Children of Sin Ch. 4

Alright, here it is, the long-awaited fourth installment of my story. I know it seems like forever since I've submitted a new chapter to the story, but I'm a lazy bastard, and I admit to being guilty of the sin Sloth myself. I've gotten some great encouragement as well as constructive criticism, and hopefully this chapter won't disappoint. I'm trying to shorten up my chapters a bit, but this one will still probably be a bit long, so make sure you're in a comfortable chair and give your eyes a rest here and there. You might not go blind just from playing with yourself, but eye-strain from reading too much erotica is serious business. Okay, enough of this "Surgeon General's Warning" moment. If you haven't already read the first three chapters of Children of Sin, I would suggest going back and reading them. Just a suggestion. Now, on with the story.

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Grant was an opportunistic jerk. It's no wonder, being the son of a rather disreputable but moderately successful defense lawyer. He learned from the best. But that's only a shallow view of this young man. Truthfully, this 18 year old had gone through quite a bit in his life, including the death of his mother, and as such was really much more down-to-earth than one would first guess. Despite his rather posh upbringing, Grant Avery Stewart tended to dislike the politics of some of the popular crowd at his highschool. He was given a brand new Mustang GT Convertible on his 16th birthday, instantly being known as the guy with the nicest car in school, but he wasn't one to rev his engine or speed into the lot as he came into school each morning, unlike many of the other jar-heads at his school. His clothing was always well in style, but he rarely cared to notice if his shirt was un-tucked or if his shoes were scuffed.

He was an attractive young man, his dark brown hair just long enough to give a bit of a wild look while framing a handsome face. The corners of his lips always seemed to be on the edge of a sly grin. His pale, hazel eyes always with a cool, almost calculating quality to them. He kept himself in good shape, playing for the basketball team at school as well as playing tennis during the spring and summer, but he wasn't really much of a jock. He was always invited to the weekend parties, to which he would attend only about half, and only to drink about two beers and maybe to pick up a nice piece of tail. In reality, he was somewhat more aloof among the more popular group of kids at his school, but that seemed to matter very little to many people. As far as anyone cared, he was a nice, good-looking guy, and there was very little he could do to fuck that up.

Of course, Grant was too smart to take his high spot among the pecking order for granted. He kept his nose in books and in newspapers for a reason. This year, he got his SAT scores back and got a near perfect 760 in Math and 780 in Verbal, and already was being "courted" by a number of good schools along the East coast. He was determined to become successful; what he was going to be successful in was a different question. Like many his age, he wasn't entirely sure what career he would be pursuing in college, but he was damn sure that he wouldn't be following his father's footsteps. He might get into law, but definitely not the type of law dad was into.

Grant's father was constantly in the newspapers. It seemed whenever someone was wrongfully terminated from their job, injured in the workplace, or became the victim of some sort of malpractice or white-collar crime, his father was right there on the front page, proclaiming the innocence of his clients. He remembered the story his father gave him one day when he was young, about what he did for a living. "I make sure that innocent people aren't sent to jail or made to suffer when bad things happen," the elder Stewart said to the wide-eyed eight-year-old on his lap. Even then, Grant knew a bullshit story when he heard it. Reading the papers about corporate executives running off with hundreds of thousands of dollars, or about the slick doctor being accused of driving while intoxicated and causing severe, permanent injuries to a young newlywed couple, or even the sleaze-ball systems analyst that was caught with child pornography on his computer, Grant often laughed at his father's vain attempts at keeping his clients looking like the real victims in the case. Of course, his dad was often successful. After all, he didn't buy this large house with the hill-top view of the town below by losing his cases, and he probably wouldn't have any of his nice cars, or possibly even his new wife.

Grant stood in front of his mirror, brushing the hair off of his face with his fingers, giving it that wild, not-too-sloppy look. It was still a little damp from the shower, and smelled of the expensive conditioner his step-mother had bought him. He smiled, realizing that, for the past two years, she had been paying much more attention to him, commenting him from time to time about his clothes and how handsome he was, etc. She even gave him the occasional wink when she saw him walking around the house in the mornings, wearing only his boxers, his nicely toned body showing off to all the world. Heck, he had started to wonder why he had ignored her for so long, realizing that she really was quite a nice looking woman herself. This was probably the only time he had ever envied his father for having such impeccable taste in women.

