Silver Shadows (The Silver Springs #4)

Chapter 1

One

“Fuck, Mae.” Stone groaned as she raked her nails down his chest, leaving a path of red in their wake. Mae loved marking him. Making it known that he was hers, even if the only place she could do that was in their bedroom. No, not theirs. Not technically. Still only his…

“Stone… I need… harder.”

The warm water of the shower sprayed over them, cascading down his neck and shoulders, over his chest, and abs.

Stone was perfect. Hard in all the right places.

So fucking hard. She moaned as he continued his thrusts.

One second she was there, opening up her hips and latching her leg around his ass for him to get a better angle and the next thing she knew, he grabbed her hips, lifted her up off the ground and pressed her back against the cold shower wall.

“Sorry, baby,” he groaned into her mouth as he covered her lips with his. Fuck being sorry, the new position was incredible. He was going to hit… oh, shit… he was going to hit… the perfect ... spot.

“Keep moaning, Mae. Just like that. Fuck, I love that sound. I want you to record it for me… so I can always remember…”

God, she loved him. They fit together perfectly, her walls fluttering around his cock as she sailed towards the cliff of an impending orgasm.

Mae smiled as his fingers pushed harder against her hips.

“I’ll never…” She gasped as he pulled back before slamming up into her.

“Get over.” Another thrust. “How good you feel.”

Her core was molten lava. So much heat and desire coiled tightly around every buzzing nerve ending in her body.

They’d been doing this for almost two years.

Fucking every chance they got. At first, they both swore it was just to get it out of their systems. But Mae knew better even before Stone ever sank his perfect cock inside of her. She knew she wanted forever with him.

They had both agreed to keep things quiet. Especially from her brother, Hawk, who happened to be one of Stone’s best friends. But slowly, she’d started spending more nights at Stone’s apartment, and after a few months, one by one, their friends had all figured out their secret.

She chuckled, thinking about how her brother was now the only one still in the dark.

“Is the way I’m fucking you funny, Michaela?” His pace picked up as his thumb found her clit, circling it with the exact amount of pressure he knew she liked. Asshole. She was going to climax before the true fun had even started.

“Shit,” she hissed.

“Can’t sass me this close to your orgasm? I’ll have to… fuck.” Stone groaned as Mae sank her teeth into his shoulder. Not hard enough to break the skin, but hard enough that there would be another mark. Another reminder that he was hers.

Even if they’d spent the last week saying things were over.

Even when he’d avoided her.

She was still there.

She’d answered his needy text.

He still looked at her with love in his eyes.

Mae let her eyes drift closed, her nerves igniting in response to every sensation going on in her body. Stone continued his skillful manipulations until she couldn’t hold back the orgasm any more.

“Let go, Michaela. Let go, and come for me. Fall apart on my cock so I can finally fill you up. Give me what I want. One more time.”

That command was the final straw. Mae cried out, her back arching off the tile as her vision dimmed. She felt Stone fall over the edge, his cock pulsating as he emptied himself inside of her.

After actually using what the shower was designed for, Mae let Stone dry her skin, pull his shirt over her head, and carry her to bed.

Her fingers traced over his bare chest as they laid in the weird twilight somewhere between asleep and awake.

Stone’s muscles tensed under her touch. She loved that her man was so ticklish.

“Would you quit that?” he laughed. “We need to go to sleep. I shouldn’t have kept you up all night…”

“I think begging you for it is proof enough that I knew what I wanted. Besides, nothing big is happening at work today. We could both play hookie if we needed to.”

Stone chuckled. “I swear, you are the worst influence.”

“You know you love me.” She bit down on her lip, knowing that pushing anything with him wouldn’t end well.

And yet, she continued. “And you know, if we finally went official, official, we could have this all the time. No more sneaking around Hawk would mean I could move in here. We wouldn’t have to squeeze all our sexy time into once or twice a week when I pretended to fall asleep at one of the girls’ places. ”

His body went still, and Mae held her breath. The tension in his muscles told her everything she needed to know. Stone had spent the night worshiping her body one last time. It wasn’t make-up sex. He’d been saying goodbye.

