Stepbrother Games: The Bet Book Two Read online

  STEPBROTHER GAMES (THE BET BOOK TWO)

  BY JESSIE VALENTINE

  Copyright 2015 Jessie Valentine, all rights reserved.

  No part of this work may be reproduced without written consent of the author. This book is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  NOTE: This book is for a mature audience only due to strong language and strong sexual conduct.

  Chapter 1

  “Game on, Zane Williams,” I say aloud now. I’m talking to Emily but my eyes are still on Zane and the girl he’s smiling down at. Ugh, how annoying.

  Zane chooses that exact moment to pick his head up and look across the hall, locking eyes with me. Geez, what did he have supernatural hearing, or something? I yank my gaze away from him, pretending to be interested in whatever Emily’s saying next to me. Only she’s not saying anything, so I just stand there kind of pretending to nod along with her silence.

  “I guess it really is game on, because he’s heading straight for us,” Emily tells me. Her eyes are drifting over my head, looking at what I assume is Zane’s perfect face coming toward us. “I’ll see you at lunch,” she announces, turning on her heels and walking her tiny body away from me as fast as her little legs can carry her. All I can see is the back of her blonde shiny hair bouncing up and down as she disappears down the hall. Great, just when I needed her the most.

  “Hey, little sis.” I hear Zane’s voice behind me, but I busy myself in my locker, choosing to not look at him for the time being. It wasn’t like he deserved any type of attention from me.

  “I don’t know why you always call me that,” I snap. “You do realize that I’m the same age as you, right?”

  “Ah, this is true, but you’re also an entire grade below me,” he points out.

  “What grade I’m in has nothing to do with it,” I huff at him, still burying my head into my locker. “We’re the same age, Zane.”

  “I have a whole year more of school experience than you, though, that’s very important in the real world.” He has the same cocky and amused tone in his voice as always, it just annoys me even more.

  “Great, remind me that I’m 18 and only a junior, like I’m not already super sensitive about it,” I spit out, slamming my locker door shut and turning my frustrated tone toward him.

  His gaze looks confused, probably wondering why I was somewhat normal toward him last night, and now I was being a complete bitch. Well, the feeling was mutual, only I had my answer. Last night meant nothing to Zane because it wasn’t real to him; it was a game. A bet. That’s all I was and would ever be to someone like him.

  For the first time I take him in, looking him up and down in all his glory. He fit the part; that was for sure. Tall, dark, and handsome with deep blue eyes. His hair was sticking up a little bit in every which direction, showing off a lack of sleep, and I feel a lump start to rise in the back of my throat. I let my eyes travel to his face. It looks scruffy and sexy, like he hadn’t had time to shave this morning. Yeah, he didn’t have time to shave cause he was too busy cuddling with you.

  He studies me for a second, trying to figure out what he did wrong. “Are you mad at me, or something?”

  “Why? Should I be mad at you for something?” I raise my eyebrows.

  Realization comes over his face. “Oh, I know what this is about.”

  Hah. I highly doubt it.

  “Do you?” I’m shooting for indifference, but I’m pretty sure it comes out as more of a gasp for air than a question.

  “Yes,” he tells me, taking a step closer to me. He leans in, lowering his voice. “I’m sorry I didn’t wake you up this morning. I just… I heard my dad in the kitchen and I wanted to get out of there as fast as I could. I figured it wouldn’t be the best situation if he came out and saw us…” He trails off, smirking.

  I feel my heartbeat start to speed up at his closeness, and I force myself to take a step away from him. “Oh, yeah, well… that’s okay then, I guess.”

  “Great,” he says, closing the distance between us once more. “So, we’re still on for after school, right?”

  “After school?” I ask, suddenly finding it hard to breathe.

  “Yeah, you know, you’re going to help me study for my math test. Remember?” He pronounces each word slowly, drawing even more attention to his lips.

  “Right… right… your, uh, your test,” I stammer.

