Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Lila
The days after the storm blurred into a tense, pressurized haze that I couldn’t shake. The power had flickered back on sometime before dawn. The house hummed back to life, but the shift between us felt permanent and irreversible.
It felt like a fault line had cracked open under our feet, and no amount of pretending could seal it shut.
I woke up the next morning with the taste of whiskey and him still lingering on my lips, my body a map of reminders from the night before.
My thighs ached from straddling his hips, and my nipples were still sensitive from the rough pinch of his fingers. And between my legs, I was tender and slick, my core thrumming with the echo of how he’d made me come undone on his hand.
I touched myself lightly under the sheets, replaying the way he’d licked my arousal from his fingers, his eyes dark and hungry in the candlelight. Confusion twisted in my gut, but it was drowned out by the heat and thrill of it all.
Downstairs, the house felt unnaturally still. After I dressed and left my room, I noticed right away Marcus’s truck wasn’t in the driveway. On the kitchen counter, a note scrawled on the back of a crumpled receipt read: Had to head to the site early. Back late. Don’t wait up.
I stared at those words until they swam in my vision. He was running… from me, from himself, and especially from what we’d shared the night before.
The guilt I’d seen had etched deep lines into his face when he’d frozen after making me come. And then he whispered that he couldn’t believe he’d done that to me.
Even if I’d only been living under the same roof for a year, even if I was eighteen and gone to college before we ever really bonded as a family, the taboo label clung to us like smoke, and he couldn’t shake it.
I spent the day packing alone, trying to distract myself. I went through the hall closet, boxing up old coats and scarves that still smelled faintly like Mom’s perfume. The lavender and vanilla scent twisted something sharp in my chest.
I made piles of things to keep and things to donate.
Then I moved on to the linen closet, folding sheets and towels that had seen better days. Every creak of the old floorboards made my heart jump, half-hoping, half-dreading he’d walk through the door and pull me against him again.
By evening, the house felt empty without him. I microwaved leftovers, ate standing at the counter while scrolling my phone, seeing nothing. The sun dipped low, painting the kitchen in long, orange stripes, and still no truck rumbled up the driveway.
I told myself it was fine, that Marcus needed space. We both did. But the ache between my legs—and heart—said otherwise.
He finally came home after ten. The front door opened with a soft click as if he were trying not to wake me. I was on the couch pretending to read a book I’d pulled from one of the boxes. It was a dog-eared romance novel from Mom’s collection that now felt too on-the-nose.
His boots stopped in the foyer, and I set the book down and walked to the doorway, arms crossed over my chest like a shield.
He looked wrecked. His work clothes were streaked with dust and mud, his hair was disheveled, and his eyes were shadowed with exhaustion. But when he saw me, something flickered there, something akin to hunger or regret, maybe both.
“Hey,” I said softly.
“Hey,” his voice was gravel-rough. He glanced at me for a split second, then turned away, shrugging off his jacket and hanging it on the hook.
“You okay?”
“Long day.” He moved past me into the kitchen, close enough that I caught his scent of sawdust, sweat, and that underlying musk that was pure Marcus.
He grabbed a beer from the fridge, twisted the cap off with a sharp pop, and took a long swallow without offering me one.
The deliberate space he kept stung like a slap.
I followed him in. “Marcus?”
He set the bottle down harder than necessary, foam bubbling over the rim. “We need to talk about last night.”
My stomach knotted tightly. “Okay.”
He leaned back against the counter, arms crossed over his chest as if he were barricading himself. “What happened… it can’t happen again.”
The words hit like cold water. I swallowed hard. “You didn’t seem to think that when your fingers were buried inside me making me come.” I shouldn’t have been so crude, but I was pissed.
He squeezed his eyes shut for a beat. “That’s exactly why it can’t.
I was your stepfather, Lila. Even if it was just for that one year.
Even if you were already eighteen and heading off to college.
I stood at the altar with your mother. I was supposed to be a father figure to you.
A protector and guardian. Not the man who pins you down and fingers your pussy until you scream my name.
