“I couldn’t sleep either,” I admit, sitting down on my bed and motioning for him to join me. He takes a seat next to me, hands folded in his lap as he stares at the floor. “My mind’s racing, and I don’t know how to turn it off. All this is…” At a loss for the right word, I throw up my hands in frustration.
“Complicated,” Silas finishes for me. “It’s complicated.” He sighs, sounding more tired than he ever has before. “I’m sorry about earlier. After the fight. I… My parents—it caught me off guard, and I—”
“Hey, it’s okay,” I murmur, putting a hand on his arm. “That must have been a hell of a shock.”
“That’s putting it lightly,” he says, and chuckles without much mirth. “It was like they were back from the dead. They were right there in front of me, and they looked at me like I was a complete stranger.”
“This reeks of Hawthorne,” I reply, chewing the inside of my lip. “Giving humans shifter powers isn’t enough for him. He’s trying to turn this into an autocracy.”
“And my parents got caught up in the middle,” Silas says, looking devastated. “I don’t know which is worse: the thought of them being thrown in a cell all these years, just to be brought out and turned into minions, or the thought of them having been on his side all this time. Here I was, thinking they died for their beliefs, when really their beliefs died long before they did.”
“Hey, that’s not true,” I tell him, turning to face him. Silas still isn’t looking at me, his eyes downcast. Tentatively, I put a hand on his cheek and turn his face so his eyes meet mine. “Your parents did everything they could for shifters. Whatever this thing is, whatever the humans have done to them…” I run my thumb over his cheekbone. “Those people aren’t your real parents. And we’re going to do whatever we can to get them back.”
Silas swallows hard. “What if we don’t?” he asks, his voice barely above a whisper.
I don’t even flinch. “We will. Come hell or high water, we will, Silas.”
His expression softens, the slightest hint of a smile appearing on his face, and then suddenly he lunges forward and embraces me tightly, knocking me off balance. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Boots,” he tells me earnestly. “You’re a miracle. Sometimes I look at you and I still can’t believe you even exist.”
“I do,” I assure him, stroking my hands through his unkempt hair. “And I’m not going anywhere. None of us are.”
Silas presses his face into the junction of my neck and shoulder, and I can feel him smile as he replies, “I’ll hold you to that.” The kiss he places there is gentle, tentative, and I catch myself wondering if he, too, is put off by my sudden surge in power, but his grip on me only tightens as I reciprocate the affection and hum in pleasure. Eventually he pulls back long enough to give me a questioning look, to which I simply nod, pulling him in for another kiss. Permission granted, he kisses me with renewed voracity, his hands tangling in my hair as I paw at him in desire. Nothing else needs to be said; we both need this, need each other, and I’ve never been more aware of how delicate our situation is before just now.
I shrug out of my sleep shirt and Silas’ hands immediately go to my breasts, his fingers gingerly sweeping over them as his tongue continues to explore my mouth. The deftness of his movements makes me let out a soft whine even as his lips mold against mine, and it feels like I can’t get enough of him, even as I explore his strong features and toned body with my own desperate hands.
He moves closer, gently pushing me down onto the mattress, and then his body is over mine, the heat of it—warm, even for a dragon shifter—coming off him in waves as he traces the lines of my torso down to the hem of my sleep shorts. There’s a question in his eyes, and I nod breathlessly. The next thing I know his hand is delving into my panties, nimble fingers stroking me open as I grow more wet by the second. An inquisitive finger brushes my clit and makes me squirm, and I can feel his gentle smile against my lips as he slides two inside me. The friction makes me moan, aided by the way his hips grind against mine, and the feeling of his thumb rubbing gentle circles on my clit is almost enough to have me coming undone.
Desperate to prolong the pleasure, I grab his wrist and pull his hand away from me before leaning into him and rolling both of us gently over. On top now, and better able to control the situation, I help him out of his shirt and toss it over my shoulder before getting to work on his belt buckle. Silas can’t seem to keep his hands off me, alternating between stroking my by now utterly tangled hair and touching my breasts, my neck, my sides… And then I finally get his jeans off after a moment of fumbling with the zipper. My sleep shorts and panties follow, and for a moment after I bask in the sight of him: moonlight filtering in between the blinds casts an ethereal glow over his tall, muscular body, and I can’t help running my hands down his sculpted chest, prompting a sharp inhale from the dragon shifter below me. “Sorry,” he whispers, sounding a little sheepish. “I’m kind of ticklish.”
You learn something new every day. I shoot him a goofy grin before slowly easing him inside me, going slow in order to accommodate his size. The pace I set is slow and gentle, all in the interest of keeping the painful reality of our situation at bay for just a little longer. I’m already wound up, and in spite of my care, it’s not long before I can feel the first stirrings of my orgasm. “Fuck, Millie,” Silas groans, dropping his head back down to the bed as his hands go to my hips, urging me to pick up the pace. I oblige, finding a steady rhythm that soon has my muscles tightening and my body spasming around him.
My orgasm strikes me almost out of nowhere, making me gasp as I brace myself with a hand against his chest. I clench around him almost instinctively, prompting another curse from Silas before he comes inside me, his fingers digging into my hips hard enough to leave bruises.
For a moment, we just stare at each other as we catch our breaths, each afraid of breaking the silence for fear of what will come next. At last, I open my mouth to speak, but Silas’ hand flies up, cups the back of my neck, and drags me down for a passionate kiss. “Thank you,” he murmurs against my lips. “I needed that.”
“I needed it too,” I reply. “I love you. You know that, right?”
“I love you too, Millie,” Silas responds without a second’s hesitation.
Smiling, I kiss him for another moment, savoring the contact, before climbing off of him and sliding under the covers and turning to look at him. “Do you want to sleep in here with me tonight?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” he replies, and settles into bed alongside me. It’s a tight fit, but we manage, the dragon shifter sliding a protective arm around my waist and resting his forehead between my shoulder blades. Our situation hasn’t changed at all, but in the moment, maybe that doesn’t matter so much.
And finally, as we lie there silent and tangled in each other’s limbs, we sleep.
Chapter 3
“Rise and shine, lovebirds!” The sound of Landon’s voice pierces through my haze of sleep, and for a moment I forget where I am… that is, until Silas groans and buries his face between my shoulder blades. Landon, who only seems to be further egged on by this, lets out his characteristic laugh, and in spite of being roused from a sound slumber, I can’t help but grin as I rub at my eyes. Silas, for his part, pulls the blanket over his head, although not even the funk he was in yesterday is completely resistant to the siren shifter’s charms. “We won’t be having any of that,” Landon goes on, marching over to the window and tugging the drapes back.