22. Silas
Chapter 22
Silas
G enevieve hasn’t stopped trembling since we left the ballroom.
She tried to convince us we should stay, said people were expecting it, that we couldn’t just bail halfway through the event. But that’s bullshit. She’s not okay, and I’m not about to force her back into a room that rattled her so badly she could barely stand upright.
Max didn’t argue. One look at her was enough.
Now she’s curled into the corner of the back seat, arms crossed tight against her stomach, staring out the window like if she focuses hard enough, the night might swallow her whole. Her hands keep twisting in her lap, knotting and unknotting the fabric of her dress until it’s a wrinkled mess.
Max slides in beside her, shutting the door with a little more force than necessary. He doesn’t say anything at first. Neither do I. He’s stiff beside her, one arm braced along the seat back, his eyes locked on her reflection in the glass. Watching. Calculating. Probably trying to figure out the fastest way to fix something that isn’t as simple as a broken piece he can just snap back into place.
The silence stretches on. Every second she stays silent, the knot in my chest pulls tighter. But pushing her right now feels about as smart as poking a wounded animal and expecting not to get bitten.
Still, Max has never been great at patience. I’m not surprised that he breaks first.
“What the hell happened back there?” he demands.
Genevieve flinches. Barely. But I catch it. It’s enough to make me want to reach across the car and haul her into my arms. But I’m scared any sudden movements will send her into a full-blown meltdown.
She shakes her head, still staring out the window. “Nothing.”
Bullshit.
I shift closer, dropping my voice to something softer, something meant only for her. "Genevieve."
Her breath shudders out of her, fogging the window in front of her face. For a second, I think she might actually tell us. But then she closes her eyes, shutting us out again.
"I don’t want to talk about it," she says, barely audible.
Max stiffens, jaw ticking hard enough I can hear his teeth grind. He’s a problem-solver, through and through. He doesn’t know how to sit still in the wreckage.
I catch his eye, a silent warning.
Not yet.
Pushing her when she’s this raw will only drive her deeper into whatever hell she’s trying to claw her way out of. If we want her to trust us with the truth, we have to give her the space to hand it over when she’s ready.
And right now?
She’s not.
Whatever happened back there…it's still too close to the surface. Raw and bleeding. Digging into it now would only make her pull away. I don’t want that. I don’t want to lose her.
Max’s jaw tics, but he backs off, leaning into the seat with a frustrated huff.
The driver merges onto the freeway, the low hum of tires against pavement filling the quiet.
I turn my attention back to Genevieve, watching the delicate tremble of her shoulders, the way she keeps swallowing like she’s fighting to keep it together. Her dress is wrinkled now from where she’s been clutching it, her hair starting to fall a little more limply around her shoulders.
I want to fix it for her. I want to fix everything.
There’s only one reason she would have looked that terrified at a party filled with people she doesn’t even know.
Sebastian.
The bastard was there. I’m sure of it.
Max probably suspects it, too. I can’t tell if he’s connected the dots yet. If he has, he hasn’t said the thing we’re both circling around in our heads.
But I know. I know . That baby growing inside her?
It’s his.
The thought leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, something sour and angry and so far from the easy charm I usually wear that it almost feels foreign. Sebastian is one of my closest friends, but this…this feels unforgivable. Neither of them will talk about it, but something happened between them on that island. And it didn’t end well. And now he’s left her on her own to deal with an unexpected pregnancy.
He’s not the man I thought he was.
I glance at Max again. His hands are fists in his lap, and from the way he’s biting his lip, I know he’s fighting his instincts. He wants to take control, run the show, and fix whatever it is that broke her tonight. He’s playing it cool for her sake, but inside, he’s already building a hundred different battle plans.
I reach out and cover Genevieve’s hand with mine, careful, slow, giving her the chance to pull away if she wants to.
She doesn’t.
She just sits there, letting me anchor her, even if she can’t meet my eyes yet.
"You don't have to talk about it," I say quietly. "Not until you’re ready."
Her fingers twitch under mine. A small, shaky breath slips from her lips. She’s tiny and trembling and so fucking breakable. It makes something primal curl inside of me. She’s mine.
Mine.
And right now, she needs to feel that. So, I’m going to show her the only way I know how.
