Time with Mr. Silver: Chapter 24

“I LOVE IT. THANK you.” I turn the shiny new phone over in my hand, admiring it.

It wasn’t enough for Dax to replace my broken phone. He had to get me the latest model that’s only just been released. I thought they were impossible to get unless you’d pre-ordered months ago.

“It’s nothing.” He kisses my neck, then walks over to the coffee machine in his apartment and flicks it on.

We’re both going to need it. He did what he promised yesterday and kept me up most of the night. How he still manages to look so good on a few hours’ sleep astounds me.

“I already set it up for you. Imported all your data.”

He gets two mugs out, a vision in his black suit and matching shirt. I like him in the white shirts too. But all black… it suits him. He looks badass and sexy at the same time.

I smile happily as I turn the phone on and the screen flashes up.

“Dax.” I turn to him and grin, then look back at the phone’s wallpaper. He’s taken a photograph of the tattoo on his neck. The beautiful, feathered bird, hidden between all the leaves and flowers is at the center. “I love it even more now.”

He chuckles as he places a cup of steaming coffee down in front of me and kisses my hair.

“Drink up.”

“Yeah, yeah.” My eyes stay glued to the little bird as he chuckles again and squeezes my ass, before heading off into the bedroom with his mug.

I know he’s gone to look out the window again to see if Jasmin’s here yet. She never came back to the office yesterday. Instead, she texted Dax and told him the meeting ran over. I know he wants to speak to her, and that he’s just being a concerned brother. Brett would be the same if he thought I was keeping a guy a secret from him for some reason.

I don’t understand why he’s so worried. Jasmin is headstrong and able to spot a jerk a mile off. Maybe she just likes the simplicity of keeping her relationships private. Whoever this Alistair is, I’m sure he’s a great guy if Jasmin likes him.

I drop down onto the sofa as my messages filter through.

More from Casey.

I can’t bring myself to read them. Not right now. Ever since seeing her in New York, I’ve struggled to get the look of pain in her eyes as I screamed at her out of my head. She hurt me. I don’t even know where to go from here.

I thought the pain of her deceit and lies was the worst.

But ever since we came back, another pain has been growing slowly. And now it’s the bigger of the two.

It keeps me awake at night sometimes. Long after Dax has fallen asleep with his arms wrapped around me. It squeezes at my chest, like a vise around my heart.

The pain of missing her.

I drop my head into my hands and sit in silence for a while. Content to not think about anything other than the gentle hum of the coffee machine rinsing itself before it switches off.

Dax hasn’t come back yet. He’ll be standing at that window waiting for Jasmin.

A loud bang comes from inside the bedroom.

“Dax?” I jump up and race inside.

Dax is standing staring out of the window, his chest expanding with shaking breaths.

“What’s going on? What was that bang?”

He looks over his shoulder with darkened eyes at me, and that’s when the dent in the wall next to the window comes into view.

The walls in the estate’s main house are thick and solid.

Yet he still managed to dent it.

“What happened?” I run over to him and inspect his hand as he glares out of the window, his gaze pinned on the driveway. He lets me turn his hand over in mine. But other than his skin feeling hot and being red, it’s fine. He must have hit the wall with the side of his fist.

He’s gripping his phone in his other hand, a message still displayed on the screen.

“Dax?”

His nostrils flare and he spins in a rush, stalking from the room.

One of the fleet cars is making its way up the driveway.

Jasmin.

“Dax?” I race after him, out of the apartment and down the main stairs. All that’s left in his wake is the lingering scent of his aftershave in the air. There’s no sign of him. “Dax?” I call again, reaching the bottom of the stairs where the main door is wide open.

I sprint outside.

He’s there, toe to toe with Jasmin at the side of her car, his face murderous.

“How fucking long?” he hisses as I reach them.

Jasmin’s eyes are glassy and wild.

“You’re not listening, Dax, it’s—”

“How long?!” he roars, making me flinch.

She doesn’t falter, but her shoulders sag as she stares back at her brother.

“A little over three years,” she whispers, a tear running down her cheek.

Dax’s face crumples, and he drags his hands down his face. “Three fucking years! The entire time I was inside?”

Jasmin nods mutely.

“What’s going on?” I move closer to Dax’s side. Something is very wrong. The hairs on the back of my arms all stick up like tiny soldiers standing to attention. The need to be closer to him, to know that he’s okay is overwhelming.

“Why him?” Dax drops his hands and stares back at Jasmin.

Her mouth opens as if searching for the right words.

“Why fucking him?” he yells.

Tears run down her cheeks and make her dark hair stick to her cheeks.

“He’s not like him… he’s…” she chokes. “I’m sorry, Dax.”

“Out of anyone. Out of fucking anyone, you had to pick him?”

“I love him.” Jasmin doesn’t attempt to wipe her tears away. She just lets them run down her face, ruining her makeup.

“You love him,” Dax repeats, his voice empty, like he’s in a daze.

His chest shakes as he sucks in a deep breath, and instinctively, I allow the back of my hand to brush against his. He turns his head, his eyes locking with mine like he’s only noticing I’m there for the first time. Then he grabs my hand in his and raises it to his lips, kissing my fingers and screwing his eyes shut.

