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“I told you, didn’t I? You’re mine.”

Rafe Cameron

Tags: dark Rafe • ex-boyfriend Rafe • boyfriend JJ • possessive tension • angst

Bang.

I jolted upright with a gasp, my heart ricocheting against my ribs like it wanted out. For a second I didn’t even know where I was, just that the dark felt too close, too heavy, the kind that swallowed the corners and turned shadows into shapes with teeth. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. My chest burned like I’d sprinted in my sleep.

My hands were already shaking before I could even try to talk myself down. My fingers clawed at the blanket, searching for something solid. The room smelled faintly like salt and detergent and JJ’s shampoo, but tonight it felt thinner, like all the safe parts had been stripped away and I was breathing straight fear.

I turned, reaching for the familiar anchor beside me.

JJ lay on his stomach, one arm flung across the pillow, lips parted in a soft exhale. A tiny snore caught in his throat and broke off, his breathing slipping back into that slow, steady rhythm my body knew as well as my own. His hair, always a stubborn mess, had fallen over his eyes. One curl stuck to his forehead with sweat from the heat trapped under the blanket.

For a second, just looking at him pulled the panic back a step, like a tide that couldn’t decide which way to go. The sight of his bare shoulder, the tan line where his shirt usually sat, the familiar rise and fall of his back, all of it tugged at the part of me that recognized I wasn’t alone.

“Jay?” I whispered, careful not to shatter the quiet any more than it already was. My voice sounded thin in the dark. “Did you hear that?”

He made a low sound, part groan, part hum, and burrowed deeper into the sheets. The mattress dipped with his movement, and the warmth he left behind on the spot where his arm had been brushed against my cold skin.

“Mmm. Go back to sleep,” he mumbled, his words heavy with warmth, with that kind of drowsy certainty only he could manage. His hand fumbled blindly toward my hip before giving up, fingers curling around the edge of the pillow instead.

I frowned, my eyes tracing the line of his shoulder under the blanket, the steady rise and fall that ignored the noise in my head. He trusted the quiet. I didn’t. Not anymore.

I pulled in another breath. In through my nose for four. One, two, three, four. My lungs fought it at first, the air feeling too sharp, like inhaling broken glass. Out through my mouth, slow enough to smooth the jagged edges. Five, six, seven, eight.

Maybe it was nothing. A branch against the window. The old pipes settling. Our ancient fridge in the kitchen, coughing to itself like it always did around this time of night. I tried to picture it, the yellow light under the door, the hum and dull rattle that had been a background track since we moved in.

I eased back down, letting the mattress cradle me, the weighted blanket pressing a steady, reassuring hand over my racing pulse. The cotton smelled faintly of detergent and salt, that clean ocean tang that had soaked into everything we owned. JJ’s shirts always carried the ocean home, and I focused on that. On the way the fabric sighed when I moved. On the soft whisper of the sheets against my bare legs. On the quiet click of the ceiling fan as it turned, the tiny wobble we kept saying we’d fix.

On JJ’s breathing, steady as a metronome, a rhythm I could match if I tried hard enough.

My eyes slipped closed. The noise might have been real. It might have been a dream, a leftover echo from some half-remembered fear that never quite left my bones. Either way, I told myself, I was here. He was here. The night could rattle the walls if it wanted. I would let the weight hold me down, let the warmth reach me, and I would breathe until the dark went soft around the edges.

My thoughts started to blur, drifting in slow circles. The tightness in my chest loosened by degrees, like someone was gently working a knot out of my muscles. My hand, still close to JJ’s, relaxed on the blanket.

Bang.

I bolted upright, my heart punching at my ribs so hard my vision spotted. The sound was closer this time, sharper, like it had come from right on the other side of the wall. The room was dark, stretched thin by the moonlight bleeding through the blinds in pale bars that cut across the floor and the foot of the bed.

My ears rang. For a moment all I could hear was the rush of blood in my head, loud and wild, like I was underwater. Every shadow looked like it was holding its breath. The open closet door yawned wider than I remembered. The chair in the corner loomed taller, warped by the slant of the light.

