Chapter Twenty-Five #3
It became too much. The heat built within her and without, and she pulled away.
His lips found her neck, nibbling there, kissing the beads of sweat as they rolled down.
His hands wandered over her like crawling vines, up from her waist, to her breasts, to her neck.
There was hunger there, a wild hunger. And then her hands were on him, under his suit jacket, running along the muscles of his stomach.
She could see the lines of his abdomen beneath his sweat-soaked shirt.
She peeled off his coat, forcing it over his shoulders.
He accepted this gratefully, pulling the sweaty jacket off and throwing it into the dirt.
His hands found the clasps on the back of her gown and undid them, deft fingers moving, until her bodice was loose and she was sliding out of it, grateful to be free, to feel the air on her sweating skin.
He started on the corset, fumbling with the laces until he gave up and stuck his hands into the crease and ripped. He cast it aside, and then she was standing there in only her shift, her breasts spilling out, pressing against the sweat-soaked fabric, barely obscured.
His hands found the hem. Then, slowly, with great care, he lifted the shift above her knee, her thigh, her waist—
Panic struck her. She grabbed his hands, stopping him.
“Wait,” she said. “My scar. If… if you don’t want to…”
Silas looked at her intensely. He took the hem again and pulled the dress over her head. She lifted her arms to help him, and when it was done, she lowered them, covering her scar where it tangled over her breast.
Silas took a step back and looked at her. He paused for a moment, eyes moving over every curve of her body, tracing her scar.
Elswyth turned her scarred side away. “I am disgusting.”
Silas slid his hand around her waist and pulled her close. With his other hand, he cupped her face. “You are the most divine creature I have ever seen.”
He kissed her. She melted into him, warmth starting between her legs.
A heat rose in her belly. Her hips began to move, grinding against him.
She moved to reach for his groin, taking the bulge in her hand, and he shivered, pressing her closer.
Her fingers began working at the buttons of his pants, but he pushed her away, breaking the kiss.
“What is it?” Elswyth asked.
Silas shook his head. “Not yet.”
He began kissing her neck, moving downward.
He knelt in the dirt and the flowers, and even kneeling he was tall, his lips at her breasts.
He took one red, soft nipple in his mouth, kissing her there until it hardened.
He kissed the other, and she looked down at him, at his dark eyes staring upward, at his hair falling perfectly to the side.
He kissed lower, down along her scar. He kissed her soft belly, her hips, left and right. Then his nose found the hair above her mound, and he kissed there as well. His tongue wandered around her lips, and then entered her.
She gasped and her hands found his hair, digging in, and then pushed him away. He looked up at her, lips glistening, that same ferocity in his eyes.
“Silas… we shouldn’t…”
His tongue explored once more. He paused just long enough to say “Tell me to stop and I will.”
She gasped again. A small “No” escaped, and suddenly, Silas was standing, his hands under her thighs. Then she was in the air, straddling him, feeling his erection between her legs.
Silas moved her toward the pool, laid her on the soft grass there. He kissed her, grinding between her legs, once, twice. The friction made the heat build in her stomach, and her legs clenched around his waist.
He lowered himself again, spreading her legs with sure hands, lowering his head between them.
Again she felt his nose, then his tongue.
His fingers spread her lips like the petals of a flower, and he searched within for the bud.
When he found it, waves of pleasure rocked her.
She squirmed, reaching out to either side to steady herself, her fingers digging in the dirt.
Her head lolled to the right where sleeping flowers waited, watching.
Up above her, palm trees towered, lost in the hazy air.
Silas tasted her. He massaged her, lapped up the sweat and the mist and her own moisture. His tongue and fingers worked, kneading her until she shook.
He stopped, lifting his head.
“Please,” she whispered, “please, more.”
Silas knelt. He dropped his suspenders to either side, and then unbuttoned his shirt, peeling it over his head.
His body shimmered in the light of the moon: brown and glistening with sweat, swollen with muscle.
A small patch of hair sat darkly in the middle of his chest, leading faintly south, over his abdominals and to his belly, where it disappeared beneath his trousers.
What surprised her, however, were the scars.
