Jay's pov:
"Jay?" Keifer murmured against my skin.
His grip tightened when I didn't answer right away. "You're slipping away again, Wifey. Come back to me."
I wanted to tell him he was the only one. I wanted to pretend the world started and ended right here, in the safe, heavy circle of his arms. But as my eyes locked onto the black mirror of my phone screen lying on the desk, the air in my lungs turned to liquid lead. The text message burned through my brain. Tell Keifer goodbye before he becomes collateral damage.
The phantom grip of my stepfather's hands suddenly tightened around my windpipe. My fingers slipped from Keifer's shoulders, my arms dropping as a violent tremor took over my hands. I gasped, but no oxygen entered. The room tilted dangerously. The scent of his cologne—sandalwood and cedar—once my ultimate anchor, suddenly felt suffocating. My traumatized brain convinced me the monster wasn't miles away in the shadows; he was standing right outside the door, watching us.
"Jay? Hey, look at me—Jay!"
Keifer's voice lost all its teasing warmth. It was replaced instantly by sharp, panicked authority. He caught me as my knees buckled, his massive frame absorbing my weight as he smoothly lowered us both to the hardwood floor.
"Breathe, baby. Talk to me. Is it a flashback? What did you see?"
I forced my lungs to expand, desperate to mask the genuine panic attack claws-deep in my chest. I couldn't mention Aunt Katrina, I couldn't mention the text, and I couldn't let him look closer at the laptop. I needed a distraction so jarring it would wipe the suspicion right out of his mind. I forced a tear to spill over my eyelashes, quickly morphing my panicked expression into a breathless, dramatic pout.
"I was... I was just playing," I choked out, forcing a sudden, wet laugh through my teeth as I looked up at him through my lashes. I reached up, weakly swatting at his chest to anchor the playful lie. "You were ignoring me for your tea project, so I wanted to see how long it would take for you to notice if I went totally catatonic. I didn't think you'd actually tackle me to the floor, Keifer. You completely ruined my dramatic performance."
Keifer stared at me for a beat, his amber eyes blinking in absolute disbelief as the sheer terror in his face slowly gave way to stunned realization. The tense lines of his shoulders slackened, and a heavy, exasperated breath exploded from his lips.
"You little brat," he growled softly, though the residual adrenaline still had his chest heaving. His face darkened into an expression of pure, possessive heat. The veins in his neck strained, his protective instincts instantly shifting into something deeply primal. "You scared the absolute hell out of me, Jay."
To punish my fake little stunt and soothe the frantic worry I'd just weaponized against him, Keifer shifted. His hands slid up from my waist, his broad palms scorching hot against my neck, his thumbs wiping the stray tear from my cheek with a desperate, dominant tenderness. He leaned down, and this time, the kiss wasn't a tease. It was an possession. A fierce, demanding reclamation meant to completely punish my playfulness and drown out whatever distance I was trying to keep between us.
He pulled me flush against his chest, his mouth coming down on mine with a deep, bruising hunger. His tongue parted my lips effortlessly, claiming my mouth with a reckless, breathtaking energy that left me completely dizzy. It was a sensory onslaught—the taste of him, the heavy weight of his body pinning me down to the floor, the low, primal vibration of a groan in his throat when I gripped the front of his shirt.
He tilted my head back, deepening the kiss, his lips sliding from my mouth to trace a scorching line down the sensitive skin of my jaw. He nipped fiercely at the column of my throat, making me gasp, before pulling back up to devour my lips all over again. It was a beautiful, desperate friction, a heat so intense it violently pushed the memory of the text message out of my mind for one blissful, breathless minute. I responded with a frantic energy of my own, tangling my hands in his hair, needing his touch to burn away the icy dread pooling in my gut.
Before the heat could consume us completely, a sharp, jarring ring broke the silence.
Keifer stiffened against me. His breathing was ragged, his amber eyes dark and heavy-lidded as he slowly pulled back. He glared at my phone, which was buzzing aggressively against the leg of the desk. The caller ID flashed: Jare.
"Your brother has impeccable timing," Keifer grumbled. A frustrated, breathless line formed between his brows, though a trace of amusement and lingering desire still simmered in his eyes. He reached up, grabbing the phone to hand it to me. "Answer it. Tell him he interrupted me teaching my wife a lesson about playing wolf."
"No!" The word tore out of me too quickly, too sharp.
I snatched the phone from his hand, my heart hitting a dangerous rhythm. I couldn't let him see the preview of the unknown text message if he swiped the screen.
"It's... it's just twin stuff," I corrected quickly, forcing a tight, reassuring smile. "Jare has been dealing with the lawyers all day and he gets incredibly stressed. Let me take this in the hall so you don't have to listen to us snap at each other. You know how we get."
Keifer didn't fully buy the sudden deflection, but seeing how badly I was still secretly shaking, he gave a slow nod. "Okay. Take the call. I'm going to go check on the kitchen." He pressed one more slow, lingering, possessive kiss to my lips—a promise of what was waiting when I got back—before letting me go.
I didn't waste a second. I slid out from his grasp, stepped into the dark corridor, and pressed the phone to my ear, my voice dropping to a harsh whisper.
"Jare?"
Jare's voice came through the receiver, raw, breathless, and laced with the exact same primal terror I was fighting. "Jay, don't say a single word to Keifer. I'm tracking the burner number the monster used to text you right now. Lock the doors. Do not let Keifer leave the house."
"He's targeting him, Jare," I whispered, my voice breaking as I peeked through the crack of the door, watching Keifer pour the steaming water into a mug.
"I know. I'm already on my way," Jare commanded, his sharp twin instinct cutting through the static. "Maintain your composure. Act completely normal around Keifer so he doesn't suspect a thing. Check your bedroom window in exactly ten minutes. I'll be there."
The line went dead.
With a monumental effort, I wiped the remaining moisture from my face, forced my shoulders back, and stepped into the living room just as Keifer walked in with the mug.
"Everything handled?" Keifer asked, his amber eyes scanning my face searchingly, looking for any lingering traces of the panic attack.
"Yeah," I lied, the word tasting like ash on my tongue. I walked straight into his space, wrapping my arms tightly around his waist and burying my face in his chest to hide my eyes. "Just typical family drama. I'm sorry I ruined the mood."
"You never ruin the mood, Wifey," he murmured, his deep voice vibrating against my cheek as he smoothed down my hair, his arms locking safely around me. "Let's just put on a movie."
He thought he was protecting me from my past. He had no idea that in exactly ten minutes, my twin brother was scaling our bedroom window, and the battle for Keifer's life had officially begun.