All Chapters of OFF LIMITS: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

60 Chapters

A Family Secret

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE POV: Zara The family chatter in the living room faded into a distant hum as Zara stared at the glowing screen in her hand. The message burned there like a brand: They deleted the copies. But I have the originals. The true final recording where your mother begged me to stop you from Damon at any cost. Meet me at the lake dock at midnight. Alone. Or the world hears her last wish: that you never existed if it meant choosing him. Her stomach twisted violently. Damon’s hand tightened around hers, warm and steady, but she could feel the tremor in his fingers. The same fingers that had been inside her, claiming her, making her forget everything just hours ago in the truck and on the bedroom floor. His cum was still slowly leaking down her inner thighs, a slick, secret proof of every time she’d chosen the fire over safety. She squeezed back, needing his strength, his obsession, even as the weight of her mother’s dying wish threatened to crush her. “Zara?” Marcus’s voice

Foundation of Lies

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO POV: Zara The lake wind whipped across the dock, carrying Marcus’s pale face into sharper focus under the moonlight. Zara’s fingers tightened around Damon’s hand, his grip warm and unyielding, the same hand that had pinned her wrists, stroked her clit, and filled her again and again since the storm first trapped them. Her thighs were still slick with him, a secret, sticky reminder of the desperate fuck in the truck and the raw one in her childhood kitchen. Mum’s real words still echoed—love, not regret—but that final text had shattered the fragile peace before it could even settle. Marcus stared at his phone, then at them, his broad shoulders slumping like the weight of every betrayal had finally landed. “The night before the storm,” he muttered, voice thick. “How the hell do they know about that?” Zara stepped closer, heart pounding so hard it hurt. “Marcus… what are you talking about? What happened the night before I came home for my birthday?” Damon stayed gl

Mirror Reflection

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE POV: Zara The faded envelope trembled in Zara’s hands like a live wire. Mum’s handwriting…. elegant even in sickness, spilled across the page, detailing debts, favors, and how Damon’s family had leaned on theirs for years. The words blurred through fresh tears as the wind off the lake whipped her hair across her face. Damon stood frozen beside her on the porch, his body radiating tension, the same powerful frame that had pinned her to counters, trees, and truck seats, filling her until she forgot her own name. But right now, that body felt like another lie. “Zara,” Damon said, voice rough and low, reaching for her. “It’s not what it sounds like. Let me explain.” She stepped back, the letter crumpling in her fist. Marcus watched from the doorway, arms crossed, his face a mask of exhausted betrayal. “Explain? You came to my house under false pretenses. You told me you were there for her, but Mum knew there was business shit involved. You used my sister as a bridg

May In Edinburgh

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR POV: Damon Edinburgh in May was different. He’d been twice now. January in the hospice and April briefly to collect the box. Both times the city had been grey and cold and carrying the specific weight of what he’d come to do in it. May was different. The sun was actual sun. Not the watery winter version that suggested warmth without delivering it but proper light that landed on the old stone and made it golden and made the whole city look like it had been waiting to show itself properly. Zara beside him on the train. Twelve weeks now. She wasn’t showing yet or barely. She said barely and he had a view on the subject that he kept to himself because he’d learned which observations were welcome and which ones required more relationship capital than he currently had available. She was reading. He was looking out the window. The notebook was in his bag. Sandra’s notebook. He’d been carrying it for three weeks without opening it past the first page. He didn’t

Verdict

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE POV: Zara June arrived quietly. Not dramatically. Not with the weight she’d been expecting it to carry. Just Tuesday becoming Wednesday becoming the week of it and then the morning of it and then the car to Vauxhall with Daniel in the front and Damon beside her and Marcus behind them with his knee bouncing the way it bounced when he was managing something large and choosing not to say so. 14 weeks now. She’d started showing in May. Not dramatically, she was small and it was early but there. The specific change in the shape of her that she’d been watching in mirrors for three weeks with the particular mixture of terror and wonder that had become her permanent condition. She hadn’t told many people yet. After the verdict, she and Damon had said. After June. One thing at a time. Today was June. The courtroom was fuller than the preliminary hearing. Media in the gallery. That had started in March when the case became public. She’d been aware of it without ful

