Chapter 18
Octavia
Steam fogs the mirror almost immediately, softening the edges of everything except him.
Backing into the bathroom door on instinct, my pulse slams against my throat as Silas follows.
The shower is already running, water hammering against tile in a steady, violent hiss.
He’s only in sweats now. No hoodie. No shirt.
Just bruised skin, hard muscle and old scars laid bare under the yellow bathroom light, his chest rising and falling too fast, his ribs still marked from sparring, his hair a mess from my hands.
He looks at me like he’s starving.
Not in a way that feels careless. Worse than that. Like he knows exactly what he wants and hates that it’s me and can’t stop anyway.
I barely have time to breathe before he’s on me again.
His mouth crashes into mine, hot and rough, full of all the things neither of us knows how to say without hurting each other.
I kiss him back just as hard. There’s no softness in it at first, only hunger mixed with weeks of silence burning off in the heat between our mouths.
Dragging my fingers down his bare chest, he makes a low sound into the kiss, something wrecked and needy that goes straight through me.
His hands find my waist.
Then my ribs.
Then the hem of my tank top.
He doesn’t pause to ask. He doesn’t even slow down. His fingers knot in the fabric and rip it upward in one sharp motion, tearing cotton, dragging the whole thing off me with enough force to make me stumble. The sound of the fabric splitting cuts through the bathroom.
I’m bare from the waist up, standing in steam and fluorescent light with his eyes on my breasts.
The look on his face almost undoes me more than the tearing did.
His gaze drops and stays there, painfully intent, taking me in like this is something he’s imagined too many times to count. My nipples tighten instantly in the warm damp air.
“Silas,” I whisper, but it comes out helpless.
His mouth finds my breast before I can say anything else.
The first pull of his lips around my nipple makes my whole body jolt.
One of my hands flies to his shoulder, the other into his hair, feeling the rough exhale he gives against my skin before he sucks harder.
His tongue flicks over the tightened peak, slow at first, then flatter, wetter, making my knees threaten to fold.
Arching into him without meaning to, he takes that as invitation, not accident.
His hand cups my other breast, thumb rolling over the nipple there until I’m gasping against the side of his head. He mouths lower, kissing across the soft underside, then comes back up, sucking again, harder this time, enough to make a broken sound catch in my throat.
The shower keeps pounding. Steam thickens around us. I can barely think.
He shifts downward without warning, kisses trailing over my sternum, over my ribs, over my stomach, every place his mouth lands feeling branded. Keeping my hands buried in his hair, I can’t make them let go.
I don’t want to.
When he reaches the waistband of my underwear, he looks up at me.
That is what nearly kills me.
Silas on his knees in front of me, bare chest bruised and damp with steam, dark sweats hanging low on his hips, one hand spread over my thigh while his mouth hovers just above the elastic of my panties.
His eyes are wild in a way I’ve only seen once before.
Not drunk exactly. Not gone. Just stripped down to need.
Hooking his fingers into the sides of my underwear, he drags them down.
Slowly at first, making me feel every inch of cool air that follows.
The fabric catches at my hips, then slides over my thighs, his gaze on me the whole time, watching my face.
Watching the way my breathing stutters. Watching the way my legs instinctively part wider for him before I can stop myself.
By the time the underwear drops to the floor around my ankles, I’m trembling.
He presses a kiss to the inside of one thigh.
Then the other.
My fingers tighten in his hair when he exhales against me, a warm, damp breath that brushes exactly where I’m already aching.
The sound that leaves me is humiliatingly soft.
He hears it. His hands slide up the backs of my thighs, spreading me open farther, thumbs pressing into skin hard enough to keep me there.
And then his mouth is on me.
The first lick is slow enough to be cruel.
Sucking in air so fast it burns, his tongue drags up through me in one long stroke, the obscene intimacy of it nearly taking my legs out from under me. Groaning at the taste of me before he even comes back for more, the sound is full of hunger. I feel it vibrate straight through my center.
“Oh my god-”
He does it again.
And again.
