Chapter 1 Delaney #2
A whimper escapes before I can swallow it.
Silas’s breath shudders. “Fuck, sunshine… you’re killing me.”
He presses his forehead to mine, steadying himself, and the moment is unexpectedly intimate. His fingers trace the line of my jaw, the curve of my throat, down the front of my shirt where my pulse is racing.
“You sure?” he murmurs. “Because once I touch you again, I’m not stopping until you’re shaking for me.”
A tremor runs through me.
“I’m sure,” I whisper, surprising myself with how level-headed it sounds.
He curses under his breath, and then he’s kissing me again, harder this time. The kind of kiss that peels months of numbness off my skin.
His hands move down, gripping the backs of my thighs. Before I can think, he lifts me, bracing me against the brick wall, my legs wrapping around his hips. When his body presses fully to mine, heat flares low and sharp, stealing my breath.
“Oh,” I gasp, fingers sliding into his hair.
He grins against my neck. “That’s right. Let me hear you.”
Then he’s kissing down my throat, slow, dirty, lingering in all the places I didn’t realize I’d been starved for touch. My back arches against the wall as his mouth finds the edge of my collarbone, sucking lightly until I moan.
He groans. “You taste incredible.”
I tug at his shirt, needing skin. He gets the hint, one hand sliding up under the hem of mine. His palm is hot against my stomach, gliding higher, over the swell of one breast. He squeezes, thumb brushing over my nipple through the thin fabric, and my breath catches.
His body responds instantly, his hips rolling into mine with a low, involuntary groan. “Fuck, Delaney…”
The way he says my name sends heat spiraling through me.
I tug him closer with my knees. “Silas.”
He kisses me hard, like he’s been waiting for me to say it, then pulls back just enough to meet my eyes.
“We’re not doing this in an alley,” he continues roughly, breath hot against my neck. “I need a bed. And enough space to make you forget every shitty thing that put you in this town.”
My heart skips.
Not from the words… but from the way he says them.
Like he sees more than he should.
I nod, breathless. “Okay.”
Silas grins as he lowers me. He threads his fingers through mine, the warmth of his palm sending a rush of heat straight to my chest.
“Where are you staying?” he asks, already tugging me toward the street.
“Wild Reverie’s place.”
His eyes flicker with recognition. “The band’s home?”
“That’s the one. They’re on the road—said I could crash there.”
“Perfect.” He squeezes my hand.
We walk fast beneath the pines, our linked hands swinging between us like an unspoken promise. The closer we get to the house, the more aware I am of every step, every breath, every brush of his shoulder against mine.
At the porch, I fumble briefly with the key. The lock clicks.
Silas presses a palm against the door above my head. “Let me in, sunshine.”
I push the door open.
The second it shuts behind us, Silas lifts me like I’m weightless.
My back hits the wall.
His mouth crashes into mine, hungry, sure, devastatingly confident, but his hands… his hands are slow.
Too slow.
They roam over me, mapping me inch by inch, memorizing the places I gasp, lingering everywhere except where I burn most.
He tugs my shirt up, and I help him strip it over my head, the hem tangling briefly in my hair before it lands somewhere on the floor. A second later, his own shirt joins it, my fingers shoving it up and off just to feel his skin on mine.
I slide my hands over his bare stomach, dragging my fingertips across the ridges of muscle just because I can.
His breath stutters before a low, rough sound tears out of him.
“Careful,” he murmurs against my lips. “You touch me like that again, and I’m going to forget every intention I have of taking my time with you.”
“Who said I need you to take your time?”
His eyes go molten.
“Oh, sunshine,” he murmurs. “You have no idea how badly you want me to.”
In one fluid movement, he carries me down the hall.
The house is silent around us, floorboards creaking, guitars glinting in the moonlight as we pass.
He lays me on the bed with an intense control that makes my breath catch.
He braces over me, studying me, deciding exactly how he wants to undo me.
His fingers find the button of my jeans, popping it open with infuriating slowness, then sliding the zipper down.
