Page 111 of Heartless Stepbrother
I swallowed hard. “Riley.”
“I’ll delete the message,” he said, his voice a slow, dangerous promise. “But you’re going to stand up in that tub, Luna. Right now. And you’re going to look me in the eyes while you do it.”
Heat flooded my face, my chest, my entire body.
“No,” I whispered again, weaker this time.
“Not to show me anything,” he continued, leaning in just enough that I felt the warmth of him through the steam. “Not for me to touch you.”
His eyes locked on mine with devastating intensity.
“But because you know exactly how wrong it is to let me see you like that. And you’re still thinking about it.”
My pulse tripped hard.
He tilted the phone, thumb poised. “Do it, and the message disappears. Don’t…”
A slow, merciless shrug.
“…and your friends get a very interesting update.”
The room felt hotter. Or I did.
His next words were a whisper meant to break me.
“Stand up, Luna.”
My body reacted before my mind could catch up, heat curling low, breath shaking, a pull so forbidden it terrified me.
And his eyes devoured every flicker of indecision.
He didn’t touch me.
He didn’t come any closer.
But everything in the air between us vibrated with want I wasn’t supposed to feel.
Riley watched me like he was already inside the decision I hadn’t even made.
“Show me you can,” he murmured. “And I’ll erase everything.”
My heart stumbled.
My knees bent.
My hands pressed to the edge of the tub.
The water clung to my skin like it didn’t want to let me go.
And Riley’s gaze never moved.
My fingers slid up the porcelain edge of the tub.
I couldn’t do it.
Every part of me trembled with the instinct to rise, to give him what he asked, to trade humiliation for escape. My muscles tensed, quivered, then locked. My breath stuttered.
I stayed exactly where I was.
