Chapter 15
Terran
I decided the best way through this was bare knuckling it and hoping Silas would come rescue me, eventually.
Until then, I’d dig up as much dirt on him as possible. After all, I had promised him I’d find it one way or another, even if neither of us had anticipated his friends being the source of those carefully kept details.
Who was I to look a gift horse in the mouth?
One that was so nicely served to me on a silver platter by the way of a friendly blabbermouth?
“So, you guys have known Silas for a long time?” I asked, leaning over the table to set down two plates of food, one stacked high with bacon and the other, a few sunny side eggs.
In the toaster, I had a few slices of bread going and another two eggs cracked into the used pan on the stove, cooking slowly into an omelet with some sprinklings of scallions, red peppers, and cheese I’d found already precut in the fridge after doing another sweep.
These two had already gone through one round of food and now we were on their second. Not surprising for two guys who had the bulky athletic builds I’d come to know well in the academy, given how well defined their muscles were under their coats.
Still wrapped up in the robe was making it a little difficult to remain modest while cooking and putting plates of food on the table.
I was tempted to sneak off in the middle of courses to head back to Silas’s bedroom and slip into something with thicker fabric and had almost done so when I’d put on the second round of bacon.
The only thing stopping me was getting called out for it by Marlow, who seemed particularly keen to keep pointing out I was wearing something of Silas’s already.
There was no way I was going to hear the end of it if I came out in a pair of sweats and a tee that were both two sizes too big and cuffed at the ankles.
While I wasn’t short by any means, right around Blake’s height if I had to take a wild guess, my body dwarfed in comparison to Silas who had a good four to five inches on me and long-limbed with legs for days.
“Oh yeah.” Marlow shoved a fork full of egg into his mouth while he spoke, nodding along while giving me a wink.
“He has, I haven’t,” Blake supplied for him. “I’m the newbie of the group.”
Group, huh?
So there weren’t just the two of them. There were more.
A group meant at least three to four, right?
How interesting.
And here I thought Silas was a diehard loner, not at all interested in human companionship outside of what was necessary to run a successful team at the hospital. He’d given off that impression the first time we’d met and hadn’t deviated from it in my mind since.
Was that even true, though?
Guilt nagged at me slightly for misjudging him.
I knew better than to take things at face value. Not only from my training but from my years being seen as the kid with a bad home life and nothing else.
No one was who they seemed to be upon first glance. First impressions, while sometimes accurate, weren’t always as such. Taking how he acted in the hospital and in a professional setting and applying that to the outside world version of him wasn’t exactly fair.
Wasn’t I trying to get under his skin just last night to see who was hiding behind those steel walls?
Neither of these two were the type of people I pegged him as having for companions, yet, in a way, they made sense.
Their friendly attitudes and approachable personalities were a perfect foil to Silas’s own serious and reserved one.
I’m sure in private settings, they brought him out of that stone-faced demeanor I’d come to know well while in his care, picking and poking at him until he softened.
He was dry to a fault, and had a wicked bite to his words that always bordered on some kind of ironic sense of humor no one else but he could pick up on.
My drive to know more about him wasn’t something that had come out of the blue after one night spent in bed together. These feelings had been festering for a while, prodding the back of my mind since he’d discharged me.
Getting to know his friends was a way into a glimpse behind the curtain that I’d seen last night—a man capable of unraveling.
“New, but permanent.” Marlow grabbed Blake’s left hand and held it up, a shiny gold ring reflecting in the morning light from the bay window behind them.
I smiled. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks.” Marlow’s grin was boyish and charming, pride evident in how tenderly he squeezed his partner’s wrist and clutched it to his chest. “And neither of us fell off the side of a cliff this time.”
Blake’s eyes rolled hard. “Don’t even start.”
Marlow slapped a hand to the side of his face, fluttering his lashes at me. “He chained me to the side of the rock face. It was so romantic struggling to get down on one knee while he fussed with the waist harness the entire time.”
“You struggled because you have screws in your leg. Not from the harness,” Blake countered. “Don’t blame my methods.”
“And plates. Can’t forget about those. I’m half cyborg.”
