Chapter 13

My hands were shakingby the time I pulled into the bus station's busy parking lot. I knew I could have just dropped Silver off at the entrance to the bus station, but I'd chosen to find a parking spot instead just so I could have a few more minutes with him.

My actions didn't really make any sense because as I'd gingerly climbed the steps after Silver had nearly launched himself off the boat and run for my car, I'd sworn to follow through on the young man's need to escape my presence. Unfortunately, in the time it had taken to reach the bus terminal, I'd been unable to shake the feeling that we'd picked up a tail as soon as we'd hit the highway. I hadn't seen the black Mercedes again, so I knew I should just let it go, but my gut was screaming at me not to ignore it. The problem was that my gut had been wrong a lot lately, and this wasn't the first time I'd let my paranoia get the best of me. Jace had needed to talk me down a few times when the ghosts in my mind had been talking too loud. It was one of the reasons I rarely left my house unless it was on my boat.

Maybe my mind was overreacting because I didn't want to have to watch Silver get out of my car and walk into that busy terminal so he could make some money the only way he knew how.

My brain was screaming at me to close my fingers around Silver's arm as he reached for the door handle. Only this time it wasn't because of my paranoia about the car that had followed us from the time we'd left my house to the time we'd hit the main highway.

"Silver—"

"Dalton—"

It should have been cute or at least awkward the way we spoke each other's names at the same time, except it wasn't.

Nothing about the situation was cute or awkward.

This whole thing just felt… wrong.

"You first," I said. My chest hurt, overriding the pain in my back.

Silver didn't say anything for several beats. He still had his fingers curled around the door handle, but he had yet to open it.

"You were never really gonna do it, were you?" he asked. Before I could ask him what he was talking about, he continued without prompting. "That deal you made with me when you first picked me up."

I realized he was talking about when I'd offered him cash in exchange for sex. Remembering the ugly words I'd spoken to him about the different ways I'd use his body made my chest grow tighter. It felt hard to breathe, so I couldn't answer him. I didn't want to answer him. I needed him to go… to get out of my car and disappear into the crowd so I wouldn't have to think about how quickly I'd become entangled in his life.

And he in mine.

I stayed away from people for a reason. I'd only picked him up because of his connection to Jace. Silver had proven several times that he didn't trust me, and I should have been okay with that. The way he'd accused me of leading him into a trap when we'd stopped for gas, the moment he'd stripped off my sweats in the parking lot, not caring that he was naked, how he'd curled his fingers around the countertop in anticipation of me fucking him right there in front of the sink.

No, not just fucking him.

Raping him.

It had taken everything in me not to let my rage spill out then and there. Even though he'd had every reason to put me in the same category as the fucker who'd bought him for the price of a bag of drugs, it still hurt that he had.

"Thank you, Dalton," Silver murmured. "For the ride," he added as he released his seat belt and began to open the door. His voice sounded shaky and hoarse.

I told myself to let him go.

It was the only way to get my old life back.

My silent, comfortable life.

Once again, my gut kicked in, but I didn't know why it made me do what I did. I had no explanation for why my hand shot out to wrap my fingers around Silver's slim wrist.

Just like I had no explanation for what happened next.

"Don't go," I whispered.

I kept my fingers wrapped loosely around his wrist so he could escape if he wanted to. I felt weak and needy as I stared at my lap like it was the most interesting thing in the world. A million thoughts ran through my head as I tried to come up with whatever had caused me to let those two words fall from my mouth.

It was because I didn't want him to have to sell his body for some fucker to use and then throw away.

And his connection to Jace meant I needed to make sure he was safe.

I told myself I would have done the same for anyone in his situation.

As true as all the reasons were, they weren't the full truth.

I couldn't—no, I wouldn't tell him that truth. I wouldn't think about how right he'd felt in my arms when he'd ended up riding my body because he'd been so turned on. I wouldn't admit that I'd liked watching his expression as he'd driven my boat. I wouldn't tell him that for the first time in a long time, I'd woken up this morning with a smile on my face and thoughts of what it would be like to greet each day with Silver's slim body wrapped around mine.

