I run straight into a wall. A cloth-covered, finely tailored wall.

Drew’s body surprises me as I crash into him and Lindsay. She’s right next to him, and while I should have seen them as I fled the coffee shop, some part of my flight response doesn’t track them in my sight.

I fall backwards as if Drew were made of stone, and as I fall my knee cracks against the broken, crooked sidewalk, pain radiating through my bones. Skin tears and blood rushes to the surface to repair the injury, my language centers cut off for a moment as my mind becomes a screaming red cloud.

Drew’s hand goes to the holster on his belt, hovering, as Silas appears, his worried face over mine.

“Get me out of here,” I demand as he helps me stand. Duff walks swiftly to a black SUV and Silas helps me to the door, gently lifting me up as I wince in pain. I look at my knee and see a constellation of older bruises around the raw, broken flesh. This is who I am.

A map of mottled wounds.

I’m running away from my father, who is arguably one of the most powerful men in the country.

But there’s someone even more powerful in my life, and he’s climbing into the SUV next to me, slamming the door shut as Duff peels out and leaves Harry’s retinue staring at us. No sign of Harry.

No expectation he would follow me.

“What an ass,” I say, working hard to control my breath. “Why would he come all the way to the coffee shop like that, Silas?”

“I don’t know. How bad is it?”

It takes me a second to realize he’s asking about my knee.

“It hurts. A lot. But I’ve endured worse.”

“I know. I’ve watched you. I’ve seen the bruises and the cuts.” His face hardens. He reaches into a flat pouch behind Duff’s seat and extracts a small first-aid kit. I wince in anticipatory pain from future alcohol swabs. He sees me wince and his eyebrows do this adorable thing where it’s clear he knows exactly what I’m thinking.

Silas is giving me anticipatory compassion.

“It’s going to hurt,” he says apologetically as he pulls the antiseptic torture device out from the foil packet.

“Duh. It won’t hurt more than anything else I’ve experienced in the last week.”

“Has it really been only a week? Feels like a lifetime.”

“Thanks. Glad to know the seconds tick like days when you’re around me.”

“Time stops when we’re together, Jane,” he says in a lighthearted voice.

Before I can answer, he quickly presses the alcohol swab on my open wound. I hiss sharply and arch my back in pain, then slowly let out my breath.

“Damn, that hurts.”

“Sorry.” He’s being clinical and calm, the word robotic.

“It’s my own fault. I ran into Drew and fell.”

“I saw.”

“I couldn’t stay in that room with my–with Harry–one second longer.”

“He didn’t deserve your attention.”

That statement makes me well up. None of the scrapes or bruises do, but his empathy... oh, how it pierces me.

“Hey,” he says softly. “It’s okay.” He uses the edge of his index finger to wipe away a stray tear, his touch making my cheek stretch up with a smile.

“Where to?” Duff asks from the front seat.

Silas looks at me with an expression that hands me the world.

“Home,” he answers Duff. “Take us home.”

I lean against him, twitching here and there as he cleans and bandages the wound on my knee, which is now swelling like it’s imitating a baseball. I close my eyes and let myself sink into his body, relishing how my head feels against his shoulder, my ear against his jacket, the scent of his warmth and how it all mingles inextricably.

I let myself drift off, comfort and peace in the casual freedom to cross invisible lines between us, and soon there is no pain, no discomfort, no fear.

No light.

I’m running in the darkness, in a cavernous cocoon covered in velvet and slime. It runs along my bare ankles, coating my feet. The sound makes me want to rake my eyeballs, pull out my hair, cut off my ears. Squinch squinch, it echoes.

Squinch.

“Silas!” I scream, my voice boomeranging back to me, wet and thick like mucus.

He doesn’t reply.

I fall, my knees thick in the black fluid, my lungs pressed flat like pancakes. I can’t breathe, but I crawl, my fingernails breaking off as I dig into the slime and pull myself forward, frantic. The slime turns to thick, black dirt, the kind with fertilizer in it, the smell like a flower shop,

My feet turn into roots, splitting with a terrific pain that feels like a thousand razor blades are slitting my bones, turning me into slivers with roots that spiral out like tentacles, tendrils seeking to violate and invade.

As I open my mouth to scream, I see a man in a fine suit, his back to me, hands in his pockets, body loose and casual yet confident in his power.

My heart slams in my chest, then slows, smacking against the wall of ribs it finds, until the noise inside me turns to a slippery, sloppy sound.

Squinch.

Squinch.

Squinch.

“Jane,” the man says in a cultured voice, one that feels like ice invades every hole I have, making me scream with lungs so flat, they aren’t real. My body tries to breathe but it’s forgotten how.

