Page 6 of Love by Design (Club Rapture: Risk Aware #1)

MARSHALL

W alking in on an assault was something I never wanted to experience again.

Walking in on an assault against Stanley Ayres’ kid?

Another. Though, Silas was hardly a kid, was he?

The same age as Smith and probably twice as accomplished—if he could get out from beneath his father’s heel.

It took all my strength to not put the pretend Dom through a wall when I saw the way he ignored Silas, but as soon as we were out of the playroom, his posturing turned into a slew of apologies.

He was new. He didn’t understand. He hadn’t been taught.

Any of them could have been legitimate reasons, but none of them were a valid excuse.

“Find a mentor,” I’d told him before throwing him off to security and heading back in search of Silas.

The only thing that tamped down my anger was the warm press of Silas’s body against mine. The way he made himself so small to tuck in against my side, empty water bottle clutched tightly in his fists. Slowly, I pried his fingers off the plastic, hoping he could relax further.

“I’ll stay as long as you need,” I said, and I meant it.

Of their own volition, my fingers stroked short, calm lines up and down the length of Silas’s arm. I lost track of time, the two of us there quiet in each other’s arms until, at some point, he said, “You’re not going to tell my dad, are you?”

The idea was preposterous. “Why would I tell your dad?”

He shrugged, shifting against me.

“You’re a grown man, Silas. Whatever you do in bed isn’t your father’s concern.” I paused, tracing my tongue across the front of my teeth, debating if the next part warranted saying. In the end, it did. “I am concerned, though.”

“Why?”

Silas moved his head against my shoulder, messy curls dragging across my jaw and bottom lip. I flattened his hair and rested my chin against the top of his head.

“It shouldn’t fall on you, but from what I saw, you weren’t going to fight him. You were just going to?—”

“I would have fought harder. If it got to…if I ended up needing to. I just…panicked,” he interrupted, pushing up and out of my arms, and I immediately knew I’d said the wrong thing.

“I know, I’m sorry. That’s not how I meant it…

” I snapped my mouth closed because how could I tell him that I would be forever worried about him now.

That I was the oldest of four and I was a caretaker by nature, and now I knew this about him, that I would always wonder if he was safe. If he was making good decisions.

“I know,” he said gruffly, sinking down into the couch beside me instead of against me.

“If I hadn’t walked in, Silas.”

“I know ,” he said again, far more petulant than the first. “But don’t you dare come at me with some misguided sense of judgment that I shouldn’t be out here doing what I’m doing or doing it with strangers. Everyone starts as a stranger.”

I raised my hands in surrender, brows up in my hairline. “I’d never judge,” I assured him. “I wasn’t judging. ”

Silas blinked at me, swallowed hard, shoulders sinking, and it looked like he was trying to bury himself in the couch again.

I held my hand out for him, and he stared at it a beat before slowly settling his palm against mine.

With a gentle tug, I pulled him up from the depths of the leather cushions and back against me.

“Is this okay?” I asked.

“Yes,” he muttered, like he hated the truth of it.

“This is what you wanted, right? Just a little more of this?”

He nodded into my armpit.

“I’ll shut up then.”

Another quiet minute, maybe two, maybe five.

Silas’s friend hadn’t come looking for him and Justin, Keith, and Micah were nowhere to be seen. That probably meant they were all fucking in the bathroom—not each other—and that was the best possible outcome for all parties involved.

“Did you really read my article?” Silas sounded meeker than he had since I’d walked into the room in the first place.

“Twice.”

“And you meant what you said?”

“Every word.” I buried my nose in his curls and breathed him in. His hair smelled like lavender and sage, wild and delicate at the same time.

Silas exhaled loudly. “We’re going to lose the bid, aren’t we?”

I didn’t have it in me to lie to him, not after what he’d been though. “Probably.”

Another heavy sigh.

“I don’t want to talk about work,” he said.

“Okay.”

Another silence, longer than the last. The music on the dance floor kept shifting and changing; the only constant was the steady bass that vibrated up from the floor and right into the bottoms of my feet.

“Why are you here?” he asked me next.

I huffed out half of a laugh. “I imagine the same reason you are.”

“Jesus, no. I…I didn’t mean…”

I wanted to kiss him.

“Not the exact same reason,” I amended. “But the same result.”

“Fuck.”

I’d never heard him curse before. It made me feel the same way as cinnamon sugar did on my tongue, surprised and pleased all at once. I ignored the feeling, tamped down the heat it stirred between my legs.

“I meant why are you here right now. In this room. With me,” he said.

“Because you said this is what you needed.”

“And why does that matter?”

I knew it was grossly inappropriate to tell the son of my longtime business rival the answer to his question, but the situation was too sensitive to support a lie. That, and it wasn’t in my nature to be dishonest, especially about matters of power exchange and sexual activities.

“I’m not your Dom, Silas. But that doesn’t mean I’m not?—”

“Someone else’s,” he tacked on before I could finish the thought.

“No.” I bit the tip of my tongue until the pain grounded me back into the moment. “This is just how I am, Silas.”

He hummed, and I couldn’t make sense of the sound of it. Didn’t know if he agreed with me or found my answer lacking.

