Possessively Your’s

Copyright ©️ AngilaBThorne 2026

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, other electronic methods, or translations to another language without prior written permission. This novel belongs solely to me. So don’t steal it. I work very hard on all my novels.

Pop, pop, pop!

The shots splintered the bark of the ancient oak, showering my hair with tiny wooden shards. I pulled back, pressing my spine against the rough trunk, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.

“Dang, that was close,” I whispered to the moss.

I took a breath, the scent of damp earth and pressurized CO2 filling my lungs. I peeked my head around the trunk once more, squinting through the fogging plastic of my goggles. The woods were a chaotic blur of neon green buds and shifting shadows.

There.

My brother Reid, seventeen and acting like he was leading a SEAL team, was flanking left. Behind him, his best friend Toby was already moving to cut off my only exit toward the creek. They weren’t playing like I was their “little sister” anymore. They were playing like I was the enemy.

Behind them, I knew my fifteen-year-old brother, Ryder, and his best friend Jax were loitering in the high brush, waiting to catch me in a crossfire. They thought they had me pinned. They thought a twelve-year-old girl was an easy mark to end the game before lunch.

They were wrong.

I looked up. The oak tree I was leaning against had a low-hanging branch, thick and obscured by a cluster of hemlock. If I stayed on the ground, I was paint-splattered toast. If I climbed? I’d have the high ground.

I tucked my paint gun into its sling and grabbed the first branch. My sneakers, caked in thick red clay, found a knot in the wood. I hauled myself up just as a bright orb of neon orange paint exploded exactly where my head had been seconds before.

“She’s gone!” I heard Ryder yell, his voice cracking slightly with his mid-puberty timber. “Check the ravine! She couldn’t have gone far!”

I perched on the limb, as still as a gargoyle, watching the four of them converge on my empty hiding spot. They looked so big from up here—broad-shouldered and confident—but they weren’t looking up.

I raised my paint gun, took a steadying breath, and aimed right for the “17” on the back of Reid’s jersey. I perched on the limb, as still as a gargoyle. They converged right below me—Reid and Toby, standing shoulder to shoulder, looking smug.

Big mistake.

I raised my pant gun, took a steadying breath, and squeezed the trigger twice.

Thwack-thwack!

A brilliant splat of neon pink blossomed across the center of Reid’s chest. A second later, Toby’s shoulder was painted a matching shade of “you’re out.”

“Are you kidding me?!” Reid roared, looking up at the canopy. “Birdie, you brat!”

I grinned, the adrenaline a sweet hum in my ears. I had them. I’d actually done it. But as I shifted my weight to gloat, the humid bark betrayed me. My left foot, slick with red clay, slid off the knot.

“Whoa—!”

The world tilted. My paint gun slipped from my hands, clattering against the limbs as I followed it down. I reached out, fingers clawing at empty air and stinging hemlock needles.

I expected the hard, unforgiving thud of the forest floor. Instead, I hit something solid but soft.

Two arms wrapped around my waist, bracing for the impact. The air knocked out of me in a ragged puff as I was pulled flush against a chest that smelled like cedar spray and sweat.

I blinked, my goggles pushed up onto my forehead. Jax.

He was breathing hard, his face only inches from mine. He wasn’t laughing like the others. His eyes, a startling crystalline blue behind his protective mask, searched mine with a look that wasn’t ‘big brother’s friend’—it was something heavier, something that made my stomach do a flip that had nothing to do with the fall.

For a heartbeat, the woods went silent. No birds, no wind, just the sound of our synchronized breathing and the heat radiating from his hands on my sides.

“You okay, Birdie?” he whispered.

I couldn’t find my words. I just nodded, my heart doing a frantic tap-dance against my ribs. The way he was holding me... it felt like the world had narrowed down to just this one square foot of forest.

Thwack! Thwack-thwack-thwack!

A stinging spray of neon yellow exploded across Jax’s shoulder and my leg.

