I didn’t want to admit my attraction to the man I married for money, but it was there all the same. And after his confession on the road, there was no way we were ever going back to pretending to only be roommates.

  It would be impossible.

  To ignore this spark, this heat crackling between us, would mean turning away from something you might feel once in your life, if you’re lucky. And after everything that’s happened to lead me to this mountain, this man, this moment, I don’t want to let it go.

  Only it isn’t up to me.

  I just placed the ball in his court.

  And if he’s not ready or truly doesn’t want this, I will walk away.

  I wait for him to pull out from my touch, to push me off him like he so easily could, to tell me he can’t and go back to pretending he hates me and everything I represent…

  I wait for him to do exactly what he did that night and the next morning—look for any reason to run away. But it doesn’t come.

  Instead, he threads his callused hands in my hair and drags my mouth down to his in a fevered desperation I wasn’t aware he was capable of.

  The hesitation, the worry, the uncertainty all seem to melt away with the intensity of his kiss. I roll my hips and grind down on his cock, eliciting a deep groan from his massive chest.

  “Fuck, Lyla.” He tears his mouth from mine. “It’s been a really fucking long time…”

  I kiss him again, gliding my tongue along the seam of his lips. “Me, too.”

  Not that I want to get into any of that right now, but hopefully, he knows me well enough by now to understand I am not the type of person to jump into bed with anyone—though I guess I did sleep in his bed the first night we met.

  “Recline your seat.”

  His brow furrows. “What?”

  I nudge his shoulder. “Recline your seat.”

  Silas’ hand slips free from my hair and down to the left, and his seat falls back, allowing me to move more freely between him and the steering wheel. Hooded blue eyes watch me as I undo his jeans and slide my hand in, wrapping my palm around his hard length.

  He hisses at the contact, dropping his head back and closing his eyes tightly. If what Carrie Ann said this morning is true, this is probably the first time any woman has touched him in fifteen years—the first time any woman has touched him in his entire true adult life.

  His body twitches with each slow stroke, and I gently brush my thumb across the head, spreading a bead of pre-cum in a slick glide of skin on skin. Another rumbled groan reverberates in his chest, and I lean in, catching it in my mouth as I release my grip on him so I can shove my pants to my thighs.

  In the tight confines of the truck, it isn’t sexy or easy to do, but something tells me if we took the time to get into the house, he’d find a reason to stop this.

  Any excuse.

  He would deny himself what we both want because of some deep-seated fear of hurting me or opening himself up to getting hurt. But for the moment, whatever made him this way, whatever holds him back, he seems to have pushed it aside. And I don’t dare risk losing it.

  His fingers tighten on my exposed hips, his eyes zeroing in between my thighs. The normally pale blue darkens, the storm raging inside him that he always tries to keep contained about to be unleashed.

  I shift my position, dragging my slick core along the length of his cock.

  His hips buck, fingers digging in almost painfully to my skin. “Fucking hell…”

  He drops his head back again, eyes closed tight, muscles in his inked neck straining as he struggles for control.

  I reach between us and grip him, aligning the head at my ready entrance, but I don’t sink down yet. I can’t. “Silas, look at me.”

  Why is it so important that he does?

  Maybe because I need him to understand, need to convince him that all the fighting since I got here has been a buildup to this. That this was inevitable. That I felt that same spark with him the first time we met.

  I may not have known what it was. I may have mistaken it for fear, but it was there all the same. Simmering under the surface. Arcing between us every time we were together. Threatening to combust if he didn’t keep dousing it every chance he got.

  His eyes open and meet mine, and I slowly start sinking down on him. His lips part, and a strangled groan slips from them as his body goes rigid under me.

  I take him inch by inch, on a long, slow glide, allowing his thick length to stretch me wide and fill me completely. My breath catches, and I squeeze around him, drawing him deeper.

  His grip on my hips tightens, like he’s using them to ground himself into the moment somehow. My body trembles, and I finally take him all the way to the hilt, grinding my clit against his pelvis to get the friction I need in exactly the right spot.

  “God, Lyla…”

  I capture his gasp with another kiss and clench around him again, then slowly lift myself up so I can sink down and begin a languid rhythm that will hopefully bring us both the release we crave.

  He grits his jaw, watching me shift back and move on him, his entire body so tense it looks like he’s about to snap. The heat building inside me threatens to do the same—combust into something that will light both of us aflame.

  I increase my pace slightly, bracing my hands on his rock-hard chest, and he shifts his hands up the back of my shirt and along my spine. Goosebumps break out over my skin at the rough calluses dragging along my skin, and he tugs me down fully against him, taking my mouth again in a searing kiss that finally starts to hint at the connection we have.

  Because he doesn’t just kiss me.

  He eats me alive.

  He devours all the reservations I had about being here, all the concerns about what the future with him will be like, all the worries about the things I don’t know and what they might mean.

  He makes it all go away in an instant.

  Then he rolls his hips and thrusts up, meeting me every time I come down, burying himself even deeper. I gasp, pulling away from his mouth, and he follows me, capturing the sound like he doesn’t want to miss anything.

