Chapter Twelve – Thea
Days turn into a week. To my surprise, we don’t have a repeat of the first day, when he made me get on my knees for him and then made me lose my mind with his hands—a good thing, definitely.
Silus sets up a camera and a TV in my room so I can videocall Max and talk to him, and when I do, I find out Silus kept his word. Max is in a bedroom, not handcuffed or chained to anything. But he’s got guards with him at all times, guards who are twice as big as he is, and he’s smart enough to know that means any escape attempts will be futile.
All in all, everyone falls into a steady routine. If this is what it’s going to be like, my imprisonment here with Silus, I can handle it. I can do it, no problem. Easy-peasy. And now that I have a TV in my room, I can watch shows and keep my mind busy so I don’t think about Silus twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
My plan is to keep my head down, don’t make a fuss, and get through this with everything intact.
You know, my body, mainly. As much as said body enjoyed being bent over and forced to come by Silus, it’s probably a bad idea to repeat it. Asking for trouble. If it happens again, this body of mine might just become addicted to the one man it shouldn’t.
Another week goes by. Two whole weeks so far. I think I’m getting the hang of it. It’s a day like every other: I get up after sleeping in, Silus lets me into the bathroom, where I shower and get ready for the day. I always assume he stands outside the door, just to make sure I don’t try to run, but when I emerge from the bathroom, I don’t find Silus anywhere.
I’ll admit, the thought of running does cross my mind, but the truth of the matter is I don’t know where Max is being held, and he doesn’t know, either. We might talk to each other every day, but he has no idea where he is.
I don’t run. I walk to my room by myself, my hair damp. My feet skid to a halt when I spot a neat box resting atop my bed, a box that definitely wasn’t there before. A thin, white box with a lacy red ribbon on it.
What the…
My brows furrow as I step toward the bed. Since it’s here, I can safely assume it’s for me, some weird present. I pluck at the bow to untie the ribbon, and once it’s loose enough, I lift the lid of the box and see an article of clothing neatly folded within.
I reach for it and pull it out of the box, and it comes and comes and comes, seemingly never-ending. Once it’s fully out of the box, I stand there with my arms outstretched and the item of clothing in full display as it hangs before me.
A dress. A long, elegant black dress. I don’t know what sort of fabric it’s made of, but being folded in the box did not put a single wrinkle in it. It has no jewels on it, no lace. The dress is sleeveless and goes up to the neck, the shoulders bare. It’s the kind of dress a rich woman might wear when she goes out to dinner with her husband somewhere fancy. It isn’t my sort of thing.
But… it is pretty.
I look back at the box and see a card resting in the center. The dress hid the card from me. I set the dress down on the bed and read what’s written on the card.
For you. Dry your hair and put it on. We’re going out.
We’re going out? The card nearly slips out of my hand, my heart skipping a beat. Silus wants to take me out somewhere? As in, out of his home? Out of this stupid room? Into the real freaking world?
A part of me knows I should be skeptical, maybe even apprehensive of what this might mean, but the bigger part of me is simply excited to go out and be somewhere else. With Max and Silus as my only company, my world has gotten infinitely smaller since I’ve been here.
But I have been good. I haven’t tried to run. This must be Silus’s way of thanking me.
I still don’t see Silus as I return to the bathroom to blow-dry my hair. It’s like he’s giving me space, maybe even testing me—and I’m not going to fail that test. Hell, I’ll get as dolled up as I can with what I have and rock that black dress.
Once my hair is dry, I pair the dress with a pair of black heels Silus bought for me in the beginning. I don’t wear a bra with it; the fabric is a little loose on the chest, so it isn’t as if my bra-less state will be immediately obvious. I go with a pair of lacy black panties—not because I anticipate Silus, you know, seeing them, but because this way there will be no panty lines on the dress.
I don’t know how long it takes me to get ready, but once I’m done, I leave my room, intent on finding Silus and telling him I’m ready to go. I walk out of the hallway and emerge into a large, open-concept living room that is directly attached to a dining room and then, on the far side of the space, the kitchen.