He shook these thoughts from his head as he pulled on his leather jacket and checked himself in the mirror one last time. He smiled, mostly to practice that disarming smile that had become his trademark, and also to make sure his toothbrush hadn't missed some remnant from his dinner. Once he was sure he was ready, he checked the clock. 11:27. Shit, he was really late, to the point of being beyond "fashionably late". Everyone was probably half drunk already, which meant all the girls were getting drunk. Normally, that wouldn't be that bad a thing to Grant, but he really didn't feel like trying to talk to some giggly, sloshed girl into jumping in the sack with him, and he especially didn't feel like having to deal with a sick, hung-over girl the next morning either. Besides, there would probably be about ten other guys there trying to work their own way into the same drunk girl's pants, and they would all probably be just as drunk themselves. There's nothing worse than having to fight off some pissed off, shit-faced football player because you started "macking on his girl."

He opened the door and wasn't surprised to be hearing Sum 41 blaring out of his step-sister's room. It was pretty ingenious how the walls between their rooms were so well insulated from sound, but if you left your door open, like his sister was doing now, you couldn't miss the blaring music at all. Figuring she'd be in her room for the night, he headed toward the kitchen to grab a pop from the fridge and his car keys. He entered the kitchen and was only half-surprised to see his sister standing in front of the fridge wearing only a T-shirt and a pair of panties. She was bent over a bit, surveying the contents of the fridge, giving Grant an excellent view of her nice ass.

Ericka was almost the exact age as Grant, only about 7 months younger than he was, and in the same grade in school. When his father married her mother, it was decided that Grant and his father would move into the same town as Ericka and her mother, mostly because "mom" had a career in a local real-estate agency. His dad bought up a very large house down the end of a rather secluded drive, in the middle of a large, thickly wooded lot. "I got an inside deal with my real-estate connections," dad would joke, getting little more than a pair of rolled eyes from his much more cynical son. Grant remembered moving into the house, thinking that with all the large windows he'd feel like he was living in a tree-house or something. He was rather relieved that his bedroom had a better view of the town below than most of the other rooms in the house. He was also lucky to be right next door to his hot new sister.

Ericka, still standing in front of the open refrigerator door, suddenly realized a presence in the room and turned around quickly, spotting her step-brother. "Oh, hey! I thought you already went to Greg Parish's party," she said, casually bringing the carton of orange-juice to her lips with one hand and adjusting her glasses with the other.

"Christ, do you gotta keep doing that?" Grant huffed with mild disdain. In actuality, he was trying to cover-up the sudden butterflies in his stomach.

"Oh, geez, don't you start up on that too! Mom yells at me all the time for this. Don't worry, it's not like I have leprosy or something," she said, gulping down a couple swallows of juice before returning it to the fridge and closing the door.

Ericka definitely got her looks from her busty, red-haired mom. Even at the age of 12, when Grant had first moved in with her, Ericka had been quite a cutie, and it seemed that she had gotten more and more attractive as the years rolled by. Her hair was a deep, dark red, almost having a purple tint to it, but unlike a lot of redheads he knew, she wasn't deathly pale with a myriad of freckles all over her face. In fact, her smooth, rosy skin hardly seemed to have one spot on it; not even the smallest pimple or mole. And you can bet Grant had made sure to get as many glimpses of her body as possible as they grew up together. As it turned out, it wasn't very hard for him, considering that, over the years, she had become so accustomed to living with him that she took up the habit of waltzing around the house in hardly more than panties and a tight-fitting sports-bra. He was able to witness first-hand how she "blossomed into womanhood" ("Good Lord, that's so cliché," Grant would probably think to himself), noticing how the material of her bras or T-shirts began to fill and tighten more and more.

"So... you're staying in for the night, I suppose," he nearly stuttered. She nodded, and he shook his head and gave a chuckle. Same old Ericka. She never went out and barely dated. She was a real home-body, even a little nerdy. Of course, the way she was presenting herself tonight, he was almost tempted to stay home himself.

