Page 68 of Marrying Mr. Majestic

I shook my head to clear it of images of Silas and Dev together in the shower. The very idea of the two of them together annoyed the fuck out of me.

“Did you and anyone in your group of friends ever…?” I asked before I could stop myself.

Silas’s eyebrows furrowed. “Ever…?”

“You know…”

When he still didn’t seem to understand, I made a noise of dismissal. “Never mind. I think the pain meds are kicking in. Ignore me.”

His eyebrows finally lifted in understanding, and his lips quirked up. “Did any of us ever hook up? Is that what you’re asking?”

“No. Never mind. Forget I asked.”

“The answer is yes.”

I blinked at him as my stomach dropped. “Oh.”

“Yeah. And it’s still going on. But no one else knows, so don’t tell Dev.”

“Oh. Yeah, no. Sure.”

I moved away from him and did a final rinse, suddenly feeling even more exhausted and battered than before. When I turned to look for a towel, my foot caught the sill, and I started to trip forward out of the shower enclosure.

Silas’s strong arms banded around me to keep me from damaging myself further. I felt incredibly stupid, klutzy, and needlessly jealous. It was humiliating, all of it.

“Easy,” he murmured behind my ear. “Let me grab a towel. Stay right here.”

I closed my eyes and pressed my lips together to keep from telling him to fuck off and stop being so kind, that I didn’t need his help.

As he moved the dry towel over me, heart-achingly gently, he began speaking casually as if he were giving me sandwich options.

“Bash and I suspect Kenji and Landry have something going on. Other than that, I don’t know of any hookups among us. I certainly haven’t done it. Haven’t even been tempted. Maybe we know each other too well, but we mostly see each other as brothers.”

I kept my eyes closed and nodded, trying like hell to appear as if I didn’t care more about what he said than I would about the sandwich options. In reality, my relief made me even dizzier than the fall had made me.

He dropped soft kisses on my shoulder, my side, my hip… I eventually realized he was laying featherlight kisses on all the places I hurt.

The gesture was too much. I was too weak to resist falling for him, and I couldn’t afford to let myself even consider having real feelings for him.

“Silas,” I breathed, worried about leaving my job half-done. “Please go?—”

“I am. I will. As soon as I get you settled in bed, I’ll go help finish, I promise.”

I opened my eyes to stare at him. “You will?” I’d fully expected him to stay and boss me around. And maybe part of me had hoped he’d stay and coddle me.

“Of course. I know you’re worried about roundup. I’ll make sure everything runs smoothly. Sheridan and Dev can handle it, I promise. And if there’s any question, I’ll come ask you.”

He wrapped an arm around me and walked me to the bed, yanking back the covers and urging me onto the mattress. The only body part of mine he could reach once I was settled in the nook was my foot, so he leaned down and kissed the top of it. “Rest. Stop worrying. Let others carry the load for once, Waylon. Let me help.”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I thought about what Dev had said earlier, about Silas’s need to help others.

“Okay,” I said.

Those two tiny syllables felt like the click of a lock releasing, a door opening.

My last thought before the pain meds finally pulled me under was that I’d done the unthinkable.

I’d fallen irrevocably in love with my husband.

---