Chapter 12 Silas
SILAS
Past
Ophelia nods off as Hamish maneuvers streets that grow increasingly quiet as snow blankets Boston.
Hamish isn’t only my driver. Nigella Gibson, my attorney, introduced me to him when I needed help with a situation that required special handling.
He’s been with me ever since. He doesn’t ask questions, and he is trustworthy, two qualities I appreciate greatly.
I have been back in town for a few days closing a deal.
Running into Ophelia Hart had been a possibility but not a probability.
It hasn’t happened the half-dozen times I’ve been here the last two years.
I know where she attends school and the building in which she lives, but I haven’t seen her apart from when I switch on the TV and find either Horatio Hart’s or Sly Fox’s faces splashed across the screen detailing the latest in the embezzlement case.
That’s not to say I haven’t looked for her.
I am also well aware of the fact that she’s still dating Ethan Fox. That’s been on the news too. The legal trouble Hart and Fox have has pitted them against one another and the papers are loving the young couple at the heart of it.
They call them star-crossed lovers. Eye roll. They are no Romeo and Juliet.
Ethan Fox is incapable of love, and Ophelia, well, I can’t imagine her in love with the likes of Ethan Fox. I just can’t believe she’s dating the enemy, and I can’t imagine her father is happy about it.
I look down at Ophelia. She’s grown from the bookish, shy girl into a beautiful woman.
I always knew she would. Her hair is loose down her back, and the curls are a little out of control.
I like it. Any time I see her with Ethan, her hair is ironed flat.
She’s wearing makeup, but most of it has faded, leaving just a little smudged black around her eyes.
It’s sexy. She will have a bruise where I accidentally elbowed her, though, and that I am sorry about.
When we get to the house, I thank Hamish, who tells me he’ll be back by nine in the morning to take me to the airport. I head back to Atlanta tomorrow.
“Check the weather. Flights may not be going depending on the snow.”
“Will do, sir. You need me to help…” he trails off, gesturing to the still sleeping Ophelia.
“I got her.”
He nods and I climb out, then lift Ophelia out. She makes a sound and lays her head against my chest. I remember the night I lifted her out of the pool when idiot Ethan was giving her swimming lessons. Prick. She doesn’t weigh much more now than she did then.
Reaching into my pocket, I fish out the keys to the brownstone, a company house, unlock the door and push it open.
Once inside, I switch on the lights, expecting Ophelia to stir.
She doesn’t. I leave her purse, hat, and scarf on the couch and carry her upstairs.
There are two bedrooms, but only one is made up.
I hadn’t been expecting company, so the other room wasn’t prepared.
I carry her into the primary bedroom and lay her on the bed.
I straighten and look down at her, stripping off my jacket and tossing it over the back of a chair.
Her coat is open, and she’s wearing a silk dress with a halter top that is completely inappropriate for the weather.
Some days I’m not sure what women are thinking, and I wonder what she was doing out dressed like this as a storm blew in.
“Come on, sweetheart, let’s get you changed,” I say to myself since she’s out cold.
Lifting her, I take off her coat. I set it aside, then slip off her shoes.
I cup her freezing feet to warm them up.
Her toes are polished a soft pink that matches her fingernails.
Perfectly manicured. I notice the plain gold band she’s wearing on her right ring finger and something inside me twists.
It’s not from Ethan though. That’s not his style. He’d want flashy. This is too simple. Too beneath him. The expensive tennis bracelet on her wrist catches my eye. That’s more him. I pick up her wrist to look at it, find the inscription on the clasp. A heart with an E inside it. How creative.
I sit her up and lean her into my shoulder.
She makes a sound, her hand coming to my bicep then dropping to my thigh as she settles her cheek against my shoulder.
I glance down at her sleeping, soft face and can’t help but smile.
Pushing her hair aside to undo the halter, I tell myself I’m undressing her just to get her into something warm and tuck her in to sleep as the deep violet silk slides to her waist.
I clear my throat and slowly lay her down, cupping the back of her head to set it on my pillow.
I try not to let my gaze linger on her full, high breasts and carefully slip the dress off, noticing the stain on the skirt from when the idiot elbowed her drink right into her lap. That’s two elbows in one night.
I drop the dress on the floor, and acknowledge I’d have to be blind not to look. Ophelia Hart is fucking beautiful. She’s mostly naked in my bed, and I am a man.
