2. Silas
SILAS
I don't go downstairs after I leave her in the hallway.
I go back to my room and stand at the window, gripping the sill with both hands, staring at the oak tree in the backyard until the bark patterns burn into my retinas.
My cock is hard enough to hurt, has been hard since I opened the front door yesterday and found her standing there in that yellow dress, sweat on her throat, fear and defiance mixing in her dark eyes like two chemicals that shouldn't be combined.
She's twenty-one. My stepsister. My father's wife's daughter. I came back from Germany two years ago to help with Hayes Custom Homes, to get my shit together, to stop drinking and fighting and fucking strangers in Berlin bathroom stalls. I came back to build something.
To be something.
And now she's here. Five-foot-two of trouble, with her NYU degree and her garbage-bag luggage and her voice that cracks when she's nervous.
I heard her last night. Every gasp. Every moan.
My name on her lips when she came, muffled by the pillow but clear enough to cut through the drywall like it wasn't there.
I warned her. The walls are thin. I meant it as a threat. She took it as a challenge.
I press my forehead against the window glass, cool from the morning, and count backward from one hundred in German.
Einhundert. Neunundneunzig. Achtundneunzig.
My hands shake. I haven't shaken since I quit drinking, since I learned to control the thing inside me that wants to break and claim and destroy.
But she makes me shake. She makes me want to break every rule I've built around myself, every wall, every lock.
Siebenundneunzig. Sechsundneunzig.
The door downstairs opens. Closes. Footsteps in the kitchen—her, moving around, probably finding Stella's note about dinner, probably eating cold pasta standing at the island like a stray cat too proud to ask for a bowl.
I should go down there. I should explain that I'm not a monster, that the thing I said about the walls was inappropriate, that she should stay away from me for both our safety.
I don't move.
I stay at the window until the light changes from gray to gold, until I hear her climb the stairs, pause outside my door—her breath audible through the wood, her hesitation palpable—then continue to her room.
The shower runs. I imagine her under the rainfall head, water tracking down her breasts, her thighs, the place between her legs that she touched last night while screaming my name.
I need to fix her window. That's what I need to do. Go up there with my tools, replace the sash cord, seal the gap, remove the excuse for her to stay in this house, in this room, fifteen inches from my bed.
I don't fix the window.
At 8:30 AM, I'm in the backyard, splitting firewood with an axe that hasn't been used in two years.
The humidity is already building, pressing down from a sky the color of old bruises.
Storm coming. I can feel it in my joints, in the way the air tastes like copper and ozone.
I swing the axe, feel the impact vibrate up my arms, through my shoulders, into my spine.
Again. Again. The wood splits with satisfying cracks, and I imagine each piece is a thought I shouldn't be having about her.
She appears at the kitchen window. I feel her before I see her, a weight settling between my shoulder blades, a heat that has nothing to do with the August sun.
I don't turn around. I keep splitting wood, shirtless, the axe rising and falling in a rhythm my body has known for years.
Sweat rolls down my neck, across the ink spread over my shoulders and chest, then disappears over the hard planes of my bare abdomen.
Black and gray tattoos wrap both arms, spill across my upper chest, and fade just before my ribs, leaving the rest of my torso untouched.
Every inch below is earned the old fashioned way, from swinging hammers, hauling lumber, and long days on construction sites, not endless hours in a gym.
At six foot six, I've spent my whole life watching people hesitate before stepping into my space.
Men instinctively straighten up. Women usually look away.
She doesn't. I know exactly what she's seeing, and I know I should walk back inside before either of us forgets every reason we should keep our distance.
She doesn't step back. She presses forward. That's what terrifies me.
I finish the woodpile at 10 AM and go inside.
She's at the kitchen island, a mug of coffee wrapped in both hands, wearing the same yellow sundress from yesterday.
Her hair is wet from the shower, dark tendrils curling at her neck.
She looks up when I enter, and her eyes drop immediately to my chest, my stomach, the sweat still gleaming on my skin.
She blushes. She tries to hide it by drinking her coffee, but I see the color spread from her throat to her cheeks.