“It’s only one leg, wouldn’t that be a quarter? You have four limbs.”
Marlow’s brows pulled together. His thumb worked along the wrist still held against his chest, slow circles massaging the tissue between the bones in an absentminded manner. He lowered his mouth to kiss along Blake’s fingertips while lost in thought, clearly taking the off-handed comment seriously.
“I guess it would depend on my body mass, then?” Marlow finally said. “If we were going with an overall presentation.”
“Maybe. Either way, you’ll definitely be setting off metal detectors at the airport.”
His eyes lit up instantly. “Oh, shit. You’re so right. They’re going to think I’m packing some kind of bomb on me. You’re going to have to bust me out of jail.”
“What an exciting start to our honeymoon. A whole heist. I’ll remember to pack us both ear pieces so we can communicate while you’re being held against your will in one of those little airport jails.”
Marlow gasped. “I bet they won’t even read me my rights. Those bastards.”
Blake quickly leaned forward, getting close to his partner’s face. “I better get started on that law degree, then. Can’t have them violating your rights so flippantly. I’ll wear a suit under my sweats and bust in there as your lawyer and yell at them for holding you hostage.”
His mouth dropped open. “Wait... can we do that before? You know, as a practice round.”
A smile grew on Blake’s face. “Practice does make perfect.”
Suddenly, I felt the need to turn away at their... interesting display of affection.
Who was I to judge, though?
I’d gotten railed while wearing lingerie picked out by the man who’d done said railing.
So much for digging info out of them about Silas.
It was just as well. Hearing it from the horse’s mouth, versus a third party, was probably better, anyway.
If I wanted to get to know the man I hoped called me to his bed again, I’d have better luck talking to him directly.
Even if getting the opinions from his friends was intriguing enough to press them again over the subject once they stopped making goo-goo eyes at each other.
How deeply Silas valued his privacy was up for debate.
Clearly, these two, or at least Marlow, was a close enough friend to know the alarm code to get into this ridiculous mansion. No acquaintance had access to that kind of information and certainly not one that was familiar with him.
So it was safe to say Marlow was a safe person to ask if I wanted to get to know Silas.
However, on the other hand, how upset would he be if he felt like I was invading a private part of his life?
That I could see pissing him off enough to shun me.
Not just for a while but permanently.
A personality like his favored trust above anything else. Earning it was more valuable than gold itself. And once lost, there was no gaining it back. No matter how much one groveled.
Risking that wasn’t worth it. Not at this stage, at least. As tempting as it was to ignore my gut instincts. So far, they’d served me well. Jeopardizing that in order to wiggle out a few embarrassing stories seemed inconsequential in the long run.
I headed back over to the stove, my omelet sizzled when I flipped it over onto its raw side.
Butter and egg permeated the air, enough to make my mouth water.
The other two had so graciously left me a few measly slices of bacon to munch on while they’d settled at the cozy nook table I’d neglected to see my first sweep over the kitchen.
Behind me, the toaster popped.
Right on time.
Marlow let out another gasp. “He lives.”
Instantly, I snapped my head up from the stove, my gaze flying over to the archway. The sound of my sizzling omelet was suddenly way too loud in the quiet that had instantly descended over the kitchen.
Silas blinked slowly, still half-asleep, while he took in the two men sitting at the table.
He had one arm propped up against the molding surrounding the doorway, leaning into it.
A pair of sweats were pulled up to his hips, barely covering the deep v of his Adonis belt, while both drawstrings hung loosely undone at the front of them.
His hair was messy and definitely looked as expected from being sandwiched between two pillows and a mattress all night.
And yet, he looked as hot as ever.
“Morning, sleepy head.” Marlow lifted his mug of coffee. “Want some? Your boytoy made it fresh.”
Silas tilted his head slowly, his eyes rolling over toward me when my omelet let out a particularly juicy sound in the pan as the last bit of it finally cooked through.
I watched in real time the way he squinted at me, his brain not recognizing the stranger standing in his kitchen wearing his robe and looking completely out of place next to the other two has was much more familiar with.
It wasn’t until a full four seconds later, his eyes went wide.
And then, they snapped back to the table. “Out.”