“She loves him, Rose. Are you hearing this? My own fucking sister, in love with the son of the man who took me away from her for years.”

My eyes fly to Jasmin, and she looks back at me, her shoulders shaking as she cries.

“Alistair?” I question.

“Alistair Young.” Jasmin blinks and black mascara smears beneath her eyes, joining the rest that’s smudged over her cheeks. “Julian Young’s son.”

I turn back to Dax. He’s staring at Jasmin, his eyes wild.

“I’m sorry,” Jasmin says to Dax again. “I never asked for this to happen. I never chose it to be him. But it is.”

Dax’s hand tightens around my own where he’s kept it wrapped inside his palm. I move into his side. His body is stiff, like every muscle in it is primed.

Fight or flight.

I nod gently at Jasmin as I slide my hand up onto his chest, resting it over his hammering heart. She takes a step backward, giving me enough space to slide in front of him and look up into his eyes.

“Dax?”

His eyes are round, more white showing than looks right. He’s sucking in deep breaths through his nose like he’s barely holding it together.

“Alistair Young,” he spits the name like it’s poison in his mouth as Jasmin’s muffled cries move further away from us.

I take a deep breath to center myself. I can’t let him see how shaken it makes me seeing him like this.

He needs me now.

Just like I’ve needed him before.

“Breathe,” I say softly, keeping my hand over his heart.

He sucks in a breath and his eyes seek out Jasmin.

“Breathe,” I repeat. “We can talk about it all. But right now, I need you to look at me and listen.”

My heart stalls as I wait for the excruciating seconds to pass until he looks back at me.

But then he does.

Deep brown meets light blue.

“Tell me what you smell.” I hold his eyes; afraid he won’t answer. That he won’t let me in. Just like the secrets I know he keeps about where he goes and what he does away from the estate.

What if he can’t let me in?

I hold my breath, but then his eyes soften, and he focuses on me.

“Vanilla wrapped in petals,” he rasps, lifting one hand to cup my cheek, stroking it with his thumb as his eyes pinch at the corners.

I choke back the relieved sob that’s threatening to escape.

“Now tell me what you see,” I whisper.

There’s a flash of emptiness in his eyes before he blinks it away.

“I see you.” He drops his forehead to mine and grasps the back of my neck. “I see a sunbeam.”

I wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him. I press myself against his chest and kiss him with everything I have until the hammering of his heart eases against mine. We’re panting when our lips part, and I hold his face in my own as gravel crunches in the distance and Logan’s voice mingles with Jasmin’s somewhere nearby.

My head is dizzy with what I need to tell him. The feelings that are rushing up, straight from my heart, ready to pour from my lips.

Confessions.

Confessions and hopes and dreams.

All with him at the center.

“I—”

“I know.” Dax silences me with a kiss, screwing his face up against mine. “Believe me, Rose, I know.” He kisses me again. “Thank you for being here. Thank you for being you. For being exactly what I need to stop myself fucking everything up even more.”

“You’re not fucking anything up.”

Dax glances to the side, and I follow his gaze to where Logan has his arm wrapped around Jasmin and is leading her inside. They look over at us, and Dax stiffens, his jaw clenching.

I turn his face back to me.

“Let’s go back upstairs. Take a minute. Then you can talk to her.”

I cry out as teeth sink into my neck and my cheek squashes against the wall.

Dax grunts as he fucks me hard from behind.

I’m pinned between his tattooed chest and the bedroom wall as he takes out his frustrations using my body as his safe place.

But I don’t care. It was my idea. I could see how much rage there was still simmering inside him when we came inside following his confrontation with Jasmin. He tries so hard to rein it in, but the truth is, Dax will always have a temper bubbling away beneath the calm surface.

I’ve seen flashes of it. He’s admitted as much to me before. He promised Jasmin he would work on it. He does what he needs to relieve tension. Gong baths, fish in his office, breathing techniques.

But I’ve learned that sex calms him too.

And I will do anything to ease the hurt that was in his eyes earlier.

“Dax!” I cry out as he lifts one of my thighs higher, pressing my knee against the wall as he rails me so hard I don’t know how his cock hasn’t fallen off.

“Jesus,” he growls into my neck as I come for him again, wetness rushing out of me as he rubs my clit with his other hand that he’s squeezed between my hip and the wall.

I’ve come once already. He might be using me to fuck out his anger, but this is Dax. My pleasure is still his priority, even when he’s shaking with rage.

I moan his name again as my orgasm stretches on almost painfully. He groans and comes inside me with a force that has him cursing and burrowing his face into my neck.

The two of us suck in noisy breaths. Dax takes his hand away from my sensitive clit and grabs my hand, clasping it tightly in his against the wall.

We are two sweating, burning bodies holding each other so tightly, afraid to let the other go.

I stare at the dent on the bedroom wall, inches from my face, as my heartbeat slowly returns to normal.

“Rose.” Dax drops his head to my shoulder and his breath skates down my shoulder blade as he pulls out of me and lowers my leg to the ground.

