by Lila Price
Wicked Stepbrother (Book Three)
Lila Price
Favor Ford Publishing
Contents
Copyright
NOTE
Want To Be In The Know?
WICKED STEPBROTHER (PART THREE)
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Epilogue
SPIKED
SPIKED (A Sports Romance) by Harper James
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Epilogue
Copyright © 2017 by Favor Ford Publishing
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
NOTE
This edition of Wicked Stepbrother contains the following bonus content: SPIKED by Harper James.
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WICKED STEPBROTHER (PART THREE)
BY LILA PRICE
1
Our parents are downstairs, their voices coming closer, and here I am, totally naked under the sheets with Tristan.
His bedroom door is wide open, and there’s no time to think about why my mom and my stepdad are home so early from their trip, because Tristan has already pulled the covers all the way up to hide every inch of my body. In the next second, he’s out of the bed, yanking open drawers and pulling out clothes.
“Be right down!” he yells.
As he gets into his jeans and prepares to put on a T-shirt, he sees the complete terror that must be in my eyes. He holds a finger to his lips, telling me to be quiet. He has this under control, even though my pulse is about to rip me apart at the possibility of being caught together like this by our own damned parents.
I want to believe that everything will be okay—that my mom and my stepdad will stay where they are and not come upstairs to see me in Tristan’s rumpled bed or to glance in the hallway bathroom where our clothes are strewn all over the floor, that I won’t have to witness the shock on their faces if they find out what I’ve been doing with my stepbrother…
Tristan moves out the door, and with one more unreadable look, closes it behind him. I hear his voice, so calm that I’m tempted to think that there’s truly nothing wrong here.
“You’re home early.”
“Well, that’s some kind of welcome,” his dad says, and it sounds like he’s already coming up the stairs. “The last leg of our trip was cancelled because our accommodations fell through.”
I realize that I’m frozen where I am, even before I hear that my mom is also close…too close. They’re definitely upstairs. In the hallway. Right outside the door.
“We decided to come back and surprise you kids with a family trip instead,” my mom says, “seeing as you and Sosie are both home together for the first time in a long while.”
I’m afraid that if I move even an inch, I’ll give myself away.
How will Tristan get them back downstairs so I can run to my own room? Are they close enough to see that my door is open and my bed is perfectly made—a dead giveaway that I’m not in it?
Right on cue my stepdad says, “Where’s Sosie?”
Sosie’s in the last place you’d ever think to find her.
As Tristan starts spinning some kind of lie about why I had an early morning, my heartbeat plugs my ears, and I can’t hear the rest. My heart lodges in my throat. Panic gnaws at me as I creep out from under the sheets. God, if I make any sound whatsoever it’ll tip them off, and nothing will ever be the same again. My mom will scream like she’s in a horror movie, and my stepdad will murder Tristan, and the looks on their faces will kill me, because they won’t understand that what Tristan and I have is right.
Praying that the bed springs won’t creak, I carefully inch off the mattress. I softly plant my foot on the floor. No sound. So far so good, and I dare to take my first step.
Since last night’s skirt and blouse are in the bathroom, should I pull on something of Tristan’s from his closet? But even if I do have the chance to make it out his door, I still might get caught on the way to my room, so wouldn’t my parents wonder why I’m wearing my stepbrother’s clothes?
It’s either that or have them ask questions about why I have on nothing at all.
Outside, Tristan’s asking them about Europe, and I keep my gaze on the closet as if it’s a bomb shelter. I take another step closer to it, then another. A second plan comes to mind: if I can just get to the closet, I can hide inside.
That would give Tristan time to get our parents back downstairs, and I’d be free and clear to get myself together in my own room. My mind is racing too much to figure out how I’d explain to them that I’ve suddenly appeared out of thin air in the house, because now I’m reaching for a dark long-sleeved shirt that I’ve never seen Tristan wear. As I grab the material, the hanger clangs.
Shit.
There’s a pause in the conversation outside.
I hold my breath, closing my eyes. Please start talking again, please, please, please…
Now Tristan is asking them about the food overseas, and I keep holding my breath. When the danger seems to pass, I slowly exhale, taking the shirt from the hanger and slipping it on. I grab the first pair of pants that I see and pull those on, too, making no noise. The material swallows me up, so I take one of Tristan’s belts off a hook on the wall and put it on. I start to slip inside the closet to wait this out.
My heart thumps as I begin to shut the closet door out of pure paranoia that my mom and my stepdad will come busting into the room. After closing one painful inch of the door, I finally start to let out a sigh of relief. One more inch, then another, and I’m almost there—
A ringtone blasts through the air, and I gasp, jumping back from the door, causing it to rattle.
