Chapter 90 Neither heat nor desire
CHAPTER 90: Neither heat nor desire
Vera
Last night I couldn't sleep.
After Silas all but raced out of the room, I cried, took a shower and tried to get some rest. Then I cried again. It was almost morning when I managed to fall into a restless sleep.
I dreamt that the man from the ball was now the faceless man that hurt me.
I woke up, panting and turned to the side, but it was bare. He hadn't come back to the room yet. I lay there in the semi-darkness of the room shedding silent tears.
The first gray light of the morning was seeping through when the door finally opened softly and he stepped inside. It took every restraint I had to not jump off the bed and run into his arms. I’d been listening for the sound of his footsteps since last night.
Taking cover in the dimness, I still lay curled on my side, the silk of my nightgown cool against my skin. He was still in his outfit from last night, but he had lost the jacket. The tie was gone and the first few buttons of his shirt were undone. He looked like he hadn't slept a wink all night. And even though it was dark, I could see the shadows in his eyes that looked like they were carved from the same shadows filling the corners of the room.
He moved to the armchair by the window, not to the bed, and began to unlace his shoes with a tired, deliberate slowness.
Was he avoiding me? Maybe the appearance of that man last night had made me disgusting to him.
Something poked painfully at my heart.
“Where were you?” The question was out before I could stop it, a whisper in the heavy silence.
With the speed of lightning, his head snapped in my direction.
“You’re awake.” His voice was rough, but worn smooth by the night.
“I hardly slept.”
“My office,” he finally replied. “I had work to do,” he turned away from me.
I pushed myself up on my elbows. The memories of last night, that man’s eyes, his smug claim—the way his eyes had crawled over me, made bile rise to my throat. It felt like a stain…one he saw. And now he was keeping his distance.
“I’m sorry,” I said, the words brittle. “What happened last night… My past… it keeps trying to taint everything. Your reputation—”
“It's not your fault. I'm not blaming you for what happened,” he cut me off, finally turning his head in my direction. His storm-colored eyes found me in the half-light. Surprisingly, they were not angry. They seemed more… exhausted. “That man will never come near you again. You have my word.”
For one, I didn't believe that the man from last night was my faceless offender. I was more affected about how his appearance made me feel—how it made him feel toward me.
His words were not the reassurance I expected. I wanted something else. Something that was more physical…more heated.
The silence returned, thicker now.
The feeling I had fought since that morning to erase—at the moment, felt like it was seeping into my skin, a reminder of the body that wasn't wholly mine anymore. I felt marked. Unclean.
And I needed to know if last night made him see and realise that too.
The compulsion was a physical ache, a desperate need to be cleaned, claimed, overwritten. Maybe that was what I wanted. Maybe it was a need to see if his hunger for me…the dark, guilty thing that simmered between us had curdled into disgust.
Maybe I wanted to prove to myself that whoever that man was—he didn't own me. I wanted to feel like a woman who wasn't defined by what happened that night. And I also wanted to prove that Silas still wanted me.
I desperately wanted to know if the hands that owned me, would still want to touch what’s been touched by that.
I swung my legs off the bed, the marble floor, ice cold under my bare feet. I didn’t think. I was reckless with pain. I just moved toward him, a moth drawn to a flame that might now reject it.
Silas watched me approach him, his expression unreadable, his rigid body still in the chair.
I stopped in front of him. My fingers go to the tiny straps of my silk nightgown on my shoulder and I slid it down. My hands are shaking. I reached for the other and I slid it down too. The silk gave way, and I let it silently slide down my body. It pooled at my feet, a blush puddle in the quiet room.
The room stood still.
I was naked before him. It wasn't the first time he was seeing me naked, but there was something about this time. The early curve of my stomach—the proof of that man, was on full display. I felt exposed in a way I never have, not even during our last encounter.
This was neither heat nor desire. It was a plea. A test.
His gaze doesn’t waver. It slowly travelled over me, a slow, burning inventory. It didn't feel like desire either. It felt like a sort of rediscovery, his breath slightly catching when it got to my stomach.
“Vera,” my name fell from his lips, a warning.
“Please,” was all I could say. It wasn't timid… it was a broken plea of desperation. “Please,” I choked out. “I need… I need you to not be disgusted by me. I need you to want me…like before. I need you to make me forget.” The confession hung there, ugly and raw. “I need to wash it away.”
I had nothing to lose. No dignity or pride left to hang on to. Most people might call it pathetic but his response was the ultimate validation I needed. But if he rejected me…I knew that it would tip me over the edge.
I saw it, the moment that something fractured in his eyes. It was like a crack in a stone. He saw it too, not just the body, but the fracture inside it. The desperation. The self-loathing that mirrored strangely what I saw in his eyes.
He stood, and the space between us vanished. We were so close that I could feel the heat radiating off of his body.
He didn’t touch me. Not yet.
“This is a bad idea,” he murmured, but it sounded more like he was reminding himself, not me.
“I don't care.”
“It changes nothing.”
“I know.”
He reached out then, but not like before. Not with possessive hunger.
His fingertips brushed my cheek, so lightly it’s almost not there. A reverent touch…feathery. A husband’s touch that undid me more than any kiss ever could.
A sob caught in my throat. A single tear slid down my face. He saw it, and caught it with his thumb. He stared at me, so swirling in his dark eyes. Then the last of his resistance crumbled.