Page 1 of Jealous Stepbrother (Jealous & Possessive #4)

Fuck Happy Birthday

Asher

T he witching hours.

I don’t need Google to tell me the history of this stupid term because I feel every fucking haunted second as I lie in my room, staring at the ceiling and wishing myself anywhere but here.

Arms tucked behind my head, bare chest cooling in the late-summer air, I can still feel the burn in my veins from earlier.

Another fight with my father, the third one this week alone, about my “wasted potential.” He wants me to join the family business, sit in the same boardrooms that bored him half to death, and pretend money and power and legacy are enough to make a man. Sure, all three are great and admirable, even.

But I’ve never been one for the one-track-or-bust mentality. I’d probably put a bullet in my head before the first quarter is out.

So fuck no, thanks.

I want something else. My own name above the door. My own empire. My own rules. You’d think he’d admire that maverick spirit he wants in his boardroom, but no.

I huff in the dark and clench my gut because sure as clockwork, I see another thought coming down the highway of fucking hell.

Because, surprise surprise, my father isn’t the only reason I’m pissed off.

He’s the surface. The part I can say out loud. The part that doesn’t chart a searing river of shame and banked fury through me.

The truth, though? The thing gnawing at my ribs like a dog with a bone?

It’s resentment. Ugly and irrational and twisted. A secret rooted in the reason I’m not even willing to entertain staring at my dad’s face across a boardroom every fucking day.

Because…I wish I’d met them… her …first.

Because then I wouldn’t be lying here in the dark, pissed off and half-hard over something society says I can’t want.

I should be happy for my father. After years of cycling through bimbos who couldn’t spell fidelity if you gave them a million dollars, he’s finally found someone worth keeping.

But his happiness came with her .

Scarlett.

Nineteen today. Born ten years to the day after me. A symmetry fate finds hilarious, I bet.

Scarlett, with the lips that should be outlawed in every corner of the world, including fucking Antarctica because no, not even the penguins could be permitted to look at those lips.

Deep red, lush, made for depraved filth, and a name that feels like a warning and yet is wreathed in temptation.

That was bad enough. Fate had also wet herself throwing in a body that could stop an ocean liner in its fucking tracks.

Last year, I stayed away for her eighteenth birthday because I was born with a little more than two brain cells to rub together. Knew well enough that I couldn’t step into temptation’s path. No matter what.

This year, the old man guilted me into showing up. A family dinner and polite toast or two. I manned the fuck up and hoped like hell that strength in numbers and being a year older and wiser would help.

It didn’t.

I’d barely made my planned escape halfway through the party with a pat on the back and sneer at the shrieking teenagers before I could say or do something I’d regret.

And yet, here I am, at the fucking witching hour , staring at the ceiling, imagining the way she’d looked tonight in that clingy red dress. The way she laughed with her friends. The way she glanced at me when she thought I wasn’t watching.

A knock on my door drags me out of the thought that’s only headed one way.

South .

But a nanosecond later, my tension ramps higher. Because that knock? I know it well. Short. Polite. Deadly .

“It’s the middle of the night. Go away,” I bark.

The door handle turns and my lungs fold in on themselves.

She steps inside, a whisper of satin over bare skin, the hem of her nightie flirting with the tops of her thighs. Thin straps slip down one shoulder, exposing smooth skin I have no business noticing.

Her hair is a little sleep-tousled but she could walk down Times Square and still stop traffic with those silky waves and the curves on that body.

My jaw clenches. “I know you heard me.”

She shrugs, her full chest—Jesus, when did her tits get so big?—jiggles. “Maybe.”

I take a long inhale to try and re-inflate my lungs but I may as well be attempting to breathe in the vacuum of space when she steps into the pool of moonlight slanting through my windows.

Sweet fucking God.

Annette, Scarlett’s mother, went big and luxurious on the bedding accessories when she redecorated our house after the wedding two years ago, so I’m tucked beneath a thick comforter-duvet combo that would probably withstand a hurricane.

Enough to hide my body’s reaction as Scarlett catwalks closer.

But not even gravity itself will keep my condition hidden for long if she?—

“If you heard me then what the fuck are you doing coming into my room?” I growl.

She pads across the carpet, bare feet silent. And she pouts. “I knew you weren’t asleep,” she says. And before I can ask how she knows what, she continues, “You didn’t even stay to wish me happy birthday. And you didn’t give me a chance to wish you happy birthday back.”

“You had a room full of people for that.”

She pauses next to my bed. My dick jumps and fills and Jesus, this isn’t right. Especially when she replies, “I wanted you .”

My hands curl into fists behind my head. “Scarlett, go back to your room.”

Her finger traces the edge of my comforter. “It’s cold. And boring.”

“Not my problem. You should’ve arranged one of your sleepovers.”

Her eyes flash. “I’m nineteen, Asher. I’m too old for sleepovers.”

I roll onto my side, turning my back to her. “Again, not my problem. Leave, Scarlett. Now.” Or so help me fucking God.

The mattress dips under her weight and genuine fear climbs into my throat.

Because the things I want to do to this girl…

The resentment I’ve piled high, not just for my pops, but for her too. For being so stupidly, maddeningly gorgeous. For the way she looks at me when she should know better.

For simply breathing.

Her scent, warm and faintly sweet, like vanilla spun through smoke, wraps around me. Then her chest presses against my back, her arms sliding around my waist in a hug that feels like a noose. A noose I will happily let snuff the life out of me if she would keep?—

No!

I tense, ready to vault out of bed, but the damn girl throws one of her shapely legs over both of mine.

“You’ve been gone for a year. A whole year, Asher.

” I clench my gut against a shiver when her soft breath washes between my shoulder blades.

“No phone call, no email. Nothing. No one would tell me what you were doing in Europe.”

I hear the hurt and the questions in her voice, but all I can think of is how close her foot is to my cock. My fully engorged, ready-to-pound-hard cock.

“And now you’re back and you look…so pissed.” She sighs. “You’re always so serious, Asher,” she whispers against my shoulder. “I bet I could make you smile.”

I’m one hundred percent sure several organs in my body have paused, waiting on tenterhooks just to see what she does next. If I throw her out or?—

The humming starts soft as a prayer, coiling around my spine and my mind. I blink in the dark, frowning…before I realize what she’s humming.

With each exhalation on my skin, my muscles twitch and tingle with the urge to stay put, not move a fucking inch.

And because the little minx knows she has me paralyzed, putty in her fucking sexy hands, she switches from humming to words.

“…happy birthday, dear Asher…happy birthday to y ? —”

I flip over, catching her off guard. She’s close enough that I can feel the soft hitch in her breath, see the wide-eyed alarm in her stunning green eyes.

I drag her arms from my waist and pin them above her head.

Her legs are parted on either side of my torso and I get another hit of her scent mingled with a sweeter, muskier scent.

Sweet heavenly fuck.

I shake my head once. Twice. But it’s no use.

I hear the vicious sound of the last thread of my control snapping.

“Enough,” I deliver, voice low, rough, final. “Hell is about to break loose on this pretty little head of yours. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, little girl.”