“Hello?” I ask, the condo quiet. “I’m ready. Where are you?”
“Here.” Silus’s voice comes from a different hall on the other side of the living room, and he steps out to reveal his all-black ensemble. A freshly-shaven face, his black hair neatly slicked back. As much as I don’t want to admit it, my breath catches when I see him.
Fuck. I forgot how hot he is.
His black eyes twinkle as he approaches me. “I must admit, I did wonder if you’d try to run once you saw me nowhere nearby.” He reaches me, lets his gaze fall to my feet and then slowly work its way up my body, taking in the way the dress hugs my hips before adding, “I’m glad you chose not to.”
I swallow hard before I say, “I told you I wouldn’t run.”
“Yes, but often what people say and what people do are two very different things.” He pauses before he tells me, “You look amazing in that dress, Thea.” Notes of hunger lace with each word, and it’s damn near impossible to ignore the way my body reacts instantly.
The guy is hot as hell, okay? And with the way he’s looking at me right now, like he could devour me whole, like he wants to be the greediest son of a bitch in the world when it comes to me, almost makes me forget that he’s my captor.
“Thanks,” I’m slow in saying. “You, uh, don’t look too bad yourself.” The words are out of me before I can stop them, and I immediately want to smack myself. How lame could I be?
The smile that graces Silus’s face after that fills me with heat, and he offers a hand to me. “Shall we?” he asks, his black eyes twinkling.
Might as well get it over with.
I nod and slip my hand inside his, and as his fingers curl around my hand, I fight the way I want to shiver and lean in closer to him. Being attracted to him is one thing, but if I didn’t know any better, I’d say I have a full-blown crush on the guy.
Obviously, nothing good could ever come from something like that.
Silus brings me out of his place and into an idling car, where he only lets my hand go so he can open the back door for me and let me crawl into the backseat first. Once his large frame is inside, he nods at his driver and we start moving.
I watch the scenery go by for a minute—other buildings full of condos or apartments; it’s not a part of the city I know that well. This area is for the people with money. The streets and sidewalks are clean and without a blemish, no litter anywhere. No overgrown weeds poking out in between old cracks in the concrete.
“I’m surprised you didn’t put a blindfold on me or something,” I mutter, sluggish in drawing my gaze away from the window and bringing it to Silus—who, to my chagrin, is solely focused on me. Not the world around us. Not his driver in the front. Not even on himself.
Just me. He stares at me like I’m the only thing that exists.
“Why should I?” Silus tilts his head as he studies me. “I don’t think you’ll run unless you know where your brother is, so knowing where you’re being kept is information that would be pointless to hide from you.”
Oh, I guess it makes sense when you say it like that.
“Where are we going?” The note only said we were going out, not where we were going. In a nice dress like this, I can safely assume it’s nowhere familiar.
Then again, it isn’t like I ever had much time to go out and party, to have fun and live life. It’s always been me and Max struggling to make ends meet. Neither of us had time for friends or money for getting wasted every weekend.
“Dinner.”
I sound dumbfounded when I ask, “We’re getting dinner?”
“We are going to my favorite restaurant, where the chef will be all ours for the night. The courses are already chosen. It’s going to be just you and I, Thea.” Amusement flickers across his handsome face. “Is something wrong?”
No, no. Nothing’s wrong. This sounds like a perfectly normal thing for a guy like him to do for a girl like me after kidnapping me in revenge. One hundred percent normal. Not out of the ordinary at all.
No matter how many times I tell that to myself in my head, I still can’t wrap my mind around it, so I blurt out, “Is this a date?”
It’s so far-fetched to me, mostly because the first night Silus had me on my knees for him and then it was like a ghost-town where that’s concerned. I kind of thought he’d be bending me over every which way each chance he got—and with the way my body reacted to his that first night, I probably would’ve been okay with it.
But a date? That’s kind of crossing the line.
“Don’t sound so aghast,” he tells me as he sets a hand on my knee. Thankfully, the dress is long enough to cover my knees, so it’s not his hand on bare skin, but even so, I can feel his warmth through the fabric of the dress. “It won’t be so bad.”
