Chapter 35: Eloise

"I'msorry you have to share a bed with me again."

Eloise wasn't actually sorry but it felt like the right thing to say, in the moment. They hadn't exactly been on the best of terms ever since she'd coupled with Killian and it had been difficult for her to tell if that burning undercurrent of anger inside him was reserved for her or reserved for the boy who'd taken his toy away.

Even now, standing across from her in their suite, Silas looked like he was one comment away from bursting.

God, she'd been so relieved when Foster sent himself home on Silas's behalf. Her heart, it had felt, had stopped. She didn't want him to go but she had no claim on him staying. It felt like such a cruel position to put her in, to give her everything she said she wanted but to take her comfort away.

That's what Silas had been, after all. Her comfort.

She had still been grappling with the shock of it all before that night's ceremony. Specifically, grappling with the idea of being so unwanted. Because even though, when Silas had asked her, Eloise had told him things were going well with Killian, she'd seen how he and Maia had rekindled. She'd watched the two of them embrace after Foster and Danica had left. And she'd spent the night in bed without him until he'd come back in the morning smelling like sweat and sex.

But what had Eloise been meant to say, really? Especially to Silas. Silas, who'd flirted with her and kissed her but had promised to help secure the affection of another. It wasn't like he wanted her before and things wouldn't change now just because she realized she'd been wrong about another guy.

She'd been so, so wrong.

Her skin lit up, remembering how, right before the ceremony, Silas had called her a liar. How he'd seen right through her pitifully-weak defenses and knew that she wasn't okay without him at all.

He'd cornered her in their sunroom again. "Tell me the truth, Eloise. Are you happy with him?"

"Yes."

He'd gotten closer. Let his giant hands rest on her waist. She remembered wishing it had still been in the middle of the day, that she'd still been in her bathing suit so she might have known what his hands felt like on her bare skin.

"Liar," he'd accused, and then studied her. "Or maybe you're not lying. Maybe you're happy enough with him. But you're not happier than you were with me."

It'd been ludicrous for him to say. They'd never…but almost, right? Perhaps it hadn't been either of their intentions to steer their coupling that way but it had felt like it was moving in that direction, hadn't it?

Eloise had retreated until her back brushed against the damask curtains and then inched her way over to the window seat. He wasn't pressuring her, exactly. And she didn't feel unsafe. She just felt unprepared to deal with the epiphanies she was having about him.

Silas had knelt in front of her. "You were happy with me, weren't you, maneater?"

Eloise had only been able to nod—barely even able to breathe, especially when he'd leaned forward to press his lips against hers. He'd kissed her. He'd kissed her.

They hadn't done this a lot so far and, as far as Eloise had been concerned, that meant they hadn't done it enough. She was still mostly unpracticed but Silas had known that and he'd done it anyway. He'd let his tongue slip in and he'd tasted every inch of her mouth.

Did that mean he wanted her?

And did it mean he wanted her when he'd wedged himself between her thighs and rucked up the skirt of her dress? What about when he'd pressed himself against her and allowed her to grind herself into him while he devoured her mouth? Or when he'd released her mouth to administer kisses on her neck while playing with the edge of her panties?

Did it mean he wanted her when he wet his fingers before working them inside of her?

Eloise had never felt anticipation like when he'd stopped his mouth's work on her neck to take it up on her clit. She'd nearly screamed from the contact, actually.

"He didn't do this for you, did he?" Silas had asked. And then he had shaken his head and dove right the hell back in, speaking against her this time. "He better fucking not have."

Eloise hadn't wanted to think of Killian while Silas was getting her off and it was nearly enough to take her out of it entirely. Was that all this was to Silas, then? A one-sided contribution to the rivalry they'd taken up?

Had Eloise just found herself as a pawn, again?

Silas had always been pretty good at distracting her, though. Each plumb of his fingers into and out of her and each swipe of his tongue worked to banish her doubts. The hike of her leg over his shoulder had been the lock on the door of her thoughts, not letting a single new one in. At least not until he was finished.

He'd kept going, even when her thighs were trying to lock around his head, even when her hands were curling into the crushed-velvet cushion. She didn't think he would have stopped to let her catch her breath if he hadn't taken to cleaning off his fingers with his tongue and telling her, "I've dreamed of doing that since I met you, Eloise."

Eloise hadn't known what to say so Silas had kissed her again, trading the taste of her while her chest heaved between them.

"I own your first kiss," he'd said. "Do I own your first orgasm, too?"

No, she'd wanted to tell him. She'd wanted to defend herself with all the times she'd snuck her own hands down into her panties and circled her own clit. All the times she'd tried to reach completion with her own fingers.

But she couldn't really say it with any honesty, could she? Because, while each session had left her feeling good, it'd never left her feeling like that. That was an orgasm. She didn't know what, precisely, she'd been having before.

Taking her silence for what it was, Silas had given her that stare that used to infuriate her. "I do, don't I?"

How could he—how could they—have done that if he weren't interested? And how could she tell him that she was starting to believe he owned every part of her when she wasn't sure he'd give her a piece of him to own?

And then there was a tidbit that Silas's name hadn't been called first when the partners had been rearranged. That was the pattern: whoever submitted for a swap chose their new partner first. Silas had gone third, forced to choose between her, uncommitted, and Willow, who was so unwaveringly in love with Leith it would have been a crime to separate them.

Eloise couldn't stop the barrage of doubts that plagued her by then. Like, perhaps Silas had only done what he'd done in the sun room so he could feel satisfied at the prospect of sending her back to another man with her orgasm still on his lips. Or if, maybe, he was cursing Killian and Maxon for leaving him with her as his only option when he only wanted to get away again—when he'd only wanted to claim another of her firsts for himself.

