He goes very still. “What?”
“Arcer Holdings. Your company. You bought this building.” My voice is rising but I can’t stop it. “You planned the whole thing. The realtor. The penthouse. The furniture. The other stores.”
He doesn’t deny it. Doesn’t even try to look surprised. That tells me all I need to know. Except…
“Why?” My question comes out broken. “Why would you do that?”
“Can we talk inside?” His eyes flick down the hallway. “Please.”
I step back, letting him enter. Not because I want him here but because I need answers.
He sets the box on the counter, and we stare at each other across the kitchen island.
“Explain.” I cross my arms over my chest. “Now.”
His jaw clenches. “You needed a place to live.”
“I had a place. I had already signed a lease on an apartment.”
“That apartment wasn’t good enough.”
“Says who? You?” Anger flares hot in my chest. “You had no right to interfere. No right to manipulate my life without asking me.”
“I was trying to help.”
“By lying to me? By making me think I could afford all this on my own?” My voice cracks. “Do you have any idea how humiliating this is? Finding out that everything I thought I achieved was just you pulling strings behind my back?”
He takes a step around the island toward me. “That’s not what this was.”
“Then what was it?” I back up, maintaining the distance between us. “Charity? Pity for your weak little sister who can’t take care of herself?”
Something snaps in his expression. He closes the gap between us in two strides. His hand shoots out, fingers wrapping around my wrist and yanking me forward until I’m pressed against his chest.
“You are not my sister.”
The words come out as a growl, rough and desperate and nothing like the controlled man I’ve come to know.
Then, his mouth crashes down on mine.
Shock freezes me in place. His lips are demanding, hungry, moving against mine with a desperation that steals my breath. One hand tangles in my hair, tilting my head back. The other grips my hip, pulling me impossibly closer.
I should push him away. Should slap him. Should do anything but stand here while my stepbrother kisses me like he’s drowning and I’m air.
But my body doesn’t agree.
Heat explodes through me, white hot and all consuming. Every nerve ending lights up at once. My skin feels too tight, too sensitive, like I might spontaneously combust.
And then, something inside me…stretches.
It’s not painful. It’s more like something that has been sleeping, coiled tight in the depths of my chest, is suddenly waking up. Unfurling. Rising to the surface with a hunger that matches the one burning through my veins. I don’t understand what it is, this wild thing demanding that I get closer, closer, closer. All I know is that nothing has ever felt this right, this necessary, thisinevitable.
A sound escapes my throat—half gasp, half moan—and I kiss him back.
The moment I do, everything changes.
I become the aggressor, pressing forward, my hands fisting in his sweater. I push him backward across the kitchen, not caring that we stumble, not caring about anything except getting closer, closer, closer.
His back hits the door with a thud that shakes the frame.