"Morning," I say, my voice rougher than I intend.
"Morning," she mumbles into her mug.
I pour my own coffee, black and scalding, and lean against the counter opposite her. The island is four feet of marble between us. It feels like nothing. It feels like miles.
"You should fix my window," she says, not looking at me. "You said you would."
"I will."
"When?"
"When I'm ready."
She sets her mug down with a crack that sounds like a gunshot in the quiet house. "You're an asshole, you know that?"
I smile. I don't mean to. It just happens, the corner of my mouth pulling up, the expression feeling foreign on my face. "I've been told."
"You can't just—" she gestures, her hands small and furious, "—say things like that. About the walls. About me touching myself. That's none of your business."
"It is now."
"What does that even mean?"
I set my coffee down. I move around the island, slow, deliberate, giving her time to run.
She doesn't. She tilts her head back to look at me, her chin jutting out, her shoulders squared like she's preparing for a fight she's already lost. She's so small.
The top of her head barely reaches my sternum.
I could wrap one hand around her throat and lift her off the ground. I could break her without trying.
I won't. But I could. And she needs to know it. She needs to feel the weight of what she's playing with.
"Your mother married my father," I say, my voice low, controlled, the German cadence thickening with my focus.
"That makes this house mine. That makes you under my roof.
And while you're under my roof, your body is my business.
Your pleasure is my business. You don't touch what's mine without permission. "
"I'm not yours," she whispers, but her breath is coming faster, her pupils dilating, her nipples hardening against the cotton of her dress.
"You're lying," I say. "And lying gets punished."
I don't give her time to respond. I take her wrist, my fingers wrapping completely around the delicate bones and my thumb pressing into her pulse point, and pull her toward the stairs. She stumbles, catches herself, and tries to pull back.
"Silas—"
"Quiet."
I don't raise my voice. I don't need to.
The command lands like a physical weight, and she goes silent, her eyes wide, her lips parted.
I lead her up the stairs, down the hall, past her room with its stuck window and thin walls, to my room at the end.
I open the door, pull her inside, and lock it behind us.
The click of the deadbolt is the loudest sound in the house.
My room is sparse. A king bed with gray sheets, a dresser, a desk with architectural plans spread across it. The window faces the backyard, the oak tree, the woodpile I just finished. The storm is closer now, the sky darkening, the pressure dropping enough that my ears pop.
Selene stands in the center of the room, hugging her own arms, looking everywhere but at me. I sit on the edge of the bed and watch her. I wait. The silence stretches, humid and electric, the air between us vibrating with everything unsaid.
"Take off your dress," I say.
"What?"
"Your dress. Take it off. Now."
She stares at me. I stare back. I don't blink. I don't move. I let her feel the weight of my patience, my control, the fact that I can sit here all day until she obeys.
Her hands shake as she reaches for the hem.
She pulls the dress over her head, revealing a white cotton bra and matching panties, both simple, both innocent, both soaked with sweat from the humidity.
She drops the dress on the floor and stands there, exposed, her arms crossing over her stomach, her face burning with shame and something else—something that looks like relief.
"Come here," I say.
She walks to me, each step small and uncertain.
When she's close enough, I take her hand and pull her across my lap.
She gasps, her body tensing, her hands finding the rug beneath us.
I position her—her stomach across my thighs, her ass in the air, her legs dangling off the side of the bed.
She's so light. I could hold her here with one hand.
I do, pressing my palm into the small of her back, pinning her in place.
"Ten strokes," I say. "For touching yourself without permission. For screaming my name when you came. For lying about wanting it."
"I didn't?—"
The first stroke lands before she finishes the sentence. My bare hand against her panty-clad ass, hard enough to sting, hard enough to leave a mark. She cries out, her body jerking, her hands clawing at the rug.
"Count," I command.
"One," she gasps.
I wait five seconds. Let her feel the anticipation. Let her imagine the next one, and the next, and the next.
The second stroke lands on the other cheek, balancing the first. She whimpers. "Two."