Step F*#k: Part Three (A Stepbrother series Book 3) by Scarlett Ward

I wake up, and for a second feel as though I can’t move. It’s like my brain is sending the signals to my limbs, but they’re all in such horrific pain that they’re just lying there, motionless. My entire body aches and I realize I’m lying on a cold tile floor, a bathroom floor, to be exact, Jai next to me, my head halfway resting on his upper arm, my neck bent at insanely awkward angle.  
    And someone, my mother, I believe, is calling everyone for breakfast.  
    “Ouch.” I lift my head a few inches and the pain shoots down from my neck all the way to my lower back. Jai stirs. We’re both naked. He’s got an erection. My mother’s voice is getting closer.  
    “Emma? Jess? Jai? Breakfast is ready!”  
    “We have to get up!” I whisper. The thought of my mother pushing open my bedroom door and seeing us lying on the bathroom floor, me naked, seeing Jai and his erection is the impetus I need to get moving, despite the violent protests from my body. It’s not even from the sex—well, okay, maybe a little—but from passing out on the bathroom floor, which is all fine and good when the post-coital endorphins are freely flowing through you; not so much many hours later, however.  
    “Come here, you,” Jai says, reaching for me. I scramble out of his grasp.
    “My mother could walk through that door at any moment. Get back in your room!”  
    “She’s been going on and on about us getting acquainted—we could show her we’ve really taken her advice.” He grins, reaching for me again, but I just dart out of the bathroom, pulling the door shut behind me. For all I know he’s going to lie there and jerk off and not care who happens to see.  
    I fling the sheets back on the bed and jump in, my head hitting the pillow just as my mother knocks softly at the door.  
    “Emma? You awake?”
“Sort of,” I say, trying to sound groggy, which isn’t too difficult, considering.  
    The door opens partially and Mom pops her head around. “Zack and I got up early and made breakfast. And it’s getting late enough that I don’t feel bad waking everyone up and asking them to come down so we can all have breakfast together, while the food is still hot. Just throw on a pair of those yoga pants you love and a tank top or something—no need to get all dolled up. Not yet, anyway.”
    She winks and then disappears. I lie there for a moment, long enough to hear her knock on Jai’s door and start to give him the same spiel. He says something in return that I can’t quite make out and she starts chortling. Oh my god. I don’t know if I will make it through these next two weeks.  
    Forcing myself to get up, I throw on a pair of yoga pants and a t-shirt. I want to go back into the bathroom to at least splash some cold water on my face, but I’m afraid I’ll bump into Jai in there and we’ll end up—
    Stop it .  
    I can’t let myself think about any of that anymore. Because if I think about it, the likelihood of it happening again is greater and greater. And I don’t want that. Well, maybe part of me does, but I can’t let it happen. I can’t just give in to some primitive, animal desire. This is what I repeat to myself over and over as I go downstairs, the aroma of coffee luring me toward the kitchen.  
    But before I can reach the kitchen, my mother intercepts me and redirects me to the patio. Now that it’s daylight, I can see how close the house is to the lake. It really is right in the backyard, the sunlight glinting off the deep blue water, making it sparkle and shine like a giant sapphire. The backyard lawn is achingly vibrant green, and even though the lake is right there, there’s also an enormous in-ground swimming pool, with rocks and a waterfall, like something you’d expect them to have at the Playboy Mansion.  
    “It’s a great place for a swim.” Jai’s tone is light and friendly. He comes and stands next to me, close enough that our shoulders are almost touching but not quite. I take