Chapter 10: The Secret Is Out

The morning after was different.

Elijah woke to the sound of Sam's shower running, sunlight streaming through her curtains, and the realization that he was naked in his stepsister's bed with no memory of sneaking back to his own room. They'd been reckless last night—completely, utterly reckless—and the evidence was scattered around her room like breadcrumbs leading to their destruction.

His shirt hung from her desk chair. Her shorts were tangled with his jeans on the floor. The scent of sex and her perfume clung to the sheets, and anyone who walked into this room would know exactly what had happened here.

Shit.

He scrambled out of bed, gathering his clothes with hands that shook slightly from the adrenaline of panic and the lingering effects of the most intense night of his life. Sam emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a towel just as he was pulling on his jeans, and the sight of her—damp and glowing and absolutely beautiful—made his chest tight with a combination of desire and terror.

"Good morning to you too," she said, amusement clear in her voice as she watched him fumble with his belt.

"Our parents—" he started.

"Are at their Saturday morning yoga class, just like every weekend for the past two years." She moved to her dresser, completely unbothered by his panic. "We have at least an hour before they're back."

The casual way she said it made him pause. "You planned this."

"I planned to seduce you, yes." She dropped her towel without ceremony, and the sight of her naked body in the morning light made his mouth go dry despite his anxiety. "I didn't plan for you to spend the night, but I'm not complaining."

She pulled on underwear and a sundress with the same casual confidence, as if having him in her room was the most natural thing in the world. As if they hadn't just crossed every line that existed between them.

"Sam, we need to talk about—"

"About what? About how incredible last night was? About how you finally stopped fighting what we both wanted?" She turned to face him, and there was something fierce and possessive in her eyes that made his pulse race. "Or are you going to try to convince me it was another mistake?"

The challenge in her voice was unmistakable. She was daring him to retreat behind his walls again, to treat what they'd shared as something to be ashamed of instead of celebrated.

"It wasn't a mistake," he said quietly, and the admission felt like jumping off a cliff. "But that doesn't change the fact that if our parents find out—"

"They won't find out if we're careful." She moved toward him, her hands coming up to straighten his shirt with intimate familiarity. "This doesn't have to change anything for them. We just have to be smarter about it."

The word 'it' hung between them, loaded with implication. Because 'it' meant this was going to continue. 'It' meant last night wasn't a one-time surrender to desire but the beginning of something bigger, more dangerous, more real than either of them had been willing to admit.

"Is that what you want?" he asked, his hands moving to her waist despite every rational thought in his head. "For this to continue?"

"I want everything," she said simply, the same fierce honesty that had undone him last night blazing in her eyes. "I want you in my bed every night and across from me at breakfast every morning. I want to belong to you and have you belong to me, consequences be damned."

The intensity of her words, the absolute certainty in her voice, should have terrified him. Instead, it filled him with something that felt dangerously close to hope.

Before he could respond, the sound of car doors slamming in the driveway made them both freeze.

"They're early," Sam said, but she didn't sound panicked. If anything, she sounded almost... excited?

Elijah moved to the window, peering through the curtains to see David and Helen walking up the front path, yoga mats under their arms, talking animatedly about something. They looked relaxed, happy, completely unaware that their carefully constructed family was built on a foundation of lies and forbidden desire.

"I need to get back to my room," he said, but Sam caught his arm as he moved toward the door.

"Elijah." Her voice was soft, serious. "Whatever happens, don't regret this. Don't regret us."

The plea in her voice made his chest ache, because he could see the vulnerability she was trying to hide beneath her bravado. She was as scared as he was, just better at hiding it behind defiance and fierce determination.

He kissed her then, hard and desperate and full of promises he wasn't sure he could keep. When they broke apart, both breathing hard, he could hear their parents' voices downstairs, getting closer.

"Later," he whispered against her lips.

"Later," she agreed, but there was something in her eyes that made him hesitate.

He slipped out of her room and into his own just as footsteps sounded on the stairs, his heart hammering so hard he was sure it was audible. The normalcy of his bedroom—his textbooks scattered across the desk, his bed neatly made from yesterday morning—felt surreal after the intimacy of Sam's room.

A knock on his door made him jump. "Elijah? You awake, son?"

David's voice, warm and paternal and completely trusting, made guilt twist in his stomach like a living thing.

"Yeah, Dad. Come in."

David opened the door, still wearing his yoga clothes, his face flushed from exercise and morning air. "Helen and I were thinking of taking a family trip to the lake house next weekend. What do you think? Could be nice to get away from the city for a few days."

The lake house. Where there would be even less privacy, even more forced proximity, even more opportunities for their secret to be discovered. The idea should have filled him with dread.

Instead, all he could think about was Sam in a bikini, moonlight on the water, and what it would feel like to have her in his arms without the threat of parents in the next room.

"That sounds great," he heard himself say.

"Excellent. I'll start making arrangements." David paused in the doorway, studying Elijah's face with the careful attention he usually reserved for architectural blueprints. "You seem different lately. Happier, maybe? More settled?"

