Wanting by Lynn Burke
Addilyn
“Addilyn,” Mother called from the foyer. Her fake, sugary sweet voice pulled my attention from my cell’s screen to make me roll my eyes. “They’ve arrived!”
“Shit,” I muttered while scrambling off my bed, having completely forgotten about our dinner company.
She’d told me to dress when I got home from school, but I’d been too busy scrolling my Chit’n Chat account and catching up with the latest makeup trends while chowing down on Swedish Fish.
A quick glance in my full-length mirror on the back of my bedroom door deepened my frown, but I didn’t have time to do as I’d been told three hours ago. I straightened my uniform’s plaid skirt and white button-down blouse with its stain from the spaghetti the high school’s cafeteria had served for lunch.
“Addilyn!”
Damnit. With how frequently she tossed out punishment, you’d think I’d have learned the lesson of obeying the first time. I’m so screwed.
Formal dinner in a too-short skirt and rumpled, stained shirt. Mother’s bitch mode would commence in three, two…
The front doorbell gonged as I scurried down the carpeted hallway toward the stairs, counting down to my doom. I paused at the second-floor landing to peek below into the grand foyer, ready to put on a bubbly, dazzling smile that might help with Mother’s condescending eye once she caught sight of my attire.
But what waited in the foyer below kept my lips flatlined.
Mother kissed cheeks with a tall man dressed in a suit and yellow tie—her favorite color—the typical type of guy she’d been bringing home for as long as I could remember. Dark hair and clean-shaven, just like my father had been.
But she planned for this one to replace my father for real—she had all but told me the night before.
Lloyd Destil. Newly arrived in Anchorage from sunny California with a handful of…wait for it…yellow flowers in a bouquet big enough to please any woman who swooned over such shit.
“Darling,” he murmured to Mother, kissing her cheek and whispering something against her ear that turned her cheeks pink.
Gag.
He’d known Mother for all of, what? Two months? Three? The man had no idea what hell awaited him if he decided to stick around.
“They’re beautiful,” Mother breathed over the flowers, looking up at him through her false eyelashes. “And my favorite color! You remembered.”
“I want to be your sunshine like you are mine,” Mr. Destil told her with a charming smile.
From my lofty height above him, I rolled my eyes. Mother’s newest lover appeared decent enough, I’d give him that. Based on the fine-cut suit he wore, he had money. Broad shoulders and what some girls my age might consider a handsome face.
But there was something about him—
A shiver licked over my skin, goosebumps broke out along my arms, and my head jerked toward the open door beyond the lovey-dovey couple.
The younger Destil that Mother had told me about stepped across the threshold. Seventeen-year-old Gideon. My soon-to-be stepbrother. In and out of juvie, anger issues—I’d heard it all, and being Mother’s pure sweetheart, I was told to keep my distance. I was not to allow him to influence me in any way, shape, or form.
And talk about shape and form. He was drop. Dead. Gorgeous.
Of course, you are.I huffed from my hiding place while drinking him in. All thoughts of his father vanished as I rubbed at my arms to calm the feverish bumps his appearance had brought on.
Dark hair an unruly mess and a little too long for Mother’s tastes topped his tall height. His scruffy jawline was set firm, a frown denting the tanned skin between his eyebrows. He’d dressed for dinner in a suit like his father, but he didn’t look pleased about it or the fact he’d been brought north, far away from sunshine and warmth.
Almost an adult though, he wouldn’t have to truly deal with a new parent like I would at fifteen.
Lovely. Time to meet the homewreckers.
Not that our home could be any more wrecked.
Telling myself Gideon’s good looks didn’t matter to me, didn’t bother me, I lifted my chin and waltzed around the wall I’d hid behind to step onto the landing, feigning confidence as Mother greeted Gideon. I grabbed hold of the railing and forced my hesitant feet downstairs when I usually would’ve scampered with the smile Mother preferred.
