Stepbrother’s Possession (In the Family Way #5)

Chapter 1 Eliza

ELIZA

“Have you ever done yourself up, Eliza?”

I blush hard in the mirror at Mara as she works the curling iron through my hair. When she first plugged it in and brought it close to me, I was sure it was going to scorch every single follicle off of my skull and leave me bald for life.

Reaching up, I take one of the curls between my fingers and examine it.

“I’m not gonna look like I’m…trying too hard, am I?” I ask, already wanting to crawl under the bed and hide.

Mara laughs. “Despite what men say about loving the ‘natural’ look, they like hot chicks, bro! And we’re making you hotter than you’ve ever been.”

I barely recognize my reflection in the mirror. Fake eyelashes, mascara, blush, concealer—all things I never wear. Honestly, I wouldn’t even have a clue how to put them on if it wasn’t for Mara.

Can you believe that? Nineteen years old and I don’t know how to do my own makeup?

But I have to admit, I kind of like the way I look with my face all done up. Normally, I just wake up, shower, throw on some sweats, and go about my day. I was actually planning on wearing that tonight, but Mara had other plans.

“You can’t go to the club in that!” She laughed when she burst into my room like a perfume-covered tornado. She had a bunch of dresses with her that I never ever would have bought, and told me to pick one.

It then took ten minutes of persuasion to get me into a tiny piece of black fabric that hugs every inch of my curves like a second layer of skin. I’ve always been self-conscious about specific parts of my body—my hips and breasts especially—but this dress does wonders for me.

“Are you sure this isn’t…too much?” I ask, trying to tug the hem down a little more on my ample thighs. “It’s not really hiding…anything…”

“That’s the point!” Mara replies, twisting her lips as she shakes her head at me. “Your legs are thick, girl, and boys love ‘em. You gotta show ‘em off!”

I’ve no clue where Mara gets her self-confidence from. She’s the total opposite of me when it comes to boys. They scare the bejesus out of me, but Mara always seems to have fun with them She’s the only reason I’m actually going out tonight.

“I dunno,” I mutter. “Maybe I’ll just stay in and work on some of my sketches…”

If you look up ‘introvert’ in the dictionary, there should be a picture of me. I’d rather be drawing or taking photos than playing a team sport or doing a girl’s night out.

“No, no, no,” she scolds, waving her finger in the air. “We are going out, having drinks, and maybe you’ll even get yourself a little strange…”

She winks, causing me to blush even more.

I’m a virgin. Mara knows this. Me getting ‘a little strange’ tonight would be in fact…

strange, if not downright impossible. I’m saving myself for a man who has zero interest in me—who is ten years older than me, looks at me like an annoying little girl, and hasn’t interacted with me in months.

My step-brother Caleb.

He moved out right after I turned eighteen when his mom, Sara, married my dad, Daniel. Now the only time I see him is at a family dinner, but he never says a word to me. My stomach twists into knots every time he averts his eyes from me. Honestly, I don’t even know what I’m doing to piss him off.

Maybe if he saw me in this dress with this makeup on things would change. But then again, he has no shortage of girls throwing themselves at him. He’s tall, gorgeous, broad-shouldered, and doesn’t give a damn about what anyone thinks about him.

From the way he acts, I bet he hates me right down to his core—thinks I’m a spoiled little brat.

I’ve never had a job, but Caleb was doing manual labor since he was fifteen.

He’s never said so directly, but I know he thinks my art is silly.

Just another dumb girl who thinks she’s going to change the world.

Mara finally finishes with my hair and sets the curling iron aside. I stand up and take a look at myself in the full-length mirror, and my heart starts racing. So much cleavage.

“Yeah, this isn’t a good idea,” I say, starting to sweat. “I’m gonna look like a fresh beef steak to those guys—”

“That’s the idea!” Mara persists, taking my arm like a sweet old grandma. “And I’ll be there to look out for you.”

“And we’re gonna be drinking? What happens if we get caught with fake IDs?”

Mara gives me that look she always gives me when I’m going into my mom-mode—thinking too much about something. Picturing all the things that could go wrong instead of thinking about everything that could go right. That’s how she puts it.

“I know, I’m doing it again…” I sigh.

She smiles and pulls me in for a hug. “The guys are gonna love you,” she laughs, jiggling my boobs, which are nearly falling out of my dress.

“Oh my God, stop!” I laugh, reaching for my gray cardigan that’s hanging over the back of my chair. But she quickly takes it from me and tosses it into the closet. “Mara, come on, it might be cold—”

“It’s summer, Eliza,” she replies, taking my hand. “You’re gonna be fine. Now come on. It’s time to go.”

I nearly die going downstairs in this brand-new pair of heels, but I somehow manage to get out to Mara’s Camry without breaking an ankle. Once in, she cranks some house music and guns it out of my driveway, squealing her tires loud enough that it’s sure to wake at least one of my parents.

Thankfully, it’s only a short drive into town, which means I don’t have time to rethink my life decisions. According to Mara, the club we’re going to just opened up and is the new hot spot in town.

When we pull up, I see a cluster of guys standing outside, vaping, drinking, and laughing at each other’s jokes. One of them cat-calls a girl in a pink dress as she walks by. She flips them the bird—something I would never have the guts to do—and they grab their dicks at her in response.

My eyes scan the crowd, looking for just one kind-looking guy, but all I see are wolves. Hungry faces on the prowl, dripping with testosterone.

“What if the IDs don’t work…” I plead as Mara shoves her door open.

“We’ll be fine,” she says. “Stop worrying!”

I feel like I’m stepping into an alternate reality as we make our way down the street and into the fray of bodies. My house is out in the woods, and the town itself is small, so seeing this many people together at one time is foreign to me.

