Max: A Stepbrother Romance
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Authors: Stephanie Brother
MAX
A Stepbrother Romance
By
Stephanie Brother
© 2015 Stephanie Brother
Giving My Billionaire Stepbrother A Baby Part 1
Tempest: A Stepbrother Romance Part 1
All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental. The characters are all productions of the author's imagination.
Please note that this work is intended only for adults over the age of 18 and all characters represented as 18 or over.
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I
t was supposed to be one night, not ‘til death do our parents part.
Lola - I thought I was done with arrogant alpha-holes, but clearly I just can’t stay away from them. The day Tyson tells me he’s been cheating on me, the day before Mom gets married for the umpteenth time, Max crashes into my life, all ripped muscles and perfect eyes.
One night was the deal, how was I supposed to know he was about to become a permanent fixture?
Max - I’m not coming halfway across America for Dad’s surprise wedding and leaving with nothing. When I see Lola stride past me without even looking up, I know right then I have to have her.
The plan was to give her the night of her life and never see her again. How was I meant to know what she was going to become?
***
MAX
A Stepbrother Romance
by
Stephanie Brother
Max
T
his is horrible.
$200 to get here, $80 for the hotel room, and now this. Warm, expensive beer, a tacky, light up dance floor and a room full of ugly women trying to dance to shit, tinny music. I didn’t expect a lot, but I did expect a little bit more than this. The receptionist at the hotel was enthusiastic. He said it was the best place in town. I wonder if
only
would have been a better word.
This is not my idea of a good time at all, but fuck it, I’m not going back to the hotel now. I’ve just spent an hour finding this place and even if I can’t get laid, at least I can do my best to get drunk. I’m not traveling halfway across America to sit in a hotel room and stare at the wall. I’m here already, so I might as well make the best of what this town has to offer.
I haven’t seen Dad for a year and a half and then out of the blue he tells me he’s getting married. Again. For the third time. Just like that.
“Max, I think I’ve found the one.”
If he found her in here, I dread to think what she looks like. Even in the dark these women look like pigs wallowing about in mud.
What a disappointment. I didn’t even know this town existed until I looked it up on the map, and now I know why. It’s because it shouldn’t. Thank God I’m only staying for the weekend. Imagine living here twenty four seven.
I get another beer, do a circuit of the two separate rooms, find an empty table and sit down at it. I’m about as far away from the dance floor as I can manage, but they’ve set speakers up all over the place so the music throbs so loudly above me I can feel my teeth rattle inside my head. It’s giving me a headache but it’s still better than the stilted conversation from the bartender, so I grit my teeth and try and ignore it.
I get weird hostile looks from the men and wide eyes and big smiles from the women. I could be the youngest person in here, and by the looks of things I’m definitely the fittest. No wonder they feel threatened. They shouldn’t though, not unless an angel is hiding amongst the trash.
That would make my night more memorable. It might even make it worthwhile.
––––––––
Lola
O
f all the dumb shit Tyson has done, this is by far the worst. First Mom and her craziness, and now this. Fucking Tyson.
“I’m so sorry, Lola. It didn’t mean a thing.”
I feel like someone has punched me in the gut.
“Are you going to say something?”
I wipe the tears away from my eyes with the back of my hand. I don’t want him to see me crying because he doesn’t deserve it, but I can’t help it. Tyson was my first real boyfriend. The captain of the football team. The jerk. I thought I loved him. I think I still do.
“Come on Lola, you know I love you. It was just a stupid thing, I was drunk.”
Tyson sips his beer like it’s nothing. As though he’s telling me what the weather is going to be like tomorrow. Those thick arms wrapped around another girl. I can’t get the image out of my head.
“You cheated on me.”
Tyson sighs and looks away. He folds those arms over a puffed out chest. “I wish I’d never told you now.”
When he looks back, he does so to a face full of water.
“Hey!”
He opens his arms up incredulously, his back arched like a cobra about to strike. Watching the water drip off his nose makes me gurgle with laughter. Crying through tears feels like the best thing I’ve done all day.
Tyson wipes his face with his forearm. His T-shirt is wet and clinging to the muscles underneath. “Happy now?”
I thought Tyson was the one, but guess what, he’s a jerk like every other man. Like Dad, like the string of other men Mom has let into her life since him, like the new one she’s about to marry. They all let you down in the end. They all cheat. She should know better and I feel like I’m about to learn.
“Well?”
“Tyson, you can fuck as many women as you want.”
“Really?”
That dumb shit could be dumber and shittier than I ever imagined.
“Sure. You’re just never going to fuck me again.”
“Now, wait a minute, Lola. I know you’re mad but there’s no reason to be stupid.”
If I had another glass of water I’d cover him again. I might even just through the whole glass.
“Stay here if you want, I’m leaving.”
I get up. I don’t know where I’m going, but that doesn’t matter at all. I’m just not going to stay here. Moreover, I know if I don’t do it now, I risk letting him weasel his way back in. I’ve seen that happen time and again with Mom and I’m not going to let it happen to me. Fuck him.
“Don’t.”
Tyson’s fingers lock tightly around my wrist, yanking me towards him.
“Let go of me”, I say calmly. When he doesn’t, I begin to pull away, fighting against his bulk.