I wasn’t dressed to the nines. Hadn’t clipped up my curly white-blonde hair or slipped on a pair of high heels like Mother’s stilettos. Nothing I did or said at that point would please Mother, so why try?
Three pairs of eyes staring at me caused my stomach to clench up tight.
Mother handed over the bouquet to a waiting household staff member, her glare deepening with every downward step I took.
“Lloyd, darling,” she purred, linking her arm in his. Her unhappy gaze seared my face as I crossed the foyer toward them. “This is my sweetheart, Addilyn.”
I peered up at the man looming beside Mother rather than dealing with her fake-assed smile and the icy orbs that promised I would be hearing her disapproval of my disobedience later.
Mr. Destil’s dark-eyed gaze slid down over my school uniform as though sizing me up like Mother did before allowing me out of the house. Unlike Mother’s disdain, his eyes held a hint of the smile on his lips.
A shiver of a different sort slid through me, the kind that raises your neck hairs when you’re outside in the dark.
“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, young lady.” Mr. Destil’s low voice rumbled through me.
Tearing my attention off Mother, I stepped back on instinct rather than shake his outstretched hand even though his gaze appeared harmless enough.
“Addilyn,” Mother admonished with a tone that let me know I’d be sorry for my bad manners.
“It’s quite alright, darling. This is my son, Gideon,” Mr. Destil said rather than making a scene. He turned to motion the younger man forward with the hand I’d refused to shake.
Piercing blue eyes glanced down over the curves I’d inherited from Mother at too young of an age, but rather than feeling weirded out by Gideon’s good long look at me, warmth tingled into the tips of my breasts. Heat flooded his eyes when they met mine—but blinked out like a flashlight, his face becoming cold and hard.
And leaving me breathless. Shaky and unsettled in a way I didn’t know how to deal with.
“Sis,” he said, his tone as mocking as his slow smirk that fluttered my belly.
Proper poise, I could hear Mother’s echoing hiss from many times before between my ears.
I lifted my chin to do the same as he’d done to me, my narrowed gaze sliding down over his suit as though I found him lacking in every way—which I totally didn’t. Broad shoulders for seventeen, he could have been out felling trees. And that hair…those bedroom eyes, my best friend Jenny would say, could talk a girl into giving up her first kiss.
He stirred things inside me I didn’t understand, and I hated him for the curiosity tingling through my limbs and whispering in my mind.
“I’m not your sis,” I shot back with a huff and flounce of my hair.
“Addilyn Jane!” Mother’s sternness tore my gaze off of him. Lips pressed tight, she told me all I needed to know without a single word of reprimand and consequence.
Bad manners equal loss of privileges, Mother always said, and my only interest since middle school had become my cell phone.
Holding back my sigh, I handed it over, knowing arguing would only keep my cell hidden in her massive walk-in closet for an extra week.
“Well.” Her voice brightened, all syrupy sweet again as she tucked the pilfered lifeline away in a pocket of her pale yellow slacks.
So much for calling Jenny later and filling her in on the latest shit in my life.
“Shall we?” Mother patted Lloyd’s arm and led him toward the formal dining room, murmuring about the fish our chef had prepared for dinner as her Jimmy Choos clacked on the marble flooring.
While I was safe for the time being, Mother excelled at hiding her pissiness behind her plastic smile. I’d catch hell for misbehaving later, no doubt.
“I expected you to be a rich little snob, but shit, you give the word new meaning,” Gideon said quietly with a sneer, his smirk still fixed in place as he peered down at me.
“Go to hell,” I whispered and spun on my heel, following after Mother and Mr. Destil.
“Already headed there, princess,” he stated, not loud for enough our parents to hear.
“Don’t call me princess!” I growled over my shoulder.
Gideon’s gaze plastered to my backside, and those flutters rushed through me again, warming me between the thighs and heating my face.
“Jackass,” I muttered, turning around once more, shoulders thrown back.
“Princess.”
I wanted to show him exactly how un-princess-like I could be, but hissing like a cat and scratching his eyes out wouldn’t go unnoticed or unpunished by Mother.
