Page 42 of Blurred Lines

My desperate, famished hands roam her body, grasping her hips, waist, breast, molding her to me, my mind whirling with thoughts of her, only her.

"God, Emily," I pant, my voice a strangled moan. "I'm going to?—"

"Yes," she gasps, her head thrown back in ecstasy. "Give me everything, Silas. I want it all."

And I do. Her nails rake down my back, hips bucking against mine in a frenzy of desire as my climax boils over, my vision exploding into a thousand white-hot stars.

"Dear God, I'm coming too," she half-moans, half-whispers, shuddering so hard I have to steady her in my arms. We plunge over the precipice together, my cock buried deep in her core, her milking every last inch of it, clenching, releasing, until there is nothing left.

"Look at you," I say quietly, as our reflections in the mirror stare at me. She is still in my arms, her long back to the mirror. "You're exquisite."

She is. She's nothing like anyone I've ever known in the almost-forty years of my existence.

Ever so slowly, we catch our breaths and break apart. A silence descends between us. There's no undoing what has just happened, but I'm not so sure I would want it to be any different.

Emily moves over to a window and pushes it open, inhaling the night's air, heady with the scent of ripe grapes. Her fingers toy with an errant curl falling upon her forehead. Outside, an owl hoots somewhere.

She's uninhibited for someone who can be so … caught up in her own thoughts. She's a woman of contradictions, and perhaps that is singularly the reason for her exquisiteness. There's a visceral quality to her beauty, it extends beyond the mere physicality of her being.

It's almost like night has claimed her, bred her to be wild and free, but the world has tried too hard to tame her spirit.

My trousers, I remember, are lying on the stairs. I mumble an excuse and slip out of the room, returning only when I have them back on. By this time, I've had the chance to gather my thoughts.

Emily, I note with immense satisfaction, has nothing on, barring the silver moonbeams that fall on her olive skin, somehow clothing her in a way no fabric ever could. I sigh and look around me. It seems I am in one of the multiple guest rooms in this darned mansion.

Harvey's mansion always intimidated me. I felt it was too excessive, too rich, too much of everything. But sitting here, on this couch, watching this lovely girl, naked and dipped in moonlight, I could almost believe in an alternate reality.

I take off my crumpled shirt and walk over to her. "Put this on," I tell her.

She shoots me a side glance and takes the shirt with no scathing remark.

"I—I really am sorry about what happened back at Finn's place. I was pretty rough."

"You were downright stupid," she observes with a little shrug. "But from what I know, people usually react very stupidly when they're trying to fight something."

She angles her body so she's leaning against the wall by the window. "I guess the question, Silas, is this. What are you fighting? And what does it have to do with me?"

16

EMILY

Ataut silence hangs in the air, the engraved grandfather clock in the corner ticking louder with each passing second. Silas stands beside me, in his trousers, a haunted look in his eyes. I almost expect him to make a run for it, the way his gaze keeps glancing toward the grand, double doors. The afterglow of sex has curdled into something tense, uncomfortable, the space between us feeling more cavernous with each breath.

It's a kindness of sorts, him not outright bailing. Still, he's holding his breath, waiting for me to cut him loose. I should be kinder, but the resentment bubbles close to the surface. "You can ditch, Silas," I say, voice sharp against the plush silence of the room. "I get it. We wanted different things, happened to cross paths for a night. If this talk, this unloading you seemed so keen on, is too much …"

He flinches, like the words are a slap. The vulnerability flashes across his face, gone in an instant, but it hits me hard. Damn. I watch his shoulders tense, the set of his jaw harden.

"Think that's all this was?" His voice is low, dangerous.

My stomach flips, but I raise my chin. "Isn't it?"

I see the exact moment resolve settles inside him. Some fight-or-flight decision I didn't even know was on the table. "Guess it doesn't matter what I think," he says, the bitterness in his tone sharp enough to make me wince. He begins moving towards the door with a stride that speaks of a man ready to walk away and never look back.

My hunger, sharp a moment ago, turns into a knot of tangled emotions I can't name. "Wait," I blurt out, the word catching even me by surprise.

He pauses, hand on the gold-plated doorknob, back towards me. The silence between us stretches until it becomes unbearable.

At that exact moment, I realize I need some food in my system before I can make any sensible words come out of my mouth. I don't want him to go, but if he stays, it has to be on his own terms.

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