A rush of combined cum runs straight out and down my leg as he spins me in his arms and holds me against the wall, one hand gently cupping my windpipe.

I stare back into his eyes. The fire in them is still there. But it’s smoldering now.

He’s back in control.

“Sometimes I feel like you know me better than I know myself, Rose Jacobs,” he murmurs, searching my eyes.

Buzzing energy takes over my chest as he stares so deeply into my eyes, I swear I leave my body for a moment and float in the space between us instead.

Just my soul and his.

Touching.

“You allow yourself to believe that the world only gets the worst of you, Dax. But I’ve seen your best. You’re the stitching holding me together as much as I’m holding you. It works both ways.”

“My sister’s in love with a guy whose father I hate,” he murmurs against my lips.

He opens his eyes and looks at me again, his eyes red.

The air leaves my lungs at how broken he looks. Like all the fight has left him.

“He took years away from me, Rose.”

“And do you think Jasmin would have wanted it to be him? Given the choice? We don’t get to choose how love finds us. But when it does…” I stroke the side of his face and he leans into my palm. “When it does, it’s breathtaking. Like the silver lining in the shitshow that’s sometimes life.”

He closes his eyes and exhales, his face nestled in my hand. Two lines appear between his brows.

“Stop carrying it with you. You need to leave it in the past. Yes, you were parted. But you’re not now. You’re here. And you’re free.”

He snorts, opening his eyes. “I’m not free. Far from it.” His eyes trace over my face and he strokes the pulse in my neck with his thumb. “Jasmin doesn’t know the full story. She thinks I beat…” He pauses, as though saying his name is a physical challenge. “Julian Young. She thinks I beat him because he sent her dick pics and made some asshole comments. But that wasn’t everything.”

“What do you mean?”

Dax looks away with a grim laugh. “I heard him, earlier that night. Bragging to another guy that he was taking a girl home. He said he’d got his eye on one, and if she needed persuading, he had something he could slip her that’d loosen her up.”

“He was going to drug someone?” My eyes widen as Dax meets my gaze again, jutting his chin out as he sucks in a breath.

“Not someone. Jasmin.”

My blood runs cold at the idea of Jasmin, of anyone, being spiked. “Did you tell the cops that? Surely that should have been used as evidence. They would have seen you were just—”

“The police didn’t care. I always suspected he knew some of them, used money to pull strings… but even the ones who weren’t paid off said it was my word against his. There was no evidence. Both guys denied the conversation ever took place. I retracted it from my statement. I didn’t want Jasmin to have to live with the what-ifs. To know what that bastard was capable of.”

“I’m so sorry, Dax.”

My eyes sting. He’s carried this around with him all this time. Always being the protective big brother. Always looking out for everyone else.

“He doesn’t just import liquor, Rose. He supplies half of the southeast of England with enough street drugs to sink the country.”

“How do you know that?”

Dax takes his hand away from my neck, avoiding my eyes. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Dax?”

“The less you know, the safer you are.” He drags his eyes back to mine, his jaw ticking.

“Where do you go? When you leave the estate at night?”

He holds my eyes. “Don’t.”

I frown, opening my mouth to speak, but he silences me with a kiss.

“Don’t ask me that.” His voice is full of regret as he tilts my face up and kisses me again, sliding his tongue inside my mouth and stealing my breath. “I won’t ever lie to you. But I can’t tell you everything. Believe me when I say, it’s better you don’t know all the sides of me.”

“But that’s not fair. You’ve seen all of mine.” I kiss him back fiercely, even though part of me wants to push him away for keeping me out of that tiny part of his life.

But it’s just something he does. It doesn’t change who he is, whatever it is.

He’s wrong if he thinks I don’t know all the sides of him. Because I do.

I know them all. The good, the bad, the flawed.

And they’re all beautiful.

He pulls away from our kiss and rests his forehead against mine with a sigh.

I’m not being fair. This isn’t a conversation for now. This is about Jasmin and what he’s found out. This is about him feeling lied to and betrayed.

I know how that feels. I know how it tastes. I know how it burns you inside. I know how it can derail your life and your family and your relationships for years if you don’t stop it.

“Talk to Jasmin.” I stroke his face, brushing my hands lower, over his neck, over the flowers and feathers. “Talk. Don’t shout. I’ll come with you if you want. You need to hear her side of things. She’s your sister. She’s the only one you’ve got.”

“She lied to me.”

“She loves you. She wouldn’t hurt you on purpose. You need to talk to her.”

From sandbox to casket.

I shove Casey to the back of my thoughts.

Not now.

This isn’t the same. It’s not. This is Dax’s sister. His own blood.

It’s different.

“Shall we go and find her? She’s probably still with Logan somewhere. She could have left. But she didn’t. She needs your time to listen to her, as much as you need hers.”

He wraps his hands around my waist, holding me close. “You’re too fucking good for me. Did I tell you that?”

I give him a half smile. “It’s a trick of the light. It’s all how you see it.”

His lips twitch and then flatten as he takes a deep breath. “Come on, Sunbeam. Let’s go find this silver lining.”