Wrong: A Stepbrother Romance

Shit.

Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and answered the phone. “Hi, Mom.” There was a touch of silence. I heard my mother’s usual shuffling around the kitchen before her voice came in loudly, sounding confused.

“Sasha?”

“Yes?”

“Why are you answering?”

I sighed away from the phone. “Because you rang.”

“Don’t be smart with me, I didn’t call your phone. This is Liam’s phone.”

My eyes fluttered back open. Pulling the phone from my ear, I stared at the case-less iPhone that felt just like mine but apparently wasn’t. Then, with clearer eyes, I looked around the room to realize I was in Liam’s.

I’d never slept here before.

A quiet, little grin burst to my lips when I turned to see Liam asleep next to me, a half-naked Adonis with the white sheets rumpled just below the ultra-cut V of his hipbones. My gaze traveled slowly lower, tracing the outline of some rather impressive morning wood. Eyes drifting, I recalled last night. It wasn’t a dream. It was just perfect reality. I wanted so badly to revel in the memory but my mother’s voice was fading back into my ear.

“Sasha. Sasha. Sasha. Sasha Grace.”

“Mom. Sorry. I’m here.”

“Did you just wake up? What are you doing? Why are you picking up Liam’s phone?”

My eyes shut again as I considered the answers to those questions. Yes, I just woke up. What I’m currently doing is talking on the phone with you. I accidentally picked up Liam’s phone because I woke up next to him in bed. They were all answers I would never actually give her – the first two because my mother hated anything resembling sass and the last for, well, obvious reasons that were suddenly setting fire to my cheeks. Blinking up at the ceiling, I processed the fact that I was at this moment on the phone with my mother while sleeping naked in bed next to her husband’s son – who, of course, was pretty naked himself.

And hard as a rock.

“Can I call you back?”

“Who said I want you to call back? I wasn’t even calling you in the first place,” Mom said, annoyed. “Put Liam on the phone – can you do that please? Is he asleep? He usually wakes up at five. Is he sick? Why do you have his phone?”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. I can’t put Liam on the phone. Yes, he’s usually up and at the gym by this hour, but he had quite the workout last night. No, he’s not sick. He just worked every muscle on his body while fucking me against the wall outside his apartment. I have his phone because I just woke up next to him in his bed.

Yeah. Nothing I could actually say. Willing myself calm, I spoke over my mother, who was again droning my name on repeat so I’d give more timely answers. “He’s talking about something with A.J right now, Mom. Business stuff. I thought his phone was mine so I answered it. We both took off our cases so they look exactly – ”

“Alright, I don’t need every detail.”

God, help me. Sitting up, I stared ahead at the wall, suppressing irritation. “Is there anything I can answer for you, Mom.” I could barely manage an upward inflection to make my sentence sound like a question. As I expected, my mother heaved a sigh, as she generally did when she was forced to speak to me for longer than a minute.

“Thanksgiving is coming up,” she said.

“In a month. It’s not even Halloween yet, Mom.”

“We’re having everyone from my side come up here for dinner,” she ignored me, referring to her sprawling home in Hudson Valley with Liam’s father, Vic.

“Riley told me. I’ll be there.”

“I know. Everyone will be there. And I mean everyone. Your aunts, your cousins, their husbands and wives.”

She finished her sentence and didn’t go on. I paused, unsure of what my mother was trying to get at. “Okay,” I nodded, grasping at straws. “Did you want me to… cook something? I mean that’s a lot of people. I can make my stuffing. Or the sweet potato pie that Aunt Karen likes?”

“Do whatever you want. I’ve got enough food.”

I clenched my jaw. “Fine,

then should I let you get off the phone now? I can have Liam call you back when he’s awake.”