Chapter 22
Everything is happening too fast, and somehow, not fast enough.
That should feel like a contradiction… Instead, it feels like the most honest thing about this entire situation.
I keep thinking about how I should be panicking.
Calling Roo. Rebuilding my mental walls brick by brick.
Yet, I’m curled into a couch that might be illegally comfortable, in a loft I don’t want to leave, trying not to picture what it would feel like to let all three of them ruin me slowly, deliberately, and without apology.
I’m spiraling, but it doesn’t feel like plunging to my death.
It feels like landing safely on my feet.
The quiet settles in after the chaos, warm and earned. It’s the type of silence that comes after something survives a natural disaster. Or like a hoodie pulled on straight from the dryer. Or that voice saying you’re still here after a catastrophe.
I don’t move from my spot on the couch, peering over the laptop screen to observe my HimLock guys in their natural habitat as I try to hunt digital information for Roo.
But I’m distracted when Jace and Kieran launch into motion. It’s not frantic, though it’s a level of focus I wasn’t expecting to see. There’s some kind of server alert, a risk they don’t want escalating. I don’t catch much more of what they’re saying.
Jace mutters something about being gone for an hour or two, like it’s a promise he intends to keep.
Kieran presses a kiss to the top of my head, lingering just long enough to make my chest tighten.
His touch is uninhibited, as if we’ve done this every day for years, and I struggle to keep the surprise from my expression.
Then the door closes.
And suddenly, the loft feels smaller, a lightning storm of tension streaking through the air.
Silas is still here.
He’s in the armchair near the window, one ankle balanced over his knee, phone in hand. He looks casual if you don’t know how to read him. If you don’t recognize the way his attention sits heavy in a room, like gravity deciding where it wants things to fall and in what order they should go.
I take a sip from the glass of water he gave me earlier and watch him over the rim.
He hasn’t said much all afternoon.
But when Silas looks at me, I feel it in places that haven’t softened in years.
“Are you reading me like code right now?” I ask quietly.
His eyes flick up, assessing me. “Would it scare you if I said yes?”
“No,” I reply, deflecting his sarcasm with honesty. “It’d turn me on.”
Silas doesn’t react right away. Seconds tick by before he sets his phone down with intentional slowness. He’s deciding something, the weight of his options sitting on his shoulders, lingering with a finality that says one of us won’t come back the same once he’s chosen.
“You like dangerous things,” he mentions, his full attention ensnaring me.
“I’m sitting in your living room,” I acknowledge, tilting my head. “After finding out my AI boyfriend app is actually three men with a surveillance problem. So yeah… A little.”
He leans forward, forearms braced on his knees. “But you trust us.”
Not a question.
I set the laptop aside, uncurling my leg from beneath me. “I haven’t decided if that’s smart… or just inevitable.”
“It seems like a solid choice,” he says, sarcasm back in his tone.
“Careful.” I smile faintly. “That almost sounded like surrender.”
There’s no amusement in his expression. He’s not playful either. The look he’s giving me is intense in a way that makes my pulse tick faster.
“You like pushing,” he remarks.
“I like clarity.”
“No,” he murmurs, shaking his head. “You like control.”
The statement lands between us, more observational than accusatory…
I don’t deny it.
“I prefer knowing where I stand. It’s less about control and more about the clarity of intentions,” I explain. “And right now, I’m contemplating sharing myself with a man who didn’t blink when he told me he’d burn the world for me.”
Silas stands from his chair and treads closer to me. He’s back to those deliberate movements, neither fast nor slow, as if he’s thinking through every flex of his muscles before it happens. There’s so much mental effort behind such a simple task.
“Do you want me to blink?” he asks with the slightest bit of humor in his voice.
My breath shifts just a fraction. His question isn’t about the flicking of one’s eyelids... It’s about second-guessing. Or not.
“No,” I drawl. “Should I?”
He’s only a few feet away, close enough that I can smell his cologne, clean and crisp. Something darker underneath.
“You’re not afraid,” he continues. “Not of me or of them. Not even of the situations you’ve been put in. And I want to know why.”
I frown. “Is that a problem?”
His mouth curves into a barely there smile. “It’s a complication.”
I stand, my motions as unhurried as his. Silas tracks every inch of me, but he stops at the hem of the boxer briefs I’m wearing as shorts. They ride up my thighs, and I don’t fix it.
“I’m not your problem to solve,” I remind him. “Just because I’m not reacting the way you expect doesn’t mean I’m broken.”
“No,” he agrees. “You’re my variable.”
There’s a split second where I want to bristle, but heat curls low in my stomach as I accept it as a compliment.
“You don’t like unpredictability,” I accuse lightly, a grin playing at my lips.
“I don’t like being unprepared.”
“And yet, you let me walk into your life and rearrange it.”
He gives a quick, humorless laugh. “You didn’t walk in.”
“Oh?”
“You detonated.”
The word hums beneath my skin.
I’m close enough now that I have to tilt my chin up to meet his gaze. He doesn’t touch me, but he doesn’t need to. The space between us feels compressed and electric.
“What happens now?” I inquire softly.
“Now,” Silas says, studying my face like he’s memorizing it under the threat of loss. “You decide whether this ends with more honesty… or escalation.”
“And what do you want?”
“I want you to stop pretending you don’t already know what you’re capable of.” His voice drops to something coaxing, a lure trying to pull me under. “I see the act, but I don’t know what you’re hiding yet.”
Something fierce and pleasing twists through me as a fraction of my mask breaks away.
“And if I do drop the act?”
His hand comes up then, tucking a lost tendril of hair behind my ear without brushing against my skin. It’s a cage without contact. A promise that doesn’t care for permission.
“Then…” He drags the word out, expression dark and gaze unwavering. “You’re going to realize you’re not the only dangerous thing in this room.”
The silence stretches into a heavy pause; the truth crackling between us like a live wire whipping across the concrete floor. It’s a wildly intimate moment.
Alive.
“Good,” I comment, smiling at him as I drop back to my seat on the couch, breaking the spell before I try to climb him. “I was hoping you’d keep up.”
Silas crosses the space between us in two quiet steps. I tip my chin, giving him a questioning glance, but he scoops me up as he sits down, placing me across his lap.
His hands settle on my hips, warm and confident, like this is all he’s wanted. My thighs bracket his, and I’m acutely aware of how little I’m wearing. Of how much of me is exposed. Offered.
“Silas…”
His hands slide beneath the fabric of the oversized t-shirt, fingers skimming the curve of my waist at a leisurely pace, working his way up an inch before stroking his way back down.
“You’ve been driving me crazy,” he says, voice low and wrecked. “Asking questions and pushing like you already knew what we were going to say. Smiling like you don’t realize what it does to us. Wearing my brother’s shirt like you’re already ours.”
His fingers slide higher, teasing the curve of my breasts. “You want to be, don’t you?”
My hips shift, a barely there motion that lights us both on fire. His hands still immediately, our eyes locking in this stand-off we seem to enjoy. The secretive versus the observant…
There’s nothing calm in Silas now. Nothing controlled. He looks like a man standing on the edge of something permanent, and the realization hits me all at once.
I’m not pushing him toward it, but I am inviting him.
I lean in, lips brushing his jaw. “Do something about it.”
His grip tightens around my ribs as he drags me closer, leaving no space between us. No room for second guesses. Nowhere to run.
His mouth finds mine, demanding that I open for him.
And when I do…
Restraint is the first thing to go up in flames.