Chapter 12
Silas
Friday, at exactly seven-thirty p.m., the front tire of my Alfa Romeo hit the sloped curb heading back behind Terran’s house to where his driveway sat.
With the days leading into the winter months, the sun had long set by the time I’d made my way over to this side of town, only soft remnants of the sunset’s orangey rays were still visible and had been rapidly getting swallowed by the dark night sky each minute that ticked by.
A single light was on above the back door, casting an arch of light over the little silver sedan parked close to the house.
The back of it was rusting where the plastic trim of the fender wasn’t covered.
A crooked license plate with insurance tags still stuck to the corner of it bolted into the slot.
A practical model. Easy to afford. Cheap to insure. A vehicle to get around town easily and share between adults with a small child.
Not exactly safe in the more extreme weather months. Though, from this lot, most everything needed to survive was within walking distance.
Terran was leaning against the back end of the car with his arms crossed over his chest. His thick coat made his frame appear larger, more built, than what I knew lay hidden underneath.
Interesting, I hadn’t given him a time to meet me before leaving and he’d intuitively guessed correctly. Or perhaps, he’d been standing out here since the sun went down, waiting. Either option caused me to flex my hands around the steering wheel, imaging them around his waist instead.
Whatever it was about this man that drove me to actually fantasize was troubling. I didn’t let things like this get stuck in my head. Not to the point of musing between patients, wondering how tonight would go.
Dinner was never on the table. I didn’t wine and dine.
Yet, here I was, pulling my car up next to his old beater and throwing it into park before getting out.
Second-guessing was for cowards. A group I’d never catch myself dead being a part of. Tonight would satiate my appetite and allow me to move on. The craving needed to only be coddled a short while until I grew bored.
That was how the cycle always went.
He looked good, despite clearly shivering in the cold. His hair had been brushed back from his forehead, the comb lines still visible even in the poor lighting. The thought of running my hands through it to mess up his carefully groomed appearance nagged at me.
Gripping it while I shoved my cock down his throat would be the first thing we got to once this dinner was over.
Why invite him out to dinner in the first place?
A question for the centuries. One I still had no answer to.
Impulsiveness had taken over that afternoon in his bedroom—too overwhelmed after seeing his beautiful collection and dying to know what each and every one of those sets looked like on him.
The panties had been enough to coax me into stripping him down, seeing his bulge tucked perfectly snug under the silk material.
That image was burned into my brain.
His gaze tracking every little twitch of my fingers when they hovered over his thighs, the sharp inhale he’d taken the moment I’d grabbed onto his meaty skin and squeezed, the slight fluttering of his lashes while he tried to maintain focus and not give in to the pleasure starting to race through his veins.
I’d obsessed the entire ride back home, barely noticing his sister and niece’s curious glances as I’d passed them on the way out.
Nothing was stopping me from grabbing Terran by the two sides of his jacket and slamming him up against his rust bucket of a car to strip him down and see what other little gifts he was planning on surprising me with on top of what I’d told him to wear. He seemed full of those lately.
At every turn, I never knew what to expect. I’d misjudged him since the moment I’d had him in my OR.
His breath clouded in front of him when he exhaled, a small smile quirking his lips up. “Hey.”
“Cold?” I said, already knowing the answer. His lips were already slightly blue.
“Yeah. I didn’t want you to have to come to the door and risk getting roped into my niece wanting to show you her entire Barbie collection. She loves meeting new people.”
My gaze darted to his house for a moment before settling onto him again. “Bit of a terrifying trait for a small child to possess in the city.”
He huffed out a laugh, more vapor clouding in front of him. “Yeah. Hence the move here.”
My mouth parted again to ask him if that was the only reason he moved such a distance, right before realizing we were already starting to get into personal talk.
This dinner was meant to be a precursor to our inevitable transition back to my house. Not a segue into getting to know this man.
What did it matter what his life was like before coming to Ellington Heights when I’d soon have him shoved face down into a couch cushion?
Or a mattress if we actually were able to make it that far.
Turning from him, I popped the door to the Alfa Romeo open and stepped back far enough for him to climb in.
His gaze slowly pinged from the door, to my hand, and then back up to me. “You’re being oddly chivalrous.”
“I am capable of being polite when the occasion calls for it.”
“Occasion, huh,” he drawled, ducking past my arm to slide into the seat.
Something in his tone forced me to hesitate swinging the door shut the moment his legs cleared the frame. “What else would this be called?”
“I don’t know, Silas, a date?”
A date.
I’d never been on one of those.
Starting now seemed counterintuitive. A relationship wasn’t within my wheel of interests. Catering to someone’s wants and needs outside of the hospital seemed exhausting, as well as a headache I didn’t need to be inviting into my life.
I had enough to deal with at work, why invite more chaos into my personal life?
Marlow and Avery were both prime examples of how distressing getting into a relationship was. Overcoming outside obstacles and internal dissension—the anguish never seemed worth it in the end. They’d both argue the happy ending far outweighed every second of mental strife, yet I failed to see that.