Officially

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX POV: Marcus He knew. He’d known since Wednesday when Zara called him from a bathroom floor and told him in the careful voice she used when something was too large for her normal voice. He’d known since Edinburgh when he’d watched them at that library table with the notebook. He’d known since February if he was being honest with himself which he tried to be on Sundays. He knew. But they were coming to tell him properly. Which meant he had to act like he didn’t know. Marcus Cole was many things. A convincing actor was not historically one of them. He’d been practicing. They arrived at noon. Together. Of course together. He opened the door and looked at them on the step and looked at Zara’s left hand because he’d been told about the ring by Zara on Thursday she’d called, she’d had to call, she couldn’t not call, she’d made him promise not to say anything and he’d promised, and there it was. Sandra’s ring. On Zara’s finger. He looked at it and felt somethin

The Last Thursday

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVENPOV: ZaraIt started in the kitchen.It usually started in the kitchen.She didn’t know when that had become the pattern but it had, the kitchen being the room they were most often in together and the room where something about proximity and domestic ordinary life consistently became something else entirely. Something that had been building all day or all week and finally found its moment in the space between the counter and the stove.Thursday evening. His flat. 18 weeks now and showing properly, the specific roundness that had changed the shape of her and that she was still getting used to every time she caught herself in a mirror.She was making tea. He was behind her.She heard him come in from the other room.Felt him stop.The particular quality of his stillness when he was looking at her.She kept making the tea.“Damon,” she said.“Yeah.”“Stop looking at me like that.”“Like what.”“Like you’re about to—”His hands on her hips. Both of them. Warm and cert

Coming Home

CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHTPOV: DamonThey moved in on a Saturday in August.Not dramatically. They didn’t have enough between them to make it dramatic, Zara’s books and her specific tea and the reading glasses and too many jumpers. His books and his work things and Sandra’s box which he carried himself and put directly in the back bedroom that was becoming theirs without letting anyone else touch it.Marcus had painted the room.Not the back bedroom, that one was already fine. The room next to it. The small one that got morning light. He’d painted it while they were in Edinburgh in May and presented it as a fait accompli when they’d agreed to move in, standing in the doorway with his arms folded looking extremely pleased with himself.“What colour is this,” Zara had said.“Yellow,” Marcus said.“It’s not quite yellow.”“It’s the yellow from Lisbon,” Damon said.Both of them had looked at him.He’d looked at Marcus. “You went to Lisbon.”“I went to Lisbon,” Marcus said.“Alone,” Zara said.

Arriving

CHAPTER THIRTY NINE POV: Damon27 weeks. That was the first thought. 27 weeks was too early. The due date was November, they were in September, still September, and the look on her face when she came into the kitchen was the look of someone doing the mathematics of too soon and not saying it out loud because saying it out loud made it real. He was already reaching for his phone. “How long,” he said. “I don’t know. A while.” She was holding the counter. Not dramatically. Just using it. “I didn’t want to wake you.” “Zara.” He crossed the kitchen. Took her face in his hands. Looked at her. “How long.” “Since about three,” she said. He looked at her. “It’s 6 now,” he said. “I know.” “You’ve been—” “I thought they’d stop,” she said. “They didn’t stop.” He already had his phone out. The hospital number saved because Daniel had told him to save it and Daniel was always right about preparation. He called. Spoke to someone. Gave the information clearly while keeping one hand on Za

The Table

CHAPTER FORTY POV: Zara She came home on a Tuesday. 5 weeks in NICU. 5 weeks of monitors and nurses and the specific vocabulary of a unit that existed to bridge the gap between too early and ready. 5 weeks of Damon at 3AM in the morning talking to an incubator. 5 weeks of Marcus bringing food every single day without fail, not asking, not announcing, just appearing at the hospital with containers and the specific certainty of a man who understood that feeding people was how he stayed useful when everything else was outside his control. 5 weeks of Isla Sandra Reid getting bigger. Slowly. Deliberately. Like she was doing it on her own terms and wasn’t interested in being rushed. The morning they brought her home Damon carried her out of the hospital in the specific careful way of someone handling something irreplaceable. Not stiff, he’d learned how to hold her in the NICU, had been practising since day 3, had gotten good at it in the way he got good at things that mattered. But pr

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