Roommates (Soulmates #1) Read online

  Roommates

  A Stepbrother Romance

  Hazel Kelly

  © 2016 Hazel Kelly

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, copied, or stored in any form or by any means without permission of the author. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  All characters, events, brands, companies, and locations in this story are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons is purely coincidental.

  Cover Artwork – © 2016 L.J. Anderson of Mayhem Cover Creations

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: Jenny

  Chapter 2: Ethan

  Chapter 3: Jenny

  Chapter 4: Ethan

  Chapter 5: Jenny

  Chapter 6: Ethan

  Chapter 7: Jenny

  Chapter 8: Ethan

  Chapter 9: Jenny

  Chapter 10: Ethan

  Chapter 11: Jenny

  Chapter 12: Ethan

  Chapter 13: Jenny

  Chapter 14: Ethan

  Chapter 15: Jenny

  Chapter 16: Ethan

  Chapter 17: Jenny

  Chapter 18: Ethan

  Chapter 19: Jenny

  Chapter 20: Ethan

  Chapter 21: Jenny

  Chapter 22: Ethan

  Flashback: Ethan

  Chapter 23: Jenny

  Chapter 24: Ethan

  Chapter 25: Jenny

  Chapter 26: Ethan

  Chapter 27: Jenny

  Chapter 28: Ethan

  Chapter 29: Jenny

  Chapter 30: Ethan

  Chapter 31: Jenny

  Chapter 32: Ethan

  Flashback: Jenny

  Chapter 33: Jenny

  Chapter 34: Ethan

  Chapter 35: Jenny

  Chapter 36: Ethan

  Chapter 37: Jenny

  Chapter 38: Ethan

  Chapter 39: Jenny

  Chapter 40: Ethan

  Chapter 41: Jenny

  Chapter 42: Ethan

  Chapter 43: Jenny

  Chapter 44: Ethan

  Flashback: Ethan

  Chapter 45: Jenny

  Chapter 46: Ethan

  Chapter 47: Jenny

  Chapter 48: Ethan

  Chapter 49: Jenny

  Chapter 50: Ethan

  Epilogue : Jenny

  Note from the Author

  “There is always some madness in love.

  But there is also always some reason in madness.”

  -Friedrich Nietzsche

  Prologue

  I always liked him. I just didn’t realize it because I was so awkward back then, especially around guys. I guess I still kind of am.

  To make matters worse, I was only fifteen when our parents got married, which made the confusing feelings I had for him- that horrible teenage attraction mixed with extreme repulsion- even worse.

  But it wasn’t really repulsion at all. The resistance I felt was merely my own lack of confidence coupled with the subconscious understanding that my feelings for him weren’t okay.

  I’ll never forget the anxiety I felt the night a party at Jesse Kandinsky’s got so out of control that my theater friends and I actually got in.

  Ethan was there. Along with all the other popular kids.

  I saw him in the kitchen as soon as I walked in the back door. And he saw me, too. He always saw me. It was talking to me that he avoided.

  I stood back from his circle of friends and watched Jesse spin an empty wine bottle on the butcher block while my friend, Brandi, rummaged in her oversized purse for the two bottles of hard lemonade her older sister gave us.

  It was obvious that everyone was drunk but me. Yet strangely, even my vision felt blurry as I tried to reconcile the noise and the crowd while clocking my emergency exits.

  But when the spinning bottle stopped, the room came into focus again, and I realized everyone was staring at me.

  “Looks like you’ve gotta kiss Jen,” Jesse said to Ethan.

  I felt the color drain from my face, taking the moisture in my mouth with it as a suffocating panic grew in my chest. I was going to be found out.

  Ethan laughed it off. “Yeah, that’s not happening. She’s my sister.”

  “Not really, though,” Jesse said.

  Everyone erupted into nervous laughter and jeering sounds that made the already hostile environment seem even more like a jungle full of predators.

  My cheeks felt like they might burst into flames.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Ethan said, tilting a can of beer over his mouth.

  When Jesse spun the bottle again, Ethan glanced back at me one more time and wiped the back of his hand across his lips.

  I’ve been wondering what it would be like to kiss him ever since.

  Chapter 1: Jenny

  I’d knocked so many times now it was going to be seriously awkward if he opened the door.

  I sighed and pulled the spare key from my pocket, letting the yellow lanyard it was on dangle from my palm.

  I was afraid this would happen, that he wouldn’t be here, that I’d be left standing outside his door with a duffel bag and no invitation.

  I nearly jumped out of my skin when my phone rang.

  “Hi.” I scrunched my face.

