Too Wrong for Me: Chapter 3 - The Ignition

Maya is the "good girl" librarian with a secret side-hustle and a plan to escape her coastal cage. Julian Cross is her brother’s best friend—a manwhore with a smirk that should be illegal and a decade’s worth of reasons why Maya should stay away. When they’re trapped together during a coastal storm, Julian reveals he knows her secrets, and he’s using them to keep her right where he wants her. It’s wrong, it’s forbidden, and it’s the only thing that’s ever felt right.

Chapter Three

Maya

The Ignition

The smell of the workshop has always been Julian’s scent—grease, cedar shavings, and that sharp, metallic tang of cold steel. But tonight, it’s mixed with the scent of the ocean and the frantic heat coming off our skin. The rain is a relentless, deafening roar against the tin roof, sealing us into this world of shadows and amber light.

I’m sitting on the workbench, the scarred wood cool against my thighs, but I’ve never felt more on fire. Julian is between my knees, his hands braced on either side of me, his chest heaving. He looks like something primal, something the storm spat out. The grease on his forearms is smeared, and his eyes—those storm-grey eyes—are dark with a possessiveness that should terrify me.

It doesn't. It anchors me.

“Maya,” he rasps, and it’s the first time he’s said my name without a layer of mockery or a sharp edge. It sounds like a prayer.

I don’t want to be the librarian anymore. I don’t want to be the "good girl" who plans her life in thirty-year increments. I reach out, my fingers trembling as I trace the line of his jaw, the stubble grazing my skin. I slide my hand back, fisting my fingers in his wet hair, and pull his mouth back down to mine.

This kiss is different. It’s deeper, slower, a deliberate consumption. He tastes of the storm and something dark and sweet. His tongue tangles with mine, and I find myself arching toward him, my chest aching for the contact of his skin.

He groans into my mouth, a low, vibratory sound that I feel in my toes. His hands leave the bench, sliding up my thighs, his calloused palms dragging against the sensitive skin of my inner legs. When he reaches the heat of me, I gasp, my head falling back against the rack of tools. The metal clinks behind me, a sharp, cold melody to the rhythm of his fingers.

“Julian,” I breathe, my voice breaking under the weight of a decade of wanting.

He didn't pull away. Instead, he crowded closer, his massive frame blocking out the flickering amber light until there was nothing in my universe but the scent of him and the sound of his ragged breath. “I’ve got you,” he murmured, the words vibrating against the sensitive skin of my throat. He didn't just kiss me; he pressed his teeth against the pulse point in my neck, grazing it with a slow, deliberate pressure that made my entire body spark. I could feel his heart slamming against my chest, a heavy, syncopated rhythm that matched my own. 

“Ten years, Maya. Ten years of watching you walk past me like I was a ghost. I’ve finally got you, and I’m not letting go until you’re wearing my mark.”

He doesn't go slow. Julian doesn't know how to do anything halfway. He moves to the waistband of his boxers, shedding them in one fluid motion, and then he’s back, caging me in. He’s massive, a wall of heat and muscle that makes me feel small and cherished all at once.

He reaches down, his large, calloused hands sliding under my knees. With a strength that reminded me exactly why he was the best deckhand on the coast, lifting my legs, he drapes them over his broad shoulders. The vulnerability of it is absolute. I’m open to him in a way I’ve never been to anyone, the semi cool air of the workshop hitting my skin before he surges forward to replace it with his own heat.

I feel the blunt, insistent pressure of him against my entrance—a heavy promise of what was coming. My breath hitches, my lungs suddenly forgotten, and I realize the sheer size of the man in front of me. He isn’t the boy I grew up with anymore; he’s a force of nature, solid and unyielding, and he is currently the only thing keeping me from floating away.

“Look at me, Maya.”

I open my eyes, my vision blurred by the heat and the dim light. He’s watching me with a terrifying level of focus. He wants to see every flicker of pleasure, every crack in my resolve.

“Tell me you want this,” he demands. “No blackmail. No Leo. Just us.”

“I want you,” I say, the words stronger than I expected. “I’ve wanted you since I was fifteen and you told me to go home because I was too young to understand the way you looked at me.”

His jaw tightens. Without another word, he drives forward.

The sensation is overwhelming. He’s thick, stretching me, filling the empty spaces I didn’t even know I was guarding. I let out a choked cry, my fingers digging into the muscles of his back, my nails, I’m sure are leaving crescents in his skin. He stays still for a heartbeat, buried deep, his eyes never leaving mine.

“You’re so tight,” he growls, his voice strained. “Like you were made for me.”

Then he starts to move.

It’s a brutal, honest rhythm. Every thrust is a declaration. He’s not the manwhore right now; he’s a man starving, and I am the feast. I meet him push for push, my hips rocking against the wood of the bench, the friction building into a coil of tension in my lower belly that makes my toes curl.

The workshop is a symphony of sound—the rain, the creak of the old oak bench, the wet slap of skin against skin, and the ragged, desperate sounds we’re making. Julian’s hands find mine, pinning them to the bench on either side of my head, his fingers interlocking with mine. He’s caging me, claiming me, and I’ve never felt more free.

“Julian—I can’t—it’s too much,” I pant, my vision beginning to grey out at the edges as the coil tightens, ready to snap.

“Stay with me,” he commands, his pace increasing, his hips slamming into mine with a frantic, beautiful violence. “Don’t go anywhere. Stay right here with me.”

He shifts his grip, one hand reaching down to find the small, sensitive nub of my clit. The second his thumb brushes against me, the world shatters.

