-Jaxon-
I didn’t sleep.
Not a damn minute.
She’d left my bed sometime after midnight, slipping out like what we’d just done was some accident she had to run from. I came back into my room after she left, laid on the bed staring at the ceiling, still tasting her on my lips, still feeling the heat of her skin on mine. My hands smelled like her hair. My sheets smelled like her body. And my head… my head was a mess.
I should’ve been satisfied. I’d wanted her for months. And now, I’d had her. But instead of feeling like I’d won, it felt like I’d been robbed.
She ran.
Not just from my bed, but from me.
And when she left, she didn’t take that look in her eyes with her. That wide-eyed, guilty, almost-terrified look like I was a mistake she was trying to erase. Like what happened between us wasn’t real.
That pissed me off more than anything.
The house was too quiet when I finally dragged myself out of bed the next morning. I went to the kitchen just to grab coffee. Instead, I saw her already at the table, looking anywhere but at me.
And there it was. The start of it. The quiet war.
She wouldn’t meet my eyes. Wouldn’t say my name. Every movement of hers was deliberate, careful, like if she touched me or even looked at me too long, she’d fall back into what we were last night.
I wanted to call her out right there. Wanted to tell her to stop acting like she was the only one with something to lose. But my dad was there, flipping pancakes, humming some stupid song, oblivious. And Lena walked in all sunshine and small talk, asking if everything was “okay.”
Everything was not okay.
When Lena told me to put my phone down, I did but not because I wanted to. I looked at Sienna instead, finally forcing her to look at me. She glanced up for half a second, then dropped her gaze like my eyes burned her. And maybe they did. Because in that moment, I made her a silent promise:
I’m not letting you pretend this didn’t happen.
I’m not letting you run from me.
She got up before I could say a word, muttered something about fresh air, and bolted out the back door. I watched her go, my jaw tight.
She thought she could escape me by walking away.
She had no idea I was already following her.
-Sienna pov-
The worst part was the quiet.
It was the silence after the storm, the heavy, thick stillness that hung over breakfast the next morning. My dad was at the stove flipping pancakes, humming some happy little tune. He didn’t notice the house was a crime scene, he didn’t know the person he was humming to had just slept with his stepson.
My dad, always locked in his own little world, didn’t notice how I couldn’t look at Jaxon. He didn’t see the dark circles under my eyes or the way my hands shook when I poured my coffee.
Jaxon sat across from me, silent as a wall. He ate his toast, eyes glued to his phone, like I wasn’t even in the room. He hadn’t said a single word since storming out of his room last night, leaving me with that sharp, terrifying promise: there’s no turning back from this.
“Morning, you two,” Lena said as she came into the kitchen, cheerful as ever. She put a hand on my shoulder lightly and casually but it made me flinch. Her touch felt like a reminder of everything I was hiding.
“Morning, Mom,” Jaxon said, voice flat. He didn’t look up.
“Morning, Lena,” I mumbled.
She glanced between us, frowning a little. “Everything okay? You two are quiet this morning.”
I forced a smile. “Just tired.”
“Yeah,” Jaxon said, still staring at his phone. “Long night.”
His tone was innocent, but the words felt like a knife. A quiet accusation. A warning. Last night’s fight; my begging, his anger was still there between us, screaming in silence.
“Jaxon, honey, phone away at the table,” Lena said gently.
He looked up, annoyed for half a second, but set the phone down. And then our eyes met. His were cold, distant. Nothing like the heat I’d seen in them just hours before. He felt like a stranger again. A beautiful, infuriating stranger who had touched me in ways I couldn’t forget.
“I’m going to get some fresh air,” I blurted, standing so fast my chair scraped the floor. My heart was racing. I couldn’t sit here and pretend anymore.
“Okay, sweetie,” my dad said without looking up from his newspaper. “Don’t be gone long.”
I grabbed my jacket and slipped out the back door. The air outside felt sharp and clean, nothing like the thick guilt-and-coffee air in the kitchen. I walked with no plan, my thoughts a mess.
Why had I said those things last night? Why had I pushed him away? Because it was the right thing to do. The only thing to do. But my chest ached with the loss. The loss of him. The loss of that connection. The loss of feeling seen and wanted by someone who wasn’t supposed to want me.
Something moved in my peripheral vision. I turned. My heart stopped.
Jaxon.
He stood near the edge of the woods, hands in his pockets, body tense. Watching me.
I should have turned and walked away. I didn’t. I couldn’t. My feet wouldn’t move. I needed to know what he’d say.
“What are you doing?” I called, my voice raw.
“I’m not letting you run away from me again.”
“I’m not running,” I lied.
“Yeah, you are. You ran from me last night. You ran from me in the kitchen. You can’t handle this, Sienna. But you started it. Now you have to finish it.”
“I didn’t start anything,” I snapped. “You came into my life, turned everything upside down, and now you’re acting like I’m the crazy one.”
He walked toward me, slow and deliberate. “Did I put my hand on your face last night? Did I make you get into my bed? No. That was you. You wanted it. You want me. You just don’t have the guts to admit it.”
“That’s not fair,” I whispered, my eyes stinging.
“Life’s not fair,” he said flatly.
He was cold, unreachable, punishing me for being scared.
“I am scared, Jaxon. So what? What did you think was going to happen? That we’d just… do that, and then everything would be fine? That we’d be some secret couple and live happily ever after? That’s not how life works.”
“This is how life works,” he said, his voice like steel. “Us. That was the most real thing I’ve ever felt, and you want to throw it away because you’re scared. I’m not.”
He was only a foot away now. His scent wrapped around me, and my body reacted before I could stop it. My eyes fell to his mouth.
“I can’t,” I said, almost begging.
His hand came up, fingers gripping my chin. His eyes locked on mine. “Yes, you can. Stop fighting me. Stop fighting us.”
He didn’t kiss me this time. Instead, he leaned in, his lips brushing my ear, sending a shiver down my spine.
“I know a place,” he whispered, voice low and dangerous. “No one will find us. We can go there. Just for a while.”
Every alarm in my head went off. Every part of me knew this was a bad idea. The worst idea. But my body was begging for it. For him.
“Where?” I breathed.
He pulled back, searching my face. “The lake house. My family’s. An hour away. Empty this time of year.”
The lake house. A dangerous promise. A whole world away from the suffocating quiet of this one. I knew if I said yes, there’d be no undoing it.
“I can’t,” I whispered again, though my voice shook.
“Tell me no,” he said, almost daring me. “Tell me you don’t want me. Tell me you don’t want to go, and I’ll walk away for good.”
I opened my mouth to say no but nothing came out. Inside, everything was screaming yes.
And then..
“Sienna? Jaxon? What are you two doing out here?”
My stomach dropped.
Kendra.
Her bright, curious voice cut through the air. We both turned. She was standing on the lawn, smiling, but her sharp eyes lingered on us too long. She’d seen something. She’d seen too much.