"Any other rules, or is that it?"
"One more," she said. "Don't fall in love."
I was silent, my finger tracing down her arm before I brought it back up to her shoulder and down between her breasts. Her nipples rose to attention at my touch, and she squirmed in front of me.
I didn't tell her that she was wrong about the swallow tattoo. Swallows might represent freedom and travel - but she was forgetting the most important part.
And that was the fact that no matter how many thousands of miles they traveled, swallows always returned home.
***
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
TEMPEST
I woke to Silas moving beside me.
"Sorry," he said. "I wasn't trying to wake you. I just had to get up to brush my teeth. And take a leak."
"Classy," I said, rolling over onto my stomach in the bed and sliding up his body until my head was on his chest, my cheek pressed up against his warm skin.
I didn't want to move from where I was laying. I wanted to stay like this for as long as I could.
That fact was frightening. Staying here for a few days was one thing, but more than that? Letting myself get used to this with Silas wasn't a good idea.
And yet, it's the only thing I wanted to do.
Silas ran his hand over my hair, the strands clinging to his hands momentarily, then falling back into place as he let them go. "How did you sleep?"
"Good," I said, the response automatic. The memory of last night was etched on my brain - Silas and I moving in sync, sweat glistening on our skin. I had fallen asleep in Silas' arms afterward, my need completely satiated. I hadn’t slept that well in years. "How did you sleep?"
"Mmm," he murmured, pulling me up to him, close, so that my breasts brushed against his chest. He kissed me lightly on the lips, but I pushed him away.
"I have morning breath," I said.
"Obviously," he said. "This is real life, not a romance novel."
I laughed. "Well, let me brush my teeth, then."
Silas squeezed the flesh of my ass cheek and pressed me against him. "Oh, you don't want to get out of bed, do you? It's all nice and warm in here. It's cold and lonely out there."
"I really have to pee," I said, pushing away from him.
He groaned loudly. "Come on, bright eyes," he said. "You know you want a piece of this."
I laughed as I walked into the bathroom and shut the door behind me. Being here with Silas in his place felt comfortable. It wasn't like the morning after that we'd had in Las Vegas, the one where I felt awkward and tentative. This felt like being someplace familiar.
It felt like home.
I shrugged off the thought, easily distracted as soon as I opened the bathroom door. Silas lay in bed, the covers kicked off his body, stark naked, proudly displaying his erection. He grinned. "I was going to get up and go make you breakfast," he said. "But then I thought, well, I'd hate to let this perfectly good hard-on go to waste."
I rolled my eyes. "You are nothing but class," I said. "I'm realizing that you didn't learn any manners in the seven years since I've been gone, did you?"
"Manners?" he asked. "I don't understand. What are these manners things you're talking about?"
I sauntered over to the bed, enjoying Silas' eyes on me as I walked. He didn't waste any time when I reached him, his hands immediately on my waist, pulling me toward the bed. Swinging one leg over his body, I knelt with my knees on either side of him. He wrapped his hand around the base of his rigid cock and guided the tip to my entrance, rubbing it on my wetness before he teased me by pressing it against my clit.
“Quit teasing me,” I said. “You know I’m wet.”
“Tell me you want me.”
“I want your cock in me, Silas,” I said, reaching down between my legs and moving his hand. I replaced his hand with mine, holding his shaft steady as I sank onto it.
“And how’s that?” he asked, his expression changing to one of unabashed pleasure as I began to rock back and forth on him.
I felt my eyes nearly roll back in my head. “That is perfect.”
Silas ran his hands up my sides and over my breasts until he reached my shoulders. "I don't think this will ever get old," he said.
"What?" I asked, my breath catching. He was talking as if we were going to be together in the future, and the problem was that when he said things like that, it sounded...nice.
"Seeing you like this, naked, on top of me," he said, his hands on my waist, guiding me up and down on his cock. I slid onto him, rocking him deeper inside me as his hands roamed my body.
