“Silver… please.” She turns to me, eyes wide and imploring. “Just tonight. Please let me stay with you. I can’t be in that house. Not right now.”
I should sayno. That would be the right thing to do. The sensible thing to do.
What I should do if there’s any hope of maintaining boundaries between us and drawing a clear line in the sand.
But glancing over at her bouncing knee and sad brown eyes, I know I can’t bring myself to.
And if I’m honest—really honest—I don’t want to. I want to be around her as much as she wants to be around me. It’s quickly become a fixation of mine, craving her company and presence and wanting nothing more than to keep her safe.
Make her smile again. Make her understand I’m here for her.
Always.
“Alright,” I drawl. “But just tonight.”
She nods, some of the tension leaving her shoulders. We drive the rest of the way in comfortable silence, both pretending this is only about her needing comfort.
Both knowing it’s become much more than that…
Back at my house, we’re both covered in grave dirt, smelling like Texas earth and death. The routine act of showering feels strange and surreal, finally sinking in what happened and how we got here.
“Guest bathroom’s down the hall,” I say, inclining my head in the left direction. “Towels in the cabinet.”
She nods, then disappears down the hallway. The door to the guest bathroom snicks shut, the water pipes groaning as faucets are turned.
I force myself to head to my own bathroom inside my bedroom.
The hot water scalds my shoulders, and I relish the burn, watching brown dirt swirl down the drain. Steam fills the glass enclosure, thick and hazy, while my mind wanders where it never should.
Solana’s right down that hall. No more than about twenty, maybe thirty feet away. Naked under the spray like I am, water sluicing over her brown skin, running in rivulets between her breasts, down the valley of her stomach.
My head fills with this kind of explicit imagery—how she’d tilt her head back, exposing her slim, delicate throat, and how the water would bead on her chest and shoulders. Her handswould glide over her body, washing away the evidence of tonight, soap suds sliding over curves I’ve tried not to notice but can’t stop seeing every time I close my eyes.
My cock hardens almost painfully, reminding me how long it’s been. Throbbing with its demands as I fight off the most sinful of temptations.
I slam my palm against the tile, disgusted with myself. She’s gone through hell, and here I am with a hard-on like some fucking teenage boy who can’t control himself.
…but fuck.
I can’t help it.
This attraction goes beyond physical. It’s strong enough to drive me insane. That much is obvious.
It’s the way she peers at me like I’m her salvation. The way she trusts me so completely. How she fits against me, and how good it feels to give her what she needs. But also what she does for me—she fills the empty space I’d resigned myself to living with.
She sees me in a way no one else does. In her eyes, I’m more than the vice prez of the Steel Kings. More than some outlaw or divorced father who’s effort’s never good enough (according to Rachel).
She sees me for the man I am deep down.
Mentally, emotionally, physically—she’s gotten into every part of me, and I can’t dig her out no matter how hard I try.
I crank the water to cold, letting it shock my system, willing my erection to go down.
When I’ve calmed myself down enough, I shut off the water and roughly towel off like I can scrub away these wrong thoughts.
After pulling on gray sweatpants and nothing else, I open the door to re-enter my bedroom. Then I stop dead realizing I’m not alone.
Solana’s at my dresser, clutching one of my bath towels to her body, the terry cloth barely covering her from chest to mid-thigh. She jumps and squeaks at the realization the bathroom door’s opened and drops the basketball shorts in hand.
