Stepbrother The Hard Trainer: A Stepbrother Romance Book Collection

by Anna Restrepo

  Eileen laid a hand on Tara’s forehead and said, “Hmm, you don’t have a fever but you’re all red and your face looks swollen.” Eileen then noticed the mascara stains on the pillow and the tissues littering the bed sheet.

  “Tara?” Her mother said slowly “Have you been crying, sweetie?” Even as Tara shook her head, she burst into tears again and Eileen threw her arms around her daughter as she said, “Baby what’s wrong?”

  Tara didn’t respond but she stayed like that for a while, letting her mother stroke her hair and finding some comfort in the embrace. Finally, she broke away from her mother’s hug and said, “Mom, I have to tell you something.” She sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve, as Eileen peered into her face and said, “You can tell me anything, what’s wrong? Are you in trouble?” Tara shook her head and said, “I’m in love, Mom.” Eileen beamed and said, “Tara, that’s wonderful,” but her face fell and she asked, “So why are you crying? Does he not love you back? Or is it a she? Is that the problem, honey? Are you gay?” Tara shook her head and said, “I’m not gay, Mom, but the guy- he does love me- I think he does- but he can’t be with me.” Eileen tucked her daughter’s hair behind her ear and said, “Why not? Is it because he’s in New York and you’re here? Darling you can go back soon.”

  Tara shook her head again and said, “No- it’s not that. He can’t be with me because he’s with someone else, he’s engaged. And- and he’s in Miami, Mom.” Her mother looked confused and she said, “But darling, you hardly know anyone here in-” and suddenly, she stopped speaking and raised a hand to her mouth. “No- Tara, you can’t be serious.” Tara nodded and started crying again as she said, “I know it’s disgusting Mom, I can’t explain it, but I- I truly love him.”

  Eileen backed away from her crying daughter and said, “Tara- he’s your- he’s Paul’s son.” Tara wiped her tears away shakily and said, “I know, it’s all so messed up.” Eileen moved away and sat at the edge of the bed with her back towards Tara for a few minutes while Tara sobbed quietly, certain that her mother would never speak to her again.

  After a few minutes, however, Eileen stood up and faced Tara, crossing her arms over chest as she said, “What about Noah? You said he loves you too- so why marry Denise?” Tara shook her head and explained everything to her mother, leaving out the gory details of what exactly had been happening in the pool and when she was done, Eileen looked scandalized. “Tara- how long have you been- it must have been two weeks since the day Paul came home, and that’s when you two…?” Tara nodded, ready to start crying again when her mom said, “Alright. I’ll- I’ll do something, you leave it to me.” Tara stared at her mother and said, “Mom, what are you gonna do? There’s nothing you can do. If Noah and I are- if we’re together it means you and Paul can’t…” she trailed off.

  Eileen sighed and sat down next to Tara again as she said, “Tara, you asked me something the first day you got here- you asked me if I was happy, and if I loved Paul. Darling, the truth is, I’m happy, but it’s only on the surface- it’s not the kind of happiness I felt when your dad and I got married. And as for Paul, he’s a sweetheart, he really is- but I don’t love him.”

  Eileen took a deep shaky breath and said, “There I said it- I don’t love him. I like him, I certainly enjoy his company and I think he’s a lovely man, but I don’t love him. I don’t feel for him the way you say you feel for Noah. And baby, if I can give you the chance of being happy, of being truly happy, I would never take it away from you.”

  Tara stared at her mother and said, “What are you saying?”

  Eileen stood up and took off her ring, “I’m saying that I’m going to call off the wedding.”

  Tara leaped up from the bed and hesitantly said, “Mom, are you sure?”

  Eileen sighed and took Tara’s hands into hers, “Darling, one day you might have a daughter of your own, and then you’ll understand.”

  Tara flung her arms around her mother’s neck, feeling for the first time in her life, completely and truly happy.

  THE END

  Tempting Taboo

  Description

  Jaxon and Emily Hart haven’t seen each in fifteen years.

