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

A KISS HELLO

Scarlett

F or a long, brittle moment, I just stand there.

The smart thing would be to laugh, tell him he’s lost his mind, and walk right back out the door.

But the problem is I’ve already agreed to move in. Which means, no matter what I say now, he knows he’s winning.

“Scarlett,” he says softly with just the right tinge of warning, and somehow it’s worse than when he says it sharp. “I’m waiting.”

Every cell in my body is telling me to keep my distance. But the way he’s looking at me, steady and unblinking and oh so certain, makes it feel like gravity’s got me by the collar.

My eyes betray me, dropping to his mouth. God, his lips. Fuller than I remember, with the faintest curve at the edges like he’s perpetually half a step from saying something wicked.

He’s grown hotter in the last four years.

Sharper and dangerous in ways that have nothing to do with knives or guns and everything to do with the way my body remembers him.

And there it is. My stupid body can’t dismiss how much I’ve missed him. The thought bursts, raw and treacherous, before I slam the door on it.

“You standing over there staring at my mouth doesn’t constitute kissing,” he says lazily, eyes glinting. “You actually need to put your mouth on mine. Maybe give me some tongue while you’re at it.”

God, he’s so crude. And so fucking hot.

“I’m not kissing you.” My voice is breathless, which ruins the effect.

“You fucking are,” he says, like it’s already decided. “You’re just making me wait for it.”

And I hate how right he is.

I should shake my head, maybe work on that scoffing.

Instead I step closer. Once. Twice. My heels click against the floor like a countdown I’m helpless to stop, pulled by invisible strings only my stepbrother can operate.

When I stop in front of him, he doesn’t touch me. Just watches, letting the silence press against my skin until my pulse is louder than my thoughts.

I lean in, slow, careful, a prisoner inching toward the lock on her cell, and brush my lips against his.

It’s meant to be quick. A benign gesture.

It’s not.

The second my mouth brushes his, Asher grabs my shoulders. Seals his mouth hot and hard and dirty on mine. His sensual mouth moves against mine like we’ve been doing this every day for the last four years.

My hand comes up without permission, fingers curling into the lapel of his suit jacket.

The second my lips part and my tongue probes his lips, he makes a low sound—the kind that slides right down my spine—and my body reacts like it’s been waiting for that exact note.

Capturing it, he flicks and strokes and suckles until stars shiver behind my lips, until my nipples bud so damn hard, I’m stunned they’re not poking holes through my clothes.

I’m not even sure which one of us deepens the kiss, but within one heartbeat and the next, I’m pressed tight against my stepbrother’s insanely hot, whipcord body, tasting heat and memory and something dangerous I don’t want to name.

Making noises in my throat that scream the needy surrender in my throat.

Then he’s the one pulling back, his hands closing gently around my wrists, lowering them from his jacket. His breathing is heavier now, but his mouth curves in that maddening way, like he’s the only one who decides when the game ends.

His pale, icy-blue eyes catch the light, like winter skies before a storm. They hold me still as if movement isn’t an option until he allows it.

The short stubble shadowing his jaw is darker now, sharper, framing a mouth made for wrecking bodies andlives.

God, those lips.

Full, firm, and smug enough to make me want to bite them just to see if they’d bruise. I’ve wondered more forbidden nights than I care to admit how they’d feel tracing down my skin, latching on my pussy. I cut the thought off before it burns me alive.

He’s my stepbrother!

A fact he’s puzzlingly always treated with equal parts rumbling fury or as a pesky non-issue.

He’s taller than I remember, broader through the chest, his rolled sleeves revealing the black, geometric ink crawling over his forearms, all precision and control. Every detail of him makes my pulse trip, and I hate how much I’ve missed it.

How much I’ve missed him.

How of all the people in the world, fate chose him to hold the keys to what makes every single cell in my body tick.

“Hello, beautiful.”

The words slide over me like heated honey, making my knees soften. I sway into his body without meaning to, desperate for another illicit taste—the absolute final one because this is insane…right?—another pull into the orbit I swore I’d escaped.

“Careful, sweetheart,” he murmurs. “You know how easily this gets out of hand.”

The sharp knock at the door snaps the spell.

“Later,” he says.

Asher’s penthouse swallows me whole with the kind of silence that lets you hear your own heartbeat.

Three stories of glass, chrome, and city light.

Floor-to-ceiling windows wrap the entire space, offering an unbroken sweep of Manhattan’s skyline. It’s pristine but lived-in, sleek but edged with the kind of danger only Asher could bring.

There’s a rooftop deck with an infinity-edge pool that looks like it’s pouring straight into the skyline, a fully kitted-out gym on the mezzanine level, and, off the main living space, a glass-walled studio filled with racks of unfinished garments, mannequins draped in silk, a drafting table scattered with his sketches, and the faint scent of cedar from the tailor’s forms.

My bedroom is on the opposite wing from his. A corner suite with its own balcony, a king bed that could swallow me whole, an en suite bathroom in white marble and gold. It’s a polar opposite from the bedsit which was as shitty as Asher described.

So this should feel like a prize.

Instead, it feels like a chessboard where I’m the only piece my stepbrother is interested in playing with.

I unpack just enough to feel like I’ve claimed something. Then there’s a knock at the shared balcony door.