I sat in my chair instead, a picture-perfect example of a well-bred young woman, even though I wished the floral arrangement Mother had delivered for our dinner hid me from the hot pile of trouble sitting across the table.
Too damn hot for his own good, Gideon could have been a runway model, and I kept stealing peeks whenever Mother engaged him in conversation. Sharp bone structure, full lips that made me dream about sweet sixteen kisses beneath starlit skies. Long eyelashes my friends would die for and that dark hair bordering on inappropriate as Mother would say… My fingers tingled with the need to push it back just so, to fix it with a bit of hair putty. Or perhaps rumple it instead. Even messed up, his hair wouldn’t distract from his beauty.
If anything, it added to his appeal.
“So, your mother tells me you’re interested in the cosmetics industry.”
I whipped my head Mr. Destil’s way to find him flashing the charming smile Mother had fallen for.
“Makeup is my passion,” I said, glancing at Mother to find her enamored with the man seated beside her. Smiles and stars in her eyes.
“The beautification aspect or artistry for say, Hollywood?”
“It’s more a hobby than career interest,” I answered with a slight shrug Mother wouldn’t approve of. I had no clue what I wanted to do with the rest of my life beyond eventually getting out on my own, away from her, and making independent choices.
Mother mentioned a movie crew that had been in the area the summer before and how Jenny and I had begged to watch them film because of the leading, male actors.
“But they’re much too young for such company,” she said. “My sweetheart will remain as pure as possible for as long as possible. She hasn’t even kissed a boy yet.”
I smiled with my teeth even as my face heated and stomach clenched over her prideful tone in telling near strangers personal stuff about me. My purity she’d hammered the need for into my brain since childhood was no business of Mr. Destil or his son.
“What a very admirable character, young lady.”
“Thank you, sir.” I forced myself not to mutter while focusing my attention back on my plate.
The conversation moved on, and I breathed a sigh of relief. At least Gideon kept quiet across from me. He was no smooth-talker or charmer like his father. There was something about him, a sense of danger, darkness almost, that hung over him, but not the kind that suggested I run and hide. A bad boy, perhaps a big bad wolf rather than the rich snob he’d accused me of being.
The perfect cut of his suit marked him as upper class like Mother called us, not that Anchorage had much in the way of rich folk. Father had been the one with money. Mother had been a poor working girl who turned her back on her family to marry up beyond her class.
While drunk once, she’d told me she’d grown up on the bad side of the tracks and would do anything within her power to keep from going back to that life. She never spoke of the family she’d left behind, and when I’d asked about a grandparent last, she looked down her nose and told me they weren’t worth our time.
Epitome of a snob if ever I’d met one.
But Gideon…
Another quick peek—he watched me with those blue eyes, seeming to assess me with a knowing look. Eyes hooded beneath his tilted back head.
Jackass.
I flashed a prissy smile Mother would be proud of and took a dainty bite of my fish, determined to ignore him.
The girls at school were going to go crazy for that damn half-smile he shot me every time I got caught glaring his way. Jenny would call me a lucky bitch to have him sleeping a shared bathroom’s distance away, but I had a bad feeling about the whole idea of two Destil men in our house.
I had hated him and his father long before they’d shown up for our dinner date. Mother had gone to California to sell off a property Dad had owned and returned a changed woman—smiling, with light in her eyes I’d recognized.
She’d met a man.
Instant love.
After a mere week together, she’d agreed to marry him. Wasn’t I excited to finally have a father? A brother?
No one would replace the father I barely remembered. And a brother? Someone who would always hit the shared toilet between our bedrooms? Jenny complained nonstop about her two younger brothers, so I expected I had absolutely nothing to look forward to.
No thank you with a capital N, but I knew better than to argue.
Mother had invited them to visit, to move in, but I shuddered at the thought she unknowingly allowed a couple of vampires into our home. Not that I believed in such things, but still. I could imagine Lloyd biting Mother’s neck and sucking her body dry of life’s blood.
