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Silas stood behind the bar, lazily dragging a rag across the counter, all broad shoulders and long legs. Built like he knew how to take a punch but was better at throwing them. The permanent scruff darkening his jaw only added a careless charm to his easy, lopsided grin—the kind that said he didn't take a damn thing seriously. Least of all me.
"Still playing hard to get?" The question was all smoke and whiskey. "We both know this locked door is just for show. If I really wanted in, you wouldn't stop me."
God, he was beautiful. Built like a man who never had to ask twice for
I kept my eyes on him—always on him—watching as he punished that bike like it owed him money. That kind of reckless riding didn't come without a cost. The bike would take its pound of flesh soon enough.
He'd look almost boyish if I ignored the fire banked in those bright eyes. They were weapons, and he wielded them like one, trying to cut me with a single look.
"You want to lose control?" I asked, dropping into a deeper register. "Let me help you."
Color spread down his neck, but I knew it wasn't embarrassment. His breath was coming fast. I'd barely touched him, and he was already primed to explode.
Gage had learned the hard way that not all fights ended clean. Sometimes, you could claw your way out of hell only to find the devil waiting at the exit.
It wasn't just about sex. It was how he looked at me, not with softness but with certainty. Like he saw straight through the walls I'd spent a lifetime building and had no intention of letting me hide. I wasn't used to that, and I hated how much it mattered.
Let him look. I wasn't shy about being watched. Years of practice made that easy. What mattered was making sure they only saw what I let them.
Let him come closer if he wanted. Let him pretend I didn't make him shake with a single touch.
He caught my bottom lip with his teeth, dragging just enough to make my blood spike, but he was the one who groaned. I swallowed the sound like it belonged to me.
I wasn't exactly dressed to impress. Clean jeans, black T-shirt, and hair still damp from a post-garage shower were good enough. No matter how hard I scrubbed, the faint scent of grease clung to my skin. But this was Devil's Garden. People asked questions if I showed up in anything fancier than boots and a pulse.
"Don't look at me like that," he said, reaching out to cup the side of my neck, stroking his thumb against my jaw so softly that it felt like a threat. "Not when you show up at my place whenever it suits you, then act like I don't exist when it doesn't. Not when you keep running the second it feels like too much."
There was nothing clean about the way he was looking at me. Nothing simple about his gaze drifting to my mouth, tracking every breath, like he already knew how close I was to giving in. He looked at me like I was something he wanted to ruin.
That was the thing about Mason—he built walls like a pro, but he always left the gate cracked just enough to let someone slip through if they dared. Might as well be me.
The space didn’t look lived in so much as worked in. A battleground for the terminally driven.
He was on me in a second, but not my lips. That would’ve been too straightforward, and Silas didn’t do straightforward. He went for the throat. Literally. His lips sealed over my pulse point, teeth scraping the line of my Adam’s apple, as his hands skimmed beneath my shirt.
Then his mouth crashed over mine. No warm-up or warning, just full-throttle hunger that almost matched my own. Almost. I kissed him back, matching the thrust of his tongue, opening up for him until the world narrowed to the taste of his mouth and scrape of his stubble against my chin.
“Tell me how much you love it,” I whispered, clasping him by the neck and yanking him into a fierce kiss. He sucked my tongue hungrily, chasing it when I pulled back, whimpering whether he realized it or not. “Tell me how bad you want to be under me right now.” “I…hate it,” he growled stubbornly. His eyes were blazing blue like a gas burner turned up to max. He was so close, I could practically taste his arousal. “You…fucking…asshole.”
The apartment wasn't much bigger than my bedroom, but what struck me wasn't the size. It was the emptiness; not the kind that came from laziness or indifference, but the kind that said: don't get attached. The man who lived here hadn't put down roots. He hadn't even tried. The walls were so bare, I couldn't find a single bent nail or sun-faded outline where a picture might've hung. A two-top table huddled against the wall in one corner, smaller than the desk I'd used in high school. The kitchenette was stripped to the studs and equipped with nothing but a coffee maker, a microwave, and a mini
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"Look at you," he whispered, low and reverent. "Opening up for me so easily. You trust me to take care of you, don't you, baby?" I dropped my forehead to the mattress and squeezed my eyes shut. But hiding wouldn't save me from the truth. "Don't make me say it," I muttered. "You already know." He laughed, deep and pleased and indulgent, and the sound warmed me from the inside out. "That's my boy." God help me, it felt like a reward.
He crossed the room with both mugs in hand, moving with the grounded, easy confidence that only came from a man who knew his body inside and out. Silas never second-guessed his presence. He didn’t take up space. He owned it.
He flashed a smirk and leaned a little closer. "You think keeping everything neat and in line will keep the chaos at bay. Doesn't work like that, blue eyes. The world won't fall apart if you let yourself live a little. Take the day off. Let me show you what you're really missing."
