Chapter 29
Silas
For a second I thought the fire had stolen my breath.
Then I realized it was just her.
I was a fucking goner.
She stood there at the edge of the rug, the lamplight glinting off something red and soft and altogether impossible. My pulse lurched, hard enough that I had to remind myself to breathe.
“Colette,” I said, and the word came out lower than I meant. She shifted her weight, half-smiling, half-nervous, and every piece of me that was supposed to know better went very, very still.
I’d written a thousand women, known more, but none of them had ever dug their way into my veins like this one did — alive, hopeful, trembling just enough to undo me.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she murmured.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re trying to memorize this.”
She wasn’t wrong. I was trying to memorize it. The color, the light on her skin, the small courage it took just to stand there.
Her.
I wanted to reach for her, to say something that would make the moment easier, but the words that came out were quiet and unguarded instead.
“You’re beautiful, Colette.”
She blinked, surprised — like it wasn’t a thing she heard often, or maybe she was trying to deny that it meant more coming from me than she wanted it to.
The air between us stretched thin, humming with everything we weren’t supposed to say.
“Sexy, right?” She did a little twirl, casting a glance back at me from over her shoulder as my cardigan pooled at her elbows.
“Undeniably,” I muttered, but shook my head. Because she was sexy. But it wasn’t the lingerie.
She had been sexy with a messy pink bun and a corny Christmas sweatshirt.
She had been sexy curled against me at three in the morning, wearing nothing but my wool sweater.
She was sexy when she had been completely bare before me in the tub just moments ago, but… I was starting to believe I would find her sexy in anything at all.
I took one step forward, then another, until I could feel the warmth coming off her, a heartbeat’s distance away. My hands twitched at my sides, aching to touch, to thank her somehow for trusting me with this small, glittering piece of herself.
“Come here,” I said finally, my voice rough from the effort of keeping it gentle. I held my hand out in invitation, fighting back the tremble I felt.
Colette took a few steps closer, just out of my reach, and when she stopped, my cardigan slipped to the ground. A sly little grin tipped the corners of her mouth upwards as she cocked an eyebrow.
“You look…” there weren’t words. Dragging my hand down my jaw, all I could do was shake my head again. “You just randomly packed the sexiest outfit known to man for your own Christmas getaway?”
My hands raised of their own accord, hovering in the space between us. Her grin never faltered, long fingers curling around one of my wrists.
“Women are allowed to dress in revealing lingerie for themselves, hotshot.” She tugged on my wrist, pressing my palm against the bare skin of her waist. “You just got lucky.”
“Luckiest bastard in the world, I’d reckon.” I managed around the knot of anticipation in my throat.
“You just gonna stand there?” Colette teased, eyes flicking over my bare chest as she wet her bottom lip. “Or did I get all dolled up for nothing?”
“Just let me look at you, Colette.”
She froze for a heartbeat at the way I said her name — like it was a prayer I was half afraid to speak aloud.
And I did look. God help me, I looked.
The red caught the firelight, glimmering against her skin like she’d been wrapped in the season itself.
Ribbons, bows, a whisper of shimmer at the edge of every breath she took.
But what wrecked me wasn’t the lace. It was the way she stood there — steady, chin lifted, daring me to see all of her and not look away.
The ribbon that held the top together could barely contain her tits. Plump flesh spilling over the top and peeking out from the bottom.
She was tantalizing.
She was gorgeous.
My chest tightened. Because this wasn’t beauty you touched to claim. It was the kind you had to touch to believe it was real.
Her shoulders were still damp from the bath, drops catching in the glow. Her hair was a soft mess, half-dried, sticking to her collarbone. Her eyes — those damn eyes — were brighter than anything the fire could throw. I wanted to memorize it, the shape of her courage.
Because that’s what it was. Courage.
Every thought I had was warring with the next. That she was stunning. That I wasn’t allowed to think it. That she had no idea what she did to me just by breathing. That I wanted to thank her for trusting me with her softness when I knew how hard the world had made her.
My hand flexed at my side, fingers itching to trace the delicate tie across her chest, not to untie it, but to prove to myself that she was really here — that this impossible, bright thing had chosen me.
