Stepbrother HOT! (The Stepbrother Romance Series - Book #3) Read Online Free Page A

plate,
startled.
    “Of course, sweetie,” she said, her voice soft but
her eyes still hard as she smiled at me. “A nice day of
skiing and snowboarding for all of us. You should go finish getting
ready.” I nodded and took my plate into the kitchen, setting it in the sink
before I headed back to my room. I didn’t want to spend an entire day only a
few yards away from Jaxon, but unable to talk to him about what really
mattered. I didn’t want to spend an entire day around my mom, knowing that she
blamed me for ruining the holiday. I wanted to go back to the campus and
pretend the whole thing had never happened at all; but I would just have to
suck it up. I went into my room and checked over my gear, made sure my board
was in good shape. At least, I thought, I’d be on the mountain, and that was
something. I’d be doing one of my favorite things. That would help the
situation at least a little bit.

 
    Chapter
Four
    At any other time in my life, a trip to the slopes
would be the exact cure for whatever was wrong with me. When we left the house
in Bob’s SUV, all of our stuff loaded into the back, Jaxon and I sat as far
away from each other as we possibly could. Up front, Bob and Mom had regained
some of their coziness, and I had to listen to them teasing each other and
telling jokes about the virtues of exercise. My stomach was churning and I
regretted how much I had eaten for breakfast that morning. I shifted in the
seat as we drove out to the mountain—farther away than the one that Jaxon and I
had gone to before; it was a resort, complete with a lodge that doubled as a
hotel. We wouldn’t be staying the night, but the lodge would be there for us to
grab lunch and maybe dinner, and any snacks.
    We finally got to the mountain and Jaxon and I
grabbed our boards while our parents both took their time gathering up their
skis. “This is ridiculous,” Jaxon murmured. I couldn’t help but agree; but I
thought, as long as I was boarding the day couldn’t possibly be that bad.
    Jaxon and I were careful to take separate lifts up
to the top of the slope; I wished I could have the time to talk to him, but it
would only make Mom suspicious if she found out about it. Instead I just
decided to focus on getting in some good practice and having fun. If I could
manage to ignore Mom and Bob, it would be even better.
    Of course, it wasn’t as easy as that. Mom insisted
on us all going down the mountain together again and again—she wanted us to
race, she wanted to see who could do the best tricks. She was playing the
family togetherness idea to the hilt. After a while, fortunately, she and Bob
got all involved in each other once more, totally ignoring Jaxon and me. I
decided that I was going to just keep going down the mountain and back up again
on the lift, over and over again, until I was exhausted. I had a few moves that
I needed to practice before major competitions began, assuming I could still
bear to be on the team.
    I couldn’t stop watching Jaxon as he made his way
down the mountain; I couldn’t stop thinking about the whole stupid situation.
We wanted each other, but we couldn’t have each other. We couldn’t even talk
about the fact that we wanted each other. We were siblings by marriage; our
parents had had no idea that we’d even known each other. I kept remembering the
sight of my mom’s face when she’d opened the door to my room and found me and Jaxon there, naked . I had ruined everything for
her—her entire picture of a big family, happy brother and sister. I could tell
she was struggling to keep things to herself—that she didn’t want to tell Bob.
She wanted to pretend like it had never happened; she
didn’t even want to listen to my side of it—because that would make it real. If
we never talked about it, it was just something she’d imagined.
    I went down the slope again and again, trying to
pull off the harder tricks I’d been teaching myself, but I couldn’t seem to
find my rhythm.