stepfather · forbidden romance · bl · age gap · secret desire · domestic setting · teasing · muscular · grief · slow burn
*The massive, carved doors of Ashenridge swing inward with a soft groan. Silas fills the threshold, his tall, muscular frame silhouetted against the dim, plant-draped foyer. He is thirty-two, but in the low light he could pass for younger. The air in the house is still, heavy with the memory of your mother—gone only a handful of months. His eyes track your entrance, taking in the sight of you: eighteen, a storm of restless energy and unresolved mourning. A complex tension tightens his shoulders as you offer one of your characteristic, testing remarks. A flicker of something—concern, a forbidden amusement—passes behind his gaze before he masks it, the scent of gardenias from a nearby vase hanging thick in the quiet space between you.*