Beyonce singing about single ladies.
I’m the only person in the house with that ringtone.
The conversation from the stairway stops again, and as my pulse lurches, I dart through the opening between the closet door and wall, fumbling for the phone I’d left on the table next to Tristan’s bed after bringing it to the room last night.
I grasp the phone, miraculously silencing it, the lyrics still echoing through the air.
Still no conversation, just the sound of blood tearing through my veins.
Finally, my stepdad says, “Isn’t that Sosie’s cell phone?”
Tristan’s voice sounds so steady. “Guess she left it here by accident.”
“In your bedroom?” my mother asks.
Even as Tristan starts saying something about my hanging around with him in his room last night and bugging him about a song he was playing, my stomach turns sour. The game is up.
And the longer I leave Tristan out there to lie for us, the worse this is going to get.
Shame rushes through me. I can feel it all over my skin as I stand up and tell myself to remember that Tristan and I were meant to be and no one can make me feel any other way, not even our parents. That no matter how devastated they are, they’ll take one look at us together and realize that they can’t fight us.
Dear God.
It’s the longest walk of my life to the door, and time seems to slow down as I open it to face my family.
The first thing I see is Tristan, and there’s something in his eyes that’s dark and cautious. I realize that his concern is for me, not him, and when he clenches his hands into fists by his sides, I can tell that he’s readying his defenses. Then I see his dad, the laugh lines around his eyes fading into stunned creases as he realizes that I’m dressed in Tristan’s clothing while emerging from his son’s bedroom.
Then my mom, with her perfectly bobbed hair and tasteful summer dress. Mom, who seems as if she doesn’t understand what she’s witnessing until that growing sense of horror I dreaded takes over her gaze.
I know I should confess—what the hell else is there to say?—but then I hear myself babbling.
“I didn’t hear you guys come in. Earbuds.” I point to my ears, then the phone I’m still holding. “While Tristan was sleeping, I decided to download a song from his computer since mine is on the fritz, and he didn’t know I was in there…”
Both parents have gone pale, and it looks like they’re going to throw up.
Tristan hasn’t said a word.
Time has slowed down even more, an accident that’s happening while I can’t look away from the damage: metal crashing against metal, the sight of shattered glass flying through the air and cutting each one of us. Tristan is so tense that I wonder if he’s feeling every cut more keenly than anyone else.
But then my stepdad lowers his head and mutters, “Fuck.”
Maybe it’s my imagination, but Tristan jerks, as if a wire hanger has just hit his skin. But then he’s tenser than ever, like he’s not going to show that he felt it. My heart constricts for him.
When I see my mom burying her face in her hands, I start to speak again. “This isn’t—”
She lifts her head. “What it looks like?” Now her face might be even redder than mine.
“Goddammit, Tristan,” his dad says.
If Tristan’s walls weren’t fully up and prepared for battle before, they sure are now. His voice is like barbed wire as he says, “Looks like that family trip you mentioned is off.”
My stepdad raises his head. “You’re being flippant? Do you have any idea what the hell you’ve done?” He steps forward, lifting his finger at Tristan, who stands his ground. I can see a fight coming, and I take a step toward them.
But Mom urges my stepdad back toward her. “Tom, no! Please!”
I’m at Tristan’s side, my hand on his arm. As I look into his eyes, I plead with him. Don’t do anything you’ll regret, Tristan. We can handle this…
The fury in his eyes cools. I’ve somehow gotten to him, and his gaze stays on mine as my mom soothes my stepdad. Tristan places his hand over mine, his touch warm, traveling into my skin, below it, becoming a part of me.
As I realize the effect I have on him, the way I’m somehow able to both incite him and calm him depending on the circumstances, I know without a doubt that I’m in love, and maybe I always was.
Nothing can tear us apart, I think, not even this.
At least, I think that until I hear my mom start to speak, anger slivering her voice.
“Take your hands off of her!” she demands.
Her rage stuns me, and I link my fingers with Tristan’s.
“Mom…” I start.
“Don’t ‘Mom’ me.”
I’ve never seen her like this; she’s a different person with a different face.
My stepdad is gripping the railing. “Goddammit, Tristan.”
Why are they yelling at Tristan when I had a part in this, too?
My mom isn’t letting up. “I said to take your hands off of her!”
Slowly, Tristan unlinks his fingers from mine, and as I look up at him, I see fresh wounds on him. They have nothing to do with the cuts and bruises on his face and everything to do with his eyes, which seem battered and beaten in a soul-deep way.
“Carissa,” he says quietly to my mom. “I—”
“There’s nothing you can say to explain this.” As Mom glares at him, I can see bruises in her, too. Betrayal from the stepson she’d taken under her wing. “What were you thinking?”
