Hooked: A Stepbrother Romance (7 page)

My
girls.

The ones who hated running.
 

Who always had a reason to balk or renege. Headaches, heartaches, broken sports shoes, forgotten sports shoes, pedicures, tummy aches, Aunt Flo, or sometimes just refusing outright.

And now, after half an hour with Simon.

They.

Were.

All.

Running.

With smiles on their faces, to boot.
 

I wanted to turn my head and ignore Simon, but as the girls jogged up closer, that became hard. They looked
so
excited, so proud of themselves, and they were enthusiastically waving in our direction. How could I look away from that? They were finally doing what I’d spent years encouraging them to do.

So I bit my tongue, swallowed my pride, and plastered a grin on my face while waving back with every bit of enthusiasm I could muster. It wasn’t hard; I really was genuinely proud of them. This was real progress, and I was happy.

Of course, I still did my best to ignore
him
.

When he ran past me, his whole body tense from the jog, he winked triumphantly in my direction. I could’ve sworn I felt my brain melting a little, there and then, as I stared at the way his tight shorts rode up his muscular thighs and hugged his tight ass.

Yeah, I hated
him
.

I would always hate him.

Still, I had to admit, he was doing a damn good job.

And even worse, he was damn freaking sexy while doing it.

Back to the States.

Back with my so-called father.

Is it really ‘back’ with him?

I don’t even remember the fucker.

Robert is as much my family as his new wife, or my so-called sister.

I’d rather just spend the summer six feet under.

Twenty teen girls. No violence, but plenty of catty comments. No brutality, but an endless gulf of defiance. No repressed anger, just an unshakable assumption that they couldn’t handle sports and there was no point in even trying.

How could I manage that?

Pretty fucking well, as it turned out.

I’d loved the new challenge, and I’d grown to love working with them. Not that it had been easy. They’d been reluctant to even try. They’d rebelled at the mere mention of
sports bras
, let alone cleats and shin protectors.

But slowly, over the last three weeks, we’d made it work.

Three weeks of building stamina and appreciation for sports, three weeks of me learning that sometimes intricate updos counted more than a nice try.

Three weeks of learning to accept each other.

Three weeks of gawking at Emilia in the far field, coaching her tight little ass off.

She avoided me whenever possible, of course, and both of us were extremely busy managing our respective teams. We barely said two words to each other in a day.

It should’ve been easy for me to keep up the lie, the one I’d been struggling with for so many years. But no. The truth was rapidly rearing its ugly head.

I had a thing for my stepsister.

Bad.

I hate it here.

The other day, he actually had the nerve to call her my sister.

A sister. Out of thin air. Just because he said so.

We’re not even related, not really.

I fucking hate it here, and I fucking hate her.

After three weeks of sustained sleep deprivation, my body had decided it’d had enough. I had blissfully overslept, waking up at the decadently late hour of eight in the morning. It wasn’t exactly spoiling myself, but it was a good way to start the day. Even better, Simon hadn’t made a single appearance in my dreams last night.

Neither in nightmare nor erotic dream.

Talk about a change of pace
, I thought, shivering as I remembered the last time he had shown up in my sleep. My lips had been wrapped tightly around him, showing that there was now a grain of truth to the rumors he’d started so long ago.

After pilfering a coffee from Adam’s office at the rec center, I reviewed the list Simon had left for me. It detailed every piece of gear we’d need for our first game this afternoon.

So far, collaborating with him had been easier than I expected. He was strangely courteous and friendly with me, even the couple of times we’d been alone and there was no need for him to put on an act. On the field, I’d been observing him closely, and found that he was surprisingly charming and even-tempered with his players.

The whole thing had seemed fishy as hell in the beginning, but now I wasn’t so sure. The lightness of his blue eyes when he smiled felt so
sincere
, real and warm enough to give me goose bumps when I thought about it.

Which, I admit, was way too often.

Once I arrived at the small storage room I used as an office, I clicked my desk fan on and opened the window to get some much-needed fresh air into the stifling, still heat of the cramped space. Outside the building, I could faintly hear Simon’s voice coming from the dirty and run-down patio area.

“No, I don’t think I’ll be able to make it tonight. But we’re still on for the game this afternoon, right? Okay. Great. I love you, too. Bye.”

I planted myself against the wall and froze, trying to be still and unseen as he walked by the window with his phone still in hand. My heart was pounding through my chest as I tried to reassure myself that there was nothing I could’ve done to avoid the eavesdropping. It had been an honest mistake, and not something that any reasonable person would get upset over. Even so, a dark, painful twinge lingered in my stomach, sending waves of guilt and fear through my body.

Still plastered against the wall, realization crept up on me.

Simon was seeing somebody
.

Simon was seeing somebody,
and I cared
.

I shouldn’t have cared. At all. If anything, I should’ve been grateful. Sometimes love can make even a total bastard grow up, and maybe that’s exactly what had happened to Simon.

Why did I feel so small, so short of breath? Why was I dizzy?

I could hear his footsteps outside my office, in the gym, coming closer.

I needed to regroup, fast.

“Hey,” he began, peeking his head through the door.

“Come in,” I squeaked, regretting the words immediately as his large body filled up all the space of the tiny room. I was suddenly, painfully, acutely aware of every little thing. The warmth of his body radiating off him in waves, the scent of his aftershave, the way he was dressed. With an old pair of jeans and a grey linen shirt, his muscles bulged and rolled beneath the fabric. He looked gorgeous, and I swallowed hard.

Then I became aware of
myself
, the way that every little move I made suddenly felt deeply incriminating. Was I making too much eye contact? Not enough? Dammit, I needed to pull myself together. Neither bizarre jealousy nor lust had any place in the professional relationship we’d been slowly building over the weeks.

“Are you ready?” he asked, and I couldn’t tell if the suspicion in his voice was real or entirely my own imagination.

“For?” I stammered, and the look of utter confusion on his face finally snapped me back to my senses. Today was the first game for both of our teams, two back-to-back matches that heralded the proper beginning of the season.

“Sorry, just a bit nervous. Yeah, I’m ready,” I finally answered.

“That makes two of us,” he said softly, and for some insane reason, I actually believed him. Never mind that he was a professional player who’d faced off against the best teams in the world. Somehow, in that moment, it seemed perfectly plausible that he actually cared about the fate of a bunch of amateurs who’d barely even heard of rugby a month ago.

Imagine that. The same bastard who had terrorized my teen years with his incessant bullying. Somehow, he actually cared about a bunch of poor kids and our dilapidated little rec center.

He’d grown a heart.

Somehow, he’d grown in
my
heart, too.

I needed air. Fresh air. Clean air. Air that wasn’t tainted by the smell of his sweat. Air that didn’t make my stomach rumble when I got a whiff of the muffins he’d brought me from Johnnie's this morning, the same as he’d brought every morning.

What was this? Lust? Longing? An elaborate, cruel joke from my subconscious to make me hurt myself?