Stepbrother HOT! (The Stepbrother Romance Series - Book #3)

by Adams, Claire

  “That is absolutely disgusting. You both should be ashamed of yourselves. I won’t permit it. You are never, ever to have anything to do with each other like that again.” Bob slammed back the rest of his glass of wine, shaking his head at Jaxon. “I can’t believe you.” The words hit me hard; it was disgusting, we should be ashamed. I felt as if I’d been punched in the stomach. I’d known it was wrong—at least a little bit. But it wasn’t like we were actually related. It wasn’t even as though we’d been brought up together. Jaxon and I had been strangers to each other until we’d met at the frat. Just because our parents had met separately and had gotten married in a matter of months—what the hell did that have to do with us?

  But I still felt dirty. I felt filthy from head to toe, sick to my stomach, appalled at the situation. But Bob wasn’t finished. Mom tried to break in—she tried to get Bob to calm down. “It’s been a really long day, and everyone’s exhausted,” she said quietly. “I think we should discuss this another time, you know, it’s been… it’s been really tense.”

  “No.” Bob shook his head at my mom. He softened a little bit when he looked at her, but the minute he was looking at Jaxon again, he was hard as a rock. “Jaxon has to take the consequences for his behavior—for his choices.” Bob looked Jaxon in the eye and for the moment it was like Mom and I weren’t there at all. “You’re a fuckup, you know that? Yeah, I tell everyone—I don’t want anyone to be tricked by the game you run. You might be doing well in school now, but I remember exactly how you were when you were younger. You haven’t turned a corner at all—joining that frat, partying it up, I know exactly the kind of person you are. You’ve always been a disappointment to me, and this just proves how much of a screw up you’ll always be, no matter how hard I try to make you a decent human being.” I wanted to leave, but I couldn’t move; I was frozen by the venom in Bob’s voice.

  He had seemed like such a regular guy up until that night. I glanced at Mom; she was just as shocked as I was. Bob went on, hammering the point home that Jaxon was the worst person, he was always trying to game the system, he’d never accomplish anything in his life, and everything about my situation with Jaxon faded into the background. I had had no idea that Bob was like this at all; he was drunk, so probably was worse than he would have been otherwise, but I couldn’t even believe that the mild-mannered guy who rattled on and on about stupid bullshit at the dining table, trying to get everyone to get along, was capable of being so cruel to someone he claimed over and over again to love. It was awful. I wanted to yell at Bob that the only terrible good-for-nothing person I could see in the entire lodge was him. I wanted to scream at my mother that she was a stupid asshole for marrying someone capable of being that cruel to his own child. I wanted to punch Bob in the face.

  My stomach was turning flip-flops inside of me, and I watched as the fight escalated between Jaxon and his dad. Jaxon was saying things—the words leaving his lips fast, both of them somehow managing to keep from outright shouting, but saying the most incredibly horrible things to each other. Jaxon told Bob that maybe he wouldn’t have turned out to be such a disappointment if Bob had ever given a damn about him, Bob told him that he’d tried but clearly Jaxon was determined to ruin his own life, and he was going to be damned if he would ever bail him out again. Jaxon told Bob that it was his fault that Jaxon’s mom had left, that all Bob ever cared about was himself. I couldn’t believe the things that they were saying to each other. At some point Bob brought the conversation back around to Jaxon and I having sex and how could Jaxon be so incredibly inconsiderate, how could Jaxon be such a freak, such a colossal idiot. Jaxon was getting more and more upset—the explosion was building up in him again and I was afraid that at any moment they’d start fighting for real. I saw Jaxon’s fists clench and I knew that he wanted to punch his dad. I knew that if it kept up for much longer it would turn into a physical altercation. My heart was beating faster and faster in my chest, pounding in my ears.

  Before anything could happen, before it could come to blows, Jaxon shook his head. “I don’t have anything more to say to you.” He turned away from the fire, from his dad, from me and Mom and walked out of the lodge, not even bothering to say anything else. He walked out into the dark, his back tense, and his head forward. I watched him leave, wondering just how he was even going to get home, whether he was even going to go home. Everything in the lodge went utterly silent. All I could hear for a long moment was my heartbeat pounding in my ears, my breaths coming fast and shallow, and my blood roaring in my veins. No one said anything at all. We all just let Jaxon walk out.