  Every advance and retreat.

  Every roll and arch of my hips.

  Every move I make is designed to bring him something he hasn’t had in so long—release.

  Of the guilt he carries over whatever happened.

  Of his confusion and frustration over our situation.

  Of the demons that chased him up here so many years ago.

  Of the pain he seems to relish living with.

  He needs to release it all.

  And I do, too.

  I need to forgive myself for what happened, keep moving forward without the things that try to pull me back taking too much control. I need to forgive myself for agreeing to marry Silas for money, for doing what had to be done.

  Silas closes his eyes and shakes his head, like he’s fighting what his body wants. His grip on me tightens again as he moves back to my hips to help me set a faster rhythm. “Lyla, I can’t. I’m going to—”

  I grind my clit against his pelvis, getting the perfect friction to ignite an inferno building between my legs. “It’s okay, Silas.”

  Close.

  So close.

  I keep pushing myself up and thrusting back down, harder and harder, his hips rising to meet mine each time in the most delicious way, until I finally start to see stars on the edges of my vision.

  We keep moving together. In the most awkward place possible, we’re finally making a breakthrough in this “fake” relationship, one that stopped feeling fake at some point without either of us realizing it. And it’s going to change everything between us.

  “Fuck!”

  He tips his head back, the muscles in his neck straining, as my orgasm finally hits me, a blinding white light filling my vision.

  I squeeze my eyes closed and keep going, my rhythm faltering slightly, only his help lifting me at my hips, keeping me going. Then his cock hardens impossibly more inside me before he comes on a roar that fills the truck and echoes out his open door across the clearing in front of his cabin.

  He collapses back again, and I fall on top of him, burying my face against his neck and scratchy beard. That woodsy, piney, masculine scent I’ve come to associate with Silas fills every labored breath I take, but I savor it, relishing the way his chest rises and falls under mine.

  I don’t know what any of this means for the two of us, but it seems like a step in the right direction, which means we’re probably going to take a five-mile leap back.

  Chapter Eleven

  SILAS

  The sun hasn’t come up yet as I drive down the mountain, but I still recognize the spot where we stopped and I kissed Lyla yesterday.

  My entire body stiffens.

  Everywhere.

  Memories of her moving over me, taking me into her hot, tight body and decimating any ability for me to think come flooding back. For those few brief moments when we were locked together like that, it was easy to forget why it was such a bad idea.

  But the moment clarity returned, so did the realization that I’d made a horrible mistake.

  I knew, if I ever let myself give into that woman, it would destroy any willpower I had, and that’s exactly what happened. Lyla shattered me completely with her kiss and her touch, the way she never looked at me with pity, despite being able to see all my scars and knowing how completely fucked in the head I am.

  She gave herself to me fully, opened herself up to all the pain and trauma I carry and will bring to her life.

  And I can’t do this to her.

  Not after that.

  I can’t continue to put her in this position and force her to face what’s coming for me in this showdown with Uncle Marty. It will only hurt her—expose her to my darkest secrets and the most vile human being I’ve ever met. Which is exactly why, as soon as we both came down from our high yesterday and she rolled off me, I fled as fast as I could.

  Like the coward I am, I ran.

  Again.

  Needing the space, the distance.

  Some damn quiet in my head when she won’t stop racing through it so I could try to hatch a plan, figure some way out of this mess.

  The only reason I needed this marriage was to secure my position with the trust, but maybe there’s a way to defeat Uncle Marty without it. I never wanted the company or the money, anyway, just him gone and someone who actually has a heart and some morals and isn’t a deviant piece of shit at the helm.

  There has to be another way.

  I spent the entire night in the barn, going over every possibility, and by morning, my resolve to end this was even stronger.

  It’s what allowed me to leave before sunrise without seeing Lyla or telling her where I was going. She would have tried to stop me, would have argued and pushed and insisted that I am only doing this because I don’t know how to let someone in.

  But it isn’t about that.

  It’s about protecting her from what’s out there—who’s out there.

  And there’s only one way to do it.

  I pull over on the side of the road near Millsburg’s single stop sign, between the intersection and the beginning of Main Street, where hopefully no one will notice me this early but I can get some damn phone reception.

  I pull out the burner phone Ronald gave me the day of the wedding and dial him, resting my head against the headrest and closing my eyes. But all that does is bring visions of Lyla straddling me in here yesterday. Couple that with the scent that still permeates the air in here and my cock is going to stay hard all fucking day.

  Fuck.

  It’s the last thing I need occupying my brain right now, and I adjust my semi away from under my zipper and wait while the line rings.

  After the eighth ring, when I’m about to give up for now, Ronald picks up. “Silas, what’s wrong?”

  Literally everything.

  I spent the night planning what I was going to say to him, preparing for this moment, but now that it’s here, all the eloquent words I thought I should say disappear.

  All that’s left is the one truth that won’t go away, no matter how long I agonize over it.

  “I can’t do this to Lyla…”

  Something rustles on the other end of the line, like he’s trying to move to a different room, and a door closes with a loud click. “What do you mean, you can’t do this to her?”

