Page 21 of Jealous Stepbrother (Jealous & Possessive #4)

DEVOTION, DISEASED

Asher

I wake sprawled across too much empty bed, sheets twisted around my waist and the trace of her still clinging to the pillow I’d shared with her tucked into my arms.

My body’s sore in the best way, but my head is a mess.

Last night was supposed to be punishment, a way to bleed out the fury that had been simmering since dinner. Instead, it felt like something else—something darker, something that scraped at the edges of my chest until I said things I wasn’t supposed to divulge just yet.

Be thankful we are who we are…

Christ .

The words echo back now, too raw, too naked.

I’d meant every syllable of course, and that terrifies me. Because if I meant that, if I meant everything I forced down her throat and into her ears, then unfortunately for my baby sister, she’s out of time.

I drag a hand over my face, stare at the ceiling.

What comes next would be fucking insane, Iknowthat. She thought I was overbearing now?

I snort darkly.

But the simple truth is I was done pissing around.

I can’t let her slip through my fingers again. I need to stop playing fucking defense, stop waiting for someone to corner us, and start laying the future out in stark, beautiful, inescapable terms.

My name, my protection, my bed—forever.

The thought makes my chest ache in a way I’m not ready to look at too closely because I know she’ll resist. To her it’s been a matter of weeks. She doesn’t know I’ve planned this for four years. That?—

A knock breaks into my head. It’s not tentative or measured.

Dad.

I glance at the clock. I reluctantly carried Scarlett back to her own bed just before dawn, then fucked her one last time in her childhood bed because why the fuck not?

Then I returned and crashed.

It’s past nine now but the house is quiet, which means the girls are still asleep.

“Asher.” His voice is flat when I open the door but his sharp eyes are anything but when he looks me up and down,then glances past me to the rumpled bed. “Come with me. Let’s take a drive.”

I arch a brow. As far as I’m concerned we said everything that needed saying yesterday. “Why?”

“Hardware store run. The gardener says a few of the poolhouse window hinges are shot.”

“You’ve got multiple staff for that,” I reply dryly.

His mouth twitches, not quite a smile. “You’re here, aren’t you? Humor your old man.”

Every instinct says no, but some part of me—maybe the part that remembers being close to him before Annette and Scarlett—forces a shrug. “Fine. But if this ends with me hauling fertilizer, I’m sending you the dry-cleaning bill.”

He chuckles low, and for a while, we almost feel like we used to—spur-of-the-moment road trips with the windows down, the sea air whipping through, old memories surfacing without the sting they used to carry.

“See you downstairs in five?”

I nod. I could take a quick shower but I decide not to. I’m not ready to watch Scarlett off of meyet and fuck it if my dad smells her on me.

Dragging on a clean pair of dark jeans and a T-shirt, I finger-comb my hair and step out. Glance down the hall. The need to see her burns like the sweetest addiction through my veins, but I suck it up and head downstairs.

She’ll be up when I get back. And if she’s up for it, I’ll take her for a drive. Somewhere private. There are several quiet roads in Montauk.

Maybe my sexy sister will let me spread her over the hood of my Aston Martin, get her engine good and purring.

I hide my pleased smirk as I slide into Dad’s car.

And for the journey, I indulge his reminiscing about when I was a teenager, how I’d practically lived in the garage tuning cars. I remind him how he bribed me with a case of beer the summer I rebuilt the old Porsche with him.

For a moment, it feels almost…normal.

But normal has an expiration date.

Two hours later, we pull back into the driveway, bags of useless odds and ends rattling in the trunk. And the second I step inside, the silence feels wrong.

It takes me a moment to register what’s missing.

Annette’s car isn’t in the garage.

Belly hollowing, I rush up the stairs, not even sure why I’m fucking panicking.

Her room is empty but there are signs of makeup and getting-ready girl shit, and her perfume lingering in the air .

I stalk back down as I activate the Find My Phone I placed on hers on her first day as my intern.

My gut drops, rage boiling hot on its heels. “The Tides Club.”

I hear footsteps behind me but my fingers are flying over my screen, punching the video doorbell history which I still have access to even after all these years.

I hear my Dad’s resigned breath as I play the video that shows Annette’s car pulling away down the drive, Scarlett in the passenger seat.

I spin to face my dad. “You son of a bitch.” My voice is low, lethal. “You planned this, to get me out of the way.”

He only exhales, calm as ever, setting the bags down. “It’s just brunch. Annette thought it would be…appropriate for her to hang out with people her own age.”

