile right off his face.

Instead, I stand there, my heart pounding so loudly in my chest I swear everyone in the room must be able to hear it. I'm frozen, paralyzed, staring at him like I'm some kind of idiot.

Caulter Sterling.

The devil incarnate.

A devil with the bluest damn eyes I've ever seen, right here in my father's house.

When Caulter directs those blue eyes toward me, I just know he can see right through me. I'm naked under his gaze, helpless to prevent the heat from rising to my cheeks as his eyes linger on me.

The only thing I can think about is the last time I saw him - the heat of his breath on my neck that made me practically writhe with the anticipation of him being inside me, the way he bit the edge of my lip when he kissed me that caused me to cry out, unsure if I was feeling pleasure or pain. When the tip of his cock pressed against my entrance, I winced and he gave me an odd look. “Shit, Princess, tell me you’ve done this before.”

I'd forced a laugh, tried to sound more casual than I felt. That was all it was -- casual. Hit it and quit it was Caulter's mantra. Unlike Caulter, I had exactly zero experience with that. I had been Little Miss Perfect my whole life -- 4.0 GPA, class president, valedictorian, the whole nine yards. The daughter of Senator Harrison. The Senator Harrison. There were certain expectations of me. Let's just say that no one -- at least no one normal -- was clamoring to date the daughter of the retired Marine Corps General. The same man who was expected to make a bid for President in the next few years.

And no one was trying to get in my pants. Except for Caulter Sterling, the bad boy who didn't give a damn about rules or expectations.

The week before graduation, I had made my decision. Enough was enough. I was eighteen, an adult. I was headed to Harvard in precisely ninety days, and I sure as hell wasn't arriving there with my virginity intact. I texted the one boy I knew would do the deed -- even if he was the only boy I truly couldn't stand.

Caulter moved slightly, the head of his cock pressed insistently against me. "Tell me, Princess," he whispered, his voice nearly a growl. "This isn't your first time, is it?"

"Of course it's not, jackass," I lied, my jaw set, forcing an assuredness I definitely didn't feel. "Are you going to screw me, or not?"

My father's voice cuts through the memory with military-like precision. "Katherine," he says. "You know Caulter Sterling."

Do I know Caulter Sterling? My cheeks feel like they are on fire. Surely everyone in here can see what is written all over my face. Do I know him? Only in the most Biblical of senses.

I know how he tastes.

I know how his cock feels as it slides into me.

I know how it feels when I come on him, digging my fingernails into his shoulders as I cling to his body like I'm afraid I'll be swept away.

The boy I'd lost my virginity to -- the same one to whom I'd mumbled an awkward "thanks" as I'd slipped out the door of the hotel the next day in what was inarguably the most awkward morning-after exchange in the history of mornings-after -- the boy I hadn’t spoken to since he did the deed two weeks ago -- is now standing in my fucking living room.

With my father.

In terms of embarrassing moments, this has to rank as one of the worst. A million thoughts are swirling around in my head. Does my father know? I wonder. No, he can't possibly. I try to reassure myself. My father would have already throttled him with his bare hands if he knew the debauched things Caulter had done to me that night. The thought of those things sends a rush of heat between my legs that I try to ignore.

"Yes." I choke out the word, my voice little more than a croak. "I know Caulter Sterling. Hello, Caulter."

"Hello, Harvard," Caulter says, his voice drawing out the word, lingering on it. His lips turn up on the edges. The image of him above me, those sweet lips millimeters from mine, flashes in my head as clear as day.

Standing there next to my oh-so-conservative father, Caulter pulls his lips into a smirk again. And winks. If there is such a thing as death by humiliation, I swear I am two seconds away from experiencing it.

"Of course you two know each other from Brighton," my father says, apparently oblivious to what has to be the now-scarlet color of my face.

I swallow hard and nod, willing the heat in my cheeks to subside. "Yes. Brighton."

"And you know Caulter's mother, Ella Sterling," he says.

I've been so focused on Caulter that I haven't even registered the other person in the room. Ella Sterling. Caulter's mother. She’s a huge movie star, a Hollywood icon. If I had met her in any other setting, I'd be star-struck right now.

Why are she and Caulter in my living room? I silently pray this is all about some kind of political fundraiser, even though that might require that I play nice with Caulter. You know you'd like to do more than just play nice with him. The thought jumps right into my head, unwanted, and I banish it.

"Hello, Katherine." Ella steps forward and extends her hand. She’s looking at me with the kind of affectionate expression you reserve for children and puppies, her eyes soft. "I've heard so much about you."

Before I can think about why she's looking at me the way she is, my father speaks, his tone staccato, clipped. Business as usual. "Ella and I have an announcement to make, and we want the two of you to hear it from us first."

Ella.

He’s using her first name. They’re on a first name basis.

Caulter's eyes are on me, but I can’t bring myself to look at him. Instead, I stand there paralyzed, afraid to draw in a breath, watching as Caulter's mother reaches for my father's hand and covers it with hers, then looks up at him, positively beaming.

Oh my God.

It’s like watching two trains moving in slow motion toward certain collision. I know what my father is going to say before he even says it, but I just can't bring myself to believe it.

"We've managed to keep this out of the press, but we're planning to make an announcement soon. And the two of you have been shielded from it at boarding school. That wasn't intentional on our part. We meant to tell each of you over the holidays, but it just didn't seem like the right moment." He clears his throat. "And you should know first."

No, no, no.

"This may come as a shock."

That’s the fucking understatement of the century.

"Ella and I have been seeing each other for some time. And we're getting married. It will be tasteful, respectful of your late mother, of course. But it will have to happen this summer, before the major campaign push."

Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. I’m screaming the words inside my head.

I’ve just lost my virginity to my new stepbrother.

I'm completely fucked.

I’m going to be sick. I feel dizzy, detached from the entire situation as if I'm watching it happen from outside of my body, the three of them lined up in front of me, waiting for me to respond. Like some kind of emotional firing squad.

Maybe I’ll faint, I think, matter-of-fact. The casualness with which I consider it almost makes me laugh. Except that the situation is essentially a tragedy, not a comedy.

I’ve only fainted once before. It was during one of my mother’s appointments. The word makes it sound like we were going to the hair salon or the spa, but it was her chemotherapy. I’d insisted on going, despite her protests that I needed to be in school, that I was in eighth grade and I’d soon have to compete for a spot at one of the prestigious private high schools in the DC area. It was obviously an excuse, her way of trying to shelter me. But even then, despite my parents’ attempts to hide the severity of my mother’s disease from me, and maybe from themselves, some part of me knew she was dying.

Do not pass out, I tell myself now. Not over this.

“It’s obviously a lot to take in,” my father says.

“Obviously,” I parrot, my voice sounding robotic.

My father clears his throat. “Caulter was just saying that he knows you well from school.”

I narrow my eyes at Caulter, hoping my murderous glare is enough to silence whatever the hell the unpredictable jackass is considering saying. Caulter's eyes crinkle at the edges, and the smirk makes me think he considers this entire situation a joke.

Oh shit. What if he knew about our parents before...what happened between us that night? The thought triggers a fresh wave of nausea.

“Brighton’s not exactly a big place,” Caulter says. “Everyone knows everything about everyone. It’s practically incestuous.”

Ella Sterling’s face blanches at the word, and my father clears his throat. If I weren’t so completely and entirely enraged with Caulter, I’d almost be amused by my father’s obvious discomfort. Senator Jed Harrison is not the kind of man around whom you casually toss words like incestuous.

“Caulter,” Ella says, her tone sharp. “Perhaps we should give Katherine and her father a moment.”

The last thing I want right now is a moment alone with my father. I don’t want to hear his explanation for why -- or how on earth -- he was able to keep a relationship with Ella Sterling completely under wraps from everyone, including his own daughter, for the past who-knows-how long. I definitely don’t want a reminder about the significance of his upcoming Senatorial re-election campaign. Or about the importance of decorum and public perception.

Oh my God, public perception. If anyone finds out what happened with Caulter… Before this announcement of my father's, it was just an ill-advised one night stand. A temporary lapse in judgment. My complete loss of sanity. Now, it’s suddenly….incestuous.

My chest feels tight, and I’m having trouble breathing. “I need a minute,” I say as I start to walk away, my body moving of its own accord. “Please.”

I don’t hear what they’re saying. I walk straight out of the room, past the tasteful colonial style furniture placed for show, not use, that matches the decor of the rest of this perfectly polished house. This is not the place where I grew up, the farmhouse in New Hampshire where I spent my childhood. This is the house where my father moved permanently after my mother died, the DC residence; I was shipped off to Brighton, an inconvenience that simply needed reassigned.

I open the first door I come to at the end of the hallway. It's my father's office, not the bathroom like I'm expecting, but I realize I can't remember where the bathroom is on the first floor. How stupid to not be able to remember where the bathroom is in your own house, I think. But, then, this isn't really my house.

I close the door behind me, sinking against it and shutting out the world, allowing the comfort of the silence to envelop me. The walls are lined with photo after photo of my father with politicians and important people, smiling for the camera and glad-handing, making deals and promises. And on the side of his L-shaped desk, prominently displayed like some kind of trophy, is a silver-framed photo of them. My father and Ella Sterling, their cheeks pressed together like two teenagers, grinning stupidly for the camera they're holding out in front of their faces.

I have the impulse to go over to the desk, to pick up the picture and smash it, to throw it to the ground and watch the glass shatter into a million pieces. But I don't. Katherine Harrison would never do something like that.

Of course, Katherine Harrison wouldn't have slept with someone like Caulter Sterling, either, with his tattoos and piercings and I don't give a fuck attitude. He blew into Brighton Academy like a damned tornado. His reputation preceded him, but Caulter was a force all on his own. Like some kind of unnatural phenomenon.

I was predisposed to hate him, but even if I hadn't known anything about him, I'd have despised him on sight, with his meticulously torn jeans and t-shirt with the design faded into oblivion in spots, smudged so it appeared vintage but was really some piece of designer schlock paid for by his mother who made all the money in the world. He reeked of angst and disdain for authority, and immediately offered my best friend Sara a private tour of his new dorm room. She declined and he'd laughed, then winked and made sure to extend the offer to me. If I could have rolled my eyes any harder, I would have sprained them.

Over the next two years, Caulter pretty much proved every prior tabloid article written about him right, racking up infraction after infraction at school -- underage smoking, drinking, drugs, girls in his room -- all of which were summarily swept under the rug, of course. Donations were made. It helped that Caulter’s insolence was intermittent; he was one of those guys who could charm the pants off anyone he wanted. Obviously, I mean that literally. Caulter made it through most of the females in the senior class -- not Sara, but I'm pretty sure if she weren't utterly devoted to her boyfriend, she would have jumped at the opportunity. The thing is, even when he showed up two years ago, Caulter had more of a reputation in the bedroom than he had outside of it. What he does with his tongue is the stuff of legend. The thought of him between my legs makes me flush.

The door moves behind me, jolting me out of my thoughts, which is a good thing because I don't need to be thinking about what happened between me and Caulter Sterling. The mere fact that I’ve lost my virginity to him is humiliating enough without even considering the current level of ridiculousness and drama that’s been added to it. Anyway, it's old news. Ancient history. So what if it was only ten days ago? It was one of those things that never should have happened in the first place.

I move away from the door, and it pushes open immediately. I brace myself for the inevitable imminent conversation with my father.

But it's not my father. It's Caulter. I exhale forcefully. I know I need to talk to him, but right this moment? Whatever I've done to incur this massive onslaught of karmic shit the universe is throwing at me, I resolve to fix it immediately.

"Hey, sis," he says, emphasizing the word as he closes the door behind him and leans against it. If he has an expression other than self-satisfied-smug-asshole, you'd never know it. He should be just as skeeved out as I am, but of course he's not. He's Caulter. This kind of thing would only add to his already sterling reputation.

"Don't call me that," I snap.

"Oh, but you heard daddy dearest, Princess," he says. "We're going to be siblings now."

"Don't be stupid," I say. Why do I have the urge to slap him whenever I'm around him? He opens his mouth, and it's like nails on a chalkboard.

Caulter laughs. "Shit," he says. "It must be hard going through life with that stick up your ass."

"Shut up," I hiss, narrowing my eyes. "Did you know about this before you and I...you know?"

He steps forward, away from the door, and stands inches from me, so close I can feel his breath warm the air between us. “You know…?” he says, his voice trailing off. “What are you asking, Princess?"

The blood rushes to my head. "Stop calling me that, Caulter," I say. "Or I'm going to start referring to you as shithead."

He leans closer to me, his mouth mere millimeters from my ear. "Well, you can call me Oh God," he says. "Like you did before. When we were...you know."

Fuck. Heat floods my face, and I put my hands on his chest, pushing him back. "Screw you, Caulter."

Laughing, he sweeps away the lock of sandy-colored hair that falls briefly over his forehead. "Nah, Harvard," he said. "You already did that. And as I recall, it involved a lot of you moaning...Oh God, right there, Oh God, Caulter, Caulter..." He mimics me, his tone high-pitched and breathy, the sound of his voice echoing through my father's office, amplified in the enclosed space.

What happens next is out of character. I don't even think about it before I do it. I just step forward and slap Caulter right across the side of his face, my palm landing against his cheek with a crack that reverberates through the room. I'm not sure who's more startled, him or me -- and I withdraw my hand like I just touched an electric outlet, backing away from him in horror.

I've never done something like that in my entire life. I can't believe I lost control. “I --” I begin. “I -- you’re being...a total asshole about this!”

Caulter brings his hand to his cheek and raises his eyebrows. “Yeah, sweetheart,” he says. “It’s me who's being a total asshole.”

“Did you know about our parents getting married, before?” I ask again.

“What, before you texted me and begged me to give you some of this?” He grabs his crotch.

“I didn’t exactly have to beg,” I say, my teeth clenched. “I don’t think anyone has to twist your arm to get the dick you dole out like it's candy.”

"You sure didn't have a problem sucking on it like it was made of fucking sugar," he says.

I can feel heat rise to my cheeks. "That is not how I sucked your --"

"What, Harvard?" he asks. "Are you going to tell me you don't remember how you wrapped those sweet little lips around my cock like it was the best thing you ever tasted?"

"I'm not even going to dignify that with a response." But my face is flushed, and I think I might be short of breath at the thought of Caulter's cock against my lips. No, I can't think about it. "It was temporary insanity. What happened between us never happened.”

“Don’t worry, Princess,” he says. “Our dirty little secret is safe with me. It’s already forgotten. You weren’t that memorable anyway.”

I bristle at his words. Not that memorable? I'm about to give Caulter a real piece of my mind when the door swings open behind him. He jumps out of the way, and for a moment my father stands in the doorway with Ella behind him, his brow wrinkled but just barely. My father is the consummate politician, unflappable. He’s the master of non-expression. If you didn't know him, you wouldn't know that the tiny wrinkle line that creases his forehead is a sign of irritation. My heart stops and I wonder if he knows, if it's written on me like some kind of badge of dishonor-- I fucked Caulter Sterling.

"Ah," my father says. "I was wondering where you'd disappeared to."

"The news is a lot to take in, I'm sure," Ella says, her voice gentle. She places her hand on my father's arm. "I'm sure the two of you probably want some time without the parental units around."

Caulter laughs, the sound bitter. "Yeah, right," he says. "I've had plenty of time with Little Miss Perfect here." He edges between my father and Ella, and they let him pass through the doorway, but Ella's eyes are wide.

"Caulter!" she says. "Don't be rude."

"Rude?" He's walking away, his back toward us. "That's fucking rich from two people who just sprung a whole marriage on their daughter, don't you think?"

Did he just say that they sprung a whole marriage on me? Like he knew about it before now?

The crease in my father's forehead deepens. "I won't tolerate -- "

Oh shit. I don't think my father fully appreciates what he's gotten himself into with Caulter. He thinks any issue can be cured with a good dose of discipline and some military-style physical training. If this conversation were happening with a five-years-younger Caulter, my father would have him outside running sprints and doing pushups until he couldn't hold himself up anymore. As it is, Caulter is an adult. I don't know if my father has a plan here.

Caulter stops. "Tolerate? Let's get something straight here. If you want to parade your own kid around in front of the cameras like she's some kind of trophy Stepford child, that's between you and her. But me? You don't get to walk into my life and expect me to pretend we're all some big happy family."

I hold my breath, waiting for my father's reaction. His temper rarely flares, but when it does, it's nuclear. Despite my complete and utter distaste for who Caulter is, I can't help but feel a twinge of smug satisfaction, hearing him talk to my father like that. No one talks to my father like that. Definitely not me. It almost feels like Caulter is taking up for me, even though I know he's not.

"Caulter Sterling," Ella says, her voice shaky. "We need to talk about this. I know you're upset, but -- "

Caulter interrupts. "Oh, and Senator?" he asks. "I'm sure you think that this is some kind of true love thing, but my mother doesn't exactly have a reputation for keeping men in her life. You might want to think about that." He doesn't look back, just walks down the hallway and I hear the front door slam.

Ella looks at me, and then at my father. She blinks slowly, once, twice, three times, and I immediately feel badly for her. She looks like she's trying desperately not to cry, and it's suddenly awkward, as I rack my brain to come up with something to say to make the situation less uncomfortable. As if that were fucking possible.

I clear my throat. "I'm sure -- I mean -- he's upset. I'm sure it'll be fine." My voice sounds strained. Why am I trying to console two people who just dropped a bombshell like this on their kids, expecting them to fall in line? I hate to admit it, but Caulter has a point. "Um. I'm going to just go upstairs." I squeeze past the two of them, heading up the stairs to my bedroom without waiting for a response.

Inside, I close the door behind me and sit on the bed, the bedspread a simple white color that accents the dark wood bedframe and desk. Everything in here is antique, matching the rest of the house, the photos on the walls carefully selected to display only the most shining moments of my life, all of the awards and things my father considers important.

This isn't my dorm room at Brighton, with its brightly colored bedding and collages with pictures of me and my friends plastered on the walls, the paintings I've done and the sketches of places that mean that most to me. I have a car full of stuff sitting outside in the driveway, the remnants of my high school life.

My best friend Sara is backpacking across Europe this summer with her boyfriend Dan. Come with us, she begged. It's your chance to go crazy before college starts in the fall. It's like a rite of passage. We'll get drunk and watch the sun come up in Rome.

I couldn't even consider the possibility of disappointing my father. I'm the always-dutiful daughter, the one who does what's expected of her. I know I live a charmed life -- the Senator father, private school education, headed to one of the best colleges in the country. But still, I can't help but feel a tiny bit sorry for myself, even if I know I'm having a pity party.

The walls already feel like they're closing in on me. I won't be at the DC home for long; I'll be back at the summer home in New Hampshire before the week is out, I'm sure. But that will be a prison all its own, working on the re-election campaign and being trotted out for photo opportunities with my father and his new wife.

It's only a few minutes later that it occurs to me. Oh, shit. Does this mean Caulter will be coming to New Hampshire with us?

I take a drag on the end of the cigarette, the nicotine hitting my bloodstream but doing nothing to take the edge off my attitude toward all of this bullshit. I'm standing outside, leaning against the railing that lines the front steps, reeling from what just happened with Katherine, not with her fucking father and my mother. I couldn't give a tiny shit about what those two have going on. My mother has been engaged at least five times, and married three. It's not like this is the first time some prick in a suit and loafers has walked into the room and introduced himself as my new father.

At least this one is age-appropriate. Before she graduated to dating CEO's and, apparently, politicians, she went through a rocker phase. That was real fun. My favorite was the twenty-three-year-old she was going to marry, some guy who looked like he wasn't a day over eighteen, the lead singer in a boy band. That kid had the balls to tell me he hoped he could be a "role model, you know, a real father figure" to me.

I punched him in the face, and Ella sent me to a psych facility for ninety days, where I got to talk to all the shrinks about how I was acting out because I wasn't shown enough love as a baby, how I wasn't breastfed enough and shit. What can I say? I'm just a little boy who wants a hug. What a bunch of assholes. Ella married the douchebag boy band guy, but it only lasted a week.

My mother's drama is old news. I don't give a shit about whatever the hell the Senator and Ella are doing.

I'm on edge because I haven't been able to get Katherine out of my fucking head since that night. I thought I was done with her, until my mother practically kidnaps me today and forces me on a flight to DC, announcing that she's getting engaged and that I have to meet her new beau. Like she couldn't have announced this three days ago when we were all at the graduation ceremony? Or told me over the weekend, back at the apartment in New York? Leave it to Ella to keep everything a secret. The only reason I agreed to get on the flight at all was because she had first class tickets and there would be good booze on the plane.

I drink and ignore her during the flight. Like I said, Ella getting married is old news. So imagine my surprise when she finally springs the name of the lucky guy on me as we're driving away from the airport. I'm slouched in the front seat texting on my phone when she says it, so I almost miss the last name. Harrison. Katherine's fucking father. I can't believe my ears.

"Senator Harrison?" I ask.

"He has a daughter in your class, I know," she says, looking at me nervously. She chews on her fingernails; I want to tell her it makes her look like a damn twelve-year-old girl but I never do. "Is that, like, completely weird? It's not weird, is it?"

"Sure, Ella," I say, my tone condescending. I'm trying to be nonchalant despite the way my heart is pounding. "It's no big fucking deal, you getting engaged to the father of someone I go to school with. Why not just date one of the teachers? Better yet, I could just find you one of my friends. That's more your style, isn't it? I thought you liked them young, but we're going for Senators now, are we?"

She glares at me, her eyes flashing. "You're not going to ruin this for me, Caulter."

I don't look up from my phone, going through the motions of texting even though I'm not actually talking to anyone. All I can think about is that it's Katherine's father. Which means she's bringing me to meet Katherine's father.

Which means we're headed to see Katherine.

Little Miss Perfect, too-good-for-her-own-good, going-to-Harvard Katherine. Giant-stick-up-her-ass Katherine. Barely-cracks-a-smile Katherine. All business, all the time.

Except that night.

The night.

I had hit on that girl more times than I could count at Brighton. I mean, hell, why not? It's not like Miss Priss should be wearing a paper bag over her head or something. In fact, it's exactly the opposite. She's smoking hot. And untouchable. The lacrosse team keeps scorecards with all the senior girls on them, each with their very own "bangable" rating. "Brighton Bingo," they call it. I don't play, because I'm not a stupid jock. I might fuck around, but keeping track on a scorecard is just tacky. For the lacrosse players, though, Katherine is the money spot on the card. The thing is, it's widely accepted she's out of everyone's league. There was talk she might not be into guys at all, but she dated some dickhead jock from the lacrosse team for a few months, probably the only guy in that school who wasn't trying to get in her pants. That guy just wanted to suck up to her father.

It's not like I ever thought it would happen with Miss Not Interested. She and I had developed a certain kind of relationship over the past two years that mostly consisted of rolling eyes and lobbing insults back and forth. Really, I only hit on her anymore because it's fun. I like that she looks at me with disgust and calls me asshole instead of sliding into the backseat of my car and offering up a threesome with her best friend. Chicks have been trying to get with me since I was in middle school. Everyone wants that son-of-a-celebrity cock.

Too much pussy. It's my cross to bear.

But Katherine is different from all of those other girls. She never wanted anything to do with me, writing me off as some kind of filthy manwhore. That fact makes me respect her as a good judge of character, since it's pretty accurate.

That's why I could have shit my pants when I get a text from her offering up one night at a hotel. I am sure it's a joke, but it's a week before graduation and Brighton is quiet and it's a night I'm bored anyway so I figure, what did I have to lose?

When she walks through the door of the hotel looking nervous as hell, I can't believe my eyes. She stands there in this short-sleeved black dress that hangs past her knees and these matronly black heels that make her look like a PTA mom. And a headband. I mean, we're eighteen, for fuck's sake. What the hell kind of adult woman wears a headband?

I've screwed models, actresses, and socialites. A girl wearing a headband and a dress the size of a tent should not light up my radar in any way, shape, or form. But for whatever the hell reason, it's the hottest thing I have ever seen.

I stare at her, for once without anything smart-assed to say. But my dick has a mind of its own. All the blood leaves my head and rushes to my cock. I'm hard as a rock. Apparently I have a thing for girls that wear headbands and weird-ass ultra-conservative dresses that show zero skin.

She pushes me over the edge when she opens her damn mouth. "So I decided before I leave Brighton next week, that I want to see what all the fuss is about."

The only thing I can think is that it's the ones who look like her, proper and conservative, who are the wildest in the bedroom.

That's a fact.

It's all that repressed crap they have going on. Or daddy issues or whatever. Who knows? All I know is that I'm about to get with the most untouchable, most repressed chick in the history of the world. It's like I've hit the goddamn lottery.

When I put my mouth on hers for the first time, it's fucking magic. I can't describe what she tastes like except that it's everything that's right with the world. Then Katherine breaks away for a moment and looks at me.

She looks at me with contempt. She despises me. But when she kisses me...she kisses me like she hates me and wants me more than anything.

It's just another lay. So what if it's the Holy Grail of hook-ups? So what if it's going to be the best kind of hate sex imaginable? It's when I'm about to put my cock inside her that she tenses me up and gives me a look. I've got enough sense to know what the hell that means. I'm not interested in taking some chick's virginity -- virgins are clingers, and that's the last thing I want.

Then Kate (that's what I called her that night -- Kate, not the proper Katherine like she is at school, but Kate when I'm inside her, Kate when I'm coming so hard that my head is going to fucking explode) asks me if I'm going to screw her or what.

There's good sex, and then there's sex where the memory takes up permanent residence in your brain, changes the fucking chemical balance or something so that you crave it like a damn fix. It makes you jones for it, gets under your skin like an itch. That's the kind of sex this is.

Katherine, prim and proper Katherine in the morning, sneaks out of the bed the next day. She tries to creep out of the hotel room, but I wake up as she's near the door and look at her in disbelief, not that she's leaving, but that I fell asleep and she's the one who's awake.

Most guys will fuck and fall right asleep. Not me. I'm lying there wide awake, counting the minutes of cuddling required to preserve my reputation before I can slide out of bed and get the hell on with my life. Waking up in the morning to watch a hook-up of mine about to slip out the door isn't exactly a regular occurrence.

"Thanks," she says, opening the door to leave. Her hair is still mussed and the dark eyeliner smudged around her eyes makes her look sexier than she did last night.

Thanks? Who the hell says that after a hook-up, especially after a fuck like that? I don't know what to say, so I just grunt and turn over in bed, listening to the door close behind her.

It's just a screw, right? No big deal.

Except I can't get her out of my head.

It should be one for the record books. I should Brighton Bingo that shit and rub it in the face of each one of those dumb jocks: I bagged Katherine Harrison and, even better, punched her v-card. But I don't say anything.

With all the pre-graduation stuff going on, it's easy to be busy, but even so, I swear she's laying low, avoiding me. And I avoid her right back. Hit it and quit it, that's my philosophy. What I'm thinking about the whole time is how I really just need to bang some other girl to erase the memory of Kate. Wipe the slate clean.

But I don't. It just festers, eating at me like some kind of disease.

The only reason I show up here with my mother at all is because I just can't help myself. I have this perverse need to see the look on Katherine's face when she sees me.

It's worth the effort. Katherine just looks so....pissed off when she sees me. She looks at me like I'm pond scum. But I can't stop thinking about fucking her.

I'm through a second cigarette by the time I'm finished stewing over Katherine, and I'm about to light up a third when a voice from the sidewalk makes me look up.

"Hey Caulter!" The man in wrinkled cargo pants, messenger bag lying on the sidewalk at his feet, brings the camera to his face and clicks.

I light my cigarette and take a drag on it as he continues to click away, before I give him the finger. I make a point of standing there unmoving, flipping him off, while I take one more drag, put it out, and grind the butt of it into Senator fucking Harrison's perfectly manicured lawn.

The paparazzi are parasites.

I guess the cat is out of the bag -- well, not the real secret, the one Katherine's so terrified I'm going to spill. As if I want everyone knowing anyway.

I go back in the house, momentarily considering the fact that I don't have to do this whole summer thing. I could say fuck it, and blow the whole thing off.

Of course, my trust fund is in jeopardy. So I make the deal with my mother. It's like that guy, Faust, the one who sells his soul to the devil. Ella made me an offer I couldn't refuse. So I'm going to play along, join my new family for the summer.

Besides, how can I resist the thought of getting under Katherine's skin all summer long?

I run my fingers down his chest, tracing the ridge between his pectoral muscles and down over his nipple. He makes this sound like something you'd hear from an animal, deep and low in his throat, and the hair on the back of my neck stands up. It's primal, like he's a predator and I'm the prey. Except that he's the one lying on his back, and I'm the one straddling him, my knees on either side of his body. His cock is bare, warm between my legs, and when I push down on his shaft, he groans my name.

"Kate."

He repeats the word again, and I don't wait for him to say it a third time. I just guide him inside, aided by my wetness. I savor the feeling of his thickness filling me up. Riding him, skin to skin, his cock bare inside me, I fuck him. It feels familiar, like I've done this a million times before. But it's a thousand times better now than it was the first time.

His hands slide up the sides of my waist to my chest, and he palms my breasts, his thumbs grazing my hard nipples. I begin to let go, abandoning myself to the sensation of being with him, riding him as he brings me higher and higher.

I'm so close, and he grabs my waist tighter, his hands pushing me down hard on his cock, his thrusts shorter and more frequent.

"Kate," he says. "I want you to fucking come on me." I'm on the edge, so close, about to crash over.

I jolt upright in bed, the pounding in my chest mimicking the throbbing between my legs. A sex dream about Caulter? It's like my brain is practicing mutiny. My nipples press against the fabric of my bra. Shit, I'm wearing a bra. And my jeans and t-shirt from yesterday. My mouth tastes like crap.

Silver morning sunlight streams through the bedroom window, and I can't believe I've slept through the night. The last thing I remember is putting my head down on the pillow so I could just close my eyes for a moment, figuring it was only a matter of time until my father came upstairs to have some kind of chat about the engagement. I can't believe they let me sleep.

I slide out of bed, wincing at the cotton mouth I've developed, and pad lightly down the hallway to the bathroom. I feel like I'm doing the walk of shame or something, still dressed in my clothes from the night before, and I'm immediately reminded of that night with Caulter.

As if my brain needs another reminder. The sex dream has me on edge; I can't quite tell if I'm irritated or horny.

Peeling off my t-shirt, I wince at the damp spot on the back where I've sweat through it. Surely I must be feverish; at least that would explain the sex dream. I drop it on the floor and step out of my jeans. Toothbrush. I need a toothbrush. I dig through the medicine cabinet over the sink, looking for a toothbrush, and then bend over, yanking the handle on the cabinet below.

The cool rush of air hits me before my ears even register the sound of the bathroom door opening, and I jump up immediately.

"Nice panties."

I whirl around to see Caulter in the doorway, his hair -- shaved on the sides, the longer part mussed -- standing up in every direction. Shirtless. He's wearing these pajama pants, grey cotton, the fabric so thin it clings to every part of him. Every part of him. The way they drape makes it worse than if he were standing here in front of me buck naked. The way he looks just screams sex, especially given the fact that his dick is hard. Like, rock hard.

And I can't stop looking at it.

Caulter notices and smirks. "Do you like what you see?" he asks. "You can give it another try if you want. I'm up for it."

"You're vulgar," I hiss. "You're in my bathroom. And the door is wide open." And I'm standing here in my underwear, I realize immediately; it's like my brain is slow this morning. I cover my chest with my arm and reach for the pile of clothes on the floor, shielding my crotch. Oh my God, I'm wearing granny panties.

He steps inside and closes the door behind him. "Better?"

"That wasn't an invitation," I say. "What's wrong with you? Get out of my bathroom. Don't you have any boundaries?"

"You're the one who was griping that the door was open," he says. "I wouldn't want anyone to walk in on you staring at my cock like it's a piece of steak and you're a starving animal."

"You're delusional," I say, gritting my teeth. "Thinking I'm staring at your cock. And turn around, so I can put some clothes on."

I'm almost surprised when he actually does, and I scramble to slide my legs back in my jeans.

"Sure you want to bother putting those jeans on?" he asks. "It's not like I haven't seen it already. Besides, those panties aren't exactly… revealing."

Cringing at the fact that he's just seen me in panties that are practically the size of a bed sheet, I slip my shirt over my head. "I thought we agreed to never speak about the incident again. Why are you still in here, anyway? I told you to leave."

"The incident?" He asks. "Is that what we're calling it now? You're the one who told me to close the bathroom door behind me."

He's still turned around, so I take the opportunity to let my eyes linger on the expanse of his bare back. His muscles are defined, from his shoulders down the length of his trim body, the gentle V-shape of his back coming to a taper where his waist is partially hidden by the band on his pants. I pause, stopping to check out his perfectly shaped ass, remembering how it felt in my hands that night.

Caulter turns around and catches me, and I feel my face flush with heat. He gives me that look, the smugly self-satisfied look that says he knows I was checking him out. His cock is still rock hard, and I wonder if that's normal. That can't be normal, right? He must have some kind of medical condition. It can't be typical for him to be carrying on a conversation like this, with a giant erection. And I mean that literally. He's not exactly small.

The fact that he's standing here, rock hard, annoys me. I don't need a reminder of that night staring me right in the damn face. "You knew I meant that you needed to get out of here, not close the door behind you and invite yourself inside. Obviously. Normal people don't do that." I gesture toward the giant tent pitched in his pants. "Are you going to do something about that?"

"Do you want to help me do something about this, Princess?" he asks, his tone sing-songy. He practically leers at me.

"Ugh," I say. "Don't be disgusting. Just – ugh. Why is it still… hard? And why do you have to be such a pervert?"

"Oh, how cute," he says, turning away from me and heading towards the toilet. "You think it's because I think you're hot. You really are virginal, aren't you? It's morning wood, Princess. Nothing personal."

"Oh my God, are you about to take a leak in here, right in front of me?" I ask.

"Well, I came in here to take a leak and since you're insisting on running your mouth instead of getting out of the bathroom and letting me do my business, then yeah, I'm about to take a leak in here." He hooked his thumb under the waistband of his pants, and looks at me. "Do you want to stay and watch? You're probably into some kinky shit like water sports, aren't you?"

I don't even know what water sports are, and I don't think I want to know. "You're the most disgusting person I've ever met."

"Oh, give it time, Princess," he says, dropping his pants. I can see his cock from the side, and his right ass cheek. I can't believe he just stripped down in front of me like I'm not even here. "You ain't seen nothing yet. And I'm going to be around all summer long."

I don't know if that's supposed to be a threat or an innuendo, and I don't want to know. Not even bothering to try to hide my irritation, I huff out of the bathroom and shut the door behind me, probably too loudly. Back in my room, I resolve to stay the hell away from Caulter. He's a crude pig who is clearly just trying to get a rise out of me. And it's totally working.

