Brightly Burning Bridges by Ivy Wild
Present
“Honestly Bob, can’t you just make this go away? I thought you had friends at the IRS?” I was beyond frustrated with the way this week was going. I’d left Skyler hot and bothered for me after her little too-welcoming party on Friday. A whole fucking week had dragged on where I hadn’t seen her, very much on purpose, thinking that she would make the first move to contact me.
Of course, nothing.
She was as frigid as ever.
I don’t know why I thought I was going to be able to win a Cold War against her. It hadn’t worked in High School and it sure as hell wasn’t working now.
What was worse was that I was irritated, flustered and being 20% more of a dick to everyone than usual because of it. Only two things were keeping me sane: the first being that she hadn’t had her stupid boy toy over again and the second that she seemed to be just as bothered by the situation as I was.
I could tell because her emails were short, to the point and overly professional.
Exhibit A:
To: Skyler Jackson
From: Silas Jenkins
Subject: To do
Call the investors with the Centuria Group and schedule a conference call for 3pm on Monday.
To: Silas Jenkins
From: Skyler Jackson
Subject: Re: To do
Dear Mr. Jenkins,
I understand your request and will ensure that the call is scheduled per your instructions. A hold will be placed on your calendar with the dial-in information. If I can be of any further assistance, please do not hesitate to let me know.
Kind Regards,
Skyler Jackson
Personal Assistant to Silas Jenkins
I almost wrote back with explicit instructions of how she could be “of further assistance.” I could especially use her assistance with her kneeling on the floor, definitely with her back pressed against a wall, and most certainly flipped over the edge of a desk.
“This isn’t really a ‘friends at the IRS’ situation, Silas,” Bob said, pulling me out of my rather lewd but enjoyable line of thinking.
It was a Friday afternoon and I found myself back at his office, staring out at DuPont Circle, wishing I was anywhere but with my accountant.
“You’ve got an interview with one of their special agents in their fraud department set for Monday. This is serious, Silas. Please give it the requisite attention.”
I let out an audible sigh that turned into a bit of a growl at the end. My patience was cracking and it surprised me more than it surprised Bob. The stunned look on his face at what, for me constituted a legitimate outburst, almost had me walking out of his office. But he did have a point. This wasn’t like any other audit I’d undergone and I seriously did not like the sound of “fraud,” “special agent,” or the inevitable charges that usually followed.
“Fine,” I said, turning to fix my dark brown eyes on him. “Email me everything you know about the case and try and find out who the agent might be.”
“Don’t you think you should hire yourself a lawyer?” Bob asked.
I gave him an exasperated look. “I am a lawyer.”
“I mean a real lawyer. You know, one who practices law.”
“Hard pass,” I said, standing up and brushing the conversation off my Armani trousers. I’d had enough of lawyers for one lifetime, present company excluded. I found them to be pumped full of more hot air than even myself. And I’d learned from a young age that no one was going to care about your shit more than you did.
“I know better than to argue with you,” Bob said, sounding defeated.
“Now you’re learning.”
“I’ll send you what I’ve got and see what I can find out.”
I nodded curtly and blew out of his office. I didn’t need to say thank you. Bob knew by now that the only thanks he was going to get from me was his monthly retainer check. In my eyes, that was more than enough.
I made my way outside into the drudgery that was a D.C. winter. Gray skies blended with gray buildings blended with gray slush on the sides of the roads. People kept their heads down and their mouths shut as they walked briskly to their destinations, trying very hard to pretend that no one in the world existed.
It was pretty much my favorite time of the year as a result.
I flipped over my watch and debated what I wanted to do for the rest of the day. My phone started to ping with email after email from Bob. He apparently wasn’t wasting any time in sending me all the materials on the case. I scrolled through the myriad of emails and groaned.
And then smiled.
This gave me the perfect excuse to peer over the edge of the Berlin Wall that was the road between our condos. I raised a hand to hail a cab and made my way towards the Iron Curtain.
The entire weekSilas had been silent. He’d blown out of my apartment, his fingers still coated in my intense need for him, and then proceeded to completely ghost me for the rest of the week. Sure, he’d sent me the work assignment here or there, but no phone calls, no visits, no nothing.
I suppose I should have been grateful. Not many people were being paid what I was for how little I had to do. Even still, after that first “test” he’d sprung on me with the visit to the courthouse, I made sure that every day I was dressed and ready to leave my place on a moment’s notice during normal working hours.
Not only that, but Silas had proven that he was more than capable of entering my apartment unannounced, as he did last Friday. The memory of him pushing me against the wall and kissing me was still so fresh in my mind. It replayed over and over again until I was almost sick of it.
