Stepbrother Forbidden (Stepbrother, Where Art Thou? Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

gleaming black eyes looking out from a sea of pink fur.
     
    She turned over, dislodging a few more soft toys from the bed, and saw a single non-pink thing: Ryan slumped in an uncomfortable looking wooden chair. He seemed to be dozing, but he stirred at the sound of Sophia's movement.
     
    "Hey," he whispered hoarsely, smiling with relief as he rubbed his eyes. "Look who finally woke up. How do you feel?"
     
    "I'm fine," she answered by force of habit, still a little groggy. "No, wait. Everything hurts. Where am I?"
     
    Ryan sat up in his chair, leaned forward and reached out to her temple. "You're in my friend Sara's spare room. You slept here last night. How's your head?"
     
    Sophia winced as Ryan touched her, and she reached up to find a sheet of gauze taped to her temple. It really fucking hurt. "What the hell happened to me?"
     
    "You don't remember?"
     
    She thought for a moment. "I remember... I remember drinking too much. And Bruce Springsteen. And... something about a beard?"
     
    "Well, I guess that's better than nothing. Hold still," He said. He cupped her cheek with one hand as he slowly peeled off the gauze to inspect her wound. Sophia couldn't help but lean into the warmth of his palm." Your drink was spiked by a small fraction of a man. You remember anything about that?"
     
    Something was coming back to her, just little fragments of memory. She remembered being uncomfortable, and then feeling really sleepy, but little else apart from that. "Ummm, no, not really." A sudden fear struck her. "Did anything happen? Did he... did he do anything?"
     
    "No no no, don't worry. We caught him trying to carry you out of the bar. He dropped you as soon as we stopped him, which explains the small mountain growing out of your head. You hit it pretty hard on the table before Sara caught you."
     
    She definitely remembered that. The sound of her head hitting the wood came flooding back to her. She remembered, just a fraction of a second later, the sound of glass bottles on the table hitting the table as they bounced.
     
    Ryan flicked a lock of hair from her eyes, brushed it back with his fingers and taped the gauze carefully back to her head. "OK, looks like you won't need stitches. You might have a cool little scar as a souvenir, but you won't have to worry about it unless you ever go bald." He smiled and reached to the bedside table for a glass of water and a bottle of pills. "Here, take some of these. Don't worry, it's just paracetamol."
     
    Sophia threw back two pills and chased them with a big gulp, grateful for anything that might get rid of the dwarves hitting her brain with tiny hammers. "I... think I might remember the guy. Did he have a shitty blond beard?"
     
    Ryan nodded. "That's him." His eyes turned dark at the memory, and his hands bunched into fists as he spoke. "Robbie fucking Snipe. We roughed him up a little, but Chuck - that's the barman, Chuck - didn't need any trouble 'cause he serves underage, so he didn't call the cops. Josh's brother's on the force, so he made a call after we left and had the guy picked up. That fucker had a pocket full of roofies and a baggie of coke, so he won't be fucking with any women for a while."
     
    Sophia shook her head in disbelief. "Jesus. I didn't know that sort of thing really happened. I thought it was just a movie thing," she muttered, realizing exactly how childish and naive she sounded as she spoke.
     
    "It happens all the time. Didn't your mom teach you never to accept an open drink?"
     
    "No. Mom didn't teach me anything about alcohol." She took another gulp of water. "She just told me not to drink it."
     
    Ryan let out an exasperated sigh. "Yet another victory for abstinence education, then."
     
    "Huh?" Sophia's brain still wasn't quite up to speed.
     
    "Abstinence. You know, they teach kids to just say no but they don't bother to teach them about safe sex, so the kids all end up getting pregnant because nobody ever told them what a condom was for?