Did he just say that I'm really going to be stuck with him all summer?

I knew I'd be sent to our vacation home in New Hampshire for the summer while my father finished up his term in DC before the Senate broke for summer session. That's usually how my summers go. But having Caulter join us? Bad boy Caulter is the last person I'd really expect to fall in line and play along with some "we're one big happy family" routine.

I wonder what Caulter has up his sleeve. That's what I should be focusing on. Instead of what he has in his pants.

"Good morning, Katherine," Ella says. It's only seven, but I've already been out to my car to grab my bag, and in and out of the shower. There was no sign of Caulter in the bathroom this time, thank God. At least that's something. "Did you sleep well?"

I blush, remembering the dream. Nightmare is a better word for it. Did I sleep well? With vivid dreams of Caulter's dick running through my head, followed by the greeting I got in the bathroom this morning? I wonder if I'm ever going to sleep again. It's like my life is turning into some kind of porno. But without the sex, I remind myself. There's going to be no more sex.

Even if he has the sweetest looking body I've ever seen, tall and lanky with washboard abs. He's off limits. And not just because he's my new stepbrother -- I mean, we're not even related, sure, but I can't even fathom the scandal that would involve -- but because it's Caulter. He's the crudest, filthiest, sluttiest guy I've ever met in my life. I have absolutely no business wanting him.

I'm afraid the summer is going to involve a lot of cold showers.

I clear my throat. "I slept great," I said.

Ella sips from a glass of what appears to be green sludge. It's seven in the morning, and she's perfect, even without a lick of makeup, her skin alabaster and unblemished. She's wearing yoga pants and a tank top that cuts off at her midriff, revealing her trim abdomen. Standing here in front of her makes me suddenly aware of the five pounds I gained writing my graduation speech a few weeks ago, when I was subsisting on energy drinks and candy. I just know she's the kind of person who doesn't eat sugar. Or caffeine. And who wakes up at some ungodly hour in the morning to do yoga and meditate before she heads to the gym.

"I told your father it was probably best to not disturb you last night," she says. "The way you found out about the engagement was...abrupt. And I'm sure you're exhausted after finals and graduation."

I nod. I don't know what to say. I know she's being nice, trying to console me or whatever, since it was probably my father's idea to spring that shit on me with no warning, but it's just too damn early in the morning for some kind of bonding experience with the breathtakingly gorgeous and much too perfect celebrity standing in my kitchen. "Is my father around here?"

"He's out for a run," she says. "It's one of his longer runs. He's training for a marathon."

Of course he is, I think. I don't remember my father being into running. "Is there coffee around here somewhere?"

"We've cleaned out the pantry," Ella says. We, I note. "Your father doesn't drink caffeine anymore. But there's an herbal coffee alternative on the counter. It's so much better for you than coffee, and it has a cleansing effect."

I turn toward her, my un-caffeinated brain refusing to process what she's saying. Have I actually descended into the seventh circle of Hell? "So there's no coffee in the house," I say, my voice flat.

Ella looks at me, her expression so earnest it makes me almost want to forgive her. "I - I should have gotten some."

"It's okay." I turn and lean against the kitchen counter. Am I expected to stand here and politely converse, without even having a coffee? Is that how they do it in Hollywood? It seems cruel and unusual. "I'm just going to go find a coffee shop."

"Oh." Ella looks positively heartbroken, as if she's failed at some new fiancé test. I just don't have the energy to reassure her right now.

"Do you want anything from the coffee shop?" I ask. "Like...a bagel or something?"

She wrinkles her nose. Ah, of course not. Carbs. I'm sure she doesn't eat them. "Uh...No thank you," she says.

I grab my wallet upstairs and slip out the door, relieved to get out of the house.

"Following me?" Caulter stands at the corner of the house, and casually blows smoke rings in my direction.

"Of course not," I say, annoyed. "There's no coffee in this place. I'm getting caffeine. I can't think."

"Oh yeah." He laughs. "Did she try to offer you that herbal shit?"

"You mean the green crap she's drinking? What is that stuff? It smells like fish."

Caulter snorts. "It's like algae and seaweed or something, I don't know. It's rancid, right? Like a milkshake made of fish tank. But no, I mean the coffee substitute."

"Yeah, some herbal thing?" I ask.

He laughs. "It'll make you shit something fierce. Don't do it." Then he looks up at me. "Of course, it might help with that stick up your ass."

"Seriously, I knew you couldn't go two minutes without being a dick." I step down, and Caulter calls my name. "What?" I ask, my voice clipped.

"That's what I'm talking about, Princess," he says. "You need to get a fucking sense of humor."

"Sure, Caulter." I turn to walk away, but he calls my name again. "What?"

"Here," he says. "You want one?" He holds up one of those canned espresso drinks, and then tosses it to me.

I pop the top and gulp down the life-saving liquid as I walk toward where he's standing. He turns his head and blows a trail of smoke to the side. "That's a disgusting habit," I say. "You're going to get cancer."

"I give you coffee, and you come over here to lecture me about my hobbies," he says. "Those are some bad fucking manners."

"Thanks for the coffee." I take another sip, and look at the empty can by his feet. "So you're out here mainlining caffeine and nicotine, or what?"

"Gotta have my fix," he says, looking at me, his gaze steady. "I mean, I prefer a good morning fuck to wake me up."

"Well, it's a good thing you've got the coffee and the cigarettes, then."

Caulter shrugs. "Let me know if you change your mind, Princess. I can be ready in five seconds."

"Don't hold your breath."

Caulter finishes his cigarette, and holds up his middle finger. I follow his gaze out the small front yard to the sidewalk, toward the guy standing on the other side of the wall, his head visible above the brick.

"How long has that photographer been there?" I ask, turning my back and facing Caulter.

"A while," Caulter says, shrugging. "He was there yesterday. It's just one."

"Just one?" I reach for Caulter's arm and pull it down. "Are you crazy? What the hell do you think you're doing, flipping him off?"

"Relax," he says. "They're assholes. We've developed a routine, this guy and I. It's like symbiotic and shit. He takes pictures of me; I smoke and give him the finger. He's taken enough of me flipping him off, so he's bored with it now."

"Yeah, well, he hasn't taken pictures of me," I say. "And my father is about to start his re-election campaign. That's just what he needs, photos of you flipping off photographers."

"Chill the fuck out, Princess," he says. "He'll snap a few photos of us out here and be done with it. We're not the real story. He wants our parents."

I'm used to my father being in the spotlight. He's a Senator, after all. But Senators aren't really in the spotlight like this, not with paparazzi in front of the house. I mean, unless there's some kind of scandal, no one give that much of a crap about anyone except the President. Being my father's child means carefully staged interviews and photo sessions, not candid shots outside the house. The fact that Caulter and I are standing out here being photographed at all makes me feel anxious. And pissed off at Caulter for being so blasé about the media.

"Of course they're interested in us as a story -- you as a story, you moron," I say, standing in front of him, my hands on my hips. I feel like a schoolteacher, lecturing him, yet I can't seem to help myself. "You're the tattooed, chain-smoking, beer-guzzling, train wreck son of the movie star who's marrying my family-values, ex-Marine Senator father. You're a tabloid headline, standing right here in front of me!"

Caulter looks at me, his face stony and his jaw clenched. Then he blows a giant plume of smoke in my face, making me cough, and I wave my arms erratically in front of my face. I think my blood pressure goes through the roof at the act of aggression. "Yeah?" he asks, leaning forward and bringing his middle finger up in front of his face between the two of us. "Well, you're the goody-goody, stuck up, boring-ass virgin who's so uptight she can't find anyone to punch her v-card except the manwhore from her school who will screw literally anyone." He pauses. "And then turns out to be the most boring fucking lay I've ever had."

I let out a growl of frustration, but Caulter just laughs, which makes me even more upset.

"What are you going to do, Princess?" he asks, leaning forward, his middle finger still up. He waves it around, inches from my face. I want to break his fucking finger in half.

Caulter has me so pissed off I can't think. I just lean forward and flip him the bird, my finger an inch away from his. We're standing a foot apart, with our middle fingers in each others' faces. Real mature. We might as well be toddlers sticking our tongues out at each other.

Then Caulter smiles. "This is going to be a great fucking photo."

Shit.

Senator Douchebag slams the newspaper down on the table. The photo of Katherine and I facing each other, eyes narrowed and lips turned up in snarls, with our middle fingers almost touching, is preceded by a headline that reads:

"HARRISON AND STERLING ENGAGED: CHILDREN FACE OFF!"

Katherine is across from me, her face chalk white. She doesn't look at me, just stares at the paper like she's completely transfixed. I have the impulse to take out my phone and get a photo of her reaction, but I think that would be pushing it, since the Senator's face is exactly the opposite of ghost-white. It's nearly purple.

"It's really a flattering angle, though," I say. "For me, anyway. It doesn't do Katherine nearly as much justice." That's not true. In the photo, her teeth are nearly bared and she looks practically feral. I shouldn't be so turned on by that, but I swear as I stand here looking at it, I feel my cock stir. This is probably not the best situation to display a hard-on for Senator Douchebag's daughter, though. He looks like he's going to have a coronary. My mother gives me a look, and I'm almost concerned she's going to cut out my trust fund right now.

"Caulter," Ella warns.

"What the hell were the two of you thinking?" The Senator brings his fist down on the table, causing the paper to bounce, his voice booming.

I glance at Katherine, but she still doesn't look at me.

"Honey," Ella says.

"It's not as bad as it looks, dad," Katherine speaks, her voice soft.

"Not as bad as it looks?" The Senator clenches his fist again. This dude seriously needs to do some meditation or some weed or something. Like, whoo-sah, man. If he weren't talking, I wouldn't believe he was even taking a breath. "Tell me, how exactly do you think it looks for the daughter of a United States Senator to be on the front page of the newspaper, directing her middle finger at the son of his fiancé?"

Probably better than for the headline to read Senator's children fuck around, I think. But I hold my tongue. Mentally, I congratulate myself for my superb act of self-control.

Katherine surprises me by speaking. "I mean, really, it's not the front page. It's the front page of the social section. And it's the Post, so..."

I hold back a laugh, but not very well, so it comes out more like a snort. The Senator turns his gaze toward me. "And you. You think this is funny?"

I roll my eyes. "Look. It's an article in the paper. It's not the end of the fucking world."

He crosses around to my side of the table, and I stand there, only because I can't really believe this guy is actually about to lose his shit, especially over something like this. I can think of at least twenty more scandals I've been involved in that are worse than this blip on the radar. It's when he grabs me by the collar of my shirt that I start to actually get pissed off. "Not the end of the fucking world?" he asks, narrowing his eyes. "You arrogant little shit. Your mother might cut you all the slack in the world, letting you piss away her money on clothes and drugs, but you don't come into my house and --"

I push his hands off me. "You want to get into it, Pops," I say, disgusted. "Let's go."

"Stop!" Katherine yells the words. Yells. The sound of her yelling is so startling that her father looks at her, open-mouthed.

"What did you just say?" he asks.

"I think we all need to calm down here," Ella says, standing at the far end of the table. "Ben, Caulter is not your child, he's mine, and I'll thank you kindly to not - "

"Oh please, Ella." I hold my palm up.

"I don't want to hear you refer to your mother by her first name like she's one of your friends," the Senator booms.

"It's a good thing you don't get a say in the matter then, is it?" I ask. "Since I'm not one of your employees you can order around."

"Ben!" Ella says. "I said, this is my child. Caulter and I are informal. And it's not your call to step in and change that."

"Your child is an adult," the Senator says, his voice louder now. "Not a kid. And it's time to start treating him like an adult. Both of you are adults and - "

Katherine yells again, her hands over her ears. "Jesus fucking Christ," she screams.

"Katherine Eva Harrison," the Senator said. "You will not take the Lord's name in vain in this house."

"I can't listen to another second of arguing!" she yells. "Yes, Caulter and I flipped each other off. Yes, it's in the paper. Yes, it's a PR problem. I'm sorry your engagement was announced this way. But if you want to talk about being selfish, we can talk about being selfish. You left like a bat out of hell after graduation to get back to work -- and by work, I'm assuming you meant Ella. You didn't think that maybe you should, oh, I don't know, give me any kind of heads up that you were getting re-married?" Katherine asks, her voice growing more high-pitched.

I step back, crossing my arms over my chest, not even bothering to hide the smile I can feel tugging at the corners of my mouth. I didn't think daddy's little girl had it in her. I can't believe I'm listening to her tell off her father.

"I thought you would prefer to hear something like that at home - " he starts, suddenly on the defensive.

"Yeah, dad," she says. "I totally want to walk in the door to the house to see the three of you standing there. I'm sure that's how they tell you to do it in all the parenting books. Make sure you choose a setting for maximum impact, right?"

"I made a decision that I thought was most appropriate for - "

"You've been keeping this entire relationship a secret!" Katherine yells. "Do you understand how big of an asshole you're being? You're about to punch Caulter in the fucking kitchen! You don't see the irony here? Mom would hate the person you are - and you know it."

At the mention of her mother, it's like all of the air is sucked out of the room. The color drains from the Senator's face.

Katherine keeps going. "You're bringing them - " She doesn't look at me, just points the direction of me and Ella. "To the summer house, to our house. To her house."

"She's dead!" The Senator yells. "Your mother has been dead for four goddamn years!"

"I can't talk about this," she says, shaking her head. She looks at the Senator with disappointment etched on her face, and brushes past me without a glance. I stand there for a minute, the silence in the room lingering. The Senator leans over the table, both palms flat, his head hanging. I'm irritated with him, but I feel badly for Katherine.

Ella looks up at me, her expression pained. "Caulter - " she starts.

I cut her off before she can say whatever the hell it is she has to say. "Fuck this shit," I say. "I'm out."

I take the stairs two at a time to the bedroom where my wallet is, but I'm honestly wondering if Katherine has left yet. I hit my room first and grab my wallet and my smokes, pausing when I reach her room. Her door is open about an inch, and I stand there for a few seconds, deciding whether or not I want to say anything. Then the door is yanked open, and she looks at me with surprise.

For second, I think she might be pleased to see me, but she sighs audibly and shakes her head. "Seriously, Caulter, I don't need your bullshit right now. I'm not in the mood. I'm on my way out."

"Want some company?"

Her eyebrow goes up. "Are you fucking kidding?"

"I'm not being a prick. Really." I feel defensive. I'm not a dick all the time, I want to say. There's something about her that just seems to bring it out of me.

"That's a first," she says. "What, you want to have some brother - sister bonding time?"

"I want to get out of here," I say, my tone noncommittal.

"Fine." She slings her bag over her shoulder, and I follow her out the front door. Beyond the front gate are three photographers this time, smoking as they loiter, and they stand quickly, aiming their cameras at us as we approach.

Katherine swears under her breath as we walk out. "Don't they have anything better to do?"

"Caulter, Katherine -- do you really hate each other? Do you have a comment for us?"

"Mind your own business," she says. "Seriously. Look, we're standing right here, aren't we? Why don't you take a photo of us together, not killing each other. We're friends. That's my comment."

I slip my arm around her shoulder. "Smile for the cameras." I give a thumbs up and Katherine looks over at me, finally breaking a smile before making a thumbs up as well.

The photographers roll their eyes, and we turn and walk briskly down the sidewalk for two blocks before either of us says anything. Then Katherine laughs. The sound is light, melodic. I look at her because I don't think I've heard her laugh -- not a genuine laugh -- in two years at Brighton. She's snarky, yeah, but she's so damn serious at school. Once she starts, she can’t stop, doubling over as she laughs, big laughs from her belly, until she has to wipe tears from her eyes.

When she stops, she looks up at me. “What?” she asks. “You’re staring.”

“You’re the one standing on the sidewalk laughing like a crazy person.”

“My dad is going to hate that photo, you know” she says. “I think we're supposed to wait for a staged media thing. His PR person is going to have a lot to say about it.”

I shrug. “I guess I don’t give a shit about your fucking dad.” We’re walking, but I don’t know where. I pull my pack of cigarettes out and she gives me a look. “You want one?” I ask.

Katherine shakes her head. “Why don’t you just go back to Hollywood or wherever for the summer? My father will make up some reason for you not going to New Hampshire, a reasonable story for where you are. You don't want to put up with his shit all summer, do you?”

“Trust fund,” I say. “Ella’s holding it over me. Is it true the house in New Hampshire is your mother's house?"

She shrugs. "It was her favorite place. We lived in a farmhouse in Loudon when I was a kid, but he sold it for the lake house, since he was going to DC during the rest of the year. But my mother loved New Hampshire, so even though we were only there in the summer, it was her place."

"And he's bringing Ella there," I say. "It's kind of a dick move."

"It's whatever, you know? Not a big deal." I can tell she's lying. "Ella seems okay. I mean, it’s weird that you call her by her first name.”

We’re standing near the entrance to the Metro. “You mean, instead of mommy dearest?” I ask. “Where the hell are we going, anyway?” I’m jonesing for a smoke even though it’s only been like ten minutes since my last. Katherine makes me feel edgy. Or, rather, I feel edgy because of how it felt to have her standing beside me, with her arm thrown casually over my shoulder. That, and maybe I'm irritable because I haven't been laid now in ten fucking days.

"I don't know," she says. "I was just getting out. I didn't have any plans."

"You don't seem like the spontaneous type," I say. "And I don't have to go to your mom's house for the summer, you know. If it bothers you." I offer her a half-hearted out, even though what I really want to know is whether it bothers her that I'm going. I want it to bother her.

"What do you know what type of person I am?" she asks, wrinkling her nose. "I said it's not a big deal. I don't want to talk about her."

We get on the Metro, going who knows where. We're talking, about regular bullshit, nothing heavy. She seems to be less irritated now, and she's laughing at the stories I tell her about some of my mother's friends, Hollywood celebrities, and how our little middle-finger photo is small potatoes compared to the real scandals. She's laughing, and it sounds nice.

"Where the hell are we going?" I ask, when we get off a stop.

Katherine shrugs. "No plans," she says. "Just getting the hell away from the house. Do you have better plans?"

I hold up my hands in mock surrender. "Whatever you want, Princess."

She ignores me, and we walk for a while until we get to a park. I don't know jack about DC, so I've got no idea where we are -- New York and Hollywood, those are the places I know. But she seems to have some idea where we're going, and I'm following her lead because she's not as awful as I thought she was. We're actually getting along, and for the first time since I've known her, it's pretty comfortable to hang out with her.

"You're not so bad, Princess," I say. "I mean, for a stuck up bitch."

She laughs. "I can't believe you just called me that."

"Bitch?" I ask. "You know I'm joking. Not about the stuck up shit, though."

"Do people think I'm a bitch?" she asks.

The honest answer is yes, but I shrug. "Who cares what they think?"

Katherine looks at me long and hard. "Better than being a spoiled dickhead."

I grin. "Whatever you say, Harvard." We're in a secluded spot off this path, trees overhanging the trail, and the place is practically uninhabited. I pull out a joint, and Katherine gives me a look.

"Are you stupid?" she asks. "We're out in public."

"No one's passed us in like fifteen minutes," I say. "Come on. There's a building up there -- we'll scoot behind it."

Katherine sighs. "First the photo in the paper, and now you're going to get us arrested for possession. My dad will fucking kill us."

I grin. "Come on, Princess," I tease. "Are you chickenshit?"

She follows me to the other side of a building that houses a bathroom, and we stand near some trees behind it. "I'm not some kind of naive little girl," she says. "I have gotten high before."

"Sure you're not, Princess," I say. "You're practically a fucking rock star." I light up and hand her the joint.

"Shut up," she says, as she takes a hit. "You tagged along with me. If you have cooler friends you'd rather hang out with, then that's where you should be."

"Cooler friends than you, Princess?" I ask, as she passes it back to me. "Not possible. I'm not friends with any kids of future Presidents."

She rolls her eyes. "That's the plan. Everything is about the plan. Always has been. My mother hated it, you know."

"The political thing?"

"Politics," she says. "I think she hated politics almost as much as she hated him. They fought a lot."

We're silent for a few minutes while we smoke, and I don't want to break the stillness that settles between us like some kind of spell. I wait until we're finished, walking back out through the park, to speak. "What about you?" I'm more curious than I thought I'd be about her.

"What about me?"

"The future President's kid - is that what you're about?"

She laughs, the sound bitter. "It doesn't matter what I'm about," she says. "That's the plan, don't you know? Anyway, it's not for a while -- his Senate re-election is this year, and he won't run for President in the next election. So it'll be the following Presidential election after that. Six years is a long time." She studies my face as we walk. "I'm not like you, you know."

"No shit." I can't think of a person less like me if I try.

"It must be nice to not give a shit what other people think," she says.

"You might want to try it sometime." The words come out with an edge they shouldn't have, especially since I'm high. Damn, she's got this way of being condescending. I can't stand it.

"That would be nice," she says. I think she actually means it.

We reach a park bench and sit shoulder to shoulder beside each other. I'm aware of our proximity, nearly touching. She doesn't say anything, so we just sit there quietly for maybe a half hour or so. It's probably the weed, but it feels easy to just sit with her.

When we get up to leave, I reach for her hand to pull her up, and as she rises to her feet, she stumbles against me and we're frozen there. My eyes go down to her chest, even though she's wearing this sleeveless white shirt that's not revealing; the fact that I can't see the tops of her breasts makes me want to see more, like some kind of reverse psychology thing. She inhales, her chest rising, and I'm fixated on her lower lip as it falls open in slow motion. When she flicks her tongue over it, I picture those lips wrapped around my cock and it goes rock hard.

I bring my mouth down on hers, crushing her lips under mine, and she moans into my mouth. Her tongue meets mine, and her hands are on my chest, gripping my shirt and pulling the fabric -- and me -- toward her. She presses against me, arching her back and pushing up her chest as she grinds her hips against my hard-on.

I grip her ass cheeks in return. I don't give a shit where we are; I want to want to rip off her clothes and fuck her right here in the middle of a public park.

Then as suddenly as it started, it's over. She presses her palms flat against my chest and shoves me, stepping back and wiping her mouth with her hand like I'm some kind of contaminant she can't wait to get rid of. I'm looking at her, trying to comprehend what the hell she's playing at here, but I can't think because there's no blood left in my brain. All I know is that my dick is hard as hell and she's standing there looking like she just ate some bad food.

"Don't, Caulter -- " she says, holding her hand up like I'm a rapist about to come after her. As if I fucking grabbed her and kissed her against her will. As if she weren't just moaning into my damn mouth, arching her back and pressing her tits into my chest, daring me to touch her.

"Don't what, Princess?" I ask. "You're the one who's rubbing up against my cock like it's a magic lamp."

Katherine shakes her head, her fingertips still pressed against her mouth. Her lips are swollen, the skin around them red from my kiss. "This isn't fucking happening, Caulter." The way she says it is like I'm throwing myself at her. Like I'm lucky to be getting a chance to touch her or something. Her attitude pisses me off even more.

"Don't worry, sweetheart," I say. "Just because I was high and wanted a quick lay doesn't mean anything."

She looks at me with an expression I can't quite figure out. I think it might be disappointment, but she's the one who's fucking rejecting me. It passes as quickly as it appeared. "Just -- just keep your hands off me, Caulter," she says.

"Keep my hands off you?" I can't hold back my laugh. "That's rich. Don't worry, Princess, your pussy isn't magic and I'm certainly not hurting for it. It won't be a hardship to keep my dick away from you."

She narrows her eyes at me and her jaw clenches. "Good. I'm glad to hear it. We should be adults. Friends. We should be civil to each other." She stands there awkwardly, her words just hanging in the air, and I just stand there. I'm not thinking about what she said, though. I'm really thinking about the fact that my dick is not moving from where it's lodged, pressed up against the zipper of my jeans. I think her holier-than-thou attitude might have even made it harder.

Clearly, my dick has poor taste in women.

"Do you want to go back to my father's house?" she asks.

I shrug. "Nah," I say, taking my pack of cigarettes from my back pocket and opening the flap. "I think I'm just going to go out. There's no sense having a hard on and not being able to use it."

I say it just to hurt her, and it looks like it works. She blinks a few times, standing there with her hands balled up into fists at her sides, before she whirls around. "Fine," she says. "Whatever. Have fun."

I stare in the opposite direction, watching her leave out of the corner of my eye but not looking at her. I won't give her the satisfaction of looking at her. The way she wiped her mouth after she kissed me, like I'm some kind of sleaze she can't wait to get away from? She may have been a good lay, but great lays are a dime a dozen. I don't need her.

I've always loved summer in New Hampshire. When my father first became Senator, he sold the farmhouse in Loudon where I'd spent my early years, and moved us to DC for the school year. But my mother and I would come to the house on Lake Winnipesauke for the summer. My father would join us, flying between New Hampshire and DC during early summer and only coming back full-time when the Senate broke for summer session. He never liked the state, even though he's tied to it politically. He returns here, but spends most of the summer bitching about being out of the loop and finding excuses to fly into New York or DC for fundraisers and political events.

Me, on the other hand? I love this place. I cried when he sold our first house. He said it wasn't healthy to be attached to something like that ("It's just a goddamned house, Katherine"), and I was seven, so I said I'd never get over it. But I did. The summer house became my favorite place in the world, and it stayed that way after my mother died because she was my tie to it.

So coming here for the summer isn't so bad, even if it means doing what my father wants as far as the re-election campaign goes. He's the incumbent, and honestly, the election is no big deal. He'll win by a landslide, just like he always does. He just thinks it's the biggest deal in the world. And besides, until summer session breaks, he'll be flying in and out, so I get this whole place to myself. Or I would, if Caulter weren't in the picture.

I still might, though. I don't know where Caulter is. After what happened in the park, he never came home that night. I know, because I was listening for him. The fact that he went out and screwed some chick after kissing me, just because he had a hard-on, is so disgusting it makes me hate him. So when Ella said that Caulter was going back to Malibu for a few days, excuse me for being happy.

If I'm lucky, maybe I won't ever have to see him again.

The problem is that I can still feel his lips on mine, that bruising kiss in the park lingering even now. My body craves him, and I hate it.

I just have to think about something else. Like how great it'll be to be back here for the summer. I love this place, with its white painted walls and airy spaces. I love the wraparound porch, and the little balcony outside of my bedroom where I sit and sketch when I want peace and quiet. I wish I could spend the summer here alone. I don't want Caulter and Ella here, intruding on this place that used to be my mother's and mine. I don't want their presence tainting my memories of her.

And I especially don't want Caulter here, reminding me of that night every time I look at him. I don't want him here, reminding me of the fact that he's awakened feelings in me, even if the feelings are simply lust. Ridiculous, inappropriate lust. It's ridiculous and inappropriate not just because he's about to be my step-brother, either. It's ridiculous and inappropriate because of who Caulter Sterling is. He's a crude, caustic prick who can't keep his dick in his pants.

The problem is, I just can't stop thinking about that prick.

I can't stop thinking about that kiss in the park, Caulter's lips pressed hard against mine, his touch rough and unyielding. The thought of it sends a shiver down my spine even now, and I try to banish it. I should want someone more appropriate. I shouldn't want Caulter, with his vulgarity and stupid rebel-without-a-cause attitude problem. I shouldn't want Caulter, who's obsessed with sex.

The problem is, I'm beginning to think he's done something to me, messed with my head. Because ever since that night, I can't stop thinking about sex either.

I need to get Caulter out of my head, and being here this week by myself is the best way to do that. Until Friday night, I'm rid of my father and Ella and their whole love-struck teenager act. I don't have to give my opinion on wedding plans, and I don't have to deal with Ella's perpetual cheeriness. And I don't have to deal with Caulter and any early morning encounters in the bathroom. Maybe Caulter will decide to stay in Hollywood, and he won't come with them on Friday night, just in time for the Saturday morning pancake breakfast.

I pause, my pencil on the page, mid-stroke. The Saturday morning pancake breakfast is a yearly tradition, this lame PR thing my father does at the beginning of every summer at this mom-and-pop cafe in town. We eat pancakes and smile and he kisses babies and talks about how meaningful this place is to him.

"Katherine," a reporter will inevitably ask. "Does he do this at home?" And I will smile sweetly and hold up a fork with a bite of pancake on it. "When I'm home from school, he does it every Saturday morning. Pancakes and hot cocoa, just like when I was a kid."

I fucking hate pancakes.

I lose myself in my thoughts, my charcoal pencil moving over the sketch pad, the sound of the short, smooth strokes almost like white noise. Art is like my version of meditation. It's what got me through after my mother died, and I have boxes in the bedroom closet, filled with my paintings and sketches from that time.

The knock on the door is what jolts me out of my thoughts. I slam the sketchpad closed, slipping it back into its hiding place underneath the mattress on the bed.

Rose stands in the doorway, clad in a dress and apron. She's the other reason this place feels like home. Rose took care of me when I was a kid before we moved to DC, but she returned full-time every summer. She took care of my mother when she got sick. And after my mother died, she's the one who stroked my hair and spoke softly to me as I sobbed, stretched out on the window seat in the library with my head in her lap.

When I look at her, I'm immediately afraid she'll be able to tell what I've been doing. I glance back at the bed as if the sketchpad filled with drawings of Caulter's naked body might have somehow jumped out of its hiding place under the mattress and displayed itself in full view. But of course it's hidden away.

"Kate," she says, wiping her hands on her apron. "It's two in the afternoon. It's not good for you to be hidden away up here all day."

I shrug. "I'm just drawing."

She shakes her head and makes a clucking sound with her tongue. "I'm making cinnamon rolls and bread. You should eat. Pretty soon you'll be skin and bones."

I laugh. "Rose, I gained weight during finals. I can barely button my jeans as is." But I follow her out downstairs anyway.

She clucks her tongue as we walk, and gives me a disapproving shake of her head. "Barely button your jeans," she mutters. "You kids these days."

"What about us?" I ask, sliding onto one of the tall stools surrounding the large island in the middle of the kitchen. The marble surface is covered with a dusting of flour, baking implements scattered across the countertop. Rose reaches into one of the kitchen cabinets for a plate, before presenting me with a cinnamon roll practically the size of my head, drenched in frosting.

"Eat," she orders. "In my day, if you were skinny, it was because you couldn't afford to buy food."

"Yes, ma'am." I don't have to be told twice to eat a giant cinnamon roll. Tearing off a piece with my fingers, I pop it into my mouth, and my eyes roll back in my head. It's still warm from the oven, homemade all the way, not that crap from the refrigerated section of the store.

When I open my eyes, Rose looks at me expectantly, with one flour-covered hand on her hip and the other holding the rolling pin, paused mid-air. "Well?"

"Well, what, Rose?" I ask, smiling.

"Don't sass me."

"These are amazing. Of course."

She smiles, and goes back to rolling out her dough.

"You're to blame if the newspapers talk about how the Senator's daughter is now fat, instead of the re-election campaign," I say, shoving a bigger piece of the baked good into my mouth.

Rose snorts and gestures at me with the rolling pin. If she didn't look almost exactly like Mrs. Clause, with her gray hair piled on top of her head in a bun and her glasses sliding down to the end of her nose, she would almost be menacing. "Don't ever let me hear that word come out of your mouth again, Kate Harrison."

"What?" I ask.

"You know what I'm talking about. That word. Fat."

"I'm saying that's what the media would say," I protest.

She shakes her head at me. "You sound like that woman," she says. That woman is Rose's way of referring to my father's PR manager. I think the official term is communications director. Mona. Rose knows her name but refuses to use it. "That woman, the one who dresses you up and talks about brand."

I sigh, thinking about what Mona will say the next time she sees me, the lecture I'll get on the "absolute catastrophe" I've created for my father with the picture in the newspaper of Caulter and I giving each other the finger. I'd love to see her face if she knew that Caulter had given me more than just the finger. "You know her name, Rose," I say. "It's Mona."

She goes back to rolling out dough. "You look more and more like her, you know?"

"I do?" I ask, my mouth full, picturing Mona, tall and stick-thin, with her fiery red hair clipped in a perfect bob and suits meticulously tailored to her model figure. "I don't look anything like Mona."

Rose waves at me dismissively with a spoon in her hand, then dips it into the bowl and ladles cinnamon filling across a swath of dough. "Not Mona. Don't be daft. You look like your mother."

"My mother was elegant, polished," I say. "I'm the exact opposite of that. I was trying to be polished. But after the photos in the newspaper..."

Rose hasn't mentioned the photos in the newspaper yet. I know she's seen them. She clips the ones that mention me and saves them all in a scrapbook. She doesn't look up from her dough, but I think she might be smiling. "I saw that one of you and that boy, the new --"

"The new step-brother."

She rolls pieces of dough into pinwheels and lays them out in the pan. She's on her second tray of cinnamon rolls and I'm beginning to be afraid she's cooking them all for me. "Step-brother. I guess that's what you'd call him."

"Have you met Ella?" I ask. I wonder if my father has already brought Ella here. I wonder how long he's been keeping his little secret.

Rose purses her lips. "It was news to me too," she says. "Although the fact that I didn't know about it wasn't surprising."

"She's a big celebrity."

Rose raises her eyebrows. "That part isn't surprising, either. You know your father's political aspirations."

I grunt my response as Rose adjusts the dough and slides the pan into the stove. "They'll be here tomorrow, you know."

"I'm prepared." I'm lying through my teeth, and we both know it. I'm not prepared to see them. But I'm more unprepared to see Caulter.

"Uh-huh." She rinses her hands under the faucet, her back still to me. "That's why you've been wasting away inside here all week instead of being out in the sunshine, down at the beach the way you used to be." She turns toward me, her hands on her hips. "It's not healthy, you know, moping around your room. She's not going to replace your mother."

"That's not it," I protest. It isn't. I'm not a little girl who thinks a celebrity is going to come in and replace her. I'm irritated with the way he sprung it on me after being hypocritical enough to insist on dictating every part of my life.

Every part of my life except for that night with Caulter.

"Then what is it?" she asks.

"Nothing." I can't tell her what happened with Caulter. I remind myself that nothing of consequence happened with him anyway. Nothing that bears repeating anyway.

Rose raises her eyebrows. "Get out of the house," she orders. "Go do something with your friends. Jo called the home phone number, said she's been texting you and you haven't answered."

Jo is one of my childhood friends, one I see every summer when I come home. My father hates her, mostly because she's not "one of us," which really means she goes to public school. He once grounded me for two weeks for hanging out with her a couple years ago, until Mona suggested it might be seen as elitist if it got around that his daughter was ditching a childhood friends because of the friend's blue-collar background. I've been avoiding her because she'll want to know all the juicy details about my new family, and I just don't feel like dishing gossip. "I'll call her."

Rose hands me the phone and walks out of the kitchen. "I have laundry to do. Go have fun. Get some sun. Be a normal kid."

"I'm not a kid anymore, Rose," I call to her retreating back. "I'm an adult now. I have been for a month."

