Page 47

She felt his smile against her wet flesh and, sliding a thick finger inside her entrance, he pressed the flat of his tongue to her clitoris, catching the rhythm quickly this time, working in perfect, teasing circles.

Ophelia’s stomach tightened, strands of lightning running along her arms and legs, nipples and clitoris gathering tight as she raced toward her orgasm.

It shattered over her like fireworks in a night sky, her body clenching around Silas’s finger while he continued to work her gently with his tongue.

When the last ripples faded and her body was perfectly limp, he slid his hand out from under her, skating it up the outside of her thigh to find her hand and thread his fingers through hers.

He laid his cheek on her thigh with a low, happy sigh.

His eyes were glazed, pupils blown wide with desire, his lips and chin slick from Ophelia’s orgasm.

“Come here,” she murmured, pulling him up, reaching to run her hands over the taut muscles of his back, the broad sweep of his shoulder blades like wings under her palms.

Then she reached between them, running her hand down the front of Silas’s body, over his ribs and the smooth hinge of his hip.

Remembering how firmly he liked to be held, she reached into the opening of his trousers and smalls to run her fingers lightly over Silas’s jutting cock.

He sucked in a breath, the air whistling through his pursed lips, and Ophelia felt him bob against her hand.

Wrapping her fingers around his length, she stroked slowly up and down, loving the trembling praise Silas mumbled in her ear.

“Ah, God ... so bloody good, Fee. You’re so beautiful, have I told you that already? So God bloody beaut—Jesus!”

He came suddenly, surprise and satisfaction flaring in his green eyes, and Ophelia felt power surge through her.

It was a heady feeling, new and freeing, and it burbled out of her in a laugh.

Silas looked at her and then began to laugh as well, a low chuckle that built until his shoulders shook.

They collapsed back on his tiny bed, snorting and giggling, their legs twined together, arms around each other.

Silas kissed her between chuckles and murmured, “Fee, my own sweet, salty, Fee.”

He rose to clean himself, shed his trousers and crawled into the tiny bed next to her.

He wiped her hand gently, sliding the cloth along each finger, then they curled around each other, Ophelia on her side with Silas’s leg slung over her hip.

She ran her hand over the long muscles of his thigh and the hard globe of his arse, tracing the knob of his knee and sliding a finger into the tender skin behind it.

Reaching farther down his leg, she felt the top edge of his scars.

He hadn’t done anything obvious to hide it when they had fallen into bed, but she suspected from the way he had moved his leg out of her sight that he felt self-conscious.

He flinched now, and her finger froze over the tracery of scars and rough skin.

“Do you want me to stop?”

“No, it’s okay. It’s just a part of me, now,” he said, but his voice was as tight as his breathing.

She let her fingertip rest gently on his calf, waiting for him to become accustomed to the feeling.

The skin had been puckered in some places, drawn tight in others, and it looked painful even though the skin had entirely healed.

Sitting up, she took his long, elegant foot in her hand and ran her palms along his instep and up the inside of his ankle, slowly making her way to the outside where the shrapnel had shattered his skin and bone.

She turned and found Silas watching her closely, his face shuttered.

She caressed the skin and then without thinking, brought her lips to the scars and pressed soft kisses to his calf, running her tongue softly over the sculpted knob of his ankle bone.

Silas shuddered, and when she looked up his face was broken open, the sheen of unshed tears fogging his green eyes.

He rose up and crushed her in his arms then, his mouth rough and hungry on hers.

She didn’t know what he had seen on her face, but something tight and sad unravelled in him, dissipating in the heated space between their mouths.

“You’re whole to me, Silas,” Ophelia whispered against his lips. “I know you feel broken, but you aren’t, only different than before.”

He pressed his forehead to hers, a long breath rushing out against her face.

He stroked her hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ear.

“I ... oh, Fee,” he said. “For so long after I came home, I just wanted to be who I was before, to erase everything. But I couldn’t, nor could I seem to go forward, and so I was stuck in this no man’s land.

” He rolled to lay on his back, looking up at the ceiling.

She watched his profile, lashes sweeping his cheeks, sharp, soft lips moving as he spoke.

“The last few weeks though, I’ve begun to see things ahead of me, ways I might be. My leg hasn’t occupied my thoughts the way it did before.” He paused, and she slid her hand across his middle to hold herself close to him. “I’m glad we’re here, together, Fee. No matter what comes of it.”

She nodded against his chest. “Me, too.”