AllFreeNovel
Share Us
trigger warnings:
Stay away if you don’t love unhinged heroes with stabbing tendencies. This novella contains dark themes, including off-page SA (not by the hero). For a more detailed trigger warning list, please check my Instagram post.
Also, be aware that the main characters aren’t wired like most people, and their reactions to events and traumas aren’t the norm.
one
Eric
It’s been three months since I was forced to trade my beloved New York City for this backwater town in Oregon. It wasn’t even the fact I had to start a new school for my senior year that pissed me off the most. Everyone knows everyone’s business here in Stanmore, and I prefer the anonymity of a big city. I need to be able to disappear in a crowd.
My mother had to reenact a cheesy Hallmark movie and reconnect with her high school flame when she came to visit her hometown after her divorce from my dad. Keith, my stepfather, isn’t terrible. He’s a beloved family doctor, bland and predictable, and I guess that’s what my mother needs. It helps that he’s loaded and has all his hair. Mom is shallow like that. He’s also a widower, so no pesky ex-wife to put a damper on Mom’s marital bliss.
I’m glad she’s happy. But most days, I want to crawl out of my skin. I can’t carry on with my hobby here as easily as I could in the big city, and it’s becoming an itch I can’t scratch. If it weren’t for Valerie, my stepsister, I’d probably have snapped already. We’re both seniors in high school, and our folks expect us to get along. But she hates me with every fiber of her being, and her loathing soothes my dark soul.
It’s noon on a Saturday, which means I just got out of bed. I should be at hockey practice, but I forgot to set my alarm. Still half-asleep, I walk into the bathroom I share with Valerie and find her there completely naked.Jesus fucking Christ. I’m awake now. I already knew she had a smoking hot body with all her curves, but damn, Valerie without clothes is the stuff of dreams—wet dreams.
“What the hell, Eric!” She reaches for the towel on the peg and covers herself.
“It’s not my fault you didn’t lock the door.” I smirk. “Your extra time at the gym is paying off, sis. Your ass looks damn fine.”
Her eyes are sparking with fury when she throws her hairbrush at me. “Get out, you perv!”
I lift my arms to protect myself, but I can’t help laughing, which only makes her more furious. She tries to shove me out the door, but I’m much taller than her, and stronger, and she can’t make me move. Not that she isn’t strong, especially when she’s incensed like that.
“I’m not kidding, Eric. Get the fuck out!” She punches my arm.
“I’ll go if you give me a kiss,” I taunt, knowing she’d rather kiss a frog than me.
Her pupils dilate, turning her brown eyes almost black. “Not in this lifetime or the next.”
“Then I guess you’ll have to wait until I’m done with the bathroom.”
“I don’t think so.” She pinches me under the arm, making me see stars. Fuck, it brings back memories of Mom punishing me when I misbehaved in public, which happened often.
“Ouch.” I step away from her, massaging the spot. “You’re a psycho, you know.”
She gives me a chilling smile. “You havenoidea.”
Any normal person would back the fuck off and never bother her again, but I’m far from sane, and her unhinged response makes my heart beat faster. Of course I’d have to go and get a crush on my stepsister. And I thought I was immune to clichés.
I walk out before she reads the truth in my eyes. I won’t give her the upper hand by exposing my weakness. She’ll use it to torture me, and not the type of torture I’m into.
* * *
I’m in the kitchen, eating breakfast, when the new doorbell sounds off its robotic rendition of “Jingle Bells.” Ugh. Mom and her obsession with Christmas. It’s why our house can currently be seen from outer space.
“Don’t answer it. It’s for me!” Valerie yells from upstairs.
“Wasn’t gonna,” I reply when she comes running down.
She ignores me, but I forget my cereal for a moment and watch her. She’s wearing leggings and a cropped tank top that leaves nothing to the imagination. Not that I have to imagine anything now. I’m getting an über inconvenient hard-on remembering her naked body. Her smooth tanned skin, her gorgeous tits, and those legs that I wish were wrapped around my hips now.
Goddammit. Look at the fucking tent in your pants, you idiot.
It’s Valerie herself who saves me from my deviant daydreaming when she dumps a huge box on the kitchen table and proceeds to open it eagerly.
“What do you have there?”