I force out a chuckle. “You know, I’m sure you don’t have to kidnap someone in order to go on a date with them. Aren’t there, I don’t know, other women you’d like to date?”
“No.” His answer comes swiftly.
“I find that hard to believe,” I say dryly. “You’re probably the most eligible bachelor in the city. You could have your pick. Kidnapping me and my brother to get back at us for trying to ransom you off to Cormac, fine. Makes sense, I guess, but taking me out on a date? That’s just… stupid.”
Silus leans into me as he whispers, “Would you rather me chain you to the bed and fuck you whenever I want? Take your clothes and leave you with nothing so you’re always bared and ready for me?”
An awkward, slightly uneasy sound escapes me, and it takes me a long time to say, “Uh, no?” But it comes out like a question, and it makes me lose all my credibility. It sounds like that’s exactly what I want—but it’s not.
Hell no.
Although…
No.
Silus sweeps my hair off my shoulder and then runs a single finger along my jaw. It takes every ounce of restraint in me to not look away from his intense expression, even after he whispers, “Are you sure? You don’t sound too confident. If that’s what you’d rather me do, then I’ll have my driver turn us around. I’ll drag you out of this car myself, toss you over my shoulder, and return you to your room, where I will then tear off that beautiful dress and fuck you raw.”
My mouth falls open, and I stutter out, “How can you… how the hell can you just say that like it’s no big deal?” Seriously, he’s so off-handed about it, like he’s talking about the forecasted weather and not, you know, fucking me freaking raw.
“Let me bring you in on a secret,” Silus goes on, now running the backs of his fingers down my arm, so gently the slight touch brings forth goosebumps on my skin. He leans in closer, stopping only when his mouth grazes my ear. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot, especially after I got a taste of that mouth and that sweet, tight cunt. It has been near torture keeping myself away from you these last two weeks. Do you know why I stopped myself, Thea?”
I’m too busy wrestling with the way my thighs automatically clench when I think back to that night to respond.
“It’s because I knew if I did, if I took what I want from you—” The hand dancing along my arm raises to my neck, and I fight the gasp that tries to come out when his fingers curl around my throat and force me to turn my head and gaze into his pitch-black eyes. “—I feared I wouldn’t be able to stop myself. That you would consume me and I, in turn, would need to consume you.”
“So you’re taking me to dinner instead?”
“It is… a selfish reason, I’ll admit. Seeing you in that dress, taking you out—it makes me feel less like a monster.”
I swallow, and the action reminds me his hand is still around my neck. “A monster?”
Silus nods as he breathes out, “Yes. It’s been long enough, I think. I’ve held back, let you get acquainted with your situation. I’m taking you out to dinner to get to know you a little more.” The corners of his mouth quirk in a devilish grin. “And then, when we return home, I’m going to bring you to my bedroom, where I will proceed to take that dress off you and make you lose your mind before I lose myself in you.”
Oh, God. He can’t be serious, can he? This has to be some kind of joke. He’s not taking me out just so he can fuck me later, is he? That’s some twisted king of logic.
Maybe he takes my silence as confusion, because he clarifies, just so we’re all on the same page: “I’m going to fuck you tonight, love, but before I do I’m going to have you begging for it. Begging me. And I bet, now that I’m telling you all this, you’re going to think about it all throughout dinner, and by the time we get home you’ll be dripping wet in anticipation of the things I’m going to do to you.”
I want to laugh in his face and tell him he’s dead wrong, that him telling me all that definitely isn’t going to make my mind wander, but given the fact that his hand is still around my neck and my thighs are already squeezing together, it’s a half-hearted response on my part.
What do I end up saying? “You’re stupid.”
Yeah. I tell him he’s stupid like we’re in second grade or something and that’s the best comeback I can think of. I know, I know, it’s pathetic—something he finds amusing too, because he laughs after I say it and he pulls his hand off my neck.
Come on. I have some restraint. I can think of other things during dinner besides the man next to me proving himself to be a sex god.
By the time we pull up to the restaurant, my willpower is already wavering.