Falling For My Stepsister’s Father

Chapter 13: Let’s the game begin kitten.

The moment Isabel left, the silence in the room dropped like a pin.

It pressed in from all sides, thick and suffocating, leaving no space to breathe. The only sounds that survived it were the frantic thudding of my heart and the sharp pitty‑patter of my pulse in my ears. Everything else went quiet..

Alderic finally tore his gaze away from me and walked back to his desk.

The movement alone made my shoulders tense.

He didn’t rush. He moved like a man who knew exactly where he was going and why. When he reached his chair, he didn’t sit immediately. Instead, he stopped, his back to me.

“Where did you get those?”

My head snapped up.

“What?” The word slipped out before I could stop it.

He turned his head slightly, just enough to glance at me over his shoulder. One brow lifted, slowly.

“Yur tattoos.”

Oh.

My throat tightened. I swallowed, suddenly too aware of the ink peeking out beneath my clothes, too aware of how exposed they made me feel.

“A… a friend did it for me,” I replied, my voice coming out weaker than I intended.

He didn’t respond. Not even a hum.

He sat down, turned back to his computer, and started working like the question had meant nothing at all.

Slowly, I sank back into the couch. My hands slid under my thighs, fingers curling tight, nails digging into skin to stop the shaking. I kept my eyes forward, fixed stubbornly on the wine stand across the room.

The red bottle stared back at me.

The label. The letters. I focused so hard I was sure I could recite them backward if asked. Anything was better than looking at him.

“You’re distracting me.”

I froze.

My eyes snapped up, my breath catching mid‑inhale. Alderic was still facing his screen, fingers moving across the keyboard.

“Sorry?” I murmured. Shy. Unsure. “Did you say something?”

For a moment, I wondered if my mind was betraying me again. If I had imagined it.

Then he stopped typing.

Slowly, he lifted his head and turned his chair just enough for his eyes to meet mine. The room seemed to shrink under that gaze.

“You’re distracting me,” he repeated, clipped

Heat rushed to my face.

“I—I’m not doing anything,” I wanted to say. The words burned at the back of my throat. Instead, I pressed my lips together, swallowing them down.

His eyes stayed on me, sharp and assessing.

“I can smell your fear from over here, Seraphina.”

My breath hitched.

“Are you scared of me?”

He tilted his head slightly, studying me. His eyes were cold now. Not cruel. Just unreadable. The kind of look that made you feel stripped bare without ever being touched.

A shiver ran down my spine.

I licked my dry lips, pinched my thigh harder beneath my hands, then lifted my chin and forced myself to meet his gaze.

“I’m not scared of you.”

The words came out steadier than I felt.

He hummed quietly, his eyes flicking toward the door Isabel had just left through before returning to me. When he spoke again, his voice was calm.

“When you lie and when you’re afraid, you get the same look in your eyes,” he said. “Did you know that?”

My stomach dropped.

“What?” I frowned despite myself. “I—I do?”

How would he even know that?

The thought made my skin prickle. Unsettled. Exposed.

“I’ve been around women long enough to know how they look,” he continued evenly. “How they smell when they lie.”

My throat went bone‑dry.

“You aren’t so different, Seraphina.” His gaze sharpened, pinning me in place. “You’d do well to remember that… the next time you decide to lie to me.”

The words settled heavy in my chest.

I didn’t answer.

I couldn’t.

Because suddenly, I wasn’t sure whether I was more afraid of him seeing through me… or of how much a part of me wanted him to keep looking.

ALDERIC

She was distracting me.

Her eyes. Her lips. The uneven rhythm of her breathing. Every small, unconscious thing she did scraped along my nerves until the back of my neck prickled with heat—unwelcome, infuriating heat.

I hated it.

I hated that she looked at me like that.

That quiet, open look in her eyes that screamed too many things at once—touch me, hurt me, save me. A look women rarely understood the weight of when they carried it.

I was too old for this kind of foolishness. Old enough to know better. Old enough to recognize the warning signs and shut them down before they spiraled.

And yet—attraction didn’t care about age, about reason, about consequence.

I was attracted to my daughter’s friend.

Period.

Would I do anything about it?

No.

That line was not one I crossed. Ever.

Still, my fingers moved uselessly over the keyboard, typing jargon that meant nothing. Numbers, words, entire paragraphs blurred together. I needed something—anything—to keep my hands occupied.

Then she stood.

My fingers froze mid‑stroke.

What was she doing?

From the corner of my eye, I watched her move toward the wine stand—the same place her gaze had been drawn to all afternoon. She reached for a bottle and lifted it carefully, like it was something fragile..

Even focused, she was breathtaking.