The room goes grey. Mist swirls around me as I click my tongue, my neck laboring to stop the involuntary spasms of my lungs. Pain rips through my throat. The muscles strain and shred in order to bring me oxygen. The edges around my vision start to ripple, like lightning twisted by a blacksmith to track my periphery —

“Jane?” Silas’s soft, rumbling voice comes through like we’re underwater. He plants a kiss on my temple. “Jane. We’re here. Home.”

I jolt, realizing I’ve drifted off, inhaling sharply through my nose as my jaw tightens, suppressing a yawn. Tingling pain shoots through my right leg. It’s fallen asleep, the pins-and-needles sensation making me shake it over and over, a little too panicked in my attempts.

What was I dreaming about?

Fear grips me, the sense hard to shake. My muscles don’t know whether to be loose or tight, whether to stretch or constrict. I’m coming out of slumber. In the awkward in-between, I have no ability to regulate or calibrate.

Silas does it for me.

Leading me into our building–it’s so strange to think that way, but it is ours–we take the elevator up, Silas insisting I lean on him for support. As I make my halting way to my apartment door, he continues to his, taking three steps back to touch my elbow.

“My place,” he says, his eyes filling with a series of emotions that feel infinitely more complicated than what they are: desire.

“I’m fine in my apartment.”

“You have a blow-up mattress as a bed.”

“It’s on a cot. It’s comfortable.”

“I’m not inviting you over to have sex, Jane. I’m inviting you to my place because you need to recuperate on a proper bed.”

“Why not sex?” I blurt out, unable to hide the disappointment in my voice.

His eyes darken, his smile wide like a predator’s.

“I told you. I don’t want to be a revenge screw.” His smile turns to something more contemplative.

“You’re not.”

“I don’t want you to sleep with me in anger.”

“Then we’re never sleeping together, Silas, because all I am is angry these days.”

“Jane.”

“If you don’t want me, I understand. You heard what my father said. You’ll be hounded by the media and–”

His kiss is relentless, hard and demanding, a kiss that takes your breath away at the same time it stokes a flame. My fingertips dig into his business shirt so hard my knuckles ache. The warmth of his chest through his clothes makes me want more. I want to strip him naked and spend the next few days exploring him. I want his bed to become my playground. I want a world where we’re the only people in it.

I want a lot I can’t have.

But this? From the way he’s kissing me, I don’t have to just want. I can actually get.

My bad knee makes me wobble in his arms, a thick arm around my waist in a split second, holding me up. Suddenly, I’m airborne, in Silas’s arms as he walks to his door. Balancing me against his chest while pulling out his keys, he makes me laugh.

“I don’t need to be carried like this,” I protest.

“Oh, yes, you do.”

He kicks the door open, closes it behind him, and I click the deadbolt. Expecting to be dumped on the couch, I realize that’s not where we’re going.

Heat pools between my legs, rushing fast like raging rapids, making my blood sing. My heart speeds up and I’m aroused, my clothes too tight, too much, my fingertips seeking the skin at the base of Silas’s throat.

I need to touch him. Skin to skin. All of it. Every bit.

And from the way he lays me gently down on his bed, stretching his arms and using his legs to lower me until I’m resting on the duvet like a feather pushed by the wind, I’m pretty sure he’d like to touch every inch of me, too.

“Let me get that knee an ice pack.”

“How about you kiss me and make me feel better?”

He gives me a searching look. His hair still has that slightly overgrown style that makes him even more attractive, and his chin and cheeks are covered with more than a five o’clock shadow. The scruff gives him a bad-boy appearance. Add in those bright-blue eyes and oh, the scent of him transports me out of pain and into a mood for so much more.

“Are you sure?” His request for consent lights up deep crevices in my soul, more arousing than sex, more worshipful than anything he could do to or for me. “Because I do want you, Jane. I just don’t want you to want me for the wrong reasons.”

“I don’t want to sleep with you because of my father. I’m not like that.”

“How do you know?”

“How do I know what?” We’re so close to each other, mouths inches apart, that our words are warming the space between us.

“That you’re not like that? Everyone changes. We morph and alter ourselves to fit reality.”

“Not my essence, Silas. Who I am is rock solid. I have a center that doesn’t change.” I take his hand and put it on my belly, right above my navel. “And that center wants you.”

He reaches between us, his fingers finding me swollen, the way he touches my throbbing core a breathtaking augmentation of the sensuality we share. Instant electricity fires through my blood. As his lips touch mine, a sweet gateway opens up, the doors parting like my lips, letting him enter with an open-ended invitation to come, stay a while.

And enjoy yourself.

Our first time in bed was cautious, slow, smooth, and new. This time, we’re revisiting familiar territory, but from a place of less hesitation. His command resonates in the way he holds my arm, sliding along the stretch of skin with a palm determined to make it clear I can’t escape.

Not that I want to.

