Stepbrother OMG! (The Stepbrother Romance Series #2) (4 page)

“It’s not that bad,” Jaxon insisted. “And hey—you
won’t get lost going around this way.” I couldn’t think of any real way around
it.

“Let me get some real clothes on.” I turned away and
hurried as quickly as I could back towards my room. I didn’t really want to go
on the grand house tour. I didn’t want to spend any more time with Jaxon than I
absolutely had to. Maybe, I thought
,
if I went
away—I’d be able to get out of doing the stupid house tour at all. I went into
the bedroom and opened up my suitcase. I took out some cold-weather clothes, a
thick pair of socks.

“We’ve got a basketball court out back,” Jaxon
called through the door. I sighed. Clearly he wasn’t going to give up on the
idea of taking me on the tour of the house. I considered the situation. At
least, if I let him take me on the tour, there would be no need to lie about it
later. The people working in the house would see it happening, and our cover
would be safe. Of course, there was very little that Jaxon didn’t know about me
already, but we could pretend, ask each other questions that we already knew
the answers to. It
could—in a way—actually be
a little
bit of fun.

I got changed into my warmer clothes and finally
walked out of the bedroom. “Okay,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Show me around. Let’s see what’s going on in this place.” Jaxon grinned
slowly.

“I think you’ll like what you see.”

I rolled my eyes. “Just show me around this palace.”

Jaxon started outside, taking me around to the
basketball court and the tennis court his dad had had installed. The property
was huge—there were dormant gardens even with the tennis and basketball courts.
“Dad put the basketball court in when I got into it in high school,” Jaxon told
me.

“I didn’t know you played.” I’d never really seen
Jaxon around the courts on campus. I tried to suppress my curiosity. I really
didn’t want to know more about Jaxon than I did. But in spite of the fact that
I wanted to completely distance myself from him, I couldn’t help the
realization that I was still attracted to him. Jaxon was hot; I couldn’t really
lie to myself about that. It was the first time he had talked to me in over a
month—it was nice to get back to close to what it had been
like
before he’d cut me out and started ignoring me.

The inside of the house was even more impressive
than the outside. Jaxon took me into the kitchen, and in spite of the huge
breakfast we’d both eaten, we both grabbed snacks. He took me through the living
room I’d already seen, through the theater room with an enormous screen, a
projector, and comfortable seats along with a popcorn machine and a few
soda-makers. “So, how exactly did your dad get so rich?” I asked, curious but
at the same time wanting to keep the conversation off of myself, and off of
Jaxon. Jaxon shrugged.

“He’s been good with investments—I think that’s most
of it, to tell the truth. I don’t really know what he was doing before, when I
was a kid. He’s almost ready to retire.” Jaxon hesitated a moment. “I’m kind of
glad he found your mom.” I stopped short.

“This is just a tour,” I said firmly. I didn’t want
to talk about our parents’ relationship, about what the implications of it were
to the two of us. I didn’t even want to think about it.

Jaxon fell quiet for a while, leading me through the
different guest rooms, the entertainment lounge with the big screen TV and
three or four different consoles attached to it. When he offered to show me his
room, I told him I’d rather not. I didn’t want to see his space. I didn’t want
to be alone with him in a place like that—where it would be too easy to start
to act on my attraction towards him.

He showed me everywhere else in the house; the
sauna, the pool once more, the hot tub, the gym. I felt weird—hot and cold,
tingly and anxious, jumpy. If Jaxon made a sudden movement I startled. I didn’t
want to be alone with him but I didn’t want to leave and run away either. I
knew that if we were too alone, something would happen, but I didn’t know what.
I was torn between wanting to see what would happen and dreading it. I wanted
Jaxon to touch me—but I didn’t want him to come
near
.
I was jumbled up and confused. Every time he made a move to get closer to me,
or tried to ask about me—more than just regular pleasantries, something that
anyone could hear—I reminded him that it was a tour, and that it was nothing
more than that. I couldn’t stand the idea of him thinking that there was
anything more to it than a cover, an explanation to our parents for what we were
doing while they were gone, a sign that we were “getting to know” one another
without the need for an explanation as to why we wouldn’t want to.

