Dare: A Stepbrother Romance (6 page)

“I heard people used to go missing in the woods in this area all the time. About seventy years ago, a group of hunters went into a forest not far from here to hunt some deer, and only one of them ever returned. He was in shock, and he never spoke again. Ended up killing himself not long after.”

I rolled my eyes. “Bullshit. I think I would’ve heard that legend by now, considering how long this land has been in Mom’s family, but nice try.”

“Damn. Thought you were easy to scare.”

We paused and cast our eyes around, but we couldn’t see anyone out here, even with the moonlight slicing through the night sky, illuminating the area for us.

“I guess it must have been the wind rustling the trees,” I said. “There’s nothing here, and the crying sound we heard was probably just a bird.”

Drew put a finger to his lips. “Shh. You hear that?” he whispered.

More twigs snapping. Every hair on the back of my neck suddenly stood on end, and I gulped back hot tears of fear.

“Drew…” I said. “We should go back to the cabin. Now.”

There was another strange sound all of a sudden, and my heart almost stopped. It was like a mixture of grunts and clicks, and it sounded like something from Alien vs Predator.

“What the hell was that?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

Drew crept forward, and I followed him, my eyes wide as I looked around in every possible direction.

“Hello?” Drew called out. “Is someone out here?”

We’d reached a small clearing, and suddenly two deer dashed past us, startled by Drew’s words. One of them was making that same strange sound we’d heard. Of course. I hadn’t seen a deer in ages, and I’d totally forgotten that they could make some really weird sounds.

“See? No serial killers and no Sasquatches,” Drew said. “Just deer. Anyway, let’s…”

He was cut off midsentence by a nocturnal bird swooping down right past our heads, giving us the shock of our lives, and I screamed and lost my balance. As I flailed around, I tried to grab the nearest thing I could to keep myself standing, and I ended up grabbing at Drew’s T-shirt and pulling him down to the ground as I fell. I landed on my back on a soft bed of leaves and moss, and Drew landed right on top of me. His face was only inches from mine, and he murmured breathlessly.

“You okay?”

“Uh-huh.”

He was still right on top of me, and he was making absolutely no effort to get back up. His mouth was close to mine, too close, and suddenly it happened. He kissed me.

CHAPTER SEVEN

DREW

Lying here on the ground with my face only a breath away from Sophie’s, I could see the expression changing in her eyes, even in the dim moonlight. First shock from falling over, then desire as she realized I was still on top of her. She subconsciously bit her lower lip, and I almost lost it right then and there as her eyes danced over my face, searching for affirmation.

And then I did lose it. I couldn’t help myself.

My lips crushed against her mouth. Her lips parted under my embrace, and she almost pulled away, but something kept her glued to me. I slid my hands under her back as my tongue snaked into her mouth, and she let out an incoherent murmur as I deepened our kiss. Her whole body trembled under my touch, and despite the cold air, every part of me felt scorching hot. Christ, she was perfect.

Suddenly it all felt wrong.

I pulled away, unable to keep it going. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to; hell, I wanted to do a lot more than kiss her…but it didn’t feel right. I’d been pretending to be nice to her for the last week all for the sake of Caleb’s stupid dare, and it had only just struck me how utterly pathetic it was. I was an ass. I’d been using the dare as a smokescreen to hide my true feelings, and now I couldn’t go through with it. She was more than a stupid dare to me, and she was more than a stepsister. I wanted her to want me for who I really was, not for who I’d been pretending to be. If she was ever going to kiss me back or do anything else with me, I didn’t want it to be because I’d tricked her into doing so.

She looked up at me when I jerked away, her eyes wide with confusion.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, getting up and extending a hand to help her to her feet. “I shouldn’t have done that. Imagine what our parents would think.”

Truthfully, I didn’t give two shits what they might think, but I needed an excuse for now. She didn’t meet my eyes, but she did reply.

“Yeah. I’m kinda seeing Dan now anyway,” she said quietly. “That was a mistake.”

“Yep. Won’t happen again.”

We trudged back to the cabin in silence, and as we stepped inside, I looked at her.

“So…Dan, huh?”

“Yes. We’ve been on a few dates,” she said. In the light of the cabin, I could see the color rising in her cheeks.

“So you aren’t gonna listen to me when I tell you he’s a jerk?”

“How do you know he’s a jerk?” she said, her eyes narrowing.

“I don’t know him very well. He’s more of an acquaintance. But I know enough to tell that he’s a sleazy little fuckface.”

“How?”

“Just a feeling I get from him.”

