Chapter 3: You're *mine*, Serena

Julian's POV

I watched her the entire night.

I wanted to see her crack. Wanted to watch her stumble, drop her chin, finally admit that without the Kincaid name she was nothing at all.

Instead, she saved old Winslow's ass.

That man has never once given my father his full attention — too proud, too self-important to bother. Yet Serena leaned in, offered him a drink, said something low and perfectly calibrated, and the whole awkward moment evaporated. Just like that. I stood at the top of the stairs and watched it happen and felt something scrape against the inside of my chest that I couldn't quite name.

Then Holt cornered her.

I saw exactly where his eyes landed. I know that look. Every man in that room knew that look — there's nothing behind it except a very simple question about what she'd look like with less on. I fixed my gaze on his hands and made myself a quiet promise: if he touched her, he'd be crawling out of Kincaid Manor before the night was over.

The thought stopped me cold the moment it surfaced.

Serena wasn't my sister anymore. Not legally, not by blood.

But eighteen years don't just disappear.

She called me her brother for eighteen years. The first time she learned to ride, I was the one holding the reins, walking the whole length of the paddock beside her.

"Don't let go, Julian."

"I won't. I've got you. Always."

She grew bolder after that. Fearless, really — she'd throw herself at anything. On the day of her coming-of-age ceremony, she insisted on riding the new grey stallion, a mean-tempered animal I'd already warned her about. She didn't listen.

By the time I reached the hospital, she was covered in blood.

The family physician pulled my father aside. I caught enough of it — blood type doesn't match, she isn't biological. In the ward, Serena still had no idea what was unraveling around her. She was sitting up in bed when I walked in, and she smiled at me.

"Julian — am I a complete disaster?"

I stood in the doorway and couldn't say a word.

Everything shifted after that day. Father located Chloe — the girl who'd grown up in an orphanage — and there she was, standing in the middle of our sitting room, wide-eyed and uncertain. My mother wept until she nearly fainted. My father's face was stone.

Every person in that room had their eyes on Chloe.

Every person except me.

Serena was at the top of the staircase, one hand on the banister, barely steady on her feet — she'd only just come home from the hospital. No one went to help her. No one even looked.

And the first thought that rose in me in that moment wasn't what happens to her now.

It was —

If she was never really my sister, then every thought I've spent years trying to bury — does that mean they finally have somewhere to go?

That thought disgusted me so thoroughly I didn't sleep for the rest of the night.

The next morning, I had my attorney deliver the invoice.

Three million.

Education. Medical care. Couture. Equestrian training. Piano. Every social connection and open door she'd ever walked through. Every line item accounted for, clean and precise.

I told myself it was what she owed Chloe. What she owed the Kincaid family.

I told myself I was collecting a debt on behalf of the daughter who actually belonged here.

But I knew — I knew better than anyone — that I was manufacturing a reason to keep her close. If she couldn't pay, she couldn't leave. Couldn't disappear from my life completely.

It was a contemptible thing to do. I never claimed to be a decent man.

A knock at the study door pulled me back.

"Come in."

Serena stepped inside. "Sir. Bale mentioned there's a mouse problem in the study."

I caught her wrist and pulled her to the desk in one motion, bent down close, and put my mouth near her ear.

"You want to pay off that debt, don't you? Graduate early, claw your way back up on your own terms?" I kept my voice quiet. "Show me how serious you are, Serena."

She turned her head slightly — not pulling away, just a small deflection. I reached up and undid the top button of her uniform.

She didn't stop me.

I held still and looked at her. "Say no."

She met my eyes. There was a faint trace of mockery in them, cool and unhurried.

I undid the next button.

Her breath fell against my wrist in slow, warm pulses — maddening in their steadiness. I'd been with women before. But nothing had ever felt quite like this — like undoing two buttons was equivalent to dismantling something explosive.

She was too good at this. No tears, no pleading, just a measured compliance — giving me just enough permission, then watching me with those eyes that said everything without a word:

Look at yourself, Julian. You're the one coming apart.

I hated it. I also wanted to ruin her for it.

The fabric slipped from her shoulder. I bit down where her neck curved into it, and with one hand yanked her skirt up — exposing the pale, smooth length of her thighs.

She wasn't wearing anything underneath.

I dragged my mouth down and bit into her inner thigh, hard enough to drag my teeth across the skin, hard enough to leave marks. Serena exhaled sharply, her body giving a small, involuntary shudder — and then, deliberately, she let her thighs fall open a little wider, the inside of her knee pressing gently against my shoulder.

"Is this punishment?" Her voice was soft, slightly mocking. "Or is this something you've been wanting to do for a long time?"

I lifted my head. Something in my chest felt like it was tearing.

I hated her. I hated the way she still said it — Julian — like the word itself was a trap I'd already walked into.

I lifted her legs onto the desk and pinned them on either side of my hips.

"Open." My voice came out rough.

Serena tilted her head and looked at me with that familiar curve at the corner of her mouth. She let her knees fall apart slowly, heels resting at the desk's edge, baring the soft, flushed, already-wet heat of her. I reached down and parted her with two fingers — spreading her open, curling deep.

"Ah —"

She arched hard off the desk, both hands locking onto the edge. I worked her for a moment — just long enough to feel how slick she already was — then pulled my fingers free and pressed them to her lips.

"Taste yourself."

Serena closed her mouth around my fingers and sucked, slow and deliberate, her eyes staying perfectly calm. "What exactly are you planning to do next?"

I was done waiting. I shoved my pants open, freed myself, and pressed the head of my cock against her entrance.

"Eyes on me."

I gripped her hips and drove in — all the way, no pausing, no easing into it. She was tight and scorching and her body gripped me like it was made for exactly this. Serena bit her lip, arched her back slightly, and rolled her hips forward to take me deeper.

I started fucking her. Every thrust hard to the hilt, the desk slamming rhythmically against the floor.

"Harder —" she breathed, her voice going soft and wrecked in a way that made it worse, not better. "Don't hold back. Don't treat me like I'm your little sister."

I drove in harder.

"You filthy little —" I was growling the words against her hair, sweat dripping from my jaw to her face. "You're not my sister. You never were. You're just mine — you're just something I own —"

She laughed — actually laughed — and hooked her arm around the back of my neck. "I wonder what your guests would think if they could hear this right now. Julian Kincaid, fucking his own sister in the study."

Something in me snapped.

I wrenched her hands off the desk edge and pinned both wrists above her head.

"You are not my sister."

I fucked her harder — deep, punishing strokes that lifted her heels off the desk entirely. Her body jolted with every thrust, her legs too unsteady to wrap around me properly. I shoved her thighs up onto my shoulders, changed the angle, and drove straight into the deepest point I could reach.

"Julian — I can't — I'm going to —"

Tears were gathering at the corners of her eyes. It made it worse — made it better — made me slam into her faster.

"You're mine, Serena —" I was barely coherent, my hips working on pure instinct now. "From right now — only me. No one else gets to —"

I couldn't hold it. I came with a low, broken sound, buried to the hilt, pouring into her in long, searing waves until she was full of me, dripping with me, and I had no more left to give.

I slumped forward, breathing like I'd run a mile.

Serena looked up at me with wet eyes and a slow smile.

"You know, Julian — right now? You look even more disgusting than Holt did."

I caught my breath. Then I shifted my hips, pressed what was still inside her deeper, and felt her breath stutter. "Shut up."

She smiled against my jaw. "Then don't stop."