I could imagine Gideon’s mouth on my neck…
I choked on a bite of my risotto. Yeah. Not a good idea at the dinner table.
Scowling at my plate, I squeezed my thighs together.
I could feel Gideon’s stare and heat growing where it wasn’t supposed to. But I could also sense his father’s attention on me from time to time too. At least he didn’t make attempts to get me to approve of him like Mother’s other boyfriends had done.
I had expected him to prod at me, attempt to manipulate me. Try to read inside my head, see what kind of trouble I might cause in our new wannabe family that would never be a family if I could help it.
Mr. Destil actually seemed quite…normal. Unassuming and kind.
A foot bumped against my ankle, and I jerked my head up.
Gideon raised an eyebrow while slowly sliding his shoe across mine.
Eyes narrowing, I pulled my leg back beneath my chair, crossing my ankles and taking another dainty bite of fish as though I couldn’t be bothered by his actions.
Did he expect me to react verbally? He obviously had no clue about my mother and all her rules. Boy, was he in for a big surprise.
I couldn’t help a quick peek up at him though.
His slow, sexy wink fluttered my belly.
The chef-prepared food turned to cardboard on my tongue. My armpits tingled and grew damp.
I needed to call Jenny later for her advice on how to navigate this new life Mother planned for us, but without my cell, I was lost.
Mother and Mr. Destil chatted about business and his and Gideon’s move north—to stay—in a short couple of weeks. His rumbling voice filled my ears with chuckles and the kind of words Mother loved to hear lavished on her.
Beautiful.
Classy.
Sweet and poised.
The perfect woman to have by his side.
Talk about a total gag.
Not huffing became a chore as the hour wore on, and I kept silent since children shouldn’t open their mouths at the table unless answering a direct question.
He wants your money, Mother, not your love.
Of course, she didn’t hear my thoughts, but she would’ve waved off my opinion like she always did. My respect for the only parent I could remember faded more with every passing minute. It had begun when the first gold digger showed up with sweet words and wine. The second, third, and fourth who managed to hold Mother’s attention thought manipulating me onto their good sides would help them in their conquests to woo rich Widow Reed.
Sad that even when I was ten I could read their bullshit and Mother couldn’t.
Her nagging and their lack of being able to please her in any way—I could empathize with the desperate men on that at least—had each and every one hightailing it out the front door within a matter of weeks.
But Mr. Destil seemed the smart sort, wooing her rather than me with his full of shit one-liners and praise. He knew the words to say like he could hear Mother’s needy thoughts that constantly got spilled to me, and his presence at our table, in our home, settled in deep like the hidden reaches of an iceberg beneath darkened water. He wouldn’t be going anywhere, anytime soon, I feared. Which meant I would be stuck with an older stepbrother. But probably not for long.
Mother’s newest man was full of the right things to say, but once he got to know her beneath her fake exterior, he’d take off like all the rest. She’d proven herself unlovable for as long as I could remember. He would find out who she really was soon enough too.
I dared another peek at the boy I’d be spending time with until that day though.
A very hot stepbrother whose hair fell over his brow while he focused on his food, giving me a moment’s reprieve from his unsettling stare.
A jackass who would turn our high school upside down in a few short weeks.
We moved into the parlor after dinner—an honest to goodness sitting room like ancient people had. It was where Mother spent most of her time and I avoided at all costs since I held no memories of fun within its walls—merely instruction and criticism when called into her presence.
Stiff-backed chairs covered in yellow damask didn’t appear as welcoming as Mother seemed to think. At least the fireplace’s lit logs crackled against the cool, fall air outside the tall windows overlooking the northern mountains. A wall of books. Knickknacks on the tables and mantle. Throw blankets and footstools—all shades of yellow, of course—for getting comfy when Mother wasn’t watching close enough to snip at me about proper posture and poise.
Everything sat in its place without a spot of dust thanks to the staff who moved on silent feet and hid in shadows.
