35. Keira
KEIRA
R ain needles the glass panes, thunder murmurs like a curse, and Jayson sits opposite me in a leather wingback, rolling a coin across his knuckles—left, right, back again—eyes fixed on a fire that’s mostly smoke.
I’ve tried to speak three times. My throat rebels each attempt, cords tight as piano wire. But the bruise on my arm, the one I got hauling myself out of a too tight window, throbs like a heavy pulse: tell him, tell him, tell him .
I curl tighter on the sofa, knees to chest, heart still knocking against bone.
“Jayson?”
The coin stops. It lands on the side table with a soft click. Still, he doesn’t speak. Not one syllable. His gaze lifts—dark, patient, lethal.
His eyes are the deepest shade of sea blue. Not soft or calm. Rather, the kind of turbulent blue that comes right before the ocean drags you under.
I swallow.
There’s nothing safe about the way he looks at me. Not because he’s angry—he isn’t. His expression is unreadable. Patient. Watchful. But there’s a stillness in him that’s worse than fury. A kind of lethal restraint.
This is the man who killed my father.
The baby-faced killer with blood on his hands and nothing but silence where his conscience should be.
And yet—when I look at him now, all I feel is warmth. Safety I don’t want to trust. Longing I don’t know how to justify.
He sits across from me in black slacks and a fitted shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbow, showing strong forearms dusted with scars and stories.
His light brown hair is slightly mussed, like he’s been dragging his fingers through it—a tell I’ve learned only I get to see. Not his colleagues. Not Nina. Me.
And that face. God. That face.
He’s too beautiful to be real. Not in the obvious way. Not perfect. No, there’s a certain sharpness to him. Angled jaw. Faint bruise-colored shadows under his eyes. A mouth that rarely smiles, but when it does—it wrecks me.
Looking at him is like standing too close to the fire. You know it’ll burn. You can already feel the heat. But part of you wants to stay there anyway, just to see what it feels like when it touches your skin.
He scares me. Not because I think he’ll hurt me, because I know he won’t. If he wanted to, he would have already. He scares me because I want him. Even after everything. Even knowing the truth of who he is. What he is. And it’s a kind of longing that might be the end of me.
He hasn’t said much since we came back to the estate, but I can feel the thoughts moving behind his silence. Calculating. Reconstructing the day piece by piece, trying to find answers.
In the end, it’s my own silence that undoes me. My phone buzzes in my hoodie pocket. Just once. A sharp, short vibration that freezes me.
Jayson’s gaze cuts sideways as I bring the phone out and look down at the screen. My breath catches and my mind stumbles, even as I try to slow down my reaction to the unwanted intrusion.
“What is it?”
“It’s nothing,” I say quickly. Too quickly.
He arches a brow. “You’re a bad liar, Keira.”
I pocket my phone and say nothing as I stare out the window into the dark.
The phone buzzes again. This time, Jayson moves forward, waiting, analysing.
“Show me,” he says, voice low. No anger. Just that controlled edge that means he’s already made up his mind.
I hesitate. Then I sigh and pull it out, unlock the screen, and hand it over.
He reads the message.
Still digging, little girl? Careful. You might not like what you find.
His thumb scrolls. There are more. Weeks of them. Different numbers, same tone—taunting, cryptic, intimate in a way that makes my skin crawl. Whoever it is… they know too much.
His silence turns to stone.
“How long?”
“A while,” I admit. “It started with weird texts. Then calls that hung up the second I answered. A couple times… I think I saw someone watching me on campus. I couldn’t be sure. I thought it would stop. That they’d get bored.”
“But they didn’t,” he says flatly.
“No.”
“Do you know who it is?”
I shake my head, pulling my knees up to my chest.
Jayson exhales through his nose, tight and furious.
“What about enemies?” he asks .
I let out a sharp laugh. “You want a list?”
He doesn’t answer. Just watches me.
“It might take until tomorrow,” I mutter, voice bitter. “My father made sure of that. He collected enemies like art. Left me holding the invoice when he died. People hated him, and somehow, they think it’s okay to make me pay for it.”
Silence again, except this time, it crackles.
Jayson’s still holding my phone. Still staring at the last message like he could burn it off the screen with sheer will.
Then he speaks, quiet and cold.
“I’ll get you a new number tomorrow. This phone stays with me.”
I nod, throat tight.
“Keira,” he says, and it’s not a reprimand—it’s a warning that tells me we’ve moved past captor and captive.