"Go be a kid," she yells. "You can be an adult when your father gets here."

I scroll down the call history, looking for Jo's number. Screw being an adult. So far, the only thing good about turning eighteen has been, well, that night with Caulter.

"You're seriously going to New Hampshire for the summer? That's even worse than...where the hell is that school you go to?" Dane asks, his forearms sliding across the top of the table. I can barely hear him above the clamor of the piece of shit rock band at the dive bar in North Hollywood that Seth insisted on hitting up so we could "pick up skanks." As if there weren't enough skanks in Malibu.

"Connecticut," I answer absently, but he can't hear me. I'm trying to get into it here. The Caulter from two months ago would be into it, getting drunk and high and banging some girl whose name I was never going to learn, let alone remember. Shit, this Caulter is practically a fucking monk. It's now been two weeks since I've seen any action. Not that I haven't tried. I left the park after kissing Katherine frustrated and aggravated and horny as hell, and not about to give her the damn satisfaction of showing up at her father's place. So I wound up jerking off in a hotel room and watching TV. Fucking awesome.

"Dude," Seth says. "New Hampshire?"

"Yeah, I'm going back to New Hampshire for the summer," I say. "Trust fund."

"Your fucking mother," Seth yells. He shakes his head, takes another shot from the bottle at the table, and fills my shot glass with liquor. My head feels cloudy, and I pause for a minute, thinking about waking up tomorrow feeling energetic, not hung-over in the bed of some chick I picked up at a dive bar in North Hollywood. But I take it anyway, tipping my head back and letting the alcohol numb the thoughts running through my head.

"She wants to be the First Lady," I yell.

"Fuck yeah," Dane says, beside me. His eyes are bloodshot and his pupils are dilated. "Sucking some Presidential cock."

"Shut up." I stand up. "That's my mother you're talking about. I don't need to hear that shit." I push through the crowd of people in the bar and head toward the bathroom. I came back to Malibu for a couple days to get the hell away from the East Coast, from Senator Douchebag and the wannabe First Lady, but now I just want to get away from my idiot friends. Getting wasted and stoned with them is starting to feel like such high school bullshit. I should have just gone back to my mother's place in Manhattan.

When I get back, a group of girls wearing sorority t-shirts is at the table, two of them hanging on Dane and Seth as they take shots from the bottle. Dane looks up at me. "Party at your place," he says.

One of the girls, her hair ombre, black at the roots and bleached at the tips, slides her arm into mine. Her heavy makeup makes her look older than a college student, and she smells like a damn brewery. She presses her tits up against my arm. Normally I'd be inclined to let her suck my dick in the back of the bar, but right now I'm just repulsed, and I push her away, shaking my head. "Not tonight."

Seth puts his hands up in the air. "What the fuck, man?"

I don't even answer. I suddenly feel sober, even though I've had four shots. I also feel pathetic in here, surrounded by my lame friends in this shithole bar, my boots sticking to the floor that feels like it has ten fucking years of filth caked on it, listening to the worst band in the world play covers of shitty songs. "Later," I yell, knowing they won't bother to come after me as I go. They're too busy chasing pussy and getting trashed.

Outside, I catch a cab that takes me back out to my mother's place in Malibu. The house is empty, the sound of my footsteps on the floor echoing through the space. I'm tempted to yell 'hellooooo' like a fucking kid, just to listen to my voice reverberate through the rooms.

The place looks ridiculous. Everything is white -- white marble floors, white walls, white sofa with chrome legs resting on a white area rug. This is what I've returned to, the newest redecoration of this place, Ella's attempt to "cleanse" everything.

Walking into my remodeled bedroom the other night was a grand surprise, with the white bed in the middle of the room and a white bedspread that is practically blinding. I considered hiring painters to paint the whole fucking place black, but decided it was too much effort to spend on irritating my mother.

The only color in the whole damn place are the paintings, some modern art shit she has hung on the walls so people will think she's more than just a movie star. She's an art aficionado. She has taste, people. She has class.

Yeah, right. She can pretend she shits roses all she wants, but it's still shit. I know the truth, about Ella's past and about my father that Ella tried so desperately to bury. I'm the reminder that no matter how many awards she wins, no matter how much public perception about her has changed since she's started devoting all her time to causes and visiting war-torn countries, she can't get away from the past.

I lay down on the bed without bothering to take off my boots. Ella will just have someone fix the designer bedspread that I'm sure is spun with only the finest silk imported from Mongolia or some shit. I don't know if they make silk in Mongolia, but it sounds like something Ella would pay for.

People think I'm just a spoiled rich kid, way too privileged and full of angst about my fairy-tale life. I'm over-privileged, but I'm not full of angst. I just don't play a role like these other assholes, the Hollywood types or the uptight kids at Brighton who step on each other as they claw their way to the top. I'm honest and people don't like it.

My mother certainly hates it.

But I don't hide who I am under a veneer, white-wash my life like this damn house. And that's good enough for me.

I'm leaving tomorrow for New Hampshire. The power couple has requested my presence, and Ella has booked me a first class ticket. There's a fucking pancake breakfast -- how hokey is that? We're all going to sit around and pretend to be one big happy family, eating breakfast in front of the cameras. I'm going to pretend that I'm adjusting to life with Daddy Dearest and his perfect daughter. The daughter I get hard just thinking about.

It's fucking New Hampshire. I might even wear a polo shirt. That will give Senator Douchebag a damn coronary.

"She's a total bitch, right?" Jo asks, snapping her gum. "Or she's got some kind of terrible real-life deformity that never shows up on the cameras? Tell me she's not perfect." Jo squeezes out a giant gob of sunscreen and slathers it across the creamy skin on her arms, setting the bottle in between us. I pick it up and do the same. Rose is right; the sun feels warm on my skin, and Jo's presence here lifts my mood.

It's almost enough to erase the sense of impending doom I feel thinking about my father and Ella's arrival tonight. I don't know when Caulter is coming, and I don't want to know -- I didn't even dare to ask my father earlier when he called to relay his travel plans.

I'm already paranoid that my father can smell my lust for Caulter, like I'm some kind of animal in heat.

I sigh, spreading lotion over my legs. "Ella is...okay, I guess."

Jo leans back on the towel laid on top of the boat dock, pulling at the edge of her black-and-white checkered swimsuit, this retro number with straps that come up like a halter at the back of her neck. The tattoo she got this year, cherry blossoms intertwined with Japanese characters, goes down the side of her hip, half under the swimsuit and half out. I don't know why we're laying outside in bathing suits, soaking up rays; we're slathered in enough sunscreen to drown, and wearing floppy hats big enough to practically require their own zip codes. But this is what we do here during the summer, so it's force of habit, I guess.

"Okay?" she asks. "Ella Sterling is just...okay? The Dick is marrying a big celebrity and he only just told you about it -- and that's all you've got for me? Spill it." She looks at me from behind her huge dark sunglasses, but I can't see her eyes. Then she slips them dramatically down to the edge of her nose. "Details. I want absolutely every last detail."

"She's just...okay, I guess," I say, realizing I mean it. "She's not really a bitch, I guess. She's actually kind of...blah?"

"Like, she has no personality blah?"

"Maybe. Or she's just not very assertive," I say. "It's hard to tell. My father is pretty..."

"Fucked up?" she asks.

I laugh. "That's not what I was going to say."

"It's what you were thinking, though." She leans back, arching her back up, displaying her breasts, even though it's just the two of us.

"It's totally not what I was thinking."

"Continue, please," she orders. "You father is an overbearing dickhead who treats her the way he treats you, and -- "

It annoys me that Jo lumps Ella and I together, like we're both some spineless creatures just being trampled underneath my father's will. "I haven't really seen them together much, you know. I mean, there was this photo of them on his desk - from Christmas - and they looked...happy."

Jo grunts her response. "Happy," she says. "That's all you've got for me. You have Ella fucking Sterling in your house and all I get is blah and happy. You know I want the dirt."

I exhale. Of course. Dirt. "She's super...bright."

"Bright," Jo repeats flatly.

"And un-caffeinated," I say. "Like, bright without ever drinking coffee in the morning."

"That's unnatural," Jo says. "I hate her already."

Now I can't help but smile. "Oh, and she drinks these smoothies, like this algae shit that smells so bad. Caulter called them her fish tank shakes."

Jo's ears perk up at the sound of his name, and I immediately regret mentioning him. I'm telling no one what happened with Caulter. He will remain my dirty little secret.

I will take him with me to the grave. Maybe even literally, if he keeps being such a jerk.

I'm aware of Jo's eyes on me, her glasses perched on the end of her nose again as she peers over them, examining me like some kind of specimen. "Caulter?" she asks innocently. She draws out his name, letting it roll off her tongue.

I roll my eyes and huff loudly, turning over onto my stomach, mostly so I can avoid making eye contact with her. I'm afraid if I look at her, she'll be able to read my thoughts, tell what happened with me and Caulter. I force a casualness into my voice I definitely don't feel, although I don't have to fake the disgust that naturally seeps into my tone. "Caulter. Her son."

"That's right," she says. "I almost forgot. She has a son. He's like, a total train wreck, isn't he?"

"He's a disaster. Completely and utterly." There's no way that Jo, with her affinity for tabloid magazines and gossip, almost forgot that Ella Sterling has a son. She's been dying to ask, I know she has. She must have seen the photo of us that got reposted a million times online. But I'm cranky, and I definitely don't want to talk to her about Caulter.

Jo rolls onto her side and rests on her hand, her elbow on the dock. "Tell me everything."

I open my mouth, intending to give her the same dismissive, truncated shit I gave her about Ella, but instead, this torrent of words is unleashed, like something beyond my control. "He's such a....prick," I say. "He think's he's some big rebel, you know? Like with his piercings and tattoos. No offense, I mean..." I look down at Jo's new cherry blossoms and she laughs.

"None taken," she says. "Keep going."

"And his stupid chain-smoking. It's disgusting. He blew it in my fucking face. My mother died of cancer, for shit's sake. You'd think he would have some sense of decency."

"What an ass," she says.

"Exactly. He's just this arrogant, condescending, smartass jerk. He's crude and disgusting and he's pretty much slept with every girl at Brighton. Probably in Manhattan. And Hollywood." I roll my eyes. "They throw themselves at him. Like he's sex on a stick or something."

"Or like he's some kind of celebrity?" Jo's tone is teasing.

"Whatever," I say. "He's not a damn celebrity. He's the child of a celebrity. There's a big difference. He's not famous for anything. It's the equivalent of calling me a Senator."

Jo wrinkles her nose. "Didn't he do some reality show?"

"Did he?" I'm not being coy; I really don't know. Would Caulter do a reality show? It doesn't sound like his kind of gig. I would think he would consider it beneath him. But who the hell knows with Caulter, anyway. He's unpredictable. A loose cannon.

Jo gives a non-committal shrug. "Maybe I'm thinking of that other guy, the one who was followed by the camera crew when he was in rehab. It doesn't matter. So you can't stand him. Obviously."

"Definitely," I say firmly. I definitely can't stand him.

The image of him looking up at me, his face buried between my legs, flashes into my head and I feel warm.

"So you hate your new step-brother," she says.

"Shut your mouth. He's not my step-brother," I say. "We're not twelve."

"Ooh, touchy touchy," she says. "The Dick is marrying his mother. That makes him your step-brother. You know, by definition."

"So?" I ask, my voice rising an octave. I know I'm getting defensive, and I tell myself to calm down, but I can't. "It's not like I know him at all. We're not siblings."

"I didn't say you were," Jo says. "Cranky much? You need to get laid."

I immediately think of Caulter and my face flushes. Please don't let my cheeks be bright red, I silently pray.

"So?" she asks. "Are you getting any at Brighton, or what?"

"Yeah, right," I say. "No one wants to date Senator Harrison's daughter except the ones who want to be you know - "

"The First Daughter's husband?"

"Ugh. Don't even talk about marriage. I'm eighteen, not thirty."

"What about the guy you were seeing?" Jo asks. "Tad, was it?"

I giggle. "It wasn't Tad."

She waves dismissively. "Whatever," she says. "Biff?"

"Chase."

She groans. "Yes. Chase," she says. "I knew it was something that screamed summer in the Hamptons and brunch with his parents."

"Shut up. He was -- yeah, okay, he was pretty much that guy." We dated for three months, even though I realized almost immediately that he was completely obsessed with politics. And my father. My God. It was all about campaigns and Washington internships and whatever was the hot button political issue of the day. He was exhausting.

"He was cute, yeah?" she asked. "In a really buttoned-down kind of way."

I shook my head. "No way. I think he wanted to sleep with my father more than me."

Jo laughed. "So there's been nobody this whole year?"

Nobody. Except for Caulter. My new step-brother. Who's slept with basically everyone. And who I want to strangle every time he looks at me.

So, essentially, I have fucking phenomenal taste in men. "Nobody," I say.

"Is Caulter hot?" she asks, as if she can read my mind.

"Wh -- what?" I stumble over the word and roll over onto my back, sitting up and drawing my knees to my chest.

Jo follows suit, rolling onto her back. "Is he hot?" she repeats. "I mean, yeah, he's a asshole but he's a slutty asshole, right?"

"So?" I ask, my tone high-pitched. "I can't stand him."

"So he's the perfect guy to screw," she says, matter-of-fact. As if she knows every damn thing in the world and is the exact person who should be giving advice. Jo has had a string of shitty boyfriends in the past two years, coupled with dramatic breakups. She's the last person I need to listen to about guys I should screw. I'm immediately irritated by her statement.

"Caulter Sterling is the last guy on earth I'd ever let near my vagina," I lie loudly. Too loudly.

"That's why he's the perfect one to let inside your vagina," she insists, laughing. "I mean, he's slept with a lot of girls, so you know he knows what he's doing. Probably. And you don't like him, so there's no messy breakup before you run off to Harvard."

"Some people wait to lose their virginity to someone they love," I say imperiously.

"Mhmm," she says. "I'm just saying that Caulter would be a perfect one night stand."

"Well, if you think he's a perfect one night stand," I say, "Then you can have him."

She looks over at me, and I can't see her eyes, obscured by the sunglasses. "Well, maybe I will," she says.

My entire body tenses up at her statement, and I swear my heart actually stops. It's just Jo being Jo, I tell myself. And what the hell should I care anyway? Caulter and I had sex once. Well, more than once. We had one night of sex. It was only one night -- completely and utterly meaningless.

Jo should sleep with him. But the thought of her and Caulter together makes me practically enraged. I clear my throat, ready to change the subject, but Jo saves me from that.

"Besides," she says. "You're being smart. It's a very reasonable not to hook-up with him. I'm sure the media would be all over that, if you and your new step-brother were bumping uglies. You know, since the Dick is like the biggest family values guy ever."

I don't respond. But all I can think is that I seem to lose all sense of reason when I'm in close proximity to Caulter.

The driver pulls up to the house and I hate it on sight. It's a huge white farmhouse kind of monstrosity. The only word I can think of to describe it is wholesome. I roll my eyes at the thought of Senator Douchebag giving a tour of the place to reporters, hanging on his every word as he talks about the importance of family values in this day and age. Meanwhile, he ships his kid off to boarding school so he doesn't have to deal with her and marries a rich celebrity who can fund his campaign. Obviously, he's full of something, but it's not family values.

The housekeeper tells me that my mother and the Senator aren't here yet. She shows me to my room and leaves, but not before giving me a look like she smells spoiled milk. I'm guessing someone who looks like me hasn't ever graced the hallowed halls of the Harrison residence. This place probably sees more polo matches than tattoos.

The room, of course, looks like something out of a beach house design magazine. Apparently I got the male version of the guestroom, with a rustic wooden bed, antique corner desk, blue-and-white quilt on the bed, and a ship in a bottle on a shelf on the wall. The entire thing makes my head ache.

The view, on the other hand...hell, that's another story. The minute I open the sliding door that leads out onto the balcony, I get the perfect panorama: two girls, lying on their stomachs on the dock beside the lake, their round asses barely covered by their bikini bottoms. Now, this I could get used to.

One of those asses I immediately recognize as Katherine's. The other girl with an inked pattern I can't quite see running down the side of her leg makes me think I definitely made the right choice coming to New Hampshire for the summer. If Kate has friends as hot as this chick, maybe this bullshit spending the summer in New Hampshire posing as a member of the Stepford family won't be so bad.

Of course, if this means Katherine will be lounging around in a bikini all summer, this entire thing will be a lot easier to swallow. Swallowing makes me think of that night with Katherine, her fumbling tentative movements as she wraps her lips around my cock. I'm not sure she's ever done it before -- she's no expert, that's obvious -- but the way she looks at me, earnestly, unlike the stuck-up priss I know from school, I want to come the minute she takes me in.

Of course, since the last time I saw Katherine, she was pushing me away like I was a leper, the mature thing to do would be to leave her alone and let her hang out with her friend on the dock.

Fuck that. I've never pretended to be mature.

On my way out to the dock, the housekeeper stops me. I can't remember what her name is. "Do you have things you need pressed?" she asks.

I raise an eyebrow at her. "Do I look like I own anything that needs an iron?" I ask.

She puts her hands on her hips and stares at me, her eyes narrow. "You don't look like you own anything that's ever been washed."

I laugh out loud. She's not what I expect from Senator Douchebag's staff. I like her. "It's a look."

She laughs. “It’s something,” she says, shaking her head as she nods to a platter of baked goods on the counter, like I’ve passed some kind of test that gets me into the club where there’s free cookies and muffins. “Your mother and Kate’s father should be in later this evening. Kate’s outside.”

“Thanks.” I grab a cookie because it seems like I’m supposed to and because she doesn't annoy me immediately. The way she refers to her as Kate makes me think they are close.

Katherine and her friend see me before I even reach the dock, but they just lie there unmoving, watching me. Her friend leans over to her, and I'd love to be a fly on the wall to know what they're saying. When I reach them, I don't even bother to try to hide the fact that I'm taking in the view from above.

“Hey, sis,” I say, punctuating the word for extra affect.

“I told you not to call me that, shithead,” she says, bringing herself up to her hands and knees before flipping over in a huff to sit upright on her ass. I think she's trying to hide her ass from my eyes, which makes me laugh, since the way she's sitting now just gives me a great view of her perky tits. They're barely covered in the white swimsuit, and I can see the darkening of her areolas through the thin fabric. If I'm not careful, I'm going to get a boner standing right here looking at her. I'm fixated on thinking about how to get her back in that hands-and-knees position she was too briefly in.

“I’m trying to be friendly to my new step-sister,” I say, mock sugar-sweet. “Or does it make you uncomfortable to think about the fact that I’m your new brother when you’re fantasizing about me?”

“You’re not my new brother,” she says, yanking her sunglasses off her face and shielding her eyes as she looks up at me. Her nostrils flare at the edges, and I’m amused by the fact that she’s so obviously riled up about this.

“Technically I am, sis,” I say.

“We’re eighteen, asshole,” she says. “We didn’t grow up together. Our parents aren’t even married yet. You and I are not related. We’re nothing.”

I look down at her friend, who’s sitting up now and is watching us, her lips turned up at the edges. She's clearly amused. And, I'm thinking as I look at her, certainly no eyesore herself. “She’s just touchy because she got a look at my cock and now she can’t stop thinking about it.”

“Oh?” her friend asks, glancing at Katherine. Kate's face darkens. “You didn’t tell me this.”

My new step-sister looks at me, her eyes wide. “Don’t listen to anything he says. Caulter is full of shit.”

Her friend’s head swivels toward me again, and I glance at her impressive rack, thinking that maybe Katherine's friend is exactly what I need to get Katherine out of my head. “Full of shit?” she asks.

“I’m full of shit, am I, Katherine?” I ask. “So you've never seen my dick?”

“Shut the hell up, Caulter,” she says, standing, her face level with mine. My cock stirs as she glares at me, the flash in her eyes a warning. She thinks I’m about to tell her little friend about our night together; the fact that she’s so obviously upset makes me simultaneously irritated and pleased.

I turn toward Katherine’s friend, who is splayed out casually on the ground, watching us with amusement. “She has, in fact, seen my cock,” I say. “And apparently, she can’t take her mind off it.”

“Come on, Jo,” Katherine says, huffing. “He’s a moron. Let’s get out of here.”

“She didn’t tell you about our little bathroom incident, did she?” I asked. “How I walked in on her changing?” Katherine's expression changes when she understands I'm not about to reveal what happened between us that night.

“No, she didn’t tell me,” her friend says.

Katherine rolls her eyes. “He has no boundaries,” she says. “He thought it was perfectly appropriate behavior to come in while I was in the bathroom and proceed to take a leak in front of me.”

Jo snorts. “That's rude, yes. Completely.”

“I did not take a leak in front of her,” I say, ignoring Katherine. “But if I had to wait for her to stop talking, I’d have pissed myself waiting.”

Beside me, Katherine makes a sound of frustration. “He’s completely full of shit. Jo, are you ready?”

“Jo,” I say, offering her my hand. Jo rises to her feet, her full tits bouncing as she stands. I can’t help but look. “It’s so nice to meet you. Any friend of Katherine’s is a friend of mi -”

“Oh no, I don’t think so,” Katherine says, reaching around me to grab Jo’s arm as Jo laughs. “She’s not a friend of yours in the least. I’m not a friend of yours. You and I are not friends. Don’t even try to hit on her.”

I put my hand over my heart. "Katherine, your words cut me deep."

Jo shakes her head. “I don’t know, Kate, you guys definitely seem to fight like brother and sister.” She walks forward, leaving Katherine and I standing at the end of the dock.

Katherine is facing me, and I lean in close, my mouth near her ear, wrapping my hand around her wrist. “Don’t lie. You can’t stop thinking about my cock. Tell her how much you moaned when I was inside --”

“You’re a pig,” she whispers. I can see her jaw clench.

“If I'm a pig, maybe Jo needs a little pork, then, huh?” I whisper. Jo's several feet ahead, too far away to hear.

"Don't even --" Katherine starts. She wrenches her arm from my hand and before I realize what she's doing, her hand is on my chest, pushing me off balance.

Into the fucking lake.

I sputter when I come up for air, the water shockingly cold even though it's summer. Katherine and Jo are laughing as they walk away, and Katherine looks over her shoulder at me, grinning wickedly.

I wave at her with my middle finger before I pull myself up onto the dock and out of the water.

If anyone else had done something like that to me, it would be over. But Katherine amuses me. If she wants to play this way, I can't think of a more entertaining way to spend the summer.

“Casual,” my father says. “Casual but...appropriate.” He’s been droning on for the last twenty minutes, giving us a big lecture about tomorrow morning’s breakfast, the summer kick-off to his re-election campaign. I look down at my food again, picking at my salmon even though it’s my favorite. I'm trying to distract myself from the hell on earth I've found myself in, sitting here at the table with my father and Ella and Caulter. Ella nods enthusiastically and beams, while Caulter sits in the chair perpendicular to me, suspiciously quiet. He's not made a single sarcastic comment during the entire meal, and his weirdly pleasant demeanor makes me think my salmon might very well be poisoned.

Caulter nods at something my father says, as if he's had some kind of personality transplant. Maybe he hit his head when I pushed him into the lake. That wasn't one of my finer moments, but Caulter damn sure doesn't bring out the mature side of me.

I'm wondering what the hell he has up his sleeve, when I feel something on my calf and nearly jump out of my skin. I catch Caulter's eye and he winks.

It's his foot.

I jerk my leg over, glaring at him. Footsies at the table. That's real fucking mature.

“You know, sir,” Caulter says. In two years at school, I've never once heard Caulter use the word sir. "I was thinking about the re-election campaign, re-evaluating my priorities for the summer.”

“Caulter…” Ella hisses. Ella isn't stupid enough to be falling for this, I think. She's smart enough to know her son.

“Ella,” my father says, silencing her by covering her palm with his. “Let him speak. Maybe he’s realized that this is exactly what he needs for the summer. Responsibility."

Ella’s face is pale, and she sips from her wine glass. She looks meaningfully at Caulter. “Yes. Maybe he’s realized that there are significant things at stake.”

I'm sure Ella is trying to subtly threaten Caulter with his trust fund, and I hope he's not stupid enough to be playing some kind of game with my father's campaign.

“I’m impressed by the importance of family, mom,” he says.

Yeah, right.

“And by the idea of contributing to a political campaign," he continues. "I think I'd like to try having a little structure, some boundaries." Caulter slides his foot up the side of my leg again, and I move my leg away.

“You should be involved." My father is stupid enough to fall for Caulter's brand of bullshit? “Structure and boundaries. It's what you need. You see, Ella, I've said this a hundred times. Structure and boundaries are the two most important things when raising children. Look at Katherine. She's a product of that."

"Katherine is a fine example of that, sir," Caulter says, sliding his foot up my leg. This time, I kick him, hard on the shin, and he flinches.

“You know, I'm just really tired,” I say. “The sunshine has taken it out of me.”

“Oh?” my father asks. “Did you go swimming?”

“No, the water is still too cold for me. But Caulter went for a dip out in the lake, didn't you, Caulter? The lakes here can be so refreshing."

My father looks at Caulter. "You just got here this afternoon," he says. "Already taking advantage of the lake?"

Caulter smiles and shrugs. "I just couldn't resist the water."

"I didn't think you liked the beach, Caulter," Ella says.

“Oh, well, it’s the lake, Ella,” my father says. “It's different from the beach.”

“You know, sir,” Caulter says. “A swim in the lake was exactly what I needed to cool off. And I just want to say that Katherine has gone out of her way to make me feel welcome here. It's like we're already family. Bosom buddies."

I choke on my water, prompting a quizzical look from my father. “Wrong pipe,” I gasp. “Could I excuse myself?”

“Go, go,” my father shoos me away. “Caulter, I’m pleased to hear that you’re…” His voice trails off as I walk out of the room and upstairs.

Flopping down on the bed, I think about how in the world I'm going to get through this summer. I can already tell that I’m going to be in a perpetual state of annoyance.

Annoyance and sexual frustration.

I could tell that Jo didn't quite believe it when I said he annoyed me earlier, as I walked away from the dock with her, after pushing Caulter in the lake.

"I don't know," she says. "He's pretty hot." She turns to look at him, pulling himself out of the water and up onto the dock. He makes a show of stripping off his shirt and shaking out his hair, knowing we're looking at him, and I turn away. I'm surprised he hasn't stripped buck naked right there; the prospect of that isn't entirely unpleasant. “I’d do him," she says.

“You’d do Charles Manson."

“Don’t be a bitch, Kate. He’s hot and has a reputation,” she says. “Besides, he obviously has a thing for you.”

“Of course he doesn’t.”

She raises her eyebrows. “He does. And you have one for him, I’d say.”

“I do not." I shake my head. “Emphatically, absolutely no. He’s a disgusting pig who thinks women exist solely so he can go after them. Didn’t you see him eye-fucking you?”

Jo laughs and cocks her head to the side. “No,” she says. “I didn’t. But you were paying a lot of attention to where his eyes were.”

“I’m not talking about it,” I insist. “Caulter Sterling is a no. A huge no.”

“I'm just saying.” She walks toward her car, this total beater she’s had since we were sixteen. “I bet he’s great in the sack.”

“Jo!” My voice is sharp. We're standing in front of my house, where anyone could overhear. But she just grins and shrugs.

“Later, bitch,” she says.

Jo is not right about Caulter. Caulter Sterling certainly does not have a thing for me, unless that thing involves trying to irritate me as much as possible. Or get his dick in me again.

The image of Caulter Sterling's dick flashes into my head and I try to push it aside. Caulter was a one-time deal, I tell myself. That's the whole point of a one night stand -- you never have to see the person again.

Of course, most one night stands don't then show up on your front doorstep to live with you for the summer.

It was one time only.

One time that happened to be really fucking good. Like, mind-blowingly good. The kind of thing you read about in dirty books.

My breath quickens at the thought of Caulter inside me. I can put him out of my head. I don't need to think about that night with Caulter. But once my mind goes there, it can't stop. It doesn't want to stop.

Caulter is above me, his movement gentle. I told him I wasn't a virgin; we both knew I was lying. He's probably deflowered lots of virgins, I think; he's probably an expert in virginity-taking. The way he moves inside me, his tenderness afterward as he cleans me up, makes me think that's definitely the case. Caulter Sterling: Virginity Removal Specialist. I picture the words on a business card, and it makes me laugh.

An hour later, he's teased me to the brink again, until I'm dripping with the anticipation of him. He rolls me on top of him, and I squirm, self-conscious under the intensity of his gaze. But his grip on my waist is firm. “Ride me."

"Caulter, I don't know --"

"Do you feel how fucking hard I am?" he asked. "I want you again."

"We don't always get what we want, Caulter," I tease.

"I do," he says.

Heat rushes through me at the thought of the way I'd slipped back onto his cock, despite the aching between my legs. I rode him, tentative at first, until it started to feel so good that I lost my self-consciousness, eagerly leaning forward so Caulter could close his lips around my breast, his teeth grazing the sensitive area around my nipple.

I tell myself to stop fantasizing about Caulter. But I can't help it, even now, knowing that he's right downstairs talking to my father. The fact that he's downstairs makes it even more irresistible and thrilling.

Undoing the button on my jeans, I slip them over my hips and slide my hand between my legs. My finger presses against my clit, sending warmth radiating through my body. My nipples harden against the fabric of my bra, and I slide my other hand underneath my shirt, pushing my finger between the lace bra cup and my skin.

I masturbated before Caulter, but I swear that screwing him did something to my brain; I feel completely preoccupied with sex. It's like my hormones are in overdrive. I wonder if that's what happens when everyone loses their virginity, or if it's something about Caulter that's making me a sex-crazed lunatic. Maybe Jo was right -- maybe Caulter did have some kind of magic touch.

Caulter and his magic cock. The thought would make me laugh if I weren't so damn horny. I slide my hand under the pillow on the bed, reaching for the vibrator I'd tucked in the pillowcase this morning. Pushing my jeans further down my legs, I roll the vibrator over my clit until the emptiness between my legs is too impossible to resist.

I tease my entrance with the toy as the vibrations pulse through me. It slides easily inside, aided by my wetness, and I angle it to hit my g-spot, the place Caulter seemed to be such an expert at reaching. Ignoring the buzzing of the vibrator, I imagine that it's Caulter inside me, that Caulter's mouth is on my breast; that the tip of his cock is pressing up against the walls of my pussy.

I imagine that it's Caulter whispering in my ear: "Your pussy is so slick and warm, so damn tight, the way it squeezes my cock."

It's imagining his dirty talk that pushes me over the edge, and I come quickly, my muscles clenching down around the toy. I bite my lip, cutting off the cry of pleasure that escapes, and lying back with my head on the pillow as the fluttering of my muscles slowly subsides.

I'm still so wrapped up in my thoughts about Caulter that the knock on the door makes me jump. Shit, shit, shit. Sliding the vibrator from between my legs and stuffing it underneath the pillow, I yank my pants up. I already know it's not my father, who retreats to his office working late after dinner, regardless of what day it is. When I reach the door, my heart is still thumping loudly in my chest.

"Evening, sis." Caulter stands in front of the door with a smirk on his face, and my heart sinks. I immediately stick my foot out to prevent the door from swinging open further, and cross my arms in front of my chest.

"What do you want?" My heartbeat feels practically deafening to me, matching the throbbing between my legs, a reminder of what I was just doing and who exactly I was thinking about a minute ago.

"Am I interrupting?" he asks. How long has he been standing there? I picture him outside my door, listening to me as I get off, and I'm mortified. "You look flushed. I hope you're not getting a fever."

Oh my God, he totally heard me. If I weren't flushed when I answered the door, I sure as hell was now. "I'm feeling fine. But thanks for your concern," I say, my voice sarcastic. "Nice act at dinner, by the way. I hope I didn't kick you too hard on the shin."

"Thanks for your concern." He smirks. "I'm perfectly fine. I'm sure you'll be glad to know you didn't harm me in any way."

"That's comforting," I say. "I'd have hated for you to be injured."

"You'd have to nurse me back to health if I was."

I roll my eyes. "You'd be out of luck."

Caulter leans forward, his face inches from mine. "Oh, I don't know, Kate," he says. The way he speaks the short version of my name makes me think about that night and all the things he did to me. "You have to admit, you might like having me as a patient."

I inhale sharply, almost dizzy with lust. I don't push him away. I don't tell him to leave. He's so close to me I think he can smell the sex on me.

Caulter keeps talking, his voice a sultry tone that's practically hypnotic. "Having me as your patient, lying in bed, totally at your mercy while you ride me."

His words trigger the memory of that night -- the same image in my head that made me come not two minutes ago. It's like he has some kind of weird mind-reading capability when it comes to me.

When I don't speak, he lowers his voice almost to a whisper. "I'd close my mouth around your breast and suck your nipple until you panted my name, until you begged me to slide my cock inside you."

I will myself not to think about what he's saying, but I can't stop. My lips fall apart and I'm practically panting. I put my hand on my chest, as if that will keep it from rising and falling the way it does. I think about how easy it would be to slide my hand up underneath the hem of his shirt, run my palm along his abs, around the waistband of his jeans, and just flick that button open.

Fuck. I want him.

He looks into my eyes as if he can read my thoughts, as if he's daring me to do what I'm longing to do. "Did you think about me when you came?" he whispers.

Now I push him back, hard. "I don't know what you're talking about."

He chuckles as he steps back. "I'm right next door if you need me," he says, winking. "Think about that."

I groan aloud as he walks inside his room and shuts the door. I can hear him laughing to himself - the walls in this place aren't exactly thick. In fact, they're paper thin. Sinking onto the bed, I think about how I'm about to be stuck all summer, sharing a wall with Caulter, the guy I can't stop fantasizing about.

I listen to Caulter's door open and close as he comes back from the bathroom, before I decide it's safe to go out myself. I wouldn't want to have any more surprise bathroom encounters with him.

I'm completely lying to myself.

"Morning, sunshine." I adjust the collar of my baby blue polo shirt and run my hand through my hair.

Katherine stops, mid-motion as she leaves her room, her eyes running down the length of my body. "Are you wearing a polo shirt?" she asks. "It's pastel."

I can barely suppress my grin. "Well, it is a special occasion, isn't it?" I ask. "It's the kick-off of your father's campaign and all. The big family breakfast."

"It's pastel," she says, squinting at me. "You look..."

I interrupt her, even though part of me is curious whether she's about to say I look like a complete tool in the shirt. After standing outside her door last night though, and watching how flustered she got just talking to me, I highly doubt she thinks I look like anything except sex. "It's a family breakfast," I say. "I want to look appropriate."

"You have something planned," she says, turning to reach for her doorknob. "Crap, I forgot my purse. You better not have anything planned. If you say a thing..."

