Chapter 22

I love food. But I hate my fat pants. The dilemma is real.

-Fact of Life

Sawyer

I woke up to a ring on my finger and a leather vest similar to Silas’ in my size lying next to me.

On the back of it was a rocker stating I was the ‘Property of Silas.’

I was freakin’ ecstatic.

Although it wasn’t the most romantic of gestures, I knew he’d really meant it.

He’d had the vest made.

He’d gotten me a ring.

He wanted it all, and I was so happy I could burst.

There were about a million and one things that went bad from the night I’d decided to go out with my friends, and I couldn’t name one single thing that I looked forward to after I was sentenced to prison.

Now, though, I had my whole life ahead of me.

If someone had told me I had Silas waiting at the end of the tunnel as my prize for making it out, I would’ve never believed it.

Why?

Because people like Silas just didn’t exist.

They weren’t real.

Or at least that’s what I’d thought.

But Silas was real. And he was really mine, and mine alone.

And he was everything I’d never even dared to dream for.

Getting up, naked as the day I was born, I slipped on the vest and smiled at how soft the leather felt against my skin.

And it fit me perfectly.

Buttoning the three buttons at the front, I walked to the dresser drawer that I’d commandeered from Silas, and slipped on a pair of panties.

They were hot pink and said ‘Pink!’ across the back.

They were from high school, of course, but they still fit.

And I wasn’t picky right then.

Practically skipping out of Silas’ bedroom, I walked through the house with a stupid smile on my face.

“Silas!” I yelled as I skipped around the corner.

And I ran into the kitchen skidding to an immediate stop at the sight of the entire room filled with Dixie Wardens.

“Shit,” I hissed, turning tail and running back out of the room.

I could hear the laughter following me as I dashed back into the bedroom and slammed the door shut behind me.

I went straight into the bathroom and turned the water on, warming up the shower.

Shucking the vest, I hung it up lovingly on the door and smoothed my hand down it, all the while my face flamed at all those men seeing me in nothing but my panties and a vest that barely covered my breasts.

“Shit,” I laughed. “That man needs to warn me when people are coming into the house!”

I hadn’t heard them at all, either.

And Silas’ place wasn’t so that large I wouldn’t have been able to hear them unless they were intentionally being quiet.

“Silly man not warning a woman when…eek!” I screamed when I turned around and saw Silas staring at me with an amused expression on his face.

“You were saying,” he drawled.

I laughed, placing my hand over my chest where my pounding heart was trying to beat its way out of my chest.

His eyes went down to my bare chest, and I saw his pupils dilate as he started to move forward.

I put my hand up to stop him, but he ignored it, walking around my hand and crowding right up against me so that my back met the shower door with a soft thud.

“We can’t,” I tried, knowing that there were about five men in the kitchen that were probably very aware of what was going on in here.

“You’re going to come out there, wearing what you were wearing, and expect me not to touch you?” He asked, pushing his hardness into me with his body.

My back was chilled from the cold glass my bare back was pressed against, causing my nipples to pebble in reaction.

And Silas didn’t miss it as he brought both hands up and gently cupped each one in his hands.

My lips parted on a soft pant as I watched his eyes move up from my breasts to connect with mine.

“So no complaints?” He asked. “You said yes?”

I groaned as he pinched both nipples.

“I wasn’t aware that you’d asked me a question,” I panted out.

His reply to my comment was to pinch the very tips of my nipples as he pulled slightly down, causing me to follow his movement and press my body even further into his.

“Silas!” I gasped.

“You were saying?” He urged, letting go of my nipples and gliding his hands down my body until they rested against my hips.

I shook my head. “I can’t reply until you ask.”

He growled. “Is that right?”

I nodded. “That’s right.”

And then he dropped to his knees in front of me, pulling my panties down to my ankles.

“I don’t think I heard you right,” he continued.

I watched him as he leaned forward and pressed a chaste kisses against each of my hips before looking up at me, watching as his hands slid up from my calves all the way to the apex of my thighs.

I bit my lip as I looked down at him and watched as he slowly leaned forward and pressed a kiss at the top of my pubic bone, right above the lips of my sex.

His beard tickled my clit as his thumbs traveled down and in, spreading me apart for his tongue to tickle the little bundle of nerves.

I gasped and instinctively spread my thighs for him, and he took full advantage by shoving two thick fingers inside of me and curling them towards my front.

“Fuck!” I hissed, hips jumping as he slowly tapped his fingers against that sensitive spot inside of me.

The steam from the shower was starting to fill the small room, and I could see the silhouette of my body in the mirror when words rising through the steam on the glass began to appear.

