Page 57 of Jealous Stepbrother
Later
The house sighs around me,a gentle symphony of old floorboards settling, ocean wind brushing the eaves, a distant murmur of our parents’ voices drifting down the hall.
I toss, turn, stare at the dark ceiling.
My body’s humming like a live wire. Every nerve ending remembers the weight of his touch and his stare over dinner, the rough edge in his voice when he stormed off.
When he left the table, something inside me snapped, like I’d been severed from a limb I hadn’t even realized I depended on until it was gone.
The rest of the evening dragged in his absence, each minute heavier than the last.
Mom kept probing gently, asking if everything was all right, her smile stretching tighter and tighter at the edges.
I fed her excuses and muttered reassurances, but her eyes lingered too long, searching for cracks I didn’t hide very well.
And Victor.
He just looked at me across the table like I was a half-broken puzzle he wasn’t sure he wanted to solve. That look burrowed under my skin, left me wondering what happened between father and son while Mom and I were in town.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I’m barefoot and padding down the hall. Tell myself the need to know what happened this afternoon is the reason I’m going, not…not…
I knock once.
The door swings open without a sound.
Asher’s barefoot, bare-throated, the lamplight turning his eyes to something dangerous and winter-bright.
The second the door clicks shut, my back meets wood and his palm finds the curve of my waist, a quiet brand.
“You’re fucking late,” he snarls, his voice a furious rumble.
“How can I be late when I wasn’t even coming?” I lie.
“You tell me, because here you are.”
I hate that my body leans into him.
I hate that he smells like salt and cedar and the memory of last night. I hate that when his thumb drags a line at my hip, my breath goes shallow and the rest of the world falls away like a stage set.
“Scarlett,” he warns softly, like I’ve already disobeyed him.
“Don’t—” I start, but his mouth is already on mine, patient and merciless at once, coaxing and then taking, until the word dissolves.
He doesn’t hurry, which is somehow worse. His hands map my spine, my ribs, the line of my shoulder, and I know he’s memorizing topography he plans to redraw. My stepbrother’s going to break me and rebuild me the way he chooses.
I should say stop, tell him this is insane.
Instead, I kiss him back like someone who knows exactly where she’s going.
We stagger toward the bed.
The old house complains under our feet, and we both freeze, listening for footsteps in the hall. None come. His mouth curves against mine, wicked, eager—before he lifts me and licks my mouth with raw decadence like I’m the dinner he refused to eat tonight.
When I’m breathless and whimpering, he pulls back and his knuckles skim my cheek.
His gaze searches mine.
The room is quiet enough to hear our unsteady breathing.
