by Raine, Meli
Rising up on my knees, I move over him, straddling his lap, the long, hard ridge of his erection riding along my wet heat. Our pajamas separate us, my hips curling to find him. As I bend down to rub against him, the first brush makes him groan into my mouth, his tongue moving with hot need.
The kiss is bruising, his hands pulling me up against him as the friction makes me moan, too, our voices and tongues playing a dangerous game that the rest of our bodies mimic. My hips cannot stop, the long lines of round, corded muscle in his ribs a sculpture made just for my hands. The white-hot desire turns me into a primal, feral being who wants nothing more than to make him come with my body, and for him to make me shatter.
However he wants.
“This feels so good,” he murmurs, his mouth on my neck, the kisses on my earlobe making me shiver violently, then rub harder against him. If I could crawl inside him, I would. Every part of him touching me reassures me I’m alive. Every kiss is a reminder that he wants to kiss me, wants to stroke the inside of my lower lip with his tongue, wants to plunge his hand into my hair, wants me.
And every inch of my body lights up as his body moves in rhythm against mine, seeking pleasure through friction and promise, seeking more of me. The real me. The me that isn’t in pain when his tongue does that, when he rasps against my ear like that. When his hand slides up under his oversized sweatshirt and cups my full breast like that.
“Like that,” I gasp against him. The way his thumb grazes my nipple tells me he knows. He hears. He needs, just like me.
He craves.
I feel my own hot breath against his chin as he looks down at his hand on my breast. “You’re perfect. This is perfect.”
“This is either one big mistake or the greatest leap of my life,” I whisper.
“Maybe it’s both,” he says before silencing me with a kiss that makes my body curl in delight, all the way down to my toes. Our foreheads touch as he pulls back slightly, hand resting in the space above my navel, palm flat against my bare skin. “But I know it’s not a mistake for me.”
In the mad rush of my impulsive reaction I kiss him hard, the need to have him in me an awakening. I breathe to be with him. I stroke the soft skin at the nape of his neck to connect with him. I move my hips against him to have his body give mine pleasure. I am made for him. I have a purpose.
And he does, too.
“You,” he whispers, pulling my head back, fingers tangled in my damp hair. “I don’t know what this is, Jane, but before we go further, I have something to say.”
My stomach drops.
“Mmm?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Oh!” I wasn’t expecting that.
“I am. Truly. I believed the evidence, but now I’m questioning everything. My world is filled with ambiguity, but it’s a series of blurry edges backed up by stealth information. All the briefings on you pointed in the same direction: guilty. And yet all of the investigations came to the conclusion that you’d done nothing wrong.”
“I know.”
“In my line of work, if people think you did it and congressional investigations or law enforcement research shows you didn’t, that’s not proof. It just means you outsmarted the best of the best.”
“And... do you think I’m that smart?”
He smiles and looks at me with an intensely amused look he’s trying to hide. “I do.”
I sit up, breaking the intimate contact. I can’t have this conversation and have me rubbing against his erection. That’s some kind of a deal breaker.
“Which means you think–”
“I already said I was wrong, Jane. I meant it.” His chest rises and falls in a slow rhythm, then picks up with a long, deep breath. “I truly mean it. And the fact that I’m wrong indicates this is more complex than I ever imagined.”
“How so?”
“It means Drew is wrong. It means various informants are wrong. It means I hurt you.” Soulful eyes meet mine, his expression pained. “And that is the worst of it all. I’ve always prided myself on being a man of honor. Of dignity. One who treats people with the respect they deserve. You didn’t deserve how I treated you. You don’t deserve anything you’ve experienced.” He reaches for me.
I let him touch me, the instant calm in my blood a sign that being with him is better than fleeing. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do right now. All of my instincts are wrong. In the past, when someone challenged me like this, I did what I knew.
I ran.
Withdrawal is a defense mechanism. I’m a master at it. You can’t get hurt if you never let people in.
What Silas is teaching me right now, second by second, as his hands cup my jaw lovingly, eyes searching mine, is that withdrawing from someone who cares for you is a form of pain, too.
“Can you forgive me?” he asks, somber and serious.
“There’s nothing to forgive,” I assure him, rushing to quell the agitation inside.
“Yes. There is. I didn’t believe you. I do now. You don’t have to forgive me. I’m asking for it, though, to show you I acknowledge what I did to you.”
“Thank you.” I take my finger and trace his eyebrows. Dark like his hair, they arc along the bones of his eye sockets, the trail down to his cheekbone surprisingly soft. His stubble is light, so he shaved this morning, but it peeks out, a reminder of how different my own body is from his. Sunlight plays on his face as I make my way down to his lips.
Unmoving, he lets me explore.
I climb into his lap again, this time moving slowly. If I was burning before, now I’m smoldering, his confession and request for absolution making me dizzy. The implications of such a heartfelt admission are infinite.
A man who is so open and so remorseful is one you can give your dearest possessions to, who will protect and honor them.
A man like Silas is one you love for all eternity.
We’ve moved out of the realm of attraction and into a state quite different. Bodies demand connection, but so do souls.
