He Was My Stepbrother, So Why Can't I Stop? novel · Chapter 1 of 3
Chapter 1: The Space Between Sleeping Bodies
Lina wakes in her sleeping bag to find Dario's hand on her thigh, and instead of waking Nicolás or pushing him away, she catches his wrist and lets the touch continue until Dario whispers that she must tell him to stop aloud, and she stays silent as Nicolás shifts beside them.
I caught his hand before it could retreat from my sleeping bag.
My fingers closed around his wrist in the dark and held it there, against my thigh, where the heat of his palm was already bleeding through the thin fabric of my leggings.
I did not know why I did it.
That is a lie.
I knew exactly why, and I have spent all this time pretending I did not.
He went still above me. The fire had died down to embers an hour ago, and the only light was the pale glow of the moon through the pines, enough to show me the shape of him kneeling beside my sleeping bag, close enough that I could feel the warmth coming off his chest.
Nicolás slept on my other side, one arm thrown over his face, his breathing slow and even and completely unaware.
My boyfriend, inches away.
My stepbrother, inches closer.
'Lina.' Dario's voice was barely a breath, and I felt my name land on the skin of my neck.
I should have let go of his wrist.
I did not let go.
His hand moved, not pulling away, but sliding higher, his fingers spreading over the outside of my thigh, and I felt my own grip loosen around his wrist, my thumb pressing into the place where his pulse beat fast and hard under the skin.
He was nervous too.
That should have made it easier to stop him.
It did not.
'You're awake,' he said, and it was not a question.
I turned my head on the thin camp pillow, and there he was, close enough that I could see the faint glint of his glasses in the moonlight, the way his jaw was set tight, the way he was looking at me like I was the only thing in the clearing that existed.
He never looks away from me first.
I had noticed that years ago, and I had spent every year since pretending I had not noticed it at all.
'You shouldn't be here, Dario,' I whispered, and my voice came out steady, which was a small miracle, because my heart was beating so hard I could feel it in my throat.
'I know.' His hand slid higher, over the curve of my hip, and I felt my stomach tighten, a hot pull low and deep that I had spent so long refusing to name. 'But you're not telling me to go.'
I should have.
I should have rolled toward Nicolás, shaken him awake, made a scene, done any of the thousand things a good girlfriend would do.
Instead I lay there, perfectly still, terrified and wanting, while my stepbrother's hand moved over my body under the sleeping bag, and the only sound in the clearing was the fire dying and my boyfriend breathing.
His fingers found the hem of my sweater, and then they were under it, on bare skin, and I made a sound I did not mean to make, a small sharp inhale that I tried to swallow.
'Shh.' His thumb traced the line of my ribs, slow, deliberate, like he was memorizing the shape of me. 'You'll wake him.'
The worst part was that he was right.
The worst part was that I did not want him to stop.
I bit my lower lip, the old nervous habit, and tasted blood, and still I did not pull his hand away.
'You came out here to get away from me,' he said, so low I felt it more than heard it, his mouth close to my ear now, his breath warm against my skin. 'And I was already here. You can't even escape me in the woods, Lina.'
'That's not funny.'
'It's not supposed to be.'
His hand moved down again, over my stomach, and my muscles went tight under his palm, and I thought about all the mornings I had sat across from him at family dinners and pretended I did not feel this exact heat crawling up the back of my neck.
All this time.
All this time keeping him at arm's length, and now his hand was under my sweater and I was the one holding his wrist in place.
I could feel the shape of the lie I had been living, and it fit in the space between his palm and my skin.
'How long have you been awake?' he asked.
'Long enough to know what you were doing.'
'And you didn't stop me.'
I did not answer. My throat was too tight, and my heart was too loud, and somewhere on the other side of me, Nicolás let out a long, slow breath and shifted, his shoulder pressing against my back through the sleeping bag.
Dario's hand went still.
For one terrible, perfect moment, neither of us moved.
I could feel every place his body was close to mine, the heat of him kneeling beside me in the cold air, the rough fabric of his jacket brushing my arm, the weight of his gaze on my face.
'If I wake him,' I whispered, 'this ends.'
'Then don't wake him.'
The words landed low in my stomach.