"Just… don't go," I repeated when I realized Silver hadn't moved. Not to stay. But not to leave either.

"You want me—?" Silver began before abruptly stopping as if he'd only just heard his own words.

I didn't get to think about my answer because Silver quickly continued with, "To stay at your house? You want me to stay at your house with you?"

His confusion should have been reason enough to give him at least one truth.

But the words that came out were anything but the truth.

"Yeah," I began. "I was, um, thinking I could use some help around the house. Like with the cleaning and stuff." God, I sounded like I was a kid asking him to the prom or something.

"To clean?" Silver asked. I ignored the fact that he might have sounded a little disappointed.

"Just till you get on your feet, and I don't have dust bunnies threatening to strangle me in my sleep," I said with a forced laugh. I'd managed to unhinge my neck so I could finally man up and look at Silver instead of my lap.

I wasn't sure if the joke was lost on him or if it was the proposition itself that had him glancing out the window at the bus terminal. I wanted to tell him that anything was better than what he was about to do in that ugly place, but I held my tongue. I wasn't sure if I wanted him to say yes or no.

Probably a little of each.

His answer took forever to come but it wasn't with words. It came when he shut the passenger side door. He looked as green around the gills as I felt.

What the hell had I just done?

I didn't want this. I didn't give a shit that my house was covered in years' worth of dust and grime. That shit didn't stop me from losing myself in pills and alcohol.

I reminded myself that Silver's action had answered my question, so regrets or not, I had to follow through with exactly what I'd asked him for.

To come back to my house with me.

House.

Not home.

Home was something that had and would only ever belong to me. The place I'd worked so hard to make my own. The place where no one could ever leave me behind again.

Ever.

"Back to my house," I said more to myself than Silver. It wasn't like he'd catch on to which term I'd used.

I should have been relieved when Silver buckled his seat belt and stared out the passenger side window. I should have been able to let the tension leave my body as I drove out of the parking lot and away from the place that would have swallowed Silver whole.

I didn't. I didn't feel relief. I knew I wouldn't.

What I did know was that every second Silver spent in my home—at my house, I reminded myself—would be fraught with regret.

Regret and so much more.

So much fucking more.

God,sometimes it really sucked to be right.

And wrong.

The past two weeks had been both heaven and hell. My house sparkled like no one's business, but having Silver around every hour of every day was the most bittersweet kind of torture. Our relationship, if it could even be called that, had gone from awkward to downright fucked up. Silver was holding up his end of the deal. Every morning when I stumbled out of bed, breakfast was warming in the oven and as soon as Silver saw me, he put the food on the table. Unlike the first few days, though, he hadn't joined me, choosing instead to use the opportunity to straighten up my room. My sheets smelled crisp and clean whenever I got into bed, and the small window in my room that had only previously let in a few shards of light now welcomed the sunlight in all its glory. I had gotten used to not needing to close my curtains each night when I'd lived alone, but now if I didn't remember, I'd get an early wake-up call with all the damn light.

Problem was, I kind of liked it.

Just like I liked listening to Silver hum as he worked or watching him stare at the water through the kitchen window before he became aware of my presence.

Unfortunately, my senses weren't the only thing that had become hyperaware of every move the young man made. My dick was pretty much always at half-mast, even when Silver wasn't around. On the occasions when I was unlucky enough to walk into a room only to find Silver bent over as he worked, I pretty much had to make a quick exit and escape to my boat for a few minutes or make use of the shower and its chilly water.

Adding to the mess was the fact that we never talked unless Silver had a question related to his "job." I wasn't even sure which one of us had written the unspoken rule. At first, I'd been glad because it had let me pretend I was still alone, but after two weeks of not being able to read Silver's emotions from afar, the solitude had become like something crawling beneath my skin. It didn't matter that Silver often made himself scarce as soon as he saw me. I spent every hour of every day worrying that he would just disappear; run off into the woods and be gone forever.

