The Good Sister: Part One (3 page)

“I’m not.”

I’m not
. It was more like intimidation. Reid intimidated me. Then there was my own anxiety and fear. I worried about so many things it was hard to pinpoint my exact fear when it came to Reid. I wasn’t good enough. I didn’t possess the qualities of a desirable woman. I had anxiety about being with a man, not knowing how to touch a man. I was afraid my thoughts, my ideas, my fantasies were wrong. I feared what he made me feel, and knew he would break my heart. But most of all I lived in terror that he would leave, and I’d never see him again.

“Look at me.” I looked up. “Trinity, have you ever been with a man?”

I bit my bottom lip, hard.

“Stop,” he said. He ran his finger over my mouth. “You are going to draw blood.”

I relaxed my bite.

“There,” he soothed, still tracing his index finger over the lines of my lips.

“Reid, why are you doing this?” My question came out in a whisper.

“You don’t need to fret, Trinity. It’s a simple question. All you need to say is, ‘yes or no’.”

He was definitely torturing me.

“Yes or no,” he pressed.

I took in a deep breath, kept my eyes open but diverted them as I confessed, “No.”

“Have you ever been kissed?” he inquired, his face passive.

“No.”

Reid placed his mouth inches from mine. I stood there like a lifeless statue. Reid pulled back. He placed his fingertips to my pulse. It had to be vibrating wildly against his flesh. I licked my lips, nervously.

He won’t
.

“Can I kiss you, Trinity?”

“I—” My sentence was stopped by his warm mouth. I stiffened.

Oh God,
he did.

He stepped back, and swiped his mouth over mine in a slow side to side motion. “Relax your mouth, and follow my lead.”

Reid leaned in and placed his mouth to mine once more, swaying his lips from side to side, flicking his tongue out to ride the line of my lips, and working my mouth open a little at a time.A tingle zipped over my mouth. The sensation overflowed to every pinpoint in my body where I imagined Reid’s touch. Somehow, he held the ability to bring nerve endings to life.

He kissed the corner of my mouth in a whisper soft kiss. Slid his mouth overtop of mine. Softly, he kissed the other corner before centering on the middle. He licked. Nibbled. I melted. Parted my lips with a gasp. He took full advantage, and twisted his tongue along my tongue. My body gave way to him.

Reid drew me one step forward, took me into his arms, and fully kissed my lips. I gave over my control.

Do something, stupid.

I moved my hands to his shoulders, then slipped them down to his biceps, my taut body willing against his. He tested me, lashing me harder with his tongue. I responded with a small whimper.

Reid’s hand secured me. He kissed me longer, harder, before flowing his hands down my back. I quaked within his arms. Reid moved one hand. It splayed between my shoulder blades. The other hand moved down to the small of my back, riding my body dangerously low. I felt his fingers inch lower until his hand slid over my ass. In the next moment he pulled me into him, tighter.

I felt hot, cold, lust, apprehension, wanting, need, fear, tingles, but I pushed back the fear. My hands wrapped around his tight waist. My fingers explored. I strummed my fingers along the contours of his bare back. Lingered. Felt the power of his muscles. Experienced the length of his spine, but found I couldn’t focus on everything. It was system overload. The strength of his arms around me. The sensation of his bare flesh against my hands. The smell of his fresh clean skin. The hardness of his body, and his manhood as it pressed into my stomach. I knew the firmness of his hands. The softness of his kiss. The taste of him. The swaying of his tongue with mine…. I couldn’t decide what to focus on. I forgot to breathe. My head spun. My body gave. I slid down his rock hard frame as limp as a wet noodle.

“Trinity,” Reid called. “Trinity, are you okay?”

I opened my eyes to find myself cradled in Reid’s arms, perched on his parent’s bed, and filled with the knowledge I was indeed a complete and total loser. Oh yes, loser with a capital L.
Who the hell forgets how to breathe and faints from a kiss?
I was glad Reid couldn’t hear my thoughts.