“Babe?” My voice fractured in the quiet. My tongue felt clumsy, like I’d forgotten how to form words. “I told you…”

The sentence fell apart in my mouth. Something about the air was wrong. JJ wasn’t snoring anymore. The other side of the bed felt too still.

Silence answered first. The kind that presses against your eardrums, thick and expectant.

Then I heard a soft sound. Gloved fingers tapping the doorframe, slow and deliberate. Tap. A pause long enough for my stomach to drop. Tap. Not an accident. Not the house settling. Someone choosing to be heard.

A chuckle slid into the room, soft and familiar in a way that made my skin crawl.

That chuckle.

“Hello, sweetheart.”

Rafe Cameron’s voice, low and gravelly, like he’d been laughing at a joke I wasn’t in on, dragged my gaze toward the doorway. His silhouette cut through the darkness first, a tall shadow leaning lazily against the frame like this was his room and I’d just woken up in it.

He stepped out of the dark like he owned it, his shoulders relaxed, his mouth curved in that off center smirk that never reached his eyes. Moonlight slid over his face, catching on the faint scruff along his jaw and the twitch at the corner of his mouth. His hair looked slightly damp, like he’d run his hands through it over and over on the way here.

His eyes were bright and too awake for the middle of the night, that pale, sharp blue that never really settled. They flicked over every inch of the room in quick, precise passes, cataloging, measuring, judging. Not just looking. Checking.

He didn’t stop until he stood at the edge of the bed, looking down at me like he was studying a painting he’d commissioned and wasn’t sure if the artist had listened. My throat tightened and instinct shoved me backward until I bumped the headboard, the wood cold against my spine. The blankets bunched to my chest like they could be armor, thin and useless but all I had.

He noticed that. His gaze dipped to the fist I had knotted in the comforter and a grin flashed, fast and sharp, like he enjoyed the reflex.

“Rafe.” My voice shook, scraping against the inside of my throat. “What are you doing here?”

He tilted his head, amused, like the question itself was adorable. “What, I need an invitation now?” His eyes darted past me toward the nightstand where my phone lay face down. He reached out and dragged a knuckle across the wood, slow, the sound a small, controlled scrape that made the hair on my arms rise.

He tapped the phone once with his finger. The screen stayed black. A tiny frown ghosted across his face before he smoothed it away and that bothered me more than the frown itself.

“You stopped answering.”

“I asked for space.” I swallowed hard, my pulse loud in my ears. I could feel every beat in my fingertips. “You said you understood.”

He breathed a laugh through his nose, short and dismissive. “I said I heard you.” His eyes moved over the room again, slower this time. Over my suitcase half packed, clothes spilling out like I’d ripped things off hangers without thinking. Over the sweatshirt draped over a chair, the one that wasn’t his, the familiar faded logo that screamed not Rafe.

Something in his jaw ticked. It was so small I would’ve missed it if I didn’t know him. His nostrils flared once, then settled. His tongue pressed into his cheek like he was holding back words, or maybe not. Maybe he just liked the way it felt to push.

“Understanding is different.”

The air in the room tightened. I pulled the blanket tighter, my fingers trembling. My palms were damp and slick against the cotton. “You can’t just come in.” I hated how small it sounded, like I was asking instead of stating.

He leaned forward, his palms braced on the mattress. The bed dipped and my breath stuttered. The scent of his cologne hit me, clean and expensive, threaded with something faintly metallic, like the tang of coins on skin. His gloves creaked softly against the fabric.

“Sure I can,” he murmured. His eyes pinned mine, unblinking. “When it’s you.”

He said it like it was obvious, like there was a rulebook I’d signed without reading.

Moonlight cut across his jaw, sharp like the words he wasn’t saying. He wasn’t yelling. He didn’t need to. The danger sat in the calm, in the way he filled the space and waited for me to run out of air. His patience wasn’t comforting. It was coiled, like a held breath or the moment before a match caught fire.

“Rafe, I’m serious.” I forced the words out as steady as I could, but they still wobbled at the edges. “You need to leave.”