I skim my fingers across the soft skin beneath her dress. I don’t rush it. I’m not here to light her up. Not tonight. I just want her to feel something that isn’t fear. I want her to feel me. Us.
I shift closer, moving slow enough not to spook her, my palm skimming higher up her thigh. She’s warm and tense and trembling beneath my touch, and every instinct I have is screaming to wrap her up, hold her close, shield her from whatever the hell scared her so bad in the first place.
She flinches when I reach mid-thigh. Her breath hitches, a soft, wrecked little sound, and her eyes dart to the front seat. I feel the panic spike through her before I see it. It’s not me, it’s where we are—the awareness of the driver still up front, pretending not to listen, probably failing.
Max moves before she can say anything, hits the button on the console, and the divider glides up with that quiet, expensive hum that only exists in cars made for secrets. It seals us in without a word.
Good. No one else gets to see her like this. No one else gets a piece of her tonight but us. Then Max does what Max does best—moves with purpose. He slides off the seat and settles on his knees between her legs. It's not even remotely subtle, but nothing about it feels crude.
I brush my knuckles up her arm, smoothing down the goosebumps rising along her skin. She’s holding herself so tight it’s a wonder she hasn’t shattered yet.
"Relax, baby," I murmur, ducking my head to press a kiss to her shoulder. "Let us take care of you."
Max’s fingers trail up from her ankles. He slides his hands higher, fingertips gliding up the insides of her calves, past the delicate line of her knees, until he’s gathering the hem of her dress in his hands.
He keeps going until his hands bracket her hips, his thumbs stroking small, coaxing circles along the edge of her panties. The lace barely covers her, and despite the lack of light back here, I can see the wet spot forming there. She wants this. Us. Max leans in and presses a slow, deliberate kiss just above her knee.
Genevieve lets out a breath she’s probably been holding since the ballroom. It’s soft and shaky, a signal of her surrender. Not to us. Just to the moment.
I lean in, brushing my mouth along her jaw, then lower, tracing the curve of her neck with the edge of my teeth. Nothing too sharp. Just enough to remind her that she’s here. That we are, too. That she doesn’t have to fold in on herself when she could be folding into us instead.
Her hands hover for a beat before one of them lands on my thigh. I’m not sure if she meant to touch me or just needed to hold onto something solid. Doesn’t matter. I’ll take either.
Max’s hands are still on her hips, thumbs moving in small circles, coaxing her to breathe. Her legs tense, then loosen, just slightly, like her body’s trying to decide whether it’s allowed to let go.
His mouth trails slow, teasing kisses up the inside of her thigh. I watch the way she trembles, the way her head tips back against the seat, and something deep in my chest cracks wide open.
I catch her mouth with mine, soft at first, just a slow, easy press of lips. But I’m desperate for this girl. So, I press deeper. She kisses me back, a little clumsy, a lot desperate. God, she’s beautiful like this. Raw. Real.
My fingers slide higher, brushing the lace at the edge of her panties, and she shudders. Not in a scared way. It’s instinct. Her body remembers us, even if her brain’s still caught somewhere back in that goddamn ballroom.
Max mouths up her thigh again, just above the place where her legs meet. His breath fans over her, and she lets out a quiet little sound that she probably didn’t mean to make. I feel her flinch again and ease back just enough to whisper against her ear.
“You don’t have to be quiet, sweetheart. No one can hear you now.”
Her breath catches again—sharp, then shaky. Her grip on my thigh tightens.
“You’re safe,” I add, kissing the edge of her jaw. “You’re with us. You can fall apart if you need to.”
She whimpers, a soft, broken sound that tears through every ounce of control I have. She’s so wound up, so fragile, and all I want is to pull her into my lap and hold her until the shaking stops.
Instead, I slow it down even more.
I kiss her jaw, the corner of her mouth, the tender hollow just beneath her ear. I murmur nonsense against her skin, teasing things, sweet things, anything to keep her tethered to now.
"You’re safe," I tell her. "You’re ours. No one’s gonna touch you, sweetheart. Not unless you want them to."
Max glances up at me, a quick flicker of heat and something darker in his eyes, and I know he’s feeling it too. That tight, protective rage barely leashed under the surface. We couldn’t protect her earlier. We couldn't stop whatever wrecked her tonight.
But we can do this.
We can remind her what it feels like to be wanted for all the right reasons. Worshiped, not used.
