I sighed. I needed to put those kinds of thoughts out of my head. I had a girl lying here on the bed - not a girl, the girl, the girl I would have given everything in the fucking world to hold on to back when we were kids, the girl I'd have done anything for - and here she was, soon-to-be naked, lying on a bed in a fancier hotel than I'd ever been in in my whole damn life.
And all I could think about was how she'd made the money that paid for the damn room.
Shit, Silas, what the hell is wrong with you?
Trigg and Abel would kick me in the nuts for what was going through my head right now.
Behind me, I heard music come on, soft over the speakers, and I turned to see Tempest leaning over to replace a remote on the table beside the bed.
"What?" she asked, sitting up on the bed. "You have a look."
"I don't have a look."
"You have a look, and it's not the same look you had a minute ago, the one that said you were about to pounce on me."
I shook my head. "It’s the whole place, Tempest," I said. "You have a damn piano in your hotel room. Is it always like this?"
Tempest looked down, her hair slipping forward and shielding the side of her face. She tucked her legs underneath her on the bed. "Silas," she said. "It's not what you think."
"It's hard to swallow, is what I think," I said. "Seeing all of this, paid for by innocent people."
Tempest laughed, but when I looked at her, she wasn't smiling. "Innocent," she said. "Yeah, sure."
I walked along the length of the windows that lined the walls of the bedroom from floor to ceiling, overlooking the Vegas skyline. Those lights in the houses out there were where regular people stayed, people like me and my brothers.
The kind of people she and her parents conned.
People like her parents, Tempest and her crew, they saw regular folks as marks. Chumps.
"I remember you wanted to give it all up, you know," I said. Back then, back when she’s mattered to me and I mattered to her, she wanted to leave it all behind.
"I remember a lot of things, Silas," she said.
So did I. That was the fucking problem, I thought. I remembered too much. Like the way she tasted. I couldn't forget it. Or the way she looked when she came, the expression on her face, one of unbridled pleasure.
Or like the way she had played with her hands and stared at the ground when she'd told me she loved me for the first time, as if she was too afraid to speak the words for fear that I wouldn't say the same thing.
I couldn't forget any of it.
But that was before. Before I found out who she really was.
I turned to face her. "I'm not stupid, Tempest."
"Did I give you the impression I think you're an idiot, Silas?" she asked. "You've always been one of the smartest people I know."
"All of this," I said. "You haven't exactly gotten it working a regular job. It’s not like you earned this, clean."
Tempest looked at me, her eyes flashing. Sliding off the bed, she crossed to the other side of the room and stood in front of me. "No," she said. "You know that. You knew that when you came up here. You knew that before you slid my dress up on the balcony out there and stuck your fingers inside me. If you're suddenly too chickenshit to follow through, don't cover it up with some bullshit crisis of conscience."
Anger rushed through me. Goddamn it, this girl pissed me off in a way she'd never angered me back when we were kids.
The thing is, she was right. I'd done a lot of dirty shit, betting on myself in fights. It wasn't like I'd never taken a dive in a fight before, either. Hell, I was thinking about having Coker murdered.
I didn't have room to be all moralistic.
Still. Chickenshit?
It was like she wanted to piss me off.
Her head was tilted up at me, her lips parted, breath shallow. I could hear it, even over the music playing on the stereo, Sam Smith begging a one night stand to stay. I didn't know if I wanted to tell Tempest to go screw herself, and walk away from her bullshit, or if I wanted to bend her over the bed and plunge my cock inside her until she couldn't walk straight.
"Chickenshit," I said. I put my hand at the back of her neck again, threaded my fingers through her hair. The sensation made me harden immediately, and I had to remind myself not to rip her fucking hair out of her head, I wanted to pull her to me so hard.
She made this little moaning sound and leaned into me, her hand on my chest. "You know, if it walks like a duck. Or some metaphor that works with chickens," she said. "Put up or shut up."
The corners of her mouth turned up, like she was baiting me, and yet I couldn't help myself. I wanted to take the bait.
And then she licked her bottom lip, and it was all over for me.
Silas' jaw clenched, and the look that crossed over his face...for a minute, I couldn't be sure he didn't just hate me.
He pulled me toward him, his hand gripping my hair tightly. Bringing his mouth down on mine, he crushed my lips with his, his kiss insistent and powerful. It wasn't one of those loving, gentle kisses, the kind you'd think two reunited long-lost lovers would have.
This kiss was like a goddamn war, his tongue attacking mine, mine battling his, the two of us working out the ton of baggage we carried.
But I found myself melting into him, letting go.
I didn't want to talk to him about the past.