“I forgive you, Silas,” I rasp, the words coming out like a whimper. “But you’re giving me a more precious gift.”
He tilts his head, eyes curious. “What’s that?”
“You’re making it very hard for me not to forgive myself.”
“Forgive yourself for what?”
“For letting the world beat me down.”
“First of all, why in hell would you ever do that? And second, forgiving yourself should come before forgiving me. I withdraw my request for forgiveness. You have to forgive yourself first, Jane.”
I let out a small laugh and stroke the edge of his cheekbone, down to his jaw. “I’ve never done this before,” I confess, breath shaking, body relaxing into his.
“Forgiven yourself?”
“Fallen.”
“Fallen?”
“Like this.” He makes it so easy, my bones trusting him, my body knowing what my mind hasn’t quite accepted. As his palms anchor me to him, wrapped along the contours of my curves, I find a peace in our kiss, a rising warmth that turns what was just sexual into an intimacy that fills me with a deep calm.
His mouth tells me how much he wants me, but those words–oh, how they soothe the damaged pieces inside, the parts that broke a long time ago and were left to remain fractured, unhealed. Silas moves against me with unfettered want, his openness turning our rawness into a spiral that climbs heavenward. I’m not wearing a bra. When he cups my breast again and whispers, “Every part of you is beautiful,” I trust even more.
His mouth, eager and pliant, takes charge as his kiss grows more demanding. I moan against him, our bodies tensing as coiled ecstasy waits to be unleashed.
The drawstring of my pants is easy to open, and soon Silas’s calloused hand is on my ass, squeezing with a possession that thrills me to the core. My pulse throbs hard and heavy between my legs. This isn’t enough.
I want him naked and over me, thrusting into me. I want him to trust me enough to show me his stripped self, the o
ne we have in private, alone, but never show the world. I want to see it all, every shred, and when he’s done showing me and has to put on his mask to go out into the world and pretend he’s never that wild, that raw, that vulnerable, I want him to come back to me and do it all over again.
I want to be his confessor, his lover, his confidante, his–
Tap tap tap.
“Jesus!” Silas hisses as I startle so badly, I fall backwards, his agile hands saving me from a terrible head bump on the coffee table. The knock at the door is unexpected and most unwelcome.
Silas’s phone buzzes.
He stands up, reaching down into his pajama pants to not-so-discreetly adjust himself. Winking at me, he squares his shoulders, turns away, and faces the door. Grabbing his phone, he reads it as he walks to the door, opening it quickly.
It’s Duff.
Holding a duffle bag.
“Jane’s clothes,” he says, walking in and giving me a polite nod as I try to look like I wasn’t just humping Silas. It’s harder than you’d think.
“Took you long enough,” Silas mutters.
“Wasn’t me. Pranin back at the main office said there was a mix-up.”
“Don’t let it happen again.” Silas looks back at me, the glance so short, it’s microscopic.
Silas starts to gesture for Duff to leave, but the man stays put.
“Drew wants me to brief you on some cases.” His eyes cut to me, then back to Silas. “Including this one.”
“I’m right here,” I call out. “You can say it in front of me.”
“No, Jane. I can’t.” Duff’s reply is like a stab through the heart.
“Fine,” I huff, leaving the room and heading into...
Silas’s bedroom.
I spin on my bare foot and return, angry and aroused and a boiling mixture of too many feelings combined with all these tiny cuts from the glass scratches earlier. I can’t stop the flickering memories of a few hours ago, the blood, the guns, the crack of ammo. I touch my bruised cheek.
“Where am I supposed to go?” I ask Silas through clenched teeth. If I bite any harder, I’ll chip a tooth.
“You can hang out in my bedroom and wait.”
Even Duff reacts to that, and not in a kindly way, eyebrows high, the scar by his eye twisting his smirk into a menacing grimace.
Silas turns a deep shade of red and refuses to look at anyone. “Hallway,” he snaps at Duff.
When the front door closes, I scurry back into his bedroom. The clothes Duff gave me include pajamas, pink flannel, and soft white cotton for the top, a t-shirt that is a little too tight but it’s comfortable. I change quickly, my skin on fire from all the cuts and from Silas’s touch.
Peeling back the tightly made bed, the cover soft and smooth, I slide between the sheets and fume.
As blood pounds through me, slowing down with time, my limbs try to let go of the day. We cling to ideas and expectations, minds unable to release, but the body is last to learn anything. It’s the final station in the long cargo train that delivers all our parts to the locations where they belong. Emotions and thoughts, ideas and beliefs, all get transported to way stations and final destinations, settling into fiber and flesh.
Some go dormant.
Others never rest.
But eventually I do, the weight of the world letting go in my dreams, leaving me on my side in a bed that smells like Silas’s cologne and soap, the sheets sending messages my brain will have to interpret as I stand down and give in.
I can trust sleep.
Then again, I don’t have a choice.
Chapter 8
The first conscious moment I’m aware he’s in bed with me comes as I slide my palm against his flat stomach, the layered grooves of his abs bringing me out of slumber. He’s so warm, the skin unlike mine, a line of hair in the middle of my hand thickening as I move my hand down. It’s warm, hotter as I hit a line of fabric, then brush against something hard and unyielding.