But Silas wouldn't do that. She couldn't believe that he would. Not the Silas she knew and had grown to…

Did she even know how she felt? Did she want to admit it out loud, give him just another of her firsts without reciprocation?

In their suite, Silas still just stared at her. "You're sorry I have to share a bed with you?"

Eloise nodded and picked at the hem of her dress, imagining it around her hips again. "I know you didn't have much of a choice since you didn't really have a partner anymore and you weren't about to choose Willow. And I definitely appreciated the…you know…earlier but I know this isn't exactly what you wanted, so?—"

"I submitted for a swap, Eloise."

She gulped, loving the sound of it but not trusting that love in the least. "What?" she asked. "You did? Why would they make you? You didn't even have a partner."

He stepped to her, toe-to-toe, and Eloise didn't back up this time. "I got exactly what I wanted out of that ceremony."

"But you went third."

"And I had to threaten Maxon within an inch of his life if he didn't fucking choose Cora and leave you alone."

Oh."You always have been protective," she mumbled.

"I didn't do it to protect you," Silas grunted. "I mean, no, I don't want that asshole anywhere near you but I didn't warn him away for your sake. I warned him away for mine."

"Am I your comfort, too?" she asked, realizing too late that he'd have no idea what she was talking about.

"What?"

She couldn't leave him hanging, could she?

"Well, you're the only one in this manor that I feel comfortable with. That I, I guess, want to be around. Did you want to couple with me again because you feel comfortable with me?"

The chest under his linen shirt—the chest she knew so well because she'd spent hours upon hours sneaking peeks at it—lifted and fell. "I do feel comfortable with you."

That was good, she thought. Probably. It was good that he felt as comfortable with her as she felt with him. It meant that she wasn't deluded about that, at least. But was it wrong to wish she made him as nervous as he made her? Was it wrong to wish that comfort wasn't the only thing he felt?

He answered her unspoken questions.

"But you're not my security blanket," he continued. "Fuck, I've felt anything but secure since I met you. You've been chasing after the Ken doll and all I've wanted to do was scream at you that I'm right here."

Eloise definitely had a bit of lingering wetness from their activities earlier but his words were just another crack in the dam.

"You have?"

"I didn't do it right. I didn't tell you in the right way but I was trying to tell you. I was trying to warn you not to obsess over a man who wasn't going to obsess over you. Eloise, Killian was never going to give you the attention you deserved."

She frowned. "I don't think romantic declarations are supposed to include insults," she pointed out. "Or reminders of how much other men don't want me."

Silas rested his hands on her shoulders. Rubbed his thumbs over her collarbone. Up her neck. To her chin, where the slightest of pressure had her head tilting back to meet his eyes.

"I want you enough to make up for a million other men."

"Silas…"

"Maybe that's not clear enough. Let me try again: I've wanted you everywhere, and in every way, since I fucking laid eyes on you, maneater. You're so painfully perfect that I have turned into the sappiest goddamned man on this planet. Not just the way you look—though your tits will probably be the death of me—but the way you look at the world and the way you can't turn off the way you care for everyone else. And you're so fucking funny, Eloise. Tough guys aren't supposed to laugh as much as I do with you."

Her smile wasn't sure how to escape her face but she felt the corner of her lips tilt up. "I guess you just aren't so tough."

"No," he agreed. "Not when it comes to you."

This—all the pretty, perfect things he was saying—was everything her romantic little heart wanted to hear. Eloise couldn't decide if she wanted to swoon and collapse or fall to her knees and show him just how much she appreciated what he was saying.

In her head, of course, she'd imagined scenario after scenario of the love of her life confessing feelings to her. It was what she used to fall asleep, more often than not. And who could really blame her, when she'd filled her head with fiction. She spent her nights dreaming of what it might be like to be loved so completely.

Silas hadn't told her he loved her.

Really, he hadn't even explicitly said that he liked her.

Eloise always had been in the habit of reading between the lines, though. Extracting things that perhaps weren't there or, perhaps, just weren't obvious. Still, she was almost certain his affection for her was there.

Because he was Silas and she was her, she said, "It sounds like you really like me, Silas. Didn't you know that girls like me aren't really fans of the scent of desperation?"

He crashed into her favorite laugh, bending to grip the back of her thighs and scoop her into his arms. God, she liked it here.

"You'll pay for that," he warned her, humor in his dark tone.

She perked, using his neck as leverage to straighten her back. "In orgasms?"

"Give a girl one," he tsked, "and she gets very demanding."

But then his lips were on her neck and that felt very promising.

"Do you want me to say ‘please?'"

"I think I'd blow my load in my pants if you begged for me."

"That'd be another first," she offered, breathing heavily at the sensation of his lips on her neck and his form pressed to every part of her.

"What?"

"Making a man, um, climax over me. You could have that first, too."

Silas chuckled against her neck and his breath sent goosebumps racing across her skin. "I would not be the first. You walk around looking like that and think I'd be the first to get off imagining you?"

"Well—"

"And even if I was the first," he interrupted. "Tonight certainly wouldn't be the first time."

It wasn't romantic but…it kinda was.

"You've masturbated to the thought of me?"

Silas loosened his grip to where he might drop her, forcing her to tighten hers. But Silas didn't drop her. He'd just lined up the hot, massive bulge in his pants with where she was dripping for him.

"Every night since we got here," he admitted. "Hell, wouldn't even be the first time tonight. I had to go rub one out in the bathroom after you came all over my tongue."

"We're still wearing our microphones," she reminded him kindly.

"Like I give a fuck."

Still, though, he put her down to unhook her, doing the same for himself, until they were left only in their evening attire.

"Have I told you you look beautiful tonight?"

"No."

"You look beautiful."

"Tonight?"

"All the time."

"Aww," Eloise cooed.

"I know. I'm the sweetest. Now, can I please see your tits?"