Silver Heart (22 page)

It didn’t escape me that I was lucky to have parents who were able to ensure that their daughter had a successful future. I should’ve been grateful for all the support I was being given in such a competitive field, but I didn’t want it. I didn’t want any of it. Which only made me more certain that I was stuck in the wrong profession.

That was one of the main reasons I was so fond of photography. No one could help me in photography. I didn’t have a daddy who could get me into an art school and employ me when I graduated, nor did I have a mother who could charm a magazine editor to take me on as an intern. Every tiny pebble of success I’d ever achieved in photography was through my own hard work and lots of blood, sweat, and tears. My achievements weren’t great, but they were mine and mine alone. When I snapped a picture, I felt proud of my art. Every little piece of me was wholly a part of the photograph.

Dylan Silver: Future Doctor had been a somebody before I’d even declared my major. My last name carried weight with it. My professors had known my brother. The hospitals where I volunteered and would eventually do my residence respected my father.

Dylan Silver: Starving Artist was a nobody. And I loved the idea that I’d have to claw my way up and mold her into the somebody that I wanted to be. Somebody I could be proud of because she loved what she did and she’d made it all on her own.

I liked helping people, but something about the medical profession had never felt right. I didn’t get butterflies when I entered a lab, and though I studied hard, I wasn’t in love with the idea of being a doctor.

As my mind clouded and my heart began to race, I yearned to drown my worries in Sawyer. Talking, kissing, silently lying next to each other—it didn’t matter what we were doing. He had a natural ability to soothe my pain and clear my head. But although I had initially thought of him as an escape of sorts, he no longer stood for that. Now, he represented freedom.

And so much more.

Every time I began to second guess my future, he had the ability to ground me in the present. The present was where I felt most alive, where my heart swelled with hope that my life could be different.

My mind raced as I rushed back to the bedroom. All I wanted was to dive under the safety of the blanket and wrap myself around Sawyer, but sometime during my talk with my mother he’d slipped into the bathroom.

The door to the ensuite was ajar; the sound of the running water and the steam seeping through the open crack indicated that he was in the shower. My need to see him took over my instinct for propriety. I burst into the room without a second thought. It was one of my rare “act first, think later” moments. The action may have been a rash one, but I knew that the tempered glass of the shower would be engulfed by mist and maintain his privacy.

I just wanted to hear his voice—nothing more. He was the only one who fully understood my doctor-photographer dilemma. Maddie had always been anti-medicine because she believed photography was my life’s calling. My brother and my parents, on the other hand, never took my photography seriously. They were on the opposite end of a very confusing spectrum. Sawyer, however, understood both sides of me. He’d listened to me debate desire and duty countless times.

I wanted to bang on the shower door and scream: “I don’t know if I can do this! I don’t know what I want!” But, of course, I didn’t. I leaned my back against the glass and sighed. The door shook with my movement.

“Silver?” My name sounded wet, as if water was cascading between his lips while he spoke.

“I feel guilty,” I admitted.

I felt the glass budge and squeak as Sawyer wiped his hand on the misty door. A small window appeared in the steam and I turned around to meet his eyes.

“For spying on me while I shower?” he asked, winking. “Don’t. I happen to enjoy a sexy voyeur every now and then.”

I shook my head. “No. I feel guilty for being unhappy.”

Sawyer’s smile immediately dissolved. “What’s wrong?” He swiped at the door again, revealing some of his soapy chest.

I wasn’t sure I had an answer to his question. Why was I feeling like this? Why had I let my mother get to me? Why did I keep thinking back to my conversation with Adam and envying his passion for medicine? Why didn’t I feel that same excitement? Instead, why did I have this unsettling feeling that I was about to make a huge mistake and trap myself in a future I didn’t want any part of?

What was wrong?

Everything. And nothing.

Everything was perfect.

Right?

I pressed my forehead against the shower, resting my hands on either side of my face. “My entire life has consisted of nothing but sunshine and roses compared to everything you and Lyla went through,” I said. “I should just shut the fuck up and march my way to med school. I don’t have the right to be unhappy.”

