Wrong: A Stepbrother Romance

Pressed against the leather headboard, I couldn’t do a thing but stare at what stood taking up the doorframe – the six feet and four inches of walking, breathing danger that I should fear with every fiber of my being. I’d been drunk last night but I was sure that I’d witnessed the brutal aftermath of something he’d been responsible for. His presence alone should have had me running and screaming for my life. But I was doing neither. It was as if I’d been hit with a tranquilizer. Staring at him, I couldn’t think. I could hardly breathe.

“Good morning, Isla.”

His greeting sounded nothing like his voice from last night. It was velvet compared to gravel. He looked different too. His wet hair was almost black, his long eyelashes spaced into perfect triangles too sweet and boyish to match that Spartan build. As he came closer, I could tell he was fresh out of the shower. He smelled good and his T-shirt, struggling to stretch across his chest, was flecked with a million little droplets of water. I couldn’t stop staring but suddenly, my eyes narrowed.

I’d lost my driver’s license weeks ago and no longer kept my credit cards in my wallet. I wouldn’t have the cash to pay off the charges and the last thing I needed was more debt. Knowing this, I peered up at him.

“How do you know my name?”

He was unapologetic. “I read it off the back of Elle’s notes.”

Fire lit my eyes.

It was sudden, uncontrollable, and while I tried to calm myself down, possibly for my own fucking safety, I couldn’t. “You went through my things?” Fury shook my voice. I couldn’t help it. There was nothing in my wallet but sentimental value – a dozen school portraits of Elle and the series of silly notes she’d written me before she died. “There was no reason for you to touch any of that,” I seethed, embarrassed on my sister’s behalf. Scribbled behind those photos were a million secret fantasies of the girl she would’ve been had she lived to see high school. Medium-tall and pretty like you, she wrote. My hair would be as long as yours and I’d have a pair of ripped jeans like the black ones you have, but mine would be blue and I would wear them with my cherry Doc Martens. And I’d be badass but not AS bad as you used to be :D so Mom doesn’t go crazy :D :D

Fuck. My sanity was a house of cards I built before stepping out my house every morning, and it flattened to nothing when I thought of Elle. Three weeks till her would-be thirteenth. Through tears, I stared down at my hands, folding them together and pressing them into my lap to keep them still. I had nothing to say. He indulged my silence for longer than I expected.

“I have no interest in your personal life. I was looking for an emergency contact.”

“I don’t have one,” I muttered. Holly was my emergency contact but I hoped to never see her again, so it was hardly a lie. “And I don’t know what happened last night. I don’t know what I saw, so just please let me go.”

“You can go. I wasn’t holding you hostage.”

I looked up at him, at the smirk I detected despite no curve on his lips. His voice was a low, smooth rumble and tinged with amusement, it made my heart pound.

“You’re here because you passed out in the alley last night and despite my friend’s suggestions, I preferred not to leave you there.”

Right. There had been a friend. He had dragged the body over but it was this wise ass who’d held the metal pipe. I stared at him. “What’s your name?”

“Abram.”

I blinked. A deceivingly nice-sounding name. It matched him and it didn’t. “And you’re telling me that I can just go.”

“Yes.” He leaned back on his heels and slid his hands in his pockets. “I only came in here to apologize about your dress.”

I paused. Only then did I think to look down at myself. Lifting the duvet off my body, I stared. Are you kidding me. I’d been stripped down to my panties. The fact that he had seen and touched me naked sent my cheeks aflame. I shot him daggers. “You took my clothes off?”

“I had a hunch you’d prefer not to sleep in your own vomit,” Abram said. He looked to the side. “I also preferred you not sleep in your own vomit.”

My face burned. “I wasn’t wearing anything underneath.”

“I’m more than aware of that.” When I glared, he returned with a look of boredom. “And while I recognize stellar assets when I see them, I generally prefer my naked women conscious. So if you’re looking at me like that because you think I took any liberties with your body last night, you can breathe. That’s not an evil I partake in.”

I clenched my teeth. But killing is, I thought, indignant. But I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t remember last night. That was my story and I was sticking to it. In fact, I’d already begun turning in what memories I had, hoping my hangover would claim them and leave me with truly no recollection. I wanted nothing to do with this. Any of it. Abram was the most beautiful man I’d ever lay eyes on, but if never seeing him again meant that I could pretend last night didn’t happen, then great. My life was already in need of massive cleanup without this. I’d left my job because the kids made me think of Elle. With her bills paid, my parents were back to denying my existence. I was a month behind on rent and Evan was marrying Holly. So truly, the last thing I needed was to be the sole witness to what I guessed was a murder. I didn’t have the mental capacity for that. Or the time. What little I had left was being used to dig out of the hole I’d buried myself in since Elle’s funeral. I had to work to do.

I blinked, suddenly compelled to look at the clock.

&nbs

p; “Shit, I’m late,” I hissed, nearly bursting from bed till I remembered that I was naked. I cut my eyes to Abram. “I need my dress back.”

“I trashed it,” he said. And before I could retort, he gripped the hem of his shirt, peeling it straight off his torso. I stared.

Holy. Christ.

I forgot how to blink. I couldn’t do it even once as I took in the lines of his chest, his abs, every finely muscled rib – they were cut so deep my jaw dropped like a brick to the floor. But I snapped it shut, hopefully before he could notice.

“Take this.” He held out the soft, grey T-shirt. “It should fit like a dress on you.”