Step by Roxie Rivera Read Free Book Online Page A

embarrassed myself in front of their grandmother by letting her find me passed out drunk in a trashed hotel room—and the way she had treated me kindly. I would tell them that was the moment I had decided she was the one I had been waiting for all these years.
    So fuck it. Fast and hard had always served me well.
    Today? I was going after Jemima—and nothing would stop me.

Chapter Four
    Jem
    Weirdest. Day. Ever.
    I glanced to my left and couldn't believe that Step was down on his hands and knees scrubbing the dirty dining room floor with a microfiber cloth. When I had tried to clean up the mess in the bedroom, he had flipped out and ordered me into the parlor area to tackle the mess in there. At first, I had been bewildered by his reaction, but then I had recognized the shame darkening his green eyes.
    Cleaning the suite in a bathrobe had felt weird at first, but the work had to be done so I had learned to deal with it. Not that Step fit the part of housekeeper any better! He looked utterly ridiculous rocking black leather pants while he attacked that stain and yet somehow also intensely sexy.
    As if sensing my stare, he glanced at me and flashed a sinful smile. Feeling suddenly embarrassed, I turned my attention to the dining table I was resetting with replacement china from the supply cupboard. I could feel the heat rising in my cheeks and a throbbing pulse centered between my thighs. I had been kissed plenty of times in my twenty-one years but that kiss in the shower? That one single kiss had obliterated every other kiss from my memory.
    I couldn't even imagine what he was like in bed. If one kiss made my knees knock together and my stomach wobble, sex would probably kill me. My sexual experience was meager compared to his. One boyfriend and two attempts at sex had been enough for me to swear it off. Then I had taken custody of Benji and all hopes for a social life had been demolished. Trying to raise a teenager while I was a teenager took every single ounce of energy I had.
    But as I started pushing a microfiber mop around the vast swaths of marble and hardwood, I found myself craving some real adult interaction. Step's kisses and his touch had relit the passionate fire that had been snuffed out by a hard life and hard work. He made me feel things I didn't know I was capable of feeling.
    And yet I couldn't quite trust him.
    I had discovered him naked and face-down in a puddle of his own mess after spending the night with a trio of hard-partying girls. Judging by the looks of the suite and the antics Diego had described, those girls had had more fun than Step. I almost felt bad that he had spent his thirtieth birthday passed out on the floor.
    Almost.
    "What are you thinking about that has you so quiet?" Step used his uncommon height to easily fix the drapes. "Are you rethinking our date?"
    "No." From this vantage point, I had the perfect view of his unbelievably hot body. He had outrageously muscled arms and a well-defined chest. My gaze travelled along his tattooed stomach to the dangerous dip in the front of his pants. There was no mistaking the outline of his cock tucked to the left. Panicked visions of that monstrous thing trying to impale me sent a quiver of fear through my belly.
    "Good." He adjusted the folds of the fabric and thankfully seemed oblivious to me ogling him. He unlocked the French doors leading out to the balcony and began collecting the trash out there. When he returned with the whole mess of cans and bottles and other refuse in his arms, he shot me a concerned look. "Is it okay for me to toss all of this in the trash?"
    I understood what he was asking. "Dude, hiding a handful of burnt out blunts in a garbage bag is probably the least worst thing I've had to toss in one these rooms."
    He didn't seem to find that amusing. "Some people are dicks." My eyebrows arched, and he looked suddenly chagrined. "Yes, present company included," he amended. Then, more seriously, he said, "Jemima, I wasn't smoking