  Chapter Seven

  Bob was the first one to break the silence. “I can’t believe the nerve of him,” he said, shaking his head. I stared at Bob in shock. He couldn’t believe Jaxon’s nerve? I couldn’t believe his. Humiliating his son in front of his new family, calling him a fuckup, saying the awful things he had said; Jaxon had said terrible things too—but only after his Dad made him out to be a good-for-nothing criminal, in front of people who as far as Bob had known, barely knew him.

  “How else did you expect him to react?” I asked, the words leaving my lips before I could even think of whether or not I wanted to say them.

  “Bob, everyone’s a little bit heated right now; let’s all calm down. I’m sure Jaxon is just going home. Let’s just give him some space and enjoy the rest of our evening here—and then tomorrow we can clear everything up.” Mom was putting on her best manners, soothing Bob; I’d seen her do it a million times before with other guys, and it always worked. Bob started to calm down. In a matter of moments the two of them were joking around as if Jaxon had never even been in the room.

  I sat there in shock for a long time, just staring at my mom and my new step-dad. I couldn’t believe that they were able to just brush off how upset Jaxon had been. I just couldn’t believe it. “I need to go home,” I said quietly. Mom stopped in the midst of what she was saying and looked at me, concerned for once in the entire hellish nightmare of a vacation.

  “What, sweetie?”

  I stood up. “I’m going back to the house.”

  Bob shook his head. “You don’t know the way—you should just wait for us to finish up here, have a good time. Don’t let Jaxon spoil your night, Mia.” I scowled at him. He was going to totally ignore the situation, get drunk, and probably go home and spend the rest of the night screwing my mom without giving a second thought to the fact that he had no idea where his son was.

  “Mia, you’re upset, I understand that—it was a really difficult moment, but please calm down, have a glass of wine, and we’ll go home in a little while.” Mom was on edge. She knew she couldn’t pull the same soothing trick on me that she could on the guys she dated.

  “No. I’m going back to the house.” I grabbed my jacket and stood up. Mom tried to say something; Bob tried to say something too. But I didn’t even hear them. I threw my jacket on and walked right out of the lodge. I didn’t even have a clue of how to get back to the house. I didn’t care.

  When I stepped outside the cold hit me like the first blast of water from the showerhead. I looked around; one of the staff members of the lodge was walking towards a car in the parking area. “Hey!” I hurried over to the woman. “Look, I know this is really, really weird, but if I give you an address can you maybe give me a ride home? My parents are drunk and I just need to get out of here.” The woman glanced back towards the lodge and I saw the guilty look on her face. She’d heard the blow-up between Jaxon and Bob.

  “Yeah. Get in.” I found the address Mom had sent me in my phone and gave it to her. “That’s lucky; it’s actually on my way out.” She smiled at me. “Family shit’s always dumb. I don’t even know why Thanksgiving even exists—it’s just torture for everyone.”

  “Amen to that.” We didn’t speak again for the fifteen minute drive to Bob’s house. I wondered—I had no idea—whether Jaxon had already managed to make it home, whether he was even headed to the house. I couldn’t ask the
woman to wait for me to check—she’d already done me a huge favor just driving me home.

  “If you’re stuck like that again,” the woman said, giving me a little smile, “The snow patrol can give you a ride too.” I sighed with relief. Jaxon probably knew that; he’d gone to that mountain a bunch of times before, Bob had said at one point before the blow-up.

  “Thanks for the tip. And the ride.” The woman shrugged and gave me another grin.

  “No problem.” I hopped out of her car and she drove away. I was exhausted from my head to my toes. I walked up the driveway towards the front of the house; I realized that my board was in the SUV, along with all of my gear. I hadn’t even thought about it. At least, I thought, it would probably be relatively safe there. Mom and Bob would just bring it with them whenever they came back home.

