Brightly Burning Bridges by Ivy Wild
I satopposite him in the large soaking tub. Soft Lo-Fi music spilled out of the ceiling’s inset speakers and our legs tangled together as we met each other’s gaze. I’d never felt like an equal to Silas. Never.
He was richer.
He was more attractive.
He was more confident.
He was more of everything and I always felt less than him.
But, sitting across from him, staring into his intense, dark brown gaze, having experienced his jealousy, his lust, his love first-hand, I finally felt like I measured up.
I wasn’t just a little girl, tucking herself close to the walls, hoping people wouldn’t notice me.
Silas had never let me be that girl, anyways. He criticized me for hiding and slathered my locker with white paint and feathers, just to make sure everyone knew who I was.
I never realized it before, but he wanted me to be his equal. But he wasn’t going to do it for me. He wanted me to be the one to realize it and stand tall.
Silas walked people right up to the edge, but always let them take the last steps over that cliff face. I just hadn’t realized he’d do it to me, and that he was waiting for me at the bottom.
His toes brushed against my thigh, bringing me back to the present. The way he was looking at me, drinking me in, had my body heating up in nervous anticipation.
I knew I needed to tell him everything that had happened to me during college and after. And that made me nervous.
Would he judge me?
Would he think what I’d done was dumb?
Would he even appreciate it?
I had so many questions swirling in my mind. I never thought I would have to face what happened.
“Talk, Sky,” he said in a voice that made me shiver, despite the heat of the bath. He reached over to grab his pants off the vanity behind him and I watched as he fished something out of his pocket. He produced a joint and a lighter and my eyes widened.
“Really, Si?” I was laughing, actually. Leave it to Silas to pull a joint out in the middle of a moment like this. He was just like he always was, and it put me instantly at ease.
He shrugged and lit up. “By the looks of it, you could use a drag, too. Now talk. I’d like to hear more about the part where he never touched you.”
I shook my head, but couldn’t stop the smile that crept up on my lips. “I’m sorry I lied to you.”
“Why did you?” he asked, letting a ring of smoke escape his mouth.
I twisted my lips, too embarrassed to tell him the truth.
“Talk, Sky.”
I sighed. “I didn’t think it mattered, considering how easily you told him you’d never speak to me again.”
“Obviously bullshitting, but continue.”
His words made my heart clench. I’d hoped he’d been lying when he said what he’d said to Vartan, but Silas’ mask was so well-rehearsed, not even I could always tell what was a lie and what was the truth.
“I just wanted to experience you,” I finally admitted. “The real you. I wanted you as broken as I felt. It wasn’t fair and it wasn’t right, but,” I shrugged, “it’s how I felt.”
I watched him, waiting for him to give me any indication of what he was thinking. The smallest of smirks rested on his lips, but this one looked real. He sat up, the water moving around me and handed me the joint.
He laid back down and closed his eyes. “Why’d you do it, Skyler? Of all the people to get fucking engaged to, why’d it have to be him?”
I took a drag on the joint. Whenever I thought of Silas, in the rare instances where I thought about how I would tell him what I’d done for him, it never played out in my mind like this.
I’d imagined myself screaming it to him.
I’d imagined myself crying it to him.
I’d never imagined myself sitting across from him, calm, in control, and on equal ground. The song February by Jay-Lounge started playing, giving me the perfect soundtrack to my sad story.
“It was after I dropped out of acting school. I had to move back to the city because I had nowhere else to go. I stayed with my mom for a bit before I could get myself my own place. It was a little over a month in to moving back that I ran into Vartan after getting off a shift at the Pancake.”
Silas stayed quiet, his head back, his eyes closed as he drank in my words.
“He was nice and charming and it took me completely off guard. He asked to take me on a date and I said yes.”
I waited for his reaction, but still nothing, so I continued.
“It was a lovely evening and I was just happy to be around somebody. You probably don’t know what it’s like, Silas, because you’ve always had your looks. People have always wanted to be around you. But people like me crave friendship and human companionship. You don’t know how lonely it is until it’s taken from you. It’s even lonelier when you never had it in the first place.”
I sighed heavily, knowing how painful it would be to relive the next part.
“So, I invited him upstairs to my loft. He shut the door behind us, cornered me. Told me he had information on you that could get you put away for life and ruin your name. Told me that if I didn’t agree to marry him, he’d make sure he saw you behind bars.”
I took a drag on the joint, waiting for the tears to come, but they didn’t. Silas sat up and looked at me, his eyes wide with disbelief.
“He—you—,” he stumbled over his words. “Why?”
