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Rachel felt like the ride back to the summer house lasted for hours. She couldn't fucking believe she was cursed, and for some reason, Jules didn’t seemed totally freaked out with it. And thankfully, because she would not take it if he didn’t believe what just had happened. Deep down, Rachel is certain Jules believes it because once upon a time no one believed what happened to him as a kid. Out of the whole “Sorry man” thing, what he witnessed was real. He watched a woman die in the arms of her husband and for so long Jules believed the “sorry man” killed her.
She knew something was deeply fucked up with him. The dynamic between him and his wife was just... weird. Rachel had a nose for when things were off. First, she’d grown up in a household that felt perpetually teetering; her dad wasn't aggressive, but he’d become a hollow vessel, his soul having died the same day her mother did. Second, she had studied human behavior long enough to see that Jules and Nicky weren’t nearly as close as Nicky claimed. She knew the history: they were friends with Nell, Nicky had dated her first, and then Jules married her. Nicky claimed they were all "fine" with it, but Rachel found it odd. If she were in Nell’ shoes, she’d find it more than a little strange that the groom and the best man had both fucked her.
Obviously, Rachel had noticed the way Jules stared at her, far too long and far too often during their few shared meals. She could’ve dismissed it as some twisted rivalry between brothers. It had even struck her as strange when he offered to help her out of her wedding dress, his fingers lingering on the tattoo on her back a second too long.
But she never imagined that the darkness in his past was tethered to her own. Jules had witnessed her mother’s death and her very first breath. What were the fucking odds?
Now Jules knows about her fucking curse too.
"Thanks for the ride... and everything," she muttered as soon as the door clicked shut behind them.
"So, uh... what the fuck are you gonna do now?" Jules whispered. He was standing directly in her path in the narrow hallway. Rachel could smell his musky cologne, faint and fading after everything they went through that night.
"I'm gonna... smile my face off at the rehearsal dinner tonight," she said, her voice tight. "I'm going to survive my wedding day tomorrow and, you know, live happily ever after. Because he’s my soulmate."
Jules didn't move. "Yeah, well. I think you might be in denial. You're one hundred percent sure he's your soulmate?"
"Yeah, we have fate on our side.” She tried to sound certain, but the words felt hollow as they left her mouth. “I mean... pure fate, the way that we met and... lots of other things." She didn't feel so confident once the words came out of her mouth. "We have a great relationship so yeah, I'm gonna... I'm gonna be fine".
"Just... give me a percentage."
Why the fuck was Jules insisting on this? She was the one dying, not him.
"Seventy-five? Eighty?"
"Ninety-two?" Her own answer caught her off guard. Sure, Rachel. Tell your future brother-in-law you’re only ninety-two percent sure about marrying his brother, she thought bitterly.
"Okay," he said, his gaze boring into her.
"Okay."
"So, would you get on a plane if the pilot said, 'Welcome aboard, ladies and gentlemen, there’s a ninety-two percent chance we’ll make it to our destination'?"
Why the hell did he have to use that comparison? It wasn’t the same thing at all.
"I would trust my gut, and Nicky would too. I know that for a fact."
"Just... maybe get that number up to a hundred before you walk down the aisle." Jules’s hand reached down, his fingers brushing her elbow. She felt it burn. It was the total opposite of the snow and the bitter cold that had turned her cheeks to ice.
"Yeah, great. Thanks." She stood frozen outside the bedroom she shared with Nicky. Jules didn't move either.
If he left now, he was heading toward his wife, toward the one-hundred-percent certainty of the life he’d already built. He’d be leaving her there with her ninety-two percent chance of survival and a gut feeling that was starting to feel more like nausea than intuition.
"Wait, Jules," she called out, her voice barely a whisper in the drafty house.
He leaned closer to her face, his silhouette framed by the dim light of the corridor.
"Why do you care?" she asked, her heart hammering against her ribs. "If I'm in denial... why does it matter to you?"
She knew it was a risky question, but her mind was a blur. She hadn’t slept; she’d just discovered she might be dead by Sunday. And this man, this fucking man had come to rescue her. He’d even brought a fucking gun to kill the man who took her.
The hallway was pitch black, but Rachel could still feel that focused stare she’d noticed at breakfast. Like he wanted to consume her.
"Because I was there at the start, Rachel," he said, stepping into her space until the air between them felt thin. "I saw the blood. I saw the cost of you getting here."
He didn't move. Instead, the distance between them seemed to collapse. Jules reached out, his thumb tracing the line of her jaw with slow, deliberate pressure.
"Jules," she breathed. It wasn't a warning; it was a plea.
He didn't give her a chance to take it back. His hand slid to the back of her neck, pulling her forward until her chest collided with his blue sweater. When his mouth hit hers, it wasn't the "soulmate" kiss she’d spent all night lying about. It was dark, desperate, and tasted like the trauma they’d both been carrying since the day she was born.