  The front door was unlocked, so I let myself in and trudged through the living room, down the hall, straight to my bedroom. I locked the door behind me and stripped off all the layers of clothes I was wearing. I was going to take a bath, and then I was going to go to bed.

  As I sat in the water, though, everything started to hit me all at once. Bob knew about Jaxon and me. Bob was a horrible human being. Mom was married to him. Everyone knew the situation, there was no covering it up anymore. I heard Bob’s words in my head again—him saying it was revolting, disgusting, the worst thing he could think of anyone doing. If it was so bad, why had it felt good? What the hell was wrong with me?

  I sat in the bath tub and cried; I’m not at all the kind of girl who cries easily. I’ve broken my leg and managed not to shed a tear while they set it and put the cast on me. But the whole situation was just so incredibly screwed up that I couldn’t do anything else but cry. The worst part of it all was that I didn’t even know what to do. I couldn’t just stop being attracted to Jaxon; I had tried that—we’d both tried it. I couldn’t think of him as a brother. It just didn’t make any sense. He’d never been my brother until a couple of days before. We were adults by the time we had met, and we weren’t even related. But Mom had been so happy with Bob. Even if it had been a stupid decision to marry him after a few months of knowing him, I had to give her at least enough credit that she knew she wanted to be with him.

  I got out of the bathtub when I’d finished crying and dried off. I would still be sore in the morning, but maybe not as badly as I would have been without the soak. I wrapped a robe around myself and sat on the bed, pretending to watch TV. There was no one I could talk to about the whole stupid mess. All of my friends were in the frat—I wasn’t about to tell them I’d had sex with Jaxon before finding out our parents were getting married, and then again after we’d become siblings. Bob’s words hit me again and again. Gross, disgusting, revolting. He had looked at me when he had said it, too—not just Jaxon. Even though he’d pretended it hadn’t happened the minute Jaxon left, it wasn’t like any of us could ignore the situation. It was just that none of us could actually do anything about it.

  A few hours later, I was still awake, still staring at the TV without even paying attention to what was playing—some highlight reel from a snooze-fest of a baseball game from months before—when I heard knocking at my door. For a second—an instant—I hoped it would be Jaxon, telling me he’d gotten home safely, that he was sorry for what had happened at the lodge, anything. Instead it was Mom. “Sweetie,” she called through the door. “Are you still awake?” I closed my eyes.

  “Yes.” Mom sighed—I could hear her even through the door.

  “Thank god you made it home okay. How did you get home?” I opened my eyes and glanced at the door.

  “I got a ride from someone at the lodge.” I felt numb all over. I’d cried, I’d been in shock—totally overwhelmed—all night. I didn’t want to think about anything anymore.

  “Can we talk, Mia?” I shook my head, even though I knew Mom couldn’t see me. “The door’s locked. Let me in sweetie, I just want to talk.”

  “No.” I turned my back on the door, staring at the TV. “No, we can’t talk.”

  “You wanted to talk before,” Mom pointed out.

  “That was before. I don’t want to talk now. I don’t want to see your face.” I heard the soft thud; Mom’s head hitting the door.

  “Sweetie, come on, we talk about everything!” I rolled my eyes.

  “No we don’t. We didn’t talk about this before because you didn’t want to. We’re not going to talk about it now because I don’t want to.” I stopped being numb and started being angry.

  “Mia—come on! You can’t spend the whole rest of the holiday locked up in here. Talk to me, sweetie.” I closed my eyes again. It was going to be just like at the lodge—only this time it was going to be me and Mom instead of Bob and Jaxon.

  “No. I’m not talking about this. Go away!” I curled in on myself, wondering if Jaxon was listening—his room was down the hall from mine, but he might have heard Mom. He might have opened his door to hear what was going on. I remembered the different people working in the house; they might hear too. “Just go away, Mom. I’m tired and I don’t want to talk about anything with anyone.” I could still feel Mom standing there on the other side of the door, even though she was totally silent, for a long moment.