“So I should stop seeing him because of a
feeling
my stepbrother has?” she asked, folding her arms.

I sighed. “You can do whatever you want, Sophie. It’s your decision.”

But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to check up on Dan to make sure he isn’t up to anything shady
, I silently added.

Awkwardness over everything that had just happened pervaded the atmosphere, and I tried to think of something to change the subject. “Well, all that excitement over Bigfoot has suddenly made me fucking hungry again. What about you? Do you wanna eat, or are you just going to go to bed?” I said.

One thing I remembered from when we were kids was that being scared made her hungry. I had no idea why, but it just did. Her Dad had been a fucking asshole, and every time I ran out to her playhouse to comfort her when he was arguing with her Mom, I’d made sure to take a bag of snacks. Munching on popcorn or something sugary seemed to calm her down, and it was the least I could do. Really, what I wanted to do was go into her house and beat the shit out of her Dad, but an eight year old boy going up against a fully-grown man wasn’t exactly the best idea.

“Yeah, I could eat,” she said.

I figured something warm would be best, given the cool temperature up here at night, and I hunted around in the cupboards for something quick and easy.

“How does mac and cheese sound?”

“Sounds good,” she said, taking a seat at one of the tables. “But you’re making it. I made most of the dinner tonight!”

I grinned. “I was going to make it anyway, Your Highness.”

I set about heating it up, but I ran into trouble when it was time to serve it.

“There’s no plates left in the cupboard,” I said, hunting around.

“I think they’re all in the dishwasher from earlier,” she said.

I looked down at the dishwasher, and the damned thing was still going.

“Oh well. We’ll have to make do with these,” I said, opening another cupboard and pulling out two wine glasses I’d seen earlier.

“Why are there wine glasses here?” she asked. “I’ve never seen them before.”

“Maybe some of the volunteers drink to cope with having to be around kids all day,” I said jokingly, scooping up a mound of mac and cheese into a glass for her.

She wrinkled her nose. “You really expect me to eat mac and cheese out of a wine glass?”

“It’s the classy way to do it,” I replied. “Trust me, I went to a private school.”

“All the private schools in the world couldn’t teach you class,” she said, poking her tongue out at me before digging into her food.

She had a point. Just because a school was expensive as fuck didn’t mean it taught any decent behavior to its students. The boarding school my father had sent me to was basically a dumping ground for bad rich kids. A lot of godawful shit went down there. For example, in the course of one year, the following happened: One girl gave five guys chlamydia, another girl had a three-way with two guys in the campus chapel (a real Devil’s threesome, huh?), four guys got high, stole a teacher’s car and crashed it, and three others beat up another kid so badly he was hospitalized for a month. Oh, and six students also got together and had an orgy in a classroom. Definitely not the best environment for a well-rounded education. My Dad could have afforded a better school for me, but he hadn’t wanted to bother doing so. Apparently I’d been acting out too much at my previous school to be worth sending to one of the very top schools in the country.

I hadn’t done too badly since I graduated a year ago, though. I’d done heaps of work for him at his company, and I’d also toyed with modeling all through my senior year upon the suggestion of an old friend of mine whose mother was a famous photographer. After the first proper shoot, things had picked up, and this year I’d been offered a contract with an agency in the city. My agent wasn’t the best, but she’d managed to get me a couple of decent gigs, including the billboard ad. I was also meant to be flying out to Australia in a month to shoot some magazine thing, but I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to go. Call me crazy, but I kinda wanted to savor the time I had left with Sophie around before she headed off to California for college.

“So what’s with all the tattoos?” she asked, peering at me over the top of her cheese-stained wine glass. “Trying to look like a bad boy?”

“What makes you think I’m not?”

“I don’t know. I kinda thought you were, but then I saw you today with all those kids. You’re secretly still nice, aren’t you? Just like when we were children.”

I hesitated. I’d only agreed to come up to this summer camp and help out as part of my plan to pretend to be nice and entice her, but the fumbled kiss earlier had made me realize that wasn’t exactly what this was all about. I’d actually enjoyed spending time with her and the kids out here. The way I’d interacted with them had been real. I hadn’t even had to try to fake it. It was genuinely fun, and what she’d said earlier about this land having more than financial worth was dead right.

Her mother was lucky that my business-minded Dad hadn’t already tried to talk her into selling the land to his company so he could develop it, because I was willing to bet they’d both make more than a pretty penny from that scheme, and it was exactly the kind of thing he’d do. Not that he needed any more money.

“This one’s my mother’s name,” I said, smoothly changing the subject back to my tattoos.

