Chapter 18: Eloise

It was really startingto feel like Eloise couldn't catch a freaking break. She felt quite strongly that everyone on this show was bound and determined to embarrass her. Were they trying to get her to leave or something? God, if they gave her a hole to crawl into, she might do it happily.

She supposed she better get used to the discomfort of it, if she had any grand ideas about staying. But really, did the whole manor have to know about the way Silas had divested her of her never-been-kissed status?

She'd started that week having never even gotten a peck and then, all of a sudden, she'd experienced six kisses within just a few days.

And Eloise found that she very much enjoyed kissing. Well—she hadn't really enjoyed kissing Maxon. And Foster and Leith were fine, she supposed. But she'd gotten to share a kiss with Killian, and wasn't that exciting?

It was supposed to be exciting.

And yet, she hadn't felt there was anything to write home about in it. It was nice. It was a good kiss, she thought, given her very small scope of comparison. But, clearly, kissing wasn't the tool that was going to sway Killian to choose her.

Or, maybe, it was just that she couldn't really tell how she felt about Killian's kiss because Silas's kisses were so all-consuming. She hadn't been able to stop thinking about that first one. Playing it over in her mind while she stared into space. Remembering the smallest, juiciest details of it at night when she closed her eyes. Initially, she'd thought perhaps it was on her mind simply because it was novel. A new experience against which she'd measure all others. She'd experience better, someday. After the second time, though?

She'd known, instantly, when Silas's mouth was on hers in the challenge. She would have known it from his rumbling little growl alone, if her lips hadn't practically imprinted on his. She'd been devastated when she realized who he was and that she couldn't grab him. His kisses were the kind that a girl needed support for, she'd decided.

Oh god, now that her first kiss had had her squirming against a wall, would she never be satisfied until she had that again? Until she could scrape her nails over a tufted chest and squirm against a man's stabbing erection?

She'd really gone from zero to a hundred, hadn't she?

How could she ask to feel it again, though? It wasn't as if she could go up to Silas and ask if she could take a ride—he was already doing her quite a few favors. She couldn't exactly add please rub your dick against me some more to the list, now could she?

That was, of course, the tragedy she felt in her heart.

The tragedy she voiced aloud, however, sounded more like, "Do you think Killian will be put off, knowing I've had my first kiss in the manor?" she asked Silas later in their suite. "It's like the perfect storm of being inexperienced and also somehow entirely injudicious."

"How long do you spend every day thinking of the exact right word, maneater?" he returned. "You can't have produced ‘injudicious' off-the-cuff."

Eloise rolled her eyes. "I'll have you know that I was an English major not too many months ago."

"Ah, well that explains why you've never been kissed."

"Yes, I have," she argued. "Six times."

"You're welcome."

"I didn't thank you."

"You really should have."

She wouldn't, out loud, at least. Instead, she asked, "Do you really think English majors are unkissable?"

"Not even a little," he said easily. "It's fantasy fodder, really."

"Really?"

"Yes, Eloise."

"Well, now you have to tell me the fantasy."

"I do?"

"Yes, please."

He considered her carefully. "Just one of them?"

"How many are there?"

"Approximately millions."

She hadn't chosen her major, all those years ago, with the hopes that it might attract someone to her but she found herself excited that it did. Forgetting all about her kissing dilemma, Eloise hopped onto the bed beside Silas and reached over to poke him in the side.

"And I'm only asking you for one?" For now. "What a good deal for you!"

Silas caught her finger once it touched his side. He pulled and Eloise toppled forward, landing half on top of him and half tucked in beside him. He didn't let go.

"Do you wear glasses?"

"Yes." She hadn't brought them. She'd even had a reason for not bringing them but she couldn't really remember what it was when Silas was staring at her like that.

"It definitely starts with you wearing those."

"Anything else?"

Silas blinked, slow. "At first."

"And what does your fantasy girl do in these glasses?"

"I imagine you in a library," he started.

"Are you sure this isn't a librarian fantasy?"

"Aren't they pretty much the same thing?"

"Library science is a whole separate field of study."

"Wow, I love it when you talk nerdy to me."

Eloise scooted up the bed, just a little, so she could whisper in his ear. "Metaphors."

"Uhh," Silas gripped her shoulder, pretending to shudder.

"Iambic pentameter."

"Christ, Eloise, you're gonna make me cream my shorts."

"How poetic," she said kindly. "Are you sure you didn't dabble in creative writing?"

Using the hand that still had her shoulder, Silas tugged Eloise all the way into his lap. "Do you wanna hear about how I'd fuck you or not?"

Those words felt a little like catnip to Eloise. She hadn't yet encountered a single soul who'd expressed interest in fucking her. And to have him be so impatient with telling her how he'd do it? She squirmed atop him, trying to raise her center up off of him so he couldn't feel her panties growing wet. Naturally, that motion only dug her ass further into his crotch and Silas groaned.

She gasped. "Did I hurt you?"

"No."