Every touch was an answer to her question. He cared because he had seen her first. Because he was the only one who truly understood the darkness she was running from.
If she was marrying Nick, why the fuck did she feel like she had a fucking red string attached to Jules? She tried to tell herself it was just a trauma bond, something her brain had cooked up during the chaos of the night. If she was being honest, the thought had already crossed her mind for a fleeting second back at the van. This thing with Jules seemed more like fate than everything she had ever felt with Nicky.
The hallway felt too exposed, the air thin with the weight of the wedding dress waiting just behind the door. Jules broke the kiss only to guide her toward the guest bathroom at the end of the corridor, the one furthest from the life they were both supposed to be living.
The door clicked shut, the lock turning with a sharp, final snap that seemed to sever them from the rest of the house. Jules didn't waste a second; he backed against the closed lid of the toilet, pulling Rachel toward him with a grip that was bruising and certain.
She climbed onto him, her knees flanking his hips as she settled into his lap. The cold porcelain was a sharp contrast to the radiating heat of his skin. Every line of Jules's face was stark, his jaw set, his eyes dark with a hunger that felt like it had been building for decades, not just days.
"Tell me this is what you want," he rasped, his hands sliding up her thighs to anchor her.
Rachel didn't answer with words. She leaned forward, her fingers tangling in his hair to pull his head back, exposing the pulse thrumming in his neck. But he caught her by the neck, forcing her to look him right in the eyes.
"Tell me, Rachel. Tell me you want me to fuck you as much as I want you."
Jules’s hands were a constant, heavy pressure on her neck, guiding her, claiming her. He watched her with a terrifying intensity, his gaze tracking the way her head fell back and the way her eyes fluttered shut.
"Jules, please... I need you" she breathed, but she didn't wait for a hand to move.
She surged forward, her knees tightening around his hips as she began to grind against him. It was a slow, punishing rhythm, her body seeking the heat inside his pants.. She was done running; she was leaning into the trauma, into fate, and into the man who had been waiting for her since her very first breath. She couldn’t believe how much she’d had to force it with Nicky. Every touch with her fiancé had felt like a performance, a struggle for intimacy that never quite landed. But this? This just felt right. Jules’s hands, his mouth, his entire body, it was absolutely wrong and it felt so right.
His hand slid down, his fingers certain and demanding as they found the hem of her clothes. When he reached her, he didn't hesitate. He dived into the heat of her, his fingers finding her slick and aching
"You’re so fucking wet for me, Rachel," he growled, the words vibrating against her collarbone. He shifted his grip, his fingers slick as he checked the reality of his claim, a dark smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth when he felt how ready she was. "After all that talk about soulmates and 'fate'... look at you. You’re begging for it." She forced her eyes open, meeting that predatory, focused stare.
“Fuck, Jules.”
He slid his fingers inside her, hooking deep, his touch rough and possessive as if he were trying to carve his name into her skin. He wanted her to feel every bit of the betrayal, to feel how his touch was erasing Nicky from her mind with every slick, rhythmic slide.
"You're drowning," he whispered. He could feel the way she clamped down around his hand, her body betraying every lie she’d ever told about his brother being her soulmate. "Tell me you're not thinking about marrying him anymore, Rachel. Tell me you didn’t think I was your fucking soulmate on the way back home."
"Shut the fuck up, Jules. They’ll hear us," Rachel hissed, her voice a jagged thread of sound as she rode his fingers in a desperate, punishing rhythm.
She reached down, grabbing his unoccupied hand from her waist and guiding a finger into her own mouth, sucking on it hard to stifle the moans clawing up her throat. She shoved her own hand against his neck, pinning it there as if she could choke the words (and the truth) right out of him. She needed him to be silent. She needed the world outside the door to stay dead, even as her own body was screaming.
He kept up the pace, his fingers working her until she was shaking, her hands clutching at his shoulders just to stay upright. She was starving for the weight of him, a visceral need to finally link her soul to his in the only way that felt real. Finally, he relented, letting her climb onto him to take the rest.
"You feel like one hundred percent to me right now, Rachel." He didn't slow down. He watched her face with a terrifying intensity, his gaze tracking the way her eyes rolled back and the way her breath caught in a broken, high pitched sob. He was pinning her to the present, refusing to let her drift back to the safety of the lie she’d been living with his brother.
"When you came into my room," he confessed, his breath hitching as he watched her reaction. "Watching you stand there in all that white lace... all I could think about was ripping that dress open. I wanted to bend you over right there, in front of the mirror, and fuck you until you forgot Nicky’s name."
The image burned through Rachel's mind, the memory of him standing in the corner of his bedroom, his eyes cold and distant while her heart had raced for reasons she couldn't admit then.
"I wanted to be inside you while you were still wearing it," he growled. His thumbs grazed her nipples through the thin fabric of her pajamas with a rough, rhythmic urgency that made her vision blur.
