BIG: (A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance) Read Online Free

himself really busy raining blows on a tire with a sledgehammer and she had vision of the Norse god Vulcan and his forge. The man wore only canvas shoes and black gym shorts, leaving the massive canvas of his tattooed back and arms on glorious display.
     
    This guy didn’t just have a few tattoos here and there—no. Three-quarter-length tattoo sleeves spread down from his shoulders. His back was covered with interweaving designs. It was almost like Thor had lost a bet when spectacularly drunk, and he’d honored it by spending a week in the Asgardian tattoo parlor.
     
    Annalesa’s breath caught and she took a big gulp of air, trying to cool the sudden heat in her chest. Holy bloody hell, a girl could get drunk from the pheromones coming off that man, she thought. She had no idea who he was, or even any idea who he could be. A friend of her stepfather’s maybe?
     
    She told herself it was only polite to introduce herself. It would be weird, being in her old room, while he was in the guest quarters. What if they ran into each other in the kitchen getting a midnight snack or something? Wouldn’t that be more awkward than interrupting him now and saying hello?
     
    She peeked through the windows again. He brought the sledgehammer down one last time, then tossed it aside, again reminding her of Thor and his hammer, which made her smile.
     
    The man grabbed a little towel from the hand-weight rack. The cloth came up to wipe his glistening face and chest, then he moved it around his neck and beneath wavy bronze hair that hung down to his shoulders. She pushed the door open just as he was rubbing down his magnificent arms. She thought, giddily, that there should be a job like that—rubbing down sweaty men after a workout. Like a groomsman for stallions. What a job.
     
    “Hi,” she offered.
     
    He didn’t reply.
     
    Or maybe he grunted, and she didn’t hear it?
     
    Or maybe she’d only said ‘hi’ in her head?
     
    She edged closer, annoyed at herself for feeling like an intruder in her own home. She straightened her shoulders and strode towards his still-turned back at a pace that was confident and impressive until she drew level with him and saw him removing a Ryker pistol from its holster, de-cocking it.
     
    It wasn’t that she wasn’t used to guns—but seeing a strange man in her home with one did give her pause. She went rigid, staring at his huge hand and the equally huge Brann Jotun pistol—she knew that model was from Ryker’s Heimdall line.
     
    It was a big gun but it almost normal in his grip. Like Ric’s gun, this Brann Jotun had silver trim on both sides of the barrel, but matte black over the sights to deaden and absorb reflective light in order to kill glare. They were only sold in Denmark and Norway.
     
    He handled it deftly, re-holstering it and putting the gun back down on top of his little pile of belongings on the floor along with his keys.
     
    She let her breath go, embarrassed by her brief—and, thankfully, silent—little freak-out.
     
    She shouldn’t be that surprised to see a man casually inspecting a weapon in the gym. She’d met enough of Brad’s colleagues and security guys to know that they ‘packed’ wherever they were.
     
    By the time she was a tween, it didn’t even shock her to see a man come out of the rest room, zipping his fly and wigging his holster back into place on his belt. Carrying a gun everywhere was a habit she considered rather ridiculous—it was hard to shake her European sensibilities on the matter—but that wasn’t her planned line of conversation with this giant.
     
    Bloody hell, he was big.
     
    Seeing him side-on, ‘Thor-shaped’ didn’t even do his build justice.
     
    “I’ve only seen one of those before,” she ventured. “My stepbrother has one. The standard grip gave him a cramp.”
     
    “Still gives me a cramp.”
     
    “What?” She frowned up at the Norse god and he finally turned to her, a hint of a smile on his