Then the knock comes again, heavier this time.
“Octavia?”
Relief and panic hit at once.
Silas’s mouth twitches. Not a smile exactly. More the ghost of one, as if he can’t quite process the absurdity of this, his body pressed naked against mine in the shower, my legs still shaky, and my mother standing three feet away on the other side of the door.
“Just me, Mom,” I call.
I’m proud of how steady I sound because I am anything but steady.
I can feel him react to the lie. The barely contained laugh in his chest. The hot drag of him shifting once against my stomach as though even now, even interrupted, he cannot stop touching me completely.
“Is Silas asleep?”
My heart nearly stops.
“Yes, Mom,” I say quickly. “Leave him be.”
That does it.
Silas smirks, slow and wicked, forehead resting briefly against mine under the spray. His eyes are dark with amusement, with want, with the kind of dangerous tenderness I don’t know what to do with. The expression says he’s fully aware of the lie I just handed him. Fully aware of what it means that I said it so fast.
Outside the bathroom, my mother sighs. “We just wanted to let you know we’re home. Your father and I are going to bed.”
“Okay,” I answer, softer now.
A pause. Then footsteps retreat down the hall.
We don’t move until the floorboards stop creaking.
The second the house settles back into quiet, Silas and I look at each other and laugh, silently at first, shoulders shaking, mouths pressed shut to keep the sound in. Mine breaks first into a breathless, disbelieving huff. His follows, more exhale than laughter, but it loosens something in the room all the same.
The tension doesn’t vanish.
It changes.
It becomes somehow more intimate in the aftermath of almost being discovered, of having to lie while he stood there hard and dripping against me.
“I should sneak back to my room,” I whisper.
The words sound thin compared to everything my body actually wants.
Silas’s expression shifts again at that. The humor fades, leaving something quieter. He leans in, pressing a kiss to my forehead, the softness of it nearly ruining me. Water runs down over his lashes, over his bruised cheekbone, over the line of his throat. His lips linger at my skin just long enough to make my chest ache.
“And Kadin?” I ask, voice barely above the spray. “What do we even do with that now?”
I’m fully aware, as I say it, that his cock is still rubbing slowly, helplessly against me every time either of us breathes. The intimacy of the question and the blunt, undeniable heat of his body feel almost cruel side by side.
His jaw tightens.
“If anyone finds out I touched you,” he says quietly, “they’ll send me back to St. Augustine.”
The words settle heavy between us.
“Or worse,” I whisper.
His eyes lift to mine. There’s no dramatics in his face. No exaggeration. Just hard truth.
