by M. S. Parker
“But there were free people of color, even back then,” I pointed out. “And the Adamses were free. They owned that land, and your people took it from them.”
Clancy gave me one of those small, condescending smiles that always made me want to hurt someone. “Don’t you know that history is more about who does the tellin’ than the facts?”
“Except we have proof of the facts,” Bradyn said.
“What do you have?” Clancy narrowed his eyes at his son. “Some old papers with writin’ that’s barely readable? Letters?”
Bradyn’s expression didn’t change, and I hoped mine didn’t either. We hadn’t mentioned what our evidence was. It wasn’t a full confession, but it was something.
“Now, why don’t the two of you stop worryin’ about things that happened in the past and worry about your futures. Ya’ll need to stop diggin’ in stuff that don’t concern you.”
I wasn’t a cop or a psychologist, but his accent getting thicker by the second made me think he was a lot more emotional than he was letting on.
“Why don’t you let Nyx and I decide what’s worth lookin’ into.”
“Ya’ll both listen to me now, even if you never did before.” Clancy’s face hardened. “It’d be best for you to go back home, missy. Stickin’ your nose in our business, likely it’ll get bit off. And you, boy, it ain’t gonna matter that we’re blood.”
Bradyn stared at his father, and I knew he’d just lost the last little bit of hope he’d had of his father’s innocence. Instead of making him say the last thing we’d agreed to tell Clancy before we left, I stepped up to do it myself.
“Look, I don’t give a shit who you are, but I do give a shit about your son and your grandkids. Do the right thing and come forward with all of this. We’re giving you forty-eight hours to get with your lawyers and figure out how you want to make things right.”
Clancy glared at me. “I don’t have to put up with this shit from you. Get the hell outta my house.”
“We’re going.” Bradyn’s voice was tight but controlled. He took my hand, and we headed for the door.
Before I stepped out of the study, I turned around to offer one last comment. “By the way, I’m not a religious person, but I think God might have a thing or two to say about you using His name the way you do.”
I had a moment’s pleasure at seeing Clancy’s jaw drop, and then Bradyn and I were hurrying down the hall toward the front door. I really hoped Clancy did the right thing because, if he didn’t, this was going to get even uglier, and that wasn’t something I wanted to see.
Thirty-Two
Bradyn
Nyx followed me into my cabin without either of us talking about it. The entire ride back to the ranch had been silent, and I didn’t know if it was because Nyx was trying to give me space or because she needed to think. Either way, I was grateful for her being there. I wasn’t ready to be alone yet.
Everything had gone the way I’d thought it would, but that didn’t make it any easier to accept. Even him disinheriting me hadn’t hurt as much as this. Maybe it was because I’d always been used to him trying to control me with money. Maybe it was because I hadn’t believed he’d do something that could’ve easily turned violent. Or maybe it was just that he’d made other people a part of it.
“Come with me,” Nyx said suddenly.
She took my hand and led me to the couch. As I sat, she bent down and took off my shoes and socks, setting them aside. My eyes followed her as she stood and walked across the room. She disappeared into the bedroom for a minute and then came back out with the only tie I owned.
“You need to get out of your head.” She moved around to the back of the couch. “No thinking. Just feeling.”
I closed my eyes as she tied the make-shift blindfold, acknowledging that she was in charge. Being dominated wasn’t what made my stomach flip. It was the realization that she wasn’t taking the Dominant role because she felt the need to be in control right now. She was doing it because she wanted to take care of me. I suspected it was probably the first time she’d taken on the Dominant role for that reason, and the importance of this moment wasn’t lost on me.
I just hoped I deserved it.
Her fingers moved down the front of my shirt, and the cotton moved against my skin. I realized she was taking off my shirt a couple seconds before she pushed it off my arms.
“Tell me what you want.” Her voice was as soft as her touch. “Tell me what you need.”
“Are you topping from the bottom now?” I quipped.
Her finger touched my lips, then traced the bottom one. “Tell. Me. What. You. Want.”
I flicked my tongue out, and the tip touched against the pad of her finger. “Touch me. Taste me.”
She moved back, but I could still feel her eyes on me. I’d never been blindfolded during sex before, so I didn’t know if my awareness of her was simply due to the lack of one of my senses, but I didn’t think that was it. There was just something about her that drew me like a magnet. Like I could find her anywhere.
The moment her hands met my chest, a shiver ran through me. Her legs nudged my knees, and I parted them. She shifted, and I registered a change of position. She was kneeling now, I thought. Her hands went to my knees, then slid up my thighs.
Hot air ghosted across my belly. “Is this what you want, Bradyn?” Soft lips pressed against my skin, and I broke out in goosebumps. Then her tongue traced a circle around my belly button, and I gasped. “Is this the touching and the tasting you want?”
“Yes.” The word was shaky, but I was too focused on sensation to care what I sounded like. “More. Please.”
Her hands ran up my sides, fingers leisurely exploring every muscle, running along my ribs. Kisses went from my belly button up to my pecs. Silky hair slid over my skin, the light touch making me squirm. Then her teeth fastened onto my nipple, and I yelped in surprise. She chuckled just before her tongue soothed the sting.
“Do you want my teeth on you?” she asked. “Do you want me to mark you?”
“Fuck, yes.”
She answered with a bite to the muscle next to my nipple. I started to reach for her, but she grabbed my wrists and pushed them back down.
“Speak, don’t touch.”
