The text comes at 6:47 AM.
I'm still half-asleep, tangled in the guest room sheets, when my phone buzzes on the nightstand. I reach for it blindly, squint at the screen through the grey morning light.
Kaelen.
My heart does that thing it always does—leaps before I can catch it, hopes before I can remind it not to.
No need to come to the set. Shoot will be at home. Make yourself scarce.
I read it three times. The first time, my chest tightens with something that might be excitement—he's having the shoot here, I'll be nearby, maybe I'll see him. The second read, the words settle differently. Make yourself scarce. The third read, I feel the sting behind my eyes and I blink it away before it can become tears.
Back to square. That's what this is. One step forward, three steps back, the same dance we've been doing since I was fifteen years old and stupid enough to think a man like him would ever really see someone like me.
The dress is still hanging in my closet. The red one. The one he left for me, even if he won't admit it. I touched it this morning before I got dressed, ran my fingers over the silk, remembered the way his eyes went dark when I walked into Studio B wearing it.
It didn't feel like a goodbye, that night. It felt like a promise.
But promises from Kaelen Voss have a half-life. I've learned that.
I type back: Okay.
Then I get up, shower, dress in my usual work clothes—sensible slacks, a blouse that buttons to the collar, my hair in a tight bun—and I drive to the lab.
The day is a blur of things that don't matter. Blood panels. Toxicology reports. Chain of custody forms that I sign without really reading. My coworkers chatter around me about weekend plans, about TV shows, about nothing that penetrates the glass wall I've built between myself and the world.
At noon, I eat a sandwich I don't taste at my desk.
At three, I catch myself staring at my phone, waiting for a text that doesn't come.
At five, I almost pack up to leave, but I don't know where I'd go. Home means him. And he told me to make myself scarce.
So I stay. I find busy work. I re-file the same paperwork twice. I let the clock crawl toward evening, each minute heavier than the last.
At 7:23 PM, my phone buzzes.
I grab it like it's on fire.
Fix the fucking light.
No greeting. No warm-up. Just the command, sharp and inevitable, the way he does everything.
I should be offended. I should text back and ask him what happened to make yourself scarce. I should have some pride, some spine, some shred of the dignity I've been clinging to for eleven years.
Instead, I grab my bag and walk out.
The house is alive when I pull into the driveway.
Lights are on in the east wing—the production side, the part of the house I usually avoid. I can see figures moving behind the windows, hear the distant rumble of voices and equipment being shifted. There are cars I don't recognize parked along the curb. A van with studio equipment. A sedan I think belongs to the director.
They moved the shoot here. To my home. And I'm supposed to be invisible.
I take a breath. Then another. Then I let myself in through the kitchen, where the lights are off and the counters are clean, and I follow the cables.
They lead me to one of the guest suites on the ground floor. The room has been stripped—furniture pushed against the walls, a bed put in the center of the space, lighting rigs arranged like metal flowers around it. The bed is white. Stark. Bare. It looks like an altar.
The crew is moving around, checking monitors, adjusting stands. I spot the director near the window, talking to someone I don't recognize. And there, in the center of it all, is Kaelen.
He's shirtless. Jeans riding low on his hips. His chest is broad, sculpted, the kind of body that looks like it was built for endurance, not just show. He's talking to someone—Amanda, I realize, my stomach clenching—and his face is all business. Professional. Cold.
I find the flickering light before anyone notices me. A fresnel on the far side, buzzing faintly, the bulb sputtering. Loose connection. Easy fix.
I grab a step stool from the corner. I climb. I work.
Don't look at him. Don't look at the bed. Don't think about what they're about to do on it. Just fix the light and leave. Make yourself scarce. Invisible. The way you've always been.
The connection tightens. The light steadies. I should go.
I step down from the stool.
"Stay."
His voice. Quiet. Cut through the room noise like a blade through flesh. No one else reacts—they're too busy, too focused. But I heard it. I felt it.
I freeze.
"If you're here to fix something, fix it."
The light is fixed. He knows that. This isn't about the light anymore.
I should leave. Every instinct I have is screaming at me to leave. To put one foot in front of the other and walk out of this room and go hide in the guest room like he told me to. To protect whatever fragile thing is left of my dignity.
But I don't.
I put my tool away. I fold the step stool. And I stand against the wall, in the shadows between two lighting rigs, where no one will look twice.
Because he told me to stay.
And because I need to see.
The scene starts slow.
Amanda is already in position when the cameras roll. She's wearing black lace—thigh-highs, a garter belt, nothing else. She moves like water, all practiced grace, sliding onto the bed like she owns it.
Kaelen approaches her like a predator approaching prey. Slow. Deliberate. Every movement measured, every second drawn out until the air in the room feels thick and hot.
He kisses her. It looks real—his hand in her hair, her mouth opening under his—but I can't look away from his eyes.
They're open.
And they're fixed on me.
He finds me in the shadows like he knew exactly where I'd be, like he always knows. His gaze holds mine while his mouth works over hers, while his hands slide down her body, while he lays her back on that white bed like she's a feast he's about to devour.
The camera moves around them. The crew adjusts. Someone calls out a direction I don't hear. All I can feel is his eyes on me, burning through the dark, pinning me to the wall.
He touches her breast. Squeezes. Her back arches, her mouth falls open in a practiced moan.
He's still looking at me.
My body is a traitor. I feel it happening before I can stop it—the heat pooling low in my belly, the ache between my thighs, the way my breath goes shallow and my skin flushes. I press my thighs together. I dig my nails into my palms. I try to think of something else—anything else—the lab reports, the invoices I need to file, the way the light was flickering and now it's not—
None of it sticks.
