Always Been Yours

Coming home to forbidden love

Finn has been in love with his stepbrother, Rhys, for as long as he can remember.

Years ago, one desperate attempt at a kiss in the basement ended with Rhys shoving him away hard enough to draw blood—breaking Finn’s heart and forcing him to run. Now back in the family home and living under the same roof again, Finn knows he’s walking straight into temptation.

Rhys is bigger, rougher, and no longer willing to pretend. He’d pushed Finn away because he wanted to do the right thing. Not because he didn’t want him.

Now, a heated glance and a lingering touch threaten to shatter their restraint. Because no one has ever captivated Finn like his stepbrother.

No one has ever made him ache this badly.

And this time, Rhys isn’t pushing him away.

---

The cargo truck I’d rented idled in the driveway, its engine rumbling through the quiet suburban street as I looked up at the house I’d grown up in.

I sat behind the wheel for a long moment, staring at the familiar one-story house of my childhood. The same white siding, the same maple tree in the front yard, the same porch where we had once roughhoused as kids.

I couldn’t believe I was back here like this—broken, defeated, crawling home at twenty-four with my life packed into the back of a rented truck.

After killing the engine, I threw open my door and got to work shifting everything into the house. After several trips, I hauled the last box from the back, muscles burning under the weight of clothes, books, and the scattered remnants of a life that had imploded six months earlier.

I thought I was past this. Past needing to crawl back home. The divorce between my mom and my stepdad had torn through the family like a storm, leaving wreckage in its wake. I lost my job right after, couldn’t find another in time, my savings drained away to nothing, and my apartment lease ended without renewal. Suddenly, there was nowhere else to go.

My mother had already moved across the country with her new boyfriend.

My stepdad had gone off on some vague pilgrimage to find himself out west.

That left only Rhys.

And the family home.

Rhys stood on the porch, arms crossed over a broad, powerful chest, watching with that familiar mix of irritation and reluctant duty. Thirty-six now, my stepbrother had been the steady one—the rock who stayed behind while our parents’ once solid marriage collapsed.

Single again himself after a quiet breakup, Rhys had offered my old room without fanfare. “It’s not like I need the space,” he’d said over the phone, voice gruff.

I had accepted because pride was a luxury I couldn’t afford. Now, as I dropped the box inside the door, our eyes met, and the air thickened with everything left unsaid. We hadn’t parted ways on good terms.

“Is that the last of it?” Rhys asked, tone short but not unkind.

“I know, but I promise, it’s not much.

“It’ll all have to fit in your room.”

I pushed past him. He hadn’t even bothered to help me unload a single thing. “I know. You told me. I ditched most of my belongings. Are you happy?”

“You’re the one who wanted to move in here.”

My back tensed. “I didn’t have a choice, Rhys … and you know that.”

“You could’ve moved in with Mom and Carl.”

I twisted and glared at him. “And move to Florida. Are you serious?”

He didn’t argue. He just stepped aside as I pushed past him into the house, our shoulders brushing for the briefest second. That single point of contact sent an unwelcome spark racing down my spine.

I lifted one of the boxes and headed down the hall. My old room looked exactly as I’d left it six years ago: the same twin bed with its creaky frame, the beat-up wooden desk, the dresser with one drawer that always stuck, and the dusty bookcase still half-filled with old paperbacks.

I tossed the box onto the bed and used my keys to slice open the tape. I spent the next several hours unpacking in heavy silence while Rhys watched an action movie in the living room, the low rumble of explosions drifting down the hall.

When the television was quiet, I snuck into the kitchen and decided which groceries to buy based on available space. Rhys had already split the fridge in two. His stuff on the top, and an empty shelf for me on the bottom. Divided like our lives had been for the past six years.

Rhys had carried on here—quiet, self-contained, carrying the weight of the house on his broad shoulders like it was nothing. While I ran off to Chicago, escaping the rejection that had shaken my core, he stayed behind, fixing cars by day and quietly keeping this place from falling apart. He was the reliable one. The responsible one. The brother who never caused trouble.

---

The first few weeks settled into a careful, tense dance of avoidance. Mornings meant hurried coffee in the kitchen, me slipping out early for my new entry-level job before Rhys woke for his shift at the garage.

Evenings brought separate meals eaten in different rooms and firmly closed bedroom doors. But the old house had ways of forcing intimacy. The thin walls carried the low hum of Rhys’s late-night TV shows. The shared bathroom still smelled strongly of his soap—motor oil, cedar, and that deep, masculine scent that had always made something restless stir under my skin.