I rolled up my sleeve to show her the name on my shoulder. Elizabeth.

“You know, you never talked about her when we were kids,” Sophie said. “What happened to her?”

“She died when I was two. She was pregnant with my little brother, and she had really high blood pressure. Neither of them made it.”

“Shit. I’m so sorry. I had no idea. For some reason I always got the impression from your Dad that she just left.”

I shrugged. “He kinda saw it that way, honestly. He was really cut up after she died, and for a long time he blamed her for leaving him alone with a kid after she died, not that she could help it. It wasn’t his fault he saw things that way, though. Depression can fuck you up, I guess.”

“Yeah.”

We were silent for a while, mulling over our own thoughts.

“So your Dad,” I finally said. “He went missing from his boat a year after I moved away, right?”

“Yep.”

“Sorry if this offends you, but thank fuck for that.”

She shook her head. “It doesn’t offend me, don’t worry. He was a prick. I still feel really bad for saying it, though. I was talking about it to an old friend ages ago, and she made me feel like a total monster for not missing him at all. She said he was my father, and I have to love him no matter what he did.”

“Yeah, well, she wasn’t there to see the shit he did,” I said, once again remembering Sophie cowering in my arms in the backyard playhouse after the bastard had put out a cigarette on her leg. A lot of kids in my school had taken up smoking to be cool when I was around fifteen or so, but every time I so much as looked at a cigarette, it reminded me of that moment and I felt sick to my stomach. Some things you just don’t forget.

“I better take a shower and go to bed,” she said, standing up a moment later. “I still have twigs in my hair from when we…um, from when I fell over in the woods.”

“Okay,” I said, grabbing our wine glasses and walking over to the sink. “I’ll clean these. You go shower.”

She smiled and said goodnight before walking out the door towards the other cabin, and I watched her out of the window until she’d gone inside. There was a funny twinge in my guts as I looked at her, and strange emotions took hold of my mind; emotions that I’d been trying to suppress for a long time now. It had been in a childish, innocent way all those years ago, but I’d loved her back then…and now I was pretty sure I still did.

CHAPTER EIGHT

SOPHIE

I was back in the city now, and I was on Skype with Cerie and Lana as they helped me plan out an outfit for my sixth date with Dan. The kiss with Drew had only happened a week ago, and I’d tried to push it as far from my mind as possible. We’d both agreed that it was a mistake, and I didn’t want to be the kind of girl who cheated on the guy she was seeing, even if Dan and I hadn’t exactly made things official when it happened.

But damn…it hadn’t felt like a mistake at the time, as much as I’d tried to convince myself it was.

“What do you think of this?” I said, holding up a crimson dress to my webcam.

“It’s cute,” Lana said.

“It’s more than cute, it’s sexy,” Cerie said. “But if you wear a little red dress like that on a date, I think Dan’s gonna be expecting a lot more than a goodnight kiss afterwards. Seriously, if I was a guy and saw you wearing that, I’d go and buy myself a stack of condoms and book a hotel room.”

I laughed. “Okay, red dress is out then. How about that dark purple one I bought last time we went shopping?”

Dan and I hadn’t gone any further than a few cuddles and kisses after our dinner and movie dates, and I’d been pleased when he’d stopped referring to it as us just ‘hanging out’. He’d made it pretty clear that he thought I was something special, and I’d completely changed my tune on the virginity issue. I’d been so wrong that night when I went out clubbing with my friends. I didn’t want to just throw it away with some random hot guy anymore. I wanted it to be special.

If and when the time came with Dan, I wasn’t going to chicken out like I had that night with Drew, because this time I’d know it was the right thing to do. But not tonight. We hadn’t really been seeing each other for long enough for me to know beyond a shadow of doubt that it was right, as much as I’d liked spending time with him.

I decided on the purple dress, and before I headed out for the evening, I went into the kitchen to get a glass of water. Drew was sitting at the table playing on his cell phone, and he looked up at me with an approving expression as I walked in.

“Where are you going dressed like that, young lady?” he said in a joking tone.

I rolled my eyes. “Funny. Dan’s taking me to Rida.”

Rida was one of our city’s most exclusive restaurants, and I’d been thrilled when Dan told me where he’d made the reservation.

“He’s pulling out all the stops, huh?” Drew said, his face darkening slightly at the mention of Dan.

After the camp, we’d reached a tentative level of friendship again, but I still wasn’t one hundred percent sure I trusted him. The way he’d gone from being a douche to suddenly being nice in the last couple of weeks had set off my spidey-senses, and I didn’t believe that anyone could change their tune so fast. I still had my suspicions that he was up to something, but the awkward kiss we’d shared had confused me even more. If he was only being nice to try and hook up with me, then why had he pulled away and said it was a mistake?

