Stranded with My Stepbrother

-Jacey-Caleb’s shoulder bumped against mine, sending a zing of attraction shooting straight to my core. The Suburban had hit another deep pothole on the disused logging road we were taking to my father’s favorite fishing lake in the wilds of Canada.I loved it there. I did not love the fact that my stepbrother was coming with us this year.The twenty-two-year-old in question flicked a glare my way before returning to whatever he was doing on his cell phone. He’d ignored me the entire twelve-hour drive.If he wasn’t so stupidly handsome, I would have written him off as an asshole a long time ago. Right about the time of my fifteenth birthday, in fact, when I told him I had a crush on him, and he crushed me in front of everyone at my party.I’d been celebrating my birthdays fishing and enjoying the untouched wilds of Canada every year since then. Caleb had been mercifully absent.Until now.“You only turn eighteen once!” my stepmother, Jeanie, said cheerfully from the front seat. It mu

-Jacey-I tried not to laugh at Caleb when he went thigh deep into the water. I really tried.But when he also managed to trip over a large rock and land right on his ass, I couldn’t stop a hearty guffaw from escaping me. It wasn’t ladylike in the slightest. But it was honest.Luckily, Jeanie and my father were also laughing.“Gonna be a cold trip to camp for you,” my father chuckled, holding out a hand to Caleb to haul him back to his feet.“I’ll go change,” Caleb muttered and dug his tennis shoes into the loose sand beneath him, coming out of the water with a sucking sound at his feet.“Don’t forget your boots this time!” my father called.It was September in Ontario, and we were several hours north of Thunder Bay. Today, it was about seventy degrees, but that wouldn’t mean a thing once we were out on the open water. Caleb would be freezing in wind-whipped, wet clothes.Caleb had a few choice words for my father that he said under his breath as he passed me, but I certainly wasn’t g

-Jacey-My father started a fire, and soon we were roasting weenies on sticks. Jeanie and my father took one of the makeshift stump-and-board benches near the fire, so Caleb and I were forced side-by-side on the other.Caleb was roasting his own weenie, and so was I, but my father had stuck two weenies on one stick and had his arms around Jeanie, teaching her to roast as though he were teaching her to golf. Jeanie giggled the whole time.“Enjoying your birthday trip so far?” Caleb asked in a low tone as he slowly turned his weenie over the fire. They’d come cold, nearly frozen, from the cook tent cooler, so waiting for them to sizzle and split was a bit of a chore.I set my jaw and didn’t answer him. I didn’t have to. Caleb knew that this was my worst birthday since I’d turned fifteen and foolishly confessed I had a crush on him.Caleb gently bumped my shoulder with his. “I am sorry about before, Jocelyn.”“Hmph,” I answered noncommittally.He leaned closer to my ear. “And I’m sorry a

-Jacey-Caleb had kissed me.The thought rolled around and around in my mind.Caleb had kissed me.Caleb had kissed me!Sure, the events that followed after had momentarily washed the desire and confusion from me, but now that I was alone on my cot, there was nothing to do but think about his firm, inquisitive lips on mine.He’d also put his tongue in my mouth, which had caused a burst of sensations I hadn’t even known I was capable of.The heat ratcheted up when I remembered I’d also given him a hard-on. Me!Even though the temperature had fallen overnight, and I should be happily cocooned in my sleeping bag, I couldn’t stand the heat. I was laying on top of my sleeping bag now, remembering the kiss that had started this fire in me.I sawed my legs together, the heat going exactly where I didn’t want it. It was delicious, but our parents were ten feet from my tent. There was a shorter distance between my tent and Caleb’s. I couldn’t give myself sweet relief.Frustrated, I sat up on t

-Jacey-It was freezing, so cold that Caleb’s warm hand on my numb, wet cheek actually stung. That was not, however, the place where most of the warmth in my body was bubbling up from. My heart beat a ba-thump ba-thump when he touched me, and his words touched a broken place in my soul.I blinked, pretending my tears were just the rain that kept pouring on us. Or at least I could have if the rain hadn’t, inconveniently, chosen just that moment to stop.Caleb rubbed the tears under my eyes with his thumb, not saying a word. Even though we were both shivering so hard our teeth were chattering, he was still trying to take care of me.“Please tell me you’re not being so nice to me just to get into my pants,” I mumbled, wincing at the pounding in