Page 117 of Heartless Stepbrother

I stiffened. “I’m not bothered.”

He turned his head just enough for the corner of his mouth to tilt up. Not a smile. A weapon.

“Princess,” he drawled, “your face has been red since we left the house.”

“Maybe I’m hot.”

“You are,” he said instantly. Casually. As if it were a fact, not a tease.

My breath hitched.

He chuckled under it. I hated that I felt it in my stomach.

“Relax,” he added, tapping his fingers on the wheel. “I didn’t know you’d spook so easily.”

“I didn’t spook,” I snapped, too fast, too defensive.

“Right.” Riley nodded once, all mock seriousness. “Totally unbothered. That’s why you nearly drowned in the tub trying to disappear as soon as I took my underwear off.”

My entire body went rigid. “I did not—“

“You did,” he said, voice deepening with quiet, entertained certainty. “And then you bolted out of the bathroom like you’d seen a ghost.”

I tried to glare out the window, but the glass only reflected my glowing embarrassment back at me.

“It was rude,” he continued, in that maddeningly light tone. “Turn your back on a guy mid-shower. Very disrespectful.”

I covered my face with both hands. “Please stop talking.”

“No.”

I groaned. “Riley—“

“You could just admit,” he said, tapping the brake lightly as he slowed for a red light, “that I made an impression.”

The air left my lungs in a sharp, flustered rush. “You— you didn’t— I wasn’t—“

He leaned back in his seat, turning his head so he could watch me completely. His eyes glowed with something lethal and entertained and devastatingly sure of itself.

“You’re adorable when you scramble for excuses.”

I swallowed. Hard.

He watched that too.

The light turned green, and Riley shifted his gaze back to the road, the smirk lingering like a fingerprint pressed to my nerves.

“You’ll calm down eventually,” he murmured. “Or you’ll get used to me. One of the two.”

“I’m not getting used to you,” I whispered.

“We’ll see,” he breathed, amused.

The road stretched ahead into the dark. I still didn’t know where we were going.

But I knew one thing.

If he kept talking like that, if he kept looking at me like that, if he kept acting like he already understood me better than I understood myself.