Sawyer sighed. His palms slid up the shower door until they met mine from the other side. “Happiness—and unhappiness for that matter—isn’t black and white,” he said. “It’s not the same for everyone and it isn’t an emotion you can be objective about.” His body shifted beneath the steam. “You don’t
think
happy or force yourself to
be
happy. You
feel
happy.”

“Maybe I need to try harder to feel happy about the idea of being a doctor.”

“You shouldn’t be forced to experience guilt over your emotions.”

“I’m spoiled,” I breathed. “And ungrateful.”

“You’re neither of those things, Silver. You just want more from life. There’s nothing wrong with that. You deserve more.” His eyes glistened painfully. “As did I. That’s why I had to leave.”

I tried to blink back tears, but the movement of my lids propelled them down my cheeks instead. “Lyla never got more,” I whispered, wiping my face with the back of my hand.

I began to move away from the door, but Sawyer swung it wide open, grabbed my arm, and gently pulled me inside. Sliding his wet hands around my waist, he drew me to him. Warm water streamed down on us from the wide showerhead above, cascading over my hair and dissolving the soap on Sawyer’s body.

“She never got more,” I repeated hoarsely.

“I know, baby,” he said, holding me tighter. “So I live every single day with her in mind. No fear. No regrets. You should too.”

We stood still for a long time without saying a single word. Though I’d let the water wash away my tears, the turbulent storm raging within me hadn’t subsided. I calmed myself by listening to Sawyer’s heartbeat. It played such a soothing, confident melody.

This grown-up Sawyer knew what he wanted and he went after it. No second-guessing. And when I was with him, I knew what I wanted too. I could be the real Dylan Silver. Or, rather, the Silver I’d always wanted to be.

“When I’m with you, I feel like I can live fearlessly,” I admitted finally. “I can let go and not be afraid to make a mistake.”

“That has nothing to do with me,” he said. “It’s all you. Your strength. Your passion.”

“Then maybe it’s us.” I looked up into his eyes, losing myself in their warmth. “Together.”

He nodded. “Maybe it’s us.” Reaching out to touch my front curl, he tugged it lightly, bringing my face toward his. He dipped his lips to my ear and whispered, “You and me. Silver and Sawyer.” Every cell in my body stood to attention as his throaty voice washed over me.

“You make me whole,” I told him.

“You
are
whole, Silver,” he said. “Right now, you just happen to be slightly bruised. But you’re whole. With or without me. Don’t you understand that? What I’ve always loved about you is the fact that you’re so whole. So…
everything
. Smart. Funny. Beautiful.”

As he spoke, drops of water fell from his lashes and merged with my skin. “It’s from you that I learned about kindness. My family never taught me what it meant to be a good person or showed me how it felt to be cared for and loved. You did. If anything,
you’re
the one who made
me
whole all those years ago. It’s because of you that I had the courage to get out.”

“I’m glad you got out,” I said. Even if the pain of losing him had never fully left me. “You were destined to be a snowboarder. It had always been your fate.” The word had slipped out unintentionally. It startled me to realize that I was so sure he was meant to board that I could practically feel it in my bones.

How come I believed in fate when it came to Sawyer?

“I just can’t forgive myself that it tore us apart,” Sawyer sighed. “I want to make up for all those missed moments.”

His hand slid to my cheek as his index finger slipped over to my mouth, slowly caressing my damp lips. “I want to kiss you and I don’t want to stop kissing you until I’ve kissed away every single second of those six years we’ve spent apart.”

Heat ripped through me in response to his words. His lips brushed against mine and his hand traveled down the front of my throat to my collarbone, gently pushing my back into the glass behind me. The cool surface felt soothing against my scorching skin. The water continued to beat down on us, revealing the outline of my body underneath the drenched fabric of my pajamas.

“I want to lick you and I don’t want to stop licking you until your mind is so full of pleasure there’s no room for a single worry.” He yanked down the thin straps of my tank top, practically ripping it off my body. The water pummeled against my chest, teasing my nipples to attention. Sawyer lapped up the wetness with his tongue, sucking and taunting me until my head started to spin and I actually thought I might faint.