He watched me for a beat that stretched too long, like he was timing my panic just to see how far it would go. Then he smiled like I’d told him a sweet lie. The kind you tell a kid about monsters not being real.

“You remember what I told you?” His voice went softer, almost tender, which somehow felt worse. “I don’t let go easy.”

He said it like a promise, not a flaw.

My phone lit up on the nightstand, one small mercy of a notification. The sudden glow washed his face in cold blue light. His gaze snapped to it so fast I flinched. For a second, his expression cracked. Something cold and sharp slipped through before he dragged the smile back into place.

“Busy, huh?” he said lightly, but his jaw flexed again. His knuckles brushed the phone, rubbing at an invisible smudge on the glass, his touch controlled enough to feel like a threat. Then he looked back at me, and something like satisfaction edged his smile, like he’d just confirmed something he’d already decided.

“I’m not here to fight,” he said, straightening. The mattress rose with the loss of his weight and I had to bite back the urge to scoot farther away. “I’m here to remind you what we are.”

“What we were,” I whispered.

His eyes narrowed, a quick flash, then smoothed. He let out another small laugh and stepped back, his hands sliding into his pockets with slow precision, like he was putting away weapons. His control coiled tighter instead of easing. It was in the way he rolled his shoulders back, in the way his gaze skimmed the room one more time.

His attention snagged again on the sweatshirt that wasn’t his. For a heartbeat, the calm slipped. His lips pressed into a flat line, his nostrils flared, and he rocked forward on his heels like he might cross the room and rip it off the chair. Then he caught himself and smiled at the floor, like the thought amused him.

“You’ll figure it out.”

Figure what out? The question stuck in my throat. That he didn’t care what I wanted? That in his head, I was already decided, already his?

He turned toward the door, moving with a lazy, unhurried walk that felt more like a performance than anything relaxed. Halfway there, he paused and looked over his shoulder, his eyes catching mine in the thin band of light slicing across the floor.

“Lock up,” he said, his voice gentle as a warning, like he was doing me a favor. “Wouldn’t want anybody getting the wrong idea.”

The way he said anybody made my stomach twist. Like he wasn’t talking about strangers at all.

He lingered for a second longer than necessary, as if waiting to see if I’d argue or beg or call his name. When I didn’t, he gave the faintest nod, almost to himself, then stepped out.

The hall swallowed him. The sound of his footsteps faded down the stairs, measured and unhurried. I waited for the front door to open, to close, to give me proof he was gone. I counted the seconds. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty. Nothing.

Only then did I realize I’d been holding my breath. A burning ache spread through my chest as I finally dragged in air that felt too cold, too sharp. I grabbed my phone with shaking hands, my thumbs slipping against the glass, and pressed it to my chest like it could shield my ribs. The notification that had lit up the screen was nothing. A random app. Nothing that could save me.

The house settled around me, every creak a question I couldn’t answer. The fridge kicked on in the kitchen with its usual cough but now it sounded like a stranger’s voice in the next room. Pipes clinked in the walls. Somewhere outside, a car drove past, tires hissing on asphalt, and I flinched, listening for brakes, for footsteps coming back up the path.

I didn’t sleep. I watched the door until the sun lifted the shadows and spilled pale light across the floor, and even then, the room still felt like it remembered him. The air held the echo of his cologne, his voice, the careful scrape of his knuckle on the wood. Every time the floor creaked, my body braced for that chuckle, for that soft, fake warmth.

JJ rolled over sometime after dawn, his hand finding my empty side of the bed. He mumbled my name, still caught in whatever dream he was in, and I realized my muscles were locked so tight my jaw ached.

Even with the sun up and the blinds glowing gold, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the night wasn’t over. Not really. Not where Rafe was concerned.

He’d been here. He knew the way in. And now the house, the bed, the quiet, all of it felt less like a refuge and more like a place he’d marked.

Like he’d just reminded me he could come back whenever he wanted.

Like I was the only part of this place he actually cared about, and that was somehow the most dangerous part of all.