Page 42 of Love by Design (Club Rapture: Risk Aware #1)

MARSHALL

S ilas got home from work looking like someone had shit in his Cheerios. I’d called it an early day, eager to be home before him, but when he saw me on the couch with a glass of wine, his brow furrowed and he was quick to lock himself in the bathroom.

Alone.

Chasing my concern with a drink of wine, I headed down the hallway and propped myself against the hall across from the bathroom and waited for him to finish with his responsibilities.

The water was on and off in less than ten minutes, and then Silas appeared in a puff of steam, towel held together below his navel with one hand, clothes gathered in the other.

“How was work?” I asked. “Thought we were celebrating tonight?”

“Work was fine,” he muttered, looking down at his dripping wet feet. “It was good.”

I gestured for him to move, and he padded into the bedroom.

I followed behind him, sitting down on the edge of the bed while he toweled off and changed into a pair of basketball shorts and one of my old t-shirts.

It hung baggy around his shoulders, and I loved the look of it on him.

Standing before me, Silas shifted his weight, avoiding my stare.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, Sir,” he lied.

“Do you want to tell me about your day?”

“Just getting familiar with how Cory does things.” Silas shrugged his shoulders up toward his ears.

“You were much more excited about this earlier today,” I reminded him. “Was it horrible? What happened to sour your mood between the last time we talked and now?”

“My mood isn’t sour,” he grumbled, fidgeting his hands together in front of him like a petulant child. Silas blinked up at me, tired but earnest. “It was just work.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, but he gave me nothing else.

“Just work,” I repeated, and he nodded. “Alright. We’ll celebrate just work my way then.”

He swallowed audibly, and I stood, taller than him…broader than him…stronger than him, and far more determined.

“May I please brush my teeth first?” he asked quietly.

I wanted to tell him no but letting him into the bathroom seemed better than keeping him in the bedroom. If he wanted to run, I would gladly chase him.

“Of course, Silas.”

He gave me one more look before turning on his heel and heading into my en suite.

After he’d walked away from me, I went into the closet, dug out a wooden paddle, and went after him.

A spanking in the bathroom was not my first choice, and not even my second.

It was less than ideal, and for the first time ever, I was envious of friends who had better-equipped playrooms than I did.

I could convert my office, but I liked the separation of work and home.

I’d spent enough time making my house work for me, with the hooks in the ceilings and the bolts in the bed, but there was no real space dedicated for impact play beyond what I could come up with on the fly.

That had always been fine, though. I’d never kept anyone around long enough for any part of my house to become boring or predictable for them.

Maybe one day I would task Silas with the job of designing a dungeon.

See if his skills were up for the challenge.

Dropping the paddle on the counter to his right, I caught his stare in the mirror. He looked at me and then the paddle; then he spit toothpaste into the sink and rinsed his mouth.

“Fresh and clean?” I asked

“Yes, Sir,” he whispered.

“Good. Now drop your pants and grab the edge of the sink.”

His exhale trembled, but he shoved his basketball shorts down to his ankles and hinged at the waist, sticking out his ass and bracing his hands like I’d told him to.

“Does this feel like a celebration to you?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“Good. Whenever you’re ready to celebrate, you let me know and we’ll start,” I told him, picking up the paddle and testing the weight of it in my grip. “Until then, count them out and thank me.

Silas huffed, and I cracked the paddle down hard against both of his ass cheeks. He cried out, jerking away from the counter, and I collared my hand around his throat, pinning his face down toward the sink and delivering another strike against his ass.

“You’re not counting or thanking me,” I warned.

“One, thank you, Sir. Two…” He panted, shoulders heaving against my forearm. “Thank you, Sir.”

He still had marks from my cane on the front of his thighs, and if he didn’t pull his head out of his ass, he wasn’t going to sit right for a week.

Cory would be the last person to ever ask him for an explanation as to why, but it would certainly make settling into his new job more difficult than it needed to be.

And maybe I was reacting poorly over his attempts to dodge the conversation, but our relationship was built on a trust that ran both ways, and I knew Silas had lied about work at worst or offered me disingenuous half-truths at best.