“Me too," I said, my breath catching again, but not for the same reason as before. Now it was because of my growing arousal, my greater need for him. I began to increase my pace, driving him into me harder as I found a rhythm with him.
Silas threaded his fingers through mine, and I gripped his hands for leverage as I surrendered to my growing pleasure. When he looked at me, his eyes were clouded with lust. "I fucking love..."
I pushed his palms up near his head, keeping him from finishing his sentence. I didn’t want him to say what I thought he was going to say – the very idea made my heart pound in my chest. My fingers still interlaced with his, I drove myself down his length hard, so that I could feel his cock deep inside me, eliciting a loud groan from him.
The sound sent heat flowing through me all the way to my fingertips. “Silas,” I said, my voice low. My hair fell in pieces around my face and swung forward, draping around the both of us as I leaned close to him, my face inches away from his. "Silas," I repeated.
"I love fucking you, Tempest.” Gripping my ass cheeks, ensuring I stayed firmly planted against him and that his cock remained lodged inside me, he flipped me over onto my back on the bed. Once he was on top of me, he pinned my hands to the mattress above my head.
"Oh my God, Silas." I could barely speak as he drove into me with short, swift strokes, bringing me closer and closer to the edge of orgasm.
"What, Tempest," he whispered, his words punctuated by his thrusts. "What do you like?”
“This, Silas.” What he was doing was making it too difficult to think.
“Tell me how much you like me inside you."
"Shit...Silas." I couldn't speak anything more than his name. I couldn't think about anything except what he was doing with his cock.
"Tell me," he said. "Because I love how goddamn tight you are. I love how wet you are. I love how you fit me like a glove."
Every word he spoke was making me hotter. "Silas," I said. "I'm so close. You're going to make me come."
He leaned in close to me, his tongue flicking over my earlobe. When he spoke, his words were musical, this low bass near my ear. "No," he said. "You're not going to come yet. You're going to tell me how much you like my cock inside of you, how much you want me to let go and come in your sweet pussy..."
"Silas," I warned. My body felt like it was on fire- the heat of my arousal and the heat of his body were so overpowering. I was consumed by him - by his touch, his heat, his presence.
"Tell me, bright eyes," he said, moving inside me with excruciatingly slow strokes, his cock pressing against the most sensitive spot inside me.
"I love y - “ I stopped short, aware of how close I was to saying the word you.
"What, Tempest," he said, his voice low, pausing, teasing me. "Say it. I want to hear it."
"I love your cock," I said, arching up to touch my lips to his, and he pressed his to mine with a growl.
"Good enough," he said. When he kissed me, I let go, melting into him, forgetting about everything else except the sensation of his skin on mine. Right now, he and I were the only things in the world that mattered to me. "Come with me, Tempest."
Just like before, his command pushed me over the edge, and I clung to him, my head buried in his shoulder, screaming into him as I came. Silas called out my name as he crashed into me, burying himself to the hilt in me and letting go.
When I finally ope
ned my eyes, the pulsing between my legs still insistent, Silas’ eyes were the only things I saw. "Silas," I whispered.
He covered the side of my face with his palm, stroking my cheek with his thumb. "Tempest," he whispered. He kissed my lips again. "Why is fucking you so amazing?"
"It's probably because I'm awesome," I said, grinning. I felt giddy in the afterglow of sex.
"That's a given," he said, looking at me for a long time before I finally glanced away. The way he was looking at me...
It made me feel like there could be something more.
"Look at me, Tempest," he said.
"Silas, I ca- " I started. "It's too-"
I didn't say what I was thinking.
It's too much. It's too...intimate.
"Tempest," he said. "Stay here. With me." He didn't move from where he was, buried inside me.
"I can't, Silas, I'll have to-"
He stopped me. "I didn't say stay with me forever," he said. "Just right now. Hole up with me here for a while. Hide out with me. Whatever you have outside of here, it can wait. Press the pause button on everything else."
I opened my mouth, my thoughts filled with all of the reasons not to do exactly what Silas was asking me to do.
I was going to have to leave - I was part of a crew who needed me.
I couldn't love someone.
I was a fraud.
I couldn't give him what he wanted. I couldn't bare my soul. It was too late for me. I was too used to playing a million different roles.
"You're not saying no, Tempest," Silas said, pre-empting all of my unspoken objections, as if he could read my mind.
And, so despite all of my fears, all of the shit that was swirling around in my head like crazy, threatening to overwhelm me, I said yes.
"Okay," I said. “I’ll do it. Put everything on hold. Push the pause button.”
***
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
SILAS
"It's not going to work," she said from where she sat on the armchair, her back ramrod straight, both feet on the floor.
"Just open your mouth and stop whining," I said. "Hold still."
"Hurry up and get it over with," she said. "Five bucks says you can't make the shot."
I stood at the entrance to the living room, a bag of popcorn in one hand and one piece in the other. "Five bucks," I said. "But don't try to cheat and move your head at the last minute, either."
"Grifter's honor," Tempest said, winking. She scooted to the very edge of the chair and opened her mouth wide. "Okay. Do it."
I tossed the popcorn at her, and when it bounced off her forehead, she laughed. "That's some piss poor aim you've got there."
"That's not what you said last night," I said, leering at her.
Tempest laughed. "Five bucks, buddy," she said. "And I don't take IOUs."
Crossing the room, I picked up the remote and pressed the play button, starting the movie, some romantic comedy Tempest had picked. Pulling her to her feet, I slid in behind her on the oversized armchair and pulled her down on my lap, her feet hanging over the armrests. "Can I pay you in sex?" I asked.
Tempest arched one eyebrow. "Five bucks? You're a cheap lay."
"I never said I wasn't," I said, digging my hand into the bag of popcorn now resting on her lap. I purposely dropped some pieces down the front of her chest, covered in the thin fabric of one of my cotton t-shirts she was wearing. "Oops. I guess I'll have to retrieve that."
Tempest laughed as she swatted my hands away from her breasts. "You're terrible," she said.
"By terrible, you obviously mean hot and sexy," I said, grabbing a handful of boob. She giggled and swatted me away, distracted by the movie.
"This is River, isn't it?" she asked, pointing toward the actress on the screen.
"Yeah, that's her," I said.
"She's gorgeous."
“Can you believe my fucking brother is with her?” I asked.
“I can,” Tempest said, giving me a wicked grin. “A guy that hot? I’d do him.”
I ran my hand over her breast again. “You better not,” I said. “These are mine.”
Tempest laughed. “Don’t worry,” she said. “You’re the better looking twin.”
“I’m going to have to watch leaving you alone with him," I said, shaking my head. "She moved back here with him and everything, completely walked away from Hollywood."
Tempest pulled herself upright on my lap and turned toward me. "Do you think people can really do that?"
"Do what?" I asked, but I already knew what she was talking about. I just wanted to hear her say it. I wanted to know she was thinking about me and her.
The truth was, I fucking knew what I wanted.
I'd known since I was seventeen years old. And being back here with her, pushing the pause button on the outside world, was only confirming everything I felt.
"Do you think it's possible to just leave everything behind?" she asked. "The way River did for Elias?"
"Isn't that what you do?" I asked.
She shook her head. "I don’t understand,” she said. “What do you mean?"
"The woman with a thousand identities is asking me if it's possible to reinvent yourself?" I asked.
She exhaled heavily. "That's not the same thing," she said.
"No, it's not." I took a strand of hair from where it fell in front of her eyes and tucked it behind her ear. "It's easy to just take a new identity. It's a lot harder to come back home. Reinventing yourself and becoming someone else is simple. Owning who you are, that's the hard thing, Tempest."
She looked at me for a long time with soft eyes, before she spoke again. "I've never had a home, Silas."