"Hey, just because I don't like to go get drunk and screw every weekend doesn't mean you can make fun of me," she laughed back, flashing her smile and pulling some of her hair behind her ear. Grant had noticed the recent change in Ericka's hair style. Her hair was long and naturally wavy, sometimes getting pretty curly, but lately she had started straightening it a lot more. She reminded him of Alicia Witt, from that horribly un-scary movie "Urban Legend", though he wasn't sure if that was the look she was going for or not. She had also started wearing some of those colored head-bands that he normally only saw younger girls wear. He liked to tease her about looking like "Alice in Wonderland" or something, but really she looked just as nice with her hair pulled back as she did with it in her face.

Many afternoons after school, the two teenagers would be left alone in the house for a few hours before their parents came home from work. Ericka would almost instantly slip into something more comfortable (usually meaning she got somewhat undressed) and settle-down on the sofa, watching some TV, while Grant would feign reading a newspaper or book, stealing glimpses of her from the big over-stuffed La-Z-Boy. He would always sit in such a way that he could easily hide the arousal tenting the front of his pants.

His father would usually scold Ericka for walking around the house "practically nude," but Grant noticed the way his father leered at her when he thought no one was looking. "Dirty old pervert," Grant would say to himself, but he knew that no sane man could avoid looking at this stunning girl without some lustful thoughts creeping up somewhere in the back of his mind. Hell, isn't that exactly what he was doing? Maybe it was because of the fact that the senior Stewart was now her father that it made Grant uncomfortable, because it all came back to the unsettling fact that Grant himself was now, at least by terms of marriage, her brother. Maybe that was why he looked at his father with such disdain. He would never admit it, but Grant sometimes saw an older version of himself reflected in his father, just as he was sure "dear old dad" saw a younger version of himself in Grant. Both were goal-driven individuals. Both were men of the "image is everything" philosophy. Both secretly lusted after the same young woman they lived with. Knowing his father, he was not only scolding his step-daughter's attire because of his own guilty desires, but also because he knew full well of his son's attentions as well. Sneaky old bastard.

"So, how do I look?" he said, shaking these last thoughts from his head and making mock poses like some sort of model in a fashion catalogue.

"Very nice," she giggled, applauding and whistling at the little fashion show she was getting. She really was a delightful person to be around, but Grant knew he shouldn't be standing around. He had a party to get to...

Suddenly, she gave him an odd look, immediately issuing a "What?" from him.

"You've got something on your shirt," she said, staring intently at him.

"What? Where?" he said, searching in vain on the front of his olive green sweatshirt for whatever it was she had spotted. The last thing he needed was some sort of stain or something on his clothes.

"Look, want me to get it for you?" Ericka began to laugh at the spectacle he was making of himself. She quickly approached him and freely picked off the little bit of fuzz that had been clinging around his collar.

"Oh, typical... right where I couldn't see it," Grant laughed. Ericka just smiled warmly, and she began to brush off the front of his shirt. This was more than likely just to smooth out the material or to make sure he didn't have any more lint on himself, but Grant couldn't help but feel as though she let her warm hands linger on his chest just a little longer than necessary. In that moment, he could deeply inhale her lavender-scented perfume, a fragrance that she had just recently started to wear. She stood maybe a good five or six inches shorter than his 5 foot 11 inches, and he looked into her soft, red hair, realizing that even her hair had that lovely scent on it. He could feel her proximity to him, and could feel the butterflies start in his stomach and his cock stir in his shorts.

Clearing his throat, Grant muttered, "Hey, I'm already late for the party."

She chimed in cheerily, "Okay, Mr. Stud. I guess it's okay for you to go to your party. Just don't come back drunk and cursing out your dad all night again."

He laughed. Even though he didn't remember doing it, according to Ericka he had come home one night so intoxicated that he began to scream obscenities at his father, despite the fact that his father wasn't home that night. He added, "Well shit, the parents aren't going to be home till Tuesday anyway, so what should they care?"

"I care because I have to put up with your silly drunk ass, that's why," she said, giving him a fake frown, before adding, "And don't bring home any girls either."

"Jeezus, you really are turning into your mom, aren't you?" he said with a chuckle. Then he realized she wasn't laughing with him anymore.

"No, it's just..." she began, pausing for a moment before shaking her head, as if brushing off whatever she was about to say. "Just don't wake me up if you get here after two, okay?" she finally added with a bit of a huff.