Rachel didn't hesitate. She pulled her t-shirt over her head, casting it aside and baring herself to his dark, hungry gaze. She grabbed his face, her fingers digging into his jaw as she guided his mouth to her, forcing him to take her nipple between his lips. She wanted him to stop talking.
Jules didn’t fight her. He let out a low, ragged sound against her skin as his teeth grazed her, a sharp, controlled nip that sent a jolt of pure, unadulterated lightning straight to her core. He used his tongue with a slow, swirling pressure, drenching her in a heat that made bathroom feel like hell.
She pressed herself closer, her fingers knotting in his hair, anchoring him there as if she were afraid he might disappear if she let go for even a second.
"Jules," she choked out, her voice a broken wreck.
He moved to the other side, his stubble a rough, delicious friction against her sensitive skin. He was relentless, his hands moving from her hips to cup her, lifting her higher so he could feast on her properly. He wasn't just kissing her; he was devouring the bride-to-be, marking her with a sensory memory that no white dress could ever hide.
In the silence of the room, the only sound was the wet, rhythmic pull of his mouth and the frantic, shallow gasps of Rachel begging for more.
As she moved on him, the weight of his words felt as heavy and intrusive as his body. The "wrongness" of it was a physical heat, a delicious, ruining friction that made her cling to his shoulders, her black nails digging into him as she finally let the wedding and the dress and the lies dissolve into the shadows of the room.
The friction of him inside her was a constant, heavy ache that Rachel couldn't get enough of. She leaned forward, her hands flat against the cool tile of the wall to steady herself as she increased the pace, her body finding a frantic, desperate rhythm on top of him. Every time she sank down, she felt the full, stretching weight of him, a reminder of exactly how much space he was taking up in her life and her head.
Jules didn't let her carry the weight alone. His hand slid down between their bodies, his fingers slick and sure as they found the center of her nerves. The moment his thumb hooked over her clit, pressing with a rhythmic, predatory precision, the world outside the bathroom vanished.
"Look at me, Rachel," he commanded, his voice a low, jagged rasp that vibrated through her.
She forced her eyes open, meeting his dark, unwavering stare. He increased the pressure of his thumb, circling and pressing in perfect sync with the upward surge of his hips. The combination was devastating. "You’re not going anywhere," he growled, his grip on her waist tightening until his knuckles were white. "Stay right here with me."
Rachel’s breath hitched into a high, broken sob as the tension coiled tight in her chest. She didn't care she was going to die, because in that bathroom, she felt like her fucking life was complete.
As the first wave of her climax hit, triggered by the relentless friction of his thumb, Rachel’s world narrowed down to the heat between them. She arched her back, her fingers digging into the fabric of his sweater as she came in a violent, shaking rush. She bit her lip until she tasted copper, her head thrashing against the cold tile as she fought to keep her moans trapped behind her teeth. Jules didn’t let her go. He let out a low, guttural groan, his head falling against her chest. His own rhythm broke into a final, heavy series of thrusts, each one deeper than the last. He came inside her with a jagged, desperate force, his hands bruising her hips as he held her there, locking them together in the humid silence of the bathroom. There was nothing left but the sound of their ragged, shared breathing and the devastating knowledge that the "red string" had finally tightened into a knot they could never undo.
The silence that followed was thick and heavy with the weight of what they had just destroyed. Jules was the first to move, his hands sliding slowly from her waist, leaving ghost-prints of heat on her skin.
He stood, his movements methodical as he adjusted his clothes, his face returning to that unreadable, analytical mask. But his eyes stayed on her, dark and possessive, tracking the way her hands trembled as she pulled herself together.
"Go," he whispered, his voice still raspy from the heat of it. “Don't linger in the hall."
Rachel nodded. She felt marked, certain that the scent of him was radiating off her skin. She eased the bathroom door open, the click of the lock sounding like a gunshot in the quiet house. She was certain at least one fucking member of the family had heard them; the walls in these drafty old houses were never thick enough to bury that kind of desperation. She prayed to a God she hadn't spoken to in years that it wasn't Nell or Jude. Anyone but them.
The hallway was a blur of shadows. She moved quickly, her eyes fixed on her bedroom door. Behind that door was Nicky, the "soulmate," the man who didn't know the first thing about the darkness Jules had just unearthed.
She reached the handle, her fingers cold, and for a split second, she looked back.
Jules was standing at the end of the corridor. He wasn't hiding. He was watching her, his posture relaxed but his focus entirely on her, a silent reminder that no matter which room she slept in tonight, he was the one who truly owned the space inside her head.
With a shallow, shaky breath, Rachel pushed into her room. The transition was jarring, the sight of her suitcase, the rehearsal dinner outfit laid out on the chair, and the steady, rhythmic sound of Nicky’s breathing from the bed. Nicky. The man who was supposed to be her "soulmate." It felt like stepping back into a life that no longer fit. As she crawled into the sheets, the cold air hit the dampness on her skin, a sharp, physical reminder of what she did. What both she and Jules had done.