He looks just as dangerous as he is.
No, his costume doesn’t show nearly as much skin as mine does, but it’s just as bad. I heard him walk into the house—and by that I mean I heard the collective sighs that left the mouths of every female within eyesight of him.
He knew damn well what he was doing when he put on that costume.
“You have a lot of nerve asking me that.”
“You’re wearing a bra!” he snaps, his expression hard. Vicious. His jaw twitches, and he takes a step toward me.
It requires every ounce of strength in me to step back. “It’s not a bra, it’s part of the costume—”
“I saw your ass in that fucking tutu while you were walking up the stairs!”
“And?” I knew how short the black tutu was when I decided to buy it, but it matched perfectly with the black and pink cat ears on my head.
Brayden’s hand shoots out, latching on to said tutu. He yanks me into him, pretty much growling in my face.
My heart beat drops between my legs, pounding, sending blood rushing to my clit.
“If I saw it, everyone else did,” he says, enunciating each word slowly, his breath sliding between my lips. His scent is too strong now that he has me so close.
Oh God. “I . . . and?” Speech has left me and that’s all I can give him, because I can barely think clearly. It’s a fog—a hot, needy fog. I’m suffocating. I . . . fuck, I want him, and he hasn’t let me go.
His fist tightens around my black tutu. He pops his jaw and leans down into me, lips right there. So close. “How many fucking times am I going to tell you that you’re mine, Kira?” His eye flickers up to my cat ears and back. “My Kitty. No one gets to see what’s mine but me.”
My heart gives a wild kick.
No. No.
I can’t be excited about this. I refuse to admit just how turned on it makes me when he gets possessive like this. I am not his. Never will be. He has no right.
“You’re going home right now and changing.”
Motherfucker. “Get off me,” I hiss, anger mixing, churning, reminding me that I can’t have him no matter how much I fucking want him.
He doesn’t answer for a beat, that single, emerald eye glinting in the dim light of the hallway. Then he shakes his head one time. “No.”
I grab his stupid, sexy shirt and push him back, right into the wall. “I told you—”
Holy fucking shit.
I stop mid-sentence, eyes locked on what I’ve accidentally exposed, my brain misfiring. Brayden’s heart races under my hand, but the rest of him remains still. So still. I yank the shirt further aside, fully exposing the left side of his chest—
And the stylized K tattooed right onto his left pectoral.
What. The. Fuck?
“Brayden, there you are!”
Brayden tenses and lets go of my tutu as if burned.
All the while, my eyes are locked on that stupid, beautiful K.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” Jennifer says, coming closer.
I bet she has. She, like every whore in this house, wants him.
She, like almost all of them, has had him.
That K on his chest seems glaringly bright, making it almost impossible to pull my attention away.
But I do, somehow looking away and letting go of his shirt. For the same reason that Brayden rushes to cover his chest—because he’s my fucking stepbrother, and no one can really know what’s going on between us.
Especially a jealous skank like Jennifer, who will run to tell everyone in town.
“What do you want, Jenn?” he asks her.
Her eyes light up as if he’s straight up told her he wants to drag her into the nearest bedroom and have sex with her. Giggling, she twirls her hair and bites the corner of her lip, eyes eating him up just as mine had earlier. “There was something I wanted to show you.”
Translation: she’s ready to bare her crotch and let him have at it.
I should be immune to this by now. It shouldn’t matter.
It does, and I want to fucking tear her eyes out.
I can’t.
So I clench my fists and stand here, seething, hating myself because I still care.
“I’m busy talking to Kira.”
Jennifer blinks as if surprised and finally realizing I’m here.
Bullshit. She knew. But like everyone else, she suspects something and therefore has no qualms about blatantly laying a claim on Brayden. She knows she can and I can’t, and she’s rubbing it in my face.
“Oh . . . well, as soon as you’re done talking to your sister, can you please come find me so I can show you?” The almost innocent way she stares at him, eyes wide, makes me sick to my stomach. But not as sick as what Brayden says next.
“Sure.”
What?
Jennifer giggles and gives him this flirty little smile. Her eyes cut in my direction, and I don’t miss the way they flash with malice. Nor the way she seems to be silently gloating.
Like I give a fuck. Oh, no. She can gloat all she wants. That’s not what I’m focused on right now.
My initial is fucking tattooed onto his skin, and he just agreed to go find her after he “finishes” with me?
Jennifer turns at the end of the hall, heading down the stairs.
“Kira—”