  “Zane! Let’s go!”

  The loud voice that’s practically screaming for Zane from the other side of the hall is enough to make me jump out of my skin. I was so caught up in Zane’s lips that I had forgotten we were in the middle of the hallway, people zooming in and out all around us. Ugh, this whole thing was not going according to plan at all.

  “In a minute,” he calls over his shoulder, not even bothering to look and see who’s yelling for him. I glance to the other side of the hall where Ben is busy looking at us with a disapproving scowl on his face.

  Great.

  “You should go,” I tell Zane. And I mean it. Not because Ben wants him, but because I was back to turning into complete mush around him and I wasn’t sure how much longer I was going to be able to control myself.

  “Why?” he asks, taking a step even closer to me, and draping his arm casually against my locker. “I don’t want to go.”

  “Because you’re being called.”

  “So?” he asks. “I don’t like be summoned. Well, I might like to be summoned by you.”

  “What? I… Zane, just go, people are looking at us,” I tell him, trying to make him understand how uncomfortable I’m feeling at the moment.

  It’s the truth, too. People are looking at us. I can understand why they would. I mean, our parents have been dating for years, and married for the last year and a half without Zane having any interaction with me. I would even think it was weird that he was suddenly talking to me if I didn’t know the real reason why.

  Zane doesn’t even bat an eye at all the attention we’re getting, shrugging instead. “People are always looking at me.”

  “Very modest, Zane, very modest,” I say, my eyes still searching the halls around me.

  “I’m just being honest. I’d rather be real than fake, you know?”

  “Hah!” I can’t help but laugh at the statement giving his current situation with me. The thought of him being honest and real was highly unlikely. An honest and real person didn’t take a bet on how long it would take to seduce his stepsister, now did they?

  “Hey.” He reaches his hand that’s not leaning on my locker up and tilts my chin toward him gently. “Can you look at me, please? And not everyone else around me?”

  He keeps his hand there for a second, his blue eyes searching mine. I feel the same shiver that came over me last night drift up and down my spine and I pray he doesn’t notice.

  “Sorry, it’s just, weird.”

  “You’ll get used to it,” he says, dropping his hand from my chin.

  The comment makes my body grow hot. The thought of Zane giving me more attention like this for a long time to come was thrilling, even if I didn’t want it to be.

  “I doubt it.”

  He smirks. “So, after school? Math?”

  “Right,” I nod. “After school. Math.”

  “Great.” He looks me up and down slowly, and I feel like he’s undressing me with his eyes for some reason.

  I kind of hop from one foot to the other uncomfortably.

  He laughs loudly and it echoes up and down the hallway, causing even more people to look at us than before. Great.

  “Don’t be so tense all the time, little sis. Your nervousness shows weakness to peopl
e.” I don’t say anything and he sighs, softening his tone a little bit. “Nice sweatshirt by the way.”

  I feel my face start to turn red. I was in such a hurry this morning that I hadn’t had time to take off Zane’s sweatshirt that he had given me the night before. Totally humiliating, he probably thought I was obsessed with his scent or something. Aren’t you? That annoying voice that I always ignore nags me in my head.

  “I was in a hurry when I woke up. I didn’t have time to really change.”

  “You changed your pants,” Zane points out.

  I feel my face starting to turn a deeper shade of orange.

  “I’m messing with you,” Zane says, laughing loudly again. “Forget about it. It looks good on you actually.” He runs his hand over the fabric of his sweatshirt and up my arm.

  I just look at him, unable to move, as much as I want to.

  He leans in closer to me now, and I can smell his cologne and a hint of vanilla coffee on his breath. How fucking sexy was that? Ugh.

  “I just hope you can stay warmer today than you did last night,” he whispers. Then he backs up from me and winks. “See you after school.”

  Then he’s taking off down the hall, where all his friends are waiting.