  When the two stepsiblings were both just eighteen, Jax ran away from his family, carrying a heavy secret on his strong but burdened shoulders.

  Now thirty-three, Jax is a pro NFL player with all the women and money he could ever dream of having—there’s just one thing missing in his life, leaving him feeling empty.

  When Emily finally manages to track him down after all their years apart, he realizes there’s no going back. He has to tell her just why he ran away when they were teenagers.

  Jax couldn’t bear living with the girl that he’d fallen in love with and had to escape their family before he acted on an uncontrollable urge of passion.

  To his shock, Emily doesn’t respond with contempt. Instead, forbidden desires imprisoned for so long begin to flair.

  Chapter 1

  Emily

  “Mom, look, there he is!” I yelped with glee, flipping forward on the sofa so that my feet hovered above the soft white shag of the carpet, “Do you see him?”

  “Sure do, Em,” Mom responded lightly, though I could distinctly hear the faint cackle of a soap opera actress behind her distracted voice, “He’s right there. Running across the field.”

  “Jaxon is sitting on the sideline, Mom,” I corrected with a roll of my eyes, settling back comfortably on the couch with a glance toward the clock on the DVR.

  Three forty-five in the afternoon. I had fifteen more minutes until Rick got home. That meant fifteen more minutes of football.

  “Oh sweetie,” Mom sighed, “They all look the same in their uniforms and their helmets, don’t they?”

  I gave a slight laugh, crossing my arms over my chest as I tucked the phone against my ear carefully. “If you say so. I think that’s probably why they have their names in the big letters on their jerseys though. He’s on the defense, they’re not even out on the field yet.””

  “Right, right, Jaxon is a receiver, isn’t he?” Mom was barely paying attention, it was so obvious I wasn’t sure why I bothered to stay on the phone with her.

  She always got like that when Jaxon was brought up, her voice going abruptly airy and preoccupied. The middle-aged woman gasped faintly from whatever was happening the dramatic program she currently watched instead of the game. I was the only one who watched Jax’s team anymore. My parents hadn’t watched in years, as far as I could tell.

  “He’s a linebacker, actually.”

  “Yes, honey, that’s what I said.”

  I rolled my eyes, pulling my socked feet up onto the couch and sticking them under the cozy fleece of the blanket. It was always so cold in the apartment, but that’s the temperature Rick liked it at. He hated coming home to find it any warmer than sixty-eight degrees. He got so irritated if I turned the heat on at all, even in the chilly depths of winter.

  Rick was a stern guy, he’d been like that since we started dating right out of high school. I’d liked that about him when we were younger, the way that he worked so hard and stayed so focused on getting whatever it was that he wanted. I admired it, probably because I never understood that drive. I wasn’t competitive like Rick. I didn’t enjoy stepping on people to get where I wanted to go. As a lawyer, Rick spent all day arguing and fighting off a headache. So, when he came home, I did what I could to keep him happy. He worked so hard to provide for me and Ralph.

  The medium sized mutt in question lifted his black ears as though he could hear my thoughts, gazing intently at me with piecing ebony eyes.

  I’d found Ralph on the side of the road three years ago, and though we could never pin down exactly what breed the beautiful thirty-pound boy was, he’d quickly become my best friend. He and I were more or less inseparable, I’d even smuggled him into the grocery store when our neighbor asked to store their baby stroller on our patio. Even though Rick wasn’t a dog fan, he’d allowed me to keep him,
and I was grateful for that. So was Ralph.

  “Ralph!” I smiled, calling for the dog and giving a cheerful pat on the couch cushion beside me.

  The dog gave a wary glance toward the door, ears still lifted as he listened intently for Rick’s feet clomping up the drive. When he heard nothing, he scampered over and leapt up beside me on the couch, twirling around in one quick circle before settling down beside me with his heavy head on my calves.

  “You know Rick is going to have one of his famous temper tantrums if he finds your feet on the couch and Ralph up there,” Mom suddenly announced with the sage shrewdness of renowned philosophy that came from raising two rulebreakers as children, “Last time we were on the phone and you let the soup boil over the pot, I almost expected him to beat you.”

