“See this?” I shifted the box, tucking it under one arm to jerk a motor-grease-coated thumb at my room.
“Yeah. I’m not blind.”
“Don’t go in there.”
Her thick brows furled into a scowl. “Why?”
“This is my room. If I catch you going in there, you’ll regret it.”
She rolled her eyes. Oh, she was in for a rude awakening. No one rolled their eyes at me.
“You’re trying to intimidate me. It’s not working.” I stood so close to her, I could almost taste the lie on her lips. If I just leaned a little closer, we’d be kissing.
I wondered what skin that soft and pink tasted like. I shifted the box back over my groin to conceal my hard-on, then I flashed her a cold smirk. “You wanna know what I’ll do to you if you go into my room?”
Her eyes widened, and I could almost see her imagination going wild with all the possibilities. “What?”
“I’ll make you scream. So don’t touch my things. Don’t go into my room. Don’t even look at me.”
She swallowed so loud I could hear it. “How am I not supposed to look at you? We live together.”
“Just watch those pretty eyes of yours, little sister. If I catch them looking at me the way they are now, I may not be able to control myself when I’m around you.”
Chapter Four
Lore
I’dbeenhereallof fifteen minutes, and Titus Leeds had already crawled his way under my flesh and hooked himself deep into my being. He was Heaven to look at once you got past all the scars and the startling genetic features. But the mischievous curve of his mouth, his tattoos, the film of motor grease, his sleek muscles—unholy rapture.
Which was annoying.
I didn’t want to feel anything for my new stepbrother. There was something off about him. There was something off about this entire situation. Until I could convince my mom that this marriage had been one big mistake, I just wanted to exist in peace.
But my new stepbrother was clearly not interested in letting my time here be anything short of torturous.
I may not be able to control myself while I’m around you.
Fucking hell. What exactly did he mean by that? The dark bend to his tone when he’d said that had my stomach swirling with a heady warmth that sunk straight to my core.
Would he hurt me? Maybe. Probably. He’d basically threatened me.
Catching my mind wandering to some concerning places, I tamped down on my dark thoughts and brushed past him. As I passed, his eyes cut into me like daggers. I avoided eye contact, but not because I was going to let his little threat dictate a single thing I did. I just didn’t want him to see the way he got to me. Hurrying through the last door in the hall that he’d pointed out as my bedroom, I threw the box onto the bed and refused to turn back to face the door.
I felt his gaze heavy on my back. He’d followed me into my room.
His presence was so dominating, I could barely breathe. I didn’t dare turn around. My breath caught in my throat when he was so close behind me that his warmth licked over the bare nape of my neck.
“So you’re allowed to come into my room, but I’m not allowed to go into yours?”
“I’m telling you not to wander around this house for your own safety.” He sighed. “But go on. Wander where you don’t belong, little sister. See what happens.”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
Titus scoffed, and the mattress bounced when he tossed the cardboard box he’d been carrying onto my bed. Without another word, he stormed out. The moment he was gone, the tension lifted, and I released the breath I’d been holding.
Christ. How was I supposed to survive this new town with someone like him living one door down from me?
I had two choices at this point. Give him a taste of his own shitty attitude, and risk waging world war three in this stupid backwoods town, or try to reset the dynamic between us. I mean, I wasn’t sure what I’d done to piss him off. Maybe he just got off on being a bully. My cheeks blazed as I thought back on a few bully-romance books I’d read before. It was almost eerie how many boxes Titus checked off on fitting the bill for a bully-romance hero. The termheroto be used loosely. He was cruel, standoffish, and just a little too sexy for a guy that I was supposed to call “brother.”
