38. Silas
CHAPTER THIRTY EIGH T
I never thought I’d be standing in the doorway to my own bedroom, watching a woman roam around like she signed the lease. Let alone
Lilith Whitlock.
Golden light from the setting sun spilled through the windows, catching in the damp strands of her black hair, turning them almost blue at the edges, like ink spilling across her shoulders.
Her fingertips skimmed across the rows of books, pausing here and there to tilt her head at a title, like she was deciding which one she’d steal first.
I shifted my weight slightly, and she jumped, hand flying to her chest as she spun to face me. “Shit. I didn’t see you there.”
“Sorry,” I muttered. Again.
“Stop apologising.” She shook her head. “This is your home.”
I’d made her jump far too many times today, and I felt awful about it. Every time she flinched, every time I caught that sharp inhale, that second of hesitation before she’d realised it was just me—I wanted to kick myself. Hard.
We stood there for a beat, the silence stretching between us. Then she gestured up and down the wall of books, her fingers absently trailing over the spines. “This makes sense.”
I arched a brow. “What does?”
She looked me up and down, then turned back to the books. A smirk ghosted over her lips. “You. With all the literary quotes. You know.”
I shook my head, glancing down at the ground with a smirk on my own face. Yeah. I knew.
“Didn’t peg you as a plant guy though.”
“I’m not,” I said. “They just keep showing up, and I haven’t figured out how to kill them yet.”
She snorted. “So they’re survivors? ”
“Apparently.”
She hummed to herself and carried on inspecting the rows of novels.
It felt awkward. Weird. There were no shadows between us, no masks, nothing hidden. The boundaries were gone. It was an empty page that I didn’t quite know what to do with.
She reached out, fingers stretched toward me, palm open, waiting.
I went to her.
She turned, shifting until I was behind her, until she was pressing back against me, guiding my arms around her shoulders. Then she leaned her head against my arm, exhaling softly.
“You’re not going to break me,” she murmured. “Let’s not pretend like we haven’t touched each other before.”
I tightened my arms around her slightly, her warmth seeping through my clothes as I turned us toward the window, and we stood there, looking out at the skyline together. The city stretched before us, bathed in the last remnants of gold and burnt orange.
She sighed, her fingers tracing over my forearms. “What do you do to live in a place like this?” she asked. “Are you the head of an organised crime ring? A high-end art thief? A black-market arms dealer? Maybe some kind of underground casino kingpin?”
I huffed out a quiet laugh. “Is that what you really think of me?”
She tilted her head. “Masked. Stacked. Living in a place that looks like a Bond villain’s retreat. So you tell me—international jewel smuggler?”
I smiled and shook my head, pressing a kiss to the top of her head as I inhaled. She smelled like my shampoo. My soap. But beneath it, she still smelled like her. Utterly intoxicating.
“I work as a higher-up for a tech software company,” I said. “But I trained in software architecture.”
She tilted her head slightly. “Like… you build computers?”
I huffed a quiet laugh into her hair. “It’s kind of like building. But it’s building the things that go into software.”
She shifted slightly underneath my arms. “What does that even mean?”
I adjusted my arms around her, dropping my head down so my chin rested lightly on her shoulder. “Okay,” I murmured. “Look at the city.”
The streets below were veins, lights pulsing like artificial heartbeats, the movement so far down it barely felt real from here. From a hundred stories up, it was a circuit board, everything connecting, moving in sync.
“Now imagine every traffic light, every bridge, every subway line is a different piece of software,” I said. “Each one has to be built exactly right for the city to run. Otherwise, there’d be too many jams, too many accidents. No one would be able to get anywhere.”
She hummed. “And you build the traffic lights?”
I smirked . “I used to kind of do that. Now I make sure the people who do, don’t fuck it up.”
“So you’re like the city planner of software?”
“Something like that.” I tightened my arms around her, pulling her closer, nestling into the crook of her neck. The heat of her skin flushed against my lips as I pressed a soft kiss there.
She melted into it. Her shoulders eased, weight settling fully against me, her breath escaping in a soft sigh. A quiet hum followed. “Hmm. Silas.”
I exhaled against her neck. I didn’t think I’d ever adjust to hearing my name leave her lips. “What?”
She sighed again. “Nothing. I just like saying it.”
I liked her saying it.
The noise of her stomach growling cut through our peace. I smirked. “Hungry?”
She groaned, tilting her head back against my shoulder. “Famished .”
“Takeout good with you?”
“Sure.”
“Good.” I shifted slightly, one arm still wrapped around her, the other fishing my phone out of my pocket. “What do you want? Say the word, and it’s yours.”
Her body stilled a little. “Uh… I don’t—” she huffed out a frustrated breath.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to decide. I’ll handle it.”
I leaned against her back a little, holding her closer as I scrolled through the delivery app over her shoulder, mindlessly filtering through options.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You don’t have to thank me.” I shook my head, not lifting my gaze from the screen.
She didn’t say anything, but her hand curled around my forearm where it rested across her chest, fingers pressing lightly against my skin.
I let my lips brush just barely against her ear, voice dropping low. “Do you want to be absolutely filthy and eat in bed?”
“Oh my God, yes please, ” she said, letting out a breathy laugh.
I smirked, giving her the smallest squeeze before finally loosening my hold. “Good. Get in bed,” I murmured. “I’ll be back soon.”
She crawled onto the mattress, settling against the pillows before I made it to the door.
I rubbed a hand over my jaw as I stepped out into the hall, something steady settling deep inside me.
This was right. For too long, I’d circled her life, keeping my distance from her, keeping myself shielded, convincing myself that was the best way to keep her safe.
That I wasn’t meant to be in her life, that if I got too close, I’d ruin her.
And now?
She was h ere. In my bed. In my home. Wrapped in my clothes. I didn’t have to watch from the outside. I didn’t have to pretend distance was the same as protection.
Now, I could protect her. For real.
She was safe.
And I wasn’t going to let anything touch her again.