Page 13 of Heartless Stepbrother

Not because I was embarrassed, though I should have been.

But because something inside me twisted. Not with jealousy. Not even desire.

Withfascination.

This was real.Unapologeticallyreal. No glossy edits. No fade-to-black. No perfectly posed romance cover version. Just heat and friction and the kind of chemistry that made people forget the world existed around them.

I’d read about moments like this. Watched them from the safety of a screen. But I’d never seen it.Feltit. Not like this.

It was reckless. Public. Dirty.

And I couldn’t look away.

The girl gasped again, louder this time, her hands clutching the shoulders of the boy above her. His movements slowed, then stilled. Silence fell like a knife.

And suddenly, I felt it.

Awareness.

A split in the air, sharp and sudden, as if the moment itself had torn, and I’d been exposed.

My breath hitched.

One of them moved.

The boy’s head turned.

His gaze snapped toward me through the darkness.

The weight of it hit me like a fist.

Even from here, half-concealed by palm shadows and moon-dappled dark, I felt it. His stare was a physical thing. Not curious. Not surprised.

Predatory.

And that’s when I knew.

He’d seen me.

Heknew.

The wind stilled. The ocean roared louder, as if to fill the space where all sound had vanished. My pulse raced in my throat. My legs, rooted in the sand moments ago, finally remembered how to move, but too late.

Slowly,agonizingly, the two bodies began to peel apart.

Like shadows separating after a storm.

The girl moved first, her silhouette delicate and trembling as she pushed herself up from the sand. Her limbs were sluggish, slightly uncoordinated, like her body had forgotten how to belong to her. She tugged her dress down with shaking hands, her fingers fumbling quickly over the fabric.

Then him.

He stood. Unhurried, deliberate, each motion laced with that infuriating calm of someone who never felt shame. Taller. Broader. Power radiated off him in silent waves. And when he shifted just slightly toward the moonlight, it struck his face like a spotlight in a dream, revealing, but not softening.

My breath seized.

His profile caught the pale glow like a blade. High cheekbones, angular jaw, lips curled into something too lazy to be a smirk but too cruel to be innocent. His hair was dark, damp, and careless, falling over his forehead as though it was meant to obscure just enough. But not for me. No. He let me see.

And then he turned.