Shackled: A Stepbrother Romance Novel by Arabella Abbing Page A

“Fiona?”
    “Hmm?”
    When I refused to look at him, he moved again, propping himself on an elbow and hovering over me. He frowned down at me questioningly, still softly stroking my cheek.
    “Hey. You all right?”
    “Never better,” I lied.
    Well, it wasn’t entirely a lie. My body was more satisfied than it had ever been and there were still pleasant tingles of aftershocks running through my veins. But emotionally?
    I was a total fucking wreck.
    The soft strokes of his thumb along my cheek stopped and he turned my chin to face him. There was something in his eyes that I hadn’t seen before and it took a long moment before I finally figured out what it was. Apprehension.
    Uh-oh.
    “I’ve been waiting for the right moment to tell you something, and I don’t know if I’ll get a better one than this before we leave,” he said softly, gazing into my eyes so lovingly that I could already feel the dread coiling in my stomach.
    I opened my mouth to interrupt him, but he placed a finger over my lips, effectively silencing me.
    “I know there’s nothing I can say that will change what I did, but you deserve to know that I do love you. Always have, always will. So if you think there’s even a chance that you might be able to forgive me... then I’ll wait for as long as you need. I’m not going anywhere.”
    There they were. The words I had been desperate to hear come out of his mouth only a few short months ago, laid out on the line right after I had decided to fuck my feelings for him out of my system.
    To call this a backfire would be the biggest understatement of my life.

Chapter Nineteen

Jonathan
    A fter telling Fiona that I loved her, I watched in horror as the entire spark drained from her eyes before she abruptly slammed them closed and turned away. There was a long, painful moment of silence that was only broken when she quietly asked me to leave.
    I obliged her request without protest. Not because I was willing to give up yet, but because I was smart enough to realize that she needed space. Even I knew that pushing her now would do more harm than good.
    When Fiona started warming up to me today, I had been desperately hoping that she’d been making an effort to forgive me. But now, after gauging her reactions both during and after sex, I finally figured out exactly what she had been trying to accomplish.
    She’d thought that fucking me would provide the final piece of closure she needed to move on. From the very first smile she gave me this morning, every move she made had been calculated—just a part of her plan for a quick fuck before she took off. A one time deal to get me to unlock the shackle and let her go.
    And it hurt like a bitch.
    Especially since I hadn’t figured it out until after I’d laid my heart on the line.
    “ Fuck ,” I hissed, running my hands through my hair as I paced back and forth in the living room.
    Nothing about this weekend was going right. I was supposed to chain us together and wear down her resistance, waiting until she finally realized that regardless of how badly I’d fucked up, we were still a perfect match. Then she’d forgive me and we’d spend the rest of the weekend naked, fucking on every available surface in this cabin.
    I was not supposed to unchain her and make love to her. I was not supposed to lay it all on the line like that unless I was damn sure that she was going to reciprocate.
    Playing dumb wouldn’t take back what I’d said. Even though I’d meant every word of it, I felt like a total fucking idiot for admitting my feelings only to watch her turn away from me moments later.
    Now I really do know how she felt.
    I growled at my own thoughts and began to pull harshly at my hair. No. It wasn’t supposed to play out like this. She was supposed to say the words back, say she forgave me, and then we’d make love again. I’d be slower—more tender—try to show her with my body how much I had missed her. How much I needed her here with me.
    But