Page 54 of Lost and Found

“Mm?” He pulls the other side of my camisole down with his teeth.

“Ah, god,” I hear myself whimper. I need to take back some control. I use my hips and my whole chest to push, urging him up until he’s sitting back, my knees on either side of him.

I momentarily get sidetracked by the perfect, rock-hard slide of him up my center.

“Silas. Youareawake,” I manage before I run my teeth over his lip in another deep kiss.

“Shit,” he growls, one hand stretching and kneading at my backside, the other lifting a breast to his mouth. “What are we doing, then?”

A volt of want burns through me when he sucks. “I don’t know,” I lie. I know exactly what my body is after. His heat and relief. I circle and gyrate on his lap. He licks a stripe up the middle of my chest before he tilts my chin and dives for my mouth again. “I didn’t mean to start this,” I babble, voice going husky and drugged. “Was . . . an accident. I was trying to wakeyou and I fell and . . . and it’s all the togetherness lately. It makes me think of . . . that time. It’s just been so,ah. So long.”

“Yeah. An accident. You fell and my mouth—my mouth was there.” He nips at my jaw.

“Yes,” I moan. “Yeah. Exactly.”

“I’m. I’m always doing that. Putting my mouth in—places,” he breathes. He chuckles darkly and bites his bottom lip, head falling back over the top of the couch so his throat is bared to me when he lets out a pained groan. “It’s those fucking shorts. Fuck. It’s everything for me. I can’t stop thinking about this, too,” he admits, both hands holding my hips still now. “But is this a bad idea?” He finds my gaze, and my lungs empty out. His hair is plastered down on one side, all madness on the other. His mouth parts, and his hips buck up. I cry out at the white-hot need that blares through me, and he makes an approving sound.

I don’t know who starts kissing who again. “Maybe it’s not,” I gasp when I break away. “A bad idea. Friends can do this.” That spring curls a little more. “Very,verygood friends. Who want to make each other feel good. So good.” I can’t fuck him, but this? The reasoning is all hazy at the moment, but I thinkthisis safe. This is okay. We’re practically fully clothed. I forgot how good this could feel.

“So good, Bea. So. Fucking. Friendly.” He works me in a slow rhythm, timed with every word.

I’m shamefully close already, a hook pulling back, fully loaded. “Yeah.Yeah.It doesn’t even have to mean anything. We’ll get it out of our system.”

He freezes everywhere. From his shoulders to his spread thighs, to the thumb that had been on its way to touch me where I need it. “Fuck,” he says at standard volume. It’s ice water dousing a flame. “Bea. This is a bad idea. I can’t—I can’t.”

I blink like I’m emerging from under that water. Jesus. WhatamI doing? I can’t afford to complicate my living situation likethis. Financially, I need to make this work through November, at minimum. And I can’t afford to mess with this friendship this way. This relationship that’s become invaluable to me.

I scramble to get up, but he moves to try to help, and I end up slipping off his sweaty shoulder again, and this time my knee lands directly onhimand it sounds like I landed a gut punch. I practically levitate to my feet in my panic. His face cinches in pain, and he rolls into himself.

“Oh my god! Shit! I’m sorry!” I cry.

“All good,” he wheezes miserably.

“I’m so sorry, Silas,” I say again.

He gives a feeble wave.

“We’ll talk about this in the morning?”

He nods tightly.

“Okay. Okay then. I’m sorry. Good night,” I tell him. His only reply is a strangled groan.

When I spin on my heel to go back upstairs, I notice the cat sitting up in the corner of the room, watching the whole thing with a grin.

CHAPTER 19

One Night, Eight Years Ago

Bea

“Okay, but how do you think the first person came up with the first song?” Silas asks me before shoving a soggy, cheese-laden chip into his mouth. “How do you think someone thought up the concept of music?”

We sit shoulder to shoulder with our backs against his headboard, I in a borrowed shirt and a pair of his boxers. He’s shirtless and in bottoms matching the ones he lent me. We have a collection of plates piled high with chips covered in microwaved shredded cheese between us, a bottle of Tapatío on his windowsill. Maybe I am still a bit high, because I’m positive that they’re the best thing I’ve ever eaten.

“Do you want a real answer to this?” I ask. “I’m sure we could look it up. Do a little research.”

He wipes some cheese from his chest with his pinkie and sucks it into his mouth. “I wantyouranswer. Your answer will be real to me.” He smirks.