"Okay, fine," he said with a quizzical smile, wondering what she was about to say before that. He bid her one last goodbye for the night before grabbing his keys and heading out the door.

Once in his car, he was able to finally shrug off the last bid of weirdness he had gotten from the scene in his kitchen. Damn, lately he'd been getting a lot of those weird sort of moments with Ericka. As well as they got along with each other, he figured he shouldn't feel so strange being alone with her. It was almost a miracle that two step-siblings, forced into living with each other, would get along so well, especially after almost six years of co-habitation. Sometimes Grant felt as though they got along a little too well. She seemed to enjoy teasing him a little too much sometimes. He doubted she even realized the sort of situation she'd created for him. He turned out of the driveway and down the secluded road as his aroused state finally died-down.

Grant never did anything to act upon his attraction toward Ericka. There was way too much risk if something went wrong, and Grant was smarter than that, even if he did sometimes detect something in her smile, or in the way she bounced around the house when they were alone, that made him begin to suspect she might feel the same way about him. He remembered how, for the first year or two that they lived together, she used to surprise him by suddenly running up behind him in the hallway at school and cover his eyes with her delicate hands, or cling onto his arm.

"W-what are you doing?" he used to say, usually quite embarrassed by her antics.

"What? I've never had a big brother before!" she'd reply with a broad grin. This almost always brought a blush to his face. He rememberd just how cute she was back then. She was only seven months younger than he was, but he couldn't deny that he liked having a "little sister" to look over. He instantly began an older brother relationship with her from that point on, but even then he was certain he could feel something a little more in the hugs she would give him, or the side-long glances he sometimes would catch from her in class. Her public displays of affection for her new brother didn't totally stop when they went on to highschool, but they certainly did start to come less frequently. Sometimes he would turn to see her staring at him at odd moments during the day, and her face would instantly turn crimson and she would divert her eyes. Then again, maybe he was just imagining it all. Whatever.

Despite the odd relationship he had with his step-sister, Grant did lead a normal romantic life in highschool. In fact, he was usually quite busy with any number of dates every week. Grant was well known for being a regular casanova in his school. Like many other guys his age, a busy dating life also meant a burgeoning sex life, and Grant had a little over a year's experience with that. Despite his silver-tongued skills at getting a girl's favor, he was never one to mince words. He let women know exactly what he wanted, though he was usually careful enough with his speech not to insult them. Usually he was able to get what he wanted. He developed ways of getting past a girl's defenses, making her feel exceptional and wanted, and it was usually enough to let the panties slip off.

He was no cad, but he also knew better than to stick around too long, lest a girl develop "unhealthy ideas" about their relationship. In his dating career, Grant's longest relationship had probably lasted three months, and afterwards she had been quite devastated by their break-up. He was a real heart-breaker, but that didn't seem to deter many of the girls who were so eager to go out with him. His history did little to keep the girls from jumping in bed with him. He rarely felt guilty for hurting a girl's feelings. "She knew what she was getting herself into," he would often say in his own defense, and it was mostly true. Women knew he was wrong for them, but that didn't stop them from willfully coming to him.

Driving down a hill-side road under the glow of a full moon, Grant's mind drifted with the Smashing Pumpkins strumming on his CD player. His heartbeat calmed, and soon he could feel himself psyching up. It was a beautiful, clear Saturday night, the spring air just cool enough for a light jacket, but warm enough to crack open his window a bit and enjoy the smell of the night air. He couldn't wait for the summer to come so that he could put the top down and just cruise, but it was still a little too early in the season to be doing that tonight. Despite having a powerfully fast car, he was taking his time getting across town to the Parish house, enjoying the few minutes of solace before what he expected would be a noisy environment at the party. As it turned out, the Parish family lived a little outside of town down a rather deserted stretch of dirt road, and he could see at least a dozen parked cars lining both sides of the road. He drove a little further, hoping to find a parking spot a little closer to the house, and lucked-out as he saw someone pull out almost right next to the driveway. After parking and shutting off the engine, he sat quietly as he listened to his CD player finish the song he had been listening to. When the last chord finally drifted off, he turned off his stereo, took one final inspection of his hair in the rear-view mirror, and headed out.