One of the only good things that had come out of all this was also one of the things I was least proud of. When we'd left the bus station, we'd stopped at Walmart to grab a few changes of clothes for Silver along with some other items. Silver had been so fascinated by the store and the fact that it sold everything from clothes to groceries to tires that he hadn't been aware of what I'd been throwing in the cart. It wasn't until we'd gotten home that he'd begun protesting and insisting that I take the items from his pay. I had readily agreed, not because I hadn't wanted to deal with arguing with Silver but because I'd liked seeing the hint of a smile that had crossed his features as he'd unpacked not only his new belongings, but all the food I'd filled the cart with so I wouldn't have to worry about having food delivered for a while.

The part that I wasn't so proud of was the few times I'd used Silver's lack of knowledge about certain things against him.

Like his salary. With no understanding of money, especially American money, Silver hadn't complained when I'd told him I'd pay him five hundred dollars per week. It wasn't that the high amount was a problem for me because I'd saved up a good deal of money since I'd bought my house. No, it had to do more with why I was paying him so much.

The truth was I didn't want him to leave. Not on his own in the middle of the night or by having him demand I take him to the dreaded bus station. I kept trying to convince myself that I was only keeping him close because my gut was still hung up on that car that I'd believed had been following us, but the reality was much harder to accept.

I liked having him there.

Sure, having a clean house was nice, but even if all he'd wanted to do was sit on his ass all day and stuff his face with the junk food I'd bought specifically for him, the warmth in my stomach that fluttered to life whenever I saw or heard him was more soothing than the alcohol and pills I used to ease my physical pain.

It made no sense.

None at all.

I needed to send the young man on his way, preferably to Seattle where he'd be under the watch of Jace and Caleb and all the men and women Jace worked with. I'd had more than one opportunity to turn him over to Jace because my friend called me on a nearly daily basis to check on how things were going. Yet every time I'd heard the voice of the only man I'd ever trusted outside of those I'd worked with in the army, I'd been stingy on the details of Silver's stay with me.

I sighed as I stared at the ceiling in my bedroom. Yeah, I was fucked, just like I'd known I would be when I'd driven out of that bus station parking lot.

Despite all the turmoil going on in my head, I found myself smiling as I took in the evidence of Silver's work in my room. There wasn't a speck of dust anywhere, my clothes were clean and neatly folded in the laundry basket he left on top of my dresser, and I could even hear the chirping of birds outside my window because Silver had somehow managed to enter my room while I was still asleep and opened both it and the curtains. I should have seen it as an invasion of my privacy, but I couldn't pretend that I didn't like waking up and having those few moments of pleasure before my brain reminded me of my damaged body and sent pain signals up and down my spine.

I forced myself to sit up even though my body was screaming in protest. I reached for the bottle of whiskey I kept on my nightstand and searched out my pills. I froze when I saw a large glass of water sitting where the alcohol should have been. My pills were still there but the water was a clear and very unwelcome message. Rage tore through me as I downed a handful of the pills without the use of the water.

"Son of a bitch!" I shouted.

I remembered to pull on my jeans before I grabbed the water and stormed out of my room. There was no anticipation of what was for breakfast, just like there was no need to lay eyes on Silver simply to make sure he was still around. No, I needed to lay eyes on him for a whole different reason.

I stormed into the kitchen but came to an abrupt stop when I saw Silver sitting at the table. In front of him was not only a cup of the hot tea he'd started drinking after our excursion to Walmart, but also the bottle of whiskey he'd taken from my room. Those weren't the items my brain lingered on, though. A heavy sense of dread overtook my anger.

Because there was one more thing sitting in front of what I now clearly recognized as a very pissed-off Silver.

The money.

Mymoney. I knew without needing to count it that it was all there… every penny I'd paid him.

Shit.