ROMANCE: Mason (Bad Boy Alpha Male Stepbrother Romance Boxset) (New Adult Contemporary Stepbrother Romance Collection) (266 page)

She watched as it shot straight back to the machine in what would have been an obvious great hit in a real game. Just as she was about to taunt something back at Jeffrey, she heard him cry out and double over in pain.

Stephanie’s eyes widened; she had sent the ball flying straight at him and it had hit him right in the stomach.

“Oh my God!” she yelled, ducking the next ball that shot out and running over to him. She turned off the machine and knelt down next to him.

“Are you okay?”

Jeffrey groaned in response, giving her a weak thumbs up.

“Lay back; let me see,” Stephanie said, helping him ease down onto his back on the fake grass flooring. She lifted at his shirt, wincing as she saw the angry, red, ball-sized mark. It was definitely going to leave a bruise.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, gently massaging the place where he had been hit.

Jeffrey attempted a smile. “You know, I imagined the first time you lifted up my shirt being radically different than this.”

“Well then you’re a big dreamer,” Stephanie chuckled. “Here, let me help you up,” she said, putting an arm under his own and helping to pick him up.

Jeffrey grunted, wincing a bit as he stood up straight, but insisting that he could walk on his own.

“Do you want to keep going or do you want to go back?”

“Well, as much as I would love to show off my natural sports prowess, I think we can come back another time. Maybe when I’m wearing a bullet-proof vest.”

Stephanie grinned, letting him wrap his arm around her waist as they headed out of the facility.

-x-x-x-

Jeffrey was definitely playing up the whole ‘injured’ thing. While he was definitely bruised, he was overall fine. However, when they had reached his apartment and Stephanie said she would call a cab, Jeffrey had insisted that he needed her to help him to his apartment, make popcorn and watch a movie with him. He had also added that clothing was optional.

After giving him a devastating glare, and the softening of her look at his surprisingly persuasive rendition of puppy dog eyes, she had agreed, and accompanied him into his building.

His apartment was a lot cleaner than she had expected. It was very well decorated, in a modern refined kind of way, and Stephanie couldn’t help thinking that she had underestimated him.

“So, what movie does the patient want to watch now?” Stephanie asked as she searched for a bowl to put the popcorn in.

“Bowls are in the third cabinet over,” Jeffrey said helpfully, before adding “and I don’t know, I’ll let the sexy nurse decide.”

Stephanie rolled her eyes, “Well, I don’t know what you have, and I don’t really have a preference. Let’s just close our eyes and pick at random.”

“Sounds good,” Jeffrey said, watching as she began pouring the popcorn into the bowl.

Jeffrey came closer, leaning in and pushing a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

Stephanie looked up, meeting his intense gaze and offering a small smile.

“What are you-”

Before she could finish her question Jeffrey had leaned in, and placed a feather-light kiss on her lips. Stephanie’s eyes fluttered shut, leaning into the contact and kissing back. She brought her arms up to run through his hair, coming even closer as he put his arms around her waist and pulled her to his chest.

After a few moments they pulled apart, Jeffrey resting his forehead against Stephanie’s.

“What was that?” Stephanie asked, looking up at him.

Jeffrey shrugged, taking a step back but taking one of her hands in his own, rubbing his thumb along the back of it.

“I just couldn’t resist anymore.”

Stephanie smirked, “I knew you found me irresistible.”

Jeffrey laughed, his own words being thrown back in his face. “It’s true, you’re just too beautiful. And smart. And funny. And, just, incredible.”

Stephanie smirked, “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Okay,” Jeffrey said, bringing her in closer so that she was once again flush against his chest. “I know you find me just as irresistible.”

Stephanie blushed, “You’ll never hear me say it. No need to get your ego any bigger than it already is.”

“Hey-”

Any protest Jeffrey was going to make was quickly cut off as Stephanie leaned up and kissed him again, effectively distracting him from whatever else he was going to say. She had a feeling that, from now on, most of their conversations would involve kisses. And, if she were honest with herself, she wouldn’t have it any other way.