"I'm not talking about a place, Tempest," I said. "My parents- you already know how they were. My father was a drunk asshole and my mother was...well, she tried her best to get between you and I back then, to stop anything else that might have happened between us. And most everybody in this town thought my brothers and I were the white trash spawn of my no-good parents."
"But you came back here," she said. "You still feel like this place is your home."
"No," I said, shaking my head. "You know that's not what I'm talking about, Tempest. It's not this place."
She trailed her finger along my shoulder for a while, following it with her eyes, before she finally looked up at me. "West Bend is the only place I'd ever been where I felt like I belonged," she said.
Exhaling heavily, I wrapped my hand around her wrist gently, stopping her from distracting herself by touching me. "You are the reason this place felt like home, Tempest."
"I get...restless," she said, shaking her head. "I've never stayed in one place."
I kissed her on the lips, sliding my hand back to the nape of her neck and pulling her to me. I wanted this girl more than I'd ever wanted anything in my life.
Closing my eyes, I inhaled deeply the familiar scent of her. I wanted to drink her in.
I wanted to love her.
I just wasn’t sure if she’d let me.
***
TEMPEST
I lay on my stomach in Silas' bed, wearing his t-shirt and nothing else, kicking my feet up in the air behind me. Silas and I had decided to press the pause button on everything outside of this place.
I'd never done something like this before.
I wasn't sure I could.
When I'd said I had to go back to the little bed and breakfast where I'd been staying, I was sure that Silas thought I was taking off permanently. He'd kissed me long and hard, his hands trailing up my back and through my hair, the kind of kiss you have with someone when they're leaving and you're never going to see them again.
It was the kind of kiss you leave someone with, hoping that will be the last thing they remember about you.
On the entire ride over to the bed and breakfast, I thought about how easy it would be to just leave, ride off on my bike into the sunset and forget about Silas.
The same way I'd done before.
&n
bsp; Except it never had been that easy to forget about him. I'd done a shit job of it. Silas had never left me – he was always there, a part of me. I might have walked away from West Bend, but I had never really left him behind.
I told myself that it was stupid to stay here. I should rip off the bandage and leave now, before it was too painful to do it later.
And then I'd checked out of the bed and breakfast, turned my bike around, and come right back here.
Back to Silas.
Silas came up behind me, crawled into bed, and slid his arm across the small of my back. “What are you thinking about?”
“Nothing,” I lied, changing the subject. “I was just looking at your bed. It’s so beautiful, just like your other furniture. Is it something local?”
“I made it,” Silas said.
I slid up to a sitting position and reached out to run my fingers along the headboard. “You made this,” I said. “Yourself.”
Silas nodded. “Don’t sound so surprised,” he said. “You don’t know everything there is to know about me.”
“Clearly,” I said. “You’re a man of mystery, Silas Saint.”
“I’m like the James Bond of West Bend, Colorado,” he said, winking.
“So you really made all of this?”
Silas shrugged. “After you left, I was pissed off at everyone and everything,” he said. “I threw myself into wrestling, and Coach Westmoreland knew my parents weren’t the best, so I ended up spending a lot of time at practice and stuff. He and his wife started letting me come home for dinners, that kind of thing. They didn’t have any kids – I don’t think she could have them- so they treated me like their own. Better than my parents did.”
“Your coach is the one renting you this place now,” I said.
“Yeah, his wife died a couple years back – I wasn’t here then – but I know he took it pretty hard. This was the first place I came right to when I came back to West Bend a few months ago. I didn’t even go to see my mother for a while after I got here,” he said. “I just came to see Coach.”
“What about the furniture?” I asked. “Is he the one who got you into making it?”
“Oh, yeah, the furniture,” Silas said. “It was Coach’s thing. He had his whole garage set up as this workshop, and he’d go in there and hole up and make things. After you left, he got me started in doing it. He said I needed to have something other than wrestling to occupy my mind, and wood-working was just relaxing.”
Luke: A West Bend Saints Romance Page 52