She couldn't shake the thought that he was only sparing her feelings, though. Just like he probably was when he talked about this fantasy. These weren't thoughts he'd had about her. They were thoughts he'd likely conjured of some random, faceless or featureless woman that he could ascribe scenarios to.

Yet, Eloise was like a glutton to it.

"Keep going," she ordered.

He hadn't fully recovered from whatever she'd done to his balls but Silas did keep going.

"I see you in a library." Eloise refrained from commenting. "At some kind of massive table. Your face in a book. Your focus on your work. I see me, under that table. Flipping up your tiny little skirt and seeing how well you keep that focus with my mouth on your pussy."

"And if I can't?" she asked. "Keep focus, that is."

"You want me to spank you, Eloise? That what you're getting at?"

She couldn't answer right away. It was like she was just as caught up in the fantasy as he might've been. As if to punish her for her hesitation, Silas lowered his hands until he was fingering the hem of yet another shirt he'd lent her. And then he was teasing it up until he could grip either side of her ass, kneading his fingers in. Without warning, he removed one, bringing it back to her skin with a slap.

Eloise lurched forward on a moan, her face hovering over Silas's.

"You like being punished, maneater?"

God, maybe she did.

Silas smoothed his hand back over the surely pinkening skin. "But you like being praised even more, don't you?"

Was her head even her own when she nodded? It wasn't like she'd had enough experiences to really know, one way or another. All she knew was that the thought of him complimenting her, telling her she did a good job, telling her she pleased him, was almost cripplingly good.

This show was apparently unlocking much more than she bargained for.

Silas was kneading her ass again, the sensation of it encouraging her to rock against him. Back and forth and back and forth. She had the strangest urge to tip her head back and just feel it, feel him. His hands creeped forward, less on her ass now and more on her hips proper. But those hands—ugh, those hands—were so big that his thumbs teased the seam of her panties, right above where she was pressed against him.

"You want my mouth on this pussy, don't you?"

She did. She really did. Eloise wanted his mouth everywhere. She wanted to try it all with him.

And yet, wasn't that what had led them here in the first place: her question of whether or not she'd been injudicious with her kisses? Whether she should be saving these things that she'd never tried for someone she wanted to walk out of this with?

"Am I a slut?" she whispered.

Like her words were a bucket of ice, Silas froze. "What the fuck, Eloise?"

She repeated herself.

"Did that—did I make you feel like one?" Silas shook his head out, like whatever he'd said wasn't exactly right. "Did what we just did make you feel wrong or dirty or something?"

It was a good question. A fair one, she supposed. But it was a hard thing for Eloise to reconcile how she actually felt with the things she'd been led to believe were true. Her parents had never been into purity culture, really, but they hadn't strayed from letting Eloise believe her body was something to be treasured. Something for her to give when she wanted and only when she wanted.

But then, when she'd been in school, she'd heard all the whispers and had started to think that, perhaps, when she wanted should also be when everyone else thought was appropriate.

So, no. Eloise didn't feel wrong or dirty or anything even remotely negative being sat upon Silas's lap. But she also didn't think her parents or her peers or even America would find it all that appropriate when she was actively pursuing Killian.

"I don't know," she admitted and it felt a little bit like a lie.

Silas lifted Eloise off of him, placing her on the mattress and removing himself from the bed. "You don't know?"

"I mean…I—" she fought hard to find the right word for what she felt "—I enjoyed it but—I mean, do you think…Will Killian?—"

Silas scowled. "If Killian is the kind of man who would hold shit like that against you, I don't think that's someone you wanna be with."

He had a point but Eloise matched his expression anyway, not really sure where she was meant to fall in this conversation. "Silas, no one wants me." He flinched but Eloise kept going. "No one's ever wanted me. If this is the first guy who might, I don't know that I can afford to be picky."

His jaw flexed. Once and then twice and then a few more times until they were sitting in silence for an uncomfortable length of time. Whatever war was raging in his head, she could tell he chose the softer route.

"You have every fucking right to be picky, Eloise," he said. Defeated, almost. "I wish you would be picky, if it meant you'd stop chasing after idiots."

"Killian's not an idiot," she protested. Because she had to. Because if Killian was an idiot, then what was all this for? Why would she stop something that felt so good for a man who didn't deserve it?

Killian had to be a good one.

Eloise could accept no other truth.

But Silas only scoffed so she doubled down. "I don't know why you're so insistent on insulting him all the time. He's never been anything but kind. To me. To you. To everyone else in this manor. Don't you think he deserves the benefit of the doubt?"

"Not even you are giving him the benefit of the doubt," Silas argued. "You're sitting here agonizing over all the ways he might pick you apart."

"But that's on me, right?" she asked desperately. "Not on him. Killian hasn't done anything wrong."

Silas rolled his eyes before slipping back onto the bed. Under the blankets, this time. Both far away and turned away. He sighed but it wasn't apologetic or resigned or any of the emotions Eloise thought it should be. It was more…frustrated.

"You're right. Killian hasn't done anything wrong." Silas did not give Eloise the chance to feel the victory of that statement before he added, "Other than not be interested in you."