I nod, not wasting any time as I shoot down the hallway and across the marble floor of the lobby. My sneakers squeak on the tile, drawing all eyes toward my rushing body as I hurtle across the floor and skid to a startled stop with a thick swallow my throat. I’m glad that the windows are tinted so that the security guards can’t see me inside. I’d been hoping for a much quieter entrance to the scene.
The group of burly football players sit along the bar, each one drinking water or tea or coffee. They’re quiet, which is strange. I expected them to be pumped up and laughing or talking noisily. Perhaps they’re nervous about their game in the morning. It was almost funny to imagine men as powerful as they are feeling nervous. I certainly couldn’t imagine stoic, collected Jaxon as feeling that way.
Then again, maybe that was part of why he didn’t want to see me. Maybe my presence would throw off his concentration.
I hoped that wasn’t the case. I didn’t want to affect his gameplay.
I already had my ticket to the game paid for and tucked carefully in my wallet, just like I’d already prepared an excuse for Rick on where I’d be. On his rare off Sundays, he liked to hang out in the morning and do nothing but watch Netflix and keep me as far from the game as he possibly could.
This had made me an expert on evading him on Sundays. I was not one to be easily deterred. I could count on one hand the number of Jax’s games that I had missed, including the year I contracted mono, and I had zero interest in adding more to that count anytime soon.
Tomorrow I would apparently be at a painting convention learning new stippling techniques. It was boring enough to be believable and also to keep him from wanting to be invited. Rick wasn’t sure of the importance in the arts. He preferred much more logic based subjects. He enjoyed reading books on mathematics and engineering and breakthrough sciences. I liked that he was so rational and intelligent. If we were too similar, after all, it would be boring.
Wouldn’t it?
Plus, in his own way, Rick respected me. I was sure of that. He did allow me to do what I wanted, seeking out painting classes and studios. I’d sold a handful of paintings just in the last few months. One had even gone for several hundred which blew me away at the time. The most I’d ever managed to make off one of my paintings was twenty bucks before that.
My gaze swept over the faces of the players, all familiar from where I’d seen them on the screen of my television. Even though I knew their faces and felt like I almost knew them personally from cheering for them for so long, it was so unbelievable to be standing here in front of them, watching them munch burgers and steaks and potatoes.
I wanted to pinch myself. Just as I reached one hand toward my forearm to do just that, a voice interrupted me.
“Hey, you’re that girl,” a man said with startled green eyes called as he turned away from a giant bowl of mashed potatoes and leaned against the back of his bar stool, “that one who was looking for Jax earlier.”
“Yes!” I whispered excitedly, sneaking over to him and leaning against the empty spot at the bar. “I’m his sister. I haven’t seen him in so long, I just want a chance to speak with him. Do you know where he is?”
“Sister?” tThe man laughed, his hair longer and more luxurious than mine would be shimmering like a mermaid’s tail as it tumbled over his shoulders, “He’s never mentioned having any family at all.”
I flinched, trying to ignore the sting in my heart that his words left me with though he seemed to notice, his face going apologetic.
I knew the running back’s name and face. Lucas Miller. He’d almost blown out his knee three years ago but somehow had gotten insanely lucky and avoided too much damage.
“Oh, really?” I mumbled, hoping that some spontaneous memory would pop to the football player’s mind, “He never mentioned us even once?”
He shook his head, “And that dude’s my best friend. We’ve talked about everything. Believe me, I’ve wondered if he had any family, what his story was. He doesn’t talk about it.”
I must’ve looked so distraught that Lucas felt bad for his words, patting my elbow gently, “But, I mean, Jax is a tightlipped dude. Maybe he just never wanted to talk about it….” He trailed off, emerald eyes shifting behind me as a shadow loomed over the bar.
With a gasp I whirled around, eyes locking with Jaxon’s beautiful blue ones. They were even more of a sparkling cerulean than I’d remembered, though right now they were dark with fury.
“Why are you here?” he snapped, his voice a deep growl that made a shudder roll up my spine. “How did you get in here? I told you to leave.”
Chapter 4
Jaxon
“I can’t believe you never mentioned a sister, Jax…” Lucas mumbled in disbelief, looking from Emily to me then back again, “You two don’t even look alike.”
The difference between us was night and day, I already knew that. While Emily had a mop of silky blond curls and caramel colored eyes, my hair was straight and rusty brown, two bright blue eyes set above a sprinkle of freckles. She was delicate and porcelain hued, while I was tanned and ruddy from the long hours outside practicing.
“We’re stepsiblings,” Emily offered with a shrug. “My mom met his dad when we were thirteen.”
“Oh. Nice,” Lucas nodded absently, shooting me a look and a twitch of his eyebrow.
I glared back. The movement wouldn’t have been mostly imperceptible to Emily, but I knew exactly what it meant. My friend had a penchant for using women, and I wasn’t about to let him sink his claws, or anything else for that matter, into my sister.
“As I was saying,” I continue brusquely, narrowing my eyes on the woman before me, “you need to leave.”
“I don’t need to do anything,” she shot back with a slight glance over her shoulder. “It’s been so long, Jax, don’t you want to connect again?”
