Page 35 of Heartless Stepbrother

And I was already winning.

CHAPTER EIGHT

LUNA

Theoceanroaredbesideus, a vast and ancient voice that should have made me feel small in a way that was comforting, insignificant in a way that freed me. Instead, the sound felt muted, smothered beneath the suffocating closeness of Riley at my side. The waves crashed against the shore like a reminderof escape, yet every surge only emphasized how trapped I was inside my own skin.

His hand was still on my waist.

A simple thing. Innocent. Harmless. That was how it must have looked to the guests drifting towards the reception in their soft dresses and linen suits, basking in the afterglow of my mother’s wedding. To them, Riley was merely my new stepbrother, guiding me along the path, steadying me with an elegant, chivalrous touch.

But his fingers were not steadying me.

They were containing me.

They were claiming me.

The pressure of his hand was carefully measured, a gentle hold crafted with surgical cruelty. Beneath the smooth fabric of his suit jacket, his thumb rested on my hip bone in a way that sent a needle of awareness straight through me. Not hard. Not visibly inappropriate. Just enough for me to understand the message that pulsed through the contact like a silent sentence etched into my bones.

You belong exactly where I put you.

The realization tightened something inside me so abruptly that I struggled to breathe. A cold spike of fear twisted in my stomach, sharp and instinctive. Anger followed, hot and wild, flooding my veins like a fire I could not control. And beneath it all, deeper than the terror and the fury, an illicit warmth uncoiled in the place I hated most. It expanded slowly, shamefully, a traitorous bloom that turned my heartbeat into something frantic and uneven.

No. Not that. Not again.

Heat climbed my neck, a raw flush I could not hide. I felt it spreading to my cheeks, a humiliating betrayal that made me want to disappear inside the sand. How could I despise him with every breath I took, yet react to him as if his touch were the sparkthat lit something dormant inside me? It was twisted. It was sick. It was wrong.

I needed to move. I needed distance.

I shifted just a fraction, a quiet plea for space that barely existed. But Riley saw it. His fingers tightened on my waist, a small, controlled increase of pressure that locked me to the ground. To anyone else, it was nothing. To me, it was a shackle.

I froze.

Every muscle in me went rigid, my breath caught like a stone in my throat. I stared at the grass swaying ahead, refusing to look at him even as I felt his breath ghost along my ear, warm and taunting, a whisper of heat that did not belong there.

“Jumpy, Luna?” he murmured.

His voice slid through me like black silk soaked in poison. Sweet to the untrained ear. Deadly to mine. A private mockery dressed in tenderness.

“You pull away like you are afraid I might burn you,” he continued, amusement coiling through each word in a quiet rhythm. “Makes me wonder what exactly you feel under my hand.”

My pulse stuttered.

His mouth dropped closer still, the faint warmth of his breath brushing my skin. A traitorous shiver ran down my spine, sharp and involuntary, and his soft chuckle told me he felt it.

“Such heat for a simple touch,” he whispered. “A bit intense for a little sister.”

The words sliced through me. Not because of their meaning, but because of the truth inside them. He felt everything. He knew everything. He wielded my reactions like a weapon. A warning lingered beneath his tone, unspoken but unmistakable. Do not pretend you are unaffected.

I forced my throat to work, pushing out words that sounded cracked and too thin. “I am just ready to get out of the sun. It has been a long day.” The lie tasted brittle.

He laughed softly, though nothing about the sound felt warm. It rumbled through him like an omen. “Oh, princess. The day has not even begun.”

And then he let me go.

The release was immediate and violent. I stepped forward too quickly, desperate to free myself from the pull of him. The ocean air rushed into the space where his touch had been, cool and damp, yet it felt like frost around a wound. No relief came. Only the ghost of his grip, carved into my skin as if he had branded me with nothing but fingertips.

I rubbed the place where his hand had been, but it did nothing to erase the sensation. Nothing to quiet the humiliating truth that echoed deep inside me. I hated him. I feared him. And yet, in the deepest, darkest part of me, where reason could not reach, I mourned the loss of his touch.