Total lie.
The way his lips had moved against mine and the way he tasted was so unlike what I remembered of him in high school. I’d always been able to deny him in High School. He’d tried so many times to kiss me, but at the last moment, I always turned away. At the time I didn’t know why. Now I understood it as nerves.
I was so nervous about what kissing Silas would mean when I was younger. I was afraid of letting him in further than I had. I was afraid of what he would do if he knew how I felt about him. Would he use it against me? I never put it past him and he certainly proved me right on several occasions.
It was probably for the better, considering how our relationship all those years ago had ended.
But I didn’t know how to process just what I’d felt when Silas pushed me against the wall on Friday. Silas walked around with a mask on his face and over the years, that mask had become a near-permanent addition. And yet, when he kissed me, there was nothing between us. I felt his raw need and emotion clearly. More than that, I could feel his desire for me.
Why he left when he did, I still couldn’t understand.
Was it because he wanted me to say I belonged to him?
He knew me and he knew it wasn’t true, so I couldn’t understand why he would be mad about something like that.
All things considered, maybe my salary was too low considering the emotional rollercoaster he kept me on.
I was sitting at the kitchen island and my eyes darted to the clock on the stove.
4:45
Fifteen more minutes and then I could relax. Well, mostly. Silas didn’t really believe in set working hours but he seemed to follow a normal schedule, except for when he so obviously didn’t.
The bell for the elevator rang out throughout the apartment and my stomach dropped. There was only one person that would enter my apartment without ringing the doorbell. Technically, as far as I knew, there was only one person that could.
“I trust you had a good week,” he said in that smooth voice of his as he strode into the kitchen. He grabbed an apple out of the fruit bowl in the center of the island and bit into it. His eyes met mine and I could see he was searching for a reaction in me.
I wasn’t going to give him what he wanted.
“It was lovely, thank you. How was yours?” I asked in a candy-coated voice.
He took another bite of his apple and despite his relaxed features, his eyes seemed to be throwing razor sharp daggers.
“Fine,” he replied after finishing his apple and tossing it into the trash. “I’ve got a bit of a situation that I’m going to need your help on.”
I gave him my best fake smile and cocked my head to the side. “How can I help?”
The easy façade he wore on his features was starting to become more and more transparent around me. I could see my cheery attitude was getting to him. I’m not sure why I wanted him to break. It would only make my life a hell of a lot more difficult. Apparently, I was a total glutton for punishment. Probably why I’d agreed to work for Silas in the first place.
“I’ve got an extremely important interview with an IRS agent Monday and I’m going to need your help trying to prepare.” He paused. “I may even have you come along.” His voice was cold as he pulled out his phone and started pressing at the screen. “I’m forwarding you emails from my accountant with everything he has about the case. I’ll need you to print these and then we’ll need to go over everything together to see what they might have and how I can counter.”
“Together?” My own façade cracked the moment he said the word and his eyes lifted and swirled with mischief.
“Yes, together. Is that going to be a problem?” His tone was cocky and so was the smirk on his face.
I regained my bearings as best as I could and shook my head. “No problem. I just wanted to clarify.”
His eyes narrowed at me before he returned to looking at his phone. “Go ahead and print everything I’m sending to you and we can start going through it.” His voice returned to its normal frigid temperature and I slid off the stool I was sitting on and made my way towards my office.
“So much for my weekend,” I muttered to myself under my breath.
“You know, your voice carries,” Silas said behind me and I jumped. I’d been so distracted by my pity party that I hadn’t noticed he’d followed behind me.
The second bedroom was almost as luxurious as the master, with an attached bathroom and floor to ceiling windows. Like all the other rooms, the walls were a soft gray against bright white moldings and the décor was sterile, but functional. I’d grabbed a few of my own belongings on the various trips back and forth to my apartment and had given the place a little bit more “me.”
I watched as Silas’ eyes moved from the patterned throw rug, to the throw pillows on the leather sofa and finally to the blanket draped over the edge of my office chair haphazardly.
“I see you’ve been decorating,” he said, his voice slightly amused.
I shook the mouse to wake up the overly large iMac. The large glass desk was situated to the side of the room facing forward so he couldn’t see the face I was currently making at him. “Yeah, just thought I’d give it a bit more personality,” I finally said.
“Mission accomplished,” he remarked, striding forward to take a seat on the sofa. He threw the pillows off to one side and leaned a casual elbow on the armrest. From this angle he could see me clearly, so I needed to behave. “Did you have plans for the weekend?”