He eases them, and my panties with them, down my legs, lifting my hips with one big palm until I’m bare under his gaze.
I hear the quiet rasp of his own belt and zipper, but he leaves his jeans hanging low on his hips, like he’s savoring every step.
“You’re beautiful,” he says. “And I’m going to make you feel every second of that.”
Heat ripples through me.
Silas lowers his mouth to my throat and kisses down, slow… slower… painfully slow.
Every inch he travels is a tease, a promise, a denial.
His hands move over me, firm touches that make my back arch but never quite land where I need them.
My brain starts to unravel.
He pushes my thighs apart with a commanding touch, but instead of giving me what I’m silently begging for, he drags his mouth along the sensitive inside of my thigh.
Just breath. Just heat. Just torment.
“Silas…” I choke out.
He looks up at me, pupils blown wide.
“That’s right,” he murmurs. “Say my name.”
His thumb strokes slowly up my thigh, stopping just shy of where I’m shaking for him.
“Say it again, when I make you come apart without even touching you the way you think you want.”
The shock of it steals my breath.
Then he lowers his mouth to me, but even then, he takes his time, teasing around the edges of sensation, finding every nerve that lights me up without giving me the direct pressure I’m desperate for.
Heat floods through me in dizzying waves.
My hands twist in his hair, and he reacts instantly, pressing my hips down into the mattress with one arm, pinning me so I can’t chase more.
“Uh uh,” he growls, dark with satisfaction. “You take what I give you.”
I gasp. I can’t help it. It comes out of me like a tremor, a hot crackle of humiliation and need. He finds it delicious. I can see it in the glint of his eyes as he looks up from between my legs, lips parted, tongue glancing against his teeth.
He’s not going to let me win. Not one bit.
Every flick of his tongue is calculated, a careful study in just enough to tip me over but never let me go under.
My body starts to buck, but he’s strong, pressing me down, holding me still.
He circles, almost a touch too light at first, until I think I’ll scream, then suddenly the pressure deepens and I do scream, the sound shattering in the quiet room.
Every slow stroke, every soft flick of sensation, drives me higher.
He adjusts constantly, reading me, timing me, keeping me dangling right at the edge.
My breath breaks.
My thighs tremble.
My voice is a mess of pleading sounds I can’t control.
“That’s it,” Silas murmurs against my skin. “Feel it. Don’t rush it.”
I’m shaking so hard I can’t think.
He gives me one sharper movement, one powerful stroke, and the world snaps open.
I shatter, helpless and shaking, his name ripped from my throat.
Silas holds me through it, gripping my waist, anchoring me, kissing the inside of my thigh, calming the wild he intentionally unleashed.
When the tremors finally ease, he kisses his way back up until he hovers above me, brushing his thumb along my cheek.
“You okay?” he whispers.
I nod, breathless. “Better than okay.”
“Good,” he murmurs, smiling wickedly. “Because I’m not done teasing you yet.”
He captures my lips in a slow, consuming kiss, and I kiss him back, fingers in his hair, pulling him down harder.
He groans, a raw, uncontrollable sound.
“Delaney,” he breathes. “Don’t make me pin your wrists above your head and drag you through another one, begging.”
My breath stutters. “I…”
He catches my jaw, tilting my face toward his.
“Look at me.”
I do.
I can’t not.
“Good girl,” he murmurs, rougher now. “You want more.”
Not a question.
“Yes,” I whisper.
A curse rips out of him.
“Then I’m going to build you up slow this time. So slow you won’t know if you want to climb into my arms or crawl out of your skin.”
He straightens just enough to shove his jeans and boxers down and kick them away, the mattress dipping with the movement. When he settles between my thighs again, there’s nothing left between us but heat and the thin thread of his control.
His hand slides beneath me, angling me where he wants me, guiding my body exactly how he chooses. He hovers at my entrance, his thick, throbbing erection nudging me.