Finally, he said, “This is so embarrassing.”

“For whom? ”

Silas snorted and pushed away from me again. “Me, obviously.”

“Why?”

“Are you serious?” He moved farther away, stood up, and it was my first real chance to see him.

Tight black jeans that left nothing to the imagination, a tight black t-shirt, and battered sneakers that had definitely seen better days.

It was wrong to lust after Stanley’s son, I definitely knew that, but there was no stopping my mind from racing through a dozen imaginary and very sexual scenarios anyway. None of which I would ever act on.

Especially not after what had happened to him.

Especially because of who he was to me.

“Very serious.”

“How is this not embarrassing?”

“It was a scene, Silas. A scene gone wrong, but a scene just the same. Is it embarrassing when you come so hard you cry? When you get spanked until it’s difficult to breathe and you choke on air? When you have to ask for permission to crawl to the bathroom to relieve yourself after?—”

I stopped myself, covering my mouth with my hand to actually contain the rest of the words in my mouth. Silas’s lips parted, jaw hanging slack, and his fingers flexed against the outside of his thighs. He swayed forward, and I was more than ready to catch him if he fell.

“After what?” he rasped.

I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It very much matters,” he said quietly. “Marshall.”

I stood up, took a step toward him. He took a step back, not cowering, but so he had enough room to tilt his head to gaze up at me.

“Don’t play with fire, sweetheart,” I warned.

His tongue darted out to moisten the corner of his lips, and I zeroed in on the motion, the deliberate and teasing swipe, covering just the corner, then half, then the entirety of his bottom lip.

“I want to know,” he said.

I took another step toward him, and we were so dangerously close. I could easily slide my hands around his waist, pull our bodies flush, let him feel the way my cock throbbed for him.

“There you are!”

Lincoln, Silas’s distracted and horny friend called out from the doorway.

His voice was like a glass of cold water, thrown on us both.

Silas stumbled away from me, the backs of his legs colliding with another chair.

His arms flailed out like propellers as his body swung back, ready to fall.

I lunged forward, hooking my arm around the small of his back and sinking down into my own center of gravity to haul him to his feet.

It brought us together like I’d wanted earlier, but with far more violence.

He weighed more than I expected, and we both tumbled backward onto the couch.

I landed hard against the seat, legs splayed with Silas neatly tucked against me, protected from the fall.

He wasn’t protected from my arousal, though.

His thigh sank between my legs and the heat and rigidity of my erection were unavoidable.

He sucked in a surprised breath, eyes going wide as his brain connected the dots of what was happening.

I tightened my arm around him, a primal instinct I had no control over.

His body felt so fucking good against me.

“Oh, shit.” Lincoln laughed from the door, another rush of ice over the top of us.

Silas scrambled out of my arms, and I cursed his friend under my breath as we both righted ourselves.

“I said I would come find you,” Silas said.

“It’s been over an hour.”

It felt like ten minutes.

It felt like the whole night .

“Are you okay now?” Lincoln asked. “Are you ready to head home?”

I bit my lips between my teeth to stop from snapping at him. There was no way Silas was okay, no matter what answer he gave. I knew that, and Silas knew that, but whether he would admit it or not was another thing entirely.

“I’m fine,” Silas lied, and I frowned at him.

He wasn’t looking at me, but anyone could see the tension in the fake smile he offered up with the answer.

“I feel horrible, Silas,” Lincoln said.

Another apology.

“It’s not your fault.”

I cleared my throat, and Silas did finally look at me.

“Are you okay?” I asked him softly.

He worked his jaw, clenched the muscles, then gave me the same bullshit smile he’d given his friend. “I’m fine, Marshall. Thank you.”

I leaned in close, my next words meant only for him. “I don’t believe you.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

“I don’t like this.”

“Why do you care?” He gave me another saccharine smile, then turned his attention over my shoulder to his friend. “I’m ready.”

I wasn’t in a position to argue with him.

Silas wasn’t my submissive, and he wasn’t my concern.

He’d used me for comfort, which I’d given willingly.

I would have done it a thousand times over, but being discarded after his friend’s return had me feeling more used than I could ever remember.

So much of my private life was transactional.

Sometimes there was money exchanged; sometimes it was just an agreement between two willing parties.

I was used to things that didn’t last, and yet …

“Thank you,” Silas said again, and I looked at him, maybe seeing him for the first time.

He was a man trying so hard to stand on his own in all of the ways that counted most to him, and unfortunately that meant standing away from me.

I wasn’t ready, though. I wanted . And I lifted my hand slowly between us so he could see what I was asking for.

He didn’t move away, didn’t shake his head, didn’t falter.

Brushing my fingertips across his warm, pink cheekbone, I committed to memory the way his pupils dilated, the way his lashes fluttered.

Shoving my hand into the pocket of my slacks, I cleared my throat and took a step away. Cool air rushed between us, and we were both awake. The tender moments between us broken. Gone.

“It was my honor, Silas,” I told him quietly, more words meant just for his ears.

He bit his lower lip, dragged his stare away from mine, then he walked out.