  “Hey,” my stepdad said. “I’m just calling to make sure you arrived okay.”

  My eyes traced the outline of Ethan’s front door. “I’m here, but I don’t think he’s home.”

  “He’s probably at work. Just let yourself in. That’s why I gave you the key.”

  “I know- I just… Does he even know I have it?”

  “I’ll let him know.”

  “I don’t want him to come home and get spooked when he finds me asleep on the couch.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Go inside and relax. So your mom can finally relax.”

  “Okay.”

  “And good luck at your audition. We’re rooting for you.”

  “Thanks, Ed.”

  I slipped the phone back in my pocket and squeezed my eyes shut as I turned the key in the door.

  After I pushed it open, I stuck my head in first, relieved that the city lights from outside lit up the room, making it easy for me to find the switch on the wall inside the door. Then I dragged my small bag in from the hall and locked myself inside.

  I put my key on the end of the kitchen counter and leaned against it, allowing my body to feel the exhaustion I’d been fighting off all day as I kept to myself on the twelve hour bus from Oberlin.

  The apartment was nice despite the fact that it was lacking in any cozy feminine touches- apart from a trace of fresh lemon scent in the air.

  There was a black leather couch- my temporary bed presumably- along the back wall of the open room underneath an abstract print of what looked like the silhouette of two women kissing.

  I turned my head towards the far end of the kitchen. The top of the fridge was cluttered with a dozen different kinds of liquor bottles and a barrel of whey protein the size of my suitcase.

  Before taking my shoes off, I looked down at the floor.

  I didn’t normally take my shoes off in guy’s apartments, but most guys were filthy and shed as carelessly as cats. But the sparkling white tiles on Ethan’s kitchen floor looked immaculate.

  So either his condo came with a cleaning lady, he had an obsessive compulsive girlfriend, or all those years at boarding school had actually rubbed off on him.

  I opened the fridge. It was almost entirely bare. As far as I could tell, he either ate all his meals out or he subsisted on nothing but eggs and BLTs.

  I walked over to the closest door. It was locked. I tried it again but had no luck so I let my eyes wande
r to the black bookcase beside it.

  The top two shelves contained books about booze and bartending: Classic Cocktails, 1001 Cocktails to Try Before You Die, The Stout Bible. Below that there were books about street art. I recognized Banksy’s name but none of the others.

  I squatted down to get a better look at the bottom shelf. It contained a few fiction classics- On the Road, Raisin in the Sun, Catcher in the Rye. And in the corner there was a book called The Third Policeman.

  It was the copy I gave him when he went to college. I flipped through it. A few of the pages were folded over. I slid it back on the shelf, wondering why he never mentioned he read it.

  Across the room was a cracked door. I walked across the floor and pushed it open. His bedroom was dark and smelled like aftershave. I flicked the light on.

  His bed was made with military precision and his closet doors were open, revealing a closet that was ready for a magazine shoot down to the row of shoes along the floor.

  I made a mental note to myself to be really tidy so I didn’t piss him off, though I imagined it wouldn’t make much difference considering he wasn’t exactly expecting a house guest.

  Atop his dresser, there was a picture of his mom. It was one I’d seen before of her flying a kite in the Outer Banks before he was born.

  When our parents got married, my mom had the same one framed and put it up in the family room as a sort of olive branch for Ethan. She wanted him to know that she wasn’t going to try and replace his mother, that she understood how much she meant to him.

  But despite her best efforts, he never made it easy for her. Still, that was nothing compared to what he put his dad through. I don’t think he ever forgave him for remarrying.

  Eventually Ethan’s anger became difficult to manage. In fact, it got so bad my stepdad actually seemed relieved when he got kicked out of school because it gave him an excuse to send him away.

  I was only sixteen then, and I could count on my fingers how many times I’d seen Ethan since.

  And while I knew our parents thought sending him away was what was best for him, I never did.

  I mean, it’s not like he went out of his way to be nice to me, but I never once felt threatened by him or thought he was dangerous.

  He was just sad. And I’d be really sad, too, if I went through what he did with his mom. Not that I could relate.

  My dad just fucked off when I was a baby. My mom always maintained it was the nicest thing he ever did for me.

  I wasn’t actively snooping, but I knew I’d crossed the line when I pulled the top dresser drawer open and found a row of folded boxers next to a fishbowl full of condoms.

  I closed the drawer and swallowed.

  There was only one more door to look behind, and I had to check it cause I was bursting to use the toilet.

  I wasn’t a diva or anything, but I’d never been to New York before, and I didn’t want my first experience of the city to be the bathroom at the bus station so I’d forced myself to hold it.