“I want to touch you and I don’t want to stop touching you until every single part of you has been properly worshiped.” His hands glided over the curve of my back down to my ass, and he gripped me tightly, pressing my body flush against him. My arms found the way around his waist, pinning him even deeper into me, forcing a low rumble from the depths of his chest.

His lean, hard arms felt so familiar wrapped around mine. He was home. His nakedness was an afterthought. A very startling one at that. It was the first time I’d seen him entirely bare, the first time I’d felt all of him.

The thought that Sawyer deserved a gold medal for his physique immediately sprung to mind.
Platinum
—if there was such a thing—for a certain area of his body that eagerly pressed itself against my stomach, its hard length digging into me, sending an explosion of electricity soaring into my core.

“I want to fuck you and I don’t want to stop fucking you until you’re screaming my name in that sexy, raspy way that drives me wild.” All of a sudden, he was everywhere. Kissing, licking, touching, and exploring me in places I’d never imagined could bring about so much euphoria. The nape of my neck, the curve of my stomach, the inside of my thigh.

It turned me on to hear that his frenzied groans were just as loud as mine; I loved knowing that he was enjoying my body just as much as I was enjoying his touch. The water pounded against us, adding to the thrill. I felt like we were caught in the middle of some tropical tempest of passion.

When he began to tug my shorts over my hips, I entwined my fingers around his wrists and pried his hands away.

“It’s my turn to be in control,” I told him, overcome by a surprisingly strong need to own him. I placed my palms against his chest and gently pushed him back until he was the one trapped against the glass.

He shot me a heated look as a sexy smirk tugged at the corners of his lips. “What’s this?”

“I want to lose myself in you, but I want to be the one calling the shots this time.” I stood on the balls of my feet and kissed my way up his neck, alternating between teasing his skin with the tip of my tongue and sucking it between my lips. Every so often, I grazed him with my teeth, making him tighten his grip on my hips.

“I want to hear
my
name on
your
lips,” I ordered when my mouth connected with his.

“I’m all yours, Silver.” His nails dug into my skin and I could tell it was taking every bit of self-control he had within him to obey my request and restrain from prying away my dominance.

Leaving his lips, I traveled down his chest, kissing my way to his stomach. I slowly washed away the soap from his skin, then licked every single hard edge of his abdominal muscles. And, God, there were many, each one perfectly sculpted. I took my time, soaking up his husky, low moans, indulging in the taste of his wet skin.

“Silver,” he grunted. “Your lips…your tongue…
shit
.”

His feedback excited me, and the fact that he could barely get the words out was an even bigger turn-on. Raw need pulsed through me as I dipped even lower, trailing my lips over the incredibly sexy v-cut ridge and the tattoo wrapping around his hip. His hands fisted at his sides as tiny spasms rocked his stomach.

“You’re driving me insane,” he gasped.

“Good.” My teeth connected with his skin as my lips stretched into a smile.

“Sinfully good,” he rasped.

I loved what I was doing to him. I hadn’t ever been this forward with anyone before. I’d also never felt so uninhibited. I was brimming with confidence, bursting with desire.

My shorts were soaked, but not just because of the steady stream of water around us. It was arousing to know that my touch had such a powerful effect on Sawyer. I had loved giving up every ounce of control to him, and right now, I wanted him to do the same for me.

The moment I took him into my mouth, his entire body jerked and his fists connected with the glass behind him. A loud bang echoed around us, mixing with his feral growl.

“
Silver
.” My name on his tongue was part euphoric bliss, part ravenous plea.

Raw. Sexy. Wild.

I could feel him throbbing between my lips, and all of my senses eagerly responded to his excitement. A surge of warmth rushed into my core, sending waves of heat throughout my body.

“Fuck, you’re insanely incredible,” he whispered hoarsely.

As I drew him deeper, snaking my tongue over his hard length, he rewarded me with a string of loud moans. My hand accompanied my mouth, stroking him in tempo to the infuriating beat of my heart. His ragged breaths filled my ears, and every muscle on his body tensed under my touch.