My breath shifts just a fraction. His question isn’t about the flicking of one’s eyelids... It’s about second-guessing. Or not.
“No,” I drawl. “Should I?”
He’s only a few feet away, close enough that I can smell his cologne, clean and crisp. Something darker underneath.
“You’re not afraid,” he continues. “Not of me or of them. Not even of the situations you’ve been put in. And I want to know why.”
I frown. “Is that a problem?”
His mouth curves into a barely there smile. “It’s a complication.”
I stand, my motions as unhurried as his. Silas tracks every inch of me, but he stops at the hem of the boxer briefs I’m wearing as shorts. They ride up my thighs, and I don’t fix it.
“I’m not your problem to solve,” I remind him. “Just because I’m not reacting the way you expect doesn’t mean I’m broken.”
“No,” he agrees. “You’re my variable.”
There’s a split second where I want to bristle, but heat curls low in my stomach as I accept it as a compliment.
“You don’t like unpredictability,” I accuse lightly, a grin playing at my lips.
“I don’t like being unprepared.”
“And yet, you let me walk into your life and rearrange it.”
He gives a quick, humorless laugh. “You didn’t walk in.”
“Oh?”
“You detonated.”
The word hums beneath my skin.
I’m close enough now that I have to tilt my chin up to meet his gaze. He doesn’t touch me, but he doesn’t need to. The space between us feels compressed and electric.
“What happens now?” I inquire softly.
“Now,” Silas says, studying my face like he’s memorizing it under the threat of loss. “You decide whether this ends with more honesty… or escalation.”
“And what do you want?”
“I want you to stop pretending you don’t already know what you’re capable of.” His voice drops to something coaxing, a lure trying to pull me under. “I see the act, but I don’t know what you’re hiding yet.”
Something fierce and pleasing twists through me as a fraction of my mask breaks away.
“And if Idodrop the act?”
His hand comes up then, tucking a lost tendril of hair behind my ear without brushing against my skin. It’s a cage without contact. A promise that doesn’t care for permission.
“Then…” He drags the word out, expression dark and gaze unwavering. “You’re going to realize you’re not the only dangerous thing in this room.”
The silence stretches into a heavy pause; the truth crackling between us like a live wire whipping across the concrete floor. It’s a wildly intimate moment.
Alive.
“Good,” I comment, smiling at him as I drop back to my seat on the couch, breaking the spell before I try to climb him. “I was hoping you’d keep up.”
Silas crosses the space between us in two quiet steps. I tip my chin, giving him a questioning glance, but he scoops me up as he sits down, placing me across his lap.