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BONUS

CRAZED

BOOK 2

By: Elisa Elliot

It had been three days since Jeffrey and Stephanie had shared a heated kiss in the kitchen of Jeffrey’s apartment, and it had also been three days since Stephanie had heard from Jeffrey. There had been no calls, no texts, not so much as a back-channeled whisper of communication from their parents on Jeffrey’s behalf. Stephanie typically wasn’t the type to worry, but, she was worried. She hadn’t been able to focus on anything for an extended period of time since that day. She kept getting distracted. She was reminded of his smell when she used vanilla extract in her baking. She was reminded of his wild, bad-boy persona every time she saw a motorcycle go by during her morning drives. And what was worst of all, she felt as though she could still taste him on her lips, feel his tongue in her mouth, and feel his strong hands on her waist beneath her shirt.

She sighed, trying and failing to focus on the business plan she had been hired to analyze. It was her first big assignment at the firm and she couldn’t afford to mess it up. And yet, after an hour and a half of ‘working’, she found herself still staring at what was only the first page of a seventy-page document. Stephanie groaned, running her fingers through her hair in frustration and sitting back in her chair, kicking her feet up onto the table. She checked her watch; it was six at night, late enough that at least some of the bars would be open. She stood and headed to her room to go get dressed; she needed a drink.

-x-x-x-

“Are you seriously telling me that you kissed your step-brother?” Jillian, Stephanie’s best friend of seven years, asked loudly in order to be heard over the thumping bass of the music playing. “I can’t believe this. You made out with THE Jeffrey Lewis, as in the most eligible bachelor in the entire state. Why am I just now hearing about this?”

Stephanie scoffed, rolling her eyes as she took a sip of her Long Island Iced Tea. “Because I needed time to gather my thoughts.”

“Three days’ worth of time?” Jillian accused, clearly skeptical.

Stephanie shrugged, running her finger along the edge of her glass. “I expected to have heard from him by now and maybe get a better picture of what was going on with us.”

“And you haven’t heard from him at all?”

“No, nothing,” Stephanie sighed.  “I guess it wasn’t as big of a deal as I thought it was.”

“Still think it is,” Jillian clarified.

“Yes,” Stephanie said reluctantly, “still think it is. He probably hasn’t thought about me once since I left. I probably was just another girl in a long line of them that he seduced and then dumped.”

“I thought you said he told you he wasn’t like that, that the girls were the ones who dumped him?”

She shrugged, “He could have just been lying, trying to get me to fall for him. I don’t know; am I overreacting? Reading too much into this?”

“Oh honey,” Jillian said, “you always overreact. Don’t you remember freshman biology? I thought you were going to have a heart attack when they brought in that cadaver.”

“I signed up for Bio 101, not medical school. There should have been a warning with the syllabus, anyone would have freaked out.”

“Yes, but you were the only one that screamed and ran out the door.”

Stephanie sighed, starring back listlessly into her drink. “Regardless, I just feel, hurt I guess. I thought it was special, and that he thought it was too. And now I’m getting a pretty strong signal that it wasn’t and I was wrong about this whole thing and I’m horribly embarrassed.”

“I mean, it could always be worse.”

Stephanie snorted, “Oh yeah, how?”

She shrugged, “You could have slept with him. If that had happened you’d really be upset. Better to be a make out partner and ignored than humped and dumped.”

Stephanie rolled her eyes at Jillian’s usual eloquence and sighed, leaning back in her seat and wishing that she didn’t feel so upset.

“Uh oh,” Jillian said, eyes trained on something behind Stephanie.

“What?” Stephanie asked, not turning around in case it would look too suspicious, but painfully curious at Jillian’s words.

“Nothing, forget about it, I thought I saw something but it was just a trick of the light,” Jillian muttered, taking a sip of her drink but looking darkly over Stephanie’s shoulder.