She’s slender, her skin pale and soft. A tiny gem sparkles on her belly button. It’s her only piercing apart from her ears. I know because the panties she’s wearing are delicate white lace and she’s shaved bare.
My gaze falls on the slit of her pussy, making my cock stir.
I clear my throat and try to remind myself who she is. I try hard not to let myself wonder how she’d feel to the touch. How she’d taste.
As if hearing my thoughts, she stirs, mutters something, turns on her side. She burrows into the blanket and draws one knee up, giving me a view of that gorgeous ass, the thong nothing more than a string between soft, round cheeks.
“Fuck me.” I adjust myself because I’d love to spread those cheeks and… I groan, turn away.
This is Ophelia Hart, Cruz. Get it fucking together.
Except that she’s no longer the awkward girl from next door. There’s nothing awkward about her now.
I turn away, cross the room to the dresser. I keep some clothes in the house here just because it’s easier when I’m back and forth. I take out one of my sweatshirts and carry it to the bed.
“Let’s get this on you so I can get my fucking dick under control,” I mutter to myself as I sit on the edge of the bed and lift her again.
This time, when I do, she opens her eyes and blinks several times, her pupils coming into focus.
She smiles, then leans into me and I think she’s going to close them again, but I’m surprised when she kisses my cheek, then my neck.
Those kisses, feather light, make me shudder.
“Silas,” she says, meeting my eyes, hers not quite sleepy. They burn a deep amber.
“Hey,” I say, brushing hair back from her face.
“You smell the same.”
Her eyelids close as she kisses me again, this time on my lips. I take her elbows, surprised. Her hands wrap around my biceps.
I know what I should do. I should push her away, break it off.
This, her, here in my bed, it’s dangerous. But when she moans against my mouth, I set one hand at the back of her head and kiss her back because it is all I can do.
There’s something about Ophelia Hart, some string between us that’s always been there in some form, different now that she’s a woman. I feel the tug of it, the draw to her.
I have never been interested in any woman beyond a night, a week, two at most. I don’t know if it’s that I feel protective of Ophelia or somehow connected to her given our shared past, but I just know with her, everything feels different.
I want her. And it’s not to take her away from Ethan. He doesn’t matter. No, this thing, it’s as though she feels like she’s mine. Like she’s for me.
I groan.
“O.” I force myself to draw back. “You’re drunk.”
She shakes her head, pulls me down when I make to get up. She touches the scar on my temple then caresses my cheek and smiles softly up at me.
“Silas?”
“Ophelia.”
“Stay with me.”
My gaze moves to her bare breasts before shifting back to those soft, pretty eyes. Sad eyes. It’s those sad eyes that keep me from walking out of the bedroom.
She leans up to kiss me once more, and I watch her eyelids flutter closed then open again as she burrows into my chest. I wrap my arms around her shivering body.
“I need you, Silas,” she says.
I need you.
It’s all it takes, and I find myself nodding and laying her down before I stand.
My gaze hovers at her mouth, her little pink tongue darting out to lick those lips that taste so sweet.
I undo two more buttons before pulling my shirt off over my head and taking in her full breasts with their hard nipples, the tiny gem sparkling at her belly button. Those white lace panties.
I strip off my pants but keep my briefs on and lower myself onto the bed, setting one knee between her legs and sliding my arms around her, cupping the back of her head to kiss her as her arms close over my shoulders. It’s when I taste the salt of tears that I draw back.
“O? What is it?”
She shakes her head.
With a groan, I pull back, but when I move to stand, she closes her hand around mine. “Please don’t go.”
“You’re drunk, O. This isn’t smart.”
“I need you. Please.”
Fuck. There it is again.
I kiss her mouth, her neck, the hollow between her collarbones, one hand weighing her breast, fingertips over the flat of her belly, sliding into her panties. I can’t stop because the look on her face, the moan as her teeth scrape my throat, I can’t get enough.
“We…” she starts but the words trail off into nothing.
I draw back to watch her as my fingers move over her sex. Her eyes darken and she sucks her lower lip between her teeth.
“Let the hair grow back in. I like you natural,” I say, rubbing.
“Silas.” She arches her back. Her eyelids have closed, but she puts her hand on my forearm. “We...” I brush my thumb over her clit. “Oh God.”
“Look at me,” I say, and she blinks, turns those deep burnt honey eyes to mine. “Say my name when you come. I want to hear you say my name.”