My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 495

Chapter 495

Eventually her fingers reached my shoulder, then moved higher until her hand settled against the side of my neck.

The moment her skin touched me there, something inside my chest tightened. I didn’t even realize I was moving until it happened.

My head tilted slightly, leaning into her touch, just enough to feel more of it.

Gianna’s eyes lifted, our gazes met. And I knew what I probably looked like. Pathetic. A grown man leaning into a touch like he’d been starving for it.

My brain spent most of the day looking for her, listening for her, tracking her location without meaning to.

And now she was standing here, touching me. My system immediately stopped treating the world like an emergency.

Her expression softened, then she smiled. The kind that only existed because it was meant for me.

My chest tightened again.

Gianna slowly rose onto her tiptoes. I froze. Every thought in my head vanished completely.

She leaned closer, then pressed a soft kiss against my cheek. It was brief, simple, and gone almost immediately but somehow my brain treated it like a major event.

A very major event.

Possibly catastrophic.

Gianna dropped back onto her heels, then she smiled again. This time there was sadness in it and something else I couldn’t quite identify.

Affection, Raphael, it’s affection.

“You’re important to me, Raphael,” she whispered, her hand was still resting against my neck, “I know things are a mess right now. My whole life feels like it’s falling apart but you’re still my person.”

Something twisted sharply inside my chest. Pain? No, not exactly but something close to it.

“You’ve always been there. And I need that. I need my best friend.”

The words hit harder than the kiss.

My best friend.

The title should have made me happy instead it felt complicated. She was right. She was my best friend. The first real friend I’d ever had. The person I looked for first. The person I wanted to tell things to. The person I trusted. The person who occupied far too much space inside my head… far too much.

Gianna squeezed the back of my neck gently, “Please don’t disappear on me. I can’t lose anyone else right now.”

Something in my chest immediately shifted and the answer arrived immediately, “I won’t. I am exceptionally difficult to get rid of.”

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