“What is it?” Stephanie demanded, resisting the urge to look back.

“I said it was nothing,” Jillian said, clearly on edge.

Having had enough of Jillian’s evasiveness, Stephanie decided to slowly look back. However, what she saw next made her wish that she hadn’t.

“Steph-”

Stephanie motioned for Jillian to be quiet, too upset to comprehend her friend’s words at the moment.

Across the room was Jeffrey, a beer in his hand and a pretty girl on his lap. He wasn’t touching the girl, but she was certainly touching him. She was flirting so obviously that it was painful. One hand was placed confidently on his chest, and the other was running through his hair. She wore a ridiculously low-cut sequin top and shorts so short that they were practically just a swatch of fabric. Her hair was blonde, obviously bleached from a bottle, and her boobs looked like two large, flesh-colored balloons that had been stuck to her chest.

“Who is that?” Stephanie asked, attempting to hold in her hurt.

“I don’t know,” Jillian said, placing a gentle hand on her friend’s forearm, “but does it really matter?”

“No, it doesn’t,” Stephanie muttered darkly.

She felt stupid. Prior to that moment she had still been holding on to a shred of hope that Jeffrey had felt the same way. Thousands of excuses had been floating through her head. Perhaps he had lost his phone or had to catch a flight to one of his father’s events out of the country and had no phone service.

But now that she saw Jeffrey, very much in the same city, with a very attractive, very flirtatious girl hanging off of him, any of the residual hope that she had been clinging on to quickly vanished.

“Want me to go over there and punch him for you?” Jillian offered, completely serious.

Stephanie couldn’t even work up a smile, and instead simply shook her head. “No, I think I just want to get out of here.”

“No problem; let’s go get a cab. Go home and take a bubble bath or something, get your mind off of this whole thing.”

“Yeah,” Stephanie said listlessly, finishing off her drink and standing. She grabbed her purse, looking back in spite of herself just to confirm the painful sight that she’d seen earlier.

She regretted it. As soon as she looked back her eyes instantly met with Jeffrey’s across the room. He froze, attempting to stand but being forced back down onto his barstool by the now disgruntled girl on his lap. He looked as though he was going to say something when his chin was gripped in the girls hand and his face was forced to meet hers. Stephanie stared only long enough to see the girl slant her lips over Jeffrey’s in a kiss that garnered quite a few whistles from members of the group they were with before Jillian pulled her away.

“Forget about it,” she said, dragging a somewhat dazed Stephanie towards the exit. “Put him out of your mind and forget about him; he’s an asshole and not worth even a second of your time, understand?”

Stephanie was silent, listening to Jillian with only half an ear as she listlessly watched her hail a cab.

“I can’t believe it,” Stephanie muttered as a cab pulled up in front of them and Jillian opened the door. “I mean,” Stephanie said, sliding into the cab after Jillian and shutting the door, “I can believe it, I just don’t want to.”

“He’s a grade-A asshole,” Jillian said, shaking her head. “If he had a house I would say we should egg it.”

Stephanie did smile at that, “I wish, it’s a damn shame.”

“You know what you need?” Jillian said after informing the cabbie of their two addresses, “To find a great guy. To find someone to hook up with and get your mind off of that jerk.”

Stephanie hummed, staring out the window and wishing that she could just rewind time and never have gone up to Jeffrey’s apartment that day and never have gotten herself into such a mess.

“I think I’m just going to take a break from men for a while. And relationships. And feelings really. I just need a bubble bath, some trashy TV, and chocolate.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” Jillian said.

“Alright, we’re at the first stop,” the cabbie said, pulling up in front of Stephanie’s apartment building.

“You go ahead girl, I’ve got the fare.”

“You sure?” Stephanie asked, feeling bad.

“Oh yeah, I just got paid, go on. Crappy TV is calling your name.”

“Thanks,” Stephanie smiled, getting out of the cab and waving her friend off. She sighed; it would certainly be a long night.