“Are you okay?” Reid asked again. I straightened up. Tugged away from him.

“Yes,” I spluttered, finding my feet and getting to them. “I’m sorry,” I said as tears filled my eyes. They threatened to overflow in a torrent of conflicting emotions.

“Listen, it’s okay, really,” Reid assured. “Don’t worry so much, and please don’t cry.”

“Why? Why did you do that?”

“Do you mean why did I kiss you?”

“Yes.”

“I wanted to.”

I blinked, holding out my hand toward him. “Can I have my glasses back?”

He reached over to the foot of the bed, grabbed my big-rimmed glasses, and handed them to me. I took the glasses into an unsteady hand before I placed them back onto my face then pushed them up my nose with my index finger. My always wild, unfettered curls swirled around my face and neck. I wanted to cry, but I lifted the set of my chin and spoke in a matter-of-fact tone.

“I promised my mother I would help her. I have to get this bed stripped or she will be up here yelling at me.”

Reid’s expression looked surprised. “You’re mad,” he said, getting to his feet.

“No, just busy,” I huffed then crossed my arms and turned my back to him.

“No … you are mad,” he confirmed. “You wanted to kiss me, Trinity.”

I snorted at him, and I did it out loud.

“How can you be so sure?” I asked, still holding my chin up, arms crossed, but flipping around on my heels to look at him, defiant.

One dark brow rose upon Reid’s face in question.

“Listen, I’ll help you. That way you don’t get yelled at by Mrs. Winslow for not doing your job.”

I almost broke a smile at the offer. I knew Reid had probably never stripped a bed in his life, but I was more than mad. I was actually beyond embarrassed. I was probably hitting the realm of dire mortification. I was angry at myself, and to my surprise, angry at Reid. He was playing around with me. He wasn’t serious. I would never be the kind of girl that he would really be interested in. In his eyes, I was probably a curiosity, a shy virgin, a mental mute, a freak. After all, Reid was attracted to girls who were like my sister, bold, beautiful, confident, sexy, wild, sassy, a little mysterious, and a whole lot of game when it came to men. I was shy, awkward, had more fears than you could shake a stick at, and I was definitely not wild. In fact, I knew I wasn’t mysterious, had no experience with men or how to play the game, and knew I wasn’t sassy or beautiful.

“So are you going to let me help you or just stand there pissed off at me?” Reid huffed.

For once I did not prevaricate.

“I believe I am going to stand here and be pissed off at you,” I snapped back.

Wow,
I wondered where that bit of moxie came from.

Reid chuckled. “Okay,” he said as he turned to walk out.

I stood quietly for a moment. Reid confused me, excited me, worried me, enticed me, made me smile, made me cry, made me hope, made me deny, made me feel. Oh how he made me feel, but most of all, no matter what he did, Reid never saw me, not really. I knew I was a ghost drifting through the peripherals of his life. Heck, I was a ghost drifting through my own life, if you could call my existence a life.

Just a ghost,
I thought.

Two years earlier.

“Bentley. Trinity. You girls stop dawdling and help me with these boxes. They won’t move themselves,” my mother bellowed as she heaved a box out of the trunk of the Toyota.

I was too busy looking at our new home, taking in all the lush greenery not to mention the house that looked like a mansion located to the south of us. I’d never seen such a beautiful home before. And even though the guesthouse was tiny, compared to the main house, it was so much better than the one room apartment we were living in a week ago.

My thoughts wandered as they usually did. I thought upon my life before, wondering if that life was somehow a dream. It was hazy, unfocused, playing out like a scratchy movie, unreal in so many ways. Sometimes I even confused what I believed to be my memories with my dreams, never really sure if I could separate the two completely or where the reality ended and the dream began.

We once had everything, nothing like the Addison’s Hollywood Hills estate of course, but more than most. I contemplated my old room. I never needed to share a space with my sister. I thought on how things changed after our father died. I knew most of our heartache, including our current financial woes, was in part, due to me.