Thanks for the show.

“Silas,” I said, pulling his head away from me. “Did you write that?”

He pulled away, his lips glistening in my juices, looking over his shoulder to where my eyes were pointed, and he completely froze.

His muscles locked tight, as he suddenly exploded away from me, gathering a towel from the rack beside the shower and wrapped it around me.

“Get dressed,” he growled, walking to the door and yanking it open.

The tone of his voice told me that this clearly wasn’t just one of Silas’ moods, and I hurried to do as he instructed.

This was serious, his whole demeanor told me so, and I wouldn’t be screwing around.

I rushed into the bedroom and got dressed. Quickly.

And it was good thing I did, too, because within two minutes of him leaving the bedroom he was walking right back into the room with some type of electronic box in his hand, all of the men that had been in the kitchen following behind him.

I sat down warily on the bed, scooting to the middle and crossing my legs in front of me as I pulled my knees up tightly to my chest.

Wrapping my arms around my legs, I watched as each man methodically searched the room, moving things around and generally making a colossal mess in their quest to find whatever it was that they were looking for.

“In here,” I heard Kettle yell.

I blinked and watched as Silas moved to the closet, which was between the bathroom and the bedroom.

“Motherfucker! Goddamn motherfucker was in my house!” Silas growled low.

I looked down at my hands, remembering all the things I’d done in this room with Silas.

When had whatever he’d found gotten there?

Was it there since the beginning? Only since last night?

Where’d it face?

“Looks pretty new,” Trance said, inspecting what looked to be the smallest camera in the world. “Ran off a battery, too. Has a memory card in here. Looks to be one of those ones that he’d have to come back to the housei love to check the footage.”

I was relieved at hearing that news, it was definitely better than the alternative of it being a live streaming device allowing the person who placed it there to check in anytime they wanted to.

Now my hope was that it’d been put in very recently and hadn’t yet been checked.

Which was a realistic hope, given the fact that I knew for certain that the maid cleaned the bathroom mirror when she was here last.

“You know,” I said, interrupting the intense conversation that was going on in front of me. “The maid came last Tuesday, and I know for a fact that she cleaned the bathroom mirror. The note that I left on the bathroom mirror is gone. Remember Silas?”

His eyes went far away for a minute while he thought back to the note.

I’d left in a hurry that morning with him in the middle of the lake fishing from his boat.

So I ran around inside the house like a chicken with my head cut off looking for a piece of paper to tell him that my phone was dead and I had to go into work to get the charger for it. In my haste to leave, I’d written him a note on the bathroom mirror knowing he’d see it.

It’d been there for two days until the maid had come and cleaned the house, since apparently Silas didn’t even own a bottle of glass cleaner.

I remember being embarrassed at the thought of her reading what I’d said: I’m going to the office to get my charger. Your ass looks sexy in your boat.

I hadn’t even been able to see him from where I’d been.

But I knew it to be a fact, so I’d written it to him knowing it’d make him smile.

“That was Tuesday,” Silas said, eyes again going far away as he looked at the camera in his hand. “Today is Sunday.”

I nodded but didn’t say anything.

Then Silas hauled back and threw the camera across the room, shattering it as it smashed against the wall.

Pieces of glass and plastic littered the floor, and I closed my eyes, knowing that Silas was worrying.

Worried Silas equaled bad mood Silas.

Something I’d come to recognize since we’d met and started dating.

“Can you just…get her out of here for a little bit? Take the boat,” Silas said roughly, pulling his hands up to sift through his hair.

Sebastian nodded and pulled away, walking to the closet and pulling out a pair of shoes.

He tossed them on the bed and I slipped them on to my feet, watching Silas’s chest heave as he drew in breath after breath.

Never once did his eyes turn to me, and I knew the best thing I could do right then was leave.

Standing up, I moved in between big bulky men that were taking up the space of our bedroom and stopped in front of my man.

“So, do I get to call you my old man?” I whispered, pressing my lips against his strong jaw.

He finally looked down at me, and his muscles immediately softened.

“Yeah, you do,” he said simply.

“I love you.”

His eyes closed.

“I love you too, which is why it pisses me the fuck off that I have to get you out of here while we figure this out,” he growled.

I hugged him around the belly.

“Don’t leave me over there for too long. Your grandkids are hellions,” I teased.

He huffed out a laugh. “They take after their daddy.”

“Hey!” Sebastian said indignantly.

I smiled and pressed my lips to his.

“Be safe.”

Little did I know that those words would haunt me hours later.