Chapter 37
Octavia
His mouth finds mine again before I can gather the next thought, the whole room seemingly exhaling around us.
The lamp beside the bed throws a low amber haze over everything, turning the edges of the room soft and warm, but there is nothing soft about what that first kiss does to me.
It is slow, yes. Patient in the way only Silas can manage when he is trying not to overwhelm me with the full force of how much he feels.
But beneath that patience there is hunger, a pull that makes my body answer before my mind catches up.
Shifting closer instinctively, the mattress dips, the sheet tangling at our legs.
His hand, broad and warm at my waist, tightens just enough to draw me flush against him.
The pressure of his chest to mine is immediately grounding.
His other hand slips under my shirt, rough fingertips gliding over the bare skin of my stomach with reverent slowness.
That touch alone makes me shiver. He feels it.
He always feels everything.
His mouth deepens over mine, tongue brushing mine in a kiss that is somehow both sweet and devastating.
I make a small sound into him before I can stop it.
He swallows it like he wants every piece of me, even the quiet ones.
My fingers catch at his shoulders, then slide up into his hair, threading there, holding him close while he kisses me like there is nowhere else in the world either of us could possibly belong.
The fear from earlier still exists somewhere beyond this bed, beyond these walls, but in here it feels stripped of its teeth. In here there is just Silas, just his careful hands, his heartbeat and the way he touches me like my body is not something to survive but something to cherish.
He leaves my mouth only long enough to kiss my jaw, then the hinge of it, then the soft place beneath my ear.
I feel his breath there before I feel his lips.
That anticipation alone makes my stomach tighten.
He trails lower, to my throat, lingering in the places he knows unravel me fastest. Every kiss is unhurried.
Intentional. His thumb brushes the line of my waist under my shirt while his mouth maps my skin as if he is learning scripture by touch.
My breath catches when his hand glides higher, spanning my ribs, then easing back down in no rush at all. He is not grabbing, not taking. He is feeling. Discovering. Savoring. That almost undoes me more than urgency would.
Dragging my fingertips down his back beneath the sheet, I feel muscle, heat, old scars.
..that familiar tension still buried in him even now.
It never fully leaves. Neither does my need to soothe it when I can.
Flattening my palm where he needs me most, he makes a low sound into my skin, something rough and pleased all at once.
“Come here,” he murmurs, voice thick against my throat, as if I have not already folded myself around him as far as I can.
Then his hand closes around my thigh.
The grip is tight enough to make my breath hitch, but careful too, every bit of pressure calculated.
He slides his palm higher along the back of my leg, then hikes it over his hip.
The movement opens me to him immediately.
Feeling the length of him, hard and straining beneath thin fabric, my whole body flushes with heat.
He does not stop there. He hooks under my other thigh and slings both my legs over him, drawing my hips across his lap until my chest presses fully to his.
The position leaves me draped over him, tangled, close enough that every breath we take belongs to both of us.
“There,” he whispers, kissing me again, softer this time, almost like praise. “That’s where I want you.”
I melt against him.
My shirt has ridden up around my ribs now.
His hand slips over my side, over the small of my back, then down to the curve of my ass beneath the hem of my sleep shorts.
Feeling the way his fingers spread there, holding me, anchoring me, the friction of his body beneath mine makes me press down without meaning to. He groans into my mouth, deep and low.
The sound goes right through me.
I kiss him harder, wanting to swallow it, wanting to hear more. My hand moves between us almost on instinct, sliding down his stomach, finding the hard line of him trapped under the waistband. He tenses under my palm, not in resistance but in anticipation so sharp it feels electric.
His forehead touches mine for a second.
“Baby,” he breathes.
There is something so wrecked and tender in it that my heart turns over.
My fingers work carefully, slipping beneath the fabric, freeing him inch by inch. He sucks in a breath when I wrap my hand around him, heavy, hot and already aching. I stroke once, slow, just enough to feel him pulse as his eyes shut.
“Octavia,” he groans, my name in his mouth sounding like half prayer, half warning.
Kissing him again before he can say anything else, I keep my hand moving.
Slow. Wet from the slick heat already gathering between my thighs when I reach down to touch myself, then back to him.
The drag of my hand over him makes his whole body tense beneath me.
His head tips back into the pillow. The line of his throat is exposed, gorgeous and vulnerable in a way he never is with anyone else.
I kiss the hollow there.
“You’re shaking,” I whisper.
He lets out a breath that almost passes for a laugh. “You do that to me.”
There is no arrogance in it. Just truth.
Shifting my hips, he grips them immediately, helping guide the movement, his hands broad and steady on my thighs. The head of him brushes me through my shorts first, then along the damp fabric when I push it aside. The contact makes us both gasp.
“Tell me,” he murmurs, eyes opening to meet mine, dark and so unbearably gentle despite all that force in him. “Tell me what you want.”
"You,” I say, because anything else would be a lie.
His mouth curves faintly at that, not smug, not triumphant.
Affectionate. Ruined. He reaches between us, fingers brushing mine as he helps me line him up.
The first press of him at my entrance makes my whole body go taut.
I hold his gaze as I sink down, slowly, both of us breathing through it together.
He fits into me with that same deep, consuming fullness that always feels like being known too intimately to hide. My mouth falls open. He swears softly under his breath, gripping my hips tighter, not to force, only to steady me.
“That’s it,” he whispers. “Take your time. I’ve got you.”
Lowering myself inch by inch until he is fully inside me, I stop, unable to do anything but feel for a second.