The edges of my vision go red. He’d kept me out. Distracted me with nostalgia and errands so Annette could spirit Scarlett off to sit pretty for family friends and their slobbering sons.

Acid fire ravages through me, searing only one thought in my brain.

I just about manage to talk myself out of throat-punching my own father before I storm back out the door, car keys in hand, chest a furnace of fury and possession.

Because they might think they can maneuver around me.

But I’ll be damned if anyone else lays a claim on my girl.

I take the corners too fast andthetires screech in protest.

My death grip nearly snaps the steering wheel in two as the Aston Martinflies down Montauk Highway like it’s the goddamn Le Mans.

My father has no idea what he’s unleashed. He wanted to keep this under wraps inthe hope it was a summer fling.

Too bad I’m about to blow it wide the fuck open.

I keep one eye on her location to make sure she’s not moving until I slam on the brakes at the entrance to The Tides Club.

By the time I stalk into the restaurant, I’m levitating with fury.

Heads swivel, whispers ripple, but I don’t give a fuck. My girl is sitting at a long table by the windows, sunlight painting her bare shoulders gold.

Four college kids surround her—two girls, two guys. The guys are laughing too loud, leaning too close, their eyes glued to her bodylike she’s theirs.

Not for long.

“Scarlett,” I bite out long before I reach her.

Her head jerks up, eyes widening. A flush of guilt.

Oh yeah, she knows she’s fucking caught.

I stride to the table, planting my palms down hard enough to rattle the cutlery.

“Girls—” I nod at them without sparing a smile, “stay in touch if you want. Exchange numbers. Send her postcards. I don’t give a shit.

” Then my gaze slices to the boys. “But you two? If you so much as text her, I’ll break your legs in a dozen different places. Nod if you understand.”

One idiot with tall, floppy hair, who thinks he’s got a spine, pushes back his chair. “What the hell? You can’t talk to us like?— ”

I grab him by the shirtfront and shove him so hard he crashes to the polished floor, gasping. The whole restaurant goes silent. “Don’t get back up,” I warn, voice low, lethal. “Or else.”

Scarlett’s half-rising, face crimson. “Asher, stop?—”

“Where’s your mom?” I snap, eyes still on the boy until he slinks back, humiliated.

“She’s not here,” Scarlett blurts. “She dropped me off before she went shopping with her friends. And how did you find me? Are you—are you tracking me?”

I don’t bother lying. “Of course I am.”

Her chair screeches back. “You’re insane,” she hisses, glancing around and growing redder.

I catch her wrist before she can bolt. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“You can’t just?—”

But I haul her up against me. She’s fuming, shaking, and it only makes me harder. “We’re going to have a little chat, you and I.”

The waiter hovers, shell-shocked. I stop just long enough to look Scarlett dead in the eye. “What did you order?”

“What?”

“Repeat it.”

She stares at me like I’ve grown horns but mutters, “The crab cakes and a salad.”

I slap a hundred into the waiter’s hand. “Expedite it. Box it up. We’ll grab it on the way.”

Scarlett gawks at me. “Are you serious?”

“Since you love their food so much, I didn’t want you to miss out.”

“You didn’t want me to miss out but you still ruined the experience for me?”

I smirk. “Details, baby.”

I drag her past the gawkers, down two short corridors and into the ladies’ toilet. A lone woman stands at the sink. I glare until she scuttles out, then throw the bolt.

The second we’re alone, Scarlett’s chest rises and falls like she’s about to explode.

“Have you forgotten so soon, baby girl?” I growl, advancing until her back hits the tiled wall.

“I own your experiences. Have owned them since you crawled into my bed. You try giving away what belongs to me to snot-nosed trust fund pricks with pencil dicks, and I’ll put them in the ground, you hear me? ”

Her eyes glisten. “What happened to you? Why are you like this?”

I laugh, rough and dark. “You’re still not listening, sweetheart.

You. Scarlett. You happened to me. I’ve craved you and hungered for you for four fucking years.

It’s driven me insane every single minute I’ve had to live without you.

And now you think you can fuck off to brunch with people I haven’t approved whenever you feel like it? ”

She gapes at me.

My chuckle turns sharp, unhinged. “And you’re hilarious. Standing there, more breathtaking than a fucking angel, wide eyes watching me like you can’t decide whether to run or jump me.”

Her lips part, but nothing comes out. “I should run. You’ve lost your mind,” she mutters.

“I highly advise against it, baby. Let’s go.”

“W-where?”

“Somewhere you can apologize appropriately.”