“I love the way you hold on to me.”
“Let me hear you.”
“You never have to be afraid with me here.”
That one nearly breaks me.
Pulling him down harder, I kiss him like I need his mouth to survive it. He answers with a deeper thrust that makes my whole body arch as he groans against my lips. His hand at my thigh slides higher, opening me more, the next stroke landing so deep I can only cling and shake beneath him.
“There,” he says softly, feeling it. “There you are.”
The room has narrowed to his breathing, his mouth, the warmth of his skin, the slow relentless pleasure building hot inside me. His movements grow a shade rougher, not hard, not careless, just less restrained, like he cannot help chasing the way I respond. The bed creaks quietly under us. The sheet twists around my calves. He keeps one leg trapped over his hip, thrusting into me with the kind of focus that makes every motion feel purposeful.
Sliding my hand between us, needing more, he catches my wrist gently.
“Let me,” he murmurs.
His fingers replace mine. The pressure is perfect. Crying out softly, his eyes darken with something so tender it nearly undoes me.
“There she is,” he says, almost smiling. “My sweet girl.”
My body tightens around him, the pleasure sharpening fast now.
“You can let go,” he whispers. “I’ve got you. Cum for me, baby.”
The end of it is not a snap but a slow gathering wave, drawn out by his pace, by his mouth moving over mine, by the steady pressure of his hand and the way he keeps telling me how good Iam like he means every syllable. When I finally break, it happens with his name in my mouth and tears pricking hot at the corners of my eyes for no reason except that it is all too much and exactly what I need.
He kisses those away before they can fall.
When I shudder through it, he buries his face against my neck, following not long after, thrusts turning erratic for only a few seconds before he stills deep inside me with a groan so low it sounds pulled from somewhere ancient. His whole body shakes with it. One hand grips my thigh hard enough to bruise. The other cradles the back of my head, holding me like something precious while he comes apart.
Then everything softens.
He lowers us carefully, still inside me, until all his weight settles in a way that feels safe instead of heavy. His lips brush my shoulder. My jaw. The corner of my mouth.
Neither of us says anything for a while.
We just breathe together, tangled in sheets and dim light, his hand stroking absently up and down my thigh where he held me open for him, my fingers tracing the line of his spine beneath his shirt.
And all I can think, with my chest still pressed to his and the taste of him still on my mouth, is that this is what it means to be wanted without being consumed, to be held without being caged, to be loved by someone who knows exactly how dangerous he can be and still chooses tenderness when he touches me.
CHAPTER 38
Silas
The suit feels like something borrowed from a life that was never supposed to fit me.
Not because it looks wrong. Worse than that, it looks right enough to be unsettling. Jacob’s tailor clearly knows his job. The jacket sits clean across my shoulders. The watch on my wrist makes me look polished instead of dangerous. Even the shoes are too quiet on the hardwood, too expensive, too decent. Every piece of it turns me into something easier to place in a house like this, which only makes the whole thing feel more unreal.
At the bottom of the staircase, I check the time again.
Cheyenne and Maria are supposed to be here soon. The plan is simple on paper. Let the girls pile into the car, drive them to Spokehaven’s formal, stay with them because Jacob decided that if I’m going to escort three girls to a school event, I should look like I belong there instead of like the driver they hired last minute. Somewhere between dinner and now, that suggestion turned into one of his suits draped over my arm and a look that made it clear refusing would only make him more insistent.
So here I am.
Dressed like a man I’ve never been.
Waiting beneath a staircase that keeps drawing my eyes upward even though I know she still hasn’t come down.
