Chapter 22
. . .
Vesper
Ihardly ever dream, and if I do, then I rarely remember the details.
But the same clear memory has been featured in my dreams two nights in succession. The one where Silas had shown up, unannounced, and handed me a receipt for fancy sneakers and had them delivered to the apartment.
I forgot all about that afternoon.
Did I choose to push the memory to the back of my mind, and now that Kane is out of the picture, my conscience feels comfortable to remember it? I’m not sure.
All I do know is, I’ve been experiencing sharp, stabbing pains for the last few hours, and Google tells me this can be a sign of implantation—aka when a fertilized egg attaches itself to the lining of a uterus.
One of the first stages in pregnancy.
I should probably wait another couple of days to take a test, but impatience and the need to pee urge my feet toward the bathroom. I creep down the darkened hallway, careful I don’t wake Silas, who stayed on my couch last night after we binged an entire box set of Bad Boys.
Flicking on the light, I grab the twin pack of pregnancy tests, rip it open, and pull the pink cap off one of the sticks, setting the other down on the counter.
“Fuck,” I whisper when I slide down my cream sleep shorts and find spots of blood inside them.
Either I started my period early or that blood is exactly what I suspect. Spotting from implantation.
Sitting down on the toilet, I can’t pee fast enough or wait for the two minutes to pass before I can read the results.
I pace the length of my small bathroom while the test develops.
I promised Silas that he could be with me when I did this, but truthfully, I don’t know how I’m going to react when the result finally shows.
Whichever way this goes, I know my life will never be the same again. It’s hard to believe that a two-minute moment in time could have such a profound effect on a person’s future.
On the future of multiple people.
I can’t do this.
Anxiety gets the better of me when I check the test and it’s still blank.
Snatching it off the counter, I replace the pink lid and step out of the bathroom.
If I turn right down my hallway, then I’ll be back in my bed in seconds.
And if I turn left, I could be lying on the couch next to Silas, wrapped in the safety of his arms.
“Ves?” Silas’s sleepy, rough voice filters from the living room, and I head toward it, test in hand and tears pricking the corners of my eyes.
It’s the middle of the night, and the room is flooded in moonlight. Silas’s handsome face smiles at me when I slide beneath the duvet I pulled from Drew’s old bed and he scoots back on the couch.
Every night he stays here, I offer him my friend’s old bed, and each time, he declines it. I don’t know why, and I haven’t argued either.
“Hey …” He flips me onto my back when my glassy eyes shine in the moonlight. “What’s going on?” He braces a palm next to my head, which now rests on his pillow.
As a hot-blooded woman, I’ve always fantasized about a man hovering over me like this, a look of love and possession weighing heavily in his eyes.
My core throbs, and for a second, I forget about the test in my left hand. Something he hasn’t seen.
I hold it between us.
“I couldn’t wait any longer, and when I went to the bathroom, I found blood in my shorts. I’m either about to start my period or—”
“Or you’re implanting,” Silas finishes my sentence.
I push my head into the pillow so I can get a better look at him.
“How do you know so much about conception?”
He just smiles like I should’ve already worked that one out. “Because when the woman I love tells me she might be pregnant, I research the shit out of it. We’re in this together, remember?”
Silas takes the test from my hand, and all I want to do is kiss him.
He sits back on his heels, and the soft glow in the living room lights up every curve and sinew of his athletic body. It’s right at that moment I know I made the right decision not to take another one of those goddamn pills.
I want him to be a part of my life. To hell with what other people think. It isn’t our life that they’re being asked to live.
“Ves.” Silas’s eyes give nothing away when he whispers my name into the silent room, eyes fixated on the stick in his hand.
I can barely breathe, lungs fighting for the slightest trace of oxygen.
“Baby … you aren’t pregnant.”
“Okay, cool.” Two words of acceptance slide from my lips way easier than they settle in my gut.
Silas spends another second staring at the test before tossing it onto the coffee table, and his eyes find my face. “Are you okay?”
I’m determined to disguise the brokenness in my voice, the disappointment ripping through me. “Yeah, I’m fine. I guess the chances of me actually being pregnant were pretty slim anyway. It was only a onetime thing between us.”
I need Silas’s arms around me, but I don’t know how to ask for them.
Does he still want me? Because I want him.
After a beat, he settles down beside me. I’m lying on my back, and he’s on his side, facing me. I stare up at the white ceiling, a tear slowly trickling toward the pillow beneath my head.
“Give me your eyes, Vesper.”
“Can’t,” I choke out quietly. “I just need a minute, and then I’ll be okay. I’ll be like nothing ever happened and the past few days never existed.”
Silas’s heavy sigh fans across my face, and I close my eyes at the scent of him.
“If you want to act like nothing ever happened, then okay. In the meantime, I’ll cherish the fact that it did because without it, I wouldn’t have you beside me right now.”
When his lips caress my collarbone, I open my eyes.
“I hope this is okay,” he breathes between peppering kisses against my skin. “I know you wanted to take things slow.”
“You still want me?” I ask, the question causing his lips to pause.
Darkened blue eyes gaze up at me, but he doesn’t say anything as he peels my flimsy T-shirt up to just below my breasts and kisses his way across my stomach.
“I could ask you the same question.” His mouth trails lower, reaching the waistband of my sleep shorts. “Do you want me? I need to know if I’m going too far.”
I can feel how wet I am for him, how my body aches for his touch, his mouth, and his tongue.
“I want you, Si. I know I said to go slow, but I can’t hold back when I’m around you. We’re like a drug to each other, and I want you even more than I did before.”
It takes no time for him to strip out of his black boxer briefs and have me naked below him.
Kneeling between my parted thighs, he strokes his long, hard cock in rhythmic pumps. Hot arousal glistens from the tip.
“When I said, ‘I want you,’ I meant in my mouth,” I clarify.
“Fuuuck, Vesper.”
Silas tips his head toward the ceiling when I sit up on my elbows and swallow him down. He’s long and thick, and I gag when he hits the back of my throat.
I want to keep sucking, but he pulls his cock from my mouth and slides down between my legs, running his tongue along my pussy.
Getting lost in this man is the best type of remedy for gut-wrenching disappointment, and his tongue is a surefire way to make me come.
White-hot pleasure licks through my body when he pinches my swollen clit between his teeth.
I wonder if he can taste blood, but he doesn’t seem to mind. Apparently, Silas doesn’t care whether I’m on my period or not; he still wants to taste me.
“Jesus, Knockout.” His approval vibrates against my sex, another swipe of his tongue passing from one entrance to the next. “I could drown in this cunt.”
Several more rhythmic lashings of his tongue, and I unravel into his mouth, the heavy weight of earlier feeling less painful than it did before.
“Let me get you off,” I plead when he works his mouth up my body, lips finally resting against mine. I can taste myself, but when it’s mixed with Silas, I kind of like it.
He shakes his head. “No, you don’t owe me a thing. Tonight was all about you and what you need.”
“I want to have sex with you.”
“I know,” he replies softly, “and we will again, I promise.” Silas runs his fingers through my hair, studying me for a second.
“But we both know you need more time before we sleep together again. Your body, mind—they’ve been through a lot, and they’re still spinning out, even now.
” He sets a chaste kiss against my forehead.
“Nothing has changed for me—and definitely not the way I feel about you. So, relax, okay? Because I’m not going anywhere. ”