“GOTCHA!” Ryder’s voice ripped through the silence like a chainsaw. He was standing ten feet away, his pant gun raised, a manic grin on his face. “Jax, you’re out! Birdie, you’re super out! You look like a scrambled egg!”

The spell broke. Jax let out a huff of a laugh, his arms lingering for just a second too long before he set my feet back on the solid ground. The intimate quiet was gone, replaced by the rowdy hoots of my brothers as they converged on us, celebrating their “kill.”

The walk back to the mud-room was a chorus of boastful shouts and Reid complaining about the pink stain on his favorite jersey. I walked a step behind, my legs still shaking—not from the fall, but from the way Jax’s hands had felt through my thin t-shirt.

He was walking beside Reid, laughing at a joke, but he kept glancing back. Every time our eyes met, my skin prickled. It was a new kind of awareness, like a radio frequency I’d just tuned into for the first time.

“You’re awfully quiet, Birdie,” Jax said, slowing his pace until he was shoulder-to-shoulder with me. The others had already reached the porch, their boots thumping like war drums.

“Just thinking about how I almost had all four of you,” I lied, looking at my mud-caked sneakers.

“You almost did,” he murmured. He reached out, his thumb brushing a stray wooden shard from my hair. His touch was light, but it felt like a brand. “You’ve got a hell of a vertical, Birdie. Just work on the landing.”

He winked—a quick, devastating flash of blue—and disappeared into the house.

THREE YEARS LATER

The stadium lights hummed with a physical vibration, a low-voltage growl that competed with the roar of the crowd. I sat on the frozen aluminum of the top bleacher, my oversized shirt hung low. It was Ryder’s old jersey, faded and smelling faintly of the heavy-duty detergent Dad used to try (and fail) to get out grass stains.

Down on the turf, the world was emerald and gold.

“Hand off to Miller! He’s at the forty... the thirty... he’s got a hole!”

The announcer’s voice boomed over the speakers. I didn’t need him to tell me what was happening. I’d watched my brothers and Jax run these drills in our backyard since I was in diapers. I saw the way Jax—Number 12, the quarterback golden boy of the county—stepped up into the pocket, his eyes scanning the field with a predatory calm. He didn’t just play the game; he owned it.

Beside him, my brother Ryder was a blur of muscle, slamming into a linebacker to clear Jax’s path.

“GO JAX! MARRY ME, JAX!” a group of cheerleaders shrieked three rows down.

I felt a familiar, sour twist in my stomach. It wasn’t just that they were popular; it was that they existed in a different atmosphere. At home, Jax was the guy who stole my bacon and helped me with my physics homework when Dad was working late shifts at the shop. Here? He was a god. And I was just “Birdie,” the nerdy tomboy lurking in the shadows of the press box.

The clock was a bleeding red countdown: 0:08.

The score was tied. The state championship berth was on the line. The entire town of Oak Creek held its breath, a collective silence so heavy it made my ears pop.

Jax took the snap. He dropped back, the blue of his jersey flashing under the LED floodlights. He looked toward the end zone, but the coverage was tight. Then, he looked at Ryder. A split-second communication—a nod they’d practiced a thousand times.

Jax launched the ball. It was a perfect, spiraling arc of leather against the black velvet sky.

Ryder caught it mid-air, his cleats skidding into the end zone just as the buzzer screamed.

The stadium exploded. It wasn’t just cheering; it was a riot. People were jumping, spilling popcorn, screaming until their veins popped. I stood up, my heart hammering against my ribs—that same frantic rhythm from the paintball woods three years ago.

“That’s my brother!” I whispered, a grin breaking through my guarded exterior. “That’s my boys!” My dad bellows beside me.

An hour later, the field was a mess of confetti and frantic fans. I navigated the crowd like a ghost, trying to reach the locker room entrance where Dad was waiting. I had my nose buried in my notebook, sketching out a new design that always seems to play in my mind—my way of tuning out the sensory overload of high school social cues I didn’t understand.

“Watch it, Birdie!”

