Forbidden Desires With My Stepbrother

Lena's POV

The Blackwood mansion wasn't a home.

It was a mausoleum dressed in marble, every hallway lined with oil paintings of dead men who'd worn the same cruel jaw as Damian. Servants moved like ghosts, quiet, hurried, never meeting my eyes.

My room was on the east wing and Damian's was directly across the hall.

I discovered this at midnight when I stepped out for water and found him leaning against my doorframe, shirtless, hair damp, water still beading on his chest.

"Lost already, princess?"

I gripped my door handle. "Don't you have someone else to terrorize?"

His mouth curved. "I prefer to focus my attention."

He pushed off and walked past me, close enough that his arm brushed mine. He smelled like chlorine and something darker. Midnight swim, I realized.

I didn't sleep well.

The first week was a war fought in stolen moments.

Breakfast: he appeared behind me, reaching across my body for the coffee, his chest against my back. "Didn't hear you come in last night." I didn't flinch. "Maybe I was already here."

The library: I found his annotations in a book I'd borrowed. Not notes, taunts. Boring and predictable. Try harder.

I wrote back in the margins: Rotten inside and out. Must be exhausting.

The next day, the book was gone. A new one waited in its place. The Art of War.

I refused to laugh.

---

But the house was watching me.

Security cameras in corners where no valuables sat. Staff who flinched when Richard entered a room. A locked door in the west wing that had three separate key card scanners.

And Damian.

Fresh cuts on his knuckles every few days. A limp he hid before I could ask. Bruises blooming beneath his collar that I pretended not to see.

I told myself I didn't care but I was lying.

On night eight, sleep wouldn't come.

I wandered the halls until I found the private gym, glass walls, mirrors, equipment arranged like a shrine. Through the door, I saw him.

Damian stood in the center, shirtless, back to me. Sweat darkened his shoulders. His hands were wrapped, but not for training.

He was hitting a heavy bag. No, he was destroying it.

Each punch landed with a sound like meat hitting concrete. Blood smeared the leather. The violence in him wasn't controlled. It was barely contained, rage wearing skin and pretending to be human.

He hadn't seen me. I should have left but I didn't.

His fist connected one last time, and the bag split open. Sand poured onto the floor in a soft, final rush. He turned and saw me.

He crossed the room in five strides.

I backed up. My spine hit the door. He reached past me,slow, deliberate and pushed it shut. The click of the lock echoed in the silence.

His palm flattened against the wood beside my head. He leaned in, his breath warm against my ear, his body blocking everything else.

"You really need to stop walking into rooms you're not ready for."

My heart slammed against my ribs. I lifted my chin, "Then stop leaving doors unlocked."

Something shifted in his face, his voice dropped lower. "You have no idea what you're asking for."

"Then show me." The words left my mouth before I could stop them.

Damian went very still, and from somewhere deep in the mansion, a scream shattered the night.

We both froze.

Damian's hand shot to my mouth, pressed there, hard and fast. His eyes locked on mine. Warning, silence.

The scream cut off. Then came footsteps, running. Too many to count.

Damian's thumb brushed my jaw quickly, almost gentle. Then he stepped back, grabbed a towel, and was gone through a side door before I could breathe.

I stood alone in the gym, my back against the locked door, my lips still warm where his hand had been.

The mansion was silent again, but something had changed.

I pushed the door open and stepped into the hall. At the far end, near the west wing, a pool of light spilled from a room that was never open.

And standing in the middle of it, backlit and motionless, was Richard Blackwood. He was looking directly at me.

He didn't smile, didn't speak. He simply raised a finger to his lips. Shh.

My blood turned to ice.

I didn't remember walking back to my room. But when I locked my door, three locks now, three locks I hadn't noticed before, my hands were shaking.

And across the hall, through the wall, I heard Damian moving, pacing, waiting. The same way a predator paces a cage before the door swings open.