Genevieve shifts, a tiny movement, part instinct, part need. Max catches it, smoothing his hands up the outside of her thighs, pressing her legs a little farther apart. He tugs her panties gently to the side and presses a soft kiss to her clit. I feel her jolt against me, her back arching a fraction, breath stuttering out of her chest.
Her body’s caught somewhere between want and worry, need and shame. I can feel it all humming under her skin. But she isn’t pulling away. And we aren’t rushing her.
I run my hand along her jaw, guiding her face back to mine, kissing her again. Longer this time. Deeper.
Max nips lightly at the sensitive spot where her thigh meets her hip, and Genevieve jolts, gasping into my mouth. I chuckle low in my chest, smoothing my hand up her side, feeling her shudder under my touch.
I deepen the kiss, keeping her grounded. She melts into it, into me, the last sliver of tension slipping from her body as her hands fist into my shirt.
Max shifts between her legs, his hands holding her open, his mouth finally brushing the place she needs it most. The sound she makes then—high, stunned, completely unguarded—rips straight through me.
"You’re doing so good," I say. "You don’t have to be strong with us, baby."
Max works her with his mouth until her hips start to move, until the tension in her legs becomes something rhythmic, something needing release. She grabs for me, hands fisting in my shirt, nails biting through the fabric.
“I’ve got you,” I murmur. “We’ve both got you.”
She nods. Once. Twice. Then she breaks. Right there in the backseat. Body arching, head thrown back, mouth open in a silent cry that never makes it past her lips.
She’s always been pretty. Hell, more than pretty—she’s the kind of gorgeous that rewires your brain if you’re not careful. But right now, it’s not the gloss that wrecks me. It’s the way she’s letting herself fall apart in our hands. Trusting us to catch her.
Max sits back on his heels, watching her with that unreadable expression he wears when he’s holding too much inside. I wipe her cheek with my thumb, realizing too late that she’s crying—not hard, just a slow stream of release she can’t stop now that her body’s remembered how to let go.
“Sorry,” she whispers.
“No,” I say, brushing her hair from her face. “Don’t do that. Not with us.”
The car pulls up in front of my loft not long after. But I’m not done with her, and by the look on Max’s face, he isn’t either. He opens the door and steps out first, scanning the space before he turns back for her. He scoops her into his arms without hesitation, cradling her against his chest as if she weighs nothing at all. She lets out a sleepy little sigh, burying her face against his neck, and the sight of it wrecks me all over again.
I grab the door and hold it open, following them inside. Max carries her to the bedroom, laying her gently on the soft sheets. She blinks up at us a little dazed.
"You okay, baby?" I ask, brushing the hair off her forehead.
She nods, a tiny movement, then reaches out blindly. Not to Max. Not to me. Just needing someone, needing touch, needing not to be alone.
We’re both there in a heartbeat.
Max eases the dress up over her shoulders and down her body, moving slowly and carefully like unwrapping something fragile. I peel off her heels, massaging her ankles, kissing the soft skin there just to feel her sigh again.
She’s wearing nothing but that tiny scrap of lace now, and even though she’s half-asleep, she shivers under our hands, instinct pulling her closer to the heat we offer.
We don’t push her. We don’t take her apart the way we could. We spend the night touching her, worshiping her. Max kisses a path down her back, teasing little nips and licks that have her arching into him with tiny, breathless moans. I kiss her mouth, her throat, the curve of her hip, until her body hums under us, soft and pliant and wrecked in all the best ways.
We make her come slow, sweet, again and again, until she’s sobbing our names into the pillows, until every ugly memory of tonight is burned away by pleasure and heat and safety.
Until she’s too spent to do anything but lie there between us, boneless and warm, the soft rise and fall of her chest the only sound in the room.
I tuck the blanket around her, pressing a kiss to her temple, and feel her nuzzle into me in her sleep. Max brushes his thumb across her lower back, soothing little circles, his mouth brushing against her shoulder in a kiss so soft it almost doesn’t land.
We lie there in the dark, holding her between us, the weight of the night pressing in around us.
I close my eyes, listening to her even breathing, feeling the soft curve of her body against mine, and let the fear and anger and helplessness bleed away for now.
Tonight, she’s safe.
Tomorrow, we’ll fight whoever we have to.