by Wolf,Terra
I stepped around Silas and headed straight for the delivery guy to pay for my salad. I rummaged through my purse for my wallet, noticing when Silas left the salon. A deep breath expelled from my lungs. While my hormones thought turning him down wasn’t the right thing to do, my brain definitely thought it was.
“How much do I owe you?” I asked the teenage boy holding my lunch.
“$11.57.”
I handed him a twenty. “Keep the change.”
“Thanks. Have a good day.” He passed me my bag before heading out the door.
I could feel Camille’s eyes on me as I made my way to my station to eat. It was obvious she had heard the entire exchange between me and Silas.
“You’ve got to be outta your damn mind, girl. Why on earth would you turn that man down?”
“I just got out of a really bad relationship, and I’m not looking to step into anything new.” It wasn’t a total lie; this was exactly what I told myself on the way here. Stepping into something new was not what I’d been looking for.
“Maybe you hadn’t been looking for it, but it found you.” Camille set her purse on the counter and dug out a jar of peanut butter. “Do you know how many women in this town would love to start something up with that man? Heck, do you know how many women in this town have tried to start something up with that man?”
I knew she was probably right, but I couldn’t get over what I’d witnessed or what he said he was. I speared a cucumber with my fork, debating whether I should say anything to her about it. I promised Silas I wouldn’t tell anyone, but this was a hard secret to keep.
I locked eyes with Camille. “Tell me what you know about him.”
As if she could sense something from the way I asked the question, her facial features softened and I thought I spotted suspicion in her stare. “I don’t know much. He hasn’t lived in town very long. Is there something specific you’d like to know?”
“Is he a good guy?” I wanted to ask if he was the type of guy who wouldn’t resort to murder unless he had a damn good reason, but I didn’t.
“Of course he’s a good guy. He’s sweet and charming. A little reserved at times, but he’s in great shape and has never said a bad word to me.”
I picked at my salad, mulling over what she said.
“You should give him a shot. Silas is a great guy, and I think the two of you would be perfect together,” Camille said, surprising me. “Besides, the chemistry between you two is off the charts.”
I opened my mouth to say something in response, but she cut me off before I could.
“Don’t even try to deny it. I could feel the chemistry sizzling all the way over here.”
I laughed, because it was all I could do. The chemistry between us was off the charts.
Chapter 16
Silas
As I neared my house, I noticed Violet sitting on the front steps of her porch. She appeared lost in thought, but then again, she could’ve locked herself out. I pulled into my driveway and cut the engine. When I climbed out and glanced over at her, she shifted into a standing position and crammed her hands into her back pockets.
“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, everything’s fine.” She nodded her head. “I’ve just been thinking about your offer all day.” Her blue eyes met with mine, and I felt a jolt of want surge through me.
“You have?”
“Yeah.” She shrugged.
“Wanting to change your answer?”
“I have a few questions first.” She made her way down her steps to where I stood. “What happened to the woman?”
I should have known that would be the first question out of her mouth. My gaze drifted back to my place and I searched the driveway for my sister’s car, double checking she wasn’t home. “Can we talk about this inside?” There were too many ears out here, and not of the human variety.
“Umm.”
“I won’t hurt you. I promise.” I held my hands out in front of me, realizing how my words could have been taken. I wanted to seem as non-threatening as possible. “I think this is a conversation to have while sitting. Don’t you?”
“I guess you’re right.” She flashed a small smile as she started toward my place.
I jogged up the steps and let us inside before she could change her mind. “Can I get you anything to drink?”
“No. I just want to know what happened to the woman. Is she really dead?”
I scratched my neck. “Yes.” There was no easy way to put it, although I wished there was.
“I’ve been reading the paper and haven’t seen an obituary or a report of a missing woman.” Her entire body trembled as she spoke and I knew it was because she was afraid to be around me. I could see it in her eyes. The sight gutted me. The only trembling I wanted her body to do was after I’d pleasured her in the best of ways, repeatedly. “And you’re here, so I know you didn’t turn yourself in for anything.”
“I told you, the issue is one of the supernatural variety. It isn’t one for humans.”
“I don’t know what that means, though, that you can kill and there’ll be no justice?”
“I can see how things would seem that way.”
“Explain it to me,” she insisted. “How did you know her? Why was she here to kill you?”
“Well…” I itched my eyebrow, unsure of where to start. “Vanessa and I had a history. We were together for a while.”
Her eyes widened. “Is she your ex?”
“Yes.”
My reply seemed as though it stung her. “Did you love her?”
“I thought I did,” I answered honestly.
“Then how could you possibly kill her?”
“She was a threat to me and my family. Vanessa was a hunter. Her kind kill mine. It’s what they’re born to do.”
“How were the two of you together then? What happened?” Her eyebrows pinched together.
“I didn’t know what she was.”
“How could you not know what she was? Isn’t it something you two would have felt?”
“I loved her, so I was blind to it. I should have known, but didn’t. Not until she witnessed me change. She tried to kill me then, but I fled. I’ve been running from her ever since. When we found this place, I decided we wouldn’t run any more. My friend Batch has been tracking Vanessa for almost a year as she searched for us. He lost her and tried to contact me the night we had coffee together.”