I step behind her and she freezes, her hand still on the doorknob. Leaning in close to her, my lips near her neck, I speak in her ear. "Are you worried I'll tell everyone how you make those little whimpering sounds when you come?"

She shies away from me, but I can still see the hairs on the back of her neck raised up, the goose bumps that dot the length of her skin. She might pretend she hates me, but she wants me.

Katherine spins around, facing me, her eyes wide. "I swear to all that is holy, if you say something about us during this breakfast, I will rip off your balls with my bare hands and stuff them in your mouth."

The way she looks right now, a wild animal with her nostrils flaring and her eyes large, makes me instantly hard. I push her up against the door frame, pulling her wrists above her head and pinning them there. "Us?" I ask. "I'm glad you admit there's an us, Kate."

"No," she protests, her voice low. "There is no us. There was no us. There never will be an us. We had sex once, Caulter. It's never going to happen again. I don't even think about it. Why don't you just leave it alone?"

She's cute when she lies. Her mouth is upturned toward me, her breath short, her chest rising and falling as she speaks. Her buttoned-down shirt is undone at the top, and I can see just the faintest hint of cleavage, her full breasts pressed together. If I hadn't already been thinking about the way her tits looked in the button down shirt she was wearing, I am now that she is arching her back the way she is now. "Sure you don't think about it, Princess," I say. "Tell me you haven't laid in bed at night, slid your fingers down the front of your panties, thinking about how I felt inside you."

"You say a fucking word about anything and you're dead, Caulter." My cock feels like it's going to fucking explode, straining against the front of my khakis, as I watch her get so incensed. I glance down the hallway. It's empty, the upstairs quiet. I hear my mother's voice somewhere downstairs. But no one is nearby.

"I like the way you can't stop talking about fucking when you're around me," I whisper.

"A driver is going to come for us any minute now," Katherine says, her voice breathy. But I don't think she's warning me as much as she's telling me how much time I have.

I think about sliding my hands under her ass, carrying her into her bedroom, and ripping off the slacks she's wearing, plunging my cock into her willing pussy, just like I did that night. I consider taking her on every surface of that bedroom of hers. I want to defile her again.

She whimpers, and the sound pushes me over the edge. I keep my hand firmly across her wrists and use the other hand to flick open the button of her pants. Never taking my eyes off hers, I slide my hand inside her panties.

“Caulter,” she whispers, her eyes going wider as I touch her wetness, using it as lubrication to roll my fingers over and over her clit.

“You’re wet.” I refuse to take my eyes off hers as I move my fingers in circles, watching as her eyelids fall lower and her breath becomes shorter. “You want me to touch you.”

“No.” She shakes her head and glances to the side, over the landing, in the direction of the downstairs, a look of panic crossing her face. “We shouldn't. We can’t.”

I ignore her. Instead, I slide my fingers down further and tease her entrance briefly. Her pants are in the way, and I drop my other hand down to yank them low over her hips. She emits a soft yelp of protest, but her hands stay firmly planted above her head, despite no longer being held there.

“My father,” she whispers. “Your mother. Someone will -”

If my mother or her father walked upstairs, they’d see Katherine with her pants around her hips, breathing heavily while I shoved my fingers down her panties. “You’re right,” I say softly, teasing her entrance again with the tip of my fingers. “Anyone could see. I shouldn’t let you come on my fingers, the way that you want to.”

“I don’t want to come on --” she starts to say, but I silence her, plunging my fingers inside her, quickly and without warning. Her eyes close lightly, and she brings her hands down to grip my shoulders. I stroke her slowly, on her most sensitive place, and I can feel her body give way like she’s slowly melting. Pressing my palm firmly against her clit, I continue to stroke her, and she grinds against my hand.

“No?” I whisper. “Tell me you don’t want to come on me.”

“Caulter,” she says softly.

“Yes, Princess.”

“Fucking...stop calling...me that.”

The way she gets her words mixed up, her voice breathy, makes me even more heated. I lean close to her ear. “Then stop acting like a princess,” I say.

Downstairs, a door opens and Senator Douchebag's voice rings out as he talks to a woman with a thick Boston accent. Katherine’s eyes fly open, and she looks at me, her expression anxious. But she still presses against my palm, and even though I pause momentarily, I resume again.

"Caulter," she warns.

I lean close to her, my mouth against hers, and take her bottom lip between my teeth. “Do you want to come?” I speak the words into her mouth.

“Someone….don’t….” Her pussy feels tight on my fingers as it grips them. I can't help but imagine my cock in its place.

“Say you want me to make you come, Kate,” I tell her. “Hurry. You have a minute before someone finds you.” As if on cue, the voices downstairs get louder, the woman giving directions like she's ordering around a couple of children.

“I don't...want...oh, Caulter,” her words come out in gasps. She’s so close, and her face is so filled with lust for me that what I do next is almost as much torture for me as it will be for her. But I'm going to enjoy torturing her, bringing her to the edge and then denying her. I slide my fingers from between her legs, watching as her expression changes from lusty to puzzled to furious.

“What are you doing?” she whispers. I touch my finger, slick with her juices, to her lips, and she wrinkles her face up in disgust. “Gross.”

"Button up your pants, Princess," I say. "You don't want mommy and daddy dearest to see you with your pants around your ass." I open my mouth and make a show of putting my fingers that were inside her, into my mouth, licking off every last bit of her juices. She watches me, wide-eyed.

“Shit.” Katherine rushes to button her pants, still staring at me. Downstairs, her father calls our names. “Coming!”

“Not anymore, you’re not, Princess,” I say, winking. “Unfortunately.”

“Shut up,” she barks, glaring at me. “Shit. Do I look like - you know?”

“Like your step-brother just had his fingers inside your pussy and you're about to go sit in front of a bunch of reporters and pretend to be a perfect little family?” I grin. “Yeah.”

Katherine’s eyes go as big as saucers. “Don’t be crude.”

“Because I used the word pussy, or step-brother?" I ask.

“Both.” She squirms. Her face is flushed, and the rosy red color on her cheeks matches the flush that peeks out from the fabric covering her chest. I'm pleased with my work, even if all the blood in my body is still in my cock.

"Didn't seem to bother you before," I say.

“Katherine!” her father calls.

“Just a minute!” She looks at me. “Well?”

“Well what?”

“Are you going to wash your hands before we go?” she asks through gritted teeth.

“I don’t think so,” I say, turning to start down the hall. I have to pull the polo shirt down, untucked, over the waistband of my khakis to even make a pretense at hiding the raging hard-on I have. At least there's no wet spot on the front of my pants. “I’d rather eat pussy for breakfast anyway.”

Katherine rushes forward and grabs my arm, jerking me toward her. “You’re going to smell like me,” she whispers. She’s so panicked-looking that it makes me laugh. “Go wash your fucking hands.”

“I would have washed my hands, before you started insisting on it,” I say. “But now I’d rather just bask in your scent during breakfast.” I make a dramatic show of bringing my fingers up to my nostrils, inhaling deeply. “It's better than the smell of coffee in the morning. If you want, tomorrow morning you could wake me up with the real thing in bed, you know. You could straddle my face, bring your bare pussy down to my --”

“I can’t believe you --” she interrupts, but I turn and walk down the stairs calmly, listening to her as she trails after me.

“Can’t believe I what, Katherine?” I ask, pausing at the top of the stairs for a moment, but she doesn't answer.

My mother and Senator Douchebag are downstairs waiting for us.

“Caulter Sterling." My mother greets me with a kiss on the cheek. She speaks softly, so that the Senator's entourage in the foyer can’t hear her. “I can’t believe you made such an effort. Thank you for not --”

“For what, mother?” I ask innocently, as she draws away from me. “For not embarrassing you? I can’t believe you think so poorly of me. I only want you to be happy, and if that means donning a polo shirt and khakis, well I guess that’s what I have to do.”

Ella narrows her eyes, but smiles immediately as the Senator walks up behind her and takes her arm. He looks at me, with an expression that’s as close to approval as I’ve seen from him. “Caulter. I’m pleased to see you looking so…”

“Normal?” I ask.

“Appropriate,” he says.

Katherine materializes at my side, and I glance at her out of the corner of my eye, only to have to try not to do an obvious double-take.

Shit, I have to force myself to keep from grabbing her perfect little ass; throwing her over my shoulder; and walking right the hell out the front door with her, in front of her father and his political cronies.

Somehow she found time in the last two minutes to ditch me and dash back to her room to change.

Into a dress.

Not just any dress. A white cotton sundress.

A white cotton sundress that skims over her curves, flows over her hips and comes to a seemingly appropriate knee length that sways with her every movement and is in no way fucking appropriate at all.

She's wearing a damn headband, for shit's sake.

“Oh, you look lovely, Katherine,” my mother says.

“Perfect,” the Senator agrees. Do they not see what I see? Katherine doesn't look the least bit lovely. She looks sexy. Sultry. Shit-hot.

“The car is waiting," the Senator says.

Katherine steps in front of me and tosses me a knowing look over her shoulder. Then she winks, innocent and seductive all at once.

She walks in front of me, the swaying of her hips causing the dress to swish back and forth, as she totters on conservative nude heels. The entire thing is so exceedingly appropriate that it has the exact opposite effect.

I want to bend her over in that dress and fuck her on the hood of the sedan.

A man in a suit holds open the car door as she climbs inside. He glances at her ass and it takes everything I have not to punch him in the face. I want to carry her inside and force her to put on the pants she was wearing before, the ones that covered every inch of those gorgeous legs.

When we're all settled in the car, Katherine and I on one side facing Ella and the Senator, Katherine pats my leg like I'm some kind of puppy. “See, dad?” she asks. “Caulter is even coming around, in his slacks and polo.”

I know her choice of phrase is no coincidence. I clear my throat and sit uncomfortably in the seat, trying not to think of cum while I'm sitting here in the car. I close my eyes and picture anything but Katherine naked, ignoring the compliment Senator Douchebag gives me about my conformity to his expectations.

I make my decision in the car.

I’m having fun screwing around with Katherine, but enough is enough. I’m going to have her.

I spear a mouthful of the stupid pancakes off the stupid plate. They're the same stupid pancakes I get every year I'm forced to attend this breakfast, ordered for me like I'm a toddler incapable of making my own choices.

I look over at Caulter, who has a mouthful of food. At least there's two of us being treated like toddlers now.

Caulter sits beside me, my father and Ella at the ends of the table, like we’re a completely normal family out for Saturday morning brunch. Except that we’re the opposite of normal. We're eating in front of camera crews and reporters, pretending this is the most usual thing in the world. How fucked up is that?

Reporters throw out questions that my father and Ella field between bites. It's at least gratifying to watch Ella be forced to sit in front of a plate full of carbs, moving pieces around and sipping on water. I space out during most of the breakfast, only perking up when something is directed at me specifically.

I’m distracted by the fact that I'm pretty sure Caulter can see down the front of my dress from where he sits beside me. Well, I'm distracted by that and the fact that my nipples have been hard for the past hour. Since what happened with Caulter in the hallway.

He fiddles with something beside his leg, and then my purse vibrates. Shit. I reach discreetly for my purse and pull out my phone. For a second I thought Caulter stuck my vibrator in there. While reporters direct question after question at my father, I slide my finger across the screen, seeing a text from a number I don't recognize.

That dress is the most fuckable thing I’ve ever seen.

I glance over at Caulter, who puts a piece of pancake in his mouth. He avoids looking at me. I touch the keys on the screen, typing out a response as I feign paying attention as a reporter directs a question at me. “Katherine, have you decided on a major?”

Art, I want to say. I open my mouth, ready to declare my undecided-ness for the entire world, and my father interrupts me. “Law, isn’t it, Katherine? Pre-law?”

I pause. Fuck you, I think. But I smile instead. “Law,” I say. “Yes. Law.” I hit “send” on the phone, underneath the table.

How did u get my number u stalkr. lve me alone.

Caulter looks down beside him. A minute later, I feel my phone vibrate again.

This syrup doesn’t taste nearly as sweet as you. I can still smell you on my fingers.

When I look at him, he's closing his mouth around a syrup-coated piece of pancake and licking his lips dramatically. I'm not sure whether to be turned on or appalled at the balls he has to text something like that right here in the middle of this event, surrounded by reporters and at the same table as my father.

I type out a response.

U r not ever ever ever tasting me.

“Caulter, how are you and Katherine getting along now? Was the photo in the paper a one-time occurrence, or is there real tension between you?”

My heart stops, and I reach for a glass of water. Is there real tension between us? My mind flashes immediately to the image of Caulter with his hand between my legs, his fingers bringing me to the brink of insanity right there in the middle of the hallway with my father and his new bride waiting downstairs. Is there tension between us? I'm preoccupied with Caulter. I can't decide if I want to throw him over a cliff or let him bend me over and fuck me.

“I can’t answer for Katherine,” Caulter says, his voice interrupting my thoughts. “But the incident in the paper was really taken completely out of context. We were actually joking around, arguing over -- coffee, was it?"

"Coffee." One of the reporters chuckles.

"I think with two teenagers as obviously bright and talented as these, there will be similarly heated discussions in the future as our two families merge." My father's voice booms.

As our two families merge.

He doesn't know what kind of merging Caulter and I have been doing. I avoid eye contact with Caulter as my phone vibrates again.

I'm going to merge with you.

I roll my eyes and reply.

Corny. Also, no. Just no.

From the corner of my eye, I see Caulter smirk, and he taps on the phone while still nodding along with a point someone is making about an issue I don't give a shit about. I can't think of anything except the fact that my panties are damp, and I'm concerned that when I stand up, the evidence of my attraction to Caulter will be right there for the entire world to see.

I look down at my phone.

I'm going to bend you over, pull that dress up, and slap your ass good and hard.

Heat rises to my face as I think about Caulter sending all the plates and silverware on the table crashing to the floor with one dramatic gesture of his arm, then taking me right here in this little mom and pop cafe.

What the hell is wrong with me? I'm becoming a sex-obsessed lunatic.

I hit the power button on the phone and focus on the breakfast. I'm determined to put all of this nonsense out of my head. I pointedly ignore Caulter, who nods and smiles and answers questions politely, all things that are so unlike Caulter that it puts me on edge. I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Instead, we make it through breakfast completely free of any incident. I can tell that his mother is just as surprised as I am. My father smiles happily, pleased, I'm sure, that we've behaved ourselves.

“The driver will take you and Caulter back,” he says outside, walking toward a car with Ella.

“What?” My voice sounds like a squeak. My father is the king of surprises.

“I have another speaking engagement.” He doesn’t even bother to explain. "You kids did great."

Behind me, Caulter chuckles. “Alone in the car. Alone in the house. Do you think you can resist, Princess?”

I roll my eyes. “I’ll be fine.” I’m still bending forward, ducking as I slide into the car with Caulter behind me, when I feel his fingers reach up and graze my panties. I nearly jump out of my skin, slapping his hand. He just laughs, as if he just did something completely appropriate. When I slide to the other side of the seat, he grins.

“This limo is just not that big, Princess,” he says.

“Shut up.”

We’re driving, the privacy screen up, when Caulter slides over and reaches for my leg, pulling my thigh toward him. I jerk my legs closed, glancing toward the front of the car where the driver sits. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Worried?” he asks softly.

I shrug. “No. I’m not interested.”

“I’m sure he can’t hear us,” Caulter says. “Your father wouldn’t let someone record him.”

I wrinkle my brow. “Are you seriously suggesting my father is banging women -- your mother -- in the back of limos?”

Caulter laughs. “Obviously, you’re the one with sex on your mind,” he says. “No, I wasn’t suggesting that. Thanks for the image though; I might have to bleach my brain now. I was saying that I’m sure he talks about stuff with people he doesn’t want recorded, so I doubt very much that we need to worry.”

“Well, unlike you, I’ve never had a reason to even think about hiding what I do in the back of limos.”

“It's not my fault you live a sheltered life, one without orgasms.” He returns his hand to my thigh, sliding his palm up the side of my leg, and I slap it, but he only grips it more tightly.

“I’ve had plenty of orgasms, thank you very much.” I’m not lying; I mean, I’ve given myself plenty of orgasms.

Caulter laughs, the sound mocking. “Not the kind of orgasms I give,” he says.

“You have no idea what kind of orgasms I’ve had without you," I say, rolling my eyes. But I can't help but wonder.

Sliding his hand over my thigh, he reaches between my legs. “Your panties are soaked,” he says. “Are we just going to keep pretending you don’t want me?”

“I can’t stand you,” I protest.

“I don’t much like you either, Princess,” he whispers, his voice gravelly. I flinch when he speaks the words, as if he’s hit me, and the movement doesn’t escape him. “What? You don’t like hearing that from me?”

I shrug, even though he’s right. It bothers me, but I can’t imagine why. “Whatever. I don’t care if you like me or not. And --” I nod toward the window, at the driver.

Caulter smiles, and leans close to my ear. “I already told you he can’t hear us and he can’t see us.”

“You don’t know that for sure," I say, my resolve already weakening. "And he would tell my father.”

“So you’re entertaining the idea.”

“I am not.”

“Live life on the edge,” he whispers. “Take a little risk once in a while, Princess.” He doesn’t move for a minute, and then, his head looking forward and his movements smooth, he pulls my thigh toward him with one hand and reaches between my legs with the other.

I already know what he's going to find. He's going to find that my panties are absolutely drenched. I'm already aware of that. I hate that my traitorous body melts under his touch.

“You’re the Devil,” I protest, my brain insisting that doing this with him is so wrong. I'm not the girl who lets go, lets someone like Caulter touch her in the back of a limo.

I squeeze my legs together, but it doesn’t faze him. It only traps his hand between my thighs, leaving his fingers pressed against my pussy lips. He still moves his fingers, and it sends a shock of arousal coursing through my body like electricity. I want desperately to let go. I want him to take me higher, but I don’t know that I can. I don’t know that I should. In fact, I’m certain that I shouldn’t.

I wrap my hand over his wrist, intending to peel it away, but instead, I press it against me. I hold his fingers tight between my legs, the heat radiating into me through the cotton fabric of my panties. I can’t think about anything except having his fingers back inside me, where they were this morning. Hell, I don't want his fingers -- what I really want is his cock.

He moves closer to me, whispers in my ear. “You're wet. Admit that it's because of me. We both know it is."

I ignore him, but part my legs slightly, and he takes that as an invitation to pull my panties to the side, revealing my pussy. I inhale cool air through my mouth, every part of my body aching for his touch.

I shake my head. There's no way I'm telling Caulter Sterling I'm wet for him. Even if it is written all over my body. "Not true," I whisper.

"No?" he asks. He teases my entrance with his finger, but doesn't give me what I so desperately want. Instead, he runs the tip of his finger over my clit again, arousal making my thoughts foggy. "You want me, Katherine. You want me to plunge my cock into that sweet pussy of yours. I will, Princess. All you have to do is say it. Say you want me to leave you panting, the same way you did that night.”

I shake my head, protesting, but he keeps touching me, and it's not thirty seconds before I'm throwing my head back in surrender. He slips his finger inside me, and I am so far gone I can’t think anymore. I don’t care what he wants me to say. At this point, I’ll say anything.

Until he pulls it out, and I’m left empty. I look up at him, my breath short. “What the hell?”

Caulter shakes his head. “Naughty girl. You’re not going to get to come that easily.”

“Whatever, Caulter." I choke out the words, eyeing his obvious hardness. “Fine. But I know you want it. More than I do.”

He leans in close to me, taking my earlobe between his teeth. The movement sends a shudder down the length of my body. “Tell me how much I want it, Princess.”

I watch as he unzips his jeans and reaches inside to release his erect cock. I hadn’t forgotten how huge it is -- in fact, his damn dick has preoccupied my brain for the last few weeks to a point where I can’t focus on anything else. But seeing it again, I'm transfixed. He strokes himself from base to tip, without taking his eyes off me. I almost can't believe that he’s so brazen to just whip out his cock in front of me right here, except that it's Caulter.

What's more unbelievable is how intensely my body responds as I watch him move his hand up and down his length, the throbbing between my legs so insistent I can barely take it. “You can’t do that in here,” I protest weakly.

Caulter ignores me, his hand moving up and down. “I’d like it to be your hand here. Or better yet, that perfect mouth of yours wrapped around my cock.”

“No way,” I say. “We’re about to be back at the house. It’s not like you can get off in the next two minutes before we get to my house."

He raises his eyebrows. “Well, if that’s your only objection,” he says, “you don't have to worry. I'm not about to get off here. I'm going to wait until I'm lodged deep in your pussy before I come."

Reaching for my hand, he places it on his shaft. I should pull away, teach him a lesson in appropriate behavior, but I don’t. With Caulter, I find myself perpetually unable to resist. He’s so hard, and I wrap my hand around his shaft, the sensation of his hardness so distracting. Incredibly distracting. “You’ve been thinking about it, haven’t you? How it felt when I was inside you?"

I don’t answer, my thumb finding a bead of pre-cum at the tip of his head. I rub it in circles on his tip.

I move my hand along his shaft, long and languid strokes, until the slowing of the car jolts me out of my nearly-hypnotic state. I quickly adjust my skirt and scoot across the seat as we pass through the gate in front of the house, clearing my throat and intentionally not looking in Caulter's direction.

For all I know, Caulter will probably walk out of the limo with his pants around his ass, hard-on fully displayed, just to fuck with me. Of course, the joke would be on him, since Rose has the day off and the only one at the house to torment would be me.

Shit. We're all alone in the house.

I’m totally screwed. And the problem is, the thought of being screwed by Caulter is too damn appealing.

As soon as the car pulls up to the house, Katherine is out of that thing like a bat out of hell. It’s actually laughable. She's practically running, full throttle, toward the door.

I catch her arm at the front door, and spin her around to face me. Her breath is short, and I know full and well it’s not because of that little jog; I've watched Katherine at track practice at Brighton enough to know that.

“Is Rose home?” I ask, and I know what the answer is by the expression on her face -- lust mixed with apprehension.

“No,” she says. “And I’m going upstairs. You do what you want.”

“Ask me what I want.”

“No,” she says. “And there’s a security camera out here.” I let her go, and she opens the door, but once we're inside, I put my hand right back where it was on her wrist and pull her against me, against my hardness.

"What the hell are you doing?” she asks.

“There are no cameras in here, right?” I ask.

“So?” She turns her face up, her jaw set. “Do you think that means you can just grab me like some kind of caveman?”

“Ask me what I want, Princess,” I repeat, pulling her more tightly against me.

“I told you to stop calling me that.”

“I’ll stop calling you that when I’m buried inside you,” I say, trailing my finger down her cleavage to where the fabric on the top of her dress barely covers it. Her chest rises as she inhales sharply. “Don’t you want to know?”

“Don't I want to know what, asshole?”

“Don’t you want to know what I want?”

“What do you want, Caulter?”

I slide the thin strap of her white dress over her shoulder. I’m tempted to rip it off entirely, along with the dress, but I refrain. “I want to hear you say what you want me to do to you, what you’ve been dying for me to do to you since that night.” I lean in closer and trace the side of her neck below her earlobe with the tip of my tongue. When I graze my teeth against her skin, she jumps.

“No,” Katherine protests, covering her neck with her hand. “If you left a mark…”

“If you don’t tell me what you want, then I’m going to tell you what I'm going to do to you.” I pause for a minute and she crosses her arms over her chest. “Not what I want to do to you. What I’m going to do to you. I’m going to fuck you right here on the floor of your entryway in the foyer of your father’s house.”

“You think so?” she asks.

“I know so,” I say.

“Then what?” she whispers.

I yank the sides of the dress up over her thighs, sliding my hands around her curvy ass and cupping her cheeks. She lets out a little moan when I grip her, my fingers digging into her skin. “Then I’m going to take you into the dining room and lay you across the table so I can lick your pussy right there while I sit in the chair where your father will eat dinner tonight."

“Caulter!” Katherine brings her hand to her mouth as if she’s somehow surprised. Or embarrassed. But she and I both know that the uptight virgin act is all a show.

She pushes me away and starts down the hallway. I don't catch her until she's passing her father's study, but when I do, I push her up against the doorframe, just like I did at the entryway of her bedroom this morning.

“Daddy’s office?” I ask. “This could work.”

“No way,” she says.

“I’m not finished,” I say.

"Finished with what?"

"I'm not finished telling you what I'm about to do to you, Princess." I reach underneath her dress and inside her panties, silencing her. But when I plunge my fingers into her wet cunt, she groans. “I’m going to make this tight, sweet little pussy mine.”

“What?” Her eyelids are at half-mast, her eyes rolling back in her head as I stroke inside her. “I am...not….yours.”

“This. Is. Mine." I don’t know why I say it, or why the fuck I’m so insistent about it. I just am. Maybe I want to rile her up. I've never wanted to claim anyone before.

She grips my wrist, forcing me to stop. “I am not a piece of property, Caulter Sterling,” she says. “Just so we’re clear. You might have your fingers inside me, but I'm not yours.”

“Big words, Princess,” I say, as I thrust my fingers in and out of her. “Too bad they’re not true. This is not a discussion. It’s a fact. This pussy is mine. You are mine.”

“Why can’t you just shut up?” she asks, her voice breathy. “Why do you have to be such a...prick?”

I slide my fingers out of her, and she gapes at me, open-mouthed. "Keep looking at me with your mouth open like that," I threaten. With my hand on her back, I lead her into the study and shut the door.

"And what?"

"What do you think?" I ask, sliding my shirt over my head and tossing it on the floor. "I'll give you something to put in it."

"You're so crude," she says. "And stop taking your clothes off. We're in my father's office. It's..."

"Scandalous? Taboo? Just too naughty for the good girl?" I ask.

Her eyes linger on my chest. "I didn't know you had such a large vocabulary, Caulter," she says. "I was thinking more like disgusting and filthy."

I make a show of stripping off my pants as she watches me. "Filthy?" I ask. "You haven't seen filthy yet."

"Why are you taking your pants off in my father's office?" she asks stupidly. She knows the answer.

"You know why, Princess," I say. "Because you need to let loose. And getting fucked in your father's study is the best way of doing that. Unless you’d prefer the dining room first.”

“No I would not,” she says, her voice an emphatic no. But she doesn't move, and her eyes are fixated on my bare cock. “I would prefer…”

I stroke my length, giving her a show since she wants to look at it so damn much. “Wrapping your mouth around me and taking every inch until I fill your sweet little mouth with cum?”

“Oh my God, you are so crude." Again, her words say she's disgusted. But her hand is no longer at her mouth; it's on her chest, palm covering her breast.

"No, Princess, this would be crude." I cross to where she stands. From behind her, I bend her over and place her palms flat on her father's desk. She's quiet now; all I can hear is her breath.

I flip that sweet, flirty little skirt of hers, the one that's wedding white, pure as the driven snow, over her ass.

The ass I've been dying to grip while I plunge my cock inside her.

The ass I've been fantasizing about smacking every time she makes a smartass comment about anything.

So I do it. I bring my hand back, and -- thwack -- down hard against her ass cheek, leaving a red handprint on her flesh.

She looks over her shoulder, indignant. Yet she's not restrained in any way, and doesn't stand up. "Did you just spank me?"

I grin. "It won't be the last time I do it, either."

"Do women fall for this shit?" she asks.

"You're the one bent over your father's desk, Princess," I note, caressing the place I just hit. "You're also the one who's soaking wet. So you tell me."

"It doesn't mean I'm falling for anything." But she's still as I slip her panties over her bare ass and drop them to the floor.

"Whatever you say, sweetheart." I say. "Remind yourself of that when you're coming on my tongue."

"Caulter," she protests, but only until I start to lick her, my hands gripping her ass cheeks and pulling her pussy against my mouth. I make my way over every inch of her sweet lips, rolling my tongue over and over her clit as she stands, unmoving, bent over the desk. The word becomes less of a protest and more of a moan. "Caulter. Oh, Caulter."

That moan again, the one where she moans my name, is the one that kills me. It’s the one I use to mock her, but it's crazy how insane it makes me, hearing it come out of her mouth. I suck her clit into my mouth, and thrust my fingers inside her until her legs are quivering and she’s calling out my name over and over like it’s the only word in the English language she can remember. I plunge my tongue inside her sweet entrance.

“Caulter,” she moans. “Don’t stop. I’m going to -- I’m going to -- Oh my God, Caulter!” She cries out when she comes against me, her juices covering my face.

I'm not even going to give her even a moment to recover. I just stand up and walk over to my pile of clothes, taking a condom from my wallet and wrapping my dick before I return to her.

Her face is flushed. “That was --” she begins to speak.

“I don’t want to talk,” I warn. “I’m hard as a fucking rock and I want to be inside you.”

“Caulter, I --” She’s about to say something, but whatever the hell it is, I’m not about to listen. This girl has been teasing me long enough. "Stop talking. I'm done talking. I've been thinking non-stop about bending you over and fucking you, and that's what I'm going to do."

Katherine's face flushes. "You've been thinking about me?"

"Non-fucking-stop." I slide my hands down her arms, my chest pressed up against her back, my hard cock against her flesh, then run them over her breasts, and down her sides to grip her ass. Her skirt is bunched up around her waist, and she moans as she presses against me. "And you've been thinking about me. Tell me you have."

"Yes." She says it so softly I can barely hear it.

"Spread your legs," I order, and she complies. I'm not playing anymore. I press the tip of my cock against her entrance. "Tell me again. Have you been thinking about the last time I fucked you?"

"Yes," she whispers. I guide my cock inside her, gentle despite the fact that she's bent over her father's desk, her wet pussy practically begging for me to slide into her in one thrust. She's so fucking tight I'm surprised she can take me. But she does, her slickness making it easy for me to slip inside. She pushes her hips against me, letting out a groan under her breath, primal-sounding.

I thrust inside her slowly, my hands on her hips. "You thought of me while you touched yourself?"

"Yes," she says softly. "Yes. Yes."

"Touch yourself now," I order, and she does, rubbing her clit with her fingers. I reach up with one hand and tug at the strap of her dress. It doesn't come loose, so I yank harder, ripping the fabric off her shoulder and sliding my hand under her bra to cup. "Did you come thinking about me inside you?"

She's making this little half-moan, half-grunting sound as she touches herself. Her pussy so flooded with wetness that I can't keep myself from thrusting into her harder and harder.

Her grip on the desk slips, and papers go flying off in every direction, important papers, her father's work I'm sure. I'm bending the Senator's uptight daughter over his desk and scattering his papers everywhere.

"Did you think about my cock sliding in and out of your tight little pussy?" I ask.

"Yes," she pants, her hand moving frantically between her thighs. Her pussy tightens around me and I know she's close. "Fuck. Caulter...Yes."

"You wanted this hard cock inside you," I say, my grip on her hips harder. I'm so close to exploding. "You wanted this fucking cock inside you, filling you up with my hot cum. Say it."

"Yes, yes," she moans.

"Say it now."

"Oh my God," she gasps. She loses her grip on the edge of the desk and something else falls to the ground with a thud, but I don't give a shit about it. "I'm going to..."

"Fuck, Kate, I'm going to come," I warn, before I do, slamming my cock inside her with one final thrust and gripping her hips as I pull her against me. Her moan is loud in the stillness of the house, and when she comes, her muscles tighten around my cock, milking every last ounce of cum from me.

I'm breathing heavily, my fingers pressing into her flesh for what seems like an eternity before I can even think straight. When I finally pull out of her, I roll off the condom and look around for the trash.

"Don't you dare," she hisses at me.

"What?"

"Don't throw that away in here," she says, looking around. "Shit. I think we broke this." She pulls her dress down and squats to the floor to pick up a letter tray, clearly cracked along the edge.

I grab tissues from the desk to wrap the condom before getting my jeans. "So much for an orgasm helping you with your uptight-ness."

She's busily shoving papers back where they go, while I'm slipping my shirt back over my head. "Is that what you were trying to do?" she asks, placing the letter tray back on the desk while she mumbles something about finding glue. "I didn't know fucking me would magically transform me. It sure didn't change you into Prince Charming."

"Would you be Cinderella in this scenario?" I ask. "Because I doubt Cinderella was a bitch." She picks up a book from the desk and throws it, and it grazes my arm. "What, are you twelve?"

"You called me a bitch," she says, her eyes flashing. "What the hell do you expect?"

"I did not call you a bitch." I set the book back in its place on the desk. "I said I doubted Cinderella was one."

"Implying that I am."

"Imply nothing," I say. "Guilty conscience?"

"You're the most irritating person I've ever met." Her ass is pressed up against the desk, and I'm leg to leg against her. “I hate you.” She has the most fuckable mouth I've ever seen.

"The feeling is completely mutual," I say, before I bring my mouth down on hers, crushing her lips against mine.

Caulter and I are fucking. I mean, not this very moment, obviously. But we are fucking. In general. That’s our status. Like, if I had to update it on social media, it wouldn’t be one of those “it’s complicated” situations. It would just be “fucking.” That should be a status option, now that I think about it.

It's like my brain can't process this information. He's flipped some kind of switch in my body, turning me into the biggest stereotype ever: the uptight, virginal girl who loses the big V and becomes a sex-crazed maniac overnight.

I hate being a cliché. I tell myself that I'm not.

For one thing, it's not an overnight transformation. It's been a month, so I guess that's something.

A month of thinking constantly about him and his magic cock.

A month of thinking what it was like that night with him.

So now I'm one of those girls. One of the girls that Caulter has screwed. And now I'm basically the female version of Caulter, completely preoccupied with sex. Except that I’m fixated on just getting into his pants.

I’m standing on the ladder in the library. It sounds pretentious, a library in our lake house, I know.

But the library is my place. My father works in his office and hates this space. So it's mine. It's white and airy, this small room in a corner of the house with one wall that’s floor to ceiling bookshelves and one of those ladders that roll along the length of the wall. It even has a reading nook.

I run my fingers along the spine of the books, not looking for anything in particular. I’m really just looking for a distraction from Caulter. I don’t know where he is right now, but I know where he was this morning. This morning he was sneaking into the shower with me, pressing my back up against the marble tile while he thrust inside me. I can still feel the aching between my legs, the absence of him.

The last three weeks we've been sneaking around the house like we're having an affair, Caulter groping me as I pass him in the hallway or sneaking into my room through the door that opens onto our shared balcony.

I don’t know what Rose was thinking, putting our rooms next to each other. I’d suspect her of planning something like this, except I know she doesn’t have a malicious bone in her body. And you’d have to be malicious to want something to happen between me and Caulter. I mean, I fuck him, but he is the single most irritating person I've ever met in my life.

My father and Ella are flying back and forth, spending most of their time in DC. We have the house to ourselves except for Rose, who's here during the day. I'm worried she's catching on, but Caulter insists she's not. He turns on the charm when she's around, flirting with her and complimenting her cooking, wrapping her around his finger the way Caulter does with all women.

I have to reluctantly admit I can see the appeal. Caulter can almost be charming when he wants to be.