“Not anymore,” I said, not looking at him but instead beginning to click through the multiple emails he’d forwarded to me to start the lengthy printing process. Truth be told I had absolutely nothing going on. As much as Sophie said it would be easier to get together location-wise, that didn’t mean she was going out much given how far along she was. She complained she was constantly tired and I couldn’t blame her.
Trevor was much closer to my old apartment. Seeing as I’d moved south and he was north of the city, it was a haul for us to get together now. I used to visit his shop on the weekends, but trying to fight Friday traffic leaving the city was not my idea of fun.
So, I’d planned a low key weekend of exploring Georgetown, wine and the Real Housewives of Salt Lake. But, I didn’t mind if Silas thought I was missing out on some big plans.
Having clicked through all of the emails, the over 500 pages of documents were in the printer queue and I had no escape from the conversation. I turned to look at Silas. He seemed entirely unconcerned about Monday, but it sounded pretty serious.
“Did this interview just get sprung on you today?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Not exactly.”
“It’s a lot to go through. I’m not saying we can’t get it done, but maybe it would be better to try and postpone.”
He shrugged. “No use delaying the inevitable.”
My stomach growled and I couldn’t fight the blush that bloomed on my face. The only good thing was that under my daily makeup ritual, it was probably hard to tell.
“Did you not eat?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No. I was waiting for the day to be over in case you needed anything.”
The smallest of smiles appeared on his face and it was so brief that I almost questioned whether I’d seen it at all. “I’ll order us something. What are you eating these days.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “Or I suppose I should ask what are you not eating?”
I smiled. He remembered that I was a vegan. He may have considered it a slip up, but to me, it showed he cared in some small way.
“Still not eating anything that had a brain.”
“So worms are on the menu?”
“Pretty sure they have brains,” I remarked.
“Damn. I’m going to need to rethink a few of my insults then,” Silas said, quite seriously. “Alright. Nothing with brains.” He stood and left the room and I couldn’t help but watch his retreating form. He seemed so calm and in control around me, despite what had happened between us a week earlier.
I, on the other hand, couldn’t stop thinking about how good his lips felt on mine and how sinful his fingers felt inside of me. I wanted to experience more from him, while at the same time I knew I shouldn’t.
Silas was like secondhand smoke for a former smoker. I breathed him in and his toxins swirled inside of me, reigniting the desire for him that I’d tried desperately to shove out of my system. His smell was reminiscent and all-consuming and it took everything in my power to keep away from him.
It’d always been like this for me, though. I crossed lines for Silas that weren’t rational and bordered on insane. I still couldn’t bring myself to admit to him what had happened to me when I’d moved back to the city. I knew it was a ticking time bomb, waiting for the perfect moment to explode guilt and betrayal over the both of us. But I couldn’t face it right now. So, I added it to the many things related to Silas that were buried beneath the ashes of our friendship.
“I hope you like Thai food,” he said as he strolled back into my office.
“I love it.”
He gave me a nod before scrunching his face at the growing stack of papers on the printer. I couldn’t help but laugh.
“I see your aversion to work hasn’t changed after all these years.”
“I don’t have an aversion to work. I have an aversion to stupidity and that’s a rather large pile of it,” he said dryly.
“What’s this all about, anyways?” I asked. I had a feeling I was going to become intimately acquainted with the situation over the course of the weekend, but for the most part, I was going in blind.
Silas rolled his eyes. “As far as I understand it, the IRS has decided to take a closer look at my offshore holdings to make sure I’m accurately reporting income and paying it forward to Uncle Sam.”
My heart stuttered in my chest momentarily. “Is this the first time something like this has happened to you?” The question came out rushed and a bit frantic.
Silas considered me for a moment before shaking his head. “No. I’ve been audited many times. When you make what I do, mostly passively, it’s a given.”
I suppressed a sigh of relief at his response. I knew I was being hypersensitive about the situation, but this was the very reason I’d tried to keep away from Silas for as long as I did. I was afraid that my actions would invite trouble for him.
Scratch that—I was told my actions would create trouble for him.
I shook the thoughts from my head, trying to shove the anxiety and doubt that seemed intent on coming to the surface back down. Things had been quiet for over five years. There was no reason to think any of that was going to change. If anything, past threats were probably forgotten by now.
“Although,” Silas added and my heart sunk, “I’ve never encountered an audit quite like this. What, with an interview and all that.” He arched a slender eyebrow at me. “You seem irrationally flustered by all of this.”
Nailed it.
I waved a hand in front of my face in defense. “No, no. I’m just nervous about making sure we can get through all of this so you’re well prepared.”
His eyebrow didn’t drop but he nodded his head in silent acceptance.
The printer squealed and I jumped. Silas seemed amused by my response and I knew I needed to get control of my emotions. Nothing was wrong. Everything was fine. This situation was entirely normal and had nothing to do with me.