“That was who the calls and text messages were from, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
It was a while before either of us spoke again. She was soaking in everything I’d said and I was drowning in old memories.
“Was it difficult?” She didn’t need to clarify—I knew what she was asking.
I lifted my gaze to meet with hers and let all the sincerity in my response radiate from me. “No, because I was afraid she would hurt you, or worse.”
Violet blinked. “But you loved her.”
“Once upon a time, yes.” It was an honest answer. There had been times when I thought I’d loved her, but since Violet had stepped into my life I knew what I felt for Vanessa hadn’t been love. It didn’t compare to what I felt for Violet in the short amount of time she’d been in my life.
I started forward, erasing the inches between us with one goal in mind. There was something kindling between us and I wanted to continue igniting it. I didn’t want Violet to be afraid of me—of what I was and what I’d done. I wanted her to feel safe with me, to feel loved by me, because I could sense it had been a while since she’d felt either from a man.
The area between her brows puckered. “So, what you’re saying is that you killed her because of me?”
She wasn’t afraid of my answer. I could hear it in her voice. Her anxiety melted away as it shifted to something I could relate to. I reached out to smooth my fingertips against her hips and pulled her closer. Her breath hitched in her throat. The sound of it sent a jolt straight to my cock, making me want her even more.
“Yes and no.” My words slipped past my lips in the form of a low growl I couldn’t control. The dragon inside me was responding to the sticky, heated passion that saturated the air around us.
Violet’s eyes widened and I knew her panic was rising to the surface again, erasing what I was trying to ignite. Unwilling to let it happen, I brushed my lips against hers.
“Don’t be afraid of me. I wouldn’t hurt you. Ever,” I said between strokes of my tongue gliding along her bottom lip, begging for entrance. I wanted nothing more than for her to allow me to deepen this kiss.
Her hands wrapped around my neck as she pressed her chest against mine and looked directly into my eyes. “I think I know.” Her mouth slanted across mine as her fingers intertwined themselves in the hair along the base of my neck.
I ran with the little bit of freedom she’d given me, and thrust my tongue deeper into her mouth. Hunger flared within me. It had been too long since I’d tasted her. I burrowed past her lips, possessing her mouth in a way I had no other. Violet was special, I could feel it. Being with her was meant to be. I could feel my dragon uncoiling inside me as it pulsed to life with the energy created between the two of us. Something was happening, and I thought I knew exactly what it was—I’d found my mate.
And now, my dragon was about to claim her.
Chapter 17
Violet
I let out a deep sigh of pleasure at the feeling of Silas’s hands roaming my body. His lips trailed kisses along my neck as he groped my right breast through my tank top. I could feel his stony hardness pressing against my upper thigh as I unintentionally ground against him. The sudden urge to take him into my mouth flitted through me. I wanted to make him feel the same heady blissfulness he always seemed to cause in me. Never had I wanted to do something like that to Jackson voluntarily. It had always felt like a chore I dreaded, akin to something like folding laundry or washing the dishes.
With Silas, it was different. I wanted to give back. Or maybe it was because the idea of rendering him helpless against my tongue and lips as I brought him pleasure only I could control turned me on more than I ever thought it could.
Silas took my face between his hands and forced me to look at him. “If we don’t stop now, I don’t know that I’ll be able to. You have to tell me what you want.”
What I wanted was for him to rip all my clothes off and bend me over the couch while he pounded me from behind, giving me the best orgasm I’d ever felt in my life. But what I said was, “Don’t stop. I don’t want to stop.”
His pupils dilated, causing the golden color of his eyes to darken. “Are you sure?”
“I’m positive,” I breathed, realizing how true my words actually were. I wanted him to take me. I was his. “I’m yours.”
A wicked grin twisted onto Silas’s face. “Damn right you are.”
Those words coming from anyone else would have sent alarm bells ringing through my body, forcing me to back away and retreat from the situation, but because it was Silas, they only intensified what I was feeling.
His hard cock pressed against me and I reached between our bodies to rub the bulge in his slacks. The desire to touch it, hold it, put it in my mouth was nearly overwhelming. A hiss escaped his lips as he rolled his head back and closed his eyes. Wetness coated my panties. It was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen. His fingertips dug into my hips as he fused me against his body. I wanted more. I wanted him inside me.
As though he could read my mind, he cupped my ass and hoisted me up so that I was forced to wrap my legs around him. Carrying me as if I weighed nothing, he started up the wooden stairs behind us toward what was sure to be his bedroom. He moved fast. Soon we were falling into his bed. He maneuvered me until I was lined up beneath him so that he could grind his erection against my pulsing center while he continued to kiss me.
