All Chapters of Owned By My Stepdad(MxM): Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

The word slipped from his lips like a confession and a curse all at once. “Daddy…” Elias whispered, his voice barely audible over the ragged hitch of his breathing. I looked down at him, sprawled on the bed like some fallen angel, cheeks streaked with tears that glistened under the dim glow of the bedside lamp. For ten years, I’d watched this boy no, this young man—grow from the timid, wide-eyed child who’d first stepped into my home after I married his mother. Back then, he’d been all knobby knees and hesitant smiles, clinging to her skirts like she was his only anchor in a world that had already taken too much from him. I’d kept my distance, played the role of the benevolent stepfather: providing, guiding, but never getting too close. Never letting the quiet fascination I felt for his fragility turn into something darker.But time had a way of twisting things. He’d blossomed God, had he blossomed—into this breathtaking temptation, with skin like porcelain and eyes that held secrets

Everyone was asleep when I slipped into the study.Midnight had come and gone; the grandfather clock in the foyer had tolled twelve with slow, mournful strokes that echoed through the empty corridors like a funeral bell. Every light was off except the single brass desk lamp in Vane’s sanctum, its amber pool barely reaching the edges of the Persian rug. The rest of the room drowned in shadow.He sat in the oversized leather chair that had always looked more like a throne than furniture—dark oxblood, cracked from years of use, the arms worn smooth where his hands rested night after night. Half his face was lost in darkness. The other half glowed faintly, carved from firelight and the cherry-red ember of the cigar between his fingers. Cedarwood and tobacco drifted toward me in lazy coils, thick and expensive and impossibly distant, the same scent that used to wrap around me when he hugged me goodnight as a child. Now it felt like a wall.I didn’t knock, I couldn’t.My knuckles were still

I woke up that morning already exhausted.The kind of tired that lives in your bones, the kind no amount of concealer can hide. My reflection in the bathroom mirror looked like a stranger—pale, eyes hollow, mouth set in that careful, practiced half-smile I’d been perfecting for weeks. I looked expensive. Polished. Exactly what they wanted.Today was the first official meeting with Isabella.Not just a photograph op. The real thing. Lunch at the country club, followed by a “casual” stroll through the gardens so the society photographers could snap us looking smitten. My mother had laid out the outfit herself: cream linen trousers, pale blue shirt, sleeves rolled just so, loafers without socks because “that’s what the young people do these days.” She’d even chosen the watch—Vane’s old Patek Philippe, the one he gave me when I turned eighteen. A reminder, in case I forgot who owned me.I hated the weight of it on my wrist.The drive over was silent. Mother in the front with the driver, m

His confession hung between us.“I’m jealous… Elias, I’m so goddamn jealous.”My heart slammed once, hard, then skipped.Disbelief crashed into joy so fast it hurt. This man—this iron-willed, untouchable titan who’d spent weeks carving distance between us with cold words and colder looks—was unraveling because of me. Because he’d seen me hold Isabella. Because he’d heard the word fiancée on my lips. The misery that had been eating me alive for days simply… dissolved. Melted into something hot and reckless and alive.I turned in his arms.No hesitation.No more playing the wounded, obedient son.I fisted his tie—silk the color of midnight—and yanked him down. Our mouths collided. No gentleness. Just teeth and hunger and the taste of everything we’d both been denying. To hell with morality. To hell with Cyrus’s threats. To hell with the engagement ring sitting in its velvet box on my dresser like a shackle.Vane didn’t let me second-guess.A low growl rumbled in his throat. His hand cup

The garage lights buzzed overhead like dying insects. Isabella stood beside her car, one hand still on the door handle, the other clutching that pale-blue gift box like it was the only thing keeping her grounded. I’d expected fury. Tears. Accusations or anything that could make me more guilty Instead she’d just looked at me with those steady hazel eyes and asked the one question I never saw coming.“Do you want to break off the engagement?”My throat closed. I stared at the concrete floor, at the faint oil stain shaped like a crooked heart, and felt the familiar burn behind my eyes. Of course, she wanted out. Who wouldn’t? She’d walked in on her fiancé being kissed—more than kissed—by the man who was supposed to be his stepfather. The same man whose name was printed on the wedding invitations. The same man who’d just had his hand down my trousers as it belonged there.I swallowed hard. “I understand,” I said, voice barely above a whisper. “I’ll tell them tomorrow. I’ll say it’s my fau