Page 220 of Fractured Allegiance
The door clicks shut, and I’m left with the hum of my pulse and the weight of Silas’s stare.
He’s still on the bed, body coiled like a wire, hands braced on his thighs. For a moment, neither of us speaks. It’s like Elias dragged all the words out with him and left only the pressure behind.
I break first. “You just sit there while he talks about you like that?”
Silas doesn’t flinch. “He’s not wrong.”
“That’s it? No fight back? No explanation?”
“What explanation do you want, Lydia?” His voice cuts across the space. “That the Bureau sent me? That I was supposed to give reports on you and the others in this world, keep you in a cage until they were done? Well, now you already know.”
“I didn’t know any of it,” I snap.
His jaw ticks, but he doesn’t rise to it. That restraint infuriates me more than yelling would.
“You had chances,” I push on. “At the penthouse. At the club. At the goddamn rooftop. You could’ve gotten me out sooner, but you didn’t. What stopped you, Silas? Too many guns? Or was it the mission?”
He stands now, slow, controlled. He doesn’t bother putting on his pants. Every inch of his body radiates heat, and I hate that part of me responds to his nakedness. He closes the distance in three measured steps until he’s in front of me. I have to tip my chin up to meet his eyes.
“I stopped myself,” he says, voice steady but low enough that it scrapes. “Because if I moved too soon, they’d kill you before you hit the door. Because if I dragged you out without a plan, we’d both be corpses right now. You think I wanted to wait? You think I slept while you were locked in that cage?”
His hand comes up, but he doesn’t touch me yet. His fingers hover near my jaw, like he’s daring himself. “But then, I gave you the option to come with me, right before they got you caged. Remember?”
“I’m not here to argue, Lydia,” he murmurs. “Not after last night. Not after we barely made it out alive. Please—don’t make me waste the only thing I’m certain of.”
“And what’s that?” My voice cuts, but the heat crawling through my chest betrays me.
His hand finally lands, thumb brushing my cheekbone. The touch is firm, grounding, and dangerous.
“You,” he says.
I want to slap him. I want to kiss him. I want to scream at him for making me this weak and this reckless in the same breath.
Instead, I lean forward until my forehead hits his chest. His hand cups the back of my head like he’s been waiting for me to crack open.
“Don’t,” I whisper. “Don’t turn this into some tragic devotion story. I’m not yours to save.”
He tilts my chin up, forcing me to meet his gaze. His mouth is inches from mine, eyes dark, burning.
“Then let me be yours to ruin.”
His mouth crushes mine, and the fight we were having dissolves into a hotter intensity, It isn’t forgiveness or surrender—it’s survival in another language.
I push against his chest, not to break free but to force him back. My body makes the decision before my head does. He stumbles a step, eyes flashing with something between surprise and hunger.
“Sit down,” I tell him.
It’s not soft. It’s a command.
He lowers himself onto the edge of the bed, muscles taut, cock hard and heavy between his thighs. I spread his legs with my hands and sink to my knees on the floor in front of him. His hands fist in the sheets.
“Lydia…” His voice scrapes, ragged, warning threaded through hunger.
I don’t answer. I drag my hands up his thighs. His breath rips out of him, deep and guttural, his hips twitching once before he fists his hands into the sheets to hold himself still.
“Lydia…” His voice scrapes out, rough and jagged, threaded with warning and want.
I don’t answer. I crawl closer, part his knees with my palms, and sink to the floor between them. My eyes stay locked on his as my fingers glide up the length of his thighs, tracing the firm muscle until I reach the base of him.