That makes this so fucked up. I’m ashamed I let it happen.
I’m ashamed I can’t stop thinking about how tight you felt. How you soaked my hand.”
Heat flooded my face, rejection mixed with a fresh wave of arousal made my thighs clench together. “I’m twenty-three now. An adult. I wanted it. I begged for it, and I’m not ashamed.”
He groaned low in his throat, head tipping back against the cabinets. “Jesus, Lila. Don’t say that.” His voice cracked, raw and pained.
But when I stepped closer, he didn’t back away. I placed my hand on his chest, right over the rapid thud of his heart. He sucked in a sharp breath, but his arms stayed crossed, body rigid.
“I’ve wanted you for years. Forbidden or not. You were once my stepdad...it doesn’t matter. I’m not scared, and it doesn’t make me uncomfortable. I want you, the man you are, Marcus, not the title you once wore.”
I slid my hand lower, under his shirt, and feathered my finger over the hard ridges of his abs.
His hand shot out, grabbing my wrist in a firm grip, calluses rough against my skin. “Stop.”
But he didn’t push me away. His thumb brushed the inside of my wrist, slow and unconscious, as if he couldn’t help it.
I leaned in, lips brushing his ear. “Tell me you don’t want to pin me against this counter right now. Tell me you don’t want to feel how wet I am for you again.”
Ragged breaths pushed between his lips, chest heaving under my palm. “I can’t do this. I won’t.”
“Then let go of my wrist.”
He didn’t. Instead, he yanked me forward until my body slammed against his. I felt every inch of him, even the thick bulge in his jeans pressing against my stomach.
“Fuck,” he breathed, eyes dark and tormented before his mouth crashed down on mine.
The kiss was brutal, all teeth and tongue and pent-up desperation.
He spun us around, pinning me to the counter with his hips, one hand fisting my hair to tilt my head back, the other sliding under my tank top to cup my breast roughly.
I arched into him, moaning when he rolled my nipple between his fingers, pinching just hard enough to send a jolt straight to my core.
“This is the last time,” he growled against my lips.
I laughed breathlessly, nails scraping down his back. “You said that last night.”
“I mean it.” But his hand was already fumbling with the drawstring of my shorts, yanking them open, fingers diving inside. When he found me bare and dripping, he cursed low and filthily.
“Jesus… you’re already soaked.”
His fingers slid between my thighs, pushing past the soft cotton of my shorts until he felt how soaked I was for him.
He went completely still.
“Christ,” he muttered under his breath. His thumb brushed once along my center, slow and deliberate, just enough to make my breath hitch.
My hips rocked forward instinctively, chasing the pressure. “Marcus,” I whispered.
His jaw flexed hard. For a second I thought he would do it. I thought he’d slide his fingers inside me again and make me come the way he had the night before.
Instead he dragged his hand away slowly, like it physically hurt him to do it.
“Fuck,” he breathed, scrubbing a hand down his face.
I stepped closer, heart pounding. “Stop fighting it.”
His eyes darkened as they dropped to my mouth. “You have no idea how much I want to,” he said roughly. “But if I touch you again right now, I’m going to fuck you like I own you.”
My heart thundered at that, and I opened my mouth to demand he do just that, but his words stopped me.
“Get upstairs before I change my mind,” he said hoarsely. “Now.”
“Marcus—” I reached for him.
“Go.” His voice broke. “Please.”
I fixed my shorts with shaking hands, throat tight. I nodded and left him there, alone in the kitchen, staring at the floor as if he hated himself.
The next morning, he was gone before I woke up. Another note saying he was working late and not to wait up for him.
He did this for three days straight, leaving before dawn and coming home after midnight, barely speaking when our paths crossed. And I didn’t push it, didn’t try to reconnect.
He showered in the downstairs bathroom, crashed on the couch instead of his bed upstairs near mine. When we were in the same room, he kept distance with his eyes averted, jaw clenched, and body language screaming regret.
But the stolen moments still slipped through the cracks.