“No,” I said shortly, slipping my hand around her elbow to draw her away from the curiously watching players and women at the bar.
They looked on with ogling eyes, wondering just what sort of trouble I’d gotten myself into this time. The rumor mill here was nasty and vicious, latching onto anything it could. By the end of the night, half the team would be wondering who I’d gotten pregnant or just who I was alone in my bedroom with.
Lucas slowly crossed his arms over his shoulders, a frown twitching over his lips as he watched us walk by. I pulled Emily around the corner, lightly pushing here away toward a door at the end of the hall.
“This isn’t fair,” she whispered, her eyes stark and her full lips drawn tightly. “How can you treat me like this? After everything you’ve put our family through? Our parents were devastated when you vanished, Jax. Now you won’t even speak to me for two seconds?”
I closed my eyes, wishing that she would stop saying my name. I couldn’t handle it, it broke my heart in two, like she was stabbing me with a knife.
“it wasn’t an easy decision to make. You have to know that, Em…”
The woman just gazed at me, her petite face solemn and stern. She stood two heads shorter than me, her head tilted back so that she could gaze me full in the face. She watched me intently, waiting for me to meet her stare. I couldn’t do it, I just couldn’t bring myself to gaze back into those glorious eyes.
Slowly, Emily reached out and lightly pressed a hand against my shoulder. I shrank back from the touch, grimacing as though she’d burned me. Startled, she tugged back and drew her hands against her chest tight.
“I don’t know what happened,” she whispered, “but if you just tell me, maybe I can help you-”
“No, Emily.” I stepped back, folding my arms fully against my broad, muscled chest, “You can’t help me. Not a single person can. If anyone could’ve helped, I might’ve been able to stay.”
“Please, Jaxon, tell me what happened? Did Dad say something? Was it my mom?”
I jerked back again, holding up my hands in front of me and pleading with her mentally to leave. I needed distance between us
, I needed the halls of this hotel to be wider. I needed more air of my own to breathe. The way Emily just stood before me, she drew me in like a moth to a flame, like her own planet with its own gravitational force. I couldn’t escape her. I couldn’t do anything but struggle to keep away.
Emily was not the type to be easily dissuaded though, stubborn as a mule. When she latched onto something, that was it. There was no other alternative. She was instantly and endlessly demanding.
“Jax, I won’t leave until you explain. Just tell me why and I’ll go. I’ll leave you alone forever. This constant wondering why you had to leave though, it’s tearing your family apart.”
“You haven’t changed a bit, have you,” I murmured aloud, giving a feeble chuckle and running a hand through my hair. “Always questioning and challenging and arguing with everything anyone says…”
Her beautiful eyes, that same shade of gold as I remembered, narrowed on me as her chest rose slightly and her arms folded indignantly over her chest.
“I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean, but I don’t appreciate it.”
My slight chuckle turned into a full-blown laugh now, my hands resting on my heaving chest. My body felt weak, just looking at her was enough to throw every inch of my calm demeanor into a frenzy.
Had it really been fifteen years now?
The last time I saw her, she was a long-legged teen with a blonde whirlwind of tresses and a smile that made all the boys in our graduating class practically swoon. That was all still there. Even in her thirties, she was still beautiful and her legs were still long and her eyes were still like molten gold. Every time she walked into a room, I was sure that all eyes were drawn toward her like magnets. She just had that presence about her, one that no one could possibly ignore.
If only she wasn’t so lovely, maybe this all could have been easier. Perhaps I never would’ve had to leave them.
When I looked back at her again, her face was stark with bewilderment now, her arms sliding off her chest to rest on the supple curve of her hips.
“Jax, what the hell is going on with you?” she sighed. “You’re acting so weird. I mean, you’ve always been weird, but this is just… this is just insane.”
I couldn’t do this anymore. I couldn’t look at her, not in that t-shirt that clung just right to her body and jeans that strained across her lithe thighs. It was too much. It was all too much. She was too beautiful, it hurt to gaze at her. It made my fingers itch to touch her, it made my heart beat like fire in my chest. I had to get out of here, and fast.
“I’m only going to say this one more time,” I murmured, voice hoarse with the strain of trying to keep my hands to myself when all I wanted was to brush my palm over her cheek. “You have to leave. I don’t want to see you. I don’t want to see your parents—”
“They are your parents too!” Emily cried bitterly, taking a step toward me and pressing an accusing finger against my chest.
I leapt backwards with a shake of my head, almost stumbling over my own two feet. I was quickly running out of carpet to cross backwards over, my shoe bumping against the wall. If she took one single step toward me, the distance between our bodies would be closed and I would be smothered by the faint scent of her shampoo and the warmth radiating from her body.
“They are your parents, Jax! You can’t just pretend that you running away disowned them from your life. Mom was going to adopt you! Didn’t that mean anything to you?” For just a second she paused to suck in a deep breath though her eyes remained locked only on me. When I couldn’t bring myself to speak, she sucked in a deep breath to continue.
“You got to leave and pretend that you weren’t breaking their hearts. I had to stay and watch Mom and Dad practically fall apart. I have no idea how they made it through. They didn’t call the police like you begged them not to in your note, but I have never seen two human beings so utterly shattered before.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered numbly, staring down at my shoes.
