Page 34 of Silver Linings

She whimpers and rocks against me, desperate and needy as pinpricks of pleasure gather at the base of my spine.

I’ve never come like this, with such little contact, but Silver’s cries of pleasure interspersed with the hot breaths puffing against my ear are about to send me right over the edge into oblivion.

I lean into her, licking and sucking at her neck, and her hands grasp onto my bare back, nails digging in and providing a delicious bite of pain that makes my cock twitch.

I’m holding her hips, fingers spilling over on the top of her round ass, guiding her movements as her pleasure peaks and she unravels on top of me.

The moan that claws out of her throat is guttural and uninhibited and so sexy, I tip over the edge with her, biting her neck to muffle my groan as I spill into my pants, unable to control myself.

Sweat beads her temple when she pulls back and kisses me, lazy and unhurried, as we both fight to catch our breath.

“I wasn’t planning on…that,” I say, not wanting her to think I expected this.

She leans back slightly. “Do you regret it?”

I brush a rogue strand of pale blonde hair out of her eyes. “Not a fucking chance.”

She gives me a disbelieving smile that has me sitting up to capture her lips again. My intention was to keep it sweet, but I easily get carried away, sweeping my tongue into her mouth on impulse, getting drunk on her taste.

She cries against my mouth before she tears herself away, and I chase after her lips like a lost man in the desert chases an oasis.

She rests her forehead against mine. “You should probably go before someone sees you.”

I wrap my arms around her waist, not wanting to leave but knowing I have to. But before I do, I take a leap of faith, hoping she’ll jump with me. “Can I see you this weekend?”

I can see a grain of fear behind her eyes, this bit of unknown territory she doesn’t know how to navigate. But it fades the longer the question hangs in the air, replaced by something that looks a lot like determination.

“Yes.” She leans down and kisses me one last time before hopping off my lap.

I pop into the bathroom to clean up and change back into my now-dry clothes from the night before.

Color stains my cheeks as I hold the ruined sweatpants in my fist. “I can wash these and bring them back to you.”

A grin splits Silver’s beautiful face. “No need. I’m going to sell them on the dark web. People will buy anything these days.”

“You bastard!”

A shoe comes soaring towards me, but I duck, narrowly evading the house slipper careening toward my face as it flies through the still-open doorway behind me.

“What the hell?”

Jae steps out of the kitchen to my left, hands on his hips, a dramatic pout lining his mouth.

“You’ve been gone all night, no note. Who is she? Who are you cheating on me with?”

“You’re ridiculous.” I kick off my shoes by the door and head into the kitchen Jae exited before he assaulted me with a shoe.

I grab ingredients out of the fridge to make myself something to eat as my best friend hops up on the kitchen counter and crosses his arms, giving me a very pointed look. A tell me everything look. I will absolutely not be telling him everything. Some things are sacred.

“Dude, did you and Silver…” He trails off but makes a lewd gesture with his hands.

I swat at him with the spatula I’m holding. “Stop. It’s not like that.”

“You really like her, huh?”

I choose not to say anything, turning my back to him and face the stove.

What I feel for her doesn’t feel like it can be encompassed by the word ‘like’.

It feels like coming home after being gone for too long, finally settled.

It feels like when you’re at the top of a rollercoaster, and your heart is in your throat but you’re still excited for the moment you drop.

It feels like fireworks over the lake on New Year’s Eve, exhilarating and brimming with endless possibilities.

I nod my head instead, a small, nonverbal admission and nothing more.

I flip the omelet I made out onto a plate and hand it to Jae before starting a second one for myself. “I told her about Maddie.”

The clink of fork against plate immediately halts as the reality of what I’ve confessed hits Jae square in the chest.

“That’s…Wow. Are you okay? Was it hard for you?

” he asks while setting his plate down and giving me his full attention.

Jae knows me better than just about anyone, and he’s the only person I ever felt semi-comfortable talking to about my brother.

I couldn’t talk to my family; Mom would start to cry immediately, Laurel was dealing with her own trauma surrounding being there, and Dad— well, Dad blamed me for it all.

But even the truths I told to my best friend were limited, too afraid to confess that the nightmares were making sleep impossible.

I stayed awake instead, sometimes for days, before my body gave in.

I never told him, anyone, about how that lack of sleep almost cost me my hand while I was using a carving saw at work.

It was that slip up that made me seek over-the-counter medication so I wouldn’t worry my family or friends.

“Not in the way you would think. It was hard to talk about initially, but it felt right with her.”

Everything feels right with her. Lapses in silence didn’t feel awkward.

Peppering each other with questions under the guise of a game in an effort to get to know each other didn’t feel suffocating.

Her in my arms, me in her bed, it all feels natural, like we’ve been in each other’s orbit for a millennia, constantly passing each other until we were perfectly aligned in this moment in time.

I’ve never felt this way for anyone. I’ve dated in the past, had a couple more serious girlfriends and a few too many flings in my twenties, but none of them gave me the same knee-weakening feeling I get when I’m with Silver.

Colors are more vibrant when she’s around, life feels fuller, and I’m pretty sure her kiss could cure any ailment.

I left her only an hour ago, and I’m already desperate to get back to her, to taste her lips again.

I think it’s safe to say I’m going to be replaying this morning’s events in my head until the day I die.

The soft noises she made in my ear as I kissed up and down her neck, her head thrown back in ecstasy as she used me to bring herself to the brink—nothing could ever compare.

“What about your job? The no mingling with the tenants law that had you nervous before?” Jae’s question shakes me out of the memories of Silver above me.

“I don’t know. I just…I need to be near her.”

Jae whistles loudly in the small confines of our shared kitchen as he resumes eating his omelet. “Does she feel the same?”

That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it?

I knew on a base level, Silver harbored some type of feelings for me, but did they run as deep as mine?

I no longer believed I was just a fling for her.

No, we definitely broke through the stainless steel wall she had erected around herself, a wall that was rightfully constructed and maintained over the years.

But while she says she wants to try with me, will she be able to when the rubber meets the road?

Will I be run over in the process? Despite it all, I know one thing with certainty: she will always be worth any risk.

I evade his question.

“What are you doing up this early anyway?” It was only seven in the morning on a Saturday.

“I have a coffee date with a Pilates instructor, and she wanted to go after her six a.m. class. I figured I’d hit the gym after that before heading into Anarchy.” He shoves the final few bites of his breakfast into his mouth.

“I’m telling Laurel you’ve moved on from her.” I scoop egg onto my fork and bring it to my mouth right as he smacks it out of my hand.

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“She’ll be so relieved to be rid of you.”

“That’s just a lie she likes to tell herself to stop thinking about me naked.”

“Too far.”

He nods his head. “I sensed that was maybe too far.”

I chuckle as I reach to grab another fork from the drawer. Laurel and Jae would be great together if there wasn’t a country between the two of them. That, and the fact that my sister seems to barely tolerate him for reasons unknown to me.

“Do you want to come to the studio later and get a new piece? I had my noon appointment bail on me, and if I don’t fill the time, I’ll be relegated to doing all the tourist walk-ins. If I have to do one more live, laugh, love , I’m going to walk into traffic.”

My gut reaction is to say no, to hold on to that memory of Maddie and not have another experience like the one I shared with him on his birthday.

But something about the idea feels right.

I don’t know if it’s because I feel at home in New York, or if it’s the effect Silver has had on me these last few weeks, but I find myself wanting to do it.

I can almost hear Maddie joyously whooping in my ear at the idea. “Yeah, that would be cool.”

A wide smile stretches across Jae’s face and crinkles the corners of his eyes in excitement. “I know just the piece.”