Chapter One

Yubi.

I froze in the doorway, my suitcase half in my hands, half forgotten on the polished floor. The house was huge. Too huge. Trey’s house. Our house now, I reminded myself bitterly, because of the announcement my parents had dropped yesterday like a bomb.

My stomach churned at the thought. Step siblings. 

I thought I had put that night out of my mind, the way you think you can erase a scar if you don’t touch it. But now, standing here, seeing him, he hadn’t changed. Tall. Broad shouldered. That same quiet danger in his eyes that had made my heart stutter when he had kissed me one week ago. 

“Trey?” My voice sounded small, almost foreign in the vast hallway.

He appeared at the top of the stairs, leaning casually on the railing. But his casual posture didn’t reach his eyes. Those dark, unreadable eyes scanned me from head to toe, lingering longer than necessary. My cheeks burned and I could feel them turning red. 

“Yubi,” he said, his voice low, almost a growl. He sounded calm, but every inch of him screamed tension. “You are here.”

I nodded, unable to meet his gaze. I wanted to run, hide, curl into myself and pretend none of this was happening. 

But of course, I couldn’t. Not anymore. We were family. And that one kiss God, that one sinful, intoxicating kiss had just become a secret we were supposed to bury under layers of forced normality.

I tried to push the memory away, but it clawed back into my mind.

One week ago.

We were standing at the balcony. The soft hum of music from the party below. We were alone. My heart had been racing, not from the alcohol or the laughter around us, but from him. Trey. 

I didn’t even know his name then. We had just talked, a moment of connection that turned into something I shouldn’t have wanted. His hand brushed mine, lingering. And then, his lips were on mine. Hard at first, demanding, intoxicating. Fire and ice all at once. 

My hands had gone to his chest, feeling the heat beneath his shirt, the undeniable pull of him. I had tried to pull away, I swear I had, but it felt like my body had betrayed me before my mind even had a chance to scream.

And then my phone rang, and the spell broke. We had parted, staring at each other, hearts hammering, and I had gone home thinking what the hell just happened?

And now, he was right there, inches from me, standing at the top of the stairs looking sinfully gorgeous, and the air between us felt electric, taut with words neither of us could say.

“Uh I, um” My voice trailed off as I dragged my suitcase toward the living room. I couldn’t look at him. My fingers trembled as I set it down.

He moved silently, suddenly in front of me. “We need to forget about what happened between us.” he said 

The words were calm, measured, almost like he was trying to convince himself as much as me. But his eyes oh, God, his eyes said the opposite. Desire. Confusion. A dark longing he was barely holding back.

“I” I swallowed hard. “I didn’t”

“You didn’t what?” he interrupted, and his voice dropped lower, rougher. “Want it?”

I flinched. He had no right to sound so dangerous. So commanding. And yet my body betrayed me. It remembered the kiss, the touch

“I” I shook my head, trying to control the trembling. “I can’t. This, we can’t, I agree”

He stepped closer. My back hit the couch. As my pulse raced. The proximity of him, the memory of our lips together, the forbidden thought that we were now siblings it was almost unbearable.

“I know,” he whispered, and I could feel his breath against my cheek. “I don’t want to either. But Yubi” He trailed off, his jaw tight. “Do you think I could just forget?”

I wanted to scream at him. At myself. At fate. “No! You can’t, this is wrong!”

His hand lifted, hovering dangerously close to my face, and my stomach did a flip flop. “Wrong,” he murmured, “it doesn’t feel wrong.”

I swallowed back a moan that threatened to escape my mouth. My mind spun in circles. He was my stepbrother now. 

The world would never forgive us if, if we ever crossed that line again. And yet, the ache between us was real. Tangible. A fire that neither time nor rules could extinguish.

He glanced towards the kitchen, then back at me. “Go to your room and get settled in,” he said finally. 

I nodded, my hands shaking, not trusting my voice. I fled upstairs, my suitcase bouncing against my hip as I barely noticed the polished steps beneath my feet.

In my room, I shut the door behind me, pressing my back to it. My heart wouldn’t stop racing. My body still remembered every brush of his skin, every whisper of his voice. My mind replayed the kiss on loop. And despite my rational brain screaming at me, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

I collapsed on the bed, staring at the ceiling. We can’t. We won’t. But God, why does it feel so inevitable?

The thought of sleeping in the same house as him, breathing the same air, seeing him every day, it was torturous. And I knew, deep down, that the temptation wouldn’t just go away.

Somewhere down the hall, I heard a faint creak of floorboards. My pulse jumped. Had he come back?

I held my breath, trying to convince myself I was imagining things. But then, a soft voice reached my door, barely audible.

“Yubi” my whole body froze.

“I can’t stop thinking about it either,” Trey whispered from the other side of the door.

And just like that, the illusion of normalcy shattered.