Page 113 of Heartless Stepbrother

“Very easily,” he said, tone soft as a blade’s edge. “But you knew that.”

Steam drifted between us, ghosting around his shoulders, turning his bare skin into molten shadow and light. I hated that he looked like temptation carved into a boy. I hated the pull I felt even now, even after he’d humiliated me.

He lowered the phone, tapped the screen once more, then set it down on the floor beside the tub with a deliberate click.

My heart hammered against my ribs, wild and confused.

His gaze swept over me. My wet hair, my flushed chest barely hidden by bubbles, my shaking hands gripping the edge of the tub… and the heat of it crawled under my skin like a brand.

“And now,” he finished softly, “you get to wonder what comes next.”

He stood, not leaving, just shifting, watching me absorb the wreckage.

Steam curled around us.

Silence rang.

My shame tasted like hunger. My anger tasted like want.

And Riley, standing half dressed and wholly dangerous, looked like the beginning of something I had no idea how to survive.

He looked at me.

Really looked.

Predatory calm.

Unhurried arrogance.

Someone who knew he had already won something.

“Get ready,” he said, voice low, steady, impossible to read.

My lips parted. “For… what?”

“You have twenty minutes.” He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. “If you’re not out of that tub by then, I’ll drag you out myself. And you’ll walk out of this bathroom exactly how you are now.”

Heat surged through my body, a molten mix of fury and something terrible and electric.

“Naked?” I whispered.

He lifted an eyebrow. “I wasn’t speaking in code.”

My heart hammered so hard I thought the water might ripple.

I opened my mouth to demand answers.

Where were we going?

What did he want?

But before a single word made it out, Riley’s hands moved to the waistband of his boxer briefs.

My breath caught in my throat.

He didn’t look away.

Not once.