"Dev —"
"I know what I want. I know who I want. I'm not confused and I'm not overwhelmed and I'm not too young to decide." His voice is steady, his eyes level. "Are you going to make me ask twice?"
"No," I say, and my voice comes out wrecked. "No, you don't have to ask twice."
"Good." He flags the waiter. "Just the check, please."
The waiter brings the check. I pay. We leave. The night air is cold and Devin is warm against my side and every nerve in my body is electric with what's about to happen.
At the bike, he catches my arm. Turns me toward him. Kisses me. Not the soft quick kisses of the past week, not the desperate heat of the wall. Something new. Deliberate and deep, his hands fisted in the green henley, pulling me down to his height.
"Take me home," he says against my mouth.
"It's not —" My brain, my stupid responsible brain, tries one more time. "Are you sure?"
"Silas." His hands tighten in my shirt. "I have never been more sure of anything in my entire life. Take. Me. Home."
I take him home.
Chapter 13
Devin
The side entrance of the bar is dark and quiet. Silas takes my hand, leads me up the narrow staircase, and I'm acutely aware of every point of contact. His fingers laced through mine, his thumb moving against my knuckle, the warmth radiating off his body in the cold stairwell.
"Quiet," he murmurs. "Supernatural hearing."
"Everyone's?"
"Knox's is the worst. He can hear a conversation through two walls."
"That's terrifying."
"That's why we're being quiet."
We make it to his door without incident. He unlocks it one-handed, not letting go of me, and pulls me inside. The room is small. I knew it would be, from what Robin's said about the living situation above the bar. But it's his. His books on the shelf, his jacket on the hook, his bed against the far wall with a reading lamp and a stack of novels on the nightstand. The room smells like him, cedar and something warm, the scent I've been cataloging since the first morning he brought me vending machine coffee.
The door closes. The lock clicks. And suddenly we're alone in a way we've never been. Not the library, not the café, not the overlook with its open sky. A room with a bed and a lock and no one watching.
He cups my face. Studies me in the dim light from the street. His eyes are serious, careful, full of the focused attention he gives everything. Books, conversations, me.
"We can do whatever you want," he says softly. "Just kiss. More. Nothing. Everything. Your choice."
My choice. Like it's always been with him. My choice to take the break, my choice to hold his hand, my choice to show up at Lucia's after the wall. He gives me the decision every time. Not because he doesn't know what he wants, but because he knows what it means for me to choose.
"I want everything," I say, and I'm surprised by how sure I sound. "I want you."
"Thank fuck," he breathes, and kisses me.
This kiss is different from every kiss before it. Not the quick brave press of the overlook, not the desperate heat of the sidewalk, not the soft goodnight kisses at Haven House. This is intent. Purpose. The kiss of a man who's been given permission and plans to use it well.
His hands slide under my shirt, Robin's black henley, the one I'm already thinking of as the shirt I wore the first time, warm against my skin. I arch into the touch, gasping against his mouth.
"Bed," he says. Then catches himself. "I mean, we're in — this is the bedroom. It's a studio."
"I noticed."
"Right. Bed, then."