I growled and got another bite for my troubles. One of her hands moved to my crotch, cupping me through my pants, and I moaned. Her mouth moved over my chest, licking and biting as her hand squeezed and massaged my thickening cock.
“Firebird,” I groaned. I made my hands into fists to keep from grabbing her.
“Tell me what you need.”
“More. I need more.”
Her lips pressed against mine. “More what? Tell me.”
“Just more,” I demanded.
She laughed, her mouth moving to my ear. “My mouth? Is that what you want? All that wet heat around you, sucking your cock, taking it as deep as I can. Licking you like you’re a damn popsicle.”
“Fuck, Nyx.” My heart felt like it was going to pound through my chest.
“Or is it my pussy you want?” She nipped at my earlobe. “You feel so fucking good inside me. Stretching me, filling me.” She shuddered. “I can almost come just from remembering what it’s like to fuck you.”
She let go of my cock, and my hips rocked up instinctively.
“Do you want me to unzip you? Lower myself onto that huge dick of yours and ride you until we both can’t see straight. Is that what you want?”
“Fuck, yes,” I groaned.
“Then tell me.” She bit my jaw.
“Ride me.” I finally managed to get the words out.
“Condom?”
Condom? Why the hell would I care? Right…protection.
“Bedside table.”
I was tempted to take the blindfold off when she left, but I behaved myself, mostly because I loved that she wanted to take care of me. I’d analyze exactly what that meant at a later point. Right now, I just wanted to be buried as deep as possible inside my
firebird.
“I’m surprised you don’t have your cock out already.”
I laughed. “I would’ve if I wasn’t worried about hurting myself. Unzipping when you’re hard is difficult enough. Adding blind into the mix just makes it dangerous.”
“I’ll take care of that then.”
Her hands moved over me, and in a quick minute, she had me unzipped, out, and was rolling on the condom. The couch dipped on either side of my hips, and I could feel the heat from her body. Then she was sinking down onto me, and nothing else mattered.
Her hands settled on my shoulders, and she gave a little sigh as she settled on my lap, like that was the only place she wanted to be. I knew it was the only place I wanted to be.
“Can I touch you now?” I asked.
She kissed the corner of my mouth. “Tell me.”
“I want to touch you.”
“Do it.”
I put my hands on her knees and then slid them up to her hips. “Fuck me, firebird.”
“It’ll be my pleasure.”
Her voice was like liquid sex, all thick and sweet. And then she started to move, and everything was sex and sweet. I wanted to see her, lose myself in her eyes while we danced. Maybe I sounded like some sort of sap, but I wasn’t really in control of my brain at the moment.
“I’m getting close.” Nyx’s voice was breathless. “The taste of you, the feel of you in my hand, had me wet before you were even inside me.”
I didn’t think I could get much harder, but she’d just proven me wrong. I felt like I was going to explode.
“Tell me.” Her nails dug into my bare shoulders, signaling her desperation as much as her voice did.
I didn’t need to ask what she meant. “Come for me, little firebird.”
I used my grip on her hips to pull her down, and at the same time, drove up into her, fusing our bodies together as completely as possible. She cried out, a shudder going through her entire body, and she came.
Passionately, completely, almost violently. Her orgasm triggered my own, and I followed her into that burst of pure pleasure so intense that it was partly pain, where no one but the two of us existed.
Thirty-Three
Nyx
I woke up in Bradyn’s bed, and it was still dark. A glimmer of moonlight showed my phone on the table by the bed, and I reached for it. We’d fallen into bed after we’d come to our senses on the couch, and I was pretty sure we’d passed out about an hour later. Based on the time showing on my screen, we’d been asleep for only a couple hours.
Bradyn had rolled away from me at some point, which made it easier for me to get out of the bed. I didn’t usually wake up in the middle of the night, but once I did, I rarely ever got back to sleep. It was annoying on nights like this when I only woke to go to the bathroom, but I knew how it’d be. Since I wasn’t in my own cabin, and I didn’t want to go outside at the moment, I took my phone with me.
Maybe I’d been through enough these past few days that I’d actually doze, though I doubted it.
When I went into the living room, I sat on the couch – the opposite end from where Bradyn and I had fucked earlier tonight – and pulled up my email. At least I could get some work done while I waited. What I was waiting for, I didn’t know. I could’ve gone back to my cabin if I really wanted to, no matter what time of night it was. I just still wanted to be here.
As I deleted the last spam email, I got an alert that another email had come in. Hoping for a case but expecting more of the same junk, I opened it.
I made it past the first line before what I was reading actually registered, and then I went completely numb.
Delia,
I heard you changed your name, but after all that’s happened between us, I don’t deserve to use your new one. I’m writing to tell you how sorry I am. This apology is a long time coming, and I’m ashamed that I didn’t believe you. I should have. I’m your sister, and I should have believed you.
So much has happened. I know that you were telling the truth about what Art did to you, what he planned to do to me. It’s too long a story for me to tell it all in an email, but I want you to hear it. I want to beg for your forgiveness in person. I’m here in Savannah, and I want to meet with you.
Your sister,
Dara
I found myself reading the email for the third time without even realizing it. It was like my eyes had to keep going back over each word just to prove that it was real.
I hadn’t spoken to Dara since that night. Like our mother, she’d called me a liar and insisted that Art had never hurt her and would’ve never hurt me. She’d blamed me for ruining our lives. I’d held on to hope for years, but by the time I’d left juvie, I’d lost it. