by Meli Raine
“Jane –”
“And then I realized that wasn’t it. I wasn’t being weak if I let you back in. I’d be weak if I shut you out because I held you to a standard that didn’t take your past into consideration.”
I’m speechless.
I am goddamned speechless.
“Once I understood that, Silas, my mindset changed. I wanted to see you. But you were gone.”
“I’m back now.” If I thought she was smart before, now I can see her emotional intelligence, too. Some part of my chest twists with a feeling that isn’t pain. It’s acknowledgment. I’ve found someone unbelievably special.
“Yes. You are.” Her hands flatten against my shoulders, pulling me closer.
“Will you let me in?”
“Will you let me? I’m not the only one who –”
“Yes. God, yes.” Two weeks away from her feels like a lifetime. She is shaking in my arms, less from anger at what just happened and more from desire, her mouth a revelation. I fire up, bent down to take what she gives, determined to give a hundredfold back.
I won’t let her go again.
My body has to prove what words cannot.
Her hands slide up under my suit jacket and pull my cotton shirt out of the waistband, riding up under the conservative clothes with a hot passion that makes me need her, naked and writhing under me, filling her. If she hesitated, I would stop in a split second, but from the way her tongue moves in my mouth, lips eager and telling me how much she’s missed me, I don’t sense one hint of question.
Only answers.
Her hand moves to my erection and rouses me to the point of pain, her fingers on my belt buckle an act of mercy as she unleashes me, undresses me, our hands now as frantic as our mouths. Power comes in many forms, and as we shed our clothes we shed the conventions of society, standing naked before each other, Jane’s beauty turning me breathless for one throbbing, long series of seconds.
Until I pick her up in my arms and carry her to the bed.
Soft breasts press against my chest as her arm wraps around my shoulders, her mouth planting kisses along my collarbone. The gesture is maddening, her other hand on my ass, squeezing until I almost drop her and take her on the floor, plunging in with a ruthless impulse that would serve us both in seconds.
I barely control myself. But I do.
Because this is one homecoming that needs to have every layer of ceremony properly addressed. You do not make frantic love after a schism like ours. You do not fuck her against a wall or on the floor, pumping until a few strokes go by and you’re left with an exploded heart and a tired engine. You do not turn a new connection into a quickie.
That would be a tragedy.
No. You gently lay her on the bed like I do now, spreading her legs and marveling at the light shining against her skin, eyes taking in all her curves and slopes, valleys and more, hands moving along the skin she exposes only for me. As I cup her breasts, Jane moans, the sound open and free, making my chest tighten with emotion. I’m hard for her. It would be easy to make this fast, hot, dirty – and we will.
Another time.
Her nipple feels like taking candy into my mouth, sweet and soft, as I kiss her, her hands threaded in my hair, body laid out for me. I love how open she is, trusting and soulful. The brush of my chest against her ribs is a reminder of our different bodies, hers soft, mine hard. She is more than the sum of these parts, more than her incredible mind, more than pert breasts that ripple with gooseflesh when I cup them, sucking gently on nipples in a way that makes her hand drift between her legs.
I stop her with my own.
“Oh, no. That’s not your job,” I tell her, replacing her hand with my mouth.
She tastes like I’ve imagined her all these weeks, like sunshine and heat, her body moving up against me as I give her pleasure, my hands finding her hips and encouraging her to let go. Let it happen.
Let me.
The feel of her coming against my mouth is like the moment I enter her, all wishes fulfilled, all dreams being lived. A cool breeze runs up my back, ass clenching as she tugs on my hair and pulls me up for a kiss. Our thighs move just so and then, then I’m in her, Jane’s legs wrapped furiously around my waist, heels at the small of my back, her grip so tight the message is beyond clear.
I’m not letting you go.
“I love you,” I whisper in the rich air between us, hot and humid, her hair mingling with mine, her fingernails digging into my shoulders as I lose myself in her. Jane opens herself with a fierceness that lets every defense stand down until I’m her only protection against the world. I build a wall out of my body and my love.
We come together, her cries of pleasure so deep inside me it’s as if I hear them through my pumping blood, I bite her earlobe as she holds me inside her, so tight I think my heart stops.
Stops to pay its respects to the divine.
Inside her, I can let go, too. I do. It’s better than any feeling in the world, this crazy kind of love, because it is unique. Her scent, her slick, her mouth, her fingers, that beauty mark on her sacrum, the one eyelash longer and straighter than the rest – those are all Jane.
Those are all mine now.
“I love you, too,” she says with words that sound like surrender, a verbal white flag waved in front of me with a sensual smile. “I’m home now,” she says, snuggling against my side, the horrible day behind us.
We fall asleep in each other’s arms, the way we’re supposed to. No more distance. No more separation. No more distrust. This is it.
This is my life now.
In the naked light of morning, as I wake up from a black dream where nothing but a dark cavern made up the world, I just breathe, Jane’s steady heartbeat against my chest. I see who I really am. Not the man I thought I was. Not the man who walked around hollow to the point of no core for all those years. Not the man who did the right thing with all the wrong outcomes.
I am the man Jane thinks I am.