The observation hit like a physical blow. Because David was right—he did feel different. The constant low-grade tension that had been eating at him for months was gone, replaced by something that felt dangerously close to contentment.

"Just figuring some things out," Elijah said carefully.

"Good. I'm proud of you, you know. The way you've handled everything this summer, the way you've been there for Sam..." David's smile was warm, genuine, and it made Elijah feel like the worst kind of fraud. "I know it wasn't easy, becoming a family, but you've really stepped up. You're a good brother to her."

Brother. The word hit like a punch to the gut, mostly because it was so fundamentally wrong. Whatever he was to Sam, whatever she was to him, it had nothing to do with family and everything to do with the kind of desperate need that poets wrote about and psychologists tried to explain.

"Thanks, Dad," he managed, hoping his voice sounded normal.

After David left, Elijah sat on his bed and tried to process what had just happened. His father—the man who'd given him everything, who'd welcomed him into a ready-made family when his own mother had walked away—had just praised him for being a good brother to the girl he'd spent the night claiming in every way possible.

The guilt was overwhelming, but underneath it was something else. Something that felt like determination mixed with possessive satisfaction. Because David was wrong about one thing—Elijah wasn't being a good brother to Sam.

He was being exactly what she needed him to be. What they both needed.

The sound of laughter from downstairs broke through his thoughts. Sam's laugh, bright and unguarded, mixed with Helen's more refined chuckle. Normal family sounds that should have been comforting but instead felt like a countdown timer.

He found them in the kitchen, Sam perched on a barstool while Helen prepared what looked like elaborate smoothies. They were talking about the gallery's upcoming exhibition, Sam's input valued and appreciated in the way that had always made Elijah jealous of her easy relationship with his stepmother.

"There you are," Helen said when she saw him. "I was just telling Sam about the new photographer we're featuring. Her work reminds me so much of Sam's style—all that emotional intensity and raw honesty."

Sam's eyes met his across the kitchen, and the look that passed between them was so loaded with meaning he was surprised Helen didn't feel the temperature in the room change.

"I'd love to see her work," Sam said, but she was looking at Elijah when she said it. "I'm always interested in... intensity."

The word hung in the air between them like a challenge, and Elijah felt heat pool in his belly despite the presence of his stepmother just feet away. This was what Sam had meant about being careful—they could carry on normal conversations, participate in family life, all while communicating on a level that no one else could understand.

It was dangerous. Thrilling. Absolutely intoxicating.

"Maybe we could all go to the opening together," Helen suggested. "Make it a family outing."

"That would be wonderful," Sam agreed, but her eyes never left Elijah's face. "I love spending time with family."

The way she said the word 'family'—with just the slightest emphasis, just the barest hint of irony—made his pulse race. She was playing with fire, and they both knew it.

But before he could respond, before he could find some way to defuse the tension crackling between them, Helen's phone rang.

"Oh, that's the gallery," she said, glancing at the caller ID. "I need to take this. Something about the insurance paperwork for the new exhibition."

She stepped out onto the back patio, sliding the glass door closed behind her, and suddenly the kitchen felt electric with possibility. Sam slid off her barstool, moving toward him with that predatory grace that made his blood sing.

"That was subtle," he said, but there was no real criticism in his voice.

"I like living dangerously." She pressed herself against him, her body fitting perfectly into the spaces he was beginning to think were designed specifically for her. "Besides, the way you were looking at me, she would have figured it out anyway."

Her hands slid up his chest, and even through the fabric of his shirt, her touch burned like a brand. The rational part of his brain screamed that Helen was just outside, that David was somewhere in the house, that they were taking insane risks.

But Sam was right—he couldn't help the way he looked at her. Couldn't hide the hunger that had been eating him alive for so long. Couldn't pretend that having her once had satisfied anything other than making him desperate for more.

"You're going to get us caught," he whispered against her lips.

"Maybe I want to get caught." The confession was soft, dangerous, and it made his blood freeze in his veins. "Maybe I'm tired of sneaking around like we're doing something wrong."

Before he could respond to that terrifying statement, Helen's voice drifted in from the patio—something about delivery schedules and insurance forms. Normal, mundane words that reminded them both exactly where they were and what they were risking.

They sprang apart just as the sliding door opened, Helen stepping back into the kitchen with her phone still pressed to her ear.

"No, Tuesday won't work," she was saying. "The installation team is coming Wednesday morning, so we need everything there by..."

She gestured apologetically at them, mouthing 'sorry' as she continued her conversation. But her eyes passed over them without suspicion, without any sign that she'd noticed the way they'd been pressed together just moments before.

They'd been lucky. Incredibly, impossibly lucky.

But as Elijah met Sam's eyes across the kitchen, seeing the reckless determination burning there, he realized with crystal clarity that their luck was about to run out.

Because Sam wasn't interested in being careful anymore. She wasn't interested in hiding or sneaking or pretending to be something she wasn't.

She wanted to claim what was hers, consequences be damned.

And God help them both, he was starting to want the same thing.

The question was: how long could they keep this secret before it destroyed everything they'd both been trying to protect?

Looking at the fierce possessiveness in Sam's eyes, Elijah suspected they were about to find out.