He rocks forward just enough to test a fraction of me. His eyes never leave my face, scanning every twitch, every lip bite, every panicked drag of breath as I fight not to clench and whimper right away.
I realize, blushing, that he’s right.
I am already begging, and all I can do about it is swallow hard and let his name tumble out, rough and desperate.
He doesn’t give it to me, not at first. He takes his time, tracing circles with the hand braced at my hip, the other bracketing my jaw, holding me open, keeping me exactly where I am so I feel every careful inch as he presses inside.
It’s maddening how slow he goes, how meticulously he resists until I can’t tell if the ache in my chest is want or need or some hybrid that burns hotter than both.
“Fuck,” he grits, “you feel…”
He cuts himself off with a moan, twisting his hips just enough to make me gasp. Every inch is a war. He’s stubborn, I’m desperate, and both of us are greedy as hell.
"Just like that," I pant, no pride, no filter, the way his hand curves under my jaw, an anchor to whatever is left of my self-control.
He holds me between the want and the reward, with a patience I could never fake.
Every muscle in my body is knotting under his measured push, and when he finally bottoms out, I lose the fight against the noise in my throat.
It’s not a scream, but it’s not a fucking secret, either.
His laughter is hungry and close to my ear. “Knew you could take it.”
I’m dizzy, nails carving wild hieroglyphs down his arms, trying to make him move, and terrified of what’ll happen if he does. But he waits.
He wants me to say something, I realize, even as I’m still blinking white sparks off my lashes. Wants words, not just the wrecked sounds spilling out of me.
Maybe he’s waiting for “more,” maybe he wants me to beg, but all I can manage is, “Don’t fucking stop,” so I say it again, and again, until my own voice sounds like a stranger’s.
He’s trembling against me, barely, but I can feel it, and the way his breath shivers through my hair tells me he’s just as close to feral as I am.
He bends down, the scratch of his stubble lighting my whole jaw on fire, and says right into my ear, “Look at you.”
It isn’t a question, or even a command. It’s just a fact. I am all over him, exposed and hungry and ruined. He can see it, and he’s not going to let me pretend otherwise.
His hands slide down my hips, blunt fingertips digging into muscle like he’s worried I’ll vanish if he doesn’t hold on.
The friction is unreal. Every drag and slide is tight enough that the edges blur, every slow retreat a mythic pull, a wound.
Our bodies lock and tangle, sweat slicking every surface, and there’s no way to breathe it out, only to let it choke and fill me.
He moves when I’m sure I’ll break. It’s not a gentle start, just this pure, animal rhythm that threatens to unravel everything I am.
I try to arch up, to catch the pace, but he’s holding me down, setting the speed, dragging every curse and plea out of my mouth because I can’t keep up.
Masochist, I think, but the word is for me. I want this, crave it, hate how much I crave it.
The pace is criminal, impossible. The room dissolves, and all that’s left is that animal repetition, friction building until the world’s nothing but skin and heat, my body blurring at the seams where he fits inside me.
My brain loops back on itself, electrified by sensation and the sick, miraculous knowledge that I am not, will never be, enough. Not for him, not for this, not for anything. It kills me, and it’s the only thing that makes me feel alive.
My thighs are shaking, but I force myself up to meet him every time, desperate for the next hit.
We are both ruined, the slap and drag of bodies a wild metronome, but he still won’t give me the edge.
He pushes me right to it, backs off, pushes again, leaves me hanging by a hair.
I bite his shoulder to keep from screaming.
“That’s it,” he says, dark with pleased approval. “Shake for me. Scream.”
When the second wave hits, sharper, deeper, his mouth is on mine, catching every sound I make, his hands steadying me like he planned the entire thing from the start.
When the world finally settles, he rests his forehead against mine, breathing hard.
“You’re trouble,” he whispers, wrecked. “And I want every second of it. I don’t want this to end.”
Neither do I.
Not with him looking at me like that.
Not with the room spinning around us.
Not with the promise of more written all over his smile.