Page 23 of Jealous Stepbrother
He’s in his element in his tailored charcoal suit, shirt open at the throat, cufflinks glinting when he lifts his wine. He’s all charm when he wants to be, voice smooth enough to butter thebread that costs more than my old week’s rent. But I can see it—the slow ramping of tension in the flex of his jaw, in the way his finger taps the stem of his glass like he’s ticking down seconds until someone crosses a line.
Then it happens.
Matteo, one of the Milan guys, leans over to refill my wine without asking. His hand brushes my wrist. I’m about to pull back when Asher moves.
Smooth. Unhurried. But there’s nothing casual in it.
He hooks my chair with his foot and draws me flush to his side without looking at me.
His arm settles along the back of my seat, fingers grazing my bare shoulder like they’re staking a perimeter.
“Careful, buddy,” he says softly. Everyone hears it. “She’s here with me. If anyone’s going to pour her wine, it’ll be me. And touch her skin again and there might just be a fire that burns yours off.”
Matteo laughs a little too quickly and mumbles something about hospitality. The gallerist chuckles. The other investor smirks.
Asher tips his glass toward me, that dark smirk spreading slow. “Fuck hospitality. My muse doesn’t share. Neither does her brother.”
The table laughs again, thinking it’s a joke. But I feel the steel in his voice, the warning aimed directly at them.
I focus on my plate, heat climbing my neck. My pulse is a wild, stupid thing. Because part of me wants to be furious at him for making me into a possession in front of the art world, and the other part is dangerously close to melting into the hand he’s now resting at my waist.
The rest of the meal blurs. I manage to keep up with the conversation, but Asher keeps me anchored, his thumb moving lazily over my hip like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
When dessert is offered, he declines for both of us. “We have an early start tomorrow,” he says, and no one argues.
Rising, he steps behind my seat and helps me up. “Gentlemen, it’s been a productive evening. I’ll be in touch.”
By the time we’re outside, the warm August night wrapping around us, I’m half certain he’s going to put me straight into the car and take me home.
He does put me in the car. But the way he shuts the door and walks around to the driver’s side tells me “home” isn’t going to mean safe.
Not tonight.
For the first few minutes,he says nothing.
The partition in the sleek town car is up, sealing us in together, and I feel the tension pouring off him in thick, suffocating waves.
It’s unbearable.
The silence stretches until it’s a barely visible thread I’m struggling to hang on to.
Maybe that’s his ploy—his plan—to break me first, the way he implied I broke him. It’s unfair and ridiculous and… God, why does every infuriating thing he does turn me on?
I shouldn’t want this.
Want him.
And yet…
My gaze drifts to the square cut of his jaw, the curve of his mouth, the brooding eyes locked on his phone. Even the way his long fingers move over the screen makes heat lick low in my belly.
Hands that touched me repeatedly today like I was his personal toy.
You’re mine. Four years ago. Yesterday. Today…
I swallow the sound building in my throat, some dangerous hybrid of moan and curse, and tear my gaze toward the window. The city blurs past and lights smear into streaks of gold and red.
The storm inside me builds and builds and builds.