  “Okay, Sweetie. But we’re going to have to talk eventually.” I sighed as I heard her steps moving away from my door. Great, I thought. She’d go up to Bob, they’d have a fuck-fest in their room, and everything would be just as screwed up as ever, but at least they’d be happy. I reached over and turned off the light in my room, but not the TV. I curled up at the foot of the bed with one of the pillows under me and stared at the TV until I fell asleep. I wasn’t even sure what time it was, or what I had been watching when I finally went under.

  Chapter Eight

  If I had thought the next day would be better, I was definitely mistaken. I woke up aching from my neck down to my ankles—I’d taken more falls than I thought. I was sore all over, and my head was throbbing. I couldn’t get the fight out of my mind. I lay in bed for a long time, staring at the ceiling, awake but unwilling to move. My stomach was growling, but I didn’t dare to leave my room for a long time; my mom might be around, and I didn’t want to have to deal with her. I didn’t want to have to deal with anyone.

  I sneaked out of my room around ten, peeking my head out to make sure I couldn’t hear any sign that any of my incredibly screwed up family were around. I hurried into the kitchen and grabbed things out of the fridge, scurrying back to my room to eat. I sat in my bed and picked at my food, flipping through the channels until I found something I wanted to watch. I played around on my computer, and I even fiddled with some of my homework.

  My mom tried to talk to me again; when I didn’t show up for lunch, she knocked on my door. “Mia, are you okay, sweetie?” I sighed.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Just tired.”

  “Bob and I were going shopping—did you want to come with?” I rolled my eyes at the question. The very last thing I would have wanted to do in that moment was to go shopping with my new step-father and my mom, the night after they found out I’d slept with my step-brother.

  “No. I’ll stay here.” I felt my mom hesitating on the other side of the door. I knew what she was worried about; she didn’t want Jaxon and me to have any time alone in the house together. “I’m going to get some homework done, maybe take another bath. I took a lot of stupid falls yesterday and I’m sore all over.”

  “Rest up then, Sweetie. Bob and I will get you something fun.” I rolled my eyes again. I didn’t want anything from Bob or my mom. I wanted to be left alone. I wanted to go back to school and forget the whole shitty week had ever happened.

  “Sounds good, Mom,” I said instead of what I really thought. I just wanted her to leave. She hesitated a moment longer—I could sense her on the other side of the door. But a minute later she was gone, her footsteps moving away from my door.

  I spent the rest of the day in my room alone, sneaking out to get food whenever I go
t hungry. At first it was kind of nice to be on my own, doing nothing; ever since I’d been a teenager I was always doing something—classes, working out, playing sports, snowboarding or skateboarding, hanging out with people. But after lunch the afternoon seemed to drag on forever, and I started to feel lonely. All of my friends were hanging out with their family, or they were doing things with hometown friends. I was bored; there was nothing good on TV, there was not much to do in my bedroom.

  Mom and Bob were still wherever they ended up—I thought maybe they decided to make a whole day of it, grab dinner away from the house. I definitely couldn’t blame them for wanting to stay away from the whole insane business. If I’d had a chance to get away from the house by myself, I’d definitely be miles and miles away. But I was so bored, so lonely; I couldn’t make myself sit around anymore. I peeked my head out through the door again and checked to make sure no one was around; I heard the not-quite-silence of the household staff, but not my mom or Bob, or even Jaxon. I decided it would be safe enough to wander around for a bit.

  I put on my jacket and went outside, roaming around the different areas that surrounded the house—the basketball courts, the tennis court, the frozen-over gardens with the bleak-looking pond. It was too cold to stay out for very long, so I found myself going back in, wandering through the rooms. I grabbed a snack in the kitchen—leftover turkey and a few pinches of leftover stuffing, with a forkful of green bean casserole—but the sound of some of the housekeeper or someone else who worked in the mansion sent me running away again. I wondered if everyone in the house knew about Jaxon and me by now; whether they were laughing among themselves about it, or thought we were disgusting.

  I started to head back to my room, but I couldn’t bear the idea of spending hours more by myself, doing nothing, staring at the TV and watching stupid videos online. I headed down the hallway, remembering the swimming pool I’d used the first morning I’d been there—that was as safe a place as any, I thought. I wouldn’t swim, but I could at least put my feet in the water and think about things for a while.