The stretch. The heat. The way his body trembles underneath mine while he fights not to move too soon.
My hands frame his face. His hands stay at my hips like that is the only place in the world he trusts himself to keep them.
His eyes don’t leave mine.
“You feel so good,” he says quietly, like it costs him something to say it this softly. “God, you feel fucking perfect.”
Leaning down to kiss him, I start to move almost unbearably slow.
A shallow lift of my hips. A careful glide back down.
His breath catches beneath me. One hand slips from my hip to my spine, flattening there, guiding me closer each time I sink onto him.
There is no rush in him now. None of the frantic edge from before.
Just this molten, aching pace like he wants to savor every inch, every reaction, every little sound I make.
And he does.
He notices all of them.
The way my mouth parts when he fills me deeper. The way my nails drag lightly through his hair. The way my thighs tremble when I shift for friction. Every time I make a small sound he answers it...by kissing me, by tightening his hand on my waist, by whispering something that turns my bones soft.
“That’s my girl,” he murmurs against my lips. “Come apart slow for me.”
I shiver all over.
He rolls us suddenly, until I am the one beneath him and he is braced over me, one forearm planted beside my head, the other hand slipping under my thigh to hook it higher over his hip. The change in angle drives him deeper. Gasping, I cling to him, his forehead pressing to mine.
“Too much?” he asks immediately, though his own voice is already fraying at the edges.
I shake my head.
“Good,” he whispers, kissing the corner of my mouth. Then he starts to move.
Slowly.
Lazily, almost, if not for the intensity in every thrust. He pulls out until only the tip remains, then eases back in with intentional care, like he is determined to make me feel every inch of him, every drag, stretch and deep warm press.
It is not rough. It is not frantic. It is so much more than either of those things because it is loving.
Because he is looking at me the whole time like this means something sacred to him.
His hand on my thigh strokes once, twice, then squeezes.
“You’re so beautiful like this,” he murmurs. “Under me. Looking at me like that.”
Turning my face into his next kiss, I'm dizzy with him.
He kisses my cheek, my temple, my mouth, then whispers against my lips, “I love how you let me be soft with you.”
The words hit me harder than the thrusts do.
My arms tighten around him. Lifting my hips to meet his, that little motion pulls a low, wrecked sound from him. He kisses me deeper in answer. His pace stays measured but there is more need in it now, a little more weight, a little more drag.
“Fuck,” he breathes, not harshly, but like the word is being pulled out of him. “You’re perfect. You feel perfect.”
He reaches between us then, not in any hurry, fingers finding the place my body already aches for him. He touches me there in slow circles that match the rhythm of his hips. The combination is too much and nowhere near enough. I moan into his shoulder as he kisses my hair.
“That’s it,” he whispers. “Let me take care of you.”
His voice keeps doing this to me, keeps making my body soften, open and tremble in ways I cannot control. He keeps talking, not constantly, not enough to break the moment, just enough that every word feels like another stroke.
“You’re doing so good for me.”
“I love the way you hold on to me.”
“Let me hear you.”
“You never have to be afraid with me here.”
That one nearly breaks me.
Pulling him down harder, I kiss him like I need his mouth to survive it. He answers with a deeper thrust that makes my whole body arch as he groans against my lips. His hand at my thigh slides higher, opening me more, the next stroke landing so deep I can only cling and shake beneath him.
“There,” he says softly, feeling it. “There you are.”
The room has narrowed to his breathing, his mouth, the warmth of his skin, the slow relentless pleasure building hot inside me.
His movements grow a shade rougher, not hard, not careless, just less restrained, like he cannot help chasing the way I respond.
The bed creaks quietly under us. The sheet twists around my calves.
He keeps one leg trapped over his hip, thrusting into me with the kind of focus that makes every motion feel purposeful.
Sliding my hand between us, needing more, he catches my wrist gently.
“Let me,” he murmurs.
His fingers replace mine. The pressure is perfect. Crying out softly, his eyes darken with something so tender it nearly undoes me.
“There she is,” he says, almost smiling. “My sweet girl.”
My body tightens around him, the pleasure sharpening fast now.
“You can let go,” he whispers. “I’ve got you. Cum for me, baby.”
The end of it is not a snap but a slow gathering wave, drawn out by his pace, by his mouth moving over mine, by the steady pressure of his hand and the way he keeps telling me how good I am like he means every syllable.
When I finally break, it happens with his name in my mouth and tears pricking hot at the corners of my eyes for no reason except that it is all too much and exactly what I need.
He kisses those away before they can fall.
When I shudder through it, he buries his face against my neck, following not long after, thrusts turning erratic for only a few seconds before he stills deep inside me with a groan so low it sounds pulled from somewhere ancient.
His whole body shakes with it. One hand grips my thigh hard enough to bruise.
The other cradles the back of my head, holding me like something precious while he comes apart.
Then everything softens.
He lowers us carefully, still inside me, until all his weight settles in a way that feels safe instead of heavy. His lips brush my shoulder. My jaw. The corner of my mouth.
Neither of us says anything for a while.
We just breathe together, tangled in sheets and dim light, his hand stroking absently up and down my thigh where he held me open for him, my fingers tracing the line of his spine beneath his shirt.
And all I can think, with my chest still pressed to his and the taste of him still on my mouth, is that this is what it means to be wanted without being consumed, to be held without being caged, to be loved by someone who knows exactly how dangerous he can be and still chooses tenderness when he touches me.