  My heart starts to beat rapidly. I knew what he meant. He was referring to the fact that my nipples had gotten hard last night when I was around him.

  Shit.

  I was in way over my head.

  Chapter 2

  “I’m in completely and totally over my head!” I tell Emily at lunch, banging my books down on our table way harder than necessary. A couple people at the table sitting next to us stop what they’re doing and shoot me a dirty look. I roll my eyes. Please, it was the cafeteria, it’s not like anyone came here to be quiet.

  Emily drops the apple she’s eating on top of her brown paper bag that she brings her lunch in everyday. “Spill.”

  I sit down and slide closer to her. “I don’t think I can do it,” I whisper, overly paranoid about anyone hearing us.

  “Stop being overly paranoid about people hearing us,” Emily says.

  I sit up straight, like I’ve been casual all along. “I’m not.”

  “You can do this, Kay. I know it seems kind of harsh, but just think about what it is they’re doing to you.”

  “Oh, no, that’s not the problem.” I start digging around in my book bag for my lunch. “I want to do it, believe me, we’re on the same page there. I just don’t think I can do it.”

  “Why not?” Emily asks, abandoning her food all together and turning her body toward me.

  “He makes me… nervous.” I finally find my lunch and yank it out of the bottom of my bag. Luckily my mom had left it on the counter for me since I would have had no time to pack one for myself this morning.

  “Oh,” Emily says, suddenly looking bored. “I could have told you that.” She turns her body back toward her lunch and picks her apple up off the table, taking a huge bite out of the juicy red fruit.

  “How?” I ask her. Emily had never even seen Zane and me interact with one another, how could she possibly know how nervous he made me? It’s not like it was something I went around bragging about.

  “Because you’ve wanted him since before his dad and your mom even got together,” she says in between loud chews of her apple.

  I practically choke on the bite of my peanut butter and jelly sandwich I had just put in my mouth. I pop the top off my bottle of water and take a long swig of it before I start choking in the middle of the café and cause a huge scene. “I have not!”

  Emily opens a bag of Doritos and sticks one into her mouth, chewing on the cheesy treat happily. “Yes, you have,” she says, chomping away. “It’s only been obvious for years.” Chomp. Chomp.

  I force a laugh, trying to play it cool. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I force myself to take another bite of my sandwich, but it tastes rubbery now, and I can feel the peanut butter starting to stick to the root of my mouth.

  “Stop trying to play it cool.” She takes a sip out of her diet coke, washing down her orange chips. She looks as cool as a cucumber, like what she’s saying isn’t a big deal at all. Like it’s just another thing she knows about me, like my favorite color or my favorite food.

  I set my sandwich down, annoyed now that she’s able to read me so well. “Am I that obvious?”

  She laughs, popping another chip into her mouth. “You’re not exactly the most subtle person in the world, Kay. You’re actually super easy to read.”

  “I was just thinking how you read me so easily!”

  “Exactly,” she says, shaking her head back and forth like it’s a terrible thing. “And it’s not just me, you wear your heart on your sleeve.”

  I frown. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that it’s not hard to figure you out. You let everyone know exactly what you’re feeling and when you’re feeling it by your actions and expressions. For example, do you want to know how I knew you were into Zane? Because when I used to hang out with Ben and Zane you were always staring at him from afar whenever he was around. You were practically drooling all over the place at just the sight of him.”

  “I was not!” I tell her, clearly showing how offended I am by her words. She looks at me skeptically and I shrug, not making eye contact with her. “I wasn’t drooling! But maybe, maybe, I used to have a little thing for him. But not anymore, those thoughts have been over for, god, like, years.” I laugh nervously.

  Emily smiles. “I’m sure it has,” she says, sounding like she knows just how full of shit I am, but she’s choosing to humor me. “But that’s not the point. The point is that if you’re going to beat Zane and Ben at their own game you have to learn to hide your emotions better.”