I smiled sadly. “He said that you loved me. That you still loved me. And that he wanted to take something from you that would hurt you, and that thing was me. So, I had a choice to make. See you go to prison for the rest of your life, or break your heart. I chose the latter.” I swallowed heavily before I said the next words. “I never realized just how much I loved you until the thought of losing you—really losing you—became real. I loved you, even when you gave me a million reasons not to.”
Silas’ eyes were moist with unshed tears. I’d only ever seen him like this once before.
“He never—you never—I never knew,” he finally managed to say.
I took another drag on the joint before handing it back to him. He doused it in the tub and let it fall to the floor.
“He dragged it out for a year, until I finally broke. He wasn’t doing anything, which made me think that he’d been bluffing. I went to tell him as much, that I couldn’t be part of his game anymore, that I didn’t believe him and that even if I did, that you were smarter—you’d never let something like that happen to you.” I shrugged. “He let me go, but he told me I’d regret it.”
“Is that why you stayed away from me?” Silas asked.
I shook my head. “Maybe? I never meant to ignore you, but it just sort of happened. I guess I always thought that, even with the bridge gone, you’d find a way to cross the water and come get me.” I looked down, a sad smile on my lips. “Why didn’t you?”
I felt him reach for me. His legs wrapped around me, pulling me closer to him until I was flush against him. He held me tightly in his arms and I sighed at the feeling of him.
“I wanted to. I always wanted to, but I knew I didn’t deserve you. I never meant to burn down that bridge, Sky. I knew you loved that place. I may be missing a heart, but even I’m not that heartless. I never chased you because, deep down, I thought you were better off without me. That you’d find someone who loved you, who deserved you, someone who would care for you.
“I watched you run away that day and then I sat there and watched that bridge burn and I knew that if I went after you, if you stayed with me, I’d only end up hurting you again.
“I made a vow that day on those ashes that I wouldn’t chase you, that I’d only have you if you wanted it. It’s the only way I’d ever be able to live with myself. And it’s what kept me away for as long as it did. I buried that vow so deep that it became a part of me. I was never supposed to see you again.”
He pulled back and his dark eyes swam with tears. “You say you’re the victim of a series of accidents, Skyler, but I didn’t want to just be your accident. I wanted to be your choice.”
I brushed gentle fingers across his cheek and he leaned into my touch. “I don’t feel like a victim anymore,” I said softly. “That day at the party, I’d ducked into the library after seeing you for the first time. I thought maybe I could see you better from the window, before I’d gotten distracted by all the books. I’d agreed to your homework arrangement because I wanted to be around you. You were never an accident, Si. You were always my choice.”
She saidit and I thought I was having a heart attack. My chest ached and I clutched at it as I panted. She pulled back from me in concern as I tried to catch my breath.
“Silas, oh my god, what is it?” she exclaimed.
“Just my heart, angel,” I whispered back, still pressing my palm into my beating chest.
She tugged at me and I let her lift my head so I was staring into her perfectly pale purple eyes. “Are you okay?”
I smiled.
And it was a real fucking smile.
I felt it, all the way to my core. An invisible energy filled me and I knew I looked like a pussy, but tears spilled out of my eyes as I looked at her.
My heart beat fast.
So fucking fast.
For her.
For us.
“Nah,” I said. “I’m so far past ‘okay.’”
She shook her head. Worry and confusion were written on her features and I drank her in before I couldn’t stop myself. I moved forward, capturing her lips and she let me.
She gave herself to me.
No—
—she chose to be with me.
I didn’t deserve her.
She knew it, too.
But shit like that doesn’t matter when you love somebody.
I felt like the deer her and her mom almost hit that night. Life had hit me in the ass and hard. For this last decade, I’d hobbled around.
In pain.
In fear.
In despair.
Anyone else would have shot me.
Maybe they would have even said they were putting me out of my misery.
Who knows, maybe they would have been right.
But, Skyler could see past the pain, the fear, the despair.
I knew she still thought about that deer every night.
She loved it the way she loved me.
She was so obviously better, but she didn’t think so.
She was the only person in this world who could love something so broken.
“So High” by Ghost Loft started playing and fuck if it wasn’t just perfect.
I managedto get us from the tub to the bed without slipping on the wet tile floor. Our bodies were still drenched in water as I laid her down on the sheets, but neither one of us seemed to care.
After a decade of fire and ash, the water was what we needed.
I climbed on top of her as she reached up for me. Our bodies were slick against one another and she just felt right.
“I’m going to explore every inch of you,” I whispered against her ear, tugging on her lobe gently. “Every curve, every mark, every bit of ink that’s a part of you now. I want to know all of it, all of you.”
Our tears mingled with the wetness of our bodies as I kissed a line down her jaw. She was perfect and she was mine.