  She laughed, though it was weak and feeble and very much a direct jab at my relationship.

  “Mom, stop!” I groaned, whacking my forehead with my hand, “That is so dramatic of you to say. He’s never once laid a finger on me. You just don’t like him because you don’t think anyone is good enough for me.”

  She didn’t argue, giving a light humph instead.

  “And his temper tantrums are not famous. He got upset that one time when the waiter brought him cabernet instead of pinot and all of a sudden you think he’s this huge crybaby.” I continued with another roll of my eyes, “And I know you’re not watching the game!”

  “Sweetie, I’ve got other things I have to deal with then watching football. I don’t understand it. The ball gets thrown this way and that and men stomp all over each other in the process. What’s there to enjoy about that?”

  “I’ve got to go, Mom,” I laughed, planting a kiss on Ralph’s furry head and then climbing to my feet. “I want to clean up the kitchen before Rick gets home. He’s got a lot of meetings this weekend and he’s going to be so exhausted.”

  “Em, when are you two going to get married?” Mom asked abruptly, and though the question made me grimace, it wasn’t exactly surprising. “You’ve been together for how long now? What’s the hold up?”

  I decided not to bring up that just seconds ago, she’d been chastising Rick’s existence. Mom had been asking the same question at least weekly for the past decade.

  “I don’t know,” I murmured, tucking my hair behind my ear and sinking down on the arm of the couch, another no-no to Rick. The only place to sit was on the cushion, and it was not for feet or dogs. “Rick is so busy right now that it doesn’t make sense to try and plan anything… Maybe next year when he gets another promotion. Maybe then we’ll have time.”

  “If you say so. Bye, honey. Love you,” Mom sighed.

  After a quick goodbye, I tossed the phone beside me and sank back down on the couch to curl up against Ralph’s warm body. It was impossible to want to clean up when there was such a sweet dog to cuddle up with instead. He lazily licked my cheek, nuzzling up so close to me that it almost pushed me off the couch.

  Marriage… what a strange thing to think about.

  After getting married would come the kids…

  My mind bristled, like it was shorting out, like one of the neural connections between my synapses had burst or just completely given up on the thought.

  Even though I liked to blame it on Rick whenever my parents would ask when that magical day would happen, to be honest, I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. When we’d first started dating, I’d doodled my name in all of my notebooks as Emily Dwight, the future Mrs. Rick Dwight. I’d wanted nothing more than to join Rick and our lives forever. I’d imagined the dark eyed children we’d have, I’d imagined them having his strong nose and silky dark hair… but now, for some reason, it just wasn’t as appealing.

  Rick had brought it up once about three years ago when he was made partner at his law firm. He’d asked in such vague terms that it took me weeks to decipher the conversation. I’d had no idea at the time that he was trying to propose. When I finally figure it out, I found myself grateful for not understanding what was going on.

  It wasn’t that I disliked my boyfriend. I still cared for him. Rick could be kind when he was in the right mood, and sometimes he brought home my favorite brand of wine from the grocery store for no reason at all. He was a good man, if too severe and strict on his rules. The only thing I’d ever wished to be different was for more excitement. There was no spark between us, there was no passion. I couldn’t remember the last time he’d touched me that wasn’t to remind me to take out the garbage or move my feet off the couch.

  Ralph gave a deep sigh against my cheek and I could feel his heart beating calm and relaxed inside his ribs. I held him against me, his warmth comforting away the faint confusion in my mind. I hated thinking too deeply about my relationship with Rick. Wasn’t this how adult romances went? Weren’t we too old now for vigor and exhilaration that lurked in the pages of a novel or in the scenes of a romance movie? That was all fiction, not real life. Real life was boring.

  I couldn’t remember, though I was sure there was a time before, the last time that I was dying to curl up beside Rick in our bed. Surely, at one point in our lives together, I had longed for him even once?

  With an ambivalent grunt, I shrugged and pushed the thought from my mind. I was good at that. I was never going to do better than Rick. I was in my mid-thirties now, a simple painter with plain looks and no real source of income. I was lucky to have snagged the man I got.

