The Stepbrother I Hate to Love novel · Chapter 3 of 24
Chapter 3: Terms
Torin lays out his terms and Ansel agrees; the first kiss; the captain texts the Ledger account.
The window glass had gone mirror-dark against the grey sky.
Through his lashes, Ansel could see the whole room in it.
Torin sat down at the desk beside him and woke the laptop.
The screen lit his face blue.
He sat very still for a long time.
Ansel heard one click, then a second one.
Then the lid closed with a soft thump.
Torin put his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.
He stayed like that until the clock on his phone said 6:40.
Ansel did not understand what he had seen.
He kept his eyes shut and his breathing slow.
When Torin finally stood up, his voice was flat and cold.
"Wake up, Wray."
Ansel lifted his head, rubbed his face, and let himself look confused.
It was not hard.
"What time is it?"
"Late enough that Jory has unlocked the door and fled."
Torin leaned against the desk with his arms folded.
He was still in last night's shirt, but the whiskey was gone from his face.
His eyes were clear and grey, and he was entirely sober.
The split in his knuckles had dried black, and he looked like a man who had been awake for ten years.
None of that showed in his eyes.
"You saw the closet," he said.
"I saw it."
"You saw the draft."
"Forty-one times."
Something moved across Torin's jaw.
"Then you know what I have."
"A photo of me at a locker."
"And a name, and a day, and a dean who loves a scandal.
"Your scholarship says one violation ends it.
"I read the letter."
Ansel stared.
"You read my mail."
"I read everything you leave on a table."
Torin said it without shame.
"Here is what happens.
"You come to this room every night I'm home.
"You answer when I call.
"You don't sit with anyone else in the dining hall, you don't let anyone put a hand on you, and you don't talk to Dane.
"In return the dean never hears your name.
"It runs until the season ends in March."
"That's blackmail," Ansel said.
"Yes."
The word hung in the room.
Ansel was supposed to be furious.
He waited for the fury, and part of him was furious.
The rest of him noticed that Torin's hands, folded across his chest, were gripping his own arms so hard the knuckles were white.
"And if I say no?"
"Then I send it."
Torin's voice cracked on the last word, just barely, and he cleared his throat.
Ansel stood up.
His legs had gone stiff from the chair.
He crossed the floor until there was a hand's width between them.
Torin did not move.
"All right," Ansel said.
"All right what?"
"All right.
"Your room, every night.
"I answer when you call."
He kept his voice as flat as Torin's.
He was nineteen years old and the quiet one.
People had been calling him the soft one in every room he entered.
He did not feel soft now.
He felt hot all the way up his neck.
Torin's eyes dropped to the bruise on his cheek.
He lifted a hand and set his thumb under it, very lightly.
His thumb was shaking.
"I did that."
"Your elbow did."
"I did that," Torin said again, rougher.
"I'm sober now, Ansel.
"I've been sober for an hour, sitting here with nothing to do but think.
"Everything I said last night, I meant."
Ansel's pulse jumped.
"I know you did."
Torin leaned in and kissed him.
It was not gentle.
It was a hard, hungry press of mouths, with teeth in it, and nothing in it but Torin.
Ansel stood rigid for one second.
Then something in him let go.
He grabbed two fistfuls of Torin's shirt and kissed him back.
He did it first, before Torin could change his mind, and he did it hard.
Torin made a low sound in his throat.
He turned them both and pushed Ansel back against the desk, one hand sliding into his hair and the other wrapping low around his back.
The edge of the desk dug into Ansel's hips.
He didn't care.
He opened his mouth, and Torin took it, deep and demanding, pulling him up onto his toes.
Ansel's glasses knocked crooked.
Torin took them off carefully and set them on the desk.
It was the gentlest thing he had done, and it undid Ansel more than the kiss.
"Say it," Torin muttered against his mouth.
"Say you're mine."
"Don't push your luck," Ansel breathed.
Torin laughed, one short, startled breath, and kissed him again.
Ansel's phone buzzed against the desk beside his glasses.
Then it buzzed again, longer.
Torin pulled back just far enough to see the screen.
A message from the Ledger account, the one nobody knew was his.
It had no name on it.
"I know it's you."
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