“Hey, sugar-tits.” He speaks softly, and I start, looking down to see him with that stupid smirk on his face. Yeah, Caulter is real charming, for sure.

“You almost gave me a heart attack.” I step down the ladder, but his hand is on my leg before I reach the bottom, sliding up underneath my skirt.

“I’ve decided something,” he says, cupping my ass with his palm.

My breath hitches in my throat, the way it always does when he touches me, and I grip the side of the ladder with one hand and try to slap his hand away with the other. “Stop touching me.”

“Why?” he asks, ignoring my directive. He pauses when he reaches the top of my ass and realizes there’s nothing there - no top part of a thong strap. Behind me, he squats down and peers up my skirt. “No panties.”

“You know why I'm telling you to stop,” I say. “My father and Ella got in last night, and they're around here somewhere. And the fact that I'm not wearing panties means nothing.” The lie is pathetic and feeble. I got dressed thinking about Caulter. No panties was with Caulter in mind.

Caulter’s hand is on my back, preventing me from getting down off the ladder. He slides his fingers between my legs, pressing against my entrance. “You’re full of shit, Princess,” he says. “Your father and Ella left to go out somewhere, so we're all alone. And you forgot your panties just for me.”

“Not true,” I whisper, but I arch my ass back, pushing my pussy against his fingers as he slips them inside. His thumb teases my asshole, sending shivers of arousal racing through my body. “We shouldn’t do this...not here.” Or at all, I tell myself. I have to stop doing this with him.

He responds by sliding his fingers further into my dripping pussy. “I’ve decided that from now on, you wear dresses. No panties. Skirts only.”

I laugh, but it turns into a moan as he reaches around with his other hand to stroke my clit. “Where the fuck do you think you get off, telling me what to do?”

“We've been through this before. I own this.”

“You’re crazy.” I can’t think clearly, distracted by what he’s doing to my body. Until a nose in the hallway startles me. “Shit. Stop.”

A look of irritation crosses his face, and he withdraws his fingers. I start to step down, thinking he’s giving me a reprieve from his delicious torment, but he grabs me by the arms before I can make it off the ladder, turning me around and pushing me back hard. “I want you now.”

“Did you just hear that?” I ask. The step of the ladder digs into my back, and I would slip and fall down, except for the fact that he’s pinned me there. I’m looking down at him, my head angled just above him. I shouldn’t be preoccupied with how he looks at me, his expression clouded with lust. I should be preoccupied with how my father and his mother might be somewhere in this house, how they could walk in at any moment. I should be preoccupied with how my father’s face would look when he walked in on the two of us in the library.

“I don’t hear anything,” he says, sliding both hands over my ass.

“Anyone could come in,” I protest. But the void left by his fingers is too distracting to allow me to focus on anything else.

I can’t be one of those girls who loses her mind once she gets a little bit of cock. Except it's not exactly a little bit, I think as he unbuckles his jeans and pulls out his dick. Nothing about it is small. “There’s no lock on the door.”

“And you’re not wearing any panties.” He pulls a condom from his pocket. I raise my eyebrow at him, and he smirks. “Don’t worry, I’ve just taken to carrying them with me now, being in the same house as you and all. You never know the when opportunity will strike.”

“I’ll have to make sure to wear panties around you,” I whisper, before he brings his mouth down hard on me, his kiss practically bruising. His tongue presses against mine, warring with mine, the movement an expression of our relationship.

When we come up for air, he looks at me sternly. “I said, no panties,” he growls. “Skirts and no panties. It’s a new rule.”

“You don’t make rules for me,” I say.

“I’ll take them, then.”

“What, you're going to take my panties?” I ask, laughing. “Good luck with that.” I start to step down from where I’m standing on the ladder, but he halts me, putting his hand on my breast. “Don’t,” he says, his thumb rubbing my erect nipple through the fabric, as he wraps the other hand around the base of his cock. His hardness is against my inner thigh, and I’m so wet.

“What, you’re going to fuck me here?” I ask, my hands on his shoulders. “I’ll fall.”

“Put your arms around my neck,” he whispers, and I lean in close to him, despite all of my concerns about my father walking in on us, and wrap my arms around him. My dress is hitched up around my waist, and my breasts press against his face. He buries his face between them, but he doesn’t rip the dress off and cover me with his mouth the way I want him too. “Wrap your legs around me.”

I do, and somehow slide down the front of him as he guides his cock inside me and presses me against the ladder. The sharpness of the railing cuts into my back and the top of my ass, but I’m so overcome by pleasure running through my body that I can’t focus on the pain. I think the pain might even intensify it. I cling to him, my arms and legs around him, but most of my weight rests against the ladder. He drives into me hard, his thrusts short and insistent.

This is not slow and romantic; it’s fast and furious, primal and animalistic.

Every thrust of his takes me higher and higher. We’re both quiet, too aware of the possibility of getting caught. The thought of getting caught makes it more intense, even more forbidden. Caulter brings out something in me that makes me want to lose control. I’ve never been that way before with anyone. I'm not that kind of girl, the one who throws caution to the wind, who doesn't care about consequences. I'm not reckless.

I'm moaning his name as he brings me to the edge, his thrusts harder. "Fuck, yes, Caulter."

"Are you going to come for me, Princess?" he asks.

"Yes," I groan, his question setting me off, and the sweet release overtakes me. He thrusts into me again, once, twice, three times as he comes, and then...

The fucking ladder drops underneath us, making this metallic clanking sound as it slips out of the track and balances precariously on a shelf.

"Shit!" Caulter grabs my arms and pulls me up, somehow sliding out of me, his pants around his ass and a condom dangling off the end of his dick.

"Oh my God, we broke it," I look between him and the top of the ladder. I can't contain my laughter. This isn't me. I'm not the girl who breaks ladders fucking a boy in the library. What the hell has gotten into me?

And then I hear Rose's voice, calling out from down the hallway. "Kate, are you okay? I heard a crash."

"Shit." Caulter has pulled up his pants before I can blink, and is looking casual and blasé by the time Rose opens the door.

"What happened?" she asks, looking back and forth between us.

"I -- the ladder came off the tracks," I say.

Caulter interrupts. "She was trying to reach one of the books on the shelf up there, and it just...gave way. Someone should definitely come out to look at that. It seems like a safety hazard. That's a problem with these older houses." He looks so sincere I almost believe him.

Rose looks at me long and hard and I try not to blush. "You were trying to reach one of those books up there on...medieval history?"

I swallow hard. "I was browsing. For research purposes."

"Research purposes," she repeats. "It's a good thing Caulter was in here to help you when the ladder gave way."

I clear my throat. "Yes. It's definitely a good thing."

Rose turns to leave, but pauses when she reaches the door. "I'm glad to see the two of you getting along so well."

I look at Caulter wide-eyed after she's gone. "Do you think she knows?"

He shrugs. "Maybe. Who cares?"

"I care, you idiot," I say. "Don't you? What if she says something to my father? What if someone finds out? I can't believe we broke the ladder in here, for goodness' sake."

"For goodness sake?" Caulter laughs. "Okay, grandma."

"I'm being serious, Caulter," I say. I'm getting irritated with him for taking this whole thing so lightly. "Behavior has consequences."

Caulter is standing close to me, and I immediately feel the thrill of his nearness. I silently curse my damn body for being so attracted to him. "So what if your father finds out?"

"It'll ruin his campaign."

"Why?"

"You know why, Caulter," I say. "We're...going to be related."

"We're not related," he says. "You're being ridiculous. We're barely even step-siblings."

I bristle at the way he brushes off my concerns as if they're nothing. "People won't care about what's true, Caulter," I insist. I'm angry that he's dismissing me, the same way my father dismisses me. "They thrive on scandal. They'll latch onto it and run with it. It'll ruin his campaign and his public image."

Caulter traces a finger down the front of my chest, and I smack it away, but not before it gets a physical reaction from me, goose bumps dotting my skin. Damn him. "Why do you even give a shit about it?" he asks.

"Because he's my father."

Caulter laughs, the sound bitter. "Yeah, he seems like a great father."

"You don't know anything," I say, defending him despite my mixed feelings. All I know is that I'm irritated with Caulter.

Caulter leans in close to me, slips his finger underneath one of the straps on my dress. "I know that you're not the good little straight-laced girl your father wants, the poster child for his campaign. I know that you're so fucking pent-up with all your studying and being responsible and being so damn perfect all the time that you've been dying for someone like me to come along who will let you out of your pretty little shell and make you feel something."

Now I'm beyond irritated. I put my hands on his chest and try to push him away, but he grabs my wrists and holds me tight. "You don't know a thing about me," I say.

"I know that you're living up to everyone else's idea of who you should be," he says. "I don't think for a fucking second you want to go to Harvard, be a lawyer or a doctor or whatever the hell daddy has planned for you. I see you with your sketchpad, drawing all the time. You just don't have the fucking balls to do what you want to do."

It's somehow over the line, him watching me draw, noticing things about me. He notices too many things about me. I yank my wrists away and push him, hard. "Fuck you." I spew the words from my mouth like they're poison. "Fuck you, Caulter. You're so damn high and mighty, rebelling against anyone and everything because you're too cool for conformity. Yet here you are, doing exactly what your mother wants you to do because....why, exactly? She won't give you your paycheck? You think rebelling means you know who you are? It just means you're full of shit."

I walk out of the room before he can respond, anger flooding my body. He just gets so far under my damn skin. He's so infuriating and smug and self-satisfied. He acts like he's so much more mature than I am, with so much more experience under his belt. He's just a trust fund baby who doesn't know the least little bit about things like obligation and family.

Later, I lay in bed, my head resting on the pillow while I prop the sketchpad on my thighs, lazily drawing. I know Caulter is in his room, because I heard the door close, and I find myself wondering what he's doing. I have to force my mind to focus on something other than Caulter.

Anything but Caulter.

Like the picture I'm doing right now. Of Caulter's cock.

I tear the piece of paper off the pad, crumple it, and throw it across the room. Screw Caulter. And screw the stupid stuff he said about me.

I close my eyes, and bring up my mother's image in my head, beginning to sketch her from memory. But my mind is in a different place. I have the nagging feeling that Caulter is right -- that I am just too much of a coward to stand up to my father. It's why I haven't told him about UCLA.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Katherine is running across the lawn, waving her hands at me like a complete fucking lunatic.

A hot fucking lunatic.

Her brown hair bounces over her shoulders as she runs, trying futilely to pull her skirt down over her ass. "Are you insane?"

"Insane? Nope. I'm roasting marshmallows." I pull the marshmallow off the stick and pop the warm gooey goodness into my mouth. She looks at me, her chest rising as she catches her breath, her cheeks flushed. It's the same way she looks when she's just had an orgasm.

I haven't made her come all week. She hasn't let me, not since the fight we had in the library after we screwed on the ladder.

What I should have done after that was go out and find a replacement Katherine. But what I'm finding, much to my irritation, is that Katherine seems to be crawling under my skin. Like a disease.

So I'm taking the mature road and talking to her about things like an adult. While eating marshmallows. "Want one?" I ask.

"You can't light a fire out here -- there are regulations, you idiot," she yells. "Who fucking gets a -- where did you even get a barrel, anyway? And what the hell are you -- Oh. My. God. Those are my clothes in there. My pants. My underwear!"

I lied -- I'm not taking the mature road here. At all. This might be one of the most juvenile things I've ever done.

I grin and shrug. "I told you I wanted you in skirts. No panties."

She grabs the stick from my hands, poking it into the barrel. Flames shoot up, sending sparks flying in every direction. Grabbing her by the arms, I pull her back against my chest.

Which is exactly where she belongs, I can't help but think as soon as her body touches mine.

But she only rest there momentarily before she yanks herself away from me. "What are you, some kind of psychopath?" she asks. "Who lights someone's clothes on fire? Something is seriously wrong with you."

"I'll get you new clothes," I say. I don't add that I already have. I've ordered her a whole new wardrobe from some hot shit designer that my mother's stylist swears is what all the chicks want to wear. I also ordered her the best lingerie and panties money can buy. Personally hand selected by yours truly. And I bought new jeans to replace the ones I torched. I mean, I’m not a complete asshole.

But no new granny panties. That just crosses a line.

Kate stands there glaring at me with her hands on her hips. She’s pissed. If it were possible for a human to physically blow steam out of their ears, she would be doing that. She balls her hands into fists and screams, which just makes me laugh. “You are the biggest asshole I’ve ever met,” she yells. “You’re completely fucked up in the head.”

I expect her to punch me. If I were a girl and some guy had torched my pants and panties, I'd slug me. But she doesn’t. She just gives me a look of disgust and walks back to the house, muttering to herself the whole way.

That's fucking disappointing.

I expected her to hit me or something. Hit me, and then look up at me the way she does when she gets angry. Like she can’t decide if she wants to kill me or fuck me. Obviously, I imagined she'd pick the option that involved fucking.

I didn't expect her to just walk away.

I pick up the fire extinguisher and put out the fire. I guess I'll have to up my game if I want back in her bed.

“Are the two of you listening?” Senator Douchebag has been talking about the schedule of events for the week. He literally has this shit color-coded and flagged. He’s almost as ridiculous as my mother, with her wedding planning. She has a chart set up in the living room on an easel, a seating plan that she and the Senator examine, hands over their mouths and brows furrowed as they determine strategic seating arrangements for the big event. I’m surprised they haven't unrolled a giant chart on the table like a war map, so that they can plot personal alliances and strategic socializing.

“I heard everything,” Kate says, her voice emotionless. “The engagement party is on Friday.”

“I know it’s all happening very quickly,” Ella says, her hand on the Senator’s leg. “And I really hope you don’t feel like I’m trying to replace your mother, Katherine. No one could replace her.”

I glance at Kate, who has paused in the middle of lifting her fork to her mouth. “Of course not,” she says.

The Senator doesn't wait for her to continue. “No one thinks you’re trying to replace her mother, Ella,” he says, patting Ella’s hand. “Kate doesn’t think that, do you Kate?” Katherine opens her mouth, but he interrupts. “And she understands that we’re on a tight schedule here with the campaign, isn’t that right?”

I’m annoyed by the way he just answers for her, and irritated with her for just sitting there, chewing on her forkful of chicken instead of responding. “Why don’t you let Kate answer for herself?”

The Senator glares at me, a dark look passing over his face. “Kate just answered for herself.”

Ella looks uncomfortable. She's not good with these kinds of situations. “Katherine,” she says. “I know that your mother was a special woman, and I’m not trying to step on anyone’s toes here. I’m --”

“Seriously,” Katherine says, tossing me a look of annoyance that makes me regret even taking up for her at all. “It’s no big deal. I mean, it is a big deal for you guys. I’m happy for you. But I’m an adult. We’re all adults here. People remarry all the time. I wish you nothing but happiness.”

“Thank you, Kate,” the Senator says.

I send Kate a text.

Liar.

She looks down at her phone and back up, pointedly ignoring me. “Ella, if there’s anything you need me to do for your engagement party, please let me know.”

A broad smile crosses Ella’s face. “Thank you, Katherine,” she says. “That’s so kind of you. I think actually my stylist is going to bring dresses to the house next week to do fittings for the wedding, and I’d love to ask her to send over something for the engagement party as well. Unless you had something else in mind.”

Kate nods. “Sure.”

“Oh, she mentioned she was redoing your wardrobe,” Ella says, looking at me. “She said you asked Caulter to set it up.”

Kate pauses, her napkin on the corner of her mouth. “She did, did she?”

“I’d have been happy to set it up for you,” Ella says. “I’m pleased Caulter was able to. She said something about summer wear, dresses and that kind of thing.”

Kate coughs into her napkin, and I’m not sure, but I think she might be laughing.

“She could use more dresses for the campaign,” I say. “It’s more...functional. For the campaign, I mean.”

I watch as color rises to Kate’s cheeks, but the Senator interrupts, saving her from scrutiny. “That’s thoughtful of you, Caulter,” he says. “Absolutely. Dresses. More feminine, appropriate for the setting.”

“Yes.” I nod. “Dresses would definitely be very useful.”

Kate coughs again, this time harder. Yeah, I’m pleased with myself.

“Caulter, do you know who in the world left that barrel out in the back?” the Senator asks. I think Kate might choke on her bite of food this time.

I shrug. “No idea,” I say. “Probably the gardener.”

“Ridiculous,” he says. “You really can't get good help these days. We’re back to DC tomorrow, but the engagement party is Friday. Ella, the planners and all of that will be taking over the house for the next two days, I assume?”

“Tomorrow morning,” she says. “You and Katherine will need to direct things, Caulter. No parties.”

I look at her, mock innocent. “Have I gotten into a single bit of trouble since I’ve been here?” I ask. “Have I been out to a single party?”

Ella narrows her eyes at me. She doesn’t trust me - reasonably so. The part about parties is true, though. I’ve not been to a single one since I’ve been here. I’ve not put my dick in a single girl, either. Except Kate, of course.

“Not that I’ve seen in the newspapers,” she says.

“Leave the young man alone,” the Senator says, gesturing toward me with his fork in hand. “He’s cleaned himself up, and has behaved quite responsibly since we sent them out here. I told you, Ella, it’s all about boundaries. Rules. If you give children rules and expectations, they will conform. Caulter here is a perfect example of that.”

I have to clench my fists as I listen to him talk about me as if he’s talking about a preschool-aged child or a dog. “Yes,” I agree. The old Caulter would have lifted up the end of the antique table we’re sitting at, and sent dishes flying, before storming out of the room and driving off in my mother’s hundred-thousand-dollar car. The new Caulter, the one fucking the Senator’s daughter, is cool, calm, and collected. “You know, I think it’s really due to Kate rubbing off on me.”

Kate coughs more violently this time, and the Senator looks at her. "Are you catching a cold?"

“So you and the hot step-brother,” Jo says. “Dish.”

“There’s nothing to dish,” I protest. I'm annoyed because of how fixated Jo is with Caulter and me. We’re sitting outside, our feet dangling off the edge of the dock, watching as the party planners set up tents and engagement party paraphernalia in the backyard. My father has some kind of notion that I’m supervising all of this. “Ugh. Do you really think he’s hot?”

As if on cue, Caulter walks out onto our shared balcony, wearing nothing but boxer briefs. It’s like he thinks he’s a fucking male model, strutting around like a peacock with no concern for the people in the yard.

People who stop and gawk.

He’s done the same thing every damn morning for the past three days, standing outside my window like I’m going to see his hard-on and lose my mind. Yesterday, he pressed it up against the glass door, making lewd gestures with his tongue and rubbing his nipples. He's trying to get a rise out of me, and it's definitely working.

Jo slides her sunglasses down to the tip of her nose and makes a show of wiggling her fingers at him. “Yeah, he’s hot, Kate,” she says. “You really don’t see it? I mean, I guess you like clean cut guys, and he’s very....not, with the tattoos, and the nipple piercings, and...shit, he’s got a nice ass.”

“He’s a disgusting pig,” I say, my tone not as convincing as I try to make it. I can’t help the way my eyes wander up to the balcony where he stands, leaning on the rail and smoking, the sunlight glistening off his muscular arms and chest. “Plus, he smokes.”

Jo shrugs. “I wouldn’t mind it,” she says.

“He’s arrogant and insufferable.”

“Didn’t you say he sent Ella’s stylist to replace your wardrobe?” she asks. “He’s not exactly Satan.”

“Yes, but --” I groan in frustration. “You don’t understand.” How do I explain that the Devil up there -- the ripped, tattooed, pierced, so amazing in bed that I can’t think about anything except his cock -- set my fucking wardrobe on fire because he wanted me to wear dresses without panties? He's clearly insane.

“What I understand is that you’re living with Caulter Sterling,” she says. “He’s like...legendary when it comes to fucking.”

“Jo!” She’s right, though; he has a reputation. But what the hell do I know about sex, anyway? I've only been with Caulter. Maybe he's not the only guy who will ever rock my boat.

Of course, looking at him up there on the balcony just makes me think about him rocking my boat. I press my thighs together, smoothing the fabric of my skirt over them.

"Is that one of the dresses he bought you?" Jo asks.

I roll my eyes. "Yes."

"Looks expensive."

"I'm sure it is."

Jo shrugs. “I can give him a test run,” she says. “I’m not seeing anyone.”

“What? You and that guy broke up?” Jo bounces from one to another, so I can't remember his name.

“Last week.” She kicks her foot in the water. “Caught him cheating.”

“What a dickhead,” I say.

She shrugs. “It wasn't like I was faithful," she says. "But it's different if he's the one doing the running around."

I don't point out the hypocrisy in the statement. "I'm sorry."

“I'm not,” she says. “He was a drag. Anyway, there’s a party tonight you need to go to. Are your dad and Ella back yet?”

I shake my head. “Right before the engagement party. Two days.”

“Then you should come,” she says. “And tell Caulter to come too.”

“Caulter?” I ask. “I don’t think so.” Like I'm going to bring Caulter to a party so I can watch him hit on girls? Yeah, right.

“Come on. It’ll be fun. It's Caulter Sterling. You’ll be legendary for bringing him. Do it. Slum with us commoners.”

I laugh, but I secretly hate her little comments about slumming it, or me being a rich kid. How am I supposed to respond?

Jo kicks the water in the lake. “There will be hot guys, guys who aren’t rich prep school kids. Guys with tattoos.”

Guys like Caulter. I glance up at the balcony, but it’s empty now. “Fine.”

“Seriously?” she asks. “You’re really going to go to an actual, real-life party? Like, with booze and guys?”

“I said fine, okay? You’ve worn me down.”

“You’ve never gone out before,” she says. “I can’t fucking believe it. I was just giving you shit; I didn't think you would actually go. What’s gotten into you?”

What's gotten into me? My mind immediately flashes to Caulter.

Caulter bending me over the desk in my father’s office. Caulter thrusting into me as the ladder falls from beneath me in the library. Caulter’s hot breath on my stomach, his face moving lower as the warm water drums over our bodies in the shower. My lips wrapped around Caulter’s cock, the saltiness of his pre-cum on my tongue.

Shit.

I have to blink several times to erase the images in my head. I definitely need to meet someone else -- if not someone appropriate, then someone inappropriate. Inappropriate and filthy enough to get my mind off of Caulter.

“Caulter should come with us,” she says, interrupting my thoughts.

“What, are you obsessed with him or something?” I snap. “No Caulter.”

“Okay, no Caulter,” she says, giving me major side-eye. “I didn’t know you were so touchy about him.”

“I’m not touchy about him,” I say. “I just don’t -- he’s irritating, that’s all. I don’t want him killing my buzz.”

She laughs. “Yeah, okay, I can see that. Who wants your new step-brother tagging along with you to a party, anyway?” She pushes herself up to her feet, reaching to take my hand and pull me up. “Ten-ish, okay? I’ll text you.”

“I said, it’s really loud,” I yell.

Jo hands me a plastic cup filled with beer and motions toward her ears, yelling back. I can’t hear her, but I can read her lips. “I can’t hear you!”

A guy sidles up behind her, wearing a leather jacket even though it’s probably still seventy degrees outside and inside it’s hot as hell. I’m sweating, even in the dress I’m wearing -- one of the new dresses Ella’s stylist sent.

I still haven’t forgiven Caulter for burning all my stuff, either, even though a box showed up with exact substitutions for all my jeans this morning. No note from Caulter, no explanation. Just brand-new versions of everything that he’d burned.

Part of me is impressed he went to so much trouble for a stupid prank, noting all of the sizes and brands and then tracking them down. It couldn’t have been easy, although he probably hired someone to do it.

I nearly pulled on a pair of jeans tonight, but I had to admit that what the stylist picked is actually pretty hot, much better than I’d have picked. It's not something I’d usually wear, either. It's this fire-engine red mini-dress that I’m sure my father was not imagining when he jumped on board with the redo-Kate’s-wardrobe plan. But my father isn’t home, and what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, right?

Jo leans back against the guy, who pulls up the hem of her shirt and slides his hands over her stomach. From behind her, he cups her face with his hands, and leans over to kiss her, all tongue, then slides his hand down the front of her shirt.

Well, this is totally awkward.

I down my warm-ish beer, wondering where the hell I need to go to get more. This is why I don't fucking go to parties. At Brighton, I went to exactly one, and it was during my spring break, only because I was stuck there with nothing else to do. That was at someone's parents' house in the Hamptons.

That was not this kind of party. There was no warm beer, just expensive champagne and liquor from kids who had access to unlimited supplies of the best stuff. There were models. I don't know why I went to that one, either, because it was just as awkward as this. After two glasses of champagne and fending off a series of dumb pick-up lines, I was in a cab back to my dorm at Brighton.

Jo finally comes up for air and takes my empty cup, handing it to the guy who’d just mauled her face. She grabs my arm and pushes me toward a hallway where it’s quieter, but still just as crowded with people. “Bathroom,” she explains.

We stand outside the door, waiting for three more people to use it before she pulls me inside. It’s a nice reprieve from the loud pounding of the music in the house. She squats over the toilet and pees, talking the whole time. “It’s fun, yeah? I mean, it’s loud, but fun.”

“Sure.” I’m feeling out of place and agitated. I can’t imagine why Jo thinks this is going to be fun for me.

“Come on,” she says. “Loosen up a little.”

I squat to pee. “Who was the guy?”

Jo laughs. “Some guy,” she says. “A hook-up, no big deal. We’re on again, off again, you know? But he has some hot friends. I told him I was bringing you with me.” She opens her purse and pulls out a bottle of prescription medication. “Want one? You need to relax.”

I shake my head, but ask anyway. “What is it?”

“Anxiety meds,” she says. “My mother’s stash.”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to drink with that, Jo.” I feel like a parent scolding a child. She should know better.

Jo laughs and dries her hands. “Sure you don’t want one?” she asks. “Come on, girl. You have the rest of the summer to be the perfect little Senator’s daughter. No one knows who you are here. And no one cares. Live your fucking life, for once.”

“I am living my life,” I say. I’m annoyed with her, and I'm annoyed with this situation.

“Here,” she says, holding out a tablet. “Take half if you don’t want to take the whole thing. It’ll let you relax. It’s not coke or something. It’s prescription. From a doctor. For anxiety, which you definitely have.”

I exhale heavily, taking it from her hand and popping it into my mouth. “Fine. Whatever.”

We exit the bathroom and her hook-up, the leather-jacket clad guy, hands us each a cup of beer. I hold it, not drinking it because I'm afraid of mixing the pill with more alcohol.

He introduces me to two of his friends. They’re cleaner cut than he is, but they look older. One of them stares at me like I’m a piece of meat, licking his lips. I want to get the hell out of here, but I force myself to take a sip of beer to calm my nerves.

The other guy steps closer to me, pulling me away from the group, and gestures, asking if I want to dance. Okay, so he’s hot -- blue eyed and brown haired and clean-cut. Totally appropriate, I think.

I don’t know how long it is, maybe thirty minutes or so, before I start feeling relaxed. Like, really relaxed. I feel kind of woozy, actually, like my head is thick and foggy and I just want to sleep. The guy, whose name I don’t even know, is behind me, sliding his hands over my stomach and down the front of my hips, his hardness pressing up against me as he dances with me completely out of sync with the music.

The fact that he’s hard is what makes me feel nauseous. When I try to pry his hands off my hips, he grips them tighter and I yank myself away from him.

I don’t know where Jo is in the crowd; I can’t see her or the other guy, but I need some air.

Outside the house, I shiver as the now-cool evening air hits my skin. There are a handful of people outside, party-goers that have spilled out onto the lawn, and a few couples making out near the side of the house.

I walk toward the other side of the house to get away from the people. I’m so fucking tired, and I just want to go home.

I'm trying to remember the name of the cab service in town, but I can't think of it. When I slide open the screen of my cell phone, there's a text waiting for me from Caulter.

You’re out late.

It’s accompanied by a picture of his cock.

I smile, because I can’t help myself, and turn the camera in my hands, admiring it from a different angle. Caulter doesn't have just any cock. He has a beautiful cock. A large cock. A glorious throbbing, always-ready cock.

I think I'm drunk. I start to type what's going through my head. How do you spell glorious? Instead, I type:

Aw. no 1 too suck.

Why is typing so hard? My hands feel so slow. No one to suck your cock is what I mean, but it looks wrong on the screen.

What’s with the spelling? Are you drunk? Where are you?

I exhale heavily. If Caulter would stop texting me, I could call a cab and get home. Leaning against the house, I squint, trying to text back.

Yes. Nove ur busines.

I hit send, and stop to think. What the hell do you dial for directory assistance? The phone rings, and for a second, I think its directory assistance calling me.

“Where the hell are you?”

It takes me a minute to recognize the voice. “None of your business.”

“Your voice is slurred, Princess,” he says. “You’re drunk. Tell me where you are.”

“At a party,” I say. “I’m a grown up, and you can’t boss me around.”

“The fuck I can’t,” Caulter growls in my ear. The sound reminds me of the last time we screwed, and I feel a tingling sensation between my legs. “Tell me where you are. I’m coming to get you.”

“I’m trying to call a cab,” I say. "Get off the phone."

“I’m getting in the car now,” Caulter says. How is he moving so quickly? He’s like a superhero. I giggle at the thought. “Where are you?”

“At a house.”

“Where?”

I exhale. “Somewhere,” I say. “I don’t know. I’m wearing that red dress, not even jeans. I really like it.” I can hear my voice slurring now. There should be a number on the house, I think.

“The red dress.” He speaks the words low, and I think he’s angry.

“Are you mad at me?” I ask. I don’t know why I find it funny, but I giggle.

“What’s the address, Kate?”

“I’m looking, geez,” I say, stumbling forward to look at the house. “Thirty-four.”

“Thirty-four what, Kate,” he asks. “What’s the rest of the address?”

“Well, how am I supposed to know that, smarty pants?” I ask. “Thirty-four. It’s what it says on the house. Hey, you’re calling me Kate. Not Katherine. Kate.” That seems significant, I think. Kate. I like the way it sounds when he says it, so I repeat it a few more times. Kate, Kate, Kate.

He ignores me. “Ask someone. Or look at the mailbox. Are you on the lake?”

“Nope, not the lake. I'm somewhere not far. Hey! Do you know where we are?” I yell as I walk toward a couple making out. “They’re just looking at me like I'm a weirdo, Caulter.”

“Ask them the address.”

“Are you annoyed with me?” I ask him, then more loudly toward the couple, “What’s the address?” When they tell it to me, I repeat it slowly to Caulter. “You're irritated, aren't you?”

“I’m not annoyed with you, Kate,” he says. “It looks like it’s fifteen minutes from here. Where are you?”

I exhale. “I just told you. Why are you asking me the same questions over and over? My head hurts.”

“I mean, are you outside?” he asks. “Are you somewhere safe?”

“Yeah, I’m totally safe.” I stumble back toward my spot on the side of the house. “I need to sit down. It was hot in there, and the guy that was dancing with me was too grabby. And he was hard and it was nothing like --”

“What guy, Kate?” he asks, his tone menacing. “Who was fucking touching you?”

I laugh. “Some guy,” I say. “We were just dancing.”

“In that red dress.”

“I look hot,” I say. Am I slurring more now? It feels like I have a wad of cotton in my mouth. “I have to admit you were right. Dresses are good on me. Hey, has anyone ever told you that you say fuck a lot? Because you do. Fuck fuck fuck. You also do it a lot -- the fucking, I mean. A lot more than I expected.”

Caulter growls. “Do not fucking move an inch,” he says. “Nobody lays a hand on you, do you understand?”

“You don’t own me, Caulter.” I say, but the phone cuts out. Or I’ve accidentally hung it up. I’m not sure. I sit down on the grass, cross-legged, not caring that someone can totally see my crotch. Where is Jo, anyway? I type slowly and methodically, sending her a text.

Outside. wher ru

I don’t get anything back, so I try to keep my eyes open and wait for Caulter.

She hung up on me. Kate fucking hung up on me, after telling me some asshole was grinding his hard-on against her all night, while she’s drunk at a party.

She’s out at a party, drunk off her ass, and wearing that fucking red dress.

I chose that red dress. I did not imagine her wearing it to a party where some guy would run his hands all over her.

That red dress was made for Kate, crafted to perfectly accentuate her long legs and that curvy ass. I can imagine what she looks like in it right now, at a party full of horny guys.

I step harder on the gas pedal.

I’m beyond irate. I passed that a while ago, back when I realized she’d gone to a party. I don’t know what’s a million times more angry than irate, but that’s me.

I’m flying down these windy roads, taking the turns without breaking. If some guy so much as lays a finger on her…

I grip the steering wheel, my knuckles white.

I can’t think straight, even when I reach the house. Cars line both sides of the street, so I just stop mine in the middle of the road and leave the lights on. Tearing down the walk that leads up the lawn, I see her.

There she is, leaning awkwardly against some guy who’s trying to steer her away from the house.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I yell. Kate’s eyes open wide at the sounds of my voice, but she's obviously intoxicated.

“I’m just standing,” she slurs.

“She’s with me,” the guy says. “Who the fuck are you?”

Kate wrinkles her forehead and pushes her hand against his arm. “No,” she says. “He’s helping me stand up. He’s a cab driver.”

“Mind your own business,” he mouths, but he lets go of Kate, who stumbles a step forward. I don’t think about anything -- I just hit him, hard, my fist connecting with his face. I can hear the crunch of cartilage, and he falls back. “My fucking nose, you psycho!”

I sweep Kate up in my arms, carrying her across the lawn toward the car. “You had better not puke in my car,” I say.

“Did you hit him?” she murmurs. Her head is against my chest, and I inhale the scent of her shampoo, jasmine and lemongrass. It smells like Thailand, and I wonder if she’s been there.

“I hit him.”

“He wasn’t a cab driver.” Her voice is soft.

“Just some asshole.”

“You rescued me.”

I don’t answer, turning so I can angle myself to open the car door with the same hand that’s holding up her ass. I’m trying to ignore the fact that the fabric of the very short skirt is barely covering it, her smooth skin pressed into my palm. I deposit her in the seat and buckle it and she smiles at me. “You like me.”

I roll my eyes before I shut the passenger door and get behind the wheel. We’re silent for a few minutes, and I think she might be passed out.

“You like me,” she says. “You came to get me.”

“You were incoherent and drunk at a party.” I keep my eyes on the road, refusing to look at her, sitting in the seat with that skirt riding up her thighs. “I would have to be the worst person in the world if I didn’t come to get you.”

“You punched that guy in the face,” she says. “For me.”

“It doesn't mean I like you, Princess. So don't take it personally.” I don’t look at her. I don’t want to look at her as she insists that I like her. Because it's the truth.

When we get back to the house, she stumbles against me as I help her out of the car. “How much did you have to drink?” I ask, my arm around her as we walk.

“One beer,” she says.

“What the hell -- were you roofied?”