Maybe he was going for the long con. Maybe he’d only done that to make me view him as a nice guy, when in reality he didn’t think it was a mistake at all. Or maybe I was just being paranoid.

“All right, I’m heading out,” I said, putting my glass on the sink a moment later. “What are you up to tonight, by the way?”

He answered as I stuffed my cell phone and keys into my purse.

“Dunno, might be catching up with an old friend. Anyway, have fun on your
date.
”

The way he accentuated the word ‘date’ set my teeth on edge, but I fixed a sweet smile to my face instead of letting him know that it annoyed me.

“Thanks. See ya later.”

I felt his eyes on my back as I walked out of the kitchen, but I didn’t turn around.

***

Rida was just as nice as I’d heard, and I looked around at all the other restaurant patrons as Dan sipped at his drink.

“Is it just me, or is everyone here really good-looking?” I asked. Even the wait staff were attractive, and I felt slightly bad about my thighs as I watched a slim, leggy woman pass by our table.

Dan grinned. “Not as good as you,” he said, reaching over and patting my hand.

I smiled back at him, already feeling better. I’d been trying to be less insecure for the last few weeks, but it was hard sometimes, especially when I was surrounded by model lookalikes.

“Back in a sec,” he said. “Need to use the bathroom.”

As I waited for him to return, I saw a familiar face out of the corner of my eye. Drew. What the hell was he doing here? I turned to get a better look and noticed that he was strutting in with a girl beside him. She was a slim brunette with elfin features that made her look like a modern-day Audrey Hepburn, and I felt an odd pang of jealousy in my stomach as I looked at her.

Drew spotted us and headed over. “Isn’t this a coincidence?” he said, smirk affixed to his face.

I gritted my teeth before replying. “No, not really. I told you I was coming here tonight.”

“Did you? Hm, I must’ve forgotten.”

Bullshit. I’d only told him forty-five minutes ago. I had no idea how he’d even got a reservation on such short notice, but I guess being a hot billboard model had something to do with it. What I did know was that he’d come here to get on my nerves. Why else would he have so conveniently picked this restaurant? What the hell was he playing at?

The girl smiled warmly and stuck her hand out. “You must be Drew’s stepsister,” she said. “I’m Ana.”

I accepted her hand and tried my best to smile back at her even though I was mad at Drew for purposely intruding on my date. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too. I’ve heard a lot about you. Drew and I are old friends,” she explained.

My shoulders sagged with relief as I realized they were just friends, but I couldn’t figure out why. He could go on dates if he wanted. It was none of my business. Why should I care?

Drew clapped his hand on her back. “Yep, Ana used to date my best friend from high school.”

“And then he cheated on me, so Drew decided he’d rather be friends with me instead of him,” Ana chimed in.

“No shit,” Drew said. “Fuck cheaters.”

He gave me a pointed look as he said that last part, but I had no idea why. Was he making a dig at me for kissing him back the other night, even though I’d been seeing Dan?

“Yeah, fuck ‘em,” Ana said before putting her hand over her mouth. “Oops. Probably shouldn’t talk like that in a place like this.”

I smiled at her, and as Dan returned, she and Drew turned to face him. Dan’s face suddenly lost some of its color, and Ana’s eyes hazel widened.

“Dan! What are you doing here?” she asked.

“Just here with my friend Sophie. How about you?” he replied in a nonchalant tone.

My heart sank a little as he described me as his ‘friend’. We’d only been dating for a couple of weeks, but it still stung considering how on our last few dates he’d gone out of his way to tell me I was special and really meant something to him.

“Does Zoe know you take your friends to such nice restaurants?” Ana said, a teasing tone in her voice.

Dan’s face was completely white now, and I had a terrible feeling I knew where this was going.

“Who’s Zoe?” I asked in a small voice, and the smile vanished from Ana’s face.

“Wait, I thought you guys were friends,” she said, throwing an accusatory stare at Dan. “If you’re friends, then how the hell has she never heard of Zoe? Zoe as in my best friend and your
girlfriend?
”

She looked back at me as Dan didn’t respond. “Oh my god. You had no idea, did you?”

I shook my head, unable to say a word. I was afraid I’d burst into tears if I did. Dan the seemingly wonderful guy had a girlfriend. Apparently I’d just been some sort of side-piece. I’d been feeling guilty about kissing Drew back for all of five seconds at the camp, yet Dan had been seeing someone else the whole time behind my back.