And I want to spend the rest of my life finding out exactly what that means.
Chapter 16
Jane
Silas lied to me.
The note on the pillow next to my head is Exhibit #1.
I’ll be back. Need to take care of a work issue.
Love, S.
He swore we wouldn’t be apart. Yes, I’m being silly, but as the scent of him lingers on the sheets, I find his absence heartbreaking. No, he didn’t abandon me. Yes, he’s coming back.
And yet the ache for him inside me is so strong. Who knew a pull could have such force?
Stretching, I let my fingertips reach for heaven as my toes splay, arches curling, calves tight. Sex makes a body find itself. No blood cell goes untouched, no muscles get a reprieve when you make love like we did yesterday.
A homecoming.
An olive branch.
A reckoning.
Learning to be an adult, with adult feelings and adult reactions, is hard. It’s so easy to give in to impulse. It’s even easier to hide what you feel, to pretend it doesn’t exist.
In the long run, though, you don’t just hide your feelings.
You hide who you really are.
Living in the dark all the time makes you forget what light is like.
And it’s in the light that you actually grow.
My thighs ache as I move to plant my feet on the ground. The soles brush against the carpet, the sensation tingling through me. Wherever Silas is, he’ll be back. Whoever he’s helping, they’ll be better off than they were before.
Just like me.
I smile as I stare at the bed, the secret of our time together one I carry inside me. My body remembers him. My body needs him.
My body gets him again, later.
That kind of rock-solid knowledge is so fresh, yet ancient. Fulfilling and profound, it seems like it’s a kind of magic, old and lost. We’ve found it together.
We’ve found a place where being together is all we need.
Naked, st
retching, I let the sunlight that shines through the sheer curtains at the window color me with the hope of a new day. I throw on a robe and go into my kitchen, where Silas brewed me a pot of coffee.
My hand goes to my heart.
That? That is true love.
My phone is on the kitchen table, buzzing at intervals. I’ll get to it eventually. The three-deep stacks of boxes from Alice’s ranch are at the edge of my vision. I’ll get to those, too. I just want a little more of the glow from last night to stay in my skin.
Before reality drives it all away.
Settled in on the couch in my robe, I dig through a box. At least now I know what I’m looking for. Small envelopes, reports neatly typed, maybe another folder with the word WITCH scrawled all over it.
I doubt it’ll be that easy, but you never know.
Under a bunch of magazines featuring articles about Alice’s art, I hit the jackpot: another folder filled with envelopes. No word on the outside. Eighteen envelopes. Same typed style, same date range.
All following Monica.
I do exactly what Lindsay did: take pictures. Except unlike Lindsay, I upload them nowhere. Monica appeared after Lindsay put her images on the cloud. I wonder if that’s the modern-day tech version of summoning a demon.
Instead of reading the reports, I set them aside. Curiosity is killing me, but I’d rather find it all and read it in one sitting than have these boxes looming.
Three more boxes, eight more folders. And a thick, different folder called MOSNER BOARD.
Jackpot: Alice and Monica were members of the art gallery’s board of directors.
Taking a bazillion photos of important evidence that no one else in the world knows exists is a precarious experience. I’m tapping away, bored and nervous at the same time. By the time I take pictures of all the reports and all the board proceedings, my thumb joint is aching.
Coffee helps.
Two more boxes later, I find nothing. I look at the clock. Ninety minutes down. Six boxes done.
I can do this. I can totally do this.
And then the staff at Alice’s Texas ranch will just send more.
Two hours go by before I finish the last six boxes, finding nothing more than a lot of magazine articles with color spreads of Alice’s paintings. None, thankfully, are of me. I’m not surprised – these are all nineties-era documents. But I’m relieved.
Ring! I can’t ignore that, because if someone’s calling, it must be bad. I get my phone.
Silas.
My grin wakes me up even more as I answer it. “Monica Bosworth,” I say in a low voice.
“Uhhh – don’t do that, Jane!” Silas says with a half laugh, half chide. The rumble of his voice makes my skin feel like he’s here with me. I wish he were. “I thought I dialed the wrong number.”
“Kidding. I’m not evil enough to pull off a Monica impression.”
“You realize this conversation may be monitored?”
“For quality assurance? Are you buying a barn jacket from a catalog, Silas?”
Laughter comes through, low and meaningful. “No. I’m calling because I wanted to hear your voice.”
This is new. “You could have called me for the two weeks you were gone. Now you’re in town and you call a few hours after we...” I make a suggestive sound.
“That’s why I’m calling now. I couldn’t call while I was gone.”
“Couldn’t or wouldn’t?”
“Couldn’t.” He’s firm. Clear.
My stomach flutters.
“So this is just a call to say hi? Not business?”
“Not business.”
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
Silence hangs between us, cute and flirty. This is the first time I’ve ever been cute and flirty with him. I’m so light and happy, I might as well be filled with helium instead of blood. His smile comes through in his voice.
We’re happy. Together.
“What’s your plan for today?” he asks.
“First, I’m going to walk around my apartment naked.”
He groans.
“Then I’m going to drink coffee naked.”
He groans again.
“Then I think I’ll take a shower.”