The fourth night he came home late, I was in the kitchen getting a glass of water, wearing just an oversized T-shirt and panties. I assumed he’d be working late so hadn’t expected him to see me in barely anything.
He walked in, and I looked over my shoulder. He saw me bending to grab a bottle from the lower fridge shelf and froze. I felt the heat of his stare on my ass, on my barely-there panties that showed more than they covered.
I stayed bent over for more time than what was necessary, letting his eyes take me, then straightened before speaking. “You’re avoiding me.”
“I’m trying to do the right thing.” His voice was strained, eyes flicking to the hem of my shirt where it barely covered my thighs then away.
“The right thing feels wrong without you touching me.”
He cursed under his breath, held still for a moment as if fighting himself, and then closed the distance in two strides. Marcus grabbed me by the waist and pinned me against the fridge, mouth slanting over mine in a deep, possessive kiss.
Thank God. He stopped fighting it.
His hands roamed under my shirt, rough palms skating up my sides to cup my bare breasts, thumbs flicking my nipples until they hardened into peaks.
I moaned into his mouth, my hands exploring him in return as I traced his hard, defined skin that was toned and honed from years of working construction.
“You drive me fucking insane,” he muttered against my throat, teeth grazing my pulse. “My beautiful Lila. The one thing I shouldn’t want, but do. No one can know.”
I nodded, gasping as he ground his erection against my core through our clothes. “I know. Our secret. Just us.”
He kissed me harder, one hand slipping between my thighs to tease the edge of my panties, fingers brushing my soaked folds but not pushing inside. “Only this,” he growled. “We stop here.”
But he didn’t stop the kiss. Not until we were both breathless, my body humming with unspent need.
Then he pulled back, eyes tormented. “We’re done tonight.”
The fifth day was the same with him gone all day, me packing alone and the house echoing with unspoken tension. That night, he came home earlier than usual. I was in the living room sorting through old photo albums when he walked in.
He paused in the doorway, watching me flip through pictures of us from five years ago when I was eighteen. In one picture, he stood shirtless, working on a home renovation, sweat forever frozen on his hard, big, and muscular body.
The image twisted something in my gut—shame, yes, but also a dark thrill.
He cleared his throat. “Lila.”
I looked up. “Hey,” I said far too breathlessly.
“We need to talk.” His voice was low and conflicted. He crossed the room, sat on the coffee table in front of me, knees brushing mine.
I set the album aside. “Okay.”
He rubbed a hand over his face. “Every time I touch you, I feel like shit afterwards. Like I’ve betrayed something.”
The pain in his eyes made my chest ache. “I hate that you feel that way,” I admitted softly. “The taboo weighs on me, too. What would people say? But the attraction and how I feel about you… it overrides everything. I can’t stop wanting you.”
He reached out and cupped my cheek. “That’s why we have to stop. Before it destroys us.”
I leaned into his touch. “I’m sure you’re right, but I don’t want to stop this,” I whispered.
He hesitated then groaned and pulled me forward. The kiss started soft, almost tender, but heated up fast. His hands roamed my body, tracing my curves like he was memorizing them. I explored him back with my fingers slipping under his shirt to feel the hard planes of his chest.
“My perfect girl,” he murmured against my lips.
The truth was, I didn’t know if I could keep my sanity with this stop and go. My desire for Marcus was driving me fucking crazy, and I was wound so tight with need I could barely think.
He stood, adjusted himself again, and I couldn’t help but stare at the massive bulge pressing against his jeans.
He walked away without another word, and I sat there in the dim light, body buzzing, mind a whirlwind of desire. The attraction sharpened into something addictive. And the guilt? It only fueled the fire.
This raw, hot annoyance filled me. This was the third time he did this, the third time we were hot and passionate, only for him to shut things down and dismiss me.
I knew he was handling his guilt and confusion over his feelings for me in different ways, but Marcus was driving me crazy with the way he kept going hot and cold.
I vowed to myself that if he pulled this shit again, I was the one who would shut it down.