Each pass slower than I can stand, as if he’s learning me all over, as if two weeks apart has only made him greedier.
His tongue flattens over me, then narrows, then circles the place that makes my body jerk.
His grip on my thighs tightens instantly, holding me open when my legs try to close around his head.
Looking down once, I regret it immediately.
He is devastating like this. Kneeling at my feet in nothing but those sweats, chest bare, glistening faintly from the steam, face buried between my thighs like this is exactly where he belongs.
His hair is a mess under my hands. His shoulders flex every time he moves his mouth.
He looks like something holy dragged through ruin.
The sound he makes when I tug his hair is enough to shatter me.
He likes it.
I know he likes it because he groans and licks deeper, because his fingers dig into my thighs harder, because his mouth gets messier after that, more determined, more ravenous.
The wet sounds fill the room, slick, impossible to ignore over the rush of water.
My head tips back against the tile, my chest heaving.
I can’t find enough air.
Sucking in a gasp once he sucks on my clit, my vision flickers.
Easing off just enough to lick through me again, his tongue slides lower, then back up, circling with a patience that feels vicious. He does not rush. That’s what ruins me. He knows exactly how to keep me hovering there, wanting more, trembling for it.
“Silas,” I breathe, fingers twisting tighter in his hair.
He answers by pressing his face closer, mouth opening on me like he’s starving.
The sound that tears out of him at the taste is so wrecked I almost cum from that alone.
My thighs tighten around his shoulders. Holding me steady, he keeps eating me, relentless now, every stroke of his tongue more focused than the one before.
The steam clings to my skin. The tile is cool against my back. His mouth is hot between my legs and all I can do is stand there shaking while he devours me like he has wanted to do this every second of the last two weeks.
My hips start moving before I can stop them.
At first it’s only a helpless rock forward, a shallow chase for more pressure, more of his tongue, more of the obscene heat of his mouth dragging through me.
Then he groans into me, the sound snapping whatever fragile restraint I had left.
I start bucking against his face in earnest, chasing the pleasure with frantic little thrusts that make my thighs shake.
He doesn’t stop me.
He holds me there.
His hands lock harder around the backs of my thighs, fingers digging in just enough to keep me spread open while I grind against his mouth like I’m out of my mind.
The wet sounds turn louder...messier. Every time my hips jerk he answers with another long lick, another rough suck at my clit that sends sparks exploding behind my eyes.
“Silas-” My voice cracks apart. “Silas, I-”
He knows.
He drives me there on purpose, tongue flattening over me, then narrowing, then circling my clit with merciless precision until the pressure in my stomach turns white-hot. My hand fisted in his hair goes tight enough to hurt. He just groans again, the vibration of it tipping me over.
The orgasm tears through me so fast I can’t even catch a breath around it.
My whole body jerks, back arching, knees trying to close around his head as heat spills out of me in pulsing waves.
A broken sound rips from my throat while I shake through it, my hips still rocking weakly into his mouth because I can’t stop, can’t think, can’t do anything but feel.
He stays there through every shudder, taking it, swallowing it, letting me cum all over his mouth while the bathroom spins around me.
When it finally loosens its grip enough for me to breathe again, he rises.
The movement is quick, almost dizzying. One second he’s on his knees between my legs, face wet with me, lips swollen and parted; the next he’s standing over me, grabbing my hips hard enough to steady me before my legs can fold.
My chest is heaving. My fingers are still uselessly tangled in his hair.
Catching my wrist, he drags my hand down.
“Clean up what you did.” He growls.
The words slam into me.
Staring at him for half a second, dazed and still trembling, I obey.
Leaning in, I drag my tongue along the slick line of his jaw first, tasting myself there.
His breath hitches as I lick the corner of his mouth, then across his lower lip, then the damp sheen on his cheek where my orgasm splashed him.
Every pass is slow, intimate enough to feel filthy.
Tightening his grasp on my waist while I clean him with my mouth, my gaze meets his.
His eyes are already on me, dark, burning… almost disbelieving.
Swallowing, I sink to my knees.