Page 15 of Love by Design (Club Rapture: Risk Aware #1)

SILAS

O n Sunday night, Marshall called.

I was on the couch with my head resting on Lincoln’s shoulder, his feet propped up on the coffee table.

He’d tried to pump me for information about my night with Marshall, but I’d kept as much of it as close to my chest as I could.

It wasn’t that I was keeping Marshall a secret or anything; it was more that I hadn’t found the words to explain the way I felt about our night together.

Lincoln had seen my bruises first thing when I got home, his brow knitting together into a tight and worried line.

“It was consensual,” I assured my best friend, who looked doubtful. “He set an alarm so I wouldn’t be late calling you. It was probably the most well-negotiated scene I’ve ever done.”

He still didn’t look convinced, but he was quick to draw himself back when I ignored his pressure for more details.

Instead, I shifted the conversation to Riot, who it was clear Lincoln wanted to see again, but for some reason hadn’t.

Whatever his reasons for self-deprivation, I wasn’t terribly interested in breaking through them.

The only thing I wanted to do was dwell in the lingering afterglow of one of the most intense scenes and best orgasms I’d ever had .

Lincoln and I had skirted around each other most of the day, but the evening brought us together, and he was scrolling through his phone looking for a place to order takeout from when mine started to ring.

He glanced at my screen and raised a brow, opening the menu for our favorite Chinese restaurant.

“Are you going to get that?” he asked, pointing at Marshall’s name on my screen.

“Are you going to get that ?” I countered, tapping a picture on the menu of barbeque pork chow mein.

“Obviously.” He added it to the order.

“Obviously,” I said, swiping to answer the call and untangling myself from the couch. “Hello?”

“Silas.”

I hated that I loved the way he said my name, a bit like a prayer, a bit like a reckoning.

“Marshall.”

“How are you feeling today?”

“Tired,” I said, giving Lincoln the finger when he made a circle with one hand and aggressively speared his other hand into it over and over again. “Sore.”

“You gave me quite a workout too.”

I chuckled, feeling proud. “I’m sorry?”

“I don’t think you are.”

“Not really,” I murmured, heading down the hall toward my bedroom for some privacy. Closing the door behind me, I pressed my back against it and shut my eyes. “Is that wrong of me?”

“Not in the slightest. I like you honest.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I kept my mouth shut and the call lapsed into a silence millimeters on the tolerable side of awkward.

Scrubbing a hand down my face, I pushed away from the door and crossed the room so I could sit down on my bed.

It was smaller than Marshall’s, the sheets dirtier, the thread count lower.

It wasn’t that I was poor, it was just that…

he had better taste. I wasn’t sure, but in the quiet on that call, I was painfully aware of every difference that existed between us.

Clearing my throat, I asked him, “What can I do for you, Marshall? I mean…why are you calling?”

“I’m calling to check on you after our scene,” he said, “but I’m also calling you because I wanted to.”

“You don’t seem to be in the habit of depriving yourself of the things you want.”

“Neither do you,” he said quickly.

“No. I’m not.” My breath hitched. “So…”

“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since you left on Saturday morning,” he admitted, the words coming quietly, almost rushed. “I told my brother about you earlier today.”

Something about the revelation took me by surprise, either the fact he had a brother or that he’d already told his brother about me.

“I didn’t know you had a brother.”

“I have three.”

“Older?”

“All of them younger,” he said.

“Oh.”

“I told him I was interested in you.”

“What did he say to that?” I asked.

“He wished me luck,” Marshall said. “Told me not to fuck it up.”

“What is it ? What shouldn’t you fuck up?” Something that felt a lot like hope sparked to life in the middle of my chest.

The sound that left Marshall next was primal, low and rumbling like a thunderstorm that had me falling onto my back and covering my eyes with my forearm.

It was unfair almost, the way he could take me apart without even trying, without even being in the same room as me.

We’d been together once. Once. Was I already so fucking ruined for other men?

Suddenly, none of it even seemed worth it.

The peacocking and the game playing, the flirting and the teasing.

Without a shadow of a doubt, I knew no person would be able to handle my body as steadily and correctly as Marshall Covington did.

There was no point in pretending another man would ever compare.

No point in pretending I wanted anyone except for him.

But then Marshall said the last thing I’d expected from him, “I don’t…it’s been a long time since I’ve dated someone, Silas.”

“What then?”

“I want to see you again, the way I saw you Friday night.”

“You want to fuck,” I said.

He hummed. “Is that what we did?”

Yes.

Maybe.

“Not entirely,” I admitted. “You want to scene again?”

“Is that all we did?” he asked again, and then a sigh. “I haven’t dated anyone since college, Silas.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying I want to earn the right to hear what it sounds like when you call me Sir. I’m saying I want you to trust me enough to let me take you bare. And I want to see you again,” he went on. “I want to see you soon. I only want to see you.”

“In what way?”

“All of them.”

“But you don’t date,” I whispered.

“I corrected myself. I said I haven’t dated.”

“And you would date me?”