  I huff. “How am I supposed to do that? I don’t mean for it to happen! It just does! One minute everything is fine, the next I’m stuttering like a school child with no control over myself!”

  “You just have to learn to channel it better. There’s really a lot of power in not letting people know what you feel right away. Sometimes the mystery is better, you know?”

  “I don’t know how to channel it! If I don’t know how to channel it, how the hell am I supposed to channel it?” I ask her, annoyed with the whole situation. This was ridiculous. Why did I have to learn how to not show my emotions? It was awful how I had to change who I was just because my son of a bitch stepbrother had made a bet on if he could sleep with me in a month or not. It wasn’t fair, I hadn’t asked for this. And somehow I was the one paying for it. You don’t have to be the one that pays for it, a voice tells me. You can make Zane and his friend’s pay for what they plan on doing to you, you just have to want it bad enough.

  “I can help you,” Emily reaches out and touches my shoulder lightly. “This weekend? I can come over and we can have a crash course on what you should and shouldn’t do! It’ll be fun!”

  I shoot her a look.

  “Okay,” she says, nodding, “it’ll be as fun as it can be under the circumstances.” She shoots me a smile then slides back over to give her chips the attention they have been missing out on for the last few minutes. “Just try to do the best you can until then, okay?”

  “Yeah, I can do that. I can definitely do the best I can until then.”

  “Great,” she says. “After all, it’s only day one. 29 more to go.”

  Right, 29 more to go.

  ***

  “Are you sure that’s the right answer?” Zane asks me, looking up from where he’s sitting on the couch in the basement. He has his math book, notebooks, pencils, and a calculator spread out around him.

  I nod. “Positive. I told you, I covered this chapter like months ago at the beginning of the year.” This was the truth; I had covered this chapter a long time ago, and I had been tested on it multiple times since then, acing every test that I took on the material. The part that wasn’t the truth was the part about me being sure this was the right answer. In fact, I
was sure it was the complete wrong answer. I had been teaching Zane the wrong material all afternoon.

  It was something Emily and me had come up with at the end of the day. If Zane was going to come up with lame reasons to hang out with me I wasn’t going to make it easy on him, I was going to make it hard. Like right now, when I was feeding him the wrong information for his test.

  Now, Zane didn’t really need help in math. He had only said he did as a way to spend time with me. As an excuse to get me to hang out with him one on one, which meant that I could have as much fun with the situation as I wanted. That was what I was going to do any time that he came up with some bullshit reason to be around me. I was going to make it awful for him and fun for me.

  Like now, with each answer I would give Zane he was growing more and more annoyed at me because he knew that it was wrong. He couldn’t tell me he knew that I had no idea what I was talking about, though, because that would mean that he had to admit he didn’t need any help in math at all.

  He flips through the book in front of him now, puzzled. “I could have swore I remember the teacher saying something about-“

  “Why do you keep bringing the teacher up?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest. “Do you not trust me or something? Because if you don’t need my help anymore, Zane, you can just tell me.”

  “Oh, no, no. I still need your help. I just,” he pauses, “what did you say your grade in math was again?”

  “A 98%,” I say proudly. I really was proud of it, too. Accelerated math was no joke, it was friggen hard. I had worked hard to maintain that high of a grade in any of my classes, but especially in math.

  Zane looks at me, unsure. “And you do that well when you… do math this way?”

  I flop down on the sofa next to him, pushing some of his papers out of the way, so I have room to sit. “Of course. I mean… what other way would I do math? The wrong way?”

  I laugh after I say it, like I’m telling a joke, but Zane just looks confused. I was doing a pretty good job at keeping my composure around him this afternoon if I did say so myself. Emily had given me a little pep talk that afternoon and so far it seemed to be working. Although, it was also easy to keep distance between Zane and myself when he was supposed to be studying for a test. There was lots of paper and books in the way of any physical contact. And lots of clothes, a voice reminds me. Ugh.