I glare at him. “E cups a letdown?”
“No,” he replies and then in one extremely swift move, he slides closer to me and wraps his arm around my waist. His lips go to my neck and find an erogenous zone I never let any of my clients getnear.
“Silas,” I warn, but it comes out sounding like asigh.
“Please.” His hand slips around to my stomach and I feel him hiking up the fabric of my skirtagain.
I should say no, but I don’t want to. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t know what it is about him, but I want to let him touch me everywhere. I want to feel him inside of me again. I stroke his forearm. Feel every vein under that dark skin dusted with dark and light hair. I think about how his muscles looks when he drives. It’s the strangest thing to fixate on, but the memory of it makes me moan. I lace my fingers with his and guide his hand to myclit.
“Is this what you wanted?” I whisper as both our hands soak with myjuices.
“Almost.” A curse slips out of me as he lowers his head and draws his tongue across my nipple. I just don’t understand. I don’t get how someone so fucking annoying, someone so damn tactless, can give me exactly what I want. I try to hold on to that as I fight off another orgasm. The way he runs his mouth, the way he confuses the fuck out of me, you’d think it would be enough to shut down any sort of feelings I have for him, but it doesn’t work. He lets me curve my fingers over his hand as he pushes two long fingers insideme.
I try to remember that fact that he actually told me he didn’t enjoy the A-plus sex we just had. My memory is too busy processing the present though, too busy cataloging the way the heel of his hand grinds against my clit. And the way I say his name as he makes me come again andagain.
* * *
When I wakeup the next morning, it’s still raining. It’s also Saturday, but the weather and the day of the week clearly don’t keep Silas from waking up before dawn and tending to his orchards and his farm animals. I don’t blame him. I usually go into the office on the weekends too. Workaholics unite. I know I should probably get up and check my emails. See what bullshit Murrell managed to cook up for me in the middle of the night, but I can’t bring myself to get up and reach for my phone yet. Or to get up and find mydress.
I still want to punch Silas in the face when I think about listening to him talk, but last night was one of the best nights I’ve spent with a man ever. We were both tired by the time we finished our groping session. I know it was way past his normal bedtime. Still I had the feeling that if I had suggested it, he would have found the strength to power up another hard on and we would have been fucking into the morning. I let out the most pathetic sigh as I look at the cracked plaster on theceiling.
I don’t know what I’mdoing.
I need to go home. I need to stop hiding. The cops aren’t going to fix this. Tillery isn’t going to fix this. Even if he gets concrete proof that Dorrit was behind this, what am I going to do with that information? Am I going to confront him? Am I going to try and blackmail him into confessing and issuing a public apology for trying to have memurdered?
I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I can’t even picture the man’s face anymore, I realize. I try, but when I think about that night there are these dark orbs clouding the picture I have in my head. The shape of him is there and there’s a dark blob over his face. I remember his voice. I remember how bright my apartment felt with him standing there in all black against the clean crispness of my apartment. It hasn’t even been a full week and there are already gaps in mymemory.
I feel like I’m looking at my life from the end of a narrowing tunnel and whenever I try to see to farther than a few feet in front of me, the opening keeps getting smaller and smaller. I knew… things before. I had a clear sense of what the fuck was going on around me and now I just feel like I’m caught in some weird vortex and I don’t know how to step out. I want something to be different. I want to go back in time. I want a do over. As the thought passes through my mind, I realize exactly what I’m doing. I’m asking myself what if I had done things differently. I realize that part of me thinks all of this is my fault. It’s not. I know it’s not, but that doesn’t change the way Ifeel.
And then there’s the fact I just fucked Scott’sbrother.
I need to tell the girls. I need to tellBrook.
I jump out of bed, maybe a little too fast. I almost take a spill. I regain my balance and feel only a little like an asshole when I realize Honeycrisp iswatching.
“You’re so judgmental,” I tell her as I dig up my pajamas. I cover up, then grab my phone. Some missed calls and texts, but nothing fromScott.
I open our groupchat.
Rayna:So! Duke Stone is going ontour.
Three nights in thecity.
Let’s. Go.Please.
I will pay for Liz’sticket.
A witness protection presentfrom
Yourstruly.
Istartto tell her I can cover it, but Istop.
Brooklyn:I SEE YOU ELIZABETHLEWIS!
WHAT ARE YOUTYPING?????
Busted.