I turned my face toward him, and there was barely any space left between our mouths, and I could smell the smoke from the dead fire on his clothes, and the pine, and something else underneath it that I had spent years telling myself I did not recognize.
His thumb moved against my ribs, a slow, deliberate stroke that made my back arch without my permission.
'You hate me,' he said, and his voice was almost gentle, and that was worse than if he had been cruel. 'You've been telling yourself that for so long you believe it.'
'I do hate you.'
'Then tell me to stop.'
I opened my mouth.
The words were right there, the safe ones, the ones that would end this and let me go back to being the girl who had everything under control.
They did not come out.
'Lina.' His fingers spread over my stomach, and his palm was so warm, and I could feel my own pulse in my ears, in my chest, in every place his skin touched mine. 'If you want me gone, say it.'
I did not say it.
I lay there with my hand around his wrist, and I did not say it, and he knew, and I knew, and the only sound in the clearing was the fire dying and my boyfriend breathing.
'That's what I thought,' Dario murmured.
His hand moved lower.
I stopped breathing.
His fingers traced the waistband of my leggings, slow, so slow, and I felt my hips tilt toward him like my body had made a decision my mind was still refusing to make.
'Don't,' I whispered, and it came out broken, and I hated how much it sounded like please.
'Don't what?' His mouth was at my ear now, and I could feel the shape of his smile against my skin. 'Don't stop? Or don't keep going?'
'You know what I meant.'
'I don't think you know what you meant.'
His fingers slipped under the waistband, just barely, just enough that I could feel the heat of his hand against the skin below my navel, and I made a sound that was not a word and not a protest and not anything I could take back.
Nicolás shifted again.
Dario's hand stilled.
We both waited, frozen, while my boyfriend turned onto his side, his back now to us, his breathing deepening into the rhythm of someone who had never once in his life suspected the two people lying inches away from him.
'He trusts you,' Dario said, so quietly I almost didn't hear it.
'Stop.'
'That's not the word.'
'Dario.'
'That's my name, not the word.'
I turned my head and looked at him, and his face was so close now that I could see the faint starlight caught in his glasses, the way his eyes moved over my face like he was reading something he had waited a long time to find.
'This is wrong,' I whispered.
'I know.' His thumb moved in a slow circle against my stomach, and my breath caught, and I watched his mouth curve. 'That's why you haven't stopped it.'
I wanted to argue.
I wanted to be the kind of person who would argue.
Instead I lay there, and I let him touch me, and I did not wake my boyfriend, and I did not tell him to go, and every second that passed made the next second easier to survive and harder to explain.
'You've been running from me for so long,' he said, and his voice was low and rough, and I felt it in my chest. 'And now you're lying there holding my wrist like you're afraid I'll leave.'
'I'm not afraid of that.'
'Then let go.'
I did not let go.
His smile flickered, just for a second, and then it was gone, and something else was there in its place, something darker and more certain.
'That's what I thought,' he said again.
His hand slid out from under my sweater, and for one horrible moment I thought he was going to stop, and I felt the loss of his warmth like a physical thing.
Then his fingers closed around my hip, and he pulled me toward him, just an inch, just enough that my body turned under the sleeping bag and my face was tipped up toward his.
'If you want me gone,' he whispered, 'you have to say it out loud. Right now. While he's sleeping right there. Say it, and I'll go back to my tent, and we'll pretend this didn't happen.'
I could feel his breath on my lips.
I could feel the weight of the choice sitting between us, heavy and hot and waiting.
'But if you don't say it,' he went on, and his voice dropped even lower, 'then I'm going to keep touching you. And you're going to let me. And in the morning, we're both going to have to live with what that means.'
My heart was pounding so hard I was sure it would wake Nicolás.
My hand was still around Dario's wrist.
'What's it going to be, Lina?'
The question hung in the cold air between us, and I could feel the answer already forming in my chest, in my blood, in every part of me that had spent years pretending I did not want this.
I did not say a word.
Nicolás shifted in his sleep, a small sound escaping him, and Dario's grip on my hip tightened, and still I did not speak, and the silence stretched out between us like a held breath.
And in that silence, I felt the last of my resistance give way, not with a fight, but with a quiet, terrible relief.
'That's what I thought,' Dario said for the third time, and his hand moved again, and I closed my eyes, and I let him.
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