No one says anything for the longest moment. Tristan doesn’t even defend himself. Then I hear my voice butting into the silence.
“This wasn’t just Tristan! Why are you on his case and not mine?”
No answer. Then I look at my parents, really look. They’re both focused on Tristan, their disappointment in him so profound that it reveals everything. The truth is a shock as I absorb it.
In their eyes, he’s always been a bad influence, and it’s only now that’s he’s finally lived up to their low expectations.
It’s as if they’ve thrown the hardest punch of all at him, and it hasn’t just landed on him—I can feel it in my gut, too.
His dad starts to walk down the stairs, his back to us, but then he stops and turns around. His eyes are watery.
“It isn’t enough that you wallow in your own pain, is it? Now you have to spread it around. Damn you, Tristan. Goddamn you.”
Tristan explodes. “She’s too good for me. That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it? You think I don’t already know that?”
Nausea grips my stomach. He’s wrong, so wrong.
His dad is walking away again, and Tristan braces his hands on the railing to talk down to him. “I’m a dirt bag and you’ve always known it. You don’t want Sosie being dragged down by me. Say it!”
Just as it seems my stepdad is about to do just that, my mom steps in. “Tristan, how could you?” she asks.
He closes his eyes and lowers his head, his shoulders hunching as he grips the railing.
Mom’s voice is wracked with hurt. “She’s got such a bright future, and before now, she didn’t make bad decisions or get off track.”
My stepdad adds, “The fact that she’s your damned stepsister is awful enough, but it’s even worse that you’re ruining her life, too.”
Maybe Tristan always thought all of this about himself, but I can see on his face that actually hearing it from the people he loves most in life is entirely different. As that lost look I’ve seen in his eyes so many times before takes him over again, I reach out to him. I don’t care if my parents will give me hell for it, because bringing Tristan back from this edge is all that matters.
But it’s too late. Before I can touch him, I see that the demons have taken him over, the darkness simmering in his gaze.
With all the deceptive calmness that he’s always worn like a mask, he grins. “So that’s how it is then.”
No one says anything except for me.
“Tristan, you know none of that’s true,” I say quickly. But my voice sounds hollow.
“But it is, Sosie.” He looks down at my parents, and even though they might not be able to see the way he’s falling apart, I can. “Now we know what I really am—a dirt bag. A bad, bad influence, just like you thought I was, too.”
“But—”
“Fuck this,” he says, brushing past me.
He moves down the stairs with his shoulders stiff, and Mom shrinks aside to let him pass, her gaze averted. His dad does the same, and what hurts the most is the way Tristan won’t even look up at me, the one person who’ll always be there for him, as he heads for the door.
As he slams his way outside, I glare at my parents. They won’t meet my gaze, either. But that only makes it easier for me to bolt down the stairs after Tristan, wanting him to see that, even if he thinks the world is against him, there
’s still one person on his side.
One who always will be.
2
Somehow I have the presence of mind to shove my feet into a pair of flip-flops that I’d ditched near the door, and after I go outside, I catch Tristan in his car. He’s yanking on the extra pair of boots he obviously keeps in there, and when he sees me, he goes back to what he’s doing with a look so cold that it nearly freezes me out.
“I’m coming with you,” I say, opening the passenger door and jumping inside. I realize surreally that I’m still holding my phone, as if it’s the only thing I’ll need besides Tristan as I take off with him wherever he wants to go. Just us. We don’t need anyone else.
“Get out, Sosie.”
His back is to me. The beautiful back that my hands have caressed. The back that he’s now turned on me in his anger.
This time, though, he’s not angry with me—he’s raging against our parents, and obviously against the world.
“The worst is over,” I say, trying so hard to be optimistic. “We’ve been caught, and now we don’t have to worry.” My laugh is all nerves. “You know what the best part is? I know now that I don’t care what my mom thinks.”
“Sosie—”
“I’m choosing you, Tristan. I want to be with you even if our parents hate us for it.”
His shoulders move as he laughs harshly. That’s the only sign of life I can see from him, and it’s enough to make my stomach sink. But I’ve gotten through to Tristan before, so why can’t I do it again?
“Tristan,” I whisper. “I don’t believe a word of what they said. I believe in you, heart and soul. Don’t you know that?”
At his silence, I rest my hand on his back, and when he moves away to stand outside the car, I jerk back.
“Weren’t you listening?” he asks. “I’m scum, Sosie.”
Isn’t he hearing me? I’m standing up for the two of us, and all he can focus on is what they said about him. Doesn’t it matter that I won’t ever lose faith in him?