My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 237

Chapter 237

Gianna rolled her eyes, that told me she wasn’t buying my “mercy” speech for a second.

“Mercy?” she echoed, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Is that what we’re calling it now? You looked pretty helpless from where I was sitting, Raphael. For a ‘boss,’ you make a very… very loud noise when you lose.

“I didn’t lose,” I growled, my hand sliding from her hip to the back of her thigh, hauling her so close our chests slammed together. “I explored. There’s a fucking difference. I wanted to see how far you’d go. Now I know.”

“And now that you know?” she asked, “What happens now?”

“Now I’m telling you, don’t roll your eyes at me again,” I hissed, “Unless you want me to show you exactly how helpless I am when I stop playing nice.”

She tilted her head, “Oh, and what do you do when you’re not playing nice, Raphael?”

“First thing I do is call you out on your bullshit,” I said, my voice dropping into a flat tone that she didn’t expect.

She frowned, her body stiffening in my arms, “What bullshit?”

“The bullshit where you talk about your scars,” I said, my hand tightening on her leg, “You call these scars. But they aren’t scars, Gianna. They are perfectly placed burns and bruises. And they look a hell of a lot newer than some old heartbreak,” I let my fingers graze the marks on her inner thigh, “The cuts on your legs… they look exactly like the ones I saw under your feet.”

She went pale instantly, the blood draining from her face, “My feet-”

“I remember patching them up after the hunt, Gianna,” I cut her off, I wasn’t going to let her lie to me, “They were carefully cut. Precise. Just like the marks on your thighs. So tell me… who did this to you recently?”

Gianna’s breath hitched, and she tried to pull away, but I held her tighter. She looked down at the floor, her fingers twisting the hem of my shirt. Her skin turned so pale, it seemed unreal.

“Fine,” I murmured, “I’m dropping it. For now.”

She looked up at me, surprised. Her eyes were wide and watery, searching mine for the catch.

“I’m not going to force the truth out of you, Gianna,” I said, leaning in until our foreheads touched. “I have ways of finding things out. I could know everything about you by sunrise without you saying a single word. But I don’t want to do that to you. I’m not going to stoop to that level.”

I ran my thumb along the line of her jaw.

“I’ll wait,” I whispered, “I’ll wait until you’re ready to tell me yourself.”

She let out a shaky sigh, her body finally relaxing against mine. She reached up, her fingers grazing my bare chest, tracing the marks she had left there.