He makes a low sound in his throat. My nose grazes his shoulder. I sigh, the long sound of coming to, the luxurious, slow exhale of post-sleep awakening. My arm is around Silas’s waist. He’s on his side, turned away from me, and here I am, feeling his bare skin in my sleep.
“Oh!” I say and begin to retreat.
His hand clamps over my wrist. “No. Don’t stop.”
“But I–”
“Jane,” he says roughly, “please don’t stop.”
His voice holds a richness, his breath coming quickly. A ragged sigh emerges as I make a wordless sound to tell him yes, I’ll continue. Yes, I want to touch him. Yes, I want to see the center of his heat.
And yes, I want that heat in me.
“I didn’t mean to touch you in your sleep.”
“I wasn’t asleep.”
“I was.”
“I know. And the fact that you reach out to me even when you aren’t aware of it is enchanting,” he whispers as he turns over, my arm now around his back. Silas kisses me until I am very, very much alert.
My hand runs down the long, hard lines of his back to his ass, the coiled power in his legs so strong. He moves toward me, pressing with a mix of urgency and patience. Nothing holds us back now but ourselves. No interruptions, no killers, no meetings, no constant vigilance. For now, we’re a man and a woman who want to be stripped bare and to enter into each other’s bodies to create a new space.
A refuge.
A haven.
My pajama shirt rides up as Silas blankets my body with his, the tickle of his chest and torso a warm rush of pleasure. He’s kissing me with abandon, taking his time, the attention feeding some part of me that needs to be treated like this. We sink into the bed, my back arching, breasts pressed against the thick heat of him.
“If this is too much,” he says as he ends the kiss, breathing hard against my cheek, “say the word.”
“It’s not that it’s too much,” I gasp. “It’s not enough.”
“I know exactly how you feel,” he replies, his mouth heavy against my lightness. Silas grounds me before I can float away, his tongue so delicious, the delightful play between our lips a choreographed layer of emotion running in tandem with our hands.
You would think that passion would take me out of my anxious mind. You would be wrong. As Silas explores me, all of my looping increases, the frantic thoughts barraging me like gunfire on an open range. I want to stop thinking about my life. I want to get rid of the horrific images of the last few days. I want to stop the voices that tell me I’m unworthy.
I want to give in to what he offers me.
I want to just give.
We do not choose to remain distracted by our crazy minds even in the face of extraordinary pleasure. Silas’s hands and mouth tell me where I need to let myself wander. Oh, how I want to. Oh, how I wish it were so simple.
Our minds choose what they choose, free range and autonomous, the subconscious nothing more than abstract art at work, smearing emotions like paint. We see what is shaped by experience. No two people can share the same thought, the same reaction, the same process.
All we can share is bodies. Space. Touch. Time.
My skin reacts, gooseflesh rippling like a roaring river, my nipples turning to whitewater peaks, body swelling with the overflow of melting abundance that comes with a thaw. This feels so good.
He makes me feel so good.
But the world wants me to feel bad about myself. It’s the only way I’m allowed to function. And when thousands–millions–of voices are telling you one thing, it’s impossible to let his hands say another.
“What’s wrong, Jane?” He stops abruptly, so fast, it makes me jerk, like he’s slammed on the brakes of a car.
“Nothing,” I whisper, suddenly self-conscious, hating that he’s noticed something.
“You seem scared. I don’t want you to be afraid. We can stop anytime.”
“No,” I say, only it comes out more like a moan than a word. “I’m not scared.”
&n
bsp; “You’re shaking.”
“That’s not from fear. I’m shaking from excitement.” Every time he touches me, I’m renewed. Silas is here because he wants to be. He wants to reach down and strip off his shirt. He wants to grind his hips against mine as his thigh parts my legs. He wants to move against me like he’s trying to find his way in through every inch of my skin.
He wants me to stroke him over his pajama pants until he makes a hushed, choking sound that turns to a rush, a grunt, a growl filled with sex and lust.
He wants me.
And I want him right back.
Before he can hesitate, I reach between us and slip his pajama pants down until the hot cotton of his boxers cools with my breach. He’s hard, the long thickness of him centered against his lower abs. Moving on his side against the back of the bed, he does something I never expected.
He opens himself up to me.
While I am technically still a virgin, I’ve messed around enough to know how the preliminaries work, and Silas is using a different playbook from any other guy I’ve been with. Men don’t stretch out, casual and open, like this. Foreplay and sex play is frantic, fevered, done in darkness while half drunk.
Not out in the open, lights on, eyes locked.
His gaze pins me in place. He wants to own me. We’re about to take all the time we need to get to know each other’s bodies.
Confidence and a determined attitude that how this all rolls out is natural. Special.
Ours.
It’s ours, only ours, and just like that, with an intense look and a smile of genuine pleasure welcoming me into his world, Silas clears me. The rest of the never-ending chatter in my mind floats off like dust on the wind. I move against him and kiss him with an earnestness that makes our lips so sweet, the stroke of his hands against my bare back so perfect. None of the rest of the voices in society are here. This is not their place. They do not deserve access to me 24/7.