Marshall paused. “I’d do everything with you. For you.”

“You don’t even know me,” I said, even though I was already absolutely as gone for him as he apparently was for me. I would have knelt at his feet and kissed the tops of his shoes and then thanked him for the privilege if that was what he wanted. If that was what he allowed.

“I know what you look like when you come apart for me, Silas. Everything else is unimportant.”

“What about my dad?”

He let out a disgusted noise. “What about him? This has nothing to do with him.”

“You know what I mean.”

“You mean that you’re the son of my biggest competitor? That you’re almost fifteen years younger than me?”

I wanted to dig a hole in the ground and bury myself in it. “Well, when you say it like that.”

“I’m not going to tell him anything,” Marshall said simply. “It’s not his business.”

“If we’re together, he will find out.”

“It’s not his business,” he said again. “But I’m also not interested in keeping secrets. If you belong to me, I want everyone to know it. Including my brothers, including your best friend, including your father.”

I blinked hard, grunting at how the conversation had already gotten away from me.

From fucking to dating to belonging . And I didn’t know what to do besides laugh.

It started as a breathy exhale, then turned into something that had my stomach quivering and my eyes watering.

The whole thing was so preposterous. How had I gone from what my life had been two weeks ago to what it was now?

“Come over tonight,” Marshall pressed. “Let me see you again. Silas, I haven’t even kissed you yet?—”

“I can’t,” I said quietly, pressing my fingertips against my bottom lip. “Lincoln was ordering us takeout when you called.”

“Tomorrow then. Come over after work.”

“And what?” I rasped.

“We’ll get dinner. We’ll negotiate. We’ll set some rules.”

“Rules about what? ”

“What happens next,” he said.

I put my phone on speaker and set it beside my head, then I rolled onto my side, halfway into a fetal position. All of the nerves in my body had disconnected themselves and then put their structure back together wrong. Everything inside of me was misfiring, sparking, smoldering.

“Alright,” I agreed, sounding breathier than I ever had before.

There was a small pause and then Marshall asked, “What did Lincoln get you for dinner?”

“Chinese.”

“Rice or noodles?”

“Rice for me,” I said.

“White?”

“Fried.”

The inquisition over my preferences in Chinese takeout had no right sounding as sexy as it did, but every word out of Marshall’s mouth was enough to light me up.

It was a relief in some ways to have heard his earlier confessions.

To know he didn’t date but wanted to date me.

That he’d told one of his brothers about me.

I wasn’t the only one here out of my depth.

“What do you want for dinner tomorrow?” he asked.

The answer came quickly. “I want you to choose.”

On the other end of the call, Marshall sucked in a sharp breath. “I’ll choose,” he agreed.

My dick was hard over a conversation about dinner, and it was nearly impossible to breathe.

“Do you need to go now?” he asked.

I glanced at the door, knowing that even though he hadn’t knocked, there was no way Lincoln wasn’t close.

I’d been cagey with him about how the night with Marshall had gone because I didn’t want to sound like an overeager child, but knowing things were balanced between us…

I wasn’t so scared to tell my best friend anymore .

“Lincoln is probably waiting for me.”

“I’ll let you go then. Come over after work tomorrow. Whenever you’re ready.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” he whispered back to me, the smile loud through the speaker. “Have a good night, Silas.”

“Goodnight, Marshall.”

The call had no sooner disconnected than Lincoln was knocking on—and opening—my door.

I rolled to the side to make room for him, but the way he launched himself at me it was hard to avoid the impact of his body on top of mine.

The breath left both our lungs with a whoosh, and I choked, shoving him off so I could get into a more upright position.

“You have to spill now,” he said. “I heard too much to let you keep it all in.”

“You shouldn’t have been eavesdropping.”

“Probably not, but I did. So, tell me about Friday.”

Lincoln used his shoulder and hip to move me around the bed until we were both flat on our backs, stares turned toward the ceiling.

“Friday was…I don’t even have words for it,” I said.

“And you’re seeing him tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“Is he your boyfriend?”

“No,” I said quickly, but the denial lodged in my throat and almost tasted like a lie. “I mean, that sounds silly.”

“Why? Because he’s your dad’s age?”

“God, Linc. No. He’s not as old as my dad.” I groaned, but Lincoln just laughed at me.

“He is kind of hot in that middle-aged man kind of way. Do you think he wants you to call him Daddy?”

Reaching behind me, I grabbed my pillow and yanked it around, bringing it down hard on Lincoln’s face and smothering the tail end of his obnoxious laugh .

“He’s not my Daddy,” I argued, even though heat burned low in my belly at the thought of it.

“Boyfriend then,” he said again.

“We’re going to talk about it tomorrow,” I said.

Lincoln steamrolled over me in the way he always did when he was excited about something. “Boyfriend and Dom.”

I wanted to protest it, but all I could manage was another whack against his face with the pillow. I didn’t hate the idea of Marshall being my boyfriend, and I definitely liked the idea of him being my Dom. He’d said on the phone he wanted me to belong to him…

What else could he have meant, if not that?