“Naked, I hope.”
“That’s generally how it works. I’ll also go get some flowers and chat with Lily. What about you?” I ask him.
“I get to process paperwork and think about you being naked.”
My turn to laugh as my body responds to his words, my nipples tightening into hard, pink pearls, gooseflesh rippling up and down my arms and thighs.
“That sounds like one way to spend your day.”
“I can think of far better ways. Any chance we can meet for lunch?”
“Meet where?”
“I, for one, would like to dine between your legs,” Silas says to me, making my chest turn pink, my ears unable to believe what I’m hearing.
“Silas! I thought you said this line could be monitored!”
“I’m not saying anything I’m worried people will know, Jane.”
That turns me on even more.
I run one hand up and down my thigh, turning warmer by the second as he breathes into the phone. Silence makes this hotter.
“What are you doing?” he asks just as my fingertips brush against my inner thigh. At his words, I halt, so close.
“I’m listening to you.”
“Are you? If I tell you to do something, will you obey?”
Obey.
“Yes,” I whisper, the word escaping before I can help it.
“Touch yourself.”
“I am.”
“Where?”
My tongue twists in my mouth, the words that are supposed to move from my brain to my mouth turning into a big, unrelenting knot.
“Thigh,” I gasp, trying to speak.
“Move higher.” His words are clipped, low and deep. Refusing his order isn’t an option. My body hums with his words, my hand doing as told until suddenly it’s not my hand.
It’s his.
The mind can create its own reality.
“I want you to come,” he says, the words burning their way through me. I’m wet, slick and squirming, embarrassed as hell but also not stopping.
“I –” Words fail me.
“You’re beautiful when you come,” he says. “Like last night. Like the middle of the night. I want to think of you like that, Jane. Unbound, unfurled, laid out before me like you were made to be mine.”
“I am.”
“You are. Mine and no one else’s. And you’re going to make yourself come right now. If I were there, I would do it, but I’m not there. You said you would obey.” It’s not a question.
“Yes.”
“Are you coming?”
“No. Not – not yet.”
“What’s holding you back? I can taste you right now. Imagine your fingers are my tongue.”
Oh, God.
“Move your knees apart. Nice and wide.” As I listen and comply, the upholstery of the chair rubs against the bottom of my ass, the cold wooden frame chilling the skin behind my knees. My robe drapes open, my breasts bare now, nipples hard. I lean back, slipping my fingers into the warm, wet sanctuary his words are creating.
I moan as my thumb grazes my clit.
“That’s it. Like that. Moan for me.”
“I – Silas, I can’t do this.”
“You are doing it.”
“But the line. The monitoring. The –”
“Let me worry about that. You worry about nothing. You obey.”
I shiver. God help me, I’m even more turned on than I am when he’s touching me.
I’m about to do exactly as I’m told when he makes a sudden hissing sound, angry and frustrated. I pause. I whimper.
I don’t want to pause.
“Damn it,” he says, the words followed by a string of profanity that is surprisingly arousing, but not meant for me. “I – Jane, I have to go.”
“You’re leaving me like this?” my voice cracks.
“No choice. Work.” His voice is filled with regret. My fingertips are, too. “Save yourself for me,” he orders.
“What does that mean?”
“Don’t do anything until I see you.”
Is he saying what I think he’s saying?
“You mean I can’t –?”
“You can’t. You won’t.”
I groan.
He lets out a rueful chuckle. “Now you’ve got the right idea.”
“When you get home, though...” I say, my voice dropping with need.
“I can’t meet for lunch. Change of plans. But trust me. When I get home, I’ll take care of you.”
“How many times?”
His soft, meaningful laugh ends with a sudden clip as he hangs up.
What am I supposed to do now?
I look at the vase on my dining table. The tulips are wilting, drooping in weird curves.
Flowers.
I need more flowers.
I look at Alice’s boxes.
I need to go through those, too.
But before I do any sorting, I need a cold shower and more hot coffee. I also need a trip to The Thorn Poke for a fresh centerpiece and someone to distract me for an hour or so, to fill the time before Silas gets home. My pulse pounds from between my legs. I can’t think of anything but sex. My mind reverts to the feel of Silas’s stubble brushing against my inner thigh. How can I go anywhere, do anything, talk to anyone when my mind’s eye delivers nothing but that memory?
And yet – if I stay here, I’ll just explode.
The shower is hell. Cold and spiked with a rush of necessity, I’m in and out fast. If I wash my body too thoroughly, I’ll be tempted to make myself release all of this pent-up need. If I turn on hot water, my body will relax too much. Instead, I pretend I have sixty seconds to wash up, and I do.
My body has become detached from me, yet achingly close. I’ve never felt like this before.
Ever.
Duff silently walks with me downstairs, knowing where I’m going before I even say the words. I’m sure Silas told him.
Silas.
The warm brush of his breath against my nipples.
I hold my breath as Duff opens the door to the SUV. I squirm as I slide into the seat, the twist of my torso as I pull the seat belt and click it in place making my skin light up. Silas has done more to my body – and mind – than I ever imagined possible, just by suggestion. Attention.