-x-x-x-

Stephanie sat at her kitchen counter, coffee mug in hand and staring at her phone on the table.

Since she had gone to sleep that night and put her phone on silent, Jeffrey had texted her eighteen times and called her ten times. The gist of all these texts was along the lines of ‘we need to talk’ and she certainly had no desire to hear what he had to say. She assumed whatever he had to say would be him making sure that she wasn’t freaking out and wouldn’t do something like tell their parents.

She took a sip of her coffee, frowning in distaste when she realized she’d put too much sugar in it. Well, Jeffrey didn’t have to worry about her telling their parents. Not only would that be an awkward confession, but, the less people that knew about her humiliation the better.

She looked down at another text from Jeffrey.

Let me in.

She scoffed; no way was he at her apartment building. But then again, it sounded like just the thing that Jeffrey would do. Too bad she didn’t care. She ignored the text, instead going into the kitchen to brew another coffee and hopefully get the sweetening right.

Her phone went off with another text, likely from Jeffrey, but she ignored it. She emptied out her favorite ‘redheads are badasses’ mug out and poured herself another cup, filling it nearly to the brim. Despite the caffeine, coffee always had a calming effect on her. At the moment, she could certainly use the calm.

After adding much less sweetener and creamer this time around, she carried her cup back over to her seat, fully intending to ignore any more of Jeffrey’s texts and maybe give Jillian a call. But, just as she was reaching for her phone, there came a knock at her door.

“Dear God,” she muttered, “he really does keep going until he gets what he wants.”

She crossed her arms, wondering if she could ignore it. She cringed; the knocking only sped up, getting louder and louder. Stephanie was worried that her neighbors would start to complain. Ms. Kuzowsky across the hall didn’t like her and she was always looking for some excuse to get her evicted.

She cursed, getting up reluctantly to open the door. She threw it open violently, startling Jeffrey for a moment before he returned to his usual calm and cool demeanor.

“What do you want?” Stephanie hissed, eyes flashing in anger.

“Uh?”

“What is it?” Stephanie snapped.

“You have my jacket.”

She raised an eyebrow, incredulous. “Your jacket? Are you kidding me? I’ll dry clean it and have it mailed to you. Alright?” she said, attempting to shut the door in his face.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Jeffrey said, panicking as he wedged himself in the door, keeping it open. “That’s not why I’m here.”

“Then why are you here?” Stephanie asked, still trying to shut the door despite half of Jeffrey’s’ body being wedged in it.

“I want to talk.”

“I’ve got nothing to say.”

“But I do.”

“Well, that sounds like a personal problem,” Stephanie grunted, giving up and standing back, arms crossed defiantly over her chest.

“Stephanie.”

“What, I don’t want to hear whatever new excuse you have.”

“It’s not an excuse. Can I. . . . Will you please just let me in and hear me out?”

“Give me one good reason why I should,” Stephanie snapped.

“You know, you’re sexy when you’re all fiery like this red.”

“Goodbye,” Stephanie grunted, pushing at Jeffrey’s chest so hard that he stumbled out the door before she slammed it in his face.

“Stephanie!”

“I’m putting in headphones now and turning my phone on airplane mode,” she called back through the door, hoping that he’d take the hint and leave her alone.

She took her coffee and her phone and headed into the bedroom. At this rate, she’d need an entire weekend-long marathon of trashy television.

-x-x-x-

“Sweetheart, it would mean a lot to Joseph and I both if you came tonight.”

“Mom,” Stephanie groaned, hating that even after all of this time her mom was still able to guilt trip her so effectively. “I just don’t feel up to it today.”

“Is something wrong Stephanie; do you need to talk honey?”

“No,” Stephanie trailed off, “I’m just not feeling my best today. Why do you even need me there? It’s just another one of those stuffy fundraisers. I’ll be bored out of my skull.”

“There’s no dinner at this one. There will be catered hors d’oeuvres of course, but no sit down setting for speeches. At most there will be one from Joseph. He could really use the support.”