I told myself it was temporary. Just until I got back on my feet. Yet every time Rhys’s shoulder brushed mine in the narrow hallway, something restless stirred under my skin. Something permanent.

Something destined.

The shift between us started late one night.

We’d barely spoken more than a few stiff sentences since I moved in. Even though I was back in my childhood home, I felt more alone than ever. One sleepless night, I wandered down the hall for water and found Rhys on the couch, nursing a whiskey and staring at nothing.

“Can’t shut your brain off either?” Rhys asked, voice rough with exhaustion.

“No.” I tucked my arms across my chest and waited.

We talked then—really talked—for the first time in years. About the divorce, the vicious fights, the blame each parent had hurled at the other, the hollow ache of watching two people who once loved each other tear everything apart.

I sat on the opposite end of the couch, knees drawn up, and for the first time in months, the painful knot in my chest began to loosen. Rhys listened without judgment, his dark eyes steady on mine, offering quiet, grounded words that felt like anchors in a storm.

Night after night, it became our ritual: hurt poured out in fragments, comfort given in the space between us, but unspoken words still clinging tight.

So many years ago ….

Rhys had been living in the basement at the time, in a space carved out among cement walls and low ceilings. Down where the washer and dryer lived. Where light barely made its way through the rectangular-shaped windows, looking out at the long, burnt, eye-level lawn.

I’d been down there, looking through his CD collection when he’d arrived home from work. He’d shot me that irritated look but said nothing to deter me. He just went about his business, switching out of his oily work clothes and changing into worn, grey sweats and a t-shirt.

He’d caught me staring, my gaze drawn to the bulge between his legs as one pair of pants came off, and before the others went on. My attention had lingered longer than I’d meant to.

I’m not sure what I’d been thinking, or why I had abandoned my search for music and set out for something I had no claim to. Rhys had taken a firm step back, his ass hitting the dryer as I’d clung to the front of his t-shirt. When I’d stretched up to capture his perfect lips, he had shoved me so hard, I’d tumbled back and cracked my head on the corner of a travel chest.

Twenty stitches later, and a grilling from my mom on the drive home worthy of the CIA, I’d locked myself in my cramped, stale bedroom for three days. It wasn’t simply embarrassment over what I’d done, but the aching reality that Rhys didn’t want me the way I wanted him.

I’d moved away as soon as I could. Two days after graduation. Denver to Chicago, where I’d been barely surviving. Now, I was back, Rhys’s presence impossible to escape.

We switched from talking about the divorce to our own relationships.

Rhys wasn’t much of a talker, but when he did speak, his words landed with quiet weight. He had this way of listening that made you feel seen—really seen—like he was turning over every piece of what you said in his mind before offering anything back.

I confessed how lost I felt, how every date I’d been on ended in polite disappointment because something had always been missing.

Rhys shifted closer on the couch, his big, calloused hand settled on my shoulder in what should have been a brotherly squeeze. But his thumb traced a slow circle against the fabric of my shirt.

The touch burned straight through me.

My breath caught, sending heat pooling in my belly, and when I glanced up, Rhys’s gaze had darkened—protective instinct sharpening into something hungrier, more dangerous.

Neither of us pulled away.

Rhys’s thumb kept moving—slow, deliberate circles that felt anything but brotherly. My heart slammed against my ribs so hard I was sure he could feel it through my shirt.

“You always did look at me like that,” he said, voice low and rough, almost accusatory, but also gentle. “Even back then. Like you were starving and I was the only thing that could fix it.”

I swallowed. “And you shoved me into a trunk for it.”

His hand stilled. For a second, I thought he’d pull back, that the old wall would slam down again. Instead, his fingers tightened on my shoulder, pulling me a fraction closer.

“I was thirty. You were barely eighteen. And you were my fucking stepbrother.” He exhaled sharply. “I panicked. Thought if I let it happen even for a second, I’d never come back from it.”

The admission hung between us, heavy as the storm outside. I could smell the whiskey on his breath, the faint motor-oil-and-soap scent that still lived in my memories. My gaze dropped to his mouth, the same mouth I’d tried to claim all those years ago.

“And now?” I asked, barely above a whisper.

Rhys’s dark eyes searched mine. Something raw and exhausted flickered there—years of holding back, of being the “steady one” while everything around him fell apart.

His free hand came up, hesitant, and cupped the side of my neck, thumb brushing my jaw like he was testing if I was real.

“Now I’m tired of pretending I didn’t want it too.”