He caught up after that, forcing out his numbers and his thanks until my forearm started to ache from how hard I was hitting him.

I gave him one more, an even ten, before dropping the paddle onto the floor and sucking in a much-needed lungful of air.

Over the sink, Silas sobbed, gasping for breath, and I’d never felt smaller.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured, folding myself over him and kissing the back of his neck. I pulled him upright and awkwardly reached around him to turn on the taps. The water ran cool over my fingers, and I lifted them to his face to wash away the tears that had become waterfalls over his lash line.

Instead of pulling away from me, he leaned in close, letting me wash his face before turning around and burying himself against my chest. I wrapped my arms around him and stroked circles across his shoulders and down his spine, my lips pressed softly against his temple.

“I’m sorry,” I told him again.

“You were right for it,” he muttered, sniffling hard and no doubt smearing snot all over my shirt. “I deserved the punishment.”

“Why did you lie to me?” I asked, pulling him back enough that I could see his face, his splotchy cheeks and trembling lips.

“I…I didn’t know how to tell you.”

“Use words maybe.”

“Cory is bidding on Cahuenga Pass,” Silas blurted, covering his face with his hands. “He has me working on the proposal. ”

It was just like Cory to come in at the last minute and get his hands onto what had otherwise been a sure thing.

But it made sense they were bringing in another option.

The gap between what Stanley had offered against what I’d designed would have been insurmountable.

I couldn’t fault them for wanting to stack someone more competitive against me before making a decision.

It also explained why the award had been delayed.

They were giving Cory time to finalize what he wanted to present.

Rather, what he and Silas were going to present.

“And you didn’t think you could tell me that?” I asked.

“We just talked about it.” Silas angrily wiped fresh tears out of his eyes. “You’ve been expecting this job for weeks now.”

“Silas.” I smoothed his hair back from his face, held him gently in my hands. “This would not be the first job Cory stole from me, and I doubt it would be the last. Our careers have always run competitively, but with you on his side, I think that I may find myself at a loss more often than not.”

Another wretched-sounding cry ripped out of Silas’s mouth.

He was a disaster, worse than the night he’d gotten fired.

Putting enough space between us to bend down and pull up his shorts, I got him mostly reassembled before wrapping him back into my arms. He was soft against me like he always was, not arguing as I walked him out of the bathroom and bedroom, down the hallway and onto the couch.

The cushions there were softer than my bed and far more forgiving than the dining room chairs or the barstools at the counter.

“Why do you hate that so much?” I asked.

“You asked me to work with you, and I said no. Then I just went and stole?—”

“Bold of you to assume your win on this bid is already a sure thing,” I teased, even though I knew it was.

He gave me a watery smile, shoulders heavy. “I didn’t want you to be mad,” he finally said. “I didn’t know how to tell you. ”

“I would never be mad at your success, Silas.”

He looked like he wanted to argue more, but I raised a hand to stop him. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out my phone and swiped open to my bank app, then I dropped the device into his hand.

“Losing Cahuenga Pass isn’t going to make or break me,” I promised.

He stared down at my bank account totals, nostrils flaring. I tapped another tab that opened up my investment portfolio and I heard his breathing hitch.

“I also had a feeling something was up with this bid, but I wasn’t certain.”

Silas blinked hard at my phone and handed it back to me. “I didn’t know,” he whispered. “You didn’t say anything.”

“I didn’t say anything about my financial security, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there.

I didn’t say anything about this bid because I wasn’t sure what was going on.

” I slid my phone back into my pocket, regretting I’d left my wine in the bedroom.

“There’s plenty of things I know to be true that I don’t say out loud. ”

“Like what?”

“For one, I knew I loved you long before I told you,” I told him, and the flush on his cheeks turned far more solid than before. “Do you want another example?”

Silas looked like he wanted to crawl out of his skin as he answered with a choked off, “Yes, Sir.”

“I want you to move in with me,” I said.

He went still.

“I want you to move in with me. I want you to make my home into our home.”

“I…” he trailed off.

“I also don’t want you to answer that in any way right now.”

“Yes, Sir,” he whispered. “Yes, Marshall. ”