Finally the tour started to come to a close. “I
think that’s everything,” Jaxon said, looking around. Our parents were still
out on the slopes. “Want to go somewhere, maybe talk?” I shook my head.

“No. I’m going to go to my room and watch some TV,
maybe surf the internet. Thanks for the Wi-Fi password, by the way.” I backed
away from Jaxon. My heart was pounding. I needed to be alone and think about
what had happened. I took a deep breath. “We should…we shouldn’t talk anymore.”
Jaxon frowned.

“What do you mean?”

I looked around to make sure no one was
eavesdropping. I lowered my voice. “Let’s just go back to avoiding each other.
Are you comfortable with this?” I gestured around the house. I didn’t even know
exactly what it was I meant by ‘this.’

“We’re going to have to talk about it sometime,”
Jaxon said firmly, keeping his voice to a murmur. “Like it or not, we have to
get it out of the way. We can’t pretend like nothing happened.” I shook my
head.

“You were happy to pretend that up until a day ago.
We have nothing to talk about.” I darted around Jaxon and found my way down the
hallway and to my bedroom. He didn’t follow me. I closed and locked the door
behind me and sank down onto the comfortable bed.

I didn’t know what to do. Jaxon had gone from being
ice-cold, ignoring me, to apparently being interested in me once more. It was
insane; of all the times to get interested in me, he waited until our parents
introduced us as new siblings? It didn’t make any sense. I couldn’t think of
how to feel about the situation. I couldn’t deny that Jaxon was hot. I couldn’t
deny that it was nice for him to pay attention to me once more. I couldn’t even
deny the fact that if our parents weren’t married, I would be more than happy
to sleep with him again.

But we absolutely couldn’t do anything about it. I
might want him, but I couldn’t have him. It would be completely and totally wrong.
I would have to completely forget that we’d ever slept together. Thinking of
Jaxon that way made me both turned on and nauseated.
If
anyone found out…

But the important thing would be to make sure that
our parents didn’t find out. I would have to spend time with Jaxon, but I
decided as I sat in my room pretending to watch TV that I would only spend time
with him when we had to—when his dad or my mom was around. I wouldn’t go after
him in private; I wouldn’t let him corner me if I could help it. I didn’t want
to talk about what we had done. I didn’t even want to think about it. I wanted
to get through the holiday as best as I could, and then go back to school and
pretend that I had never met Jaxon. If our parents’ marriage worked out, we’d
have to deal with being siblings—but for the time
being,
I just wanted to get over my horror.

By the time my mom and Bob got back in for a late
lunch, I thought to myself that maybe—just maybe—I would be able to pull it
off. I put on the best smile I could and pretended
like
my skin didn’t crawl with shame whenever I saw Jaxon looking at me.

CHAPTER
5

In spite of what I told Jaxon about us staying
apart, going our separate ways and ignoring each other as much as we could, he
seemed determined to put himself in my way. He never repeated his attempt to
come to my room, but wherever I went, it seemed, there he was. I was torn
between being intrigued and being frustrated, and being angry with him for
persisting.

I went to the gym to try and get in a workout; even
if it was a holiday, I needed something to do, and building up my muscles
seemed as good a way to occupy my time
as anything
. It
was better than sitting in my room all day watching TV—and less suspicious. But
when I went to the gym, Jaxon came in right behind me. I would have yelled at
him, but I hesitated when I thought of the fact that someone might hear. And
then he started to work out so normally that I thought it must have just been a
coincidence. He didn’t make a move to corner me, but I couldn’t work out as well
as I normally do; I was distracted, watching him from the corners of my eyes.
He was doing exercises that would make him better on the board—balancing
exercises, building up his legs. “You should work on your upper body too,” I
said, calling across the personal gym, the words leaving me seemingly of their
own will.