All that sticks is his grey eyes, fixed on me, while he fucks someone else on a white bed in my house.
He positions himself over her. I see his cock—thick, hard, the head slick with something I don't want to name—and my mouth goes dry. He guides it to her entrance. He pushes inside her in one slow, deliberate movement.
And he never breaks eye contact with me.
I feel it.
I feel every inch of it. The stretch. The slide. The fullness. His cock might be buried in Amanda, but his eyes are fucking me, and my body doesn't know the difference. My cunt clenches around nothing. I'm wet—soaking wet—and I can't breathe, can't think, can't do anything but stand there and take it.
He starts to move. Slow at first, deep thrusts that make the bed creak and Amanda moan. His rhythm is steady, relentless, the kind of pace that builds and builds and never lets up.
His eyes never leave mine.
I stop pretending I'm fine somewhere around the fifth minute. My breathing is ragged. My hands are trembling. The ache between my legs is unbearable, a clenched fist of need that pulses with every thrust he makes, every sound that falls from Amanda's lips.
He says something to her. Low. Rough. I can't hear the words, but I hear the tone—the command—and she moans louder, arches harder, her hands gripping his shoulders like she's drowning.
He's still looking at me.
I'm going to come. I can feel it building, coiling in my stomach, tightening with every beat of my heart. I shake my head—a tiny, desperate movement—as if that could stop it. As if I have any control over what this man does to my body.
He thrusts deeper. Harder. His jaw is tight, his chest glistening with sweat, his eyes burning into mine.
And I break.
The orgasm hits me like a wave I didn't see coming. My cunt clenches, my thighs shake, and I bite down on my lip so hard I taste copper, trying to swallow the sound that wants to tear out of my throat.
I fail.
A whimper escapes. High and thin and wrecked, lost in the noise of the scene but not lost to him. I see it in his eyes when it happens. The flicker. The recognition.
The smile.
It's not a big smile. It barely touches his mouth. But it lives in his gaze, dark and knowing and hungry, and I know—I know—he saw everything. He heard everything. He felt me come through the air between us, through the space he's been filling with his gaze since the moment I walked in.
The Animal is awake.
And every cell in my body knows it.
I run.
I don't decide to run. I don't plan it. My body just moves, carrying me out of the room before my mind can catch up, down the hallway, away from the lights and the cameras and the white bed and his eyes.
I don't know where I'm going. I just need to be somewhere he can't see me. Somewhere I can breathe. Somewhere I can figure out how to exist in a world where I just came watching my husband fuck another woman while he watched me.
I take the stairs to the second floor. My legs are shaking. My heart is pounding so hard I can hear it in my ears. I find the small bathroom at the end of the hall—the one no one uses—and I lock the door and I lean against it and I try to remember how to breathe.
I press my hands to my face. My skin is burning. My lips taste like blood where I bit through them. I can still feel the aftershocks of the orgasm pulsing through me, small tremors that won't stop.
He saw me. He saw everything. He knows exactly what he does to me, and he's going to use it. He's going to use every inch of it until I'm nothing but raw nerve endings and need.
I don't know how long I stand there. Five minutes. Ten. Long enough to get my breathing under control. Long enough to almost convince myself I can walk back out and pretend it didn't happen.
Then I hear his voice.
Down the hall. Low. Casual. Like he's having a conversation with someone.
"Where did she go?"
I don't hear the answer. Maybe there isn't one. Maybe he's asking himself, tracking me the way a hunter tracks a deer through the brush.
I press my back against the bathroom door. My hand finds the lock. Holds it.
Footsteps. Slow. Deliberate. Coming closer.
They stop on the other side of the door.
I hold my breath.
I hear him breathe. A slow, steady inhalation on the other side of the wood. He knows I'm in here.
"Dagmar."
I don't answer.
His knuckle taps against the door. Once. Twice. A rhythm that feels patient. Infinitely patient. The patience of a man who knows he has all night.
"You can stay in there as long as you want." His voice is soft. Almost gentle. The most dangerous sound I've ever heard. "I'll wait."
I slide down the door. My back scrapes against the wood until I'm sitting on the cold tile floor, my knees drawn up to my chest, my hand pressed over my mouth.
This is what he does. This is what the Animal does. He corners. He waits. He lets the fear build until you're so desperate to escape that you'll do anything—say anything—give him anything—just to make it stop.
"I saw you come, wife."
The words land like stones in my chest.
"I smelled it. Could see it in your eyes. You were right there with me the whole time, weren't you?"
I squeeze my eyes shut. I don't answer.
"Every time I touched her, I was touching you. Every time she moaned, I was making that sound for you. You know that. You felt it."
I did. God help me, I did.
"Open the door, Dagmar."
"No." My voice comes out cracked. Barely a whisper.
"Open the door."
"You'll—" I stop. Swallow. Try again. "You'll devour me."
Silence.
Then his laugh. Low and dark and full of promise, a sound that crawls under my skin and settles in my bones.
"That's the point, wife."
I don't open the door.
But I don't leave, either.
I sit on the cold tile floor of a bathroom I never use, with my husband's weight against the other side of the door, and I listen to him breathe. I feel his presence like a fire through the wood. I know—with a certainty that settles into me like a second skeleton—that he will wait as long as it takes.
And I will have to come out eventually.
I will have to face the Animal in his full awareness.
And when I do, I will not survive it unchanged.
I don't know if that terrifies me or thrills me. Maybe both. Maybe they're the same thing when it comes to Kaelen Voss.
I pull my knees tighter to my chest.
And I wait.