  Ralph looked at me as though he could sense my wavering doubt, giving another light lick on my cheek.

  “You’re right, buddy.” I murmured, “I’m overthinking again.”

  Rick always told me that I thought too much. He told me to look at the life we shared. I had a dog, I had a boyfriend who didn’t cheat, and I had all the time I could ever want to spend at the studio.

  He told me I shouldn’t risk it all in the hope of ever finding anything more. There wasn’t anything more that existed.

  Even as I resolved myself to enjoy the life I led, however, I couldn’t stop the niggling doubts from gnawing at the back of my mind.

  Together, Ralph and I watched in silence as my stepbrother marched back on the field alongside the quarterback and the rest of his team, positioning themselves on the smooth green grass.

  “They’re in Tampa this week,” I murmured to no one in particular, perhaps Ralph, scratching that spot he loved behind his floppy ear. “I’ve never been to Florida.”

  It was hard to imagine all the places that Jax must’ve seen, all the people he must’ve met during his long and profitable career as an NFL player. He’d been a stable, skillful player on his team for years. It made me warm inside to watch the commentators speak about how talented and athletic he was. For a linebacker, he was constantly making touchdowns. It was like he could play all the positions, like he’d devoted himself to being the best possible player he could ever be.

  The camera panned across the team’s thoughtful faces, lingering on each one as they prepared to hike the ball.

  Jaxon stared straight through the camera as though he didn’t even see it, his eyes focused with the intensity of beautiful blue lasers on the opposing team. Even though I hadn’t seen him in person in fifteen years, those eyes were still the most gorgeous shade of blue I’d ever seen. They were like tropical tides and the sky on a cloudless day and polished sapphires all in one. I’d always been jealous of his eyes. Mine were boring, the same chocolatey hue of mud.

  It was hard to believe it’d been so long since I last saw him standing before me so that we could gaze at one another face to face. Even though we were both older now, he still had that same gleam in his eyes, I could see it from here. The boyish masculinity that I’d once known had melted into something else, something that made my heart race just a bit faster than before. I could barely look away from him as he gazed over the rim of his helmet into the camera. My heart thudded heavily against my ribs, pulsating inside of me with a throbbing ache that I had never known before. He’d always been handsome, but he was so
devilishly good looking now that I could hardly breathe. Every time I saw his hard body hustling across the screen, his eyes intense and swirling blue, I couldn’t believe how handsome he’d become.

  Sun kissed brown hair hung into his eyes as he rushed forward at the quarterback’s shout, knocking into one of the other players. I grunted, hiding my face behind Ralph’s ear.

  The only part of the game that I didn’t enjoy was watching him hurl his strong, muscled body at the opposing team. He’d luckily never had a serious injury, but it didn’t stop me from panicking every time I watched him run full speed across the field. Even though he was massive and muscled, a proven mountain of a man built from a foundation of sturdy force, he was lightning quick on his feet. No one could catch him, no one could take him down.

  “Go, Jax!” I whisper cried into Ralph’s ear, peeking over the warm furry head as Jax tackled one player then leapt to his feet to spring toward his quarterback to protect him, only yards from the touchdown zone.

  They players all rushed forward, turning into a massive heap of strong bodies and shouts as the ball vanished between the players. I leapt to my feet, jumping up and down in front of the television with my hands over my head just when the door abruptly flung open.

  Lanky, dark haired Rick strode inside, one hand in his pocket as the other clutched his phone to his ear. His ebony eyes swept over to the couch as Ralph balked at the sight of the willowy man, Rick’s eyes narrowing irately.

  “Monica, I’m going to have to call you back. I have to deal with something. Please arrange that meeting for me. I’d appreciate it.” With a curt thanks, he hung up his phone and dropped it exasperatedly on the small table beside the front door.

  “Seriously, Emily? How many times do I say I don’t want that dog on the sofa? He gets hair everywhere. It’s brand new!”

  “The sofa is two years old…” I laugh. “And you spilled spaghetti on it the night after we bought it, remember?”