“I work my upper body on different days,” Jaxon
called back. I shrugged.

“You don’t work it as hard as you do your lower
body, but you need upper body for cross-coordination.” I shifted over to a
rowing machine and put my earbuds in, proceeding to ignore him for the rest of
the time I was working out.

I decided to go for a swim to keep my muscles from
tightening up, and by the time I made it to the pool from my bedroom, Jaxon was
there too—already swimming
slow
, cool-down laps. I was
frustrated, but there was nothing I could really do about it; it was more his
house than mine. I dove in and did my own laps, freestyle, butterfly, moving
from one end of the pool to the other mindlessly until I was exhausted. I
climbed out and went into my room to clean up for dinner.

I couldn’t expect Jaxon not to be there, and it was
a little bit easier to deal with his presence with my mom and Bob at the table
too—though it was harder at the same time, in a different way. I was constantly
distracted by him, not quite able to pay attention to my mom’s and Bob’s
stories as they talked about their day. I wanted to be happy for them, but I
could feel the tension winding up inside of me with every moment that I had to
spend with him. Something would happen, I knew it would. Why would Jaxon keep
putting himself in my way if he didn’t want anything to happen?

I went outside after dinner and wandered around the
grounds, pretending to take a keen interest in the winter-dormant gardens.
Jaxon showed up there, too, saying he wanted to take a quick after-dinner walk
around the property, make sure nothing was getting damaged in the cold weather.
I wanted to tell him off. Instead I made an excuse and got away from him. I was
becoming more and more frustrated by the moment. Every time Jaxon showed up he
wouldn’t make any overt move to make me talk, or to try and do anything to me
or with me—he just happened to be wherever I
was, whenever I
was there, doing
his own thing. Once or twice I considered asking him
just what he thought he was doing—but I couldn’t make myself do it.

Mom and Bob went to bed and I tried not to think
about the fact that they were almost certainly having sex. The thought of my
mom having sex with the father of a guy I’d hooked up with was kind of
revolting. But it wasn’t her fault, I told myself over and over again. She had
no idea. I went back to my room, where I knew Jaxon wouldn’t bother me. I hated
having to hole up there, but it was the one place where I could count on my new
step-brother to leave me alone—at least for now. I didn’t know how long it
would be until he made another attempt to knock on my door, get me to talk to
him. I didn’t even want to think about what we’d done, much less talk about it.

It got closer to midnight and I was hungry, and
bored. I could only entertain myself for so long, watching qualifiers for
different extreme sports competitions; I wanted to be out on the slopes,
practicing, perfecting my tricks. But it was too late—even I knew better than
to hit the mountain in the middle of the night. I decided I’d go into the
kitchen and make some popcorn, maybe come back and see if any of my friends
from the frat were online, bored half to death at their own parents’ houses. I
peered out through the bedroom door, looking up and down to make sure that no
one was around, least of all Jaxon.

I padded out to the kitchen and started the popcorn.
As if on cue, I heard a rustle behind me; turning around, I saw Jaxon. “Oh,
come on!” I said, barely keeping my voice down. “Is there some kind of camera
following me around?” Jaxon grinned, coming closer to me—but still giving me a
little bit of space.

“I know the house like the back of my hand. And
hey—I’m kind of bored. It’s not hard to know where you’d go.” I crossed my
arms, listening for the pop-pop-pop pop pop-pop-pop of the popcorn in the
microwave.

“Okay. So why are you stalking me?” I had been
avoiding him—moving away whenever he happened to run into me. But I had to know
what he was doing. I had to know what was on his mind, why he kept showing up
wherever I went. It was like before we’d had sex together, which terrified me.
I didn’t want to even consider the possibility of having sex with him again. It
would be too weird. It would be absolutely insane—our parents would freak out,
they’d probably disown us. Jaxon moved just a little bit closer to me.