Page 32 of Jealous Stepbrother
Then he straightens, and brushes a knuckle down my cheek. “Get up. Breakfast in fifteen. We leave in thirty minutes.”
“What?”
He gets off the bed, pauses for a moment to look down at me again, this time with mocking eyebrows arched. “You’ve got another day at the office, baby sis. And I plan on making it even harder on you than yesterday.”
CHAPTER 8
FINE PUPPET MASTERING
Asher
She’s mine.
Every breath, every flash of her eyes, every stubborn inch of her. I want to lock her up in my penthouse. But I’m letting her step foot in the studio again today, which means my crew will see her.
They’ll talk to her.
They’ll think things they have no right thinking.
I almost want them to slip up again, to let a stare linger too long, let a joke land too close to her skin. I’d rip the whole building down just for the excuse to punish them.
And her.
Especiallyher.
Because I can still taste her from last night. Still see the way she shook and sobbed and gushed when she came apart for me. Still hear her voice shaking when she told me exactly what it felt like when I was inside her the first time.
And it’s a miracle I’m not dragging her back to bed to finish what I started.
Instead, I invite the crew I tossed out back in to collaborate on the fall line.
I don’t consider yesterday a wasted day. Lessons needed to be learned. And they’re talented enough to be worth my patience.
But I watch them like a hawk from behind my drafting table as I set Scarlett to work.
The skirt I chose for her today rides up when she leans over the cutting table. Her lips part when she’s thinking. Her eyes light up when she lands on a clever design tweak I didn’t see coming.
God help me, it’s not just the sick, filthy things I want to do to her that scare me. It’s how badly I want to see her smile like that again.
By midday, I know my crew’s been sufficiently cowed. They’re polite, professional, and careful about where they look.
I send them away with instructions to work remotely tomorrow.
Which leaves Scarlett and me in the studio alone.
Her phone starts pinging from where she left it in my desk drawer as per House of M’s no-phones-on-the-floor policy.
Normally, I’d ignore it.
Today, I don’t. She’s mine. I have the right to know who’s contacting my girl.
Plus I know the code. Of course I do.
I stride over, swipe in, and scan the screen.
A string of texts from her mother about Montauk this weekend, concern slipping in with each unanswered message. The naughty little minx didn’t text her mother back like I asked her to.
My jaw ripples as thoughts of how I’m going to punish her reel through my mind. I’m about to slide the phone back when another notification slides down from the top of the screen.