"So," I began, choosing my words carefully, "Do you think you'll go back there someday? Or... you plan to stick around Devil's Garden for a while?" It made no difference. That's what I told myself, anyway. But for some reason, I couldn't breathe while he thought it over. His fingers traced the edge of his cup, but his eyes were turned inward, running through replies I couldn't see. In the end, he forced a relaxed smile and said, "I get bored easily. I figure I'll know it's time to leave once the excitement wears off." Ouch.
"You can't fix everything, Mason." There was something dark in the way he said it, a hollowed-out finality that raised the hairs on the back of my neck. I wanted to reach out to him, but I knew better. There was no reaching for something that wasn't even there. "I can damn well try." "You can't even figure out what's happening right under your nose."
Mason was splashed across every wall of my brain, painted into every corner, soaking into the building blocks of my body.
I didn't do connections. Not real ones. I was the king of keeping people at a distance, building just enough rapport to get what I needed but never wading in so far that I couldn't see the shoreline. Mason was different. His waters ran so still and deep that I wanted to hold my breath and dive head-first without looking. He made me believe that I could. That maybe this time, I wouldn't fuck it all up.
I was built out of so many lies, I didn't even know who I was anymore.
"Get out of town, Donnelly. You've got what you came for, and you’ve overstayed your welcome. Don’t mess with Mason’s head by dragging this out." He stared me down with eyes flat as stone. "I saw it when he looked at you tonight. He’s in love with you."
My heart skipped a beat. This wasn't the man who'd spent all night in my bed a few days ago, the one I'd spent hours mapping with my tongue, just to make sure I could find my way back. That Mason was open and vulnerable, breath warm against my throat, clinging like he didn't want to let go. This man had burnt himself down to the wick.
I hadn't had a place I could call my own in years. Maybe ever. Home was just four walls and a name I wore like a jacket that never quite fit.
But there was a third option—I stayed and waited for him. Just like I always did whenever Mason Beaufort walked into a room.
He was too damn pretty for a place like this, too clean-cut and pristine to be surrounded by criminals who made their livings off the backs of people like him. He shouldn’t be sitting there so politely, letting her touch him like she had the right. I was the one who knew what he felt like beneath my hands. I knew the strength of the muscles under that perfect, tailored exterior, and I knew how much fucking heat his body put off when he was wound up. My body was already reacting like some dumb fucking animal. I wanted to drag him away, press him against something solid, and make him forget he’d
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He smelled like late nights and bad decisions, like a man who lived in places most people only passed through. It hurt, wanting someone like this.
And that slow, mercurial smile of Silas McKenna’s always had so much to hide.
I’d kissed Mason Beaufort with a gun in my hand and a target on my back, knowing exactly what it would cost me, and I’d still taken the risk. Because he needed me, and goddammit, I needed him just as much. Before I could talk myself out of it, my fingers brushed lightly against the sharp line of his cheekbone. Rough. Warm. Alive. Thank God. “You okay?” I whispered. His breath stuttered, soft enough to miss if I weren’t already hanging on to every move he made.
I stroked his nape, brushing my thumb over the ridge of bone, and turned my lips to his ear so Dominic couldn’t overhear. This was ours. “I know, baby. I know. It’s the loss of control that eats at you. But I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. You’ll have time to fall apart, and when you do, I’ll be the one to catch the pieces. But right now, all you need to do is breathe.”
Whatever happened next, this was real. This was us. And I’d fight to the death for it.
The walls I’d built up so carefully over a lifetime of lies crumbled. With Mason, I wasn’t a man with secrets. I was a man finally giving all of himself.
My climax built steadily as Mason increased his pace, taking me so deep, I swore I could see it in his belly.
fuckin hot!!!!!
Uglier in death than he’d ever been in life. Now the package finally matched the soul inside: warped and dead.
Silas—” His hands were on me, frantic now. I wanted to speak, to reassure him that I was fine. All I needed was a smile and a smartass remark, then the terror in expression would ease. But I couldn’t. The light bled out of the sky.
wow this just pissed me off so fuckin bad like mason is such a fucking little BITCH.
We’d survived the crash, but that didn’t mean we’d figured out how to sort the wreckage and rebuild.
Then I walked out, wishing like hell that love alone had ever been enough to solve a thing.
The meaning was gone…or maybe it had never been there to begin with, and Silas was the one who’d helped me realize it.
Besides, what was left to say? We’d gutted ourselves in that hospital room…and still, it hadn’t been enough.
My throat worked around his name, but I couldn’t speak. He was already in my blood again, just from the sound of him.
For one split second, I thought about turning back. Not because I didn’t want this, but because I did. Too much. I was fucking terrified.
“You were never just a break in the storm,” I said fiercely. “You were the only place I could breathe.”