Flowers that burst with colors cascaded down the sides of her body and I followed their path with my tongue. Every crease, every crevice, every line, I explored, ghosting over them first with my fingers, then with my tongue.
Her nipples were pale and perfect and I sucked each in turn, nipping at the sensitive skin, spurred on by her gasps of pleasure. My hands roamed her thighs, her stomach, her breasts. I wasn’t going to leave any bit of skin untouched. I wanted it all.
She was moaning my name and I was so fucking rock hard for her.
I moved down and my breath hovered over the apex to her thighs. The first time I’d plunged my fingers into her heat, I knew I’d do anything in my power to keep her mine and mine alone. Her lips were pale and beautiful like the rest of her and she looked down at me with a mix of nervous anticipation.
My finger moved against her clit in slow circles, driving her crazy and denying her what she really wanted. “Say it, Sky,” I whispered.
“Yours, Si. I’m all yours,” she moaned.
“Fuck yes.”
Her words, the way she said them immediately, the way she was giving everything to me right now, her slick body moving against my hands, her hips jerking up in search of her release, the one I was about to give her, all of it was something I’d only dreamed of having.
My lips descended on her core, my tongue moving in small circles against her clit. Our moans bounced off the walls as I devoured her, tasting the most intimate part of herself.
I hated going down on girls. But Skyler wasn’t just some girl. She was my every-fucking-thing and I would willingly eat her pussy for breakfast, lunch, dinner and even fucking fourth meal if she let me.
She always said she lacked color—that she was pale and plain.
Maybe she couldn’t see it from her vantage point.
But from where I was currently seated, with my head firmly between her thighs, devouring her pussy like it was my favorite fucking snack, she was anything but colorless.
Her skin was flush with desire and every time her body moved in search of the high I was about to give her, she broke apart rays of bright white light, throwing the most beautiful rainbows against the walls.
She never understood it, but I did. Her soul was the prism that split the purest light into its component parts. She was beautiful and devastating all in one.
“Silas,” she moaned, her hands coming down to fist in my hair. I knew she was close, I could feel it, and I moved my tongue from her clit to her entrance, plunging inside of her to taste her depths.
“Yes, Silas, God, yes,” she groaned. Her walls began to pulse as her body tightened, her beautiful pale skin glistening in the low light of the room. I’d watched a lot of women come in my day, whether in porn or in person, and none of them, not a single fucking one, held a candle to Sky.
I was going to make her tape record this shit, because I knew I was going to want to see it over and over and over again.
“I love you,” she breathed out as her body collapsed back into the embrace of the sheets and I almost came at her words.
I moved back up her body, laying behind her and pulling her against me. I wrapped one arm around her neck, using my hand to press her lips against mine. She moaned and worked her lips over mine and I pulled back briefly enough to whisper filthy things in her ear as my other hand played against her clit, warming her back up slowly.
“You taste like heaven,” I whispered against her ear and she shivered. “And I’m the lucky devil that gets to fuck an angel.”
She giggled, but the sounds turned into a moan as I continued to work her. “Come on, Sky. Taste yourself on me,” I husked.
“Let me suck you, Si,” she groaned against my lips and fuck if I didn’t almost come again. She was making this whole lasting thing very difficult.
“No way, angel,” I chuckled. “I won’t be able to resist coming down that pretty throat of yours and I want in this perfect pussy right now.”
She gasped as I wrapped an arm around her leg and pulled her knee to her chest. I teased her entrance, moving my cock against her slick folds until she was begging for it.
“Silas, please,” she moaned.
“Whatever my angel wants,” I said before thrusting firmly into her. Our coupling earlier had been fast and hard, but this time, I wanted to experience her. I wanted to feel my cock moving against her walls, and I wanted to pulse my release into her.
Shit, condom.
“Are you safe?” I whispered against her ear, tugging on her lobe as I began to move.
She half giggled, half moaned, and I knew I needed to make that sound my ring tone.
“Little late for that considering earlier, ahhh,” she gasped as I pushed into her with a bit of extra force.
“Sky, angel.” I nuzzled her ear.
“Yeah,” she finally said. “Just fuck me like the devil you are.”
I didn’t need her to tell me that. I was already snapping my hips against her, reveling in the way her ass felt against me. I captured her lips and pressed my tongue into her mouth. She swirled hers against mine and I definitely regretted not letting her suck me off.
I held myself at bay as long as I could. I knew this encounter was something special, something to be cherished, something neither of us would forget. If I could spend the rest of my life buried in Skyler’s depths, I would.
She was perfect.
And she was mine.
And it was because she wanted me.
The real me.
I threw my head back with a groan of her name and came deep inside of her.
I laid there next to her, my heart beating in time with hers.
For the first time in my life, I felt alive.