She tilted the bottle slightly, lips moving as she read the label under her breath. The way her mouth curved around the words sent a slow, unwelcome pull low in my body.

I didn’t think before speaking.

“That is a seven‑hundred‑year‑old wine you’re holding.”

She startled violently, body twisting toward me as if she’d forgotten I was even in the room.

I hated that.

I stood calmly and walked toward her. Measured steps.. Her eyes never left my face as I closed the distance—those same eyes, bright and too honest, shining like she didn’t understand the danger of meeting my stare head‑on.

Silly girl.

She had no idea what she was stirring, looking at me like that.

“Are you interested in wine, Seraphina?” I asked, stopping just behind her.

She glanced back at the bottle, then up at me again. So close now I could see the fine tension in her jaw.

“Not really,” she said. “The bottle… and the color caught my attention.”

I nodded, leaning slightly to look over her shoulder at the wine. Being this close flooded my senses before I could stop it.

Her scent hit me—coffee and smoke.

Unfeminine. Unexpected. Completely wrong for a girl like her.

And yet I inhaled it like a starving man.

“You said it was seven hundred years old,” she continued, curiosity slipping into her voice despite herself. “Does it ever lose its taste? What about preservation? What does it need to be preserved?”

I watched her mouth as she spoke. The softness of her voice clashed violently with the sharpness of her presence, and the contrast unsettled me more than it should have.

“Thought you said you weren’t interested,” I said quietly.

She paused, lips parting, then closing again—caught.

I reached out and took the bottle from her hands.

Our skin brushed.

The contact was brief. Subtle. And yet it sent heat cracking through my bones like a fault line splitting open. I felt it immediately.

So did she.

She gasped softly—sharp, involuntary.

I frowned.

My eyes traced the words etched into the bottle.

“That,” I said, my voice dropping without permission, “is Vinum Eternum 1326—a seven-hundred-year-old vintage. One of the rarest in the world.”

Her gaze flickered—just briefly—to my mouth before locking onto my eyes again.

“This wine,” I continued, holding her stare, “is kept in a climate-controlled vault. Thirteen degrees Celsius. Sixty percent humidity. It rests horizontally in hand-carved mahogany racks, shielded from light by heavy velvet curtains. Even vibration can ruin it. The corks are inspected once every decade.” I paused. “It’s… precious. Sacred, almost. One wrong move, and seven centuries of history are lost.”

I leaned closer.

“You weren’t supposed to touch it.”

Her eyes widened, lips parting in instinctive fear.

The same fear that sent a sharp, unwelcome thrill down my spine.

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I—I didn’t know.”

Without breaking eye contact, I reached past her and placed the bottle back on the shelf.

Our bodies collided.

Back to front.

Her warmth pressed into me—soft, full in places I refused to name. She didn’t pull away. If anything, she melted further into the contact.

I clenched my jaw.

Why was she making this difficult?

“A piece of advice, Seraphina,” I growled low, close to her ear.

She turned her head over her shoulder, eyes meeting mine. One more inch and my mouth would have claimed hers. The thought alone burned.

“Nobody cares how much you know about the outside world,” I said coldly. “You commit a crime, you pay for it.”

She didn’t look shocked.

That alone unsettled me.

There was understanding in her eyes. Awareness. Familiarity with danger. It multiplied the questions forming in my head until they crowded my thoughts.

“Are you going to punish me for this crime?” she asked softly.

Her chest rose and fell in shallow breaths. Her eyes were dark now. Her cheeks flushed.

I leaned closer, my voice rough despite myself.

“Do you want to be punished?”

“I—”

“It’s either a yes or a no, Seraphina,” I growled, hoarse with need. The blood rushing to my pants made the pressure unbearable.

“I want to be pun—”

The door slammed open before she could finish. The connection shattered. Seraphina jerked back so hard she stumbled into the wine shelf, sending a glass crashing to the floor.

I stayed rooted in place, every muscle taut, as Isabel rushed forward and helped her friend upright.

“Oh my God. Are you okay, munchkin?” Isabel’s voice was panicked.

Seraphina’s face burned crimson. Her eyes flicked to me, darting away quickly as she brushed herself off.

“Sorry. I was just… clumsy,” she said, forcing a tight smile toward Isabel.

My daughter’s glare could have cut glass.

“Dad!” she snapped.

I arched a brow, my hands hidden in my pants as I adjusted the hardness threatening to betray me.

“I told you not to scare her off,” Isabel whined, exasperated.

Seraphina tugged at her top, desperately trying to draw her friend’s attention, but Isabel wasn’t letting her.

I couldn’t stop staring at her. Smirking. The audacity. The want. The fear. Two truths revealed: she feared me. She wanted me.

The game had just begun, kitten..