Page 53 of Where Your Scars Meet Mine
He looks beautiful enough to make me hate him for it.
His hands are warm despite the water, large and unyielding where they cup my face, thumbs resting just below mycheekbones as if he needs to make certain I am looking only at him. The rest of the party keeps moving around us. Bodies shove water into waves. Someone laughs too loudly near the deep end. Music thunders from the house.
It all fades.
Silas watches me with eyes gone dark, blurred at the edges by alcohol, sharpened at the center by something far more dangerous. His breathing is measured, but not easy. There is tension in the way his chest rises against the cling of wet fabric, in the set of his jaw, in the flex of his thumbs against my skin.
He dips closer.
Not enough to kiss. Not enough to touch his mouth to mine.
Just enough that I feel the heat of his breath on lips already chilled by the water.
“You don’t get to hide from me,” he says, his voice so low I almost feel it more than hear it.
The words slide straight through me.
Water laps at my shoulders as people move around us, but his body stays fixed in front of mine, creating a pocket of stillness in the middle of all that movement. One of his hands leaves my face long enough to settle again at my waist, this time lower, fingers curving around the side of my hip beneath the water as though the pool itself might try to take me from him if he loosens his grip.
The touch makes my stomach tighten.
His gaze flicks once to my mouth.
Then back to my eyes.
“You don’t belong to him,” he whispers.
There is no room in his tone for teasing. No sarcasm to soften the blow.
Only possession.
Only anger.
Only that awful, scorching certainty that he means every word.
My hands have found his wrists without me realizing it. Not to shove him away. Not yet. My fingers close around the soaked sleeves of his flannel, feeling the heat of him beneath the drenched fabric, feeling the tension in the tendons there, the strength he is trying too hard to leash.
He notices.
Shit.
His eyes narrow slightly as my grip tightens, and for one breathless second neither of us moves. The water presses between our bodies, cool everywhere except where his hand holds my waist and his breath warms the space between our mouths.
Then a wave from somewhere behind us rolls into our backs, jostling me closer against him, the sudden contact dragging a sharp inhale out of me. His hand clamps reflexively at my hip, holding me steady, the noise that nearly leaves his throat dying somewhere behind clenched teeth.
The heat between us turns blinding.
And still he does not let me go.
The heat of him is everywhere.
In the hand locked around my waist beneath the water. In the breath slipping over my mouth. In the way his eyes hold mine as if looking away would count as losing something he has already decided belongs to him.
My pulse is so hard it feels visible.
“W-What are you doing?” The question leaves me softer than I intend, frayed at the edges by cold and shock.
His face dips just a fraction closer, close enough that if I tilt forward even slightly, our mouths will meet.
