Synopsis · English
This guy is mine.
Nick thought this with his hand on the back of an eighteen-year-old's neck—a kid who'd walked into his house a week ago, the son of the woman his father just married.
Nick Valença is twenty-one and runs a roadside station and everyone who passes through it. He doesn't ask, doesn't explain, doesn't need anyone. When his father remarries and the kid comes along, Nick does what's always worked: leaves him alone on a dark road at night to learn whose territory this is.
Léo comes back on his own. Walks straight through the station from one end to the other, demands an apology, doesn't get one, and punches Nick in the mouth in front of everyone.
Nick doesn't fight back. It's the first time in his life he hasn't fought back, and he's the only one there who doesn't understand why.
What comes after isn't a truce—it's worse. It's Nick knowing where Léo is at any hour of the day without ever deciding to know. It's Nick silently cleaning a cut on his head, first aid kit open beside them. It's Léo, right there, asking for a fake kiss—staged, just a photo, just to hurt the ex he left behind.
Nick says yes too fast.
The photo is fake. The kiss isn't.
And they both carry the same tattoo. A crooked infinity symbol, done with a homemade needle in childhood, at opposite ends of the country, and neither of them can explain how.
After all, the kiss wasn't the hard part. It's continuing to sleep on opposite sides of the hallway afterward.
What to Expect from This Book
• contemporary Brazilian MM romance, from Belo Horizonte to the interior of Pernambuco
• step-siblings with not a drop of shared blood, a hallway between bedrooms
• slow burn, staged kiss that spins out of control, explicit scenes
• he takes care first and admits it much later
• the tough guy who surrenders and the kid who takes charge
• first-person narration alternating between the two
• standalone book, guaranteed happy ending
Trigger warnings: domestic violence and child abuse narrated in retrospect, confinement in the dark, drink spiked without consent, threat with a firearm, adult language and explicit sex scenes between adults. No main characters die.
Not recommended for readers under 18.
Reasons to read: MM Romance / Step-siblings / Forced proximity / Fake kiss / Slow burn / Street racing / Hurt-comfort / Guaranteed happy ending
