Unlocked

I leave the door unlocked.

I tell myself I won’t. I tell myself I will turn the key the moment I step inside my room. Instead I stand in the dark with my back against the wood, heart slamming against my ribs, and leave it open.

The house settles into silence after midnight. Adrian’s study light finally goes out. Footsteps move down the hall, pause for half a second near my door, then continue to his own room. A door closes. The quiet that follows is thick and complete.

I sit on the edge of the bed in an oversized T-shirt and nothing else, knees pressed together, hands gripping the mattress. Every sound feels too loud—the soft tick of the clock, the distant hum of the air system, the rush of blood in my ears.

Minutes stretch.

Then I hear it.

Soft footsteps in the hallway. They stop outside my door.

The handle turns.

Damien steps inside and closes the door behind him with a quiet click. He doesn’t turn on the light. The only illumination comes from the thin strip of moonlight through the curtains, enough to show the sharp lines of his face and the dark intensity in his eyes.

He is still in the black T-shirt and jeans from earlier. He looks completely calm, as if walking into my room in the middle of the night is the most natural thing in the world.

“You left it unlocked,” he says, voice low.

I don’t answer.

He crosses the room slowly and stops in front of me. For a long moment he simply looks down at me. Then he reaches out, tips my chin up with two fingers, and studies my face.

“You’re shaking again.”

“I’m not scared of you.”

“I know.” His thumb brushes my lower lip. “That’s what makes this interesting.”

He leans down and kisses me.

It isn’t gentle. His mouth is hot and sure, taking control immediately. One hand slides into my hair, tilting my head back so he can deepen the kiss. The other rests on my bare thigh, fingers spreading slowly higher under the hem of the T-shirt.

I make a small sound against his mouth. He swallows it.

When he finally pulls back, my lips feel swollen and my breathing is uneven.

“Lie back,” he says.

I hesitate only a second before I do. The mattress dips as he follows, kneeling between my legs. He pushes the T-shirt up to my waist, exposing me completely, and goes still.

“Fuck,” he murmurs, almost to himself. “Look at you.”

His hands stroke up the insides of my thighs, slow and deliberate, until his thumbs brush the sensitive skin right at the edge of where I need him. I bite my lip hard.

Damien watches my face as he slides one finger through the wetness he finds there. The touch is light, almost teasing, but it sends a sharp pulse of pleasure through me.

“So wet already,” he says quietly. “And I haven’t even started.” He circles my clit once, twice, then sinks the finger inside me without warning. “Tell me how long you’ve been wanting him.”

I turn my head away. He adds a second finger and curls them, finding a spot that makes my hips jerk.

“Aria.” His voice is patient and relentless at the same time. “How long?”

“Years,” I gasp.

“Since when?”

“Since I was sixteen.” The words come out broken. “After my mother died. He—he sat with me and I started wanting him and it never stopped.”

Damien’s fingers move deeper, slower, working me open while his thumb presses against my clit in steady circles. “And he has no idea.”

“No.”

“Good.” He leans down, mouth close to my ear as his hand continues its filthy rhythm. “Because tonight you’re going to come for me while you think about him. And every time you do, you’re going to say his name.”

I shake my head, but the protest dies when he curls his fingers harder. Pleasure coils tight and fast in my stomach. My thighs start to tremble.

“Say it,” Damien orders softly.

The orgasm hits hard. I clap a hand over my mouth to muffle the sound, but he pulls it away.

“His name, Aria.”

“Adrian—” The word breaks on a moan as the pleasure rips through me.

Damien keeps moving his fingers through it, drawing the climax out until I’m shaking and oversensitive. Only then does he slow, pressing a soft kiss to the inside of my knee.

“That’s one,” he says. His eyes are almost black in the low light. “We’re not finished.”

He pulls his fingers free, lifts them to his mouth, and tastes me without looking away from my face. Then he reaches for the hem of my T-shirt and pulls it all the way off.

“Hands above your head,” he tells me. “And keep them there.”

I obey.

Damien settles between my thighs again, but this time he lowers his mouth to me. The first stroke of his tongue is slow and deliberate. The second is deeper. He holds my hips down when I try to move and works me with focused, filthy precision until I’m gasping his name and Adrian’s in the same broken breath.

The second orgasm is stronger than the first. I come with my wrists pressed against the headboard and Damien’s mouth locked on me, the pleasure so sharp it borders on pain.

When I finally go limp, he rises up over me, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. His expression is dark with satisfaction and something hungrier.

“I’m going to fuck you next time,” he says quietly. “But not tonight. Tonight I just wanted you to know what it feels like when someone actually takes what you’ve been offering Adrian for years.”

He leans down and kisses me once, tasting of me, then stands.

I lie there naked and trembling as he walks to the door.

He pauses with his hand on the handle and looks back.

“Leave it unlocked again tomorrow night,” he says. “I’ll know if you don’t.”

Then he is gone.

The door clicks shut.

I stay exactly where I am, staring at the ceiling, body still pulsing, the name of my stepbrother still raw on my tongue.

And for the first time, the secret doesn’t feel like it belongs only to me anymore.