Terran leaned over to grab onto the inside handle of the door. “Hey, Silas?”
A spark ignited in my chest, beating steady at the sound of my name on his lips again. I failed to remember giving it to him.
Dr. Jacee’s doing?
“What?”
“Get in the car.”
With that, he yanked the door out of my grip and slammed it shut.
My hand trembled when lifting it up to my hair to card through the short strands, a slow breath leaving me.
An unsteady heartbeat.
That was new.
Terran appeared mystified with each course that was placed on our table, more elaborate than the last.
The thing about living in a wealthy town like Ellington Heights was how there were no shortage of high-priced and extravagant dining places. Most of them catered to a certain crowd—bored affluent people who were all about ‘the experience’ and willing to pay top dollar for it.
I, on the other hand, had no interest in the over-the-top spectacles, deciding to keep it rather low-key since taking Terran out wasn’t supposed to be some courting ritual to, hopefully, get me invited back to his place if I played my cards right.
Still, each dish he dug into, he seemed more pleased.
“This is insane. Are you seeing how easy it is to cut into this steak?” A thin slice was popped into his mouth, his lips puckering while he chewed slowly. “Mmmm.”
For some reason, it pleased me to watch him enjoy himself. Perhaps, money well spent, I supposed, that he was eating something from at least every course. Not at all a stranger to trying whatever was placed down in front of him and barely batting an eye at the weirder, more deconstructed dishes.
Or maybe it was my brain’s way of justifying not simply bringing him to some diner over in Edgewood because either way, at the end of the night, we’d still end up in the same place: my bedroom.
“Tenderloin does tend to be considered a melt in your mouth type of meat,” I replied.
He nodded while chewing, putting a hand over his lips in order to speak. “Goddamn.”
Without meaning to, a small smile fought to raise the corners of my mouth.
Unfortunately, Terran was quite charming. Even without meaning to be.
When he swallowed, he took a generous swig of his wine before carefully setting the glass back down. “You come to this place often on dates?”
“Why would you assume that?”
“You seem to know your way around the menu quite well.”
A snort escaped me while I carefully split my own steak in small quarters. “Is that your way of calling me stuck up?”
“You said it, not me.”
Forcing another smile down, I grabbed my own wine glass and shot the rest back.
Getting tipsy wasn’t exactly on the list for tonight, however it certainly made it easier to ignore the buzzing at the back of my skull that was fighting with me to get up and rearrange our seats so he was sitting in my lap instead.
Thinking of getting a good handful of his thigh while he continued to lick his fork clean had me knocking my legs apart as I grew stiff in my pants.
Another fantasy to add to my ever-growing collection.
How annoying.
“Eat your food,” I said.
“I will as long as you promise to give me your leftovers.”
I rolled my eyes. “If you’re that desperate for a meal tomorrow, just say so. Aren’t cops supposed to have decent pay?”
“First of all, I’m new to the precinct, hence the bottom of the salary totem pole. And two, public service doesn’t exactly give me enough money in the bank to be slapping down half my paycheck for a nice meal. Unlike someone who casually drives around the equivalent of what my house costs.”
“Again, just call me stuck up. It’s less words.”
He laughed.
“When the waiter comes back around, order whatever to go. It’s not like I’ll notice it on next month’s credit card statement.”
“Oh my god, you disgust me.”
I stuck my fork into one of the pieces on my plate, dragging it languidly along the trail of glaze the chef had filigreed the plate with. “So says the one dressed pretty for me. I bet that garter belt is digging into your skin right about now.”
“Among other things.”
My eyes shot up to catch his gaze.
“I was going to wear the bodysuit,” he continued, a slight flush to his cheeks, his fork milling about his plate while he pushed around his food. “But since you requested something specific, I figured this first time would be a bad time to deviate from that.”
Too many things were hammering around in my head. Two pieces of information were latched onto immediately. First time implied the expectation of another rendezvous. We’d see where it went and go from there before getting ahead of ourselves.
A bodysuit?
Oh.
“It’s a little hard to get into,” he said, forking another piece of meat into his mouth. “Lots of ribbon and clasps. You ever dealt with corset ties before?”
I placed my fork very gently next to my plate in order to lean back in my chair.
This man was going to kill me.
Like a carrot being dangled in front of my face, or a feather toy gently twitched in my direction. A means to entice me into agreeing to a second hook up.
It was working. Very well.
“Hmm,” was all I was able to manage to get out.
“You probably didn’t see it. It was in the very back of my closet.”
“For special occasions, I presume?” It was hard to work my mouth. I was too busy staring at the way his lips curled up into a delighted smile that made my stomach twist uncomfortably.
“Something like that. I haven’t broken it in yet, actually.”
If I were the type to make a scene, I’d get up and drag him out of his chair immediately. Unfortunately, my parents hadn’t raised me in a barn and had hammered into me the importance of keeping up social appearances regardless of how little the opinion of others was cared about.
So, instead of bending Terran over this goddamn table like the fucking tease he was, I lifted my hand into the air to flag down our waiter for the check.