I closed my eyes and felt the warm breeze. I mulled over how pieces and parts of my family’s life were sold off like secondhand memories to the highest bidder. Inside my head I heard,
going once, going twice, sold…
and all because of my frequent stays in the hospital, the numerous visits to the shrinks, the lengthy stays in the nuthouse, and the battle my mother waged with the life insurance company who went bankrupt, leaving us no lifeline to cling to.

I glanced up. Squinted. Traced a large branch on one of the many trees. I noticed how it reached out into the outlying trees and formed a maze, a canopy. I moved under the cover. I would focus on this, not the past or thoughts of money, home or our lack of either.

The sunlight danced through the leaves, forming patches of light and shade artwork on the tall grass canvas below. The breeze blew, the artwork changed before my very eyes. I focused my attention above once more, and heard a rustling in the trees. Melodious sounds filled the air.

The birds are even happy here.

“Trinity, look,” Bentley said under her breath, nudging my arm, breaking through my reverie.

I glanced in the direction Bentley indicated with the lift of her chin, to see the most stunning boy walking in our direction. Immediately, I tucked tail and ran. On my way, I grabbed a box before catching up to my mother who was entering the door to our new home. I hurried, and located the room that I would be sharing with my sister, put the cardboard box down, found the window, pulled back the lace curtain, and watched.

He was wearing khaki cargo shorts with a white T-shirt embossed with a surfing logo. His feet were adorned in Doc Martin sandals, and his skin, the color of golden bronze. A slow smile stretched across his perfect angular features. His silver eyes widened as he looked at my sister.

He scrubbed along his sideburn with his fingers. The breeze disrupted his hair. The color reminded me of black liquorish. He turned. The sun glinted off the metal in his ear. The leaves from the trees rustled then gave way to the sun, which mixed into the shade to dapple his face in astonishing contrast. This cast his features into chiseled perfection.

I quietly slid the window open to hear….

“Hey, I’m Reid,” he said, extending his hand out to greet Bentley.

Bentley took his hand, smiled. “Bentley,” she replied.

“You’re early, Bentley. We didn’t expect you until tomorrow.”

Reid’s voice was low, deep, and completely sexy.

Bentley shifted her weight enough so her ample cleavage was clearly visible beneath her white cotton sundress.

“Yeah, well, I guess it’s your lucky day, Reid. It’s nice to be surprised sometimes.”

Reid smiled bright white, freeing the devastation of his dimples. “I would agree, and to think I woke up this morning believing it was just another boring day.”

Reid’s silver-blue gaze took a slow and leisurely perusal of Bentley’s body.

“So, it wasn’t what you were expecting?” Bentley purred.

I recognized the double entendre.

Reid shook his head. “Definitely not.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” Bentley asked while bending over quite seductively before she grabbed a box from the trunk.

“Definitely, a good thing,” Reid replied. He reached around my sister and snatched the box. “Let me help you.”

Bentley giggled, and it was pure seduction. “You can help me anytime, Reid.”

“I’ll hold you to that, Bentley.”

“I hope you do.” She batted her lashes. “Hold me, to that.”

Bentley led the way, and sauntered into the house, hips swaying, skirt brushing across the backs of her taught white thighs.

I tiptoed into the hallway, and peeked.

“Oh, hello.” My mother greeted Reid.

“Mom, this is Reid,” Bentley introduced. “I ran into him in the driveway.”

Reid put the box down, extended his hand, and hit my mother with a lady killer smile. “Reid Addison.”

“Yes, Reid,” my mother acknowledged as she shook his hand. “Are your parent’s home? I should probably let them know we have arrived.”

“No, we weren’t expecting you until tomorrow so…” Reid paused. Turned his head in my direction.

Bentley looked down the hall. “Oh, that’s my sister, she is … shy,” Bentley finally offered.