“Don’t make a scene, Lola.”
People are looking at us now. Some of them have stopped dancing and one is coming our way.
“You’re going to regret this.”
––––––––
Max
S
o, I guess I was wrong. At a table at the edge of the dance floor in the corner of the room by the DJ booth I find my angel. I find my reason to be here. She must have either come in when I was sat at the bar, or had always been here hiding in the shadows, waiting to be discovered, like some diamond in a seam of coal.
She looks like a supermodel. An angry, pissed off supermodel with eyes reddened by tears. It doesn’t take a genius to work out what’s happened. Meat headed jock of a boyfriend face still damp from a thrown drink, his hand locked around her wrist to stop her from leaving.
This has danger written all over it. This is beginning to turn into my kind of night.
It was the raised voice above the tinny stereo sound that alerted my attention in the first place, the wall of people stepping over to rubberneck.
“Are you alright?”
“Mind your own business.”
He’s a big guy, but he already looks half drunk. If I need to, he won’t have time to get up out of the chair. He darts a look across all of the gathered spectators. There are half a dozen of us glaring down at him.
“Fine”, he says and lets go of her wrist. “Go. Regret it. See if I care.”
She rubs the reddened patch of skin where’s he’s been holding on too tight. “Asshole.”
She pushes past me quickly, skips across the dance floor and is out of the door before I’ve caught my breath. Beautiful, and she didn’t even see me. I could have been anyone.
“What the fuck are you looking at?”
I hold up my hands placidly. This guy’s a real fucking jerk. “Nothing, man. Just checking you’re all alright.”
“What the fuck does it look like?”
Meat head goes back to his beer, glowering at anyone he can and cursing at the top of his voice, while I sink into the shadows, stride across the dance floor and hurry out of the same exit, out of his field of vision.
I’m not planning on letting this one go. Nobody pushes past me without stopping to look. Especially not here.
––––––––
Lola
I
’m not even two blocks away before I get hassled. I usually get a lot of attention when I go out, so I kind of expect it’s never going to be too far away, but now is definitely not the right time. Plus, I’m not exactly giving him a sign. I’m walking quickly, and he’s striding just to keep up with me. Some people just don’t know when to stop.
“Hey.”
“Leave me alone, please.”
“I just wanted to make sure you were ok. I saw what happened back there.”
I stop so I can get it over with. “Are you following me?”
A quick assessment tells me all I need to know. The guy’s a meat head. An alpha-male asshole. I’m done with alpha-male assholes with perfect, ripped physiques, thick muscles, square jaws, fuck me eyes. I’m over all that. Way the fuck over it.
“I’m making sure you don’t make a mistake.”
The last thing I need. On top of everything else, this fucking douchebag is a friend of Tyson’s. I shake my head. Is he serious?
“Go back to Tyson.”
I walk away and he falls in step alongside me. I can’t believe this.
“That’s not what I meant.”
I stop again. I’m shaking my head in disgust. I feel like crying or screaming again, but I don’t have the energy. I feel trapped in a bubble I can’t break out of and the realization is all coming at once. Tyson, this town, my shitty life.
“I meant with me.”
What the fuck? I stare at him in disbelief, my jaw practically scraping the ground. If this is what I think it is, it’s low.
“What?”
“Come for a drink with me.”
And there it is. The brazenness of his approach brings a smile of disbelief to my lips but it’s not enough. I shake my head. “No.”
Again, I begin to walk away.
“Give me one good reason why.”
I don’t even bother glancing over at him. “I don’t know you.”
“That’s not a good reason.”
“You could be a rapist or a murderer. You could be both.”
“Do you think rapists and murderers go to these kind of lengths to woo their victims?”
“Is that what you call this? Watching me have an argument with my boyfriend, waiting until I’m alone and hunting me down like a wolf.”
“Hey, those are your words not mine. I’m just being a gentleman and seeing if you are alright.”
I freeze him out with a frosty silence, knowing full well it will probably only goad him on further.
“Come on. We’re both on our own and I bet you don’t want to go home yet.”
Now I glance at him. Thick lips pressed into a cocky smile, confident swagger and casual, non threatening body language. He’s tattooed too. Curling across his arm is a tribal design that disappears up the sleeve of his T-shirt.
Fuck. This is dangerous. Tyson would kill me.
I don’t want to go home because Mom’s turned the house into a pre-wedding hotel venue and some random family member has taken my bed, I can’t go to Tyson’s now even if I wanted to, and I haven’t got enough money to stay in a hotel room, but that doesn’t mean I want to stay with him, even if I do want another drink. But is it just a drink I want? Maybe I deserve a bit of fun.
“Where did you come from anyway?”
“That’s the right choice.”
“I didn’t say I’m coming with you.”
“Yes you did. You said it the moment you looked at me.”
“Are you serious?”
“Where are we going?”
I stop again. In the middle of a deserted street we face each other. He’s a different build to Tyson - about the same height, not so broad across the shoulders, and thinner at the waist. A runner maybe, or a swimmer. I catch myself looking and then catch him catching me so I have to look away, embarrassed. What am I even doing thinking about this? I should just tell him where to get off, and then cry my way back to Tyson like the pussy that I am. Yeah, right.