I’m burning with questions.What is The Silent? Who are the Disposals? What the fuck is House Harrington?And yet I don’t ask a single one, because somehow, I just know he won’t tell me anyway.
No…
I’m going to have to figure the answers out myself.
Carefully.
He merges onto the street, never going more than two miles over the limit. Even now, he’s calculating which traffic cams are live, which side streets have better escape routes, which lights are timed for speed.
The silence stretches. I need some kind of noise, but I get the sense that Briar needs silence to think. Instead, I sink intothe seat, every bruise and muscle still humming with last night’s lesson. My cock twitches at the memory, and I want him to destroy me again.
I’d never felt so alive.
I glance over, study the lines of his face in the dashboard glow. He looks… different. Less predatory, more human, maybe even tired.
I want to touch him, to see if he’s real. Instead, I grip the bag between my feet and watch the city fall away.
The farther we drive, the emptier the world becomes. High rises give way to warehouses, then to cheap motels and strip malls, then nothing but freeway and black sky. We don’t see another car for miles. He stays in the right lane, steady, always five under the speed limit.
At some point, I realize we’re headed west, toward the water.
He doesn’t explain. He doesn’t need to.
My mind goes back to the look in his eyes as he told me to get dressed. Not cold, not hot—just… empty. Like something in him had gone away, and all that’s left is duty.
I don’t know what to do with that. I don’t know if I want to fix it, or if I’m just scared of what he’ll become when it comes back.
A mile marker flashes by. I lose count after ten. I let the motion of the car lull me, every bump and swerve a reminder that I’m not dead, not yet.
When the city is just a smear of light on the horizon, he finally speaks.
“Are you afraid? You don’t have to be,” he says, eyes never leaving the road. “Not of me, anyway.”
I want to believe him, but the memory of his hand at my throat, his cock splitting me open, is too fresh. I’m scared of everything, including myself.
“What about the people after us?”
He laughs, but it’s hollow. “Them? Always be afraid of them.”
I nod, not sure what else to say.
We ride in silence until the skyline is gone, swallowed by fog and empty space. I rest my head against the glass and let my eyes close, just for a second.
I dream of his hand in my hair, his voice in my ear, the sting of leather on my skin. I dream of the way he made me beg, and the way he held me after, gentle and unhurried, like I was something precious.
I wake to the sound of the engine shutting off, and the feel of his hand on my shoulder.
“We’re here,” he says.
I open my eyes.
We’re in the driveway of a house I don’t recognize, set back from the road, hidden behind a wall of pines. The air outside is silent, no city noise, no headlights but our own.
“Where is here?”
“Outskirts of Pineridge Resort. Friend owns it. We can stay here for a day at most before heading to my place. It’s too long a drive to do in one shot.”
He opens my door, waits for me to get out. His hand is steady on my back as we walk up the path, boots crunching on frostbitten gravel.