“And --”

“And what?” She starts to step away from me, but stumbles again, and I pick her up the same way I did before.

“I don’t need carried,” she says. “I’m perfeckly -- perfectly -- able to walk.”

“Yeah, you’re real steady on your feet, Princess,” I say, carrying her inside the house and up the stairs to her room. I’m trying really hard not to focus on the fact that my hand is cupping her bare ass again. My cock is more than aware of that fact, though, pushing up against the zipper of my jeans like it wants to be unleashed.

“I took something,” she says.

“Something like what?”

“A pill,” she says. “I was anxious. Jo gave it to me.”

“Your friend, Jo?” I ask, thinking about murdering Jo. “Was she at the party?”

“Yeah,” she says. “But I don’t know where she went.”

“Was she drunk too?” I exhale heavily as I set her on her bed. “Give me your phone. You could have told me this before we left, so I knew if I had to go get her ass out of there too.”

“Don’t read my messages,” she says. "That's private."

“Relax, sweetheart,” I say, my tone sarcastic. “I’m not interested in reading your text messages. I’m trying to make sure you’re friend isn’t at some party being gang raped by who the fuck knows.”

Her eyes go wide. “You think that’s what’s happening?”

“No. It’s not. Calm your tits down.” Still, I scroll on the phone until I hit Jo’s number. The phone rings a bunch of times before going to voicemail. I dial it again.

I swear, if I have to go back to that party to track this fucking chick down, I will strangle someone. A female answers the phone. “Is this Jo?” I ask.

“Yeah, who the hell is this?”

“Jo!” Kate yells. “It’s Caulter.”

“Oh. Caulter.” She hushes someone in the background. “Hang on, I’ll be right there, Maverick.” Maverick? Are we in New Hampshire or a fucking eighties movie?

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

Now I’m irritated. “Are you still at the party?”

“As if it’s any of your business, I’m hanging out with someone.”

“So you left your friend at a party alone to go screw some guy?” Kate reaches for the phone, and I move away. “She’s trashed. What the hell did you give her?”

“I thought she was hanging with someone,” Jo says, her mouth away from the phone as she talks to the dumbass she's there with. “What’s your friend’s name? Dan? Derek?” She pauses. “She was hanging out with Dan. She wasn’t drunk; she only had a beer.”

I’m breathing deeply to keep my voice calm, despite the fact that I want to reach through the phone and rip Jo’s fucking head off. "What exactly did you give her?"

"What's your problem?" She laughs. "Kate was right, you are a real asshole. She took some anxiety medication to calm down before the party. She'll be a little loopy but she'll be fine."

"And then you gave her beer," I say. Deep breath. Calming breath. I'm practicing that yoga shit my mother is constantly doing.

"One beer," she says. "It's not going to kill her."

"And after that, you left her at a party with some guy whose name you don't even know," I say. "Are you fucking stupid? Do you know what could have happened to her?"

"Calm down, cowboy," Jo says. "I think she's perfectly capable of taking care of herself."

"You stupid bitch." I throw the phone across the room, incensed with Kate's so-called friend, before I whirl around to look at Kate, where she's lying on the bed.

Naked.

The red dress is in a crumpled heap on the floor, her bra and panties casually tossed on top of it. Kate is lying on her stomach, her legs kicked up, her cheek against the pillow, looking at me over her shoulder.

I have the impulse to walk over to the bed and grab her thighs, to pull that perfect curvy ass up onto my lap and slap her flesh hard, for being so colossally stupid as to trust that friend of hers. I'm so livid I can barely breathe.

"Come here," she says.

I shake my head. "Not tonight, Kate."

She pouts. "I'm naked, lying on the bed, telling you to come over here because I want to suck. your. cock." She punctuates each of the words.

Groaning, I shake my head again. "It's not happening, Kate."

My words come out harsher, gruffer than I intend, and she rolls over, sitting up on the bed, her tits bouncing.

Those fucking tits. My mouth practically waters at the sight of them. They're perfect. The girls out in Malibu have fake ones, even chicks my age. It's like a joke -- get a pair of tits for your sixteenth birthday, you know? It’s the same thing in New York, except no one’s getting implants -- they’re just skin and bones, starved to the point of being so rail thin there’s nothing there, ass or tits.

But Kate’s tits aren't like other girls’. They're perky, on the smaller side, but I like the way they fit in my hands, a handful of perfect flesh. They make the tits on the girls I usually screw look just...tacky.

And they're right there, staring me in the face.

Kate is giving me this look of complete and utter disappointment, like I'm rejecting her. Shit, if she knew how hard it was for me not to go over there right now and slide my cock into her warm willing pussy…

“You’re going to turn down a perfectly good blow job?” she asks. Hearing goody-goody Kate, her hair disheveled and her words slurred, say blow job makes my cock so hard it feels like it’s going to explode.

“You’re drunk, Kate,” I say, angry. “Sleep it off.” I need to get out of here before my resolve weakens, but I’m wondering if she’ll be okay.

She pouts. “You called my friend a bitch.”

Raising my eyebrows, I look at her sharply. “That girl who gave you pills and booze and left you there is not your fucking friend.”

“You shouldn’t use that word.”

“It was the only thing that came to mind.”

Katherine gets on her hands and knees, crawls forward across the bed, and grips my waist, unbuckling my pants. “My father isn’t going to be home tomorrow,” she says, looking up at me with big eyes, her mascara smudged along the edges. “You can fuck me as loud and hard as you want tonight, and get up tomorrow and fuck me again.”

I cover her hands with mine. “Cut it out, Kate.”

She wrenches her hands away from mine and slides her palm down the front of my jeans, rubbing it along the length of my hard-on. “You’re just as ready as I am.”

Peeling her hand from my crotch, I take my shirt off and hang it over the end of the chair by her bed, then slip out of my jeans. “Get in bed,” I order.

She rests back against the pillow, leaning on her forearms, her back arched so her tits are high in the air. “I knew you’d see reason.”

“I haven’t seen reason,” I tell her, flicking off the light before I slip into the bed with her. “Someone needs to make sure you don’t stop breathing tonight.”

“But I haven’t washed my face or brushed my teeth,” she whines. "And I'm not ready to go to sleep."

“Neither have I,” I tell her. “Deal with it. I’m not getting out of bed now, and I’m not kissing you.”

“You’re just mean tonight.”

“Says the girl I rescued from a predator at a party,” I say.

“So, that’s a no then?” she asks. Her hand finds my chest, and she rests her head on it, sliding her hand lower until she finds my cock. “You’re wearing underwear?”

“That’s right,” I say. “Now get your hands off my dick.”

She does, and it’s not more than thirty seconds before I hear her breathing become heavy and rhythmic.

And I'm the one lying there wide awake, wondering what the hell I’m doing, holding the hottest naked girl I’ve ever seen while I've got the biggest case of blue balls in history.

Yellow sunlight streams through the balcony door, and the cool morning air hits my skin. I look over to the empty space in my bed that Caulter occupied last night, then out through the open balcony door. He’s not there.

Not that I would expect him to be after what happened last night. I’m mortified. I’m going to be too embarrassed to look him in the face, after the things I said, how I threw myself at him -- and the fact that he, the guy who sleeps with anyone, turned me down.

I slink down the hallway, grateful to remain unnoticed. After I brush my teeth and shower, I feel considerably better. But not about the thing with Caulter. One of the unfortunate downsides of last night is that I remember the whole thing clearly.

I’m dressed and back in my room when Caulter shows up on my side of the balcony, coffee in hand. “How are you feeling?”

“Completely humiliated.”

Caulter’s face is expressionless, which makes my heart skip a beat. He probably hates me. “Here,” he says, handing me the coffee. “Are you hung-over?”

I shake my head. “No. The pill she gave me just made me pretty out of it, I guess.”

Caulter laughs. “Fucking amateurs.”

“Shut up. I’d never taken anything like that before.”

He smiles. “Well, you might not want to, ever again.”

“I’m not exactly planning to.” I pause, sipping the coffee. “Thanks for coming to get me.”

Caulter shrugs, leaning against the wall. He’s wearing this blue t-shirt that looks soft and weathered. It makes me want to touch it, but I just sit there. “Not a big deal.”

“It kind of is,” I say. “Sorry for...um...acting like an ass and stuff.”

Caulter walks over and stands in front of me. His crotch is at eye level, and I want to rip off his jeans, but I don’t, because I’m a chickenshit. But he slips his finger under my chin and pulls my face up. “As I recall, you took off your clothes and threw yourself at me.”

My face flushes. “I was drunk. Or high. Whatever it was. Sorry.”

“Are you sorry?” he asks. “I’d be very disappointed if you were.”

I bristle at his words, even as he takes his thumb and slides it along my lower lip. I want to wrap my lips around his finger, but I don’t. “You’re the one who blew me off last night. I throw myself at you and tell you I want to suck your cock, and you say no.”

He groans. “You were drunk, Kate.”

“So?” I ask. I’m angry but I don’t move his hand, don’t tell him to stop it when his thumb catches on my lower lip, pulling it down. I want his lips on mine. I ache to feel his touch, the desire is even more amplified by the fact that I spent last night pressed up against him.

“Is that what you want, Kate?” he asks, leaning down and placing his hands on the sides of the chair I’m sitting in. His face is close to mine, our lips nearly touching, and I’m immediately holding my breath, my heart racing. “You want me to fuck you when you’re so drunk you don’t know what you’re doing? Or do you just want me to fuck you at your beck and call, whenever you're feeling horny?

“No,” I protest. “That’s not what was happening.”

I arch up and touch my lips to his, the movement gentle, but Caulter grabs my jaw, squeezing my face as his mouth crashes into mine. The act is so hard it’s painful, somewhere between exquisite pleasure and absolute agony.

He yanks me up to a standing position, unbuttons my jeans, and shoves his hand down the front of my pants. With one hand, he yanks my jeans down over my ass and buries the fingers of his other hand inside me, the movement rough, but aided by my wetness.

“Is this what you want?” He breathes the words into my ear. “You want my fingers in you, my cock inside you whenever you’re horny?”

Waves of pleasure rush over me, my body’s automatic response to his touch. I’ve missed his touch. I’ve longed for his touch. “No,” I whisper, shaking my head. “Yes. I’m not sure. That’s not it.”

He looks at me, his face screwed up in anger. “That’s exactly it, Kate.” Then he slides his fingers out and pushes me away, the void between my legs excruciating.

“You’re mad because you wouldn’t fuck me last night?” I ask. I don’t understand.

“Yeah, Kate,” he says. “That’s it. Or maybe it’s because you got all dressed up so you could go pick up other guys and then when no one put out, you came home and thought you'd screw your dear ol' step-brother."

“What the hell are you talking about?” I say, my voice going higher. I button my jeans, furious at myself for letting my guard down with him at all. He’s insane, I tell myself. He's hot and cold all the time. I don’t need this shit. “Some guy was rubbing up on me at a party and now you’re jealous? I'll wear what I want and go where I want.”

“Yeah, Kate,” he says. “I'm totally jealous. That must be why I didn’t screw you last night.”

“Why are you being such a jerk-off now?” I ask. “Last night, you were nice. That’s the thing about you -- one minute you act like you give a shit, and the next minute you don’t.”

“Of course I give a shit, Katherine,” he says. “You’re a nice piece of ass.”

It’s like he’s purposely trying to be a dick. “That’s all it is, then?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest. “I’m just a nice piece of ass, then. Nothing more.”

“Oh, right, did you think I was going to be your Prince Charming or something?” he laughs. “We’re having a little fun, that’s all.”

“Get out,” I say. I bite down on my lower lip, because I think I might cry. It’s not like I’m in love with Caulter or anything remotely that stupid. But does he have to be such a jerk all the time? His mood swings, between nice guy and asshole, are exhausting. “Get the fuck out of my room.”

“Whatever you say, Princess.” He turns and leaves through the balcony, the way he came in, and I hear his glass door on the other side slam shut.

I sink into my chair, unable to hold back the tears that spill down my cheeks. I’m more angry than anything else.

It’s more than a few minutes later that I see my sketchpad lying on the desk, the one I usually keep carefully tucked under the mattress. Except for last night. Last night, I’d shoved it under the pillow when Jo had shown up in my room early. How could I have forgotten?

I’m so mortified I just want to crawl into a hole and hide. The thought of Caulter seeing the sketches of him...of his cock, holy shit, how many are there of his cock? It makes me want to vomit. He probably thinks I’m obsessed with him, some pathetic virgin who got laid and can't let go.

“Oh, darling, you look so elegant.” Ella says, her hand covering her mouth. “It’s a wonderful tuxedo. What do you think?”

“I think that it’s better than the leather pants I was forced to wear for the wedding with Nick, your tween lover,” I say, my voice bitter. Her wedding to the former boy band member was ridiculous.

It’s not even Ella that I’m irritated with. The thing with Kate has me so on edge. I’m completely avoiding being in the same room with Kate, except at dinner, when I sit in sullen silence. Ella thinks it’s because of the engagement party.

“You could see fit to muster up some kind of happiness for me,” she says.

“I’m thrilled that you’ve found someone to hitch your wagon to,” I say. “Your dreams of finally being legitimate might come true.”

I’m shocked when she slaps me across the face. Ella has done a lot of things, but she’s never actually slapped me. The stylist doing the fitting quickly exits the room, making an excuse about taking a call. “At some point, you have to grow up, Caulter, and stop acting like a spoiled little shit.”

“Well, you raised me, mother,” I say, rubbing my face. “I’m your son, and the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it?”

“I didn’t raise you to act like a complete ass.”

“No,” I say. “You didn’t raise me at all. You send me off to rehab and military school and then Brighton, so you could live out your teenage years all over again, partying with rock stars. Now you’ve met someone who’s powerful and influential, whose arm you can hang on and pretend to be concerned about issues that matter. So you need me back in your life to play the good son role.”

“That’s not true, Caulter,” she says. “I didn’t know what I was doing with you -- I was a kid myself.”

I shrug. “You made your choices,” I say. “Just like I’m making mine, holding out for the trust fund. I’ll play along, but after summer is over, I’m done.”

“Bourbon.” The bartender looks at me, shaking his head. “You’re the Senator’s kid, aren’t you?”

“I’m Ella Sterling’s kid.” This goddamned tuxedo is practically cutting off my air supply, choking my neck. It’s stifling, despite the fact that the evening air is cool. “Is there a problem?”

“Yeah,” he says. “You’re in high school. I can’t serve you.”

“I’m not in high school,” I say. “But fine. Whatever.” Turning around, I lean against the bar, looking out over the crowd gathered in the backyard. The party planners have been at this for two days, and Ella has gone all out for the engagement party. The yard has been transformed into something that looks like white lights and flowers have been vomited everywhere.

But minimalism isn’t Ella’s style, despite her prior weddings. The marriage to the rock star involved a tiger, so at least that one was more entertaining.

This one is just...blah. That is, until I see her. We’ve been in a state of deep freeze since the argument in her room.

She should have at least made an attempt to hide the sketches of me. I was lying in bed, trying to will away my boner that night, when my hand touched the notebook.

Page after fucking page of pictures of me. Me, leaning on the balcony smoking. Me, shirtless, my pants unbuttoned at the top. My face. My chest. My dick. Drawings of me, staring me right in the face.

I mentally chastise myself for ever being stupid enough to screw a virgin. I got caught up in the pursuit, but this goes no further. Owning her pussy is one thing, but she's obviously infatuated with me. I never expected that.

Kate is talking to a guy I recognize from school, a lacrosse player I think she dated before. Those fucking lacrosse players and that Brighton Bingo game piss me off. I clench my hands into fists, considering smashing his face in, when she makes eye contact with me.

She's wearing this white dress, one of the ones Ella's stylist sent. I regret giving her the dresses now that the guy she's next to is leering at her the way he is. The dress is short, barely touching the top of her thigh, and covered in this gold floral pattern that catches the light when she moves. She's wearing white sandals and gold earrings, her hair piled on top of her head, little pieces falling from the up do, across her forehead and down the sides of her face. The whole effect makes her look like a Greek goddess. She has no idea that she catches the eye of everyone around here.

Kate laughs at something he says, and touches his arm, and that’s it. It’s fucking enough. At least if she’s going to flirt with some other guy, I don't have to watch it happen right in front of me.

I storm through the backyard, weaving through the crowd of people. Ella says something to me, but I shrug her off, escaping into the house, through the kitchen.

“Is everything all right out there, Caulter?” Rose asks as I pass.

“I’m just taking a break.” I don’t pause, but she stops me, with one hand on my arm.

“The library is closed off,” she says. “It’ll be quiet, if you want someplace where you won’t be bothered.”

I cover her palm with mine. “Thanks, Rose.”

She smiled and waves me off. “No harm in taking a break,” she says. “You kids don’t need to be on display all the time. You want me to make you a sandwich? All those little appetizers don’t amount to much of anything. You’re probably starving.”

“I’m okay,” I say. I just want to get out of here.

“Scoot, then, before someone finds you,” she says. “I didn’t see anything.”

“You’re an angel.”

Rose chortles. “You’re delusional.”

“So I’ve been told.”

Closing the library door, I shut everything out. Kate should be flirting with someone else, I tell myself. It’s better this way. The thing between us was just supposed to be sex. Nothing more. She isn't supposed to be drawing page after page of pictures of me. I’m not supposed to be thinking about her, dropping everything to rescue her at parties, turning down sex when she throws herself at me because I don’t want to hurt her.

It’s like I don’t even know who I fucking am anymore.

I’m sure as hell not whatever Kate thinks I am. I’m not a good guy.

There’s a liquor cabinet in the library, and I pour myself two fingers of bourbon. Sinking into the reading nook, I try to ignore the party below, but find myself looking out over the lawn anyway.

I wonder if that disgusting lacrosse player is dancing with her, sliding his hands over her ass, whispering into her ear the things he wants to do to her. The thought makes me want to kill him.

Instead, I swallow the rest of the liquor in one gulp, letting the warmth settle down my throat into my belly, and lay back with my head against the wall and my eyes closed.

When the door opens, I look up.

A redhead closes the door behind her, saunters across the room, and unzips the back of her black dress, letting it fall to a pool around her feet. A natural redhead, by the looks of things.

Well, hell. Generally the only thing better than a redhead is twins. She looks at me expectantly, her hands on her hips, clad only in black heels. "Well?" she asks.

I don't move. "Well, what?"

"I expected a better reaction than that. Well, I heard you were a dick." She stands there motionless, proudly displaying her nakedness like some kind of peacock. Not that she shouldn't. Her body is flawless. Except for the tits. I can't help but think about Katherine's perfect pair. These are...less than.

"That's what they say."

"So, what?" she asks. "You don't like what you see? Or you get so much pussy that a woman walking in and dropping her dress on the floor is old news?"

Her voice repulses me. I can't stand it. I rise, picking up the dress that lies in a crumpled heap on the floor, and hand it to her. "I'm not interested."

But she reaches for the collar of my shirt and presses her body against me. "Come on," she says. "Caulter Sterling not interested? I've heard you're always up for a good -- "

"I said, not interested. Do you have a hearing problem?" I push her away, and look up to see the library door swing open.

Kate stands there, unmoving, her eyes going back and forth between me and the naked redhead standing not more than two feet away from me. She blinks a few times, and for a minute I think she might cry. But she just shakes her head and turns.

"Kate!" I toss a dark look at the redhead, who seems to have no shame about standing there naked in the library with the door wide open. "Put your fucking clothes on and have some self-respect."

Rushing out the door, I head after Kate, but she's already outside. I'm cutting through the back, the same way I came in, through the kitchen, but I stop short. A few of the catering staff wander through to refill trays with hors d'oeuvers and disappear outside again, while Rose comes in through the swinging door that adjoins the dining room.

Rose gives me a look. "You're upset."

"Don't you know that I'm Ella's sullen child?" I ask. "I'm always upset."

She puts her hand on her ample waist. "I didn't say angry," she says. "I said upset."

"Is there a difference?" I'm irritated and I don't want to discuss word choices with her.

"There's a difference between angry and hurt."

I force a laugh. "I'm certainly not hurt," I say.

"Sure you're not," she says, wiping her hand on her skirt. "But in case you're looking for her, she went running past the dining room. I assume she was headed back out to the party."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Sure you don't," she says. "Now get out of here. There's too many people in my kitchen, with the staff running around like this. I need to make sure things stay in order."

Exhaling heavily, I step back outside, walking zombie-like through the partygoers, the Senator's political buddies with their suits and tuxedos and protruding stomachs. Their middle-aged wives have faces frozen in semi-permanent looks of surprise, the result of overzealous plastic surgeons. My mother's invites, the stars and starlets, are sprinkled through the crowd.

"Caulter!" The Senator gestures to me, my mother draped over his arm. She has that too-happy look that says she's well into several glasses of champagne. "I'd like to introduce you to Congressman Hill and his wife, Barbara. Caulter has been accepted to Yale for the fall semester."

I stop, staring at him. That's news to me, since I've not applied anywhere. In fact, the guidance counselor at school practically insisted on sending my applications in himself, but I refused to let it happen. Why go to college, when I already have a trust fund?

Besides, there's no point in school for people like me. We're meant to live off the dividends from our trust funds; smile and have photos taken at social events; and eventually meet a girl who will attempt to stave off the inevitable decline of age by spending the equivalent of a mortgage on plastic surgery.

My mother looks at me meaningfully. "You are planning to attend Yale in the Fall, aren’t you, Caulter?”

Smiling, I nod my head. “Looking forward to it,” I say. What I’m really looking forward to is getting the hell out of this party. I came outside chasing after Katherine, but why? It’s better to let her think the worst of me.

But that's until I see her beside that Neanderthal lacrosse player. I watch as she grabs two champagne flutes from a tray as a server walks by, and downs them, one right after the other. She makes fleeting eye contact with me, and turns back to the guy, obviously ignoring me.

My mother says something to me, and the Congressman's wife puts her hand on my arm, but I can't hear what either of them are saying. Everything fades as I watch Katherine lean forward, with her hand on his arm, then tuck her hair behind her ear, tilting her head down as she bites her lip and smiles.

That smile is what does it for me. That smile is what kills me. It pushes me beyond the pale, and I’m done.

He’s talking about my father. He’s talking about my father’s campaign, and “the really important issues,” and the Presidential race, and oh my God, I think he just said something about wanting a wife and kids. I touch his arm and pretend whatever the hell he just said was funny, but really I’m thinking about Caulter. I can’t get the image out of my head -- Caulter standing there with that woman in the library.

I want to vomit. The idea of him fucking some other woman, in the library of all places, makes me sick. I think she's married, too; I saw her on the arm of an older man earlier tonight.

A server passes with a tray of champagne and I grab another flute, despite the fact that I’ve already downed two and deposited the empty glasses on the bar. I wish Chase would just shut the hell up. He talks and talks, endless streams of words, and it makes me want to claw my eyes out.

I wonder if I should just hook up with Chase. He's not awful looking in a meathead sort of way. Maybe that would be enough to erase the memory of Caulter's touch that seems to just linger on my flesh. Screw Caulter, anyway. There's nothing special about him.

I look up and Caulter is right in front of me.

"Excuse me," he says, putting his shoulder between Chase and I.

“What the fuck?” Chase asks.

“I need to talk to Katherine.” Caulter says. “That means you can leave.”

Chase puffs out his chest and stands his ground. “I’m talking to her, dickwad,” he says. “Do you want me to have to beat your ass at your own house?”

“Chase.” My voice is sharp, warning. “This is not the place.”

“Whatever,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Obviously you give more of a shit about your step-brother here than --”

Caulter looks at him. “Why are you still here?”

“Fuck you, asshole.” But Chase walks away. I'm not disappointed to see him go.

But I am pissed at Caulter. “What, did you get tired of banging the redhead in there?” I hiss.

His grip on my arm tightens and he leans in close to me, glancing at a couple nearby, who toss us dirty looks before moving to another spot a few feet away. The bartender is mixing a drink, but I have the sneaking suspicion he’s also listening. Caulter whispers in my ear. “That was not what you fucking think, and I will explain.”

I shake him off. “I don’t want an explanation, Caulter. It’s none of my business.” But I do want to get the hell out of here. I weave and wind through the people outside, and cut through the back entrance of the house. I know Caulter is somewhere behind me, but I don’t care. I want out from under the scrutiny of all those people, and I feel a little buzzed from the champagne.

“Kate.” Caulter says my name loudly, then quieter, as I dart around one of the caterers in the kitchen and through the side door into the dining room, where it’s empty.

I whirl around, and look at him. “What, Caulter?” I ask. “What could you possibly have to say that I would want to hear?”

“This is not the place for this conversation, Kate.” He nods toward the swinging door that separates the rooms, the door that barely provides any cover for the kind of heated argument this is bound to be.

“Maybe we should have this conversation in the library, then. Would that be a more suitable place?"

"I already told you, that was not what it looked like." He speaks low, looking over his shoulder toward the kitchen, and even though the last thing I want is for anyone to hear this conversation, I'm somehow made even more irritated by his concern.

I know we're hiding this -- whatever the fuck this is -- but the fact that we're skirting around just makes the whole thing seem shady.

"You're right," I whisper. "I was probably just confused by the naked ass and tits. I wasn't really clear about what was happening."

I'm done with this conversation, and I'm done with him.

I storm out of the room, taking the stairs as quickly as I can in my stupid heels. He follows me, and when I reach the door to my room, he's behind me, his body dangerously close to mine.

"Hurry up and open the fucking door," he says, his voice a low growl.

I pause with my hand on the doorknob. "Go to your room. I don't want to talk to you."

"Open the fucking door before someone looks up here and sees us," he says. "Because you have about two seconds before I drop my pants." His hand slides up my thigh, and I slap it away.

"Don't touch me," I say. "You're disgusting." But I open the door anyway. He's right that someone could walk down the hall and see us.

He shuts the door behind him, hard, and I walk to the other side of the room and draw the curtains, shutting out the partygoers outside before I spin around. "You're pissed off," he says.

"I'm not pissed off. I don't give a shit what you do."

Caulter crosses his arms over his chest, smirking at me. The problem is, standing there in the tuxedo like that, he looks damn near irresistible. "You really think I fucked that redhead in the library?"

"How can you even ask me that question, Caulter? Of course I think you fucked her. Your reputation precedes you."

He looks disappointed. "Despite what you might think," he says. "I'm not an asshole."

I laugh. "You must think I'm a complete idiot," I say. "Or that just because I was a virgin when you did the deed, that I'm totally naive."

"I don't think you're stupid or naive," he says. "Which is why you know I didn't fuck her." He looks sincere, and I want to believe him, but I can't be sure he's not lying.

"You had a naked girl in the library, and you were holding her clothes," I say. "You fucked her."

"I'm not an asshole, Kate," he says. I'm distracted by the way his mouth looks as he speaks. I want to feel the heat of his breath on my skin. "She was repulsive."

"She was hot," I say. "And naked."

"How long had it been since I walked out of the party?" he asks. "Ten minutes? Fifteen? Enough time for me to have a drink in the library."

"Enough time for you to screw her," I say.

"You've fucked me, Kate," he says, his eyes boring into me. "You tell me if you think fifteen minutes is long enough for me."

"What about when we were in the library before?" I remind him. "How long was that?"

"The ladder broke. That's not exactly my fault."

"You were coming before it broke."

"Only because you were coming on my cock."

"So? What does that have to do with it?"

He reaches up with his other hand and traces his finger down the front of my dress, hooking it under the necklace on my chest. "So...I can't hold out when it comes to you, Kate."

I laugh. "I'm sure that's what you tell all the girls."

The edges of his eyes wrinkle when he looks at me. "There are no other girls."

"I don't believe you."

"Yes you do," he says, moving his finger up to my face. He traces the outline of my jaw, pulls my face up toward his. "Because you know it's true. Since you, there's been no one else."

My heart thumps in my chest. "But the redhead..."

"I don't know her. She walked in and stripped off her clothes." He leans in close and kisses me, barely brushing my lips with his, the movement light as a feather.

I push him back, unable to contain my laugh. "Women don't just walk in a room and take off their clothes."

"They do for me."

"That's ridiculous."

"I'm a celebrity," he says. "It's not the first time."

"And it won't be the last, either." I'm irritated with him again. I'm irritated with the idea that women walk into a room and throw themselves at him. I'm irritated with the fact that the insistent throbbing between my legs is making me stupid. It's making me want to lose my mind and beg him to bury his cock inside me.

"I like this jealous streak," he says. "It's adorable."

"I'm not jealous," I insist, lying, to him or myself, I'm not sure which. "I'm making sure you're not riddled with STDs."

"Jealous," he says, his mouth close to mine. He licks my lower lip with the tip of his tongue, and I inhale sharply, my thoughts clouded by lust.

"You're the jealous one. You were jealous when you saw me outside with Chase."

He grabs a handful of hair at the base of my neck and pulls me to him, covering my mouth with his. A twinge of pain shoots through me as he presses his mouth hard against my mouth, his tongue warring with mine. My body is on fire, and I long for him to run his hands over my skin. I long to feel him inside me.

When he finally pulls away, he keeps a firm grasp on my hair, holding my head steady so I can't help but look at him. "You're damn right I was jealous," he says. "Don't even think about talking to him again."

"Says the guy who had a naked girl in the library. That's ironic."

"I didn't touch her. I threw her out," he says. "She was repulsive."

"She was hot. And you could have touched her," I say. "You and I aren't anything."

"That lacrosse player doesn't lay a finger on you," he says. "You belong to me."

"What the hell is this, Caulter?" I ask. "You're the one who says you're just having a little fun. You're nobody's happy ever after, remember?"

He grips my hair harder, pulls me against him, his hardness pressing into my thigh. "And you're not some frail little princess who needs swept off her feet," he says, running his hand up the side of my leg and cupping my ass, the tips of his fingers touching my pussy lips. I'm wet, practically dripping, and when he realizes it, he pulls me against him, crushing my mouth with his again.

"Then what am I?" I ask, when I come up for air.

"You're the most irritating girl I've ever met," he says, his grip still tight on my hair. He covers my breast with his hand, warm through the fabric of the dress, and my nipples harden immediately to his touch.

"And you're the --"

"You don't ever stop interrupting," he says.

I laugh. "You're a caveman, with your --"

He squeezes my breast hard, sending a jolt of pain through my body. "Keep talking, and I'll give you something to put in your mouth."

I can't help it; Caulter has done something to me. He flipped a switch in me the first time he had me. That was really the night he claimed me.

The thought of his hand on my hair, forcing his cock inside my mouth, makes my legs quiver. "Is that supposed to be a threat?"

"Test me, Princess. Go ahead and see if I'm making idle threats."

"So go on," I say, dropping to my knees on the floor. "Tell me what I am, again." I unbuckle his pants and take his massive cock in my hand.

Caulter groans. "You're the most stuck-up -"

Wrapping my hand around the base of his cock, I lick him, base to tip, the pre-cum salty on my tongue. I slide my lips over his head slowly, savoring everything about him...his taste, his scent, the way he moans under his breath, the sound guttural, deep in his throat. Then I pause, looking up at him. "And you're an asshole."

"Goody-goody," he says, grabbing a handful of my hair.

"Dickhead." I let out a moan when he muffles the word by pulling my head forcefully onto his cock, yanking my hair at the roots. I wrap my lips around him as he pushes his way further and further into my mouth.

"Prim and proper, straight-laced little virgin," he says, as I relax my throat, taking him in as far as I can, the irony of his words not lost on me. I cup his balls with one hand and he groans, pulling my head back and forth along his length, refusing to let me be the one in control. It's a few minutes before his grip on me loosens and he lets me go. I pull away from his cock, wrapping my hand around his base and sliding it up and down his length, his skin lubricated by a mix of our fluids. He warns me, his tone gruff. "You had better put your mouth back."

"I haven't been a virgin for months now, thanks to you. And you're an arrogant, egotistical prick who can't think about anything except getting laid," I say, unable to resist.

"Nerd," he says, but his head lolls back as I jerk him off into my mouth, my tongue stroking the end of his head.

"Manwhore." I wrap my lips around his head, sucking in as I stroke. I cradle his balls with my other hand.

"Shit," he says, pulling my head down farther. "Suck it like you mean it, Princess."

So I don't. I pull away from him. "I told you to stop calling me that."

"Go ahead and keep doing what you're doing with my cock, Princess," he says, "On your knees like that, with your sweet little mouth hanging open, and I'll come all over that pretty little face of yours."

The throbbing between my legs threatens to undo me. I want him more than I can stand. I stroke him, my grip firm. "I'd rather take it all in my mouth," I say, my voice low. "Jackass."

Gripping my head with both hands, he fucks my mouth, so much pre-cum dripping from the tip I think he's going to explode. I've gone down on him a handful of times now, but he's always stopped long before coming in my mouth, yanking me away from his cock and rolling on a condom before burying himself inside my pussy.

I want to taste him.

"Fuck, I'm going to come," he says, warning me, but I grab his thighs, swallowing him more deeply. "Kate..."

I moan my response, my tongue pressing on the underside of his cock, and I suck harder as I feel him start to lose control.

"Shit, Kate," he groans, his hands gripping my hair, holding me in place as he lets go, filling my mouth with his seed. I swallow once, then again, as his cock pulses, shooting the liquid into my throat.

After he comes, he doesn’t waste a minute, pulling me immediately to my feet. “Your fucking mouth,” he says.

“Don’t tell me,” I say. “I need to shut it, right?”

“Your mouth is fucking amazing,” he says. “You can keep your mouth open as long as my dick is inside it. Prude.”

“Thanks for the generous offer. Spoiled brat.”

“I can be generous,” he says, zipping up his pants. He’s still wearing his tuxedo, only now his shirt and jacket have a rumpled look, even though he’s been standing the whole time. He loosens the button on his jacket, and places it neatly on the chair by my desk. Watching me from across the room, he barks an order. “Strip. Now.”

I roll my eyes. “That’s romantic.”

“You already know that I don't do love. And you don’t want romance,” he says, undoing his cufflinks and then the buttons on his shirt. “You want someone who will tell you exactly what he’s going to do to you, and then fucking do it. And what I want is to see you take off that dress like you did the other night and show me that sweet body of yours.”

He doesn’t wait for me to respond. He just peels off his shirt and slides out of his pants, the whole time never taking his eyes off me. Turning, I back toward him and let him unzip the back of the dress, and it falls heavy to the floor.

His hands are on me, palms sliding over my arms, down my waist, then across my ass. When he brushes his fingers against my pussy lips, I’m already so close I nearly come in response to his touch.

I inhale sharply before I speak. “You’re wrong.”

“Am I?” he asks. He takes his hands off me and I’m afraid for a moment that he’s not going to touch me again.

“What -- where are you going?”

He takes my hand. “Kneel over me,” he tells me as he lies down on the floor.