The fact that he killed my father and I’m married to him to safeguard his future is no longer something that resides between us like a plague.
“I need you to take every threat seriously. Your father was a very powerful man, with a lot of very powerful friends.”
For a heartbeat, neither of us moves.
Then, Jayson rises—slow, deliberate. He steps into my space, a shadow swallowing mine. I half-expect a warning, or a barrage of questions, or…something. Instead, he sinks to one knee, bringing his height level with me.
His thumb slips under the cuff of my sleeve and drifts over the purple bloom on my wrist. Goosebumps race after his touch, cold and electric.
The study feels wrong for this moment—lamps glowing soft, leather-bound books pretending they don’t hear the storm crackling between us. Whatever counted as “civilized” died the second that cursed message lit up my phone.
He stares at the bruise like it’s a crime he needs to solve, rage flickering behind his eyes. When he finally looks up, the blue in them darkens—midnight over deep water—and I know where this leads.
Gently, he turns my wrist, pressing my palm over his chest. Heat pulses there, steady and wild. He waits—always giving me a choice—but I’m already tipping forward, already hungry. My fingers slide into his hair and tug.
That tiny pull? It’s all the agreement he needs.
He surges up, mouth crashing into mine—salt, heat, the metallic aftertaste of fear turned into fury. I answer with a gasp that sounds too much like surrender. His kiss is rough, almost punishing, and my body lights up like fire.
He breaks away just long enough to haul me off the sofa, pushing me back until I collide with the wall of bookshelves.
Leather spines thud; dust motes burst in the faint light.
One of his hands braces above my head, the other skims under my hoodie in a single, searing pass that leaves my stomach trembling.
“Tell me you want this,” he growls against my mouth.
“I want you, Jayson. Every reckless, ruined part of you.”
Something primal flashes in his eyes, twisted with desire. He lifts my thigh, hooking it around his hip, grinding hard enough to steal all my thoughts. The world narrows to harsh breathing as buttons snap and fabric tears.
He doesn’t bother with finesse, and I don’t want him to. I want the weight of him, the bruising grip, the bite at my collarbone that promises devotion through violence. Every press of his body says ‘ you are safe’. Every drag of his teeth against my skin says ‘you’re mine to protect’.
My own hands aren’t gentle either. I shove his shirt off his shoulders, trace the scars there—badges of sins he’s never confessed. He curses when my lips follow, when I taste each mark like I could memorize him with my tongue.
His control frays. He spins me, palms flat to the shelf, books rattling. A feral sound tears from his throat as he kisses the back of my neck, breath hot and ragged. One large hand pins my wrists overhead; the other slides lower, claiming every inch of skin with ruthless intent.
I arch into him, moan his name—half challenge, half prayer.
“Keira,” he mutters, the word shredded. “I’ll give you an out. But I’ll only do it once.”
I laugh—dark, breathless. “Close all the doors and shutter all the windows. Because I’m not going anywhere.”
His answering movement is sharp enough to bleed me dry. He frees my wrists only to drag me back against him, guiding my hand to the evidence of how badly he needs this. Needs me . The hunger between us is a live wire; the house could burn and we wouldn’t notice.
Clothing falls in pieces. The rug bites at my knees when he lowers me, follows me down, spreads me open to the moonlight pouring through the windows.
He hesitates one heartbeat—checks my eyes—then claims me with a thrust that knocks the breath from my lungs and the past from my head.
There’s nothing gentle here, only a raw collision of skin and devotion and pent-up terror spun into heat.
We move together—hard, unrelenting, searching for obliteration.
His name leaves my lips like a warning, like worship.
He answers with low curses, with whispered promises that sound suspiciously like forever.
Each thrust forces my spine to arch, my fingers to claw at his back.
Pleasure builds too fast, too sharp, and shatters me when it breaks.
He follows, a guttural groan ripped from his chest, burying his face in my neck as he trembles. For a moment, we don’t breathe—just cling, hearts racing in the same brutal rhythm.
When the haze recedes, I run shaky fingers through his hair. Outside, a breeze rattles the windowpanes; somewhere in the house, a clock chimes the hour .
Neither of us moves. Because for now—just now—the messages, the cellar, the ghosts can wait.
He lifts his head, eyes softer but still fierce. He kisses me once more—slow this time, almost tender. Then he gathers me into his arms, rises, and carries me upstairs.
The war can have us in the morning. Tonight belongs to the ruin we make holy in each other’s arms.