I slammed into someone, my forehead hitting the center of their chest. He felt like granite, radiating a post-game heat that wrapped around me like a physical weight. When he reached down to steady me, his hand bypassed my arm and settled firmly on my waist, pulling me flush against the damp, torn fabric of his jersey. I was suddenly, painfully aware of how small I was in his shadow. My notebook—the one with the frayed edges and the oil stains on the cover—flew out of my hands, the pages flutteringopen onto the muddy grass.

“Crap, I’m sorry—” I started, dropping to my knees. My heart was already hammering, that old instinct to hide my private world kicking in.

“Easy, Birdie. I got you.”

That voice. It had dropped an octave in the last three years, vibrating with a rough, low resonance that made the hair on my arms stand up.

A hand, taped at the wrist and radiating post-game heat, snagged the notebook before I could reach it. I looked up, squinting against the stadium floodlights.

Jax.

He was a mess of victory—tan skin drenched in sweat, his jersey ripped at the shoulder, eyeblack smeared across his high cheekbones. He looked like a god who had just finished a war. And he was staring down at my open notebook.

He didn’t hand it back. Instead, his gaze snagged on a detailed sketch of a Ducati Panigale engine I’d reimagined with a custom trellis frame. Next to it was a sprawling, intricate black-and-grey tattoo design—a mix of geometric lines and soft, realistic peonies.

“Damn, Birdie,” he breathed, his voice dropping so low the cheering crowd seemed to fade into white noise. “You did this?”

“It’s just... brainstorming,” I stammered, reaching for the book. My face felt hot. “Give it back, Jax. Go celebrate with the team.”

He stepped closer, his shadow completely swallowing me. He didn’t look at the scouts or the girls screaming his name from the fence. He traced the lines of the tattoo drawing with a calloused thumb.

“The shading on these flowers...” He looked up, his crystalline blue eyes searching mine, intense and unblinking. “It’s different. It’s not just mechanical. It’s... art.”

“Dad thinks it’s a waste of time,” I muttered, finally snatching the book from his hand. “He wants me focusing on the shop’s inventory and getting into collage, not ‘doodling’ on napkins.”

Jax leaned in, his chest heaving just inches from my nose. He smelled like adrenaline, grass, and that cedar-scent soap he’d used since we were kids.

“Your dad is a genius with a wrench, but he’s blind if he thinks this is just doodling,” Jax murmured. He reached out, his fingers grazing my jawline for a fraction of a second—a touch that felt like a spark under my skin. “Don’t let them hide you in the garage, Birdie. You’re too good for that.”

“Jax! Come on, man! Party’s at Bryce’s!” Ryder’s voice cut through the air, loud and booming. My brother jogged over, throwing an arm around Jax’s neck, oblivious to the heavy, charged silence he’d just broken. “Hey, squirt. You coming? Dad said he’d drop you off if you wanted to see the bonfire.”

Jax quickly spoke up. “Yeah man, I already told Birdie I’d drive her.”

Ryder looked between us, his brows furrowing as he wiped a smear of turf from his forehead. “You’re driving her? I thought you were heading to the locker room to meet the scouts.”

“Already talked to them,” Jax said, his voice smooth, never taking his eyes off mine. “I’ve got to stop by my place, grab a change of clothes and check on a few things. I can drop Birdie at the bonfire on the way. Save your dad the trip.”

Ryder shrugged, the high of the win overriding his usual ‘big brother’ radar. “Fine by me. Don’t let her talk your ear off about fuel injectors, Jax. See you there, squirt!” He ruffled my hair—nearly knocking my glasses crooked—and jogged off toward the bus, hooting with the rest of the team.

I stood there, clutching my notebook to my chest like a shield. “You don’t have to do that,” I whispered. “I can just go home with Dad. I’m not really a ‘bonfire’ person anyway.”

“I know you aren’t,” Jax said. He reached out, his hand hovering near my elbow before he settled for a gentle nudge toward the parking lot. “That’s why I’m taking you. If you go with your dad, you’ll spend the night cleaning carburetors in the garage. If you come with me... maybe you’ll actually see the stars for once.”