Asher’s there, minus his jacket but with his sleeves rolled up, leaning against the frame. “Dinner,” he says, and it’s not a suggestion.

I follow him onto his balcony.

Manhattan glitters below us, the air warm with late summer. The table is already set with two plates and silverware and intimate candles flickering in the breeze.

Over steak and a glass of red I didn’t ask for but gratefully sip to bolster me because—Jesus, what the hell am I doing here and OMG why does my stepbrother look so goddamn hot in candlelight?—we talk.

Or rather, he talks and watches me with hooded eyes, and I try to keep my guard up.

“What have you been doing all this time?” I ask.

He gives me that slow, deliberate smile. “Building an empire. Making fuck loads of money. Watching you.”

My fork freezes halfway to my mouth. “You weren’t really serious about that. Were you?”

His gaze doesn’t waver. “Four years, Scarlett. You think I’d let you drift without keeping track?”

I can’t stop the flush creeping up my throat. Hate and love the way my body responds to that unhinged possessiveness in his voice in equal measure. “Why?”

“Because you matter.”

My chest tightens. I take a sip of wine to hide it. “If I matter so much, then why didn’t you ever come home? Holidays, birthdays?—”

One eyebrow lifts, sharp and amused. “Did you forget what happened last time I came for your birthday?”

The memory hits like a jolt of wild electricity. I look away. “That was a mistake. It was?—”

“You ignoring a warning.”

The air between us thickens until it’s hard to breathe. Somewhere between my next sip of wine and my third failed attempt to steer the conversation away, he reaches for me.

One moment I’m in my chair, the next I’m in his lap, his hands anchored at my waist.

“Asher…we can’t do this. You weren’t really serious, were you? About wanting… wanting?—”

“Wanting you?” His voice is silk over steel, his knuckles trailing softly down one hot cheek. “Oh, I was deadly serious, baby. You’ve been in my blood. Time to root you out.”

A shudder shakes through me. “By force?”

He shakes his head. “No, baby sis. I’m not into force. You’ll come to me because you’re just as—” His mouth curves, sinful and sure “—hungry as I am. But this time I won’t tell you to leave.”

“In your dreams.”

His smile deepens, lethal. “If you’d stayed safe in your bed, dreaming four years ago, we wouldn’t be here. You cracked this addiction wide open, darling. Don’t blame me if I’m hooked now.”

I try to push off his lap, but his hand closes around my wrist before I can stand. His thumb strokes the inside, where my pulse is hammering, while his other hand anchors on my hip, keeping me pinned in his lap.

“Let me go, Asher.” I hate the thread of neediness undermining me. The spark of fire lit entirely by how terrible and decadent and filthy this forbidden path we’re treading feels.

He ignores me, leans in, so close his next words graze my mouth. “How about another kiss for your big brother? The last one wasn’t nearly enough to satisfy even an ounce of what I’ve had to endure for the last four years.”

I shake my head. “No…”

“You don’t sound sure, sis. And I suggest if you don’t want to get bent over the dinnertableand fucked for all of Manhattan to see, stop squirming in my lap.”

“I…I don’t want to do any of those things, so just l-let me up.”

His inked arms tighten around my waist. A flash of something close to anger darts across his face. “I’m going to be keeping score, princess,” he mutters, his blue eyes dropping to my mouth.

I suck the inner flesh of my bottom lip. Then feel his cock surge beneath my ass. “Of what?” I manage to mutter, because…that imprint is massive. Terrifying now as it was the first time I saw it. The first time that was never supposed to happen.

“Of every time you make me work for something that we both want. And do you know what the consequences of that will be?”

Fireworks set off in my bloodstream as memories of warnings and consequences light up in my brain.

He gives a low laugh, his mood apparently restored at the furnace-hot blush consuming my face. “Yes, baby sis. But trust me that whatever it is you’re thinking barely scratches the surface of what’s happening here.”

His mouth finds mine again, slow and deep and shameless.

Until my pulse is a wildfire in my veins.

Until the mildly terrifying notion that I’ve fallen into his clutches once more impinges hard enough that I pull away, shoving lightly at his chest. At first he doesn’t let me. But when he finally breaks it, my head is spinning.

He keeps me where I am, grabbing my half-eaten plate and placing it next to his. Then he plucks my fork from the table and feeds me the rest of my meal as though it’s the most natural thing in the world.

When the plates are empty, he stands, still holding my wrist. Then he swings me into his arms, carries me through the penthouse to my room. He sets me on the edge of the bed and walks to the door in five long strides.

There he looks over his shoulder, and the fire in his eyes is unholy as hell. “Goodnight, Scarlett.”

I blink at him, startled he’s not pressing for more. Not making good on every silky threat he’s delivered since I walked into his presence this morning.

He sees my confusion and smirks. “All in good time, baby. I want you hot and desperate, the way you’ve made me. I want you on your knees begging me to fuck you when the time comes.”

“Are you sure you won’t be the one begging, Asher?”

I expect him to laugh again. Instead, his expression turns solemn, unreadable. Then he shrugs.

“You could well be right. And if you are—” his gaze drops briefly to my mouth, heat sparking there— “you’ll be the only one to ever see it.”

He closes the door behind him, leaving me with the ghost of his kiss and the knowledge that the game’s already started.