Like many of these guys, my dad spent most of his life working as a mechanic, but some sound investments allowed him to retire early. Now he has his own specialty car business that he runs out of his new garage.

As we cross the street, one of the guys whistles at me. I turn to look at him but see another guy shoving him aside. I only get a glimpse of him from the back, but my heart nearly leaps out of my throat. That man looked just like Caleb.

But it can’t be Caleb. He’s away working on a bridge a few towns over and won’t be back for weeks, maybe even months. My stomach twists. Great, I haven’t even had a drink and I’m already seeing things.

“Good evening, Larry,” Mara says to the guy at the door. He’s massive with a shaved head and a beard like a Viking. “This is my friend, Eliza.”

She gives me the look to get my ID out. I scramble through my purse, trembling as I pull it out and hand it to him. His eyes scan it, and I feel my pulse rise. God, I might just have a heart attack.

“What time do you get off?” Mara asks, her tone flirtatious. “We should hang out.”

I try not to frown. Larry is nothing like Mara’s type. She likes blond guys who look like they just came off the beach in San Diego. Larry almost smiles and hands us our IDs back.

“I get off at one.”

Mara winks and pulls me past him. “I’ll come and find you!”

As we step inside, the music assaults my ears. It’s similar to what Mara was playing in the car but ten times the volume. I lean in and shout at her, “Larry? Seriously?”

Cackling, she shakes her head as she drags me to the bar. “No way! I just said that to distract him so he’d let us in. Men are primitive creatures.”

Lights flash in my eyes, and my eardrums feel like they’re about to pop as Mara rushes me over to the bartender, an inked-up girl with straight black hair and lots of piercings.

“Two vodka sodas with lime!” Mara shouts over the music.

You’ll be fine, I tell myself, taking a deep breath and forcing myself to sway a bit to the beat. All I have to do is relax. Introverts can have fun nights out, right?

Our drinks arrive quickly, and Mara immediately raises her glass for a toast. “To getting the hell out of the house!”

We clink glasses, and I take a sip. My throat burns, and I start coughing like I just inhaled a toxic gas. Mara laughs and pats me on the back.

“Oh my God—” I stammer.

“Your first drink!” she laughs. “Now we’ve just got to get you your first dick!”

“First dick, huh?” a gravelly voice says from behind me. “So you girls are on the prowl?”

I nearly jump out of my shoes as I whirl around in shock and find myself staring into the drunken eyes of a man I was not expecting to see here tonight.

“Tony!?” He simply grins back. Tony and I went to high school together. He was a senior when I was a freshman and was always relentlessly hitting on me, even after I told him I wasn’t interested. It’s been years—thankfully—since I saw him last.

He reaches out and slides my glass away from me. The way he touches it makes my skin crawl—like he thinks he owns it or something. “Get rid of this trash. Let me get you a real drink—"

“Um, excuse me,” Mara chimes in, pulling my drink back. “Did anybody ask for your help here? No? Good, then why don’t you get lost?”

“Do you think I give a shit?” he counters, then, without hesitation, moves right in and wraps me up in his arms like I’ll just accept whatever he does to me. His eyes are glazed over, and he’s sweating as he starts pulling me away into the crowd, grinding his hips against my thigh.

“Mara!” I shout, starting to panic. Like the true friend she is, she grabs him by the shirt and starts slapping him, but he shoves her hard and knocks her to the floor.

Now I’m really starting to freak out. I look around for help, but everyone is lost in their own worlds, dancing and grinding like animals.

I spot a side door, and my heart sinks. That must be where he’s taking me.

Reaching out, I try to grab a support column as we pass, but my fingers just slip off it.

I knew it. I should have listened to the voice in my head telling me to stay in tonight. But Mara was so convincing, and I wanted to feel reckless. Just once.

“Let go!” I manage to shout, but I’m no match for this man. He kicks the door open, and the night air slams into me. I see the van. Rusted. Idling. This is how girls disappear. I open my mouth to scream, and that’s when it happens.

The air shifts. A shadow moves fast and silently. Tony’s body jerks violently as a fist connects with his jaw. The crack echoes off the brick wall, and he drops like someone cut his strings.

I stumble backward, heart in my throat. A boot strikes hits stomach, causing him to cry out.

“You keep your hands off her, you son of a bitch.”

Everything in me goes still.

That voice…

Everything feels like slow-motion as I turn and look at the man who just saved my life, and when I see him, my jaw nearly falls off. “Caleb…” My voice is barely a whisper. “I was right. It was you.”

He doesn’t even look winded. His shoulders are broad beneath his dark shirt. His hands are flexing, like he’s deciding whether to keep going.

Then he looks at me. I see my reflection sizzling in his bright green eyes, and I almost pass out.

“Are you hurt?” he asks. It isn’t a question. It’s an inspection.

I shake my head, barely breathing. His jaw tightens anyway.

“Bastard spiked your drink,” he says, glaring at me like he’s blaming me for what just happened. “You’re so irresponsible.”

My mouth doesn’t seem to work as I try to respond. “I…my friend…Mara—”

He grabs my wrist—not painfully but firmly—and pulls me behind him, placing himself between me and the world like it’s pure instinct. “Some little girl can’t save you from a guy like that.”

I recognize his truck instantly, parked in the shadows just down the block. “Let’s get you out of here,” he says.

“But Mara—”

“She’ll be fine. You can text her on the way.”

The next thing I know, I’m being gently lifted into the passenger side of his truck. He just beat the hell out of a guy like it was nothing, and now he’s being a total gentleman.

Feeling Caleb’s rough hand on my skin and staring into his eyes again after so long is like a breath of pure oxygen after suffocation. I was built to fit exactly here.

And that is so wrong…