Jax’s truck was a sanctuary. It smelled like him—cedar, old leather, and the faint, metallic scent of the gym.

I sat in the passenger seat, feeling small and out of place in my baggy jersey and oil-stained jeans. Outside, the town was a blur of victory celebrations, but inside the cab, it was quiet. The only sound was the low hum of the engine and the rhythmic click of the turn signal.

He didn’t head toward the party. He headed toward the outskirts of town, where the houses got further apart and the trees got taller.

“You’re still sketching bikes,” he said suddenly. It wasn’t a question.

“I like the lines,” I said, looking out the window so he wouldn’t see the flush creeping up my neck. “Engines are honest. You put the pieces together right, and they do exactly what they’re supposed to do. People are... harder.”

Jax slowed the truck as we pulled into his driveway. His house was dark; his parents were out of town for the weekend. “Tattoos, though,” he said, turning off the engine. The silence that followed was heavy, vibrating with the heat still coming off his body. “Those aren’t mechanical. Those are about how someone feels.”

He turned in his seat, draping one arm over the steering wheel. The interior light stayed off, leaving us in the hazy blue shadows of the moon.

“I’ve been thinking about getting one,” he murmured. “Something on my forearm. But I haven’t seen anything I liked. Until tonight.”

My heart did a slow, heavy roll in my chest. “You liked my peony sketch?”

“I liked the way you drew it,” he corrected. He reached over, his fingers grazing the cover of my notebook. “Show me the one you were working on yesterday. The one Ryder told me you stayed up until 3:00 AM finishing.”

“He told you that?” I felt exposed.

“He told me you were obsessed,” Jax said, his voice dropping to that dangerous, gravelly register. “I want to see what someone looks like when they’re obsessed with something, Wren.”

He didn’t move his hand. He waited, his blue eyes locked onto mine, giving me the choice. He wasn’t the star quarterback right now, and I wasn’t the “little sister.” We were just two people in a dark truck, caught in a crossfire that had been building for three years.

The air in the cab of the truck felt suddenly too thick, charged with a static that made my fingers tremble as I reached for the notebook. I’d spent years perfecting these lines in the quiet of my room, hiding them from my dad’s practical eyes and my brothers’ teasing.

“Don’t laugh,” I whispered, the words barely catching in my throat.

I flipped the book open to the middle. The pages were dense with graphite—shading so deep it looked like velvet. There were cafe racers with sleek, aggressive lines and a portrait of a rider leaned so far into a turn their knee was scraping the asphalt.

Jax didn’t laugh. He leaned over the center console, his shoulder brushing mine as he studied the page. I could feel the heat radiating from him, the scent of the turf and his skin making my head swim.

“I’ve been saving every cent from the shop,” I said, my voice gaining a little strength. “By the time I’m sixteen, I’ll have enough for a used Ninja or an old CBR. I want to race, Jax. Not just ride—I want to feel that blur, that moment where everything else just stops mattering.”

I paused, biting my lip. “Dad would kill me. He thinks bikes are ‘donor cycles.’ He wants me in a Volvo with ten airbags.”

Jax let out a low, huffing laugh that vibrated in the small space. He looked up from the drawing, his blue eyes and caramel hair capturing the faint light from the streetlamp outside.

“A daredevil,” he murmured, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “You haven’t changed a bit since that oak tree, Birdie. Still looking for the highest branch, aren’t you?”

“I’m not a kid anymore, Jax,” I snapped, though there was no heat in it.

“I know you aren’t,” he said, his gaze dropping to my mouth for a fraction of a second before snapping back to my eyes. “Believe me, I know.”

A sudden gust of late-October wind rocked the truck, whistling through the window seals. I hadn’t realized how thin my hoodie was until my teeth literally chattered. A violent shiver racked my shoulders.

Jax frowned, his protective instinct kicking in faster than a blitz. “You’re freezing. Why didn’t you say something?”

