TEASE ( A Stepbrother Romance ) By Caitlin Daire

4

Chapter 4

Jace

I couldn't help but smile to myself as I walked away from Rayna. She was witty; I had to give her credit for that.

I hadn't planned on playing games with her when I'd first grabbed those panties off the floor this morning-hell, all I'd wanted to do was find her-but the minute I did find her and comprehended the fact that she was about to be my stepsister, I hadn't been able to resist playing with her. Her reddened face as she tried not to remember me over lunch was just far too adorable, and she'd made it so easy for me. There was no way I couldn't have messed her around a little. It was too funny.

I glanced around my bedroom, surprised to see that everything was still exactly where I'd left it since I'd last visited around eight months ago to catch up with friends. I suppose I couldn't be too surprised that Dad had ignored the room and left it as it was. It wasn't like he cared about clearing out my junk and converting it into yet another guest bedroom when the manor already had two entire floors of guest bedrooms. The place had an insane number of rooms, and the whole estate reeked of someone with far too much money and no idea what to do with it all.

Yup, that was my Dad.

There'd been a point where I'd been a bit like that-eager to flash the cash from my trust fund with no consideration of where it had come from, just to impress people and make them think I was fucking 'cool' or whatever. But I wasn't like that anymore. I couldn't be that shallow after all that'd happened in the last year or so.

I let out a deep sigh and wished once more that I hadn't had to leave my Mom's place last week. I'd always felt far more welcome there than I did here at Dad's, and it was a shame that everything else was so fucked up for me in that city. I'd been determined to change things for myself while I was there, but my plan hadn't quite worked out, and there was nothing I could do about that now, so it was time to unpack and to accept that I was back in London for good. It may not have been what I wanted, but I could still make the best of it and start over.

I showered and began to unpack, and just as I'd finished hanging the last of my clothes in my wardrobe, I heard my phone vibrating on one of the bedside tables where I'd left it earlier. As I picked it up, I noticed a familiar face flashing on the screen-the face of a friend I hadn't seen in quite some time.

I only hesitated for a split-second before answering. "Hello?"

"Jacey boy!" came the overly-excited reply from the other end. "It's Roy. I heard you were back in London. Please tell me this is true, because I'm back in the city too!"

Roy sounded so happy to speak to me that I couldn't help but smile.

"Well, well, well....if it isn't Roy Cummings. You heard right, I'm in London now. Scotland was a proper washout."

Roy and I had been friends all throughout school, and we'd gone on to have some very wild parties as we'd grown older and gone off to our first year at university in Manchester, where we'd both elected to study in order to put some distance between us and our parents. There'd been lots of booze and other illegal substances involved-too much, in fact-but it had been a lot of fun. We'd had some damn good times and made some amazing memories together.

We'd drifted apart in the last year when I dropped out of my course and moved to Edinburgh to stay at my Mom's, because I'd wanted to separate myself from all of the temptations that uni life held for me. It had just become too much, and I actually wanted to make something of my life...but that hadn't exactly happened. Edinburgh had been ten times worse. I'd managed to find a job, but I'd fallen in with the wrong people almost right away, and my uni days had suddenly seemed tame in comparison.