The stepbrother I shouldn't want

Chapter 20: Chapter 20: Stolen Moments

"Stop checking the mirror," I said.

Lucian’s eyes flicked up to the rearview again. "I’m not."

"You are. Third time in two minutes."

He glanced at me. The corner of his mouth twitched. "You’re counting."

"I’m observant." I slid my hand across the center console and rested it on his thigh. His leg was hard under the denim. "You’re also tense."

He covered my hand with his. "Your hand is on my lap. I’m distracted."

"Good."

He laced his fingers through mine and kept our hands on his leg as he drove. The highway was empty. The city was behind us. The air coming through the cracked window tasted like salt.

"I missed you," he said quietly.

I turned to look at him. "I’m right here."

"You’re here." He squeezed my hand. "But I’m still keeping you out. And I still missed you."

My chest tightened. "Then let me in."

He brought my hand to his mouth and kissed my knuckles, eyes still on the road. "You look like you want to ask something."

"Who’s Noah, really?"

His jaw tightened. He didn’t pull his hand away. "He was my best friend. His family took me in."

"And now?"

"And now he’s gone." Lucian downshifted. "He made mistakes. Got involved with people who don’t let go. I tried to help him. It got bigger than I thought."

"How big?"

He looked at me for a second before turning back to the road. "Big enough that I can’t walk away. Big enough that I’m asking you to trust me before you know everything."

I kept my hand on his thigh. "Tell me the rest."

"I can’t." He kissed my fingers again. "Not yet. Give me tonight. Then I’ll tell you everything."

"Lucian..."

"One night." His eyes found mine in the dark. "Let me be the man who takes you somewhere quiet instead of the man who drags you into his mess."

I didn’t answer. I just moved my hand higher on his leg. He exhaled through his teeth.

Twenty minutes later, he turned onto a dirt track. The Jeep bounced over rocks. The track ended at a bluff where the land dropped off into the sea.

He parked and cut the engine.

"My mother used to bring me here."

The beach below wasn’t sand. It was stone and tide pools, dark and slick. The moon made everything silver. The wind was strong, carrying the smell of salt and something colder underneath it, some early edge of the night that hadn’t shown itself yet.

Lucian got out and opened my door. He took my hand. "Careful. It’s slippery."

We climbed down together. My sneakers slid on the rock. He put his arm around my waist and kept me against him. We didn’t separate.

At the waterline, he stopped. The waves hit the rocks and threw spray into the air.

"She sat right there," he said, pointing to a flat stone. "Told me the ocean didn’t care about anyone’s problems. She found that comforting."

I leaned my head on his shoulder. "Do you?"

"No." He turned me toward him. "I find it honest."

He cupped my jaw. His thumb brushed my cheek. "I brought you here because I don’t know how to do this. The hiding. The lying. I don’t know how to be someone you deserve."

"Then stop hiding."

"I can’t." His forehead dropped to mine. "If I let you in, they use you. I know how they work."

"Let me decide what I can survive."

He pulled back just enough to look at me.

"I love you," he said. "I know it’s wrong. I know the timing is bad. But I love you. I have since you pulled that sheet back and looked at me like I was still alive."

My throat tightened. "You were alive," I said, laughing. "I love you too. I don’t know when it started. Maybe the lab. Maybe five minutes ago. But I do."

He kissed me, soft at first. Then his hand moved to the back of my neck and the kiss deepened. I tasted salt. His other hand slid under my jacket and pulled me against him. The rock was hard behind me. My fingers found his hair, damp from the spray.

When we broke apart, both of us were breathing hard.

We stayed like that for a moment, foreheads touching, not speaking. The waves kept hitting the rocks. His thumb moved slowly across my cheek. Neither of us pulled away. For a little while, standing there with the tide pulling back and forth over the stones, it was almost possible to believe we were just two ordinary people in love, with nothing bigger than the tide to worry about.

Then his pocket buzzed.

Not his regular phone. Maybe a secondary phone, a different sound, sharper.

He went still. He pulled out a black phone. The screen lit up against his face.

He read it once.

Twice.

His expression changed.

"What?" I asked.

He handed me the phone.

A photo of us. On the rocks. Kissing.

Beneath it:

We see you, L. Time’s up.

The Jeep was still up on the bluff. Lucian took the phone back, jaw tight.

"Who sent that?"

He looked at me. I saw it then, he wasn’t scared for himself.

"Hold on," he said.

We climbed back up the path fast, my heart pounding harder with every step, the wind suddenly feeling less like ocean air and more like something closing in around us. He opened my door, got in, and started the engine. The second the doors shut, he floored it.

I twisted in my seat and looked behind us.

Headlights.

Two car lengths back.

Not close enough to be obvious. Not passing either. Just following, keeping the same distance as the road curved.

"Lucian."

He didn’t answer. He just drove faster, eyes on the road, one hand locked on the wheel and the other on my thigh.

In the side mirror, the headlights stayed with us.

Steady.

Patient.

The quiet we had stolen was already over.

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