1. THURSDAY, AUGUST — SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO #3
My stomach dropped into my shoes. Taken care of? Jesus Christ, this woman had just stepped into literal hellfire. And the worst part? He probably hadn’t even had a coffee yet, so he was truly going to be a fucking delight when he did wind up sneaking into this damn room.
“And how did he take that?” Lena chimed in with a snide laugh. She knew damn well how Silas took that.
Cora’s gaze narrowed on Lena, clearly annoyed by the interruption, but softened her expression instantly when she looked back at me.
“He got so jealous.” Cora beamed, looking utterly delighted that Silas probably thought of twenty different ways to say “fuck you” to her before she walked away from him. “He turned bright red under that tan! His veins were even popping, and he actually growled at me.”
She leaned in to whisper conspiratorially, as if the next sentence contained a juicy secret. “I think he was mad I wasn’t bringing him any treats. He’s totally got a crush, right? He’s like, the good boy to your bad boy kind of thing. Wants the girl who likes the bad-boy best friend? It’s cute.”
Lena made a choking sound that turned quickly into a violent cough.
She looked at me from behind Cora, her eyes wide and screaming: She has no idea she just walked into a bear trap.
I felt a laugh bubbling in my chest. A chaotic mix of hysteria and pure, unadulterated affection for the psycho fuck I was deeply in love with.
Cora thought Silas was jealous of me? She had absolutely no idea how he’d tear through this hotel because the idea of anyone else “taking care of me” made him slightly homicidal.
“You have no idea how lucky you are,” I said, standing slowly to my full height.
She blinked her long fake eyelashes at me in confusion.
“Lucky?” “Lucky that there are security guards between each floor.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Because Reed is most definitely in a mood now. And when he’s in a mood, that means my life is hell.
” My lips curled, partially because he was insane, and I loved it.
Partially because it kind of turned me on when he got fiercely territorial.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you need to leave,” I said firmly, walking her toward the door, leaving no room for argument.
“Because trust me, he is in a mood and likely uncaffeinated. So, when he shows up here in the next two minutes, because I’m confident he will, you do not want to be in the splash zone of his explosion. ”
“But I just got here! You can’t seriously tell me he gets that pressed over women not having an interest in him the same way they do you?”
My jaw clenched, hard. She made him sound like an insecure asshole, and Silas was anything but. She just didn’t fucking know him like I did. Nobody did, and nobody else ever would.
“Goodnight, Cora,” Lena added, physically herding her out the damn door with a newfound urgency. “Or morning, whatever the hell it is. Bye, bitch.”
The door clicked shut, and not even five seconds later, a frantic, aggressive scratching could be heard at the lock. Then, a rhythmic knock.
Lena looked through the peephole again, immensely annoyed. I’m sure she half-expected it to be Cora coming back for round two. “I… where did he even come from?” she whispered, “And he’s wearing sunglasses inside. He looks like the Unabomber.”
She unlocked the door and pulled it open.
There was Silas, stumbling into the room like he’d just tucked-and-rolled out of a moving vehicle.
My fucking psycho. He was dressed like a stalker, too.
I found it humorous, quite cute even. He was wearing a black hoodie with the hood yanked up.
In fact, it was one of my hoodies that I couldn’t find before we got put on lockdown.
Sneaky jackass. He had on dark sunglasses he’d never normally wear, I’m assuming courtesy of Evan, because they reeked of his specific brand of douchebaggery.
Silas was drenched in sweat from the fact that it was literally hell’s level of heat on this island.
The air conditioner wasn’t able to provide enough relief either to combat the dead of summer.
It’s sticky, humid, and the air is thicker than Orlando used to be this time of year.
Silas looked frantic, like a man on a deadly mission. Fuck, it made my dick hard to see how my man would break all the rules just to make sure nobody messed with what’s his.
“I have never wanted to cuss a woman out before, I swear to—”
“Silas, love of my life, where the fuck were you? She was gone all of five seconds, and you were what? Watching her? That’s literal jail time,” I said with a slow smirk.
I loved when he was like this. Silas was becoming incredibly comfortable with his place in my life, and along with that comfort, his possessiveness became much more prominent.
I lived for every single second of it, especially when it bled to the surface like this.
Sure, I was the exact same way when it came to him, but where my reactions were silent, cold, and punishing in bed, his were loud, worn on his shoulder, and utterly devastating when he let them take over.
He hesitated, rubbing the back of his neck.
“I was…in the stairwell.I sweet-talked a housekeeper into letting me use the service stairs, so I could watch her through the door crack. If she had stayed one minute longer, I swear to all things fucking holy, I was going to pull the fire alarm. I had my hand on the damn lever.”
Lena put her head in her hands, groaning loudly. “You are literally insane, you do know that, right? Also, what kind of self-tanner do you use?”
Silas’s dark eyes cut her way, glaring at her for insinuating he would use a tanning lotion. A fake tan could never look as strikingly beautiful as his natural Puerto Rican skin, and I think, for once, he was actually arrogant about his appearance.
He’s always known how gorgeous he looked with sun-kissed skin, and his hair cut short like when we were younger. It gave me the unholiest thoughts you could possibly imagine.
Ignoring her, Silas marched over to the desk, picked up the little white pastry box Cora left, and threw it in the trash with aggressive prejudice.
“Taking care of you,” Silas muttered as he paced the small room like a caged tiger.
Lena gagged at his words, and I had to fight between smiling at her reaction, and causing Silas’s switch to really flip. It was a very thin line.
“She said she was going to ‘take care of you.’ Evan had to physically drag me to the elevators.”
“I heard.” I smirked, leaning back comfortably against the wall. I was thoroughly enjoying the show Silas was giving me. “Evan said you owe him a new TV remote.”
Silas stopped pacing and glared at the door where Cora just exited. He was vibrating with a mix of jealousy, adrenaline, and the pent-up frustration of a long week apart.
“She thinks you’re jealous,” I told him smoothly.
All movement paused, except his thick brows rising. “Excuse me?”