I stood up and made my way to the large stack of documents it had spit out. They were so hot they almost burned me and I grasped them at the edges before bringing them to the center of the room and sitting down on the floor with them.
“What are you doing?” Silas asked as I reached behind me to grab a stapler off my desk.
“Sorting the documents, what’s it look like?”
“Why are you on the floor? I mean, I’m not complaining,” he drawled, “but there’s a reason you’ve got a five thousand dollar desk in the room.”
I rolled my eyes at him and shook my head. Leave it to Silas to spend an exorbitant amount on a flat surface. “This is a lot of paper, Si. I’m going to need to spread it all out to really see what we’re working with.”
His nickname slipped past my lips and I realized I was sliding right back into my old routine with him and I needed to be careful. Silas had a way of tearing through my defenses with me entirely unaware. I didn’t know if it was something about me and the way I was hopelessly drawn to his cold center that left me burned by his hot edges or if he had this effect on everyone. Either way, I’d been burned before and I knew I needed to be careful around him.
“Alright, Sky. I trust you,” he said softly and my heart clenched in my chest. Yeah, he seriously knew how to penetrate my defenses.
We sat in silence in the office for a while, him scrolling through his phone to make sure he hadn’t missed anything and me organizing and stapling documents together and placing them into various piles based on their subject matter. The silence would have almost been comfortable if it weren’t for the fact that my mind kept revisiting our encounter the week before.
I stole glances at him every so often and I just couldn’t understand why he seemed so unfazed by everything. If anything, it seemed as if he’d forgotten about the entire incident. Was he just toying with me? Did he just want to hear me admit that I belonged to him out of some weird alpha-male possessiveness trait so he could tick the box and move on? Not understanding his motivations frustrated me to no end and my mind reeled as it tried to figure the situation out.
“Sky, if you keep looking at me like that, I am going to come over there and finish what I started last week,” he said in an even voice without looking up from his phone.
My breath caught in my throat and I tried to respond but tripped all over my words. “Don’t be silly,” I finally managed to say. It was a dumb thing to say. Why did I totally lose my bearings around him?
He put his phone down and I could hear his exhale. The sound filled the room, seeping into my chest and knocking down another layer of my defenses without me even noticing.
“What’s silly is you denying the very thing you know you want,” he said to me. He leaned forward, his elbows resting against his knees and he fixed me with that intense stare of his. I turned to look at him but I shouldn’t have. My eyes locked with his and I was helpless to look away. I became acutely aware of his cologne filling my lungs, but I was stuck in a burning house and there was no way to not inhale the smoke.
His hand reached out and wrapped firmly around the back of my neck and I let it. His thumb danced across my red stained lips and I closed my eyes briefly as shivers coursed through my body. “There’s no reason to fight it, Sky.” His voice was smooth and washed over me. “Just admit what we both know is true and I’ll give it to you.”
My eyelids fluttered open, my lashes coated in heavy black mascara. “I don’t belong to anyone, Silas.” I didn’t know if it was because I’d been hurt so badly in the past or because too many people had tried to take advantage of me in my life, but I didn’t trust Silas. At least not with my heart.
It was a shame really, considering he already had it.
It put me in a precarious situation.
His hand retreated and I felt the loss of him instantly. “Shame,” he murmured under his breath before picking his phone back up, looking entirely undisturbed.
I wanted to scream in frustration, but I knew that was what he wanted. Silas excelled at pushing people right to the edge and then claiming they were the ones that had decided to throw themselves overboard. I wasn’t going to let him win this game. I didn’t even want to play.
The buzzer rang, indicating someone was asking for permission to enter and Silas stood. “That should be the receptionist with the food,” he said before sweeping out of the room, the papers ruffling slightly in his wake.
When I felt like he was far enough away, I leaned back on my hands, looked up at the ceiling and tried to take a calming breath. My ten second reset seemed to work and I returned to sorting through the pages.
A letter from the IRS caught my eye and I scanned it over while furrowing my brows. I was the furthest thing from an office professional, having gone to school for acting and failed, but even I could tell that something was up. I stood, brushed the lint from the carpet that clung to my navy blue pants and walked into the kitchen with the letter.
“Hey Silas, I think I found something interesting,” I started to say but the words died on my lips.
He had the downstairs receptionist mostly caged against the elevator doors. She was in her mid-twenties and had the most beautiful tanned skin and dark brown hair. She was the complete opposite of me and I was very aware of it. His forearm was pressed against the metal above her and he was leaning ever so slightly into her space. They weren’t touching, but the tension was there as he whispered something into her ear and she giggled like a school girl.