There is a possession this time, a fiery authority in the way he kisses me, how his touch is designed to make me lose control, the insistence in the way his breath catches. When our eyes meet as he covers me with his gloriously sculpted body, I see something new.

I see how he wants me.

I see how he wants to own me.

A spark, deep in my belly, rises up out of the shameful abyss and ignites an energy field between us that pulses. I match his intensity, my mouth hard against his, tongue drawing him in, in, in. My breasts tingle with anticipation, the line of sensation spreading across my entire body until his touch is exquisite, growing rougher. When his fingers thread in my hair and pull gently, I moan.

I want to be owned.

By him.

I want someone else to take command as a result of my own surrender. I need to be cared for, to give in with relief to the authority of someone who cares for me. Dare I think it?

Who loves me.

A whirling dervish only comes to rest when the spirit is done. I only come to rest when I am in his arms, safe and sated. Right now, I crave him to the point of madness. I need him to take charge.

“You like that?” he murmurs against my mouth.

“Am I supposed to?”

“There are no rules when it comes to pleasure, Jane. You like what you like. Actually, there is one rule: you have to tell me. You have to tell me what you like so I can give it to you.” His free hand glides down my side, cupping my ass, fingers digging in just enough to make my core clench, throbbing.

“I like this. I like it when you touch me like you–” I can’t say it, suddenly shy, so I kiss him, long and hard.

He pulls back and looks at me with eyes I cannot lie to. “Say it.” Voice dropping, Silas becomes a sharper version of the man I know, immutable and unyielding.

I become one long nerve ending.

“Like you own me.”

Oh, that grin. The way his lips move, parting with a movement so richly emotional, so devilishly tantalizing. I didn’t know he could look like this, like a wolf about to corner his prey.

“I don’t yet. I haven’t earned the right. But if you’ll let me do the work, someday, Jane, I would very much like to own this.” His fingers flutter over my breast, making me gasp. “And this.” His grabs my ass, possession turning me into a ball of ecstasy. As he lifts himself up slightly, that same hand slides easily between us, instantly finding the part of me that loses touch with reality, his circular motions driving all thought from my mind. “And this. Let go, Jane. Do it. Do it now,” he says, the last word a long, drawn-out whisper that comes with a wet tongue on the pulse at my neck, the twin sensations driving me up, up, up into his hand until I explode.

The world goes tight, then expansive. I grab for him to hold on, to stay here, to make sure I don’t shatter into a thousand tiny pieces, his chest my only anchor, the light hair a reminder of humanity, the broad, rounded strength of his shoulders keeping me firmly on earth. I am slickness and rhythm, his body rough against mine, giving and giving in a way that makes me see he’s actually taking and taking and taking.

By releasing myself to his administered pleasure, I’m giving to him.

So I give. And give. And give...

“I want you,” I tell him, the words hard to form as pleasure steals my tongue, Silas quickly putting on a condom, the motion fluid and swift. He understands, gliding into me with a hot relief that makes my hips move up against him, hard, his right hand grabbing both of my wrists and pinning them above me. I squirm, the press of our bodies too much, the sensation exploding with waves of exquisite, overly sensitive touch.

But he does not let me escape my own pleasure.

“Harder,” I beg, the deep piece of me inside that revels in this crying out for me.

He plunges into me, hammering as I curl myself around him. I transcend all the pain, all the chatter, all the crazy blame and shame of my life. I become my true self as he unlocks a vital part of me, giving no quarter, making me face what he offers with his body, his hands, his mouth.

It’s nothing short of perfection.

His body tenses above mine and I know that soon he’ll take pleasure from me, too. The thrill that races through my blood meets with the moment he crashes into me again. I am open, nothing, everything, the drop of sweat on his brow, the wild look in his eyes, the tense forearm that holds me up. I am him and he is me and we race off into the wind, moaning at the enormity of what we’ve created with our bodies.

When I relinquish myself to him, I find freedom. I find sanctuary and rest. I find pleasure and pain that feels so good.

I find me.

Long, slow, important breaths fill the air between us, as if what just happened requires more oxygen than usual. My heart won’t stop tap dancing, electric impulses dotting my inner thighs, the sense that my body knows its own set of rules that it won’t share with my mind becoming evident. Silas rolls off me, serious, his fingers letting go of my wrists in a way that leaves me more empty than when he slides out of me.

We rest in silence, breath slowing.

“That was...” He lets out a long breath, one filled with wonder.

“Yes,” I reply, our economy of words both affirming and amusing. He feels it, too.

Thank God he feels it.

“I want you to know,” he says slowly, raking his hair with a steady hand, “that I meant what I said. Tell me. Tell me what turns you on. Tell me what fires you. Tell me your dirtiest thoughts.”

