Page 135 of Crave

His knees buckled.

He dropped.

I caught him before he hit the ground, my hands gripping his arms, lowering with him, feeling the heat radiating off his body. But beneath that heat was something else. Something just as volatile.

Pain.

Desperation.

He tried to push back up, tried to fight it, but this time, his body wouldn’t let him.

His forehead pressed against my shoulder, his breath ragged and uneven.

There was too much blood.

Too much pain.

Theo moved beside me, reaching over the top of me, but before he could touch him, I felt Silas’s fingers tighten in the fabric of his own T-shirt I wore.

“No.” His voice was barely audible. “Don’t.”

I froze.

Because it wasn’t an order.

Not a command.

It was something else.

Something raw. Something broken.

I exhaled slowly, carefully. “You’re hurt,” I whispered.

His fingers tightened again.

“I know,” he admitted.

And that?

That broke me.

I swallowed hard, my hands gripping his arms. “Then stop fighting me.”

His breath left him in a slow, shaky exhale.

His forehead still rested against my shoulder. His fingers were still cold, still pressing into me, as though he was desperately seeking the warmth my body gave.

And then—finally?—

He let go.

Theo crouched beside me, his hand firm on Silas’s shoulder. “Come on, man. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Silas exhaled slowly, deeply. And for the first time that night—he didn’t fight.

I helped him up, and Theo studied him as we moved him toward the rear bathroom. I felt his weight pressed into my side—his hard, ragged breaths shuddering against me—and all I wanted was to hold him, to touch him, to search his eyes for that desperate longing for me once more.

That’s the way, that darkness whispered inside me…