“I’m fine,” I lied, hugging the notebook to my chest.

“You’re vibrating, Wren.” He reached over and killed the ignition, the sudden silence of the truck feeling heavier than the noise. “Come inside while I change. The heater’s on in the house, and I’ve got a sweatshirt you can borrow that’s actually thick enough to stop the wind.”

I hesitated, looking at the dark house. Going inside felt different than sitting in the truck. It felt... private.

“Come on,” he prompted, opening his door. The dome light clicked on, bathing us in a harsh yellow glow. He looked back at me, his hand resting on the steering wheel, his expression softening. “I won’t tell Ryder you’re a wimp about the cold if you don’t tell him I liked your ‘doodles’.”

I managed a small, shaky smile. “Deal.”

The house was silent and smelled like expensive coffee and the lingering scent of Jax’s cologne. It was a stark contrast to my house, which usually smelled like motor oil and whatever frozen pizza Ryder had burned that afternoon.

“Sit,” Jax commanded, pointing to the oversized leather sofa in the living room. “I’ll be two minutes. Don’t move.”

He disappeared down the hallway, peeling his jersey off as he went. I caught a fleeting glimpse of the broad, muscular expanse of his back—the way the light caught the definition of his spine—before I looked away, my heart doing that frantic, familiar tap-dance.

I sat on the edge of the cushions, feeling like an intruder. My notebook was still in my lap, but my eyes wandered to the photos on the mantle. Jax and Ryder, grinning after a game. Jax as a little kid.

Then, I heard the floorboards creak. He wasn’t in his room. He was standing in the doorway, but he hadn’t put a shirt on yet. He was just in his workout pants, a thick, grey hoodie draped over his arm, and his eyes weren’t on the hoodie. They were on me.

“Wren,” he said, his voice dropping into that low, dangerous register that made my stomach flip.

-Jaxen Miller-

The living room felt smaller the second he stepped back into it. Without the bulky football pads and the mud-caked jersey, Jax looked leaner, more lethal. His skin was still flushed from the game, that v shape and a faint trail of dark hair disappeared beneath the waistband of his sweats.

“Put this on,” he said, tossing the grey hoodie toward me.

I caught it, the fabric heavy and warm. As I struggled to find the head hole in the dark, oversized mass of fleece, I felt his hands suddenly replace mine. He reached out, his fingers brushing against my neck as he helped guide the thick collar over my head.

The hoodie was massive. It smelled exactly like him—like cedar and something warm, like sunshine on skin. I emerged from the fabric, my hair a mess of static, to find him standing right in front of me. He didn’t pull back.

“Better?” he asked, his voice a low vibration.

“Yeah,” I breathed, the sleeves hanging six inches past my fingertips. “Thanks.”

“Now,” he said, reaching for the coffee table where a black permanent marker was sitting next to his keys. He picked it up and held it out to me. “About that tattoo.”

I blinked. “You were serious? Right now?”

“Why not?” He sat down on the leather ottoman directly in front of me, his knees framing mine. “I want to see if you’re as good as those sketches say you are. Draw something on me, Birdie.”

My heart hammered a frantic rhythm against my ribs. “Where?”

Jax leaned back slightly, his blue eyes darkening as they locked onto mine. “Anywhere you want. Dealer’s choice.”

My breath hitched. I reached out, my fingers trembling as I took the marker. I looked at the vast, muscular canvas of his chest and shoulders. Slowly, I reached out my left hand, resting my fingertips against the curve of his shoulder to steady myself.

His skin was hot—searingly so.

I uncapped the marker with my teeth, a move that made his gaze drop to my lips for a heavy, silent beat. I started at the top of his shoulder blade, the fine tip of the marker bleeding onto his skin. I began to draw the intricate, sharp lines of a mechanical wing, transitioning into the soft, flowing petals of the peonies I loved.