  The way her eyes darkened from emerald to evergreen while she rode my cock yesterday flashes through my head, making it throb in my jeans. My body has a very different idea of what I’d like to be doing with Lyla right now instead of being down here making this call, but with the meeting in only a few days, there isn’t any time to be distracted by some primal need to take that woman ten ways from Sunday.

  I squeeze my eyes closed. “I can’t expose her to what’s going to happen at that board meeting with Uncle Marty. You know what he’s capable of…what he might do. And I just can’t do that to her.”

  Ronald is silent for a moment, considering what I said. “Holy shit, you like her, don’t you?”

  I drop my forehead against the steering wheel, wishing I could say no, wishing I could go back to yesterday and throw her back into that truck without ever saying a word, without giving in so selfishly and ensuring Lyla is going to end up hurt.

  “She’s sweet and innocent, and she doesn’t deserve any of this. Uncle Marty could really hurt her, in so many ways, and you know it.”

  “Not if what I’m planning works. I have everything prepared to take to the FBI before the board meeting. You come in, expose him, claim your rightful place, and by the time he’s done ranting and objecting, the Feds should be on the premises to arrest him—before he can do any damage.”

  “Should be.”

  Those words stick in my head because others have tried to bring him down…and failed or were paid to disappear. Nothing is assured in this—except that he poses a very real danger to anyone connected to me. Mainly Lyla.

  I lift my head from the wheel, staring down Main Street at Jensen’s, the bakery Lyla disappeared into yesterday, and the bench where she sat and made the phone calls that started our argument.

  Everything looks so peaceful and quiet at this time of the morning. It could lull someone into a false sense of security, but I learned long ago to expect the worst because things aren’t always what they seem.

  Which is why that nagging feeling that something is going to go wrong won’t go away.

  “But even if he’s taken into custody, he has connections. He has the kind of power that could hurt me and Lyla, even from a distance, even from behind bars, and you know he could do it easily.”

  A tidal wave of memories washes over me.

  Each bite of pain brand new.

  Stinging my skin.

  Tearing me open.

  Breaking me.

  The thought of anything happening to her because of me makes my chest tighten until I can barely breathe. I suck in a sharp breath, pushing away the nightmares that live rent-free in my head and trying to focus on what needs to happen.

  “I have to let her go, Ronald.” The words burn like acid on my tongue. “Annul the marriage—”

  “You can’t do that, Silas.”

  “I can. I’d be giving up something I never wanted in the first place, something I probably would turn over to someone else in a couple of years once everything settles, anyway. We can still take down Uncle Marty without me complying with the trust, can’t we?”

  Ronald sucks in a deep breath and releases it slowly. “I don’t think you have a very strong position if you’re not going to step up as CEO. If you come in and throw around these accusations against your uncle and then disappear again, there won’t be a Bolton at the helm for the first time in almost two hundred years. That could throw everything into turmoil. Force a sale…I thought it meant something to you, your family legacy. I’ve worked hard to ensure that it stayed in place for years after you left, so you could come back and take over—”

  “Including covering up my father and uncle’s crimes.”

  “You know why I did that.”

  I offer him an indignant laugh. “I know why you say you did that.”

  “I’m making amends now.”

  His defensiveness comes with the territory. Ronald has been fixing problems for the Boltons since before I was born, and he’s used to having to defend others—not himself. Now that the target will also be on him when he brings all the information forward, he’s going to end up in a very uncomfortable position—likely publicly.

  I don’t give a fuck what happens to Ronald or me, but I stare at the seat where Lyla sat only yesterday, so full of piss and vinegar, so angry at me.

  Rightfully so…

  Whiskey lifts his nose and looks up at me, tilting his head. Leaving her alone up there without Whiskey this morning felt wrong, but she couldn’t be a witness to this phone call.

  She’s going to be pissed when I get back and tell her what I’ve done, what I plan to do. But protecting her from what’s coming is far too important to worry about her hating me for it.

  Ronald clears his throat awkwardly. “I didn’t want to have to tell you this, Silas…”

  Acid churns in my stomach. “Tell me what?”

  His voice drops low, like he’s concerned someone might be listening to his end of the conversation. “Your uncle might suspect something.”

  Icy dread floods my veins, and my entire body goes rigid. “What do you mean, he might suspect something?”

  “He’s been acting shiftier than usual since I came back from Millsburg.”

  “What’s he doing?”

  “A lot of closed-door meetings with people. A lot of phone calls to board members that they won’t discuss with me. It’s almost like he’s preparing an offensive, but he shouldn’t know there’s anyone coming in for the attack.”

  I slam my fist against the steering wheel, making Whiskey jump. “Fuck, I need Lyla out of this, even more then.”

  Ronald sighs. “There’s no way we could get an annulment between now and the board meeting, anyway.”

  “Fine. Then we’ll do it after. But there’s no way I’m bringing her into that room with me. If Uncle Marty never meets her and doesn’t know who she is, I have a chance at keeping her safe. If your friends at the FBI do what they’re supposed to and take him into custody and ensure he stays there, then maybe she can get out of this unscathed.”

 

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