Uncle Damien

I spend the next two hours in my room with the door locked.

It doesn’t help.

Damien’s voice keeps replaying in my head—low, certain, filthy.

I’m going to make you admit it while you’re coming on my fingers.

I press my thighs together and try to focus on the open textbook in front of me. The words refuse to stay still. Every time I close my eyes I feel the ghost of his thumb against my pulse and the heat of his body caging me against the kitchen counter.

By noon I can’t stand the silence anymore.

I unlock the door and step into the hallway. The house is quiet in the way only a place this large can be—thick carpets, thick walls, the distant hum of the air system. I walk downstairs carefully, listening for any sign of him.

The home office door is open.

Damien is inside, seated behind the wide desk that usually belongs to Adrian. His laptop is open, sleeves rolled up, one hand resting loosely on the arm of the chair. He looks completely at home.

He glances up the moment I appear in the doorway.

“There she is,” he says, voice mild. “I was starting to think you’d decided to starve yourself rather than risk seeing me again.”

“I needed to study.”

“Of course.” He closes the laptop with a soft click and leans back. “Come in.”

I stay where I am. “I’m fine out here.”

Damien tilts his head. The corner of his mouth lifts. “That wasn’t a request, Aria.”

The authority in his tone sends a reluctant pulse of heat through me. I hate that it works. I step inside anyway.

He watches me cross the room. When I stop a few feet from the desk, he gestures to the chair opposite him.

“Sit.”

I sit.

For a long moment he simply looks at me. The silence stretches until my skin starts to feel too tight.

“You’re still thinking about what I said in the kitchen,” he says eventually. It isn’t a question.

I don’t answer.

Damien stands and walks around the desk slowly. He stops beside my chair, close enough that his thigh almost brushes my shoulder. One hand settles on the back of the chair, caging me in without quite touching.

“I meant every word,” he continues, voice lower now. “I’ve watched you watch him for years. The way your eyes follow him across a room. The way you go quiet when he speaks. The way you flush when he stands too close.” His free hand lifts and brushes a loose strand of hair behind my ear. The touch is light, almost gentle. “It’s been driving me insane.”

My breath stutters.

“You don’t get to talk about him like that,” I manage.

“No?” Damien’s fingers trail down the side of my neck, slow and deliberate. “Then stop looking at him like you want him to ruin you.”

I turn my face away. He catches my chin and turns it back.

“Look at me.”

I do.

His eyes are darker than they were this morning. “Tell me the truth. How long have you been wanting your stepbrother?”

The question lands like a hand between my legs.

I stay silent.

Damien’s thumb strokes along my lower lip. “I can be patient, Aria. But not forever. And I am very good at making people talk.”

He leans down until his mouth is close to my ear. “Tonight, after Adrian is asleep, I’m coming to your room. You’re going to let me in. And then you’re going to tell me everything while I find out exactly how wet this secret has been making you.”

A soft, broken sound escapes me.

Damien smiles against my skin.

He straightens, steps back, and returns to his side of the desk like the last five minutes never happened. He opens his laptop again.

“You can go,” he says lightly. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

I stand on unsteady legs and walk out of the office without looking back.

My pulse is racing. My skin feels too hot. Between my legs I am already aching, and he hasn’t even touched me properly yet.

I spend the rest of the afternoon trying—and failing—to calm down.

By the time Adrian’s car returns in the early evening, I am wound so tightly I can barely sit still.

Dinner is quieter than the night before. Adrian asks Damien about the numbers from Singapore. Damien answers easily, occasionally glancing at me with that private, knowing look that makes my stomach twist. I push food around my plate and avoid both of their eyes.

When the meal ends, Adrian stands first.

“I have calls until late,” he says. “Don’t wait up.”

His gaze lingers on me for a second longer than necessary. Something unreadable passes through his expression. Then he is gone, heading upstairs toward his study.

Damien waits until his nephew’s footsteps fade before he speaks.

“Tonight,” he says softly, so only I can hear. “Leave your door unlocked.”

I don’t answer.

I simply rise from the table and walk upstairs, every nerve in my body already counting the hours until the house goes quiet.