“What? Why --”

“Put your pussy on my face,” he says. “Now.”

If I weren’t already so hot I could barely speak, the command alone would make me weak. I start to turn around, but he stops me.

“No,” he says. “Face forward. This is all about you.”

I kneel over his face, my pussy inches from his lips, and watch with rapt fascination as he arches up and touches the tip of his tongue to me, licking from one end to the other. A gossamer strand of my juice hangs off the end of my lips, and he groans as he begins to lap me.

I'm nervous, self-conscious despite the fact that this isn't the first time his lips have touched me. But when he grasps my ass cheeks in his hands, pulling me hard against his mouth, that feeling dissipates. “Oh my God, your mouth,” I moan.

He growls and holds me away from his face, looking at me with his mouth shiny, covered in my juices. “I love the way your pussy tastes. I can’t get enough of it.”

I moan softly, conscious of the guests downstairs, the crowd of people gathered to celebrate my father’s engagement to Ella. We have to be quiet; anyone could hear or come looking for us. The thought makes me hotter, and as Caulter covers my pussy with his mouth, eating me like a starving man, I ride his face, threading my hands through his hair.

I slide a hand to my breast, kneading it, tweaking my nipple between my fingers as I fuck his mouth, riding him as he brings me higher and higher. His tongue seems to be everywhere at once, flicking over my clit, thrusting inside me, teasing me, making me think about his cock. He grips my ass, his fingers spreading my cheeks, and I feel his fingertip against pressing against my asshole.

I squirm at his touch, at the pleasure that surges through me in response to his finger, and I think I hear him laugh, the sound muffled between my legs. He grips me harder, pulling me against his face as he devours me. I’m quiet, trying with everything I have not to cry out the way I want to, mindful of the fact that if I do, someone will hear me. Someone will walk in to see me buck naked, riding my new step-brother’s face like he’s a fucking horse, my breasts bouncing in the air.

Caulter has his tongue lodged in my pussy, his fingertip pushing into my asshole, and the thought of someone seeing me like this, while I'm being so thoroughly debauched by him, pushes me entirely over the edge.

When I come, it’s blinding. I'm gasping for air as I nearly yank his hair out by the roots, trying only to focus on keeping my mouth closed and not screaming. Waves of pleasure, the pent up frustration of being around Caulter for a week, the jealousy of seeing him with another girl, wash over me, and I come hard against his face.

The orgasm isn't even finished when he lifts me up. “On your hands and knees,” he growls.

I'm in a haze, preoccupied with my throbbing pussy, overcome with the void of his tongue being withdrawn from between my legs. “What?”

“You heard me,” he says. He grabs a condom from his pocket and rips open the wrapper with his teeth, looking at me like a feral animal. His cock is rock hard, and he rolls the condom on his considerable length. “What did I fucking say?”

I giggle, his harshness somehow striking me as funny. “Okay, bossy.”

He doesn’t answer, just grabs a pillow from the bed and throws it on the ground in front of me. “Scream into the pillow.”

“You think highly of yourself,” I say.

“You’re going to need the pillow.” He doesn’t wait for me to respond, just pushes me down on all fours. His tip presses against my entrance, and he plunges his cock inside me in one swift thrust, my wetness easily guiding him in. Hands on my hips, he fucks me with hard thrusts, each one deeper than the last, my breasts swaying as he slides in and out of me.

“Shit, Caulter.” I whisper the words, trying to be quiet, the sound of our flesh slapping together loud enough to make me nervous. My pussy is so sensitive from my orgasm that I can barely take the sensation of his cock inside me. It’s so overwhelming I want to crawl out of my skin. “I don’t know if I can take it.”

His hands are on my back, roaming over my skin. “I’m going to make you come again,” he says. “This time will be insane.”

My pussy tightens around him as he plows into me, the heat of pleasure radiating through my body. “Your cock is --” I want to say ‘too much,’ but I don’t want him to take it away. The mix of pleasure and the overstimulation bordering on pain, is something I’ve never experienced.

“Your pussy is so damn tight,” he whispers, his balls pressing up against my lips as he thrusts deeply inside me. “You fit me like a fucking glove.”

“Oh God, Caulter, you’re going to make me come again,” I warn.

“You don’t come until I say you come, you hear me?” He grabs a handful of hair at the base of my head, pulling my head back like he’s taking the reins on a horse. “You fucking wait until I tell you.”

“Oh God.”

“Oh God, what?”

“Yes,” I gasp. “Yes, yes. Wait.” I don’t know if I can.

Caulter slaps my ass cheek, the jiggling of my flesh sending a ripple of pleasure through my body. “Touch your clit.”

“No,” I protest. If I do, it will make me come in an instant.

“Rub your clit,” he orders, and I press my finger against it as his thrusts get faster. “Tell me you love this.”

“Oh, yes, I love it.” I’m rubbing my clit harder.

“Tell me you love me fucking your sweet, tight pussy.” He thrusts into me, balls slamming against my lips, his cock so deep inside me.

“I love when you fuck me.” I’m so close, I can’t hold off.

He grips my hips so tight it think he’s going to leave bruises. “Say it again: I love you fucking my sweet, tight pussy.”

“I.love.you.fucking.my.sweet.tight.pussy.” I rub circles on my clit, harder as he thrusts into me, his thrusts punctuating each word. “Caulter, don’t stop. Don’t stop.”

“Do you want to come?”

“Yes, Yes. Please. Yes.” I think I’m going to die if he doesn’t let me come.

“Please. Say please let me come, Caulter.” His hand on my lower back, he pushes me farther down to the floor, my face hovering just over the pillow. I’m gripping the pillowcase as he thrusts into me, my ass high in the air. I bite the edge of the material, trying to keep myself from coming. But my pussy feels so wet and swollen I can’t hold off.

“Please. Please. Please. Caulter.”

He growls, slamming into me with one deep thrust. “Come for me, Princess.”

I finally let go, muffling my cries with the pillow as he buries himself deep in me, filling me with his cum. The orgasm washes over my entire body like a tidal wave, the intensity so powerful I might be swept away. I don’t know how long it is after that, that I finally start to come down, and tear my face away from the pillow to look at him.

Caulter rubs his hands on my back and down my hips. “I told you’d need the pillow.”

“I don’t have words.”

He grins. “Speechless,” he says. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

I laugh. “You wouldn’t want me if I were speechless. You’d be bored.”

“I’d be in heaven.”

“Screw you.”

“Again?” He slaps my ass. “I’ll need another minute, but if you insist.”

“Do you think anyone noticed we’re gone?”

“I think we probably have an audience outside the door,” he says, sliding out of me and slapping my ass a second time for good measure.

“What?” I squeal.

“Calm your tits,” he says. “It was a joke. Your face was in the pillow. If it wasn’t, well...then we’d be on the front page of whatever the hell little newspaper they have up here at Lake Winnipesauke. I'll go ahead and assume it's something with the word gazette in it.”

“How am I going to sneak out to take a shower in the middle of the party?” I ask.

“You’re not,” Caulter says, throwing me my dress.

“What?” I ask, my voice high-pitched. “I’m not going down there smelling like --”

He interrupts me, looking at me with his eyebrows raised. “Like you just had filthy sex on the floor of your room with your step-brother?”

I grab the pillow from the floor and throw it at him. “Please stop saying that.”

“Step-brother?” he asks, grinning. “Does it bother you? I mean, you are keeping it in the family.”

I cover my ears. “La la la la,” I say. “I don’t hear you.”

He crosses the room to me, takes my hands off my ears, and kisses me on the lips, his kiss at once changing the tone of the moment from jovial to sensual. “Put on clothes and slip into the bathroom to clean up, and then I will,” he says. “I’ll meet you downstairs. If you say one word to that guy from school, I'll beat his fucking ass in the middle of the party, then bend you over my knee and tan your hide.”

My eyes go wide. “The sad thing is, I think you might be insane enough to do just that.”

Caulter grins. “Good. I think you’re starting to get to know me after all, Princess."

"Shit, you scared me." She's standing by the open balcony door wearing a cotton t-shirt that barely covers her ass. And panties, I'd guess, even though I can't see them. It has to be a thong, since I burned her granny panties, which makes me smile. "What are you smiling at?"

"Nothing," I say. "Are you going to let me in here, or what?"

"Do I have a choice, or are you going to just barge in anyhow?" she asks.

I grin, slipping my hand around her and pulling her against me. I kiss her slowly, letting her melt into me, but pause when I see the sketchpad on the bed. "Drawing again?" I ask, picking it up.

Katherine reaches for it, but I hold it up high above her head. "Shit, you just can't keep me off your mind, can you?"

"Give it back to me, you shithead," she says, her teeth clenched. "Or I'll scream."

"The hell you'll scream." The thought makes me laugh. "I'm sure our parents would love to walk into the room to see you wearing nothing but that t-shirt and holding a pad full of drawings of my cock."

She glares at me, and crosses her arms over her chest, throwing herself heavily on the bed. "Fine. Whatever. You already looked at them anyway, so I don't care."

"That's very sensible of you." I walk to the other side of the room, finally looking at the picture she was drawing. I expect to see me, but it isn't. "Is this your mother?"

She nods, and the look she gives me makes me feel ashamed for grabbing the pad from her. "I draw her the way I remember her, not, you know, how she was near the end."

"It's nice, Kate." Nice is such a stupid word, I think, as soon as it comes out of my mouth. Katherine's drawings are beautiful -- that was my first thought when I picked up her sketchpad, before I realized they were all of me.

"I wasn't drawing you before because I'm obsessed with you or something," she says. I hand her the sketchpad and she closes it, and I can tell by the way she looks at me that she's embarrassed.

"No?" I ask, my eyebrows raised. "I'm disappointed. I've always wanted a stalker."

She doesn't say anything for a minute, and I think I picked the wrong way to lighten the mood, but then she looks up and shrugs. "Well, I did take a lock of your hair for the shrine I made to you."

I sit down on the bed. Katherine is leaning up against the pillows on the headboard, her knees pulled up to her chest. She looks so vulnerable that I want to reach out and hug her, but that seems too corny, so I just pull her feet into my lap and cover them with my hands. There's something about being with her right now that feels comfortable. "That's good," I say. "Hair is okay. If you would have cast a mold of my cock, that would have been weird."

"Damn it. There goes my plan for the evening," she says. "I'll have to take the plaster I bought back to the store."

"Plaster would have been uncomfortable anyway. I prefer chocolate."

She laughs, but the sound fades quickly and we sit in silence, with me rubbing her feet. Isn't this something -- Caulter Sterling, two months of monogamy under his belt, rubbing a chick's feet and talking. "Do you think about her a lot?"

"Who?"

"Your mother," I say, nodding toward the sketchpad.

Katherine shrugs. "She's been gone a long time now, you know?"

"Not that long," I say. "A few years, right?"

"Yeah," she says. "At the end of my eight grade year. She was sick for a year before it happened. Breast cancer. It was too late when they caught it."

I'm sorry." I don't really know what to say.

Kate shrugs. "It is what it is, you know? I mean, there's nothing you can do about it."

"You've been at Brighton since then," I say.

"As soon as my dad could get rid of me, he did," she says, her voice bitter.

Being gotten rid of is definitely something I can understand. "He and Ella are made for each other, then."

She looks at me. "What do you mean?" she asks. "Is your father around?"

"Ella has been jonesing to get rid of me as soon as I came out of her," I say. "Who knows who the hell my father is?"

Katherine's brow wrinkles. "You really don't know?"

"She told me that he was some loser, lived out in Georgia somewhere," I say. "When I was fifteen, I hired a private investigator and tracked the guy down. He copped to her paying him to say he was my father and stay out of my life. Apparently she partied a lot back then. She doesn't know who it is."

"Aren't there DNA tests for that?"

"Not if you can't even narrow it down," I say.

"Shit. That sucks."

I move up to her calf, grateful for the distraction as I rub her leg. "Whatever. It's no big deal, right? That's life. At least your father is her fucking age, not like some of the guys she was dating, barely a day over eighteen."

"Sometimes I think I'm not supposed to be happy, you know?" she asks. "Like, other people are supposed to be happy, but I'm not."

That I can understand. Chasing happiness is like a fucking curse. "If you told your father to fuck off, I bet you'd feel happy."

She chokes on her laugh. "Yeah," she says. "You're probably right. I bet I would."

"So no more Harvard in the fall, then?" I ask.

"You're assuming that won't make me happy," she says. "Maybe that's my dream."

"Yeah, that's a ridiculous assumption," I say.

"Maybe I want to go to Harvard."

"No you don't." I speak the words with certainty, even though I shouldn't. I shouldn't know what she wants or doesn't want, but I do. I know with certainty she doesn't want to go to Harvard, and that she doesn't want to go to law school. It's not who she really is.

"Can I show you something?" she asks. "But you have to swear you won't say anything to anyone."

"Show me." I watch as she jumps up and races to her desk, pulling a folded piece of paper from underneath a stack of papers in the top drawer, then hands it to me. "What is it?"

"Look."

I read the letter, an acceptance letter from UCLA. "Is this where you want to go?"

"I mean, it would never happen, you know what I mean?" she says. "It's not an Ivy League school. But they have a really good art program. My father would shit a brick if I went to art school. He would say it's a useless degree."

"But you applied," I point out. "And you got in, right? You should do it, if it's what you want to do."

She grabs the paper from my hand and puts it back in the drawer. "I think it's past the deadline anyway. And it's in California. My father would have a heart attack. Miss summer internships at the Capitol for art? I mean, what am I going to do with my life -- sketch? It's not practical." She shrugs. "I just wanted to know if I was any good, you know?"

"You should do what makes you happy."

She rolls her eyes at me, returning to where she was sitting before on the bed. "I'm not taking the advice of Mr. Life-Is-One-Giant-Party," she says. "Your mom has, like, mega money. You don't even have to do anything with your life."

"Fuck if I don't already know that," I say, my voice hard.

"I didn't mean that the way it sounded," she says. "Just that, you're completely set for life, aren't you? You can have fun all the time."

"Well, that's not all it's cracked up to be." I sound ungrateful and spoiled. "It gets old after a while."

"See?" she says. "Being irresponsible all the time isn't even fun."

"First you say I don't have to do anything with my life, and now you're calling me irresponsible?" I ask. "I thought were getting along, and now you're back to insulting me."

Katherine sighs. "It came out wrong," she says. "I didn't mean it like that. I just mean that you're obviously smart, you know? And you're set for life. You can do anything you want."

"Says you." I feel like my path is laid out pretty clearly - I'm the bad boy son of a celebrity. People already know everything they want to know about me.

"So what would you want to do, if you just said, fuck it, and didn't give a shit about anyone watching?" She rubs her lower lip absently with her finger, her knees tucked up to her chest. I think about how my tongue was on that lip earlier, how that lip felt as I pulled it between my teeth.

I fucked her less than two hours ago; I should be worn out. But I'm not. I'm showered and reinvigorated as I sit here looking at her. And, I can see the fabric of her panties that barely covers her pussy, peeking out from between her thighs.

"You," I say, reaching for her ankle and pulling it toward me on the bed.

She laughs, tucking her hair behind her ear. "Yes, obviously," she says. "But you know what I mean."

"I do know what you mean," I say, crawling up the length of her body, rubbing my cock against her the whole way. She giggles and puts her hands on my chest.

"Not so fast," she says. "Not until you tell me."

I kiss her, drawing her bottom lip between my teeth again, my hands on either side of her shoulders. "Tell you what?" I ask. "There is nothing to tell. I'd do you. I'd never stop fucking you. That's what I'd do."

"I was being serious."

"So am I." I reach under her shirt, slide my hand up her abdomen until I can feel her breast. No bra. Her nipple is hard, and I groan as I squeeze her flesh in my hand, watching the expression on her face change as her eyes lightly flutter closed. "You wouldn't spend your time fucking me if no one was watching?"

"No," she murmurs.

"No?" I ask. "That's rude. You should at least lie to the guy who's cock is pressed right up against your pussy."

"Okay, then. Yes," she whispers.

I stroke her nipple with my thumb until she's moaning, her voice soft. "Yes, because I told you to lie or yes because you'd want to do nothing but fuck me?"

She whimpers. "Fuck me now," she says.

"That was fast." But I pull myself away from her, slip her shirt over her head, and she pulls mine off before falling back against the pillows. I'm still wearing my pajama pants, the thin cotton fabric barrier between us minimal, and I can feel the pre-cum wet on the fabric. Leaning down, I take her breast in my mouth, swirling my tongue around her nipple. "You're ready for me so soon?"

Katherine puts her palms on my face and pulls me up to her, her tongue thrusting insistently in my mouth as she kisses me. When I slide my fingers between her legs, she groans. The fabric of her panties is soaked. "See?" she asks. "I'm so wet already."

"You are," I say. "Hang on a second. Let me grab a condom." I move away from her, but she latches onto my arm.

"No."

"No, what?"

"No condom," she whispers.

"It'll take me two seconds," I say. "They're right over there."

"Do we have to?"

"Use a condom?" I ask. "You're the one who was concerned about me fucking a redhead, but now you want to go bareback?"

"You didn't fuck the redhead," she says.

"Is that a question or a statement?" I ask. "Because you didn't seem sure before."

"It's a statement," she says. "I'm sure."

"Mhmm." I stand up anyway, sliding her panties over her hips and down her legs, unable to resist running my tongue down her pussy as I do. The taste makes me rock hard. The thought of being inside her, with no protection, makes me want to come right now. But that's definitely against my rules. "That's not something I do, Katherine."

"What do you mean?" She watches me strip out of my pants, and her mouth parts when she sees my cock, which makes me feel smug as hell. I grab a condom from the bottom drawer in her desk. "Did you stash those in there?" she asks.

"Yeah." I join her back on the bed.

"When?"

"A while ago."

"Before we started screwing?" she asks. I climb over her, back where I was before, and she wraps her warm hand around my cock.

"Are you going to break my dick if I answer you honestly?" I'm slightly concerned that it's something she's capable of. But she just laughs as she slides her thumb over the tip, the pre-cum wet on my skin.

"You did, didn't you?" she asks.

"I did."

"You're a cocky asshole."

"You're not a frigid bitch," I say.

"Thanks," she says, laughing. "I think that's the best compliment you've given me, Caulter Sterling."

"Don't ever say I didn't say nice things about you," I say. She's running her hand up and down the length of my cock, and I groan. When she guides me to her pussy, I tense as I feel her warm wetness against my bare cock, even though it's the best thing I've ever felt. "Wait."

"I'm on birth control," she says. "I have been for years. Are you clean?"

"I was tested right before...you, actually." I don't tell her why, that a month before her I'd slept with this psychotic chick from an all-girls school half an hour away who'd also, as it turned out, had slept with half of the lacrosse team.

She arches her hips up slightly so that the tip of my cock is just inside her. "So do it. Fuck me. I want to feel you come inside me."

"Shit, Kate," I groan, not moving. I don't screw chicks without using rubbers. I may not be a stand-up guy, but at least I'm safe. "You're killing me. You're supposed to be the responsible one."

"You're rubbing off on me," she whispers, her hands sliding around to my ass cheeks. "What can I say? I want to do something crazy."

She pulls at me, but I brace, only allowing myself to go inside her another inch. Another agonizing inch inside her warm, wet cunt. I can't be expected to make a responsible decision, not with my cock inside her pussy. She squeezes her muscles tight around me and that's it. I ram my cock inside her, up to the hilt, in one deep thrust, feeling the exquisite bliss of her muscles stretch to fit me.

Katherine arches as I slip inside her, her head falling back, hair falling down on the pillowcase and around her shoulders. One hand under her back, I pull her against me as I fuck her, my rhythm slow, even though she's wet and willing.

She urges me on, little moans under her breath and then whispers, over and over, "Yes, yes."

"Look at me, Kate." She jerks her head up, and her eyes meet mine before she kissed me hungrily. Every part of her is hungry; her pussy is practically milking me now, even before she comes. I know she's ready, on the verge so quickly, but I tell myself to slow down and wait.

"No, no, don't stop," she whispers, her voice almost a whine. She wraps her legs around me, pinning me with my cock deep inside her, but I stop moving. I grab her wrists, and push them above her head, then lower my mouth close to hers again. "Please don't stop."

"Don't try to take control, Kate," I whisper. "It doesn't suit you." She whimpers, but lies still, and I kiss her, my cock throbbing inside her. When she tightens her muscles around me again, I laugh. "You are always trying to take control."

"Fuck..." she whispers, and I wait for her to say you, but she doesn't. She says, " Fuck me."

I can't wait any longer. I thrust deeply inside her, feeling the gush of wetness from her pussy. "Is that what you wanted?" I ask.

"Yes," she whispers, her fingers lacing tightly with mine, palms pressed against my palms as I drive into her over and over. "Yes."

"You want my bare cock inside you..."

"Yes," she says. "Oh God, yes."

"You want to feel me come inside your bare pussy." Her muscles are tensing around my cock, squeezing it. It's all I can do not to come inside her right this second, with how tight she is, how warm she feels.

"Caulter, I'm so close." She punctuates her words with one final squeeze, and I'm groaning and letting go, flooding her with my hot seed. When she comes, she arches up to meet her lips to mine, and I mute her moans with my mouth as I drive into her, feeling her orgasm rip through her body. Her pussy spasms around my cock, her muscles milking me for every last drop of my cum.

Afterward, the only sound in the room is our ragged breath as we come down from our orgasms, and when she finally opens her eyes to look at me, my face inches from hers, her smile is broad. "That was good."

"That's all you have to say?" I ask. "It was good? What a letdown."

"It was definitely not a letdown," she says, wrapping her legs around me. "Do you want to go again?"

"I've created a monster," I say, kissing her forehead, then her cheekbone, and the side of her face. "You're not going to be able to stop."

"So don't make me stop," she whispers. "Keep fucking me."

"You know this can't last." I feel the obligation to warn her, but as soon as I speak the words, I think I'm trying to warn myself. She's getting under my skin, and I'm afraid she's changing me. I know she's changing me.

"If we're careful..." she says, her voice trailing off. She thinks I'm talking about the fact that we'll get caught, but I'm not. I don't tell her what I'm thinking. Instead, I kiss her soft lips.

“We'll be careful,” I tell her. I remind myself that I need to be careful. With her heart and mine.

My father and Ella are back at the lake house full-time now. The Senate broke for the summer three days ago. Three days ago, the house was turned into a flurry of activity in preparation for the wedding, the house flooded with people: the wedding planner, caterers, stylist, managers, decorators, baker, and my father’s entourage of political advisers.

I’d have expected the wedding to disrupt my father's campaign, but it all seems to fit in nicely. It helps, I suppose, that Ella runs her wedding planning with the same kind of military precision with which my father attacks his re-election campaign.

Caulter and I are no longer just fucking. I mean, we've been fucking. But now we're fucking like rabbits. We've been screwing all the time.

When my father and Ella were still in DC, Caulter made good on his promise to take me in the dining room one night after Rose was gone, spreading me out on the table and burying his face between my legs.

We've had sex outside on the dock in the evening, beside the lake.

In the boathouse.

In the car on the way to get ice cream, and then again when we got back, after Caulter said he couldn’t watch the way I licked the ice cream cone and not want to put his cock in my mouth.

In our rooms -- so many times, in our rooms.

We're having more sex, but it's no longer just sex. Something happened the night of the engagement party, I think -- Caulter became less irritating. He's growing on me. Which is weird.

It's also upsetting. It was one thing when we were sneaking around when our parents were gone, but it's different now that they're back. And that they're getting married. Soon we really are going to be step-siblings, and then what's going to happen?

There's also the other thing I keep thinking about -- and it's all Caulter's fault for planting the thought in my head, the possibility that I really might be able to go to UCLA. Now I keep wondering what would happen if I did.

It's all Caulter's fault for making me feel happy. That's the thing about being happy - it makes you want more of that feeling. And happiness is dangerous, because it never lasts. Life has taught me that much.

I look in the mirror, straightening the stray tendril of hair that refuses to stay in the slick high ponytail. I look like a fucking PTA mom, I think, in my pastel colored suit and nude pumps. Or an Easter egg.

We’re about to go downstairs for an interview, all part of my father’s re-election campaign but not really. It’s a national news station that doesn’t care all that much about the incumbent from New Hampshire who’s predicted to win by a landslide vote; what they really care about is the wedding. And the family drama.

They’re going to want to know all about how Caulter and I are getting along. Luckily, we’ve been prepped. We have stock phrases to use. None of those stock phrases involve we're fucking like rabbits, or his cock makes me so wet I practically drip when I’m near him.

“Hey.” The door from the balcony slides open, and his voice makes me jump.

“Shit, Caulter,” I whisper. “Stop scaring me like that.”

“You look like an Easter egg,” he says.

“I do, don’t I? That’s exactly what I was thinking. Is this orange or pink?” I ask, smoothing the skirt. I think it’s a linen fabric of some kind -- I think I should be playing canasta in Florida in this dress.

“Coral,” Caulter says, walking up behind me and placing his hand on my rear. “It does make your ass look great, though.”

“Hands off,” I order. “No hanky panky.”

“Aw, you get in a pastel suit and you start acting like a grandma,” Caulter says, looking past me to his reflection in the mirror. “Even more than usual, I mean.”

“Ha ha.” My eyes trace down the length of him. “Are you supposed to be wearing a jacket?”

“Nope, just a collared shirt,” he says. “The stylist picked it out. Apparently I can't be too formal, you know. I’ve been told my brand is ‘tamed rebel’.”

I cringe. “Did she really say that? Is this the same stylist who picked out all the new clothes after you burned mine?"

"Same one," he says. "Not the panties, though. That was all my doing." He reaches for the hem of my dress, remarking more softly now, “Let me check to see if you’re wearing them.”

I swat his hand away, but he slides it between my legs. “Stop, seriously, we’re about to go down there. You shouldn’t even be in here.”

“We have time for a quickie,” he says

I laugh. “Get away from me, asshole.”

He doesn't seem too put off by my rebuff, even as he pulls his hand back and smacks me lightly on the ass. “I picked out every single pair of those panties, by the way. The 'tamed rebel' thing is from your father's PR person or whoever she is, though."

“Mona,” I say, rolling my eyes. “She’s a tyrant.”

“She says I'm a tamed rebel,” he says. “It sounds exciting. Maybe I should mention who tamed me when we’re on camera.”

I swat at him, but he ducks out of the way, heading for the balcony door. “You’re a total rebel,” I say, watching him light a cigarette. “Are you seriously going to do that right before the interview?”

He blows smoke off the balcony but looks at me. “Do you want me to get through the interview?”

“Whatever,” I say. “As long as you play along.”

“I’ll play the good little step-brother,” he says. “But I’ll be undressing you the whole time with my eyes.”

I laugh. “I’m sure.”

Thirty minutes later, we’re downstairs in the library, of all locations. Which is pretty much the exact place I’ve fantasized about having to sit in front of a camera and answer questions about my relationship with my step-brother. I mean, it’s just fucking perfect.

“What happened to the living room?” I ask, as Mona ushers me to a seat, usurping whoever’s in actually in charge of the television show.

“The background in here is more suitable for a family interview,” she says as she adjusts the collar of my jacket.

Yes, of course. The place where Caulter and I broke a ladder while fucking is definitely suitable for a family interview.

I glance at Caulter, and he’s hiding a smile, the shithead. Argh. Caulter is going to love everything about this, especially my discomfort. We may be screwing, and I may not hate him with quite the fiery passion with which I used to, but that doesn’t mean he won’t take great pleasure in watching me writhe under the pressure.

Caulter likes to watch me squirm. The thought jumps into my head, immediately making me think about sex, and I try to push it away. Focus, Kate.

Mona slaps me on the thigh. “Knees together, crossed at the ankles. Sit up straight, lean slightly forward so the sofa doesn’t eat you.” She barks out her orders like a drill sergeant, before motioning impatiently for Caulter. “Caulter. Here.”

Whoever is actually in charge of the set up on the set gently intervenes, moving my father and Ella onto the sofa adjacent to us.

When the cameras roll, it’s three-two-one and smile and one big happy family. Meanwhile, my mind is nowhere near even listening to any of the questions directed at my father and Ella.

When the interviewer, a grandmotherly woman with a penchant for asking questions that make stars dissolve into tears, turns to Caulter and I, it's one softball after another. Did we know each other at Brighton? Did we get along? What are our plans after the summer?

We parrot the responses we've been given, smiling and being engaging, like two robot minions doing my father’s bidding.

On the surface, it’s uneventful. But I carefully avoid eye contact with Caulter, and choose my words like I’m stepping through a minefield. The questions that should be so easy to answer are now laden with a deeper meaning.

Of course we get along, I say. What I don’t say is that Caulter’s face was buried between my legs this morning before I even got out of bed. We get along very well.

“Get off the phone.” I step through the balcony door even though Kate waves me out, shaking her head. She turns to the side, like she’s trying to shield the phone from me, and says something I don’t quite catch, but I hear the tone of her voice, and that interests me. She’s irritated.

“I don’t think so,” she says, followed by silence. “Because do you remember the last time we went out?”

“Is that Jo?” I ask.

Kate shakes her head and shields her mouth with her hand. I’m tempted to take the phone out of her hand and throw it across the room like I did before, but I don’t, only because she’s looking irresistible in the yellow sundress she’s wearing that drapes down to the floor. The fact that the top of it pushes her tits out to the point where they’re practically overflowing makes me want to put my mouth on them.

She keeps talking, even when I walk up to her and slide the fabric of the dress and her bra down over her luscious tits. She shakes her head at me, her brow wrinkled and her expression scolding, but she doesn’t exactly stop me.

I run my fingers lightly over her breasts, watching her nipples rise to attention.

“No, Jo,” Kate says, her voice trailing off as I stroke her breast with my finger. “I’m not in charge of the invitations.” I bend down toward her, running my tongue over her nipple, and her head lolls back, phone still against her ear. “Nothing is wrong. I’m over what happened at the party. But that doesn’t mean you’re coming to the wedding.” She pauses for a minute, when I envelop her breast with my mouth. Then she throws the phone on the bed without even saying goodbye.

“Was that Jo?” I ask, pulling up the volumes of fabric of her dress and sliding my hand between her legs. “Why are you still talking to her?”

“I’m not,” she says, her breath short. She’s wet already; the fact that she's wet so soon makes me rock hard. I love how this girl is always ready for me, soaking between her legs the minute I get near her. “I haven’t spoken to her since the party. She wants an invitation to the wedding.”

“Why were you friends with her?” I ask, sliding my finger between her folds. I slip it inside, watching her jaw go slack and her eyes half-close.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I’ve known her for a while. I mean, she's my friend during the summers up here. She’s fun. Funny.”

“She’s not a good person,” I say. Kate already knows what I think. “Is Ella dragging you to do wedding stuff?”

She answers, her breath already ragged. “No, not me,” she says. “I think she has friends she's doing that with. Do you know how many celebrities are going to be here for this? They’re already descending on the town.”

“Like a plague.” I hitch her dress up around her waist and push her against the bed. “So no one is looking for you right now.”

“No,” she says, her voice raspy. “Is anyone looking for you?”

“Hell, no.” I slip my fingers from between her legs and unbuckle my jeans. “It’s just you and me.”

“There are so many people in the house, Caulter,” she whispers. “Right downstairs. Anyone could come up here. I’m sure Rose will be looking for us. I think she knows about us.”

“Then she won’t be looking for us,” I say, walking to the bedroom door and locking it.

“Why don’t we go somewhere?”

“We can,” I tell her. “After I come inside that tight little pussy of yours.”

She groans. “You’re making me --”

“Wet?” I ask. “Yeah, Princess, I already felt that.” I start to unbuckle my pants, slipping them over my ass, but she stops me.

“Just stop undressing and fuck me,” she says, wrapping her hand around my cock. It throbs in her grip. “Like, now.”

I don’t even bother to take her clothes off. The urgency in her voice as she sits on the edge of the bed with her skirt hiked up around her waist, looking slightly disheveled, makes me want to do whatever she asks. My pants are around my ass as I grip her thighs and pull her down until she’s hanging off the bed.

When I plunge my cock into her, she moans out loud. I guess she doesn’t give that much of a shit about anyone hearing. Thrusting inside her, I watch as she throws her head back, pressing against the mattress, and moans a little louder this time. “Fuck me,” she orders. “Harder.”

She’s so damn warm and wet I can’t take it. I fuck her harder. “You’re going to have to keep your moans down so your father and Ella don't catch us.”

That makes her moan again.

“Is that making you hot, Princess?” I ask, thrusting into her, my cock so deep I swear I’m going to bust through her. “Knowing that our parents might hear us?”

“What you’re doing with your cock is making me hot,” she says. Her voice is a little too loud, so I cover her mouth with my hand. Her eyes fly open wide, and she bites into the side of my finger.

I thrust into her harder to punish her for biting me, and she groans. My movements are rapid as I shove two fingers just inside the entrance of her mouth, the same two fingers that had been in her pussy a few minutes ago. Watching her devouring the fingers that still have her juices on them makes me want to come. I don’t care about holding out; I want to fill her up with my warm cum. Her muscles tense around my cock and I know she’s ready. “Suck them,” I whisper. “Wrap those lips around my fingers like you do with my cock.”

She groans, low in her throat, her pussy tightening.

“Are you going to come for me, Princess,” I ask, and she nods her head, looking at me with big pleading eyes. “Come for me.”

She’s been so close that the minute I give her permission, I feel the orgasm rip through her pussy, muscles tightening over and over as she comes. Her back arches and I keep my fingers lodged firmly in her mouth, my thumb under her chin as I drive as deeply inside her as I can, letting go. My balls clench up and I fill her up with my warm seed.

A minute later, my cock is still throbbing, still leaking with every spasm, and she’s grinning at me. She pulls my fingers from her mouth. “What the hell are we going to do tomorrow, Caulter?”

“There’s no fucking blood in my brain right now, and you’re asking me a question like this? What's wrong with you?”

Katherine grips my palm, moves it down across her chest to cover her breast, and I knead the flesh with my hand. “I mean it,” she says softly. “They’re getting married tomorrow, and you’re fucking me.”

“Don’t forget,” I remind her. “You’re begging me to fuck you.”

She wrinkles her forehead. “Is there a bachelor party?”

“Are you trying to make me vomit?” I ask, running my other hand over her chest.

She giggles. “You don’t want to go to a bachelor party with my father?” she asks. “That doesn’t sound like fun?”

“Don’t be disgusting.” The thought is so repulsive I can’t help but shiver.

“Am I going to have to see a bunch of Hollywood girls you’ve slept with, when we're at the ceremony tomorrow?”

I pause, mentally running through a list in my head of Ella’s friends I might or might not have banged. It’s not a small list, but I don’t tell her that. “Maybe.”

“Shit, Caulter,” she says, slapping my hand. “Don’t fucking tell me that.”