There were none on his face or arms, but across his torso, hundreds of scars crisscrossed the muscles: burns and cuts and the marks of a whip.
He wore a necklace that she had never seen before, tucked under his shirt; a double string of black pearls, interspersed with gold beads, etched with symbols in a language she did not know.
Silas unbuttoned his trousers, pulling them down over his muscular thighs, along with the drawers beneath. His shaft breached out, hard and smooth in the moonlight, and then he was on top of her. His arms were by her head, and his face hovered above hers, hair falling, sweat dripping.
She felt the tip of him, rubbing between her lips, and she reached down to grab him.
The hardness of him shocked her, and she stroked once, twice, unsure what to do.
His tip was wet from her, and she rubbed him there again, feeling the pleasure of it.
Then she lowered him, finding her opening, and guided him in.
She gasped at the fullness of it. The feeling of opening to accommodate him, the blooming, the heat and the friction and the pleasure.
He stayed like that for one heartbeat, then two, and then leaned down and kissed her.
He began to move, stroking, his powerful legs working.
She grabbed his lower back and pulled him in, her legs wrapping, entangling, her hands moving behind his head, through his hair, climbing over him.
He stroked again and again, the steady motion building something in her, something that grew with each thrust, bit by bit, until her belly was full of it, until it was like lightning inside of her, building, building, waiting to strike.
Silas looked down at her, eyes growing wide, droplets of sweat glistening on his forehead.
“Silas, Silas, I—”
The lightning left her. She gripped the dirt around her, and waves of vitae flowed out in pulses.
It filled the ground, filled the flowers near her, and she watched them unfold, a field of pink and purple and lavender.
Her head lolled, pleasure still twitching out of her in electric currents, and she saw a wave of flowers spread over the room—the trees above her, the vines that hung between them, all of them blooming at once, a thousand species she couldn’t name.
A flock of birds shook from the treetops, crying out, fleeing the sudden disturbance.
Silas groaned, twitching, and she felt something warm flow into her, filling her up, her vitae mingling with his.
He collapsed on top of her, and she loved it, the warm weight of him.
Her body felt limp. Utterly relaxed. She smelled his hair as he lay between her breasts and then took his hand and began to play with it, weaving her fingers between his.
They stayed like that for a moment, their own small eternity, until he looked up at her.
He seemed almost innocent then, wide-eyed and unguarded.
“Was that… all right?” he asked.
Elswyth laughed. “It was more than all right. It was wonderful.”
He smiled and then laid his head between her breasts again.
“Good,” he said. He rolled over, into the dirt, pulling her into the crook of his arm.
Her hand found the patch of hair on his chest, began to twirl it between her fingers.
She breathed deeply, enjoying the scent of him, of the sweat and dirt and lingering cologne.
He looked up at the flowers in the canopy, which had already started to drop their petals. “This is amazing,” he said.
Elswyth shrugged. “It was an accident. I couldn’t help it. It just felt so good, and the vitae started building… It didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
Silas frowned. He stroked the petals of the flower next to him. Elswyth’s fingers traced the scars on his chest.
“Silas,” she said quietly, “what are these? Where did you get them?”
“Hm?” he said. It was as though she took him away from something, some small reverie. “Ah. Gifts from my father.”
“Your father did this?”
He paused and then nodded.
“Why?” Elswyth asked.
He sighed, looking down at the scars and then back at her.
“I spent the first years of my life with my mother’s family, did you know that?
My father recognized me as his son and took me as his ward when I was ten.
But he wanted a British son because he had no heir by his legal wife.
And so every time my father caught me acting too foreign, he would punish me. I erred frequently, thus the scars.”
Elswyth’s heart sank. His voice was so even, so without emotion, a hint of his usual wry detachment returning.
“To do that to a child…”
“He did worse things to children. Believe me.”
Elswyth paused. Her hand drifted up to the necklace of black pearls that Silas wore around his neck. “And this?”
Silas reached down and took her hand. He moved it away from the necklace, gently but firmly.
“It was my wife’s,” he said.
Elswyth’s hand froze. She pulled it away, unsure.
Silas took her hand. “I’m sorry I never told you. She… she died.”
“I’m so sorry. I should not have touched it.”