At some point, I’d stepped in a rain puddle and gotten the polished white sneaker dirty. It was now a faded, dull grey that looked as sad as Emily’s eyes. I couldn’t even look at her now. I knew what she said was the truth, but she didn’t know the whole story. She couldn’t. She could never know.
I’d known how devastated my father was. I’d heard it in the phone calls where he pleaded me to come back, where he pleaded me to call him, where he pleaded me to let him know that I was just all right. But I couldn’t, because then I would have to explain why I left, and I couldn’t bear to speak that aloud to anyone.
“Speaking of that note,” Emily hissed, “that was the most cruel thing I’ve ever read. ‘Leaving for good. I’m safe. Don’t call the police.’” She paused, biting her lip as the memories flooded back, “You abandoned our parents in less than three full sentences.”
She’d forgotten just how painful it was to recall the desolate details of the evening they’d found that note. She’d forgotten the muted sounds of her parents sobbing in their bedroom, how quiet and forlorn the house had become in the wake of his disappearance.
“How could you, Jax?” she finally whispered, arms hanging limp at her side.
It was like all the turmoil she had been surprising for years suddenly burst out of her like a dam breaking loose. Tears prickled her eyes but did not fall.
I didn’t say anything, still staring at my shoes. All I wanted was for her to leave. That was all. I couldn’t look at her. Looking at her was like looking at the sun, it did nothing more than ache. I would be blinded forever by the glory of her shining face.
There was no excuse for what I did, there was no explanation I could give her that would make her or anyone else forgive me. It had been cruel. It had been awful. I was both of those things, and I would be forever.
“You know what?” she finally spat, taking a step toward the hall that was relieving and excruciating all at the same time, “I’ll leave. I’ll let you escape this one time.”
Hesitating, I lifted my chin to gaze up at her once more only to find her eyes blazing like flames and her jaw set so stubbornly that I instantly knew I wasn’t going to like what would come out of her full lips.
“But I’m going to be at that game, Jaxon. I don’t care if you want me there or you don’t. I’m going to sit in those stands and I’m going to watch my brother play at his game. You got that?”
My throat burned, begging to spew forth words that I could not let free. One of my hands lifted, running over the tingling flesh of my neck. It felt swollen and raw, like anything I tried to say would send pain shooting down my throat.
When I could only shrug, Emily turned on her heel and stormed out of the hotel, the door banging loudly after her as she left. The second she turned, I took one step after her, my body reacting all on its own.
Half of me wanted to beg her to come back just so that I could look at her for another minute longer, while the rest of me ached with the pain of knowing that she will never look at me the same again. In the end, I stood frozen and indecisive.
Seeing her was like a lightning bolt through my whole body. It set every inch of me on edge, my hair standing up straight on the back of my neck and goosebumps prickling down my arms.
It was only long after the door slammed shut that I sucked in a startled breath, suddenly aware that I hadn’t breathed since she started yelling.
When she was finally gone, I slid sideways against the wall, my eyes squeezing tight. I placed one hand over my chest, sucking in a long deep breath and pressing my forehead against the cool wall.
For fifteen long, terrible years I’d prayed for these feelings to leave me. I’d prayed that I would be able to look her in the eyes and not be tormented by the beauty shining within them. I’d thrown myself into football and women and booze and anything I could to escape the tantalizing emotions that swelled up inside of me the second that woman looks me in the eyes.
It wasn’t fair.
Why did I feel this way?
How could I have all of these feelings about my own stepsister?
“Jaxon?” Lucas asked quietly as he rounded the hall, summoned by the slamming door of Emily’s departure. “You okay, man? I thought I heard your sister yelling at you.”
Sucking in another short breath and shoving myself away from the wall, I gave him a curt nod. I wasn’t one to go into detail about my life, not even with the person I considered my closest friend.
“I’m good, Luc,” I mumbled, not looking at him. “I need to go to my room.”
He stepped to the side, watching me as I shove my way past his broad shoulder and went straight to the bar.
“Vodka,” I muttered, slapping my hand on the wooden countertop and looking desperately around for Cynthia.
She saw my eyes sweeping over the familiar heads of the men and women and instantly came over, sliding herself against my waist and wrapping slender arms around my hips.
“You okay, baby?” she cooed softly, whispering into my ear. “You know you’re not supposed to drink the night before the game.”
“Make it a double,” I hissed at the bartender, turning my head to look down at the woman pressed against me.
Without a word, I wrapped an arm around the redhead’s body and dragged her up as close to me as I could, like I was trying to envelope her inside of me, like I was trying to hide under the curves of her body.
Desperately, I smothered her mouth with mine, fingernails digging into her back so roughly that she gave a great shudder and a slight moan.
It was the noise that ruined it, that reminded me that she was not the woman I so badly wanted. Even still, I didn’t break the kiss, pressing it deeper and deeper against her velvety lips as though I could drink her in like this vodka and forget the torture swirling inside of me.
What was I going to do at the game tomorrow?
Stepbrother The Hard Trainer: A Stepbrother Romance Book Collection Page 14