“Silas!” I laugh, embarrassed and surprised, turned on and pleased.

“You said you want me to own you.” He turns to me, eyes so dark, they’re like ink. “How far do you want to take that?”

“As far as you’re willing to go.”

“That’s... far.”

I shiver, a quick and sudden move, involuntary but triggered by his words.

He pulls back, sensing he’s pushed too far. Maybe he has.

Maybe he hasn’t.

“We’ll go slow,” he assures me.

“Are you getting paid to sleep with me?” I ask him, changing the subject as we rest our naked bodies in bed, limbs flung against each other, chests rising and falling in ever-slowing patterns as our hearts try to find their regular beats again.

“Technically?” Tilting his head, he looks away from me, processing my question, running internal data to determine the right answer.

“There’s no ‘technically’ to having sex. You do or you don’t,” I point out.

“Then I guess so. Yes.” He looks surprised, then very pleased with himself. “We don’t file time cards. I’m salaried, so...”

“Sex with me is a fringe benefit?”

“It ranks up there with employer-paid health insurance, free gym membership, and my commuter reimbursement.”

“Pretty sure it should be your top fringe benefit, Silas.”

“I don’t know, Jane. My company gym is pretty damn nice.” He flashes me a wicked grin.

“If Drew finds out, he’ll kill you.”

“Drew? Andrew Foster? I don’t care if he knows. He’s the guy who slept with Senator Harwell Bosworth’s daughter while on duty.”

I go quiet, holding my breath for a second, my skin going numb with shock.

And then I say:

“You are sleeping with Bosworth’s daughter, too.”

“Damn. That’s right.”

I let out a tired chuckle. “My life is a Maury show.”

He thinks about that for a minute. “It’s more like Maury meets Scandal.”

“Thanks, Silas. That makes me feel so much better. You have a way with words. You should pitch scripts in Hollywood.”

“Too stressful.”

“More stressful than being ex-special ops and guarding people surrounding a presidential candidate? And me?”

“Even I have limits.”

He gets a pillow in the face.

And I get pinned to the bed on my back, Silas straddling me, his hands holding me in place like restraints, unbreakable. Unshakeable.

Then again, I don’t want to escape. Not from him.

As he bends down to kiss me, he slides his legs and hips until every inch of him that can touch me is pressing down, our hip bones grinding, our ribs interlinking. His body hair tickles my smooth skin, his lips full and heated as he kisses me. I open my legs and guide him right in. No preliminaries. No foreplay.

Just the pull of being one, together.

He reaches for his bedside drawer.

“I’m on the pill,” I gasp, impatient and needy. His eyes widen with a flash of heat.

“You didn’t say anything before.”

“I didn’t — no. But I am now,” I whisper before he kisses me, demanding even more.

This time it’s quick, powerful, and hard, our climaxes fast and furious. As Silas thrusts into me, I reach up to grab the headboard, wrapping my legs around his waist like I’m holding on for dear life, like I’m drowning and he’s my only hope. I lose my grip on the headboard and he grabs my wrists, pinning them above my head again. The raw power and dominance of that one move makes me come.

Hard.

So hard, I scream and buck up into him, our rhythm erratic until it’s not, the perfect motion a sine wave of unadulterated lust. He’s no longer Silas. He is inside me, spinning me through new orbits, and I’m no longer Jane.

I am a woman whose soft edges have frayed until all I am is waves of orgasms, carrying me so far away from everything I know that I need the tether of him.

His shout of climax is a victory, the push of his tip against the furthest part of me a battering that feels so final, so serene, so hot and rough. I feel taken.

I need to feel taken, swept away, stolen for this joining.

As he comes inside me, I ride out the waves of complete surrender, floating on an endless sea where this is no moon, no sun, no stars.

Just him.

The erratic brush of hot breath against my shoulder chills me as Silas’s short rasps of air reach my sweaty skin. We are sticking together, not just where he’s in me, but everywhere. My awareness focuses from a blur to a sharper edge as my orgasms trail off, Silas’s body big and gravid over me, his arms caging me still, my hands above the top of my head.

Like a crown.

For whatever reason, we don’t say a word. He kisses me on the lips, so softly, so gently, as he lets go of my wrists and rolls away, pulling me into his arms. I curl against his bare chest and inhale slowly, savoring his scent.

Minutes pass. Or maybe it’s centuries. Who knows? Time slips away, leaving me be.

Finally, I venture his name. “Silas?”

He doesn’t answer. His breath takes on an even sound. It slowly hits me. He has fallen asleep. A huge grin takes over my face, my muscles enjoying the luxury of joy coming out of my pores without inhibition. I couldn’t control this if I tried.

Why would I try?

And that is how I fall asleep, in his arms, grinning because finally, finally, I have a reason.

A damn fine one.