  Sure enough, there wasn’t a stray pube in sight or a single wet towel on the floor.

  Maybe boarding school had been good for him. After all, I’d never seen him fold shit during that year we lived together, never saw him wash a dish, never saw him make his bed- not that I ever stuck my head in his room when he was home.

  I hoped he’d be able to see that I’d changed for the better, too.

  College had been really eye opening for me. I’d grown up a lot, and I wasn’t nearly as naïve or annoying as I once was. He didn’t need to be embarrassed by me anymore.

  After I went to the bathroom, I pulled a spare blanket out from the top of the closet and double checked that the condom drawer was closed. It was bad enough that I showed up uninvited. I didn’t want him to know I’d shown myself around his underwear drawer, too.

  Then I turned his bedroom lights off, laid down on the couch, and studied my script until my eyelids got heavy.

  Chapter 2: Ethan

  In my line of work, a guy’s got to be careful.

  After all, with great power comes great responsibility. And just because I could have my pick of hot drunk girls any night of the week didn’t mean taking them up on their advances was always the right thing to do.

  Besides, women say a lot of stupid shit when they’re drunk, and they’re no better than guys. Once they get drunk enough, they’ll hit on anything that moves.

  So resisting isn’t usually much trouble.

  But I’m no saint. If a twelve is going to hit on me every night she comes in week after week, eventually I’m going to grow weary of saying no.

  Which is how I ended up with my hand wedged between Naomi’s thighs in the elevator of my building.

  “I thought you’d never take me home,” she said, arching her back and lifting her face towards the ceiling, her shiny black braids falling around my face as I bit her slender neck.

  “I admire your persistence,” I growled, pulling her wet panties to the side.

  She was beautiful, like a black Charlie’s Angel. And she’d been nursing her drinks all night, wrapping her fat lips around her skinny straw as she watched me work the bar, ignoring her friends and every other guy who made a pass. So there was no doubt she wanted it even more than I did.

  Which is exactly how I liked it.

  The elevator dinged, and I took a step back. “After you,” I said, holding the doors open and sweeping my free hand towards the hall.

  She shook her head at me, batting her long eyelashes as her ridiculously short dress flitted inches below her ass.

  Hell, with a dress that short, it was only right to make sure she got home safe.

  She stuck her hand around and groped me as I fumbled with my keys.

  “Hurry up,” she said. “Before I change my mind.”

  I laughed. “As if your mind has anything to do with this.” I pulled her in my apartment, closed the door, and slammed her against it, planting my lips on her soft mouth.

  She tilted her hips against me and started unbuttoning my shirt.

  I slid a hand under the round cheek of her ass and pulled her thigh up against my hip. If I had my way, she’d be showing me exactly how flexible she was in no time.

  She moaned in my mouth as I slid my hand back between her legs, picking up where I left off in the elevator.

  A moment later I felt her nails against my bare chest, teasing the length of it before she curled them inside the top of my pants.

  I pulled my hips back an inch so she could undo my belt, her urgency making my dick swell.

  “Ahem.”

  I froze.

  Naomi’s eyes were big and still in the dark.

  I pressed a finger over my lips so she’d be quiet and lowered her leg as slowly as I could.

  She pursed her lips.

  I spun around and flicked the light on.

  Two sleepy eyes peered over a blanket from across the room.

  “Jen?”

  She lowered it so I could see her face. “Sorry. If I’d known you were going to have company-”

  “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  She swallowed as her eyes bounced back and forth between me and… me and… Oh right.

  I turned around.

  Naomi looked like her eyes were still adjusting to the bright light of my kitchen.

  “I’m really sorry,” I said. “But it turns out it’s not a good time.”

  She looked so offended I thought I’d been dropped into an episode of Housewives of Atlanta for a second.

  “Can I call you a cab or something?” I asked.

  Her mouth fell open. “You’re fucking serious.”

  I nodded and reached past her for the handle on the door.

  “I thought you were going to show me a good time.” Her eyes stabbed me like darts. “What was all that talk about how you were going to lick m-”

  “Raincheck,” I said, pushing her into the hallway and closing the door.

  “Asshole!” she yelled t
hrough it.

  I kept my hand on the door and dropped my head.

  “I’m sorry, Ethan.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut.

  “Your dad was supposed to tell you I was coming.”

  I couldn’t remember the last time I heard her voice, but it hadn’t changed, and hearing it made me feel sixteen again.

  “It’s only for a few days so I can go to this audition and-”

  I turned around. “How the hell did you even get in here?”