I swallowed. “Like what?”
He studied me for a long beat then let out a slow breath. “I noticed you, Lila. Not when you were eighteen… fuck, never like that. You were a kid then, and I was married to your mother. But since you came back…” His jaw flexed. “I see you now. The woman you grew into. Bright, strong, and so damn smart. You’re alive in a way that makes this house feel less empty.”
Heat flooded my face, my chest, and a hell of a lot lower. The taboo of it… the fact that he was once my stepfather, even briefly, pressed against my ribs like a weight. But it didn’t push me away. It pulled me in closer.
“You see me as more than… family?” I whispered.
He didn’t flinch. “More than I should. More than I have any right to.”
The admission hung there, raw and heated. My knee brushed his thigh as I shifted, and neither of us moved away.
“I buried it,” I admitted, voice barely audible. “When I left for college. Thought distance would kill whatever I felt back then.”
He exhaled slowly, controlled, as if he were holding himself in check. His hand, the one along the back of the swing, shifted until his fingers grazed my bare shoulder. It was the lightest touch, but it seared bone deep.
“We’re on dangerous ground,” he murmured.
“I know.”
His thumb traced one slow, deliberate circle on my skin. It was barely there but enough to make my breath hitch.
“Then why aren’t we stopping?” he asked, voice low enough that I felt it vibrate through me.
I looked up at him, heart hammering. “Because I don’t want to.”
For one suspended second, I thought he might close the distance. Thought I might rise to meet him. The air crackled as if years of careful boundaries, unspoken tension, and the weight of what we once were to each other threatened to snap in half.
Then he pulled his hand back, slow and reluctant. He set the wine bottle on the rail with a soft clink.
“Get some sleep,” he said, rougher now. “We’ve got floors to sand tomorrow.”
He stood, and the swing swayed in his absence. I watched him disappear inside, the screen door creaking shut behind him.
I stayed outside for a long time, wine forgotten in my hand and skin still burning where he’d touched me. Sleep wasn’t going to happen after that.
Chapter Four
Lila
The storm rolled in fast that evening, the kind of summer squall that turns the sky purple in minutes and dumps rain like the heavens are trying to drown the world.
We’d been sanding the living room floor all afternoon, dust coating our skin and clothes, when the first crack of thunder shook the windows. The lights flickered once, twice, and then died.
Darkness swallowed the house in an instant, and I froze. No hum of the fridge and no low buzz from the overhead fixtures. It was an eerie silence except for the relentless drum of rain on the roof and the wind rattling the shutters.
Marcus swore under his breath. “Generator’s in the garage. Stay here. I’ll grab candles.”
I stayed put on the drop cloth we’d laid down, knees drawn up, listening to his boots thud across the hardwood. I heard the back door open and then slam shut against the gale.
Lightning flashed white through the curtains, illuminating the half-sanded floor, the stacked moving boxes, and the empty spaces where furniture used to be. Everything looked stripped bare and vulnerable.
Lightning flashed again, and I could see Marcus clearly enough. He carried an armful of pillar candles, a flashlight, and a bottle of whiskey he must’ve snagged from the pantry.
I hated myself for noticing the way his T-shirt clung obscenely to every ridge of muscle across his chest and stomach. God, I was desperate. I definitely had a type of guy I found hot.
“Power’s out for the block,” he said, setting everything on the coffee table we’d shoved to the side. “Might be a while.”
He struck a match, lit the candles one by one, and warm, flickering gold pushed the shadows back just enough to see his face. I assumed the generator was out of fuel. His eyes seemed darker than usual in the low light.
