Page 76 of Silas

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I don’t mean to…tease you, or anything.”

“No apologies, Naomi. Not ever.” His voice is still tense, but his eyes are soft, tender. “This is about you. Whatever you want. If you decide to stop right now, I’ll be fine.”

“You have needs.”

“Yes,” he admits.

“Do you…” I grip his length again. “Does this feel okay?”

He huffs a laugh. “Yes, it feels way more than just okay.”

“I don’t know what to do,” I whisper. “I want to make you feel good.”

“You are,” he growls. “Anything you do, no matter how you touch me, it feels good.”

“Show me,” I whisper. “Teach me.”

He places his hand on mine, guides my touch down his length to the very root of him, and then back up. “Like that.”

I can’t stop another comparison from bubbling up:hewas short, down there. Small. Thin. He was frequently unwashed, stinking. When he forced himself in my mouth, it tasted vile. When he took me, he was rough, forceful. Thankfully, he was also mercifully quick to finish.

The comparison is inevitable: Silas’s sex is clean, for one. I wonder if he expects me to use my mouth—I’m not sure I’m ready for that.

I push the past away, close my eyes and imagine those past horrors being locked in a cell, like the one I spent so many days and nights in. I lock the door on it, padlock it, brick it up.

There’s only here, only now.

“Naomi, hey. Talk to me.” His voice is concerned.

I shake my head. Open my eyes and meet his. “I’m okay, Silas.”

“Tell me what you’re thinking about, please?”

I shake my head. “Not now. Is that okay? I will, just…not now.”

“You don’t have to…” he trails off. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, Naomi.”

I lift up and find his mouth with mine, and I catch a faint taste of myself on his lips, his tongue; for some reason I can’t fathom, that makes the heat in my belly roar to life all over again.

Arousal—that’s what that is. I’m turned on, as Silas puts it. The taste of my own sex on his mouth turns me on.

I resolve anew to be present, here and now, in this moment. There will be time to unpack the other feelings later. I can’t escape them, I know that, and I’m not trying to. I just want to be here with Silas and to enjoy this experience.

I will not let anything sully this for me. Not even myself.

He’s handsome. He’s patient. He’s kind. He made me cometwice, with his hands…and hismouth. God, his mouth on my sex was so…I don’t even know. Amazing, incredible, wonderful? Those words all fall short.

I want to make him feel every bit of that.

I re-focus my attention on the long thick organ in my hand. I kiss him again, just for good measure, just because I love kissing him more than almost anything else.

So far.

I glide my touch down his length, and he inhales deeply, softly. Holds his breath, belly sucked in, as if to make more room for me to touch him. I bring my hand back upward, gripping loosely around the broad, fat tip. Back down, as slowly as I can, savoring the feel of the hard-yet-soft skin-and-steel of him. I watch him. His eyes flutter, and he stutters a breath, and his thighs tense.

“God, Naomi. The way you touch me…fuck.”

I caress his length again, top to bottom and back up. He bucks, hips driving himself into my touch.