Shame: A Stepbrother Romance by Emma Soule Read Free Book Online

buddy David to a wedding next weekend. I think they’ve hit it off last night.”
    “Good for them,” I say, “Do you want this gift wrapped?”
    “Yes, please,” he says and picks up a small souvenir book with wise quotes about motherhood from the counter. If he gets that too, I feel like I’m going to scream at him.
    “I know I left kind of in a hurry last night,” he goes on, “so the real reason I’m here…”
    “Perfect, there is a real reason and you didn’t just urgently need to pick the best French monastery.”
    “The real reason,” he continues, unfazed, “is that I wanted to give you a chance to invite me too. I know we didn’t exactly exchange contacts last night.”
    I stop wrapping his useful purchase and look at him.
    “Are you serious?” I say, genuinely shocked.
    “Why not?”
    “Why would you assume I would ever want to see you again?”
    “Because you had so much fun with me last night and wanted to do that again some time?”
    “Do that ? Believe me, I never want to do that again, ever. If you can’t tell from looking at me right now, what happened last night… That’s not really who I am.”
    He walks around the counter and without a warning grabs me by my waist and picks me up from the office chair. I’m so stunned, I can’t even react. He deposits me on the desk and spreads my knees, his hands grabbing my ass and suddenly pulling me forward. I end up glued to the front of his jeans that are once again bulging under the pressure of a growing erection.
    I immediately feel weak and as if I’m made of rubber, the familiar tingle stinging my clit.
    “I think that’s exactly who you are,” he says in a low, husky voice and squeezes my ass, pushing himself into me.
    I moan against my will.
    I only let it go on for a moment, before I regain my senses. What is wrong with me? Am I really spreading my legs for anyone who tells me to? Well, to be fair, it’s not just for anyone… The thing is, I look disgusting, I feel disgusting and, most of all, I am convinced this is definitely not me.
    “I think you should leave now,” I say quietly and wiggle away from him.
    “Alright,” he says and finally steps away, his pants conspicuously protruding at the front. It doesn’t seem to be making him uncomfortable. He smiles again. “But, I’ll be waiting for my invitation.”
    He grabs his packaged book and leaves without turning back.
    I jump to the floor and straighten my dress. That’s when I notice the square piece of paper with his number on it.
    There’s no name. I already know I’m never going to call, so I scrunch it up into a ball and throw it into the trash can.
    It’s time to go back to who I really am.
     
     
     
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER SIX
     
     
    My mother dresses for dinner. I mean, for every dinner.
    It’s Tuesday afternoon and I’ve shown up like a good daughter to meet my newest brother.
    Our roles are reversed and this time I lie sprawled on her bed while my mom is taking her time in front of the mirror. Watching her get ready is like witnessing something sacred, a ritual. She’s got her routine down to the tiniest elements. Right now, she’s bent over the vanity table, using the torture tool that is the eyelash curler to give her already dramatic eyelashes an even greater curve. At the same time, she’s stuck the mascara tube between her legs to warm it up so it doesn’t clump.
    I can’t watch. I feel like she’ll accidentally squeeze her lid and bleed to death, so I focus on her hair. It falls down past her shoulders in sleek, natural-looking waves and it has an impossible shine to it. It’s a bit darker than mine, more reddish than orange, and I’ve always wondered whether she secretly dyes it, but of course you can’t ask my mom about these things. She has always insisted that her beauty is completely natural. Genetic.
    Yeah, right. If it was genetic, what kind of ugly monster was my father that I didn’t inherit any of her