7. Selene #3
"No one is ever going to take you from me," he whispers against my hair. His voice is steady now, sure, the voice of a man who has made his choice and will defend it with his last breath. "Not your mother. Not even my dad. Not the world. You're mine. Body and soul. Forever."
I cry. I can't help it. The tears come hot and endless, grief and joy and terror all mixed together, the reality of what we've done crashing over me like the waves against the cliff outside.
I left my mother. I left my home. I chose him, this man, this stepbrother, this daddy who fills me so completely I forget my own name.
He holds me through it. His thumb traces circles on my ribs, his mouth presses kisses to my temple, my eyelids, the tears on my cheeks.
He doesn't tell me to stop crying. He doesn't tell me everything will be okay.
He just holds me, his body warm and solid and real, his cock still inside me, his heartbeat a steady thunder against my back.
"Sleep," he says finally, his voice soft against my ear. "We'll go to the courthouse in the morning. Make it official. Make it so no one can ever separate us."
I drift off with him inside me, his hand on my heart, his breath slowing against my neck. The half built house creaks around us, the Atlantic crashes in the distance, and for a few hours, the world is perfect. Just us, and the dark, and the future we are building with our own hands.
I don't know how long I sleep. Maybe an hour. Maybe three. I wake to headlights sweeping across the exposed studs, the sound of tires on gravel, an engine cutting off with a violence that makes my eyes fly open.
Silas is already awake, already rigid, his hand clamping over my mouth before I can make a sound. He pulls out of me, fast, and the sudden emptiness makes me whimper. He grabs his jeans, pulls them on, zips them with a sound that seems like a gunshot in the stillness.
"Stay here," he says, the same words he said in his bedroom hours ago. But this time his voice is different. This time there is fear in it, real fear, the first I've ever heard.
He steps out of the frame that will one day hold our front door. I scramble for my clothes, pulling them on as fast as I can, wincing as the fabric drags across my skin. I follow him. I can't not follow him.
Mom's red Mercedes is parked beside the truck, its headlights still blazing, illuminating the construction site like a stage.
She is already out of the car, already screaming, her hair wild, her face streaked with mascara and rage.
She sees me in the doorway, sees Silas stepping in front of me, and her scream rises to something inhuman.
"You disgusting animal!" she shrieks at him, her finger trembling as she points. "You sick, twisted, perverted piece of filth! That's my daughter! My daughter!"
"Stella—" Silas starts, his hands raised, his voice calm.
"Don't you dare speak to me!" She lunges toward him, her nails aimed at his face, her body shaking with a fury I've never seen in her, not in any argument.
"I trusted you! I brought her into your home! I let you near her!"
She gets past him. She shouldn't be able to, he's twice her size, but she's a mother defending her child and that gives her a strength that surprises us both. She grabs my arm, her fingers digging into the bruises Silas left this afternoon, and drags me toward the car.
"You're coming home with me," she snarls, her breath hot and sour against my face. "Now. Tonight. We're leaving this place and we're never coming back, and you are never seeing him again. Do you understand me? Never."
"Mom, please?—"
"Don't you dare 'Mom, please' me!" She shoves me toward the passenger door, her hands rough, her nails breaking skin. "Get in the car. Get in the car right now or I will call the police and I will tell them everything, and he will go to prison, Selene. Do you want that? Do you want him in prison?"
I look at Silas. He stands in the headlights, shirtless, tattooed, his jeans unbuttoned, his chest heaving. He looks like a warrior who has lost his weapon, a king who has lost his kingdom. His eyes find mine across the gravel, dark and burning and full of a promise I can't read.
He nods once. Go, that nod says. Trust me. I'll come for you.
I get in the car. Mom slams the door, hard enough to rattle my teeth. She circles to the driver's side, her heels crunching on gravel, her breath coming in ragged gasps.
I don't look back at him. I'm afraid if I do, I'll see him standing there in the headlights, alone in the half built house that was supposed to be our future.
I'm afraid I'll open the door and run to him and never stop running.
I'm afraid I'll lose my nerve, lose my resolve, lose the only thing that has ever felt like truth.
Stella throws the car into reverse, gravel spraying. The Mercedes lurches backward, turns, accelerates down the dark road. I stare straight ahead, my hands clasped in my lap, my body still throbbing with him, still marked by him, still his in every way that matters.
The house shrinks in the side mirror. I don't look back.
But my hand finds the door handle, my fingers curling around the metal, and I hold on so tight my knuckles turn white, because I am already planning my return.