“You know that can’t happen. I thought…” Stone sighed, rubbing his hands over his eyes. “I thought we were both on the same page. We agreed last week not to have this conversation anymore.”

“And we also agreed that this…” Mae lifted her head and gestured between the two of them.

“Wouldn’t happen anymore. So, what’s it going to be?

Because you can’t say that the chemistry that started all this between us is just gone.

That the feelings that grew in its place just went up in smoke.

What we did on the sofa… and the counter…

right here in this bed, and in the shower…

that didn’t feel like two people who weren’t meant to be together. ”

His phone chirped on the bedside table. Stone rolled away from her, sitting up before he grabbed his phone, planted his feet firmly on the ground and pushed up, walking to the place where Mae had stripped him out of his clothes.

“It’s complicated.”

“It’s really not.”

He groaned. “Mae. I can’t…” His sweatpants came up to rest low across his hips and Mae licked her lips, suddenly feeling parched.

It was cliche as all sin, but damn, he looked incredible in them.

She almost burst into flames when he pulled on his black Henley, the memories of her fingers pulling it over his head after they’d edged each other in the living room setting her skin on fire.

She watched as he looked at his phone. His eyes drifted closed for a second before slipping the device into his pocket.

“What was that about? Where are you going?” She sat up, the comforter falling to her waist as she watched him walk towards the door.

“I just need to clear my head. I’m going to go for a run.”

“It’s a little early for that, don’t you think?”

“Only by an hour or so. We stayed up nearly all night.”

“And what are you going to think about while you’re out running?

” Mae slipped out of bed, making her way to her own pile of discarded clothing.

It felt wrong to be pulling it back on at that late…

or actually, early… hour. She wanted to be back in bed.

Back in Stone’s arms. Safe, and warm, and with the hope still alive in her heart that they weren’t about to have the same fight again.

“How we got here again. How we finally find a way to walk away from each other. Because this can’t keep happening.”

Mae froze with her pants halfway up to her hips. Her stomach tightened painfully.

“I don’t know how we can be over. How you can fuck me like that, knowing you’re going to kick me out of your bed. How you can tell me you love me, call me yours. And then just say we can never have what all the rest of our friends do!”

There had always been moments in her life that she could look back on after the fact, and see how easily she missed it. The signs from the universe that everything was going to change.

Mae was staring down one of those moments.

It was playing out right in front of her, the dread and fear filling her body with each passing second.

Even as she blinked, walking numbly down the hall after Stone, trying to shake the feeling from her mind as she was still surrounded by the soft fabric of his shirt, she knew the outcome was always going to be the same.

Her heart would shatter, and nothing would ever put it back together again.

There in the darkest hours of the middle of the night, when the rest of the world was fast asleep, tears threatened to spill over her lashes over someone who was about to break her heart.

Someone who she was just scratching an itch with eighteen months ago had somehow become the most important person in her life.

She’d let him in. Let him wrap his arms right around her heart, like some lovesick schoolgirl.

But that wasn’t Mae at all. To know she let Stone in and it was all about to go up in flames made her want to crawl out of her own skin.

Mae’s eyes scanned across the kitchen, watching as Stone pressed a million buttons on his fancy ass coffee machine.

Screeching, alarming sounds she’d become used to cracking through the silence between them.

And still, she just stared at him. Waiting.

Willing the words to come out of his mouth.

For him to just put her out of her misery.

Stone finally grabbed the two full cups from under the machine, holding one out to her. And she took it, but the warmth didn’t move beyond her hands. Instead, the chilled air of his apartment wrapped around her, pouring ice into the wound that night had cut open inside her soul.

Because she’d gone over there thinking that everything would be alright between them. That he regretted the things that were said. The way he’d already broken her heart. He’d made love to her like he was planning on saying those exact things, but instead, Mae realized, he was saying goodbye.

“I can’t have this fight with you again, Stone. Why can’t you see? Why can’t you see that we can have it all?”