Page 28 of The Cruel Heir
I wanted to touch her. Not just her skin, but her breath, her heat, the space between her neck and shoulder where her scent lingered. I imagined my hand sliding beneath that sweater, fingers tracing the dip of her collarbone, the curve of her breast. Slow. Possessive. Certain.
“We need to talk.”
Her fingers tightened around the book in her lap. “I don’t think we do.”
I chuckled, shaking my head slowly. “That’s adorable, little sis. But you don’t get to decide when we talk. I do.”
She exhaled sharply, shifting like she was about to stand, but I didn’t move. Not an inch.
“Don’t call me that, and move. You’re in my way.”
I tilted my head, considering. “Am I?”
She waved toward the open space behind me. “Clearly.”
I reached out, trailing my fingers lightly along the edge of her jaw, just enough to make her breath catch. “That’s because you keep running. And you know how I feel about that, little sister.”
Her jaw tightened. Her nostrils flared. But her eyes, those dark defiant eyes, dipped for the briefest second to my mouth.
“Don’t fucking call me that,” she hissed between clenched teeth. “And I’m not running. I just don’t want to deal with whatever game you’re playing.”
I hummed, straightening, but not giving her space. “Oh, but you are playing, little hummingbird. You just don’t realize it yet.”
She shifted again, thighs squeezing tighter together, a reflex she probably didn’t realize I caught. But I always noticed the way her body betrayed her, even when her mouth resisted.
Her eyes burned with defiance, and I could feel the heat crawl up my spine. She always did that to me. Lit me up and cracked me open.
“Go antagonize someone else, Sterling. I’m not in the mood.”
I smirked. “See, that’s the thing. You don’t get to tell me what to do. That’s not how this works.”
Her hands curled into fists in her lap. “And how does it work, exactly?”
I leaned in again, lips barely an inch from her ear. “You belong to me. Always have, always will. That’s how it works.”
She sucked in a breath, and I felt her body tense. Felt the war she waged against herself in that moment. Her thighs rubbed together again. Her lips parted on a breath she didn’t mean to release.
“You’re insane,” she whispered.
“And you love it,” I replied.
My hand slid to the back of her neck, tilting her chin upward. Her lips parted wider. Her breath hitched. My thumb brushed over the soft column of her throat, slow and deliberate.
“Say it,” I murmured, eyes locked to hers. “Say you feel it too.”
“I don’t,” she whispered, but the quiver in her voice betrayed her.
I leaned in, just about to claim her mouth, then paused. Drew back enough to meet her eyes, to deliver the real reason I was there.
“We’re getting married, Zara.”
Consent was a luxury the quarterly report couldn’t afford.
Every tick of the stock line said marry the girl, secure the heir, muzzle the board.
She could spit, claw, even hate me, but the numbers were non-negotiable.
The moment she slipped my ring on, Kingsley shares stopped bleeding.