Dan stood up. “Look, I can explain…”

Ana cut him off. “Save it, asshole. I’m calling Zoe right now.”

She whipped out her cell phone, and Dan immediately smacked it right out of her hand, causing every other diner in the restaurant to look over at us with their eyes wide.

Dan turned his attention towards Drew. “You fucking prick,” he said. “You did this on purpose, didn’t you? This is your fault.”

“Sure, man, keep telling yourself that. It’s
my
fault that you’re a cheating asshole.”

Dan’s hands balled into fists, and Drew straightened his shoulders and rose to his full height, towering over Dan’s five foot ten frame. “You gonna hit me?” he said. “Go on. I dare you.”

I could see the restaurant manager making a beeline for us. Ana grabbed Drew’s shirt and tried to yank him back. “He’s not worth it,” she said, glaring at Dan. “Let’s get out of here.”

I was still sitting, seemingly frozen, and Ana grabbed my arm, gently pulling me to my feet. “Come on,” she said.

As we headed out the exit, Dan stormed past us, not even bothering to look back, and more tears welled up in my eyes.

“If you ever try to screw with my stepsister again, I’ll fucking wreck you, you sack of shit!” Drew called out after him. Dan quickened his pace and soon vanished behind another building.

“Ana, would you mind catching an Uber home?” Drew continued as we reached the parking lot. “I should take Sophie home.”

She nodded. “Sure. I think I should go see Zoe and tell her what the hell just happened before Dan gets into her head and tries to deny it.”

She patted me on the shoulder and then headed off, and Drew looked at me and motioned towards his car. “C’mon, get in.”

Suddenly I wasn’t sad over being played by Dan, I was angry. Angry at Drew. I knew I was probably misdirecting my emotions, but I was so mad that I wanted to punch him.

“How could you do that?” I asked, my face turning hot.

“Huh? Do what? Save you from dating a fucking tool?”

“No, it’s not that. It’s the fact that you obviously
knew
what he was up to, and you never told me. I even asked you the other night why you thought he was a jerk, and you said you just ‘had a feeling’.”

He put up his hands. “Relax. I only just found out he had a girlfriend earlier today. I was chatting to Ana, and she suddenly started going on about this dreamy guy her best friend is dating. She told me his name and some other details and I put two and two together.”

“So you’ve known all day,” I said, crossing my arms. “And yet you chose to let me and Ana know what he was up to by staging a huge scene in public. You had to humiliate me in front of an entire restaurant just to make your point!”

He had the good grace to look slightly ashamed. “Look, I knew you wouldn’t believe me if I just came and told you in private.”

“Bullshit.”

“Well, would you have believed me?” he asked, his eyes darkening.

I hesitated. I guess he kinda had a point. If he’d tried to tell me in person, I probably wouldn’t have believed him. I might have just thought he was making stuff up and trying to get me away from Dan for his own selfish ends. But still, embarrassing me in front of an entire restaurant was a pretty nasty way to reveal the truth to me.

“It’s just…I thought we were kinda getting back on track to being friends again, and then you go and do this!” I said. “Everyone back there was staring at me like I was a total moron! Do you know what that felt like?”

He shook his head and sighed. “I guess this is what I get for trying to do the right thing for someone I care about.”

“Oh? How’s the weather up there on your high horse?”

He took a step closer, towering over me. “Are you seriously gonna keep being a bitch? You should be angry at that fucking prick for stringing you along like that, not me. In fact, you should be thanking me for showing you who he really was!”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” I said before getting in his car and looking out the window, ignoring him as he got in the driver’s side.

We drove in silence, and when we were home I got out of his car as fast as I could, slamming the door behind me and then running inside. I heard him come into the house behind me, and he called out after me as I headed upstairs.

“You’re welcome!”

Asshole.

I threw my purse down and then saw that my Mom had put some of today’s mail on my desk. I hadn’t noticed it earlier in my haste to get ready for my ill-fated date. Expecting to only see more college-related stuff, I absentmindedly flicked through the stack. One letter in particular made me raise my eyebrows in a quizzical expression. It was a small white envelope with my name and address printed on it in block letters, only there was no stamp or postmark. That meant someone had come directly to the house and slipped it in the mailbox for me. Strange.

My blood ran cold as I opened the envelope and scanned the single page it contained. I loathed that cliché, but when something terrifies you, you really can feel it all throughout your body. Your blood literally feels cold in your veins, and your heart almost stops pumping for a moment. I’d thought the woods experience at the summer camp had been scary, but that was nothing compared to this.