I scream his name, the sound bouncing off the tin roof and lost to the roar of the Atlantic outside. My body doesn’t just snap; it dissolves. The orgasm hits like a rogue wave, a violent, beautiful surge of heat and light that starts at the base of my spine and radiates to my very fingertips. I’m convulsing, my muscles clenching around him in a desperate, rhythmic plea for him to never stop.

And Julian doesn’t stop. He can’t. His face is a mask of beautiful agony, his eyes squeezed shut as he drives into me—one, two, three more times—each thrust deeper and more frantic than the last. With a final, guttural roar that sounds like it’s torn from his very soul, he finally breaks. The tension leaves his body in a single, shattering moment as he collapses against me, his full weight a comfort I never knew I needed. I feel the scalding heat of him spilling deep and hot inside me, a final, permanent seal on the night we’ve just shared.

We stay like that for a long time, the only sound the dying rhythm of the rain and the erratic, shattered symphony of our breathing. The emergency light flickers, casting long, dancing shadows of the heavy machinery against the walls. Julian’s head is buried in the crook of my neck, his forehead resting against my skin as if he’s trying to anchor himself back to reality.

His skin is damp, a cocktail of rainwater and the heat of the last hour, and he smells so much like himself—salt, heavy wood, and a primal musk that I want to bottle up. I reach out, my fingers trembling slightly as I run them over the hard ridges of his spine. I can feel the tiny tremors still vibrating through his muscles. He isn't the cocky guy from the bonfire right now; he’s heavy, vulnerable, and completely entwined with me. The stillness is heavy, thick with the realization that the line we just crossed didn't just blur—it vanished entirely.

Slowly, the world begins to filter back in. The smell of sawdust. The cold air leaking through the door. The reality of who we are.

Julian pulls back, his eyes searching mine. He looks... soft. It’s a look I’ve never seen on him, and it makes my heart ache. He reaches out, tucking a damp strand of hair behind my ear.

“You okay?” he asks, his voice still rough.

“Yeah,” I whisper. “I’m better than okay.”

He smiles then, a real, genuine smile that makes him look younger. He helps me off the bench, his hands steady on my waist as my legs wobble. He pulls me back against his bare chest, his skin hot and damp against mine, the only thing I want to feel in the stifling heat of the shop.

“We should get back to the house,” he says. “Before the neighbors see and start looking for a reason to gossip.”

“Let them talk,” I say, surprising myself.

He chuckles, pulling me into his side as we head for the door. “Careful, Princess. You’re starting to sound like a Cross.”

---

The Morning After

The sun comes up over the Atlantic in a violent blaze of pink and gold, the kind of sunrise that only happens when the atmosphere has been scrubbed clean by a storm. I’m sitting on the front porch of the cottage, my fingers wrapped tightly around a ceramic mug of coffee, the steam curling up into the crisp morning air. My body feels different today—a dull, heavy ache in my thighs and a pleasant soreness in my core that serves as a constant, thrumming reminder of Julian in the dark.

The beach has been transformed overnight. The sand is damp and packed hard, reflecting the sky like a bruised mirror, and the tide has left behind a graveyard of driftwood and broken shells. I watch the gulls dive into the surf, their cries sharp and lonely, and I wonder if the rest of the town feels as shifted as I do. The air is cooler now, the humidity broken, but the heat in my chest hasn't faded. It’s settled into something steady and permanent.

The door behind me opens, and Julian walks out. He’s dressed now—jeans and a fresh T-shirt—but he’s barefoot. He sits down on the step beside me, his shoulder brushing mine.

“Coffee?” I ask.

“Nah. I’m good.” He looks out at the water, his profile sharp against the morning light. “I called Leo.”

My heart skips. “And?”

“He’s staying out an extra three days,” Julian says, his voice still carrying a hint of that morning rasp. He doesn't look at me at first, his gaze fixed on the horizon where the blue of the water meets the fire of the sky. “The storm messed with the nets, and the surge tore up some of the gear. They have to stay out to make up the haul or the whole trip is a wash.”

He finally turns, and the intensity in his grey eyes makes my breath hitch. The shadows under his eyes tell me he didn't sleep any more than I did. “He asked about you, Maya. Asked if the storm rattled the house. Asked if I was still looking out for you.”

A chill that has nothing to do with the ocean breeze sweeps over me. “What did you say?”

Julian reaches out, taking my hand in his. His thumb traces the back of my knuckles, slow and deliberate.

“I told him I was planning on looking out for you for the rest of my life. And that he should probably start looking for a new best friend, because I don’t think he’s going to like the way I’m looking at his sister.”

I laugh, a light, easy sound that feels right in the morning air. “He’s going to kill you.”

“Probably,” Julian says, his smirk returning—the cocky one I actually love. “But it’ll be worth it.”

I lean my head on his shoulder, watching the gulls circle over the surf. The plan to leave, the secret research, the invisible life, it’s all gone. I’m still leaving this town, but I’m not doing it alone. And I’m not running away from anything anymore. I’m running toward something.

“One more thing,” Julian says, pulling me closer.

“What?”

“I’m keeping that black silk slip. It’s going in my toolbox. As a reminder.”

I roll my eyes, nudging him with my shoulder. “You’re impossible.”

“And you’re mine,” he says, his voice dropping into that low, serious register that makes my skin tingle.

He kisses me then, a soft, lingering promise as the beach town wakes up around us. The salt air is cool, the sun is rising, and for the first time in my life, everything is exactly where it’s supposed to be.

Come back next week for another story

Copyright © by LS Phoenix

No portion of this story may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

Published by LS Phoenix

New Hampshire, USA

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First Edition: February 2026

Cover Design by LS Phoenix