Chapter 11
Octavia
By the time I get him through the front door, my arms are shaking so badly I can barely keep hold of him.
The house is dark in that quiet, sleeping way that makes every small sound feel dangerous.
My mom left the stove light on downstairs, a weak amber glow spilling across the kitchen and hallway, just enough to keep me from running us both into a wall.
Silas leans harder into me with every step, his body heavy and damp, his soaked clothes leaving a trail of cold drops across the floor.
He has not said more than a few words since we left Kadin’s.
He just breathes, each inhale shallow, controlled, like he is holding something inside himself so tightly it might split him open if he loosens his grip for even a second.
Getting him up the stairs is worse.
My shirt is still plastered to my skin from the pool.
My bare legs are freezing. Somewhere back at Kadin’s, my jeans are still abandoned on his patio.
Now I am half-dressed, dragging a drunk, drowning-in-himself boy up the staircase while trying not to wake the family that has no idea I just smuggled his drunk ass home like a secret.
When I finally get him into his room, he drops onto the edge of the bed with a weight that feels final.
Elbows on his knees. Head bowed. Wet hair hanging into his face.
Water drips from the ends of it onto the floorboards in a slow, maddening rhythm.
Shutting the door behind us, I stand there for a second with my hands braced on my knees, trying to breathe through the chaos still ricocheting inside me.
The patio. The boy. The sirens. The look on Silas’s face when he lost the pulse.
Swallowing hard, I make myself focus on something practical.
“We need to get you out of these clothes,” I whisper, because it is the only thought that sounds remotely sane.
Turning to move past him, I try to find a towel, anything dry, anything that lets me stop feeling the weight of him in the room, the weight of every unsaid thing coiled between us.
A storm rages outside, but in here everything narrows to the heat baking off his soaked clothes and the roughness in his breath.
My foot barely ghosts over the warped floorboard before his hand snags my wrist.
The pull is sudden enough that I stumble back between his knees, knees that trap me without touching, knees that radiate warmth through soaked fabric.
My breath snags in my throat when I realize how close he has me, how the wet cling of my shirt has ridden up to expose the thin strip of skin I only ever let mirrors see.
He stays seated, back bent slightly from exhaustion and drunkenness, but his face is right there, level with my lower stomach, eyes lifted to me with a steadiness that shouldn’t be possible for someone with bourbon on his breath.
The sight punches a hole clean through my ribs.
“Stop,” he whispers.
The word is rough, dragged out of him like he had to dig through gravel to find it. Nothing sharp in the sound. Nothing mean. Just raw plea. My hand lifts before thought can stop it, fingers combing the wet hair from his eyes.
The way he tips his head up to follow the motion nearly undoes me.
His lashes drip, dark spikes against flushed cheeks, his mouth parted in something like awe. His eyes are hazy from alcohol, yes, but a startling clarity burns beneath, something that doesn’t wobble or sway, something far more unpredictable than drunkenness.
“You’re drunk, Silas,” I say softly, the words falling apart before they reach him. “And soaked. You need to-”
“I need you to stop,” he mutters.
His fingers tighten around my wrist for one brief searing heartbeat, before sliding lower, settling with intent at my thigh, calluses scraping my damp skin. “Stop me.”
The command threads heat into the marrow of my bones. I don’t even have time to breathe a reply before his mouth finds me.
The first kiss lands directly over one of the scars low on my stomach as the world blanks out. Every thought, every excuse, every years-old instinct to hide evaporates. I freeze, not because my body wants to flee, but because it doesn’t. Because it understands before my mind catches up.
His lips are warm against the cold, damp skin I hate most on myself, that impossible contrast shattering me.
His mouth is gentle, unbearably soft, reverent in a way I never imagined anyone could be toward the jagged map I usually hide beneath layers of fabric.
My breath breaks apart on a sharp inhale.
He lingers there, pressing another kiss, then another, each one a vow.
I have spent years treating these scars as evidence, as ugly proof of everything I survived yet still resent.
I have spent years covering them, pretending they don’t exist until even I forget the shape of my own body.
But he leans forward, eyes closed, mouth open slightly against the raised flesh, his breath rolling over my skin like a blessing.
He doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t even hesitate.
He drags his lips along the roughest edge, slowly, a faint tremor tearing through me.
A soft, disbelieving “hmm” slips out before I can swallow it back.
He exhales against my stomach, the warmth seeping through to spots that never see daylight, the tenderness wrecking me worse than any hunger could.
Whatever alcohol still clouds his mind cannot erase the quiet devotion etched into every movement.
His thumb strokes the inner edge of my thigh as he lifts his gaze to mine, eyes blown wide, brimming with a dangerous clarity that leaves me afraid to breathe.
“Octavia,” he whispers, voice scraped raw. Then his mouth seals over the scar again, kissing it with aching patience, letting me feel every softened line of his lips.
My fingers knot in his wet hair on instinct, the sharp breath that leaves me trembling through the small space between us.
He kisses me there again, slower this time, lingering until the shape of his mouth burns into my skin.
Then again. His lips part against me, warm breath skating over the scars before he sinks deeper, fuller, making my stomach tighten so viciously it borders on pain.
The ache ripples everywhere, the wobble in my knees, the wild stutter of my pulse, the humiliating rush of heat that floods low between my legs so fast I nearly gasp.
Both hands glide to my thighs, steadying without restraint. His fingers flex through my damp underwear, the pressure alone sending another wave of molten heat spreading through me. “Silas,” I breathe, but saying his name detonates the tension instead of easing it.
His mouth keeps moving in slow, precise kisses over my skin.
Every press feels like he's rewriting me sentence by sentence without asking permission.
The room is silent except for the drip of water from our clothes, and the ragged pattern of our breathing.
My shirt sticks tighter with each inhale, my skin feeling too exposed…
too alive. The heat between my legs drags lower, heavier, until I have to clamp my lips shut to trap any sound that wants to tear free.
He pauses only long enough to rest his forehead against my lower stomach, hands still bracketing my thighs, breath warm enough to make me tremble again.
Then his mouth lifts, the next kiss landing lower, brushing the edge of my underwear, my entire body jolting.
My grip in his hair turns desperate. His hands clamp harder, holding me steady through the shock, forcing me to feel how real this is.
He never rushes. That’s what ruins me. If he were harsh, I could dredge up anger. If he were careless, I could slam a wall between us. Instead he kisses me like he understands exactly what each tiny reaction does to me, like he feels every shiver and decides to savor them.
By the time he stills, I’m breathing so shallowly black spots dance at the edges of my vision. He looks up, his face wrecked in a way I’ve never seen. Not taunting. Not cold. Not cruel. Just hungry. Wanting so fiercely it shows even through the pool-slicked mess of his features.
My free hand lifts to his cheek before I can stop it, my thumb wiping water from his skin while the other hand stays tangled in his hair.
I stand there half-dressed and shaking in his room, as he kneels soaked and unsteady in front of me, looking at the broken parts of me like they’re the only thing he wants.
For one fragile, reckless breath, I don’t move.
The air feels too tight for the heat gathering between us, too quiet for the sharp, uncontrolled cuts of my breathing every time his mouth grazes just above the waistband of my underwear. Each kiss is slower, deeper, less tease and more surrender, as if worship has replaced mercy.
I should stop him. That thought tries to surface beneath the shock and aching need. It just keeps losing.
His hands stay steady on my thighs until one shifts.
The movement is so unhurried I feel every inch.
His palm glides higher along the outside of my leg, fingers spreading over slick skin, drifting inward to trace the first line of my underwear.
The touch is careful, reverent, which makes it worse.
If he grabbed or shoved, maybe I could hate him.
Maybe I could gather myself enough to leave.
Instead his hand rests at the edge of me, letting that alone keep me trembling.
My breath snags, then breaks. A tiny sound slips out before I can swallow it.
His mouth stills against my skin. For a heartbeat he doesn’t move at all.
Then his thumb presses lightly at my hip as he looks up from beneath dark, wet lashes, gaze so focused it makes the heat between my legs turn painful.
“Just like that,” he says, voice low and ragged. The words wreck me. He says it like he wants every sound I have.