They saw everything. Heard every word.
And papers Mother had made them sign kept their mouths shut about what went down in Widow Reed’s house.
Mostly the two of us screaming at each other whenever I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.
Mr. Destil poured liquor from the decanter of whatever Mother sipped every night and offered her the drink. He went without, I noted. At least her expensive taste in alcohol wasn’t what made Mother appealing to him. The last man she’d brought home ended up rip-roaring drunk at our first dinner. That was the last I’d seen of him.
They sat side by side on a couch far from where I had settled near the door, ready to bolt the second she suggested I retire for the night. Mr. Destil angled close to Mother, their knees touching, heads close together while speaking quietly.
Gideon lounged in a chair across from me, and I ignored him, chin lifted, studying the ugly printed paper on the wall above his head as though it held more interest to me than his pretty face.
Stuffy and old fashioned with its golden roses, the wallpaper made my upper lip curl. Mother seriously needed to do some updates—
“Bad enough Dad’s gonna drag me all the way up here to Alaska, but to be stuck with a goddamn snob for a sister? Could my life be any more fucked?”
I turned my attention downward, narrowing my gaze and hating that Gideon was close enough to make out a few freckles across his nose. Even more endearing. I prayed he wouldn’t reveal dimples if he ever smiled for real. “Pardon me?”
He sprawled in the chair, arms over the back, that damn smirk curling his lips upward. I glanced at Mother, waiting for her to admonish him for his slouching posture, but she couldn’t be torn away from her latest lover and whatever bull he spouted against her ear that made her cheeks flush.
“He’s weaseled his way in, and now you’re stuck with him—and me. Just would be nice if you at least acted—” Gideon glanced down over me with a semi-sneer “—normal so we could get along and shit.”
“I am normal.”
He snorted, his gaze narrowing. “Spoiled, rich princess. You don’t know the first thing about a life beyond your mother’s money.”
As if he did with his expensive clothing, shined shoes, and that rented Mercedes out in the circular drive beyond the parlor’s window. Car rental or not, it still cost his father some cash to borrow it for their weekend visit.
While I was only fifteen, I had been through enough heartache to make any person an old soul, not that he knew or cared. I glared harder, hating that my spine stayed straight and my hands clasped lightly in my lap as Mother had taught. “And I suppose you’ve got it all figured out at the ripe old age of what? Seventeen?” I hissed quietly across the short distance between us.
“Yep.” He popped the P and chuckled. “Lived the high life down in sunny, warm California.”
“Being sent to a juvenile delinquent center three times in three years and having anger management therapy is hardly the high life,” I shot back the gossip I’d heard Mother sharing over her cell with one of her country club friends.
He studied me with those sinful bedroom eyes until I shifted on my seat, but I refused to look away. Mother would have a fit if she heard what I’d said to him.
This boy is going to be major trouble. Major.
He let out a quiet curse but without heat or threat. Gideon’s head swiveled his father’s way, his brow furrowing same as when he’d first arrived.
My shoulders relaxed at the assurance he wasn’t too pleased with what was going on between our parents either. “You hate what they’re doing to us too, don’t you?” I kept my tone low so Mother wouldn’t overhear.
“What gave it away?” That damn smirk—but sarcastic—returned as did his attention full on my face. His eyes held no hint of happiness though.
“It’s not my fault, you know,” I told him, hoping he’d stop taking his anger out on me. “I don’t want or need another father.”
Gideon raised one eyebrow in a perfect upside-down V like the evil vampire I’d considered him to be. A sexy as hell vampire. One who would nibble on my neck and tell me how good I tasted.
“How about an overly protective stepbrother?” he murmured, his focus sliding down over me.
I crossed my arms over my breasts, trying to hide my nipples’ pebbling reaction to his gaze. “And why would you care what I do?”
His gaze lingered long enough on my boobs that my face heated. A slow, genuine smile revealed not one, but two dimples, damn him. “Maybe I care more about what those around you might do.”