“You asked. You want me to lie to you?”

“I don’t know what I want,” she says. “But we can’t keep doing this, you know.”

“Why the hell not?” I ask. “Other than that you have some fucking hang ups.”

“Me and the rest of the world,” she says. “They’re getting married.”

“So?” I ask. “We’re not actually related. You do realize that, don’t you?”

She shakes her head. This little chunk of hair falls over her forehead and across her eye when she moves, and I lift it back into place. “That’s what people will think, Caulter.”

“No,” I say. “People will think we’re two adults who are completely unrelated and who are also screwing.”

“That’s all this is, right?” she asks.

“What do you want from me, Kate?” I ask. I sound annoyed, but the truth is, I've thought about this. She has no idea how much I've fucking thought about her -- or us. I never stop thinking about it.

Doesn’t she get how absolutely insane it is that I’ve been with her, and only her, since the end of the school year? That is not me. Sticking my cock in one pussy for months is not me. Spending all my fucking time with she same chick is not me. Laughing at the stupid little things that chick says when I’m lying in bed at night, before I fall asleep, is not me either. Yet, here we are.

“You want me to be your fucking boyfriend or something?" I ask. "Or you want this to be our dirty little secret? I’m not sure what the hell you’re going for here."

She looks at me through narrowed eyes. She might be irritated, but it says something that we're having this conversation while I'm still inside her, with my hand on her tit. “I’m saying we can’t keep doing this, because we’re going to get caught.”

I thumb my finger over her nipple. “Says the chick who was moaning so loud a minute ago we were sure to get caught.”

“Because you make me crazy,” she says. “I can’t trust myself with you.”

“So you want to stop?” Her nipple is hard under my finger, and I feel my cock begin to stir again. This girl is like taking a little blue pill. I’m constantly hard for her.

“We shouldn’t keep going,” she says.

“They’re not married yet.”

“They will be tomorrow.”

“So tomorrow we’ll stop,” I say, pinching her nipple between my fingers and watching her flinch. But she doesn’t smack my hand away. Instead, her pussy muscles tighten around me.

“Just like that?” she asks.

“Just like that,” I tell her. “You don’t want to fuck me, I won’t fuck you.”

“It’s that easy for you.”

Of course not, I want to say. As if I want to stop fucking her? This girl has me wrapped around the axle, thinking about her constantly. I can’t stop. But I don’t tell her that. I can’t tell her that. “It’s that easy.”

“Fine,” she says, her jaw clenching. But when I roll my palm across her other breast, she arches her back into my touch. “Then we’ll stop.”

“We should probably screw as much as possible today,” I whisper. “If we’re going to stop.”

“Yes,” she says. “We should.” She presses her hips toward mine, and I reach down, gripping her thigh.

“I’d hate for you be walking down the aisle tomorrow any way other than bow-legged,” I say.

“You’re such a prick,” she says, as my cock stiffens. But she’s smiling.

Today’s the day.

D-day.

My father’s wedding to Ella.

Caulter was true to his word. He left me walking like a cowboy dismounted a horse after days of riding. The stylist doing my hair this morning asked if I was okay, and my face turned the shade of eggplant.

This wedding is the social event in this part of New Hampshire. It's a huge deal. Thank God our lake house wasn't big enough for it to be held in the backyard; my father's engagement party in the yard of my mother's favorite place was tacky as hell already.

I’d say that my mother would have turned over in her grave, but the truth is, she would honestly want my father to be happy. It’s just the kind of person she was.

Caulter and I are supposed to be on the way to the wedding, with the rest of the wedding party. It's being held at this bed and breakfast, this huge place that used to be a hotel in the 1800's. We're not with the rest of the wedding party, though -- I lied to Ella and told her that I needed Caulter’s help with a surprise for my father.

“Are you okay?” he asks, when the limo comes to a stop.

“I’ll just be a minute. Thank you for coming here with me.”

He nods. “I can go out with you, if you want.”

“No,” I tell him. “I won’t be long.” I take the flowers and walk across the grass, my heels sinking into the dirt. Ella is going to freak when she sees the way my stilettos are going to leave little clumps of dirt behind as I walk down the aisle, but I don't care. The hem of my dress drags in the grass, but I can’t quite bring myself to give that much of a shit about that either.

I set the flowers on my mother's grave, replacing the ones from a few days ago that are only just starting to wilt, and put the other ones on the stone a few feet away. It’s a kid’s grave, and no one brings flowers, which always makes me sad.

It seems weird, slightly inappropriate, to be doing this in a bridesmaid dress right before my father marries someone else. But I couldn’t quite bring myself to participate in this day without talking to her first. I swallow hard.

“I miss you,” I say. “I think you wouldn’t think Ella’s so bad, though. Caulter hates her, I think. Or, maybe not hates, exactly. I think he feels the same way about her that I do about dad. You wouldn’t like that, actually, the way I feel about dad.” I always come out here and talk to her, but I haven’t quite been able to bring myself to talk to her about Caulter.

“So the wedding is today. I’m on my way, with Caulter,” I say. “I hope you would be okay with it.” It sounds like I’m talking about the wedding, but it’s Caulter I really mean. This wedding has to be the end of what's been brewing between us; it would be terrible for my father's campaign, a media shitstorm if it came out. That's the last thing my father needs. "I love you, mom."

I feel somber on the walk back to the car, a weird sadness is settling over me. It’s like I’m letting go -- not letting go of my mother, but of Caulter.

There's a small nagging part of me that thinks that my father's political aspirations shouldn't dictate my whole life. The part of me that keeps the admission letter from UCLA in my desk. The part of me that emailed the director of the art department there last week to see if I could set up a visit while my father and Ella were away on their honeymoon. The part of me that thinks I should tell my father to go fuck himself, because I’m going to do what I want.

It's just too bad that part isn't stronger.

Back in the car, Caulter looks at me with concern. “Are you ready?”

“I’m ready.”

This whole fucking day sucks. I mean, the wedding itself is enough to make me want to vomit. I figured Ella would have been over the Senator by now, but I guess the prospect of eventually being First Lady is good enough for her. Sell-out. Of course, I can’t blame her too much for that part, considering with the fact that I agreed to play along with all of this to make sure nothing happens with my trust fund.

The minister is talking, and I’m looking at Kate the entire time. Earlier, she told me she had to stop by her mother’s grave before the ceremony, and that she wanted me to go with her. I thought I couldn't possibly feel more protective of her than that night at the party, but it took everything I had not to go out there and hold her hand as she stood at the grave.

But I didn't want to intrude if she needed to do it alone. When she got back in the limo, there was a heaviness that seemed to weigh on her, and she was silent during the ride here, looking out the window the entire time.

It's impossible to take my eyes off her, where she stands across from me, sandwiched between the other bridesmaids. The other women are Ella’s vapid Hollywood friends; those girls have nothing on her. Kate makes them look like hags.

Even with the smile plastered on her face that does nothing to hide the sadness behind her eyes, she’s fucking gorgeous. Her hair is pulled up, these little pieces falling down around her face, and the strapless dress she wears exposes her collarbone and makes her look regal. Bridesmaid dresses are supposed to be ugly, aren’t they? Not on Kate.

The minister drones on and on, and my mind is stuck on what Kate said yesterday about how the two of us have to stop doing what we've been doing. It was hard to take her seriously when she followed that statement up by screwing my brains out in every position imaginable the rest of the day, but still.

The fact that she said it is bugging me. I’ve never been so hung up on a chick that I wanted to keep sleeping with her. And now, I can’t imagine not having Kate around.

“Are people looking at us?” I lean over and whisper to Caulter, who sits beside me at the wedding party table. “I feel like people are looking at us.”

“Of course they are,” he says. “We’re at the wedding table in front of everyone. Everyone is fucking staring at us, or our parents.”

“I’m not being crazy,” I insist. I feel like people can see right through us. Like they know.

On the other side of me, one of the groomsmen leans over to talk to me. “So, Harvard in the fall, eh?”

I want to tell him to fuck off. I want to tell Caulter to fuck off, too. I am so incredibly on edge and irritable, but I swear that this is not in my head. People are looking at their cell phones a little too much. Laughing a little too much. “I’m not sure,” I say absently.

“Not sure?” he asks. “You're unsure about Harvard? Your father says you’re going pre-law.”

“Yes. Yes, of course I am.” I shake my head, completely fixated on the woman at a table toward the front who is checking her phone and showing the girl next to her. They both look over their shoulders in our direction and giggle, covering their mouths with their hands. Okay, I am not crazy here. I reach down to my bag on the floor beside the chair and open the clasp, pulling out my phone onto my lap.

Caulter glances over at me. “So rude,” he scolds.

“I’m not delusional here,” I hiss. “People are staring at us.” And it’s not just a few people, either. It’s multiple people, looking at their phones in the middle of the reception dinner. It’s like some kind of disease spreading through the crowd.

“They're probably just staring at your tits,” he whispers.

“That's funny, asshole.” I check a few of the news websites, glancing up every so often to respond to some lame question the groomsman beside me asks. There is nothing --no major terrorist event, no war that’s broken out since we started the reception.

“Why are there phones here anyway?” I ask. “Don’t celebrities hate that?”

Caulter leans over. “Your father and my mother aren’t exactly trying to avoid media attention.”

I ignore him, clearing out my internet search engine.

“And?” Caulter whispers. "What did you find?"

Then I check one of the gossip sites. And there it is, the headline emblazoned across the screen in bright red letters, just in case anyone might miss it. My heart sinks. I think I’m going to be sick.

SIBLING LOVE: HAS CAULTER STERLING MADE KATE HARRISON THE NEWEST NOTCH ON HIS BEDPOST?

It’s just a tabloid, I think. My head is swimming. It's just a stupid online tabloid with no evidence of anything. It’s nothing. Just a rumor. There were bound to be rumors.

I scroll down. There’s a photo of us, from yesterday, in the car where we’d parked, Caulter’s hand on my shoulder. Okay, at least it's not a photo of what came right after that. It's not entirely incriminating.

Damn it, I told him to not be so fucking stupid and careless. I knew I shouldn’t have been so careless.

I feel dizzy. I continue reading, my emotions vacillating between horror and utter humiliation. And then I hit the thing that makes everything else, even the photo, look like nothing.

It's a photo of a card with girls’ names on it, the words "Brighton Bingo" running across the top. All of the names are blurred out, except for mine. Mine's right in the middle of the whole damn thing, with a star around it.

Katherine Harrison.

BJ- 50 points.

Sex - 100 points.

Anal - 200 points.

Bareback - 500 points.

No fucking way. I think I'm going to vomit, but I can't help but read on.

“A source close to Caulter Sterling says that the celebrity, notorious for bedding many young Hollywood stars and New York socialites, invented the game, Brighton Bingo, as a way of tracking his conquests at the prestigious private boarding school. Katherine Harrison is clearly his ultimate prize.”

I look at Caulter, my hands shaking. “What?” he asks.

I think about stabbing him with my steak knife. “Brighton Bingo?” I hiss. I can’t say anything else. I push my chair away from the table, too overwhelmed to think.

I have to get out of here. My father is standing up and I think it's almost time for the father-daughter dance. The thought of getting up in front of all these people and dancing with my father here makes me want to cry.

Someone asks if I’m okay and I don’t answer. I stumble past the people at their tables, guests I know had to have read the article and are watching me for a reaction.

I’m not going to cry. I’m not going to cry.

I’m crying before I even get out of the room. I can feel the tears overflow, landing on my cheeks. Outside of the reception area, Caulter grabs my hand and I whirl around.

“Shit, Kate,” he says. “What the fuck -- holy shit, are you crying?”

I yank my hand away from him, aware that we’re not even alone out here. From the corner of my eye, I see an older couple walk past us and back into the reception hall. I slap Caulter across the face, and he grabs my wrist, pulling it up.

“What the ever-loving fuck is your problem?” he asks.

“Brighton Bingo,” I say. My voice is too loud. I tell myself to be quiet. I shouldn’t be having this conversation here. We need to go someplace else. All of those rational thoughts run through my head, spinning around and around in circles and being completely overwritten by the fact that Caulter sees me as some kind of prize in a fuck game.

And everyone knows.

His face goes white, and that’s all the answer I need. “That is not me, Kate,” he says.

“Not you?” I say, my voice louder. “Fucking me bareback is five hundred points, Caulter. No wonder you were so quick to throw yourself on that grenade, huh? Has this all been a game the whole time?”

“Yeah, Kate, it’s all been a game. My goal the entire time has been to bang my step-sister without a condom,” he says, his hand still on my wrist. I try to jerk away, but he pulls me closer, his face contorted in anger. “You've figured me out. That’s my fucking kink. Are you crazy?”

“You’re disgusting.” With my free hand, I slap him across the face. I just don't believe him. “Let go of my arm before I kick you in the nuts.”

“I’m being sarcastic,” he says. But he lets go of me and I step back. “Jesus Christ, get a grip on yourself.

“I fucking hate you.”

“Yeah?” he asks, his voice louder. “Well, I fucking love you.”

The words reverberate through the space between us, and it’s like everything stands still. I stand there while he looks at me, his hands at his side, palms outstretched.

It takes someone’s hand on my shoulder to jolt me out of my haze, and I whirl around. Someone has opened the door to the reception hall, and people are staring at us. I look at them, their faces turning away as they pretend not to notice the spectacle.

And then I turn back to see Caulter still standing there, frozen in position. He looks the same way I must right now-- like someone punched me in the stomach.

Everything is over.

ONE YEAR LATER

“Soda?” The flight attendant lays a cocktail napkin on the tray in front of me. “Peanuts?”

I nod, and then lean my head back against the seat and close my eyes, drowning out the hum of voices around me.

It’s time to rejoin the real world.

Those were the words my mother had used in her email to me a month ago. I checked it at the internet cafe in Luang Prabang in Laos. I’d been there for the past month, the end of a year spent in southeast Asia -- Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, India, and Cambodia.

Some people might see it as fucked up, the way I just up and left. They wouldn't understand why I did what I did.

The wedding reception changed everything.

Even on the other side of the world, I couldn’t stop thinking about what happened. For the next few months, when I closed my eyes at night, it replayed in my head, the same scene stuck on a loop. Katherine standing in front of me, tears running down her cheeks as she told me she hated me for what she thought I’d done.

I told her I loved her. I meant it. It was the only time I’d ever spoken the words to anyone.

She didn't say it back.

I left because I was running, but this year ended up being exactly what I needed. I would say I've been finding myself, but it sounds like such hokey bullshit. That's the best way I can describe it, though.

I tried to talk to her after the reception, but she wouldn't even look at me.

“I don’t give a shit about anything else, Kate,” I’d said. “I don’t care who knows, and I don’t care what they think. And you know that Brighton Bingo thing was Chase, not me. He’s the asshole who leaked that to the press.”

“It doesn’t matter, Caulter.”

I tried to convince her to just leave everything and run away with me, but she didn't want to hear anything I had to say.

Ella and I had the blow-up to end all blow-ups -- her screaming at me, calling me the most irresponsible fuck-up that ever existed, me telling her I didn’t give a shit about the trust fund anymore. She could keep everything.

I left the same day. I headed to the airport and got the first flight I could find out to Boston. The next day, I had a ticket to Bangkok by way of Tokyo, where I planned to spend the next month drinking through my bank account and hitting on Thai waitresses. I had no plans for what I was going to do after that.

The first night I was in the city, I got good and shitfaced and passed out in my fancy hotel in the business district. And I woke up and nothing was different. I was the same immature, irresponsible dick I’d always been.

So I decided I didn't want to be a dick anymore. I wanted a change. I sold everything -- my designer watch, my electronics, all of the things that tied me to my other life, the one where I was the son of one of the biggest movie stars on the planet.

And I did something that I’d never done before.

I worked.

Odd jobs, here and there. I scraped by, and I traveled, the way I’d never done before -- in a crowded bus in India, on a train in China. I made friends with people who didn’t give a shit whose kid I was.

I wasn’t like all Zen and shit, totally detached from everything back in the States. I kept tabs on everything, reading about it from the other side of the world.

It took a month for the Senator and Ella to split up, in the fallout from what happened with Kate and I. It wasn't entirely me and Kate's fault, of course; the relationship was doomed from the start, what with the Senator's political obsession and Ella's love 'em and leave 'em tendencies. Ella notified me with an email. She was busy redecorating the place in Malibu, prepping it for a fresh start. The scandal didn’t tank the Senator’s re-election campaign, which was pretty much uncontested anyway.

And Kate…

The media coverage of the incident was sweeping in the couple of weeks after it happened, but then they were on to some other more scandalous story. Kate refused to give any interviews. But she did go to UCLA, not Harvard.

I smiled when I read that. She was studying art.

She is studying art.

Sometimes I think about her in the past tense, like she’s a part of my prior life. And then I see someone who looks like her when I glance out of the corner of my eye, or a girl tucks her hair behind her ear the way Kate did...and she’s very much a part of my present again.

Six months ago, my mother emailed me, offering to give my trust fund back to me. I agreed, but on my terms. The first handful of investments I made were in the arts, to places I knew Kate would like. I vetted them, the same way I plan to do with the other business I want to help, start-up companies and people with good ideas who are struggling but don't have the capital to fund their projects. I didn't think any of the places I'd invested in had any connection to Kate.

Until a week ago.

It wasn’t luck that I stumbled on the tiny mention of the exhibit online. I had online alerts set up on the businesses I’d invested in...and on Kate. I guess I was never in any danger of getting her out of my head, even on the other side of the world.

When I saw the announcement about the art show, the name was what immediately caught my eye. But it was the picture of the artist’s work that made me go to the nearest travel agent and buy a one-way ticket back to California.

“It’s insane.” I spin around the gallery, my head as far up in the clouds as it can possibly be. “I can’t believe I’m seeing my work on the wall, in a real show.”

“Believe it,” the gallery director says. “There has been a lot of interest in you. You are an up and coming star, Katherine. You have such talent.”

“I’m just glad you were able to keep the gallery open,” I say. Three months ago, this place was under threat of going under, and given the gallery’s long history in this part of the city, that was tragic.

“Cheers to the angel investor that saved the gallery,” she says.

“You don’t know who it was?”

She shakes her head and shrugs. “He apparently prefers to do his good works anonymously,” she says. “Anyway, my dear, there’s a reporter here who wants to interview you.”

I groan. “Not about my personal life.”

She shakes her head. “Entirely about your art.”

“But...why?”

“I told you that you’re talented,” she says. “Why do you think I’ve spent the last two months cajoling you into letting me show your work?”

It took her two months to convince me to show my charcoal sketches, mostly because I didn’t trust that her interest wasn’t simply related to the fact that I’m Senator Harrison’s wayward daughter.

My father and I haven’t spoken in months. He has no interest in the way I’m “choosing to throw away” my life. But I’m proud of myself for choosing UCLA, and for choosing art.

I’m not proud of myself for the way things ended with Caulter. That conversation in the hallway outside of the wedding reception still haunts me. It replays in my head over and over, his “I fucking love you.”

I didn’t say it back. I stood there while he looked at me, giving me everything he had, knowing that Caulter wasn’t the guy who said something like that.

And I didn’t say it back.

When he tried to explain, I said I wanted nothing to do with him. I was overwhelmed with everything that had happened -- in the public eye, no less.

I didn't think he would just leave. Even afterward, I thought I'd be able to track him down in Hollywood, and I tried. When I emailed Ella, she had no idea where he was. Thailand, she thought. India, maybe. He was backpacking around Asia. I wrote him a hundred emails I never got the courage to send, telling him how I felt about him, that I loved him too. But it was too much to put in an email. The ugly truth is that I was just too much of a chicken shit to say how I felt.

For the first few months after he was gone, I expected him to knock on the sliding glass door of my patio and just walk inside, with that stupid smirk on his face. But it never happened.

I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t think about him all the time. But as it turns out, life isn’t really a fairy tale after all, no matter how much I’d like to believe it is.

I think if Caulter were here, he’d be proud of me. And I think he’d laugh when he saw the subject matter in my gallery exhibit.

But he's not here. Neither is my father. My friends from school are here, though, and so are a handful of professors from the art department. Standing here, surrounded by my drawings, I'm pretty convinced this is the best things can ever get for me. I'm ecstatic, even if part of me knows something is missing. Caulter is missing.

A reporter from a small, arts-focused paper wants to interview me. He asks about the inspiration for the show. I don’t lie, but I don’t tell the truth.

“It was inspired by a friend of mine,” I say. I don’t elaborate.

“It’s an interesting title choice -- Prick,” he says. “Some friend.”

“It’s a friend,” I repeat.

“I’m not sure I’d say that.” The voice hits me like a ton of bricks. His voice. Like some ghost from my past, because he is a damn ghost from the past. I whirl around.

Caulter fucking Sterling, in the flesh.

In the holy-shit-still-gorgeous flesh.

Caulter has changed. His hair is longer, scruffier, more unkempt, mussed like he’s just gotten out of bed. But in a sexy way. And he’s wearing a suit. And a tie.

“You,” I say. It’s the only word I can spit out. You. That’s what I say to the person I love, after a year of not seeing him. That’s what I say to the person who looks back at me in real life instead of from my drawings.

“Prick,” he says, looking at me meaningfully. He can’t help but recognize the sketches -- none show his face, but he knows it's him.

“It’s the name of the exhibit,” the reporter intrudes, his voice sounding more nasal than it had seemed before.

I turn around, giving him a look. “Could you excuse us, please?”

“The interview --” he starts.

“Just give us a moment, please.” I don’t look to see if he’s gone before I turn back to Caulter.

“Prick,” I say.

“Frigid prude,” he says. And there’s the old Caulter, the Caulter I loved. The Caulter I still love now. A grin spreads slowly across his face, that same grin that made my heart leap before.

I grin, the biggest fucking smile I’ve ever smiled. “Asshole.”

“Goody-goody.”

“Manwhore.”

“Princess.” He says the word, and I know what I’ve always known. I know what I should have known back then, when I let him go.

And I know what I have to tell him. The logical part of me is saying, no, it’s been a year, he has a girlfriend or he’s shacking up with twin actresses from Paris. It's telling me, be reasonable. Be appropriate.

Fuck the logical part of me.

I want to kick the shit out of that part of me. That’s the part of me who never took anything on faith. That's the part of me who always played it safe. That's the part of me who was always appropriate. I’m not that girl anymore.

So I take a leap of faith.

“I fucking love you,” I say. I wait, while time slows to a crawl, and he looks at me. I can’t read the expression on his face.

“Well, obviously,” he says, nodding toward the walls. “I mean, you basically created a damn shrine in my honor.”

“It's nice to see you’re still a prick,” I say. “At least I titled the exhibit accurately.”

Caulter smiles. “Yeah, nothing much has changed,” he says, sliding his arm around my waist and pulling me tight against him. My heart catches in my throat as he looks down at me. “I fucking love you too, Princess.”

THREE YEARS LATER

"Are you going to tell me where we're going?" she asks, her hand on her hip. "Seriously, how do I even know that I've packed appropriately?"

I shake my head. "Sorry, my lips are sealed," I tell her. "Do you trust me?"

She puts her finger to the corner of her mouth and pretends to think for a minute. "Hmm. That's debatable."

Sliding my arms around her waist, I kiss her gently on the tip of her nose, before moving down to her full lips. Her mouth parts and I kiss her hungrily, my cock stirring as soon as my tongue enters her.

I have to pull back and look at her for a minute. I can hardly believe my luck, being with Kate. When I saw her three years ago, standing there in the gallery surrounded by all of the sketches of me, I knew that was it. It was meant to be. That sounds corny as hell, but there you are.

I’m a changed man, and it’s all Kate’s doing.

I didn’t believe in happily ever afters. Lord knows that Ella has never been a great model for that. She’s back to dating rock stars, which is no big surprise. Her boyfriend Viper just moved in; the place in Malibu is back to being painted black again. This time, it's covered in animal prints and silver skull decor.

With my track record, I’m more surprised than anyone that I ended up here with Kate, the girl I used to love to hate. Three years ago, I was done playing games with her. We were both done playing games with each others’ hearts. Now, we save the games for the bedroom. I mean, in three years, I haven’t even set fire to her clothing at all.

Kate slaps me playfully on the chest. “What?” she asks. “Do I have something in my teeth? You’re staring at me and it’s freaking me out.”

“I’m just thinking that I’m happy,” I say. I really am. The eighteen-year-old Caulter would never have imagined being able to say that; I don’t even think I could have fathomed what it meant to be happy. Now, I’m bursting at the seams with it.

That whole cup runneth over thing? That’s me. And in my work life too. It turns out that I have some intuitive business sense. I'm using my trust fund to invest in small business, start-up companies that are doing meaningful things in the world. And that makes me feel good.

“Oh yeah?” Kate asks, smiling. She slides her hands over my chest, smoothing out the fabric of my t-shirt. “What are you so happy about? Is it our trip to...the Caribbean?”

I laugh. “Nice try. You’ll know soon enough,” I tell her.

“How exactly do you think you’re going to get me through the airport without me knowing where we’re going?” she asks.

I raise my eyebrows. “Private plane,” I say. The plane is Ella’s doing. She might not be the most traditional -- or stable -- mother ever, but she knows how to come through in a pinch. And that does count for something.

“Ella gave you her plane?” she asks. Her hands run down my arms, and I pull her closer to me, inhaling deeply, my nose at the side of her neck. I love her smell; it’s like being home.

“She didn’t give it to me permanently,” I say. “But this is a special, special occasion.”

Kate laughs. “I didn’t win a Nobel Prize,” she says. “I just graduated from college.”

I kiss down the side of her neck, and she squirms, letting out a soft moan. I don’t tell her that this trip is not about her college graduation. “It is a big deal,” I say. “I didn’t go to college.”

“You could if you still want to,” she says.

I’m actually thinking about it. But not right now. Right now, I want to be with Kate. I want to start a life with her.

“Mhmm,” I murmur, pulling at the edges of her shirt.

“Is that plane going to wait?” she asks softly. But she arches her back, pushing against my hand as I cup her breasts under her shirt. Her nipple hardens, and she lets out a moan. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of hearing that moan.

“We have a few minutes,” I say, as I lift her shirt over her head to expose her still-perfect breasts. Unbuttoning her pants and sliding her jeans down, I take a second to look at her.

“What?” she asks, swatting me. “You’re staring again.”

“I was just taking you in,” I tell her. “You’re breathtaking.”

“Okay, seriously,” she says. “Private plane, trip to somewhere exotic, and now you’re calling me breathtaking? Are you about to drop some really bad news on me?”

I slide my hand down her stomach and between her legs, and listen to her sharp inhale of breath. “Shut up and take your compliment,” I say softly as I run my finger in circles over her clit. “Hasn’t anyone taught you to be gracious, Princess?”

She laughs, but her head lolls back and her eyes half-close. “You wouldn’t like me if I were.”

We’re in Bali.

Just when I think things can’t get any better, Caulter goes and does something like this. A surprise trip to Bali.

It’s crazy and wonderful. But so is my life now. I have a life that’s better than I could have ever dreamed. It turns out that the gallery exhibit three years ago was just the beginning. My sketches and paintings have been selling well. I’m not exactly making millions of dollars, but I’m making enough money to do art full-time now that I’ve graduated from college, and that makes me indescribably happy.

My father wasn’t thrilled about the whole art thing, but he’s come around. We’re cordial, and that’s good enough. He’s decided not to run for President, after all. He’s even been talking about retiring from politics altogether.

I guess sometimes people do change.

Caulter and I are both living proof of that. Caulter isn’t the person he was when we fell in love -- and hate -- that summer in New Hampshire. He’s grown up, into someone I’m proud to stand beside, and occasionally, still kick in the shin every so often. I’m not the same girl I was back then, either. I’d say that loving Caulter has made me less uptight, but it’s more than that. Caulter has taught me that it’s okay to take risks in love and in life. I love him fully and completely, without reservation. And that has changed everything.

“Come on, look outside.” Caulter grabs my hand and pulls me through the villa. The entire length of the wall is open onto a lush yard and palm trees, with a view of the ocean in the distance. The sun and the colors are so bright they’re practically blinding. We stand there for a minute, Caulter behind me, just taking everything in.

“Oh my God, Caulter,” I bring my hand to my mouth, and just shake my head. “It’s...it’s just breathtakingly beautiful. I can’t believe you brought me here.”

When I whirl around to kiss him, he’s down on one knee. My eyes go back and forth between his face and the ring he's holding. “Holy shit, yes. Of course. Yes.”

Caulter grins. “Geez, woman, you don’t even let me get the question out before you answer.”

I hold my hand over my chest, too giddy to want to wait to hear the question. “Okay, okay,” I say, bouncing up and down like a little kid on Christmas morning. “Ask it.”

Caulter sighs with mock exasperation. “Are you going to stop interrupting me?”

“Yes, yes! Just ask, already!” I can’t stop laughing. “Do you have a big speech prepared?”

“Hush, woman, before I put my hand over your mouth,” he says. He’s grinning from ear to ear. “Katherine Harrison, you are the most difficult, stubborn woman I have ever met. You’re also the kindest, most loving, creative, and sexy-as-hell woman I know. If you’ll have me, I want to be your happily ever after.”

“That is the cheesiest thing you’ve ever said to me,” I say, as he slips the ring on my finger. I look at it, amazed, as he steps up to face me. I can feel tears streaming down my face, and Caulter wipes his finger gently down my cheek. “I don’t know why I’m crying. I’m so happy, Caulter.”

He pulls me against him, and brings his mouth down on mine. When we kiss, it’s like everything in the world falls into place. I know where I belong, and it’s with him. “I hope you are,” he says. “Because you’re pretty much stuck with me.”

I arch up to kiss him again, softly this time. “Promise?”

“Always,” he says. “I love you, Princess.”

“I love you too, Prick.”

THE END

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Excerpt from Elias, Book One in the West Bend Saints Series

Available on Amazon

River Andrews

Call me Cinderella. I’m a rags to riches story - girl from trailer park becomes Hollywood starlet. And I’m about to get my happy ever after.

That is, until I walk in to my house, three hours before my wedding, to find my rock star fiancé sticking his c**k down my sister's throat.

With cameras behind me, filming.

I’m running from the whole humiliating thing. I’m not prepared to run straight into him- Elias Saint.

He’s completely wrong for me- damaged, dirty, and demanding.

But once he touches me, I can’t walk away.

Elias Saint

Some people carry their wounds on the inside. Every f**cking step I take, I’m reminded of mine.

I lost my leg in Afghanistan. Since then, I’ve just been lost.

Now I’m going back to West Bend, Colorado, the place my brothers and I ran like hell to get away from.

And she’s hitched a ride- River Andrews.

A f**cking movie star.

This isn’t a fairytale. Happy endings don’t exist. And I’m no f**ing Prince Charming.

But, for her, there’s a chance I might be.

“Are you kidding me?” My voice sounded shrill to my ears, this weird high-pitched sound that was nothing like me. I wanted to strangle the girl whose voice it was. She sounded bitchy, desperate. This was not me. This was not the person I had become.

“River,” he said. He didn’t even try to take his dick out of the girl’s mouth.

Shit, she didn’t even stop blowing him.

I couldn’t see her face. Her blonde hair spilled down her shoulders and back. She was skinny under the little dress she was wearing, the one that should have hugged her curves.

It was my dress she was wearing.

I could see her spine in the middle of her back.

She was too skinny.

I had told her a million times she needed to eat more. But she'd always deprived herself. She'd say it was her fast metabolism, but she subsisted on crackers and diet soda. It was going to kill her eventually.

My sister had never been one to listen to me. She was a model, had been since she was fifteen. First it was catalogs; then she got her first magazine shoot; now she was doing runway. She was famous.

We were famous.

I was about to be more famous- the realization hit me as I was standing there. I was about to be famous for this. Nothing else. This.

It would be in the tabloids tomorrow. The tabloids loved salacious stories, families ripped apart by drama. And this was certainly salacious.

It was like everything stood still, like someone just pushed the pause button on my life, as I looked back and forth from her to him, my mind completely numb.

It was like I was watching it on television.

I almost laughed. There was a part of me that wanted to laugh. I could feel it, bubbling up inside of me, threatening to spill out.

Pretty soon everyone would be watching it on television. The camera crew was behind me, silent, the ones who were filming me for this piece, part of a live special tonight. They were waiting for me to react. Then they could capture it on film, right in the moment.

A woman devastated.

I wanted to cut off his cock. I wanted to pull a Lorena Bobbitt and cut it right off.

I watched his face, screwed up, his hands threaded through her hair, forcing her head down on him, pushing himself further into her throat.

I knew that expression on his face.

I was just standing there like some kind of idiot, watching him. There was a camera crew behind me, and the asshole didn’t even bother to slow down. He didn’t even break his rhythm.

Jesus H., he's going to come, I thought. She is going to fucking blow him, on camera, right in front of me, and he’s going to come.

And all of this will be broadcast on TV.

I didn’t even look at him as I walked past the two of them.

Traitors.

I didn’t know if the camera crew was behind me or focused on the blow job. What a choice for them to have to make. Both would make equally good television.

I felt strangely calm as I walked through the house, my heels echoing on the marble floors, click-click-clicking through the hall. I passed the photos of us on the wall, the framed pictures of ski trips and Paris and Bora Bora and the tour with the band. I entered his room, the one where he kept the things he loved, the vintage baseballs and cards. The walls were lined with rock memorabilia, the gold record and the guitars he collected. Shelves of stuff signed by his friends, mentors, his idols.

I picked up a bat, this collectible thing that was his pride and joy. I stood there holding it. The objects in here were priceless. Mostly irreplaceable. It was enough to give me pause for a moment. I didn't take stuff like this lightly- I wasn’t one to just destroy precious objects.

But I brought the bat up to my shoulder.

Swing, batter, batter.

And I started smashing.

I heard them behind me. I heard them running, their footsteps, his voice indignant, hers shrill. The camera crew was saying something. But no one touched me. Not yet.

I’m sure someone will call security. They should. I think the producers have security.

Everyone was about to hate me. No one expected this kind of thing from me. I could already hear my mother’s disapproving voice in my head.

This kind of behavior is unacceptable in public. No matter what happens, you smile for the camera and behave with grace.

This was definitely not grace.

But could you blame me?

In exactly three and a half hours, I was supposed to marry that man on live television, the one with his cock lodged in my sister’s throat in the middle of the foyer in our house.

When I got in the car, I waited until I was on the highway to take the SIM card from the phone and toss it out the window, watching it bounce on the road, shattering into pieces.

The shards of my life.

So why the hell did I feel so relieved?

I would love to hear from you!

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Sabrina Paige writes about smart, sexy women and the hot alpha males who love them. Outlaw bikers, cowboys, and military men make her swoon. She has found her own happily ever after with her active duty military husband and adorable toddler.