Chapter 3

Meghan:

Mia didn’t launch into her usual gossip. Her voice was weird and serious.

“Meghan. Hey. So… how’s your hot uncle?”

I swear, my heart actually stopped. Like, full-on organs-shutting-down panic. How does she know? Did she somehow hear about the feelings? About the… touching? Oh my god, oh my god…

“What?” I choked out, my voice about an octave higher than usual.

Then my brain caught up. Get a grip, you idiot. There’s literally no way. She’s not psychic.

Mia continued, oblivious to my internal meltdown.

“Your mom called my mom. She said you deferred your admission to go babysit your uncle Alex after his accident. Why the hell didn’t you tell me you were moving in with him?”

The relief was so intense I almost slid down the fridge door.

“Oh. That. Right. Yeah. It was kind of a last-minute shit-show. I’m sorry, I meant to text you.”

“You meant to?” she shot back, and I could picture her hands on her hips. “Meghan, we told each other everything in high school. I told you when Mark Fisher tried to feel me up with his gross, cheesy hands at the winter formal. And you’re living with the mysterious uncle and you don’t think that’s text-worthy?”

“I know, I know,” I said, feeling genuinely bad. “It’s just been… a lot. He’s… not exactly a ray of sunshine. It’s more like babysitting a very angry black raincloud.”

“I’ll bet,” she said, her tone softening a little. Then it got weird again. “Listen, Meg… I probably shouldn’t even say this. But since you’re there, in that house with him… just… be careful, okay?”

“Careful of what? Tripping over his ego? It’s pretty big.”

“No, I’m serious,” she insisted and she sounded it. “My mom was talking to your mom and they were whispering about some old Thompson family drama. Like, real drama.. the kind nobody talks about.”

I pushed off the fridge.

“What are you talking about? What drama?”

“I don’t know the details,” she said quickly. “My mom clammed up when I walked in. But she looked… worried. She said something about ‘history repeating itself’ and that it was ‘devastating’ last time. I just… I hope it’s not true. Whatever it is.”

Our family was boring. We argued about politics at Thanksgiving and whose potato salad was best. Devastating? What the hell did that mean?

“Mia, you can’t just drop a bomb like that and not give me details! History repeating what?”

“I don’t have details!” she said, sounding frustrated. “I just have a bad feeling. Look, I gotta go. Just… watch your back. Call me later, yeah? And for God’s sake, send me a pic of this famous uncle.”

She hung up before I could protest further. I stared at the phone. What the actual fuck? My first instinct was to call my mom right then and demand to know what ‘devastating Thompson family secret’ Mia was talking about.

But I stopped myself. Maybe Mia was just fucking with me. Trying to get back at me for not telling her I was here. It sounded like something she’d do.

I was still turning her words over in my head when a loud furious crash echoed from the study. So much for not going broody.

I hurried down the hall and found Alex standing by his desk, his knuckles white where he gripped the edge. His face was pale, tight with a rage I hadn’t seen before.

“Alex? What happened? Are you okay?”

He let out a sharp sigh.

“Okay? No, Meghan. I am very far from okay.” He took a ragged breath. “That was my lawyer. It appears my manager, Derek Hale has been creatively reallocating funds. As in, he’s forged my signature and siphoned off a few million from my investments.”

“Oh my god,” I whispered. A few million?

“It gets better,” he snarled, his voice dripping with venom. “The weasel hasn’t just been stealing. He’s hired a private investigator and he’s digging, Meghan. Looking for any dirt, any leverage he can use to keep me quiet or negotiate.”

The bottom dropped out of my stomach.

His head turned toward my voice, his unseeing eyes wide with panic.

“If he finds out… if he even gets a whiff of this… this unholy attraction between us… Meghan, it would be a disaster. He would use it to destroy me.. to destroy you and your family. You need to go. You need to leave. Today.”

Leave? After all this? Hell no.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt.

“Meghan, be rational...”

“Rational is overrated,” I said, crossing the room. I needed to calm him down. My eyes scanned his desk and landed on the open unfinished book on his laptop.

I picked the laptop up from the desk.

“Sit,” I commanded.

“What are you doing?” he asked but his anger was already fading into exhausted confusion.

“Just sit. Please.”

He reluctantly lowered himself into his armchair. I sat on the footstool next to him and opened the folder.

I started to read his own words. I read about the fictional version of me, about the fictional version of him and I put every ounce of feeling I had into it.

Slowly, I felt the tension leave his shoulders. I kept reading and as I did, I gently guided his head to rest on my lap. He didn’t resist. I stroked his hair, my fingers tracing through the dark waves while I read him the dirty story he’d written about us.

“This is… deeply twisted,” he murmured, but he nuzzled closer.

“It’s calming you down, isn’t it?” I said, not stopping my reading or my stroking.

“Against my better judgment… yes.”

His confession sent a thrill through me. The words on the page were making me hot, my skin prickling with need amd the weight of his head on my thighs was intoxicating.

My free hand drifted from his hair, down his neck, over his shoulder… and slowly, so slowly, my fingertips brushed against the front of his trousers feeling his hard dick.

I felt him jump, a sharp intake of breath. But he didn’t pull away. He was hard.. so hard.

I did it again, applying a little more pressure this time, tracing the length of him.

That’s when he moved. He shot up from my lap like he’d been electrocuted, scrambling to his feet.

“That’s enough,” he said roughly. “You should… you should go. Do something else.”

The rejection stung but I just smiled even though he couldn’t see it.

“Okay, Uncle Alex. Whatever you say.”

But I’d made a silent vow. I wasn’t stopping. Oh no. The campaign of seduction was going nuclear!

***

The next few days, I upped my game. I lived in tiny shorts and thin tank tops with no bra. I ‘accidentally’ brushed against him every chance I got and at night, in my room right next to his, I made sure he could hear me while I went to town on my wet and needy pussy.

I let my head thump against the headboard, my breathing got heavy and I made sure my soft needy little moans were just loud enough to travel through the old walls.

It was driving us both insane. I could see the torment on his face, the way he’d grit his teeth when I got close.

Tonight, after I’d basically tucked him into bed like a forbidden, grumpy child, I was heading back to my room.

The house was silent except for the sound of my own heartbeat in my ears. I was replaying the look on his face when I’d ‘goodnight-kissed’ his cheek, wondering if I’d finally broken through.

I was halfway across the hall when it happened.

Click.

Every single light in the house went out.

I mean pitch. black.. the kind of dark you only get in the middle of nowhere in a storm. I froze with my hand outstretched in front of me but I couldn’t see my own fingers…