Page 104 of Heartless Stepbrother
Completely at ease with the fact that I was not.
A faint smile ghosted over his mouth, knowing, sharp, hungry.
“Lost your words, princess?” he asked, voice low but not soft. He was not close enough to touch me, but his presence alone felt like a hand sliding beneath my skin. “You look… mesmerized.”
I wasn’t.
I couldn’t be.
I refused to be.
And yet my heart thundered like my body had already answered him.
He stepped farther into the bathroom, steam wrapping around him as if even the heat wanted a piece of him, wanted him to stay.
For the first time, I understood the true danger of Riley Maddox.
Not his threats.
Not his cruelty.
Not even his games.
But this.
The fact that he could walk into a room like this and my body forgot how to defend itself.
He took another step into the steam-swathed room, and something in the air shifted. A subtle tightening. A warning without a sound.
His eyes flicked past me.
To the marble counter.
To the one thing I had stupidly, recklessly forgotten to hide.
My phone.
Sitting right there beside the sink like a waiting confession.
His expression did not change. Not a flicker. But something sharpened in his gaze, a predator scenting movement in the underbrush. He crossed the room with slow, measured steps that echoed faintly against the marble.
I froze, every muscle suspended between dread and defiance.
He reached the counter.
Then picked up the phone without hesitation.
A simple claiming.
“You’re not even trying to hide your phone from me,” he murmured, thumb brushing over the black screen. “Interesting.”
I said nothing.
My silence felt like a noose tightening.
He tapped the button. The phone lit up. His thumb dragged confidently across the screen, entering the code he had already stolen from me.
It unlocked without a fight.
