She flushed. “I hate it when you call me that.”

“I know.” I tapped her on her nose. “It’s why I do it.”

She stole another quick glance at me from under her ridiculously long eyelashes and bit down on her lower lip. My heart rate increased in response, but I ignored it. It was no secret that she had a huge crush on me. I liked her from day one, and I’d tried to keep that concealed as it wasn’t so much a sexual thing for me. Well, okay, she was a babe, so obviously I appreciated that like men did…but my feelings toward her were really more of a protective “I’ll take care of you” thing, if that made any sense at all.

At least we weren’t blood.

And thank God for that. I’d kill myself if I were a Hastings like that asshole in the other room. We were a family unit by marriage and legality only. And Lilly was pretty much my only friend, which made her my best friend, and a guy didn’t mess around with his best friend.

She was too young. Too pretty. Too clean.

Too good for a guy like me.

I graduated high school a month ago, five months after our parents married, and she was about to enter eleventh grade. I might only be eighteen, but I’d seen and done shit she had no clue about. And I intended to keep it that way.

“Don’t listen to him,” Lilly whispered. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He never does.”

I smiled, because she was trying to make me feel better, and I wanted her to think it was working. She always tried to cheer me up after Walt went on one of his asshole binges with me. “I know. What’s up?”

“Come here. I want to show you something.” She held her hand out to mine, watching me with those bright green eyes of hers. “Alone.”

Just the way I liked it.

Walt laughed from the dining room, and his deep voice boomed as he said to his wife, “The boy is doomed to fail.”

I knew he talked about me. Just like I knew he hated me. Just like I knew the one way that I would be guaranteed freedom from his overbearing grasp. And it was through his Lilly….Ah. He loved his sweet, innocent Lilly. Everyone did. If I took her, and dirtied her by making her mine, he would flip his shit. Never forgive me. And I would finally be free of his annoying interference in my life.

Too bad I couldn’t do that to her.

She meant too much to me.

It wasn’t as if she didn’t want it, or me. She did. If I kissed her, she’d probably have an orgasm right there. But I refused to hurt her. To use her. And that was that.

“All right. Let’s go,” I said.

“Hurry, before they see us.” She grabbed my hand and dragged me along behind her, her tiny hand feeling dainty and frail in mine. For some reason, her touch felt different tonight. Like she wasn’t my stepsister, or even my best friend. I didn’t know where these feelings were coming from, but they needed to quit. “Look. They opened the pool. No one’s been in yet, so they won’t think to look for us here.”

I scanned the area. We were indeed alone. My heart thumped so loudly I couldn’t even hear my thoughts, but that was a good thing. They were confusing the hell out of me. “It looks great,” I said, my voice strained. “I’ve never been in here before.”

“It’s my favorite part of the house.” She kicked her pink flip-flops off and sank her toes into the clear, blue water. “Come on. Sit next to me and enjoy it.”

Sighing, I removed my black Chucks and sat directly beside her. She smiled over at me, and I shook my head because she looked so utterly beautiful, staring up at me with adoration in her eyes. Guys like me? Yeah, we didn’t usually get looked at like that.

Especially not by pretty girls like Lilly.

“It feels nice,” I said, trying to smile. Her thin legs flexed as she moved her feet in the water, brushing her toes against mine. It wasn’t something we hadn’t done before. Soft touches like that. But tonight…it made me suck in a breath. I cleared my throat and tried to think of something, anything, to say. “I’m not even going to get to swim in it. Even if your dad refuses to admit it, I’m out of here for the army soon.”

“I know.” She sipped on her Coke, her gaze off in the distance. She looked…sad. Which inexplicably made me sad, like our emotions were tied together or some shit like that. Her small, delicate features looked flawless in the late-afternoon sun. For some reason, I couldn’t stop staring. I was going to miss her when I was gone, but that wouldn’t stop me from going. Nothing would. “I’m sorry he’s such a jerk to you. You deserve better.”

And that was why I liked Lilly; she was always on my side. She was the only one in this ridiculous family that cared about me. I lifted my own Coke and shrugged. “Whatever. I don’t care.”

“Yeah. You do.” She rested her hand on my thigh, and I tensed. I had board shorts on, so she didn’t touch skin, but still. It felt…intimate. And good. “I can see it in your eyes.”

No eighteen-year-old guy liked to hear his feelings showed in his eyes. So I scoffed. “Yeah, sure. Whatever.”

“It’s true,” she said a bit defensively.

No. It. Wasn’t.

I didn’t care about Walter, or his wife, or anyone but myself…and Lilly. She was the one exception. And I’d show her that, right here. Right now. Her hand was still on my thigh, so I covered it with mine. “The only person whose opinion matters to me in this house is sitting right next to me, and I mean it.”

She licked her lips and shifted closer. “I care about you very much, Jackson.”

“Yeah.” My heart sped up, and I smiled. “I know.”

A laugh escaped her, and she bumped me with her shoulder, her gaze focused on my lips. “Cocky much?”

“Yep.” The way she looked at me, as if she wanted nothing more than to see what it would feel like if I kissed her…well, there was only so much a guy like me could ignore. And I was leaving, and I wouldn’t see her again, and man, I wanted to find out what she tasted like so damn badly. Just one small, tiny, innocent kiss. That was all I wanted. No one would ever know. Not even Walt. “Know what I see in your eyes?”

She parted those soft pink lips and stared at me as if I was some sort of god or something. It made me feel a little bit ill, but also as though I could rule the world, if I had her by my side. “What?”

“You want me to kiss you,” I said, some unknown, greedy man taking over my actions. I trailed my hand up her bare arm, leaving goosebumps in my wake. “To be your first kiss. The one you remember for the rest of your life. To touch you.”

She trembled and licked her lips. “How did you…?”

Curling my hand over her chin, I grinned. “Go ahead. If you’re brave enough to do it, to take what you want, kiss me. No one will ever know you kissed your stepbrother but us. It’ll be our little secret…”

I knew she wasn’t going to, no matter how much I might wish otherwise. It was why I left it up to her. I didn’t have qualms about it. Didn’t think it was wrong, or dirty, because she wasn’t my damn sister. But there was no way she had it in her to—

“You know what?” Crawling into my lap, facing me, straddling my thighs, she cupped my face and stared into my eyes. I got lost in hers, and some sinking suspicion told me that I was staring at the person I was meant to live the rest of my life with—which was crazy. “I know you think I’m too young, or too good, or too scared to do it…so I’ll prove you wrong. And guess what? You’re going to like it.”

And then she did it. She kissed me.

And she was right. I did like it.

Her soft, sweet lips closed over mine, and she tightened her grip on my cheeks. And, God help me, I finally found out what she tasted like. She smelled like vanilla, sunshine, and innocence, and she tasted like heaven….

And bubblegum.

Moaning, I took over the kiss, pressing her perky, soft breasts against my chest and skimming my hands down her sides. When I gripped her ass and arched my erection up against her, she gasped, giving me access to her mouth. I took it….