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Jax’s kiss was still fresh in my memory, and Kaelen’s bond still lived beneath my breastbone, tightening painfully whenever he came close. Neither of those things disappeared simply because I wanted Silas too. What I felt for him existed on its own, separate from the others, and it did not become less real because those other feelings were there.

No one had asked me for exclusivity, and I had never promised it. For once, I decided I did not need a better reason than the fact that I wanted this.

Silas searched my face. “Are you sure?”

I nodded.

He kissed me slowly enough that I had every chance to change my mind, but I only leaned closer. One of his large, rough hands came up to cup my jaw while his mouth moved over mine with deliberate care. He was not tentative exactly, but attentive, as though every shift in my breathing and every small movement toward him mattered.

My breath caught almost immediately, and a deep, steady pulse began between my legs.

“Here too?” he asked, resting his fingers against the top button of my cardigan.

“Yes.”

He opened the buttons one by one and eased the cardigan from my shoulders before pulling my T-shirt over my head. A moment later I was sitting on the floorboards in the lamplight wearing only my panties, suddenly aware of how exposed I was.

Without thinking, I folded my arms across my stomach.

Silas did not tell me to move them. He reached for my wrists with his bandaged hands and held them gently, waiting until I let him guide my arms away. Then he brought them up and settled them around his neck.

When he looked at me, he took his time.

His gaze moved openly over my body, with no embarrassment and no attempt to pretend he was not looking. The concentration in his face made me aware of everything at once: the warmth in my skin, the rise and fall of my breathing, the way his hands still rested lightly against my wrists.

“God,” he said softly. “So pretty.”

Then he slipped one arm beneath my knees and the other behind my back and lifted me from the floor.

I made a startled sound and grabbed his shoulders, but he carried me the few steps to the bed without any visible effort before lowering me onto the mattress.

I stared up at him, still a little stunned. No one had ever carried me that way before. Daniel had tried once, early in our relationship, mostly as a joke, and after two steps he had put me down laughing and rubbing his back.

Silas knelt beside the bed. Even on his knees, his shoulders were almost level with the mattress. Instead of reaching for my breasts or kissing me again, he bent his head and pressed his mouth to my stomach.

I went completely still.

It was the part of myself I had spent most of my adult life trying not to notice: soft and round, marked with pale silver lines, something I had learned to suck in whenever I caught my reflection. Silas kissed it slowly, with none of the hesitation I expected. His eyes closed as he moved his mouth over my skin, and then he rested his rough cheek against me for a moment and let out a long, uneven breath.

His hand followed the curve of my stomach to my hip, moved down the outside of my thigh, and then came back along the inside. A low sound left his chest.

“Soft,” he murmured against my skin. “You’re so soft.”

His mouth moved to my hip and then lower, to the top of my thigh.

“I wanted to put my mouth on these thighs the first time you climbed out of that ravine.”

“You had me in your teeth that day.”

He glanced up at me. “I didn’t say I was proud of how I handled it.”

I laughed, but the sound broke into a gasp when his fingers slipped beneath the sides of my panties.

He drew them down slowly, easing them over my hips and along my legs until they were gone. Cool air touched my wet skin, and my thighs started to close on instinct.

Silas did not force them apart. He left his hands where they were, warm against my legs, and waited until I relaxed enough to open them again.

Then he looked up at me from between my thighs.