The Weight Of Silence

Finn’s POV

The house was never quiet when she was at home. But she was never home.

That is the thing about having a mother who'd rather be more comfortable on a soundstage than in her own living room. Naomi Vance-Sterling filled every room she entered with noise, laughter, complaints, the endless phone calls with her agents, and her latest co-star who was definitely just a friend. But when she was gone, there was total silence in the house.

I'd been back for three days. Three days of walking through hallways that felt more like a museum than a home. Three days of eating alone in a massive dining room that could fit twenty persons. Three days of pretending I wasn't counting the hours until Mr. Grant came back home.

I wasn't supposed to be here. I'd made that clear when I left for university. The dorms were small, the food was terrible, and my roommate snored like a terrible pig. But at least there, I could pretend I wasn't obsessed with my stepfather.

Here, in this cold mansion, there was no way of pretending.

I had been sixteen when I first realized something was wrong with me. Or rather, something was wrong with the way I looked at him. It was a summer evening, and Mr. Grant had come home from work late, and was loosening his tie. Just that….just the sight of his fingers pulling at that silk knot, something in my chest had cracked open. I'd spent the rest of that night in my room, staring at the ceiling, wondering what the hell was happening to me.

Girls didn't do it for me. I'd tried. In high school, I had dated a few pretty ones, smart ones, the kind any guy would be lucky to have. And they were nice. Really nice. But when they kissed me, I felt nothing. Even when they touched me, I felt less than nothing. I felt like I was performing, like i was pretending to be someone i wasn't.

So I had stopped trying. I had stopped pretending I was normal. I'd accepted that the only person who could make my heart race was the man who'd married my mother when I was eighteen, the man who'd looked at me like he saw something worth seeing. I just never thought I'd actually do anything about it until tonight.

The front door slammed somewhere in the distance. I froze, a glass of water halfway to my lips.

Mr. Grant.

I knew his footsteps. The way he'd drop his keys into the bowl by the door with a soft clink. The way he'd stand in the foyer for just a moment, like he was bracing himself to enter his own home. But tonight, he sounded heavier. I heard him take the stairs. Not the main staircase, the one by the east wing, the one that led to the master suite. My mother's room. Their room, technically, though they'd slept separately for as long as I could remember. I shouldn't follow him. I knew I shouldn't, but my feet were already moving.

The master suite door was cracked open. I pressed myself against the wall, heart hammering, telling myself I was just passing by. I wasn't. I was a liar. I was a nineteen-year-old man with a fixation on his forty-year-old stepfather, and I was about to do something I couldn't take back.

The bathroom door clicked shut. Then I heard the shower. I should have left. I should have gone back to my room, locked the door, and buried my face in my pillow until the shame passed. That was the smart thing to do, but I'd never been smart when it came to Grant Sterling. I waited. Minutes passed. The water stopped. The bathroom door opened, and I heard him step out.

And then I did something so stupid, so reckless, that my pulse stuttered in my throat. I opened the door.

He was half-naked.

That was the first thing my brain registered. The second was that his towel was loose around his hips, barely staying up. The third was that he was staring at me, frozen, water still dripping from his hair down his chest….his chest, broad and muscled and dusted with dark hair that I'd dreamed about tracing with my tongue.

"Finn." His voice was rough. Surprised. "What are you……"

The towel slipped and for a moment, we stood frozen staring at each other. I couldn't look away. I'd imagined this for a very long time. In the dark of my room, with my hand wrapped around myself, I would pictured what he'd look like, but imagination was nothing compared to reality. He was beautiful. Thick. Heavy. The kind of cock that made your mouth water before you even thought about what you'd do with it. I wanted to taste him.

"Finn." His voice was sharper now. He snatched up the towel, holding it in front of him. "Leave now."

I stepped closer.

"What are you doing?" There was warning in his voice. But beneath the authority and the command, I heard something else. The uncertainty.

"Mr. Grant," I said softly. I'd always called him that. It was also the only way I allowed myself to say his name without trembling. I stepped closer again.

"Stop." he warned again. His knuckles were white around the towel. But he didn't move away. I reached out slowly. Giving him every chance to push me back, to tell me no. But hee didn't. His eyes were locked on mine, and I saw it, the passionate hunger he had in his eyes. I dropped to my knees.

"Finn, this is……"

I didn't let him finish. He was already half-hard when I took him in my mouth. The taste of him was salt and skin and something uniquely him. I moaned, the sound low and desperate, and I felt him twitch against my tongue. His hand found my hair. Not pulling. Just there, gripping the strands like he needed something to anchor himself.

"I……" He broke off with a ragged breath.

I looked up at him. Green eyes meeting grey. I didn't stop. I had waited three years for this. Three years of fantasizing, of telling myself I was sick for wanting my stepfather. But here he was now, hard in my mouth, and he wasn't pushing me away.

"Bloody hell," he breathed and his grip in my hair tightened while i swallowed him whole in my mouth. His hips moved forward, just slightly, and I moaned my approval.

"Finn." My name was a warning, more like a plea but I didn't care. He pulled me off. I gasped, a string of saliva connecting my lips to the tip of him. His chest was heaving and his eyes were darker now.

"You have no idea of what you're doing," he said, but his voice was strained.

"I know exactly what I'm doing."

I leaned forward and took him again, all the way down, until my nose pressed against his stomach. He moaned, a deep, wrecked sound that I felt in my bones.

"Best I've ever had," he muttered, almost to himself, and I smiled around him.

He came with a shout, his hips jerking while I swallowed everything, greedy and desperate, and when I finally pulled away, he was staring down at me like I'd just rearranged his entire world. I didn't wait for him to speak. I stood, wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, and fled.

I ran down the hall into my room. I slammed the door and I locked it. I pressed my back against it and slid down to the floor. My heart was racing and my hands were shaking. I was covered in him from my lips, my tongue, amd on my chin. And I felt no guilt, only the burning, all-consuming need for more.

I pressed my fingers to my lips, tasting him again. And I knew, with absolute certainty, that this was just the beginning. But as I sat there in the dark, I heard the front door opening and closing. Then the roar of an engine. Then silence. He'd left, and he wasn't coming back.