A wave of jealousy engulfed me. Suddenly, I felt like I was seventeen, standing outside the entrance to his patio, watching him with the gold-dress-girl all over again. I had no rights to Silas. In fact, I’d completely rejected his advances just moments before. But that didn’t stop the green snake that lived inside me from waking up to wrap itself around my heart.
“Am I interrupting something?” I asked harshly. The sharpness of my voice bounced against the cold edges of the apartment and the girl startled. Silas seemed entirely unconcerned and didn’t move from where he was standing.
“We were just,” the girl started to say.
“Thank you for bringing up the food, Rachel,” I said bitingly. I strode forward, all but pushing Silas out of the way as I grabbed the bag of food the girl was holding and pushed the button for the elevator. “You can go now.”
She stepped inside and I let the doors close on her without saying another word. Silas snatched the bag of food out of my hands with an amused chuckle and made his way over to the kitchen. He set it on the quartz countertop of the island and watched me with a twinkle in his eyes as I performed a walk of shame to where he was standing.
I tugged the bag out of his hands and began to unpack the plastic containers. He leaned against the countertop and crossed his arms, the corner of his lips quirking up into an annoyingly smug smile. “What’s got your panties in a wad?” he asked.
I scowled at him. “The fact that we’ve got a ton of reading to get through to make sure you don’t end up paying massive fines or worse, but you’d rather spend your time flirting with the staff—in my own apartment, I might add.”
“Jealous?” His eyes twinkled with mischief.
“Irritated,” I responded back, not trusting myself to look up.
Note to self: always mind your surroundings when around Silas.
I gasped as I felt his form surround me as his hands pressed into the countertop on either side of me. His lips ghosted against my neck and shivers wracked my body. I tried to continue unpacking our food, but I suddenly seemed unable to get a plastic lid off a base. My fingers slipped against their task as his lips continued to dance above my skin, making their way to my ear.
“This weekend could be so much more enjoyable, Sky. Just give me what I want and I’ll give you what you obviously need.”
His voice washed over me and I pressed my palms into the cold stone to try and help calm myself down. Everything inside of me wanted to turn around, say what I already knew was true and let Silas take me the way I’d always wanted him to.
But a small piece of me, the one that had quite literally watched our friendship burn to ashes, reminded me that he was too dangerous, too damaged, and too cold.
“We don’t work together, Si,” I whispered back. “You know that.”
“I don’t know that,” he said, his lips brushing against my ear as he whispered into my ear. “Because you’ve never given us a chance.”
“You don’t want me. You just want a new toy you can play with.”
His hand trailed up my arm and my body shuddered as my desire for him coursed through me before settling between my thighs. His fingers brushed my silvery hair to the side, exposing the intricate and colorful flowers that were inked into my neck.
We were such opposites. I wore my insecurities in the form of visible ink all over my body whereas my insides were generally clean. Silas was pristine on the outside, but I knew his insides were more colorful than even my exterior.
“I’ve had toys, Skyler,” he husked before his teeth grazed my earlobe. “While you’d be fun to play with, you’re the furthest thing from a toy.”
His actions became bolder because I wasn’t pushing him away. I could feel his lips press into my neck now, moving against my skin, setting my body alight with fire.
“Just admit it, Sky,” he said as his hand wrapped around the front of my body. His fingers crawled up my form, ghosting over my breasts to press lightly against my neck. I let my head fall back into him and he began sucking on the permanent flowers in my skin.
“Why? Why do you need me to say it?” It was a legitimate question that my more logical side needed an answer to. I’d had a few sexual partners in my lifetime and none of them had ever asked me to admit I belonged to them before they would touch me.
His fingers tightened against my neck and my body zinged with desire. He was holding me so his lips pressed into my ear. “Because you ran from me and because you never came back. When I have you, and I will have you, I want you to know just who you belong to.” His other hand left the counter and slipped down my pants, cupping my sex over my panties. “Once I slip my cock into this wet pussy, I don’t want anyone else having it. It will be mine to fuck, finger and feast on from then on.”
My sex clenched at his words and I knew he felt it because that cocky smirk of his was pressing into my neck. “I know you want this, Sky. Stop denying us.”
“There is no us,” I managed to say breathlessly.
“You were always so smart, so stunning,” he whispered against my skin. “And yet, so stupid.”
His entire body moved away from mine and I shivered at the loss of him. He strode over to the refrigerator and pulled a bottle of white wine from the wine rack. “Drink?” he asked, holding up the bottle like his hands hadn’t just been down my pants.
I nodded my head, not trusting myself to speak. I was definitely going to need a drink to get through this weekend.