When I met her gaze again, her teasing had gentled into something quieter. I felt it like a thread pulling tight between us.
“I’m looking,” I murmured, the words barely audible at all. “And I still don’t believe you’re real.”
She took another step toward me — slow, deliberate — and my restraint gave a sharp, dangerous twitch. The air between us thinned to nothing.
Her fingers brushed mine first. Barely. Then they slid along my palm, guiding my hand until it rested just above her hipbone again, exactly where it had been before.
“Still don’t believe it?” she whispered.
“Getting there.” My thumb traced a slow circle over her skin, motion that made it hard to breathe. “But you’ll have to give me a minute.”
The laugh she gave was small and breathless. It hit me in the chest like something bright and fleeting, something I couldn’t hold on to but desperately wanted to.
I let my other hand follow, mapping the curve of her waist, the faint shiver that chased my touch. The fabric under my fingertips was soft — ridiculous, even — but the body beneath it was solid and warm and human. I couldn’t stop touching, not yet.
When I finally let my eyes lift, she was watching me with a mix of triumph and tenderness. There was no shyness left in her, only a quiet sort of power.
I cupped her jaw, my thumb catching at the corner of her mouth. “You’re going to ruin me,” I said, half a whisper, half a prayer.
She smiled, slow and knowing. “Maybe that’s fair. You already ruined me first.”
And then she leaned forward, close enough that her breath brushed my lips but didn’t bridge the distance. It wasn’t an invitation so much as a reminder — that we were still on the knife’s edge, that this, right now, was the place where we chose how deep to fall.
Her breath hit my mouth, and I swear I could feel my pulse stumble. For a long second, neither of us moved. We just hovered there — as if we rushed it, we’d break whatever fragile spell we’d been spinning all night.
Then she tilted her chin up a fraction, and that was all it took.
The kiss wasn’t careful. It was the kind that steals the air from your lungs before you realize you’ve given it away. Her mouth fit against mine like she’d been memorizing it in her sleep; all warmth and hesitation and then — something deeper.
My hands found her hips, fingers flexing against the silky band of red that cut across her skin. She made a sound — soft, broken — that nearly undid me.
“Colette,” I murmured against her lips, and her fingers fisted in my hair like she didn’t want me to stop saying her name.
I kissed her again. Slower this time. I wanted to remember every second — the glide of her mouth, the faint taste of peppermint lip balm, the sound she made when I caught her bottom lip between my teeth and let it go.
When we finally pulled apart, her forehead rested against mine. Both of us breathing like we’d just run a mile barefoot through snow.
“God, you’re—” I started, but she pressed a finger to my lips, eyes shining.
“Don’t,” she whispered. “If you say it, I might start believing it.”
I smiled against her touch, the ache in my chest almost unbearable. “Then let me show you instead.”
I didn’t rush her. Didn’t even try to. The moment had already shifted — something molten beneath all that playfulness, burning through every inch of space between us.
When I finally touched her, I wanted to be sure it was with the kind of patience that had nothing to do with control and everything to do with reverence. My hands slid up her waist, slow as breath, tracing the faint shimmer of glitter on her skin. I felt her pulse jump beneath my palms.
Colette’s fingers trembled as she reached for me, dragging her nails lightly down my chest, and that single touch — barely there — punched an exhale from my mouth. She’d undone me completely.
“Still think you’re lucky?” She teased, but her voice cracked halfway through it, too breathless to carry the smugness she wanted.
I let out a quiet laugh. “No. I think I’m doomed.”
Then I kissed her again. Harder this time — nothing polite about it. My mouth moved against hers like I needed to taste every sound she made, and when she gasped, I caught it, deepened it, drew it out until her knees gave.
I pulled back just enough to look at her — really look at her. The glitter, the flush, the way her hair stuck damp to her neck.
“This is how I’m supposed to see you,” I murmured, voice ragged. “Not because of what you’re wearing. Because you’re looking at me like this.”
Her answer was only a shiver. And when I bent my head again, kissing the corner of her mouth, the curve of her jaw, the hollow of her throat — every place she’d let me — I was gentle and greedy all at once.