The room was silent, save for the rhythmic scratch of the felt tip and our synchronized breathing. I got lost in the work. My touch grew bolder; I used the side of my hand to brace against his collarbone, feeling the steady, heavy thud of his heart beneath the bone.

“You’re very focused,” he whispered.

“Shut up,” I murmured, though there was no bite in it. “I’m trying to get the shading right.”

I moved the marker down, tracing the line where his shoulder transitioned into his pec. I used my thumb to smudge the ink slightly, creating a shadow effect. Touching him was like playing with fire; every time my skin brushed his, a jolt of electricity shot up my arm. I could feel the way his muscles jumped under my touch, the slight hitch in his breath when my fingers lingered on the sensitive skin near his sternum.

I finished the last petal right over his heart. I didn’t pull my hand away. I let my fingers rest there, tracing the edge of the drawing, the black ink stark against his tan skin.

“There,” I whispered, finally looking up.

We were so close I could feel the heat radiating off his chest. Jax wasn’t looking at the drawing. He was looking at me, his expression intense, a raw hunger in his eyes that I’d never seen before.

“Birdie,” he rasped, his hand coming up to cover mine, pinning my palm flat against his warm, thumping heart. “You have no idea what you’re doing to me, do you?”

The air in the room felt like it had been replaced by pure electricity. My palm was still pinned to his chest, and I could feel his heartbeat accelerating, matching the frantic pulse in my own throat.

Jax didn’t let go. His hand shifted, his fingers sliding up my wrist and circling it, his thumb tracing the delicate bone there. “You think I just let anyone draw on me, Wren?” he asked, his voice dropping to a gravelly whisper. “You think I’ve been checking in on your ‘doodles’ for three years just to be nice?”

I swallowed hard, my eyes fixed on the black ink I’d just laid over his skin. “I... I don’t know. You’re my brother’s best friend. You’re supposed to be nice.”

“That’s the problem,” he rasped. He leaned in, his forehead almost touching mine, forcing me to look up into the crystalline blue of his eyes. “I’m Ryder’s best friend. I’m the guy your dad trusts to look out for you. I’ve spent three years trying to convince myself that you’re just the ‘little sister.’ That I’m just being protective.”

He let out a sharp, frustrated breath that fanned across my lips. “But then you grow up. You start looking at me like that, drawing these things that show exactly how much fire you have inside you... and I can’t keep the lie straight anymore.”

My heart nearly stopped. “Jax?”

“It’s complicated, Wren. It’s messy. If Ryder knew how I was looking at you right now, he’d probably break my jaw, and I’d let him.” His hand moved from my wrist to the back of my neck, his thumb grazing the sensitive skin behind my ear. “But I’m tired of pretending I don’t want to be the one you’re riding that bike with.”

He started to lean in. It was slow, giving me every second to pull away, to run out the door, to call for my dad. But I didn’t move. I leaned forward, my breath hitching as the gap between us vanished to a mere fraction of an inch. I could feel the heat of him, the scent of cedar and ink, the promise of something that would change my world forever.

Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

The sharp, jarring vibration of his phone on the coffee table cut through the silence like a gunshot.

We both jumped, the spell shattering instantly. Jax closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against mine for one agonizing second before pulling back with a curse. He reached for the phone.

[New Text: Ryder]

’Yo, where the hell are you guys? Dad’s asking why your truck is still at your place’

Jax stared at the screen, his jaw tight enough to snap. He looked at me, then down at the wet ink on his chest—the wing and the flower I’d drawn over his heart.

“We have to go,” he said, his voice tight. He grabbed a t-shirt from the back of the couch, carefully pulling it on so he didn’t smudge the drawing, though he didn’t look away from me. “But this isn’t over, Wren. We’re going to that bonfire, and we’re going to act like nothing happened. But something did happen. You understand?”

I nodded, my voice gone, my skin still humming where he’d touched me. I followed him out to the truck, the oversized hoodie suddenly feeling like a secret I was wearing in plain sight.

-Wren-

*Your comments and interactions are much appreciated to keep the story going. Thank you!*