I pulled at the edges of his shirt, ready to feel more of him against me. He tugged at the neckline and pulled it off in a swift movement, revealing all of his muscular glory. I pressed my lips to his chest, working my way toward one of his hard-budded nipples as I allowed my hands free range along the smooth, hard planes of his back. When I reached his nipple, I gently bit down. It was something I’d never done before, something I’d never even thought of, but with Silas, I felt brave enough to try new things. He moaned and I reached for the button on his slacks, eager to feel him in my hands. The second I undid them, he grabbed my wrists, freezing my hands in place. Before lifting my gaze to meet with his, I twisted my face into a mischievous look, one that I hoped he’d think of as sexy and be hard-pressed to resist.
“No. I’m going to please you first.” The authority in his voice caused even more wetness to pool between my thighs. “Lay down.”
I did as he said. Silas released my wrists and jerked at the button on my jeans. In one swift movement, he had them bunched around my ankles, and during the next, they were being tossed onto the floor. He touched me through my panties, pressing their wetness flush against my skin.
“You’re so wet,” he growled as he continued to caress me between my thighs while staring down at me. “So fucking wet.”
I hooked my thumbs into the waistband of my panties, unable to handle anymore playing or teasing. I needed to feel him. I needed to feel all of him. “Touch me. Fuck me. Just do something.” Never in my life had I begged a man the way I was begging him right now. I couldn’t help myself, though. I felt like I was about to go insane.
“First, let me taste you.” He eased my panties off before burying his dark head between my thighs.
Skillfully, he alternated between lapping away at my slickness and tunneling his tongue inside my wet heat. My fingers entwined within his hair as my breathing grew heavier. Sensations of pleasure rippled through me. My climax was building already. I could feel it tightening the muscles of my core.
“Yes!” I shouted without fear of embarrassment. “Put something inside me. Please,” I begged.
Silas didn’t object. Instead, he sealed his mouth over my pulsing clit and inserted his fingers inside me to thrust against a sweet spot I hadn’t known existed. My body tensed as I came to the cusp of an earth-shattering climax. Somehow able to sense this, Silas increased the thrusting of his fingers and the lapping of his tongue. I cried out as my back arched off the bed and my hips ground against his face so I could better ride the waves of pleasure cascading over me during my release. He didn’t ease up in his blissful workings until every bit of pleasure had been extracted from me, not until I was lying there beneath him, boneless, with my mind trapped in a heady state of ecstasy.
He licked along my center one final time, causing me to arch my back and wiggle against the sensation, before he lifted himself away from me.
“I can’t get enough of you.” His warm breath floated over my skin, hardening my nipples.
I didn’t speak. Instead, I grabbed the length of him and stroked. He inched forward as a moan fell from his perfect mouth.
“Oh, damn that feels good,” he hissed.
I pressed the tip of his erection to my center, wanting nothing more than to feel him inside me. My hips lifted off the bed to meet with him. His eyes locked with mine as he slowly entered me. Heat built through my lower stomach at the sensation of him filling me inch by inch.
“You feel so good,” he groaned as he filled me completely.
He pulled out as tantalizingly slow as he’d entered me, and my eyes dipped to watch. Our juices glistening on his shaft was one of the most erotic things I’d ever witnessed. It made the heat blooming through my lower stomach spread throughout my entire body. God, this man was sexy.
“You like to watch?” His hot breath whispered against my ear.
“Sometimes,” I admitted. While I’d never watched Jackson before, I couldn’t keep my eyes away from soaking in every second of this experience with Silas.
He lifted up onto his knuckles, giving me a better view of him thrusting in and out of me. A moan spilled from my mouth as I watched
. Sex had never felt so good. Or so I thought, until Silas began to pick up his pace. He thrust into me harder and faster as he dominated my body, sending it to places it had only dreamed of being.
I hooked my legs around his waist and kissed along his neck. It wasn’t long before my body grew tense and I lost myself to another orgasm. Silas jerked inside me, and I realized we were climaxing at the same time. His weight pressed against me as we both struggled to catch our breath. I could feel the rapid pace of his heartbeat thudding against my chest. When he finally did force himself off me, he rolled me onto my side and pulled me tightly against his body, locking me in his arms.
“That was fantastic.”
“It was,” I agreed. Everything about it had been fantastic.
“I’m ready for round two whenever you are.” His words brought a smile to my face, and I laughed.
“Is that so?” My stomach gave an embarrassingly loud growl.
“But maybe we should go get dinner first,” he said with a chuckle.
“That might be a good idea, because I don’t think we’ll stop having repeats if we don’t force ourselves out of bed now.” There was a truth to my words I felt deep in my bones. Now that I’d had him, I knew I’d never be able to get enough of Silas LeFroy.
“I think you’re right.” He pecked me on the temple. “Let’s get something to eat and then hole ourselves up at your place for an undetermined length of time.”
“I have no objections to that.” I grinned.
His arms tightened around me as he pulled me closer. I closed my eyes, allowing the sensations of warmth, comfort, and safety to travel through me. I deserved this. I deserved Silas. And I sure as shit deserved to have multiple orgasms like that daily. With Silas, I was sure it wouldn’t be a problem.
“Repeat what you said earlier,” he whispered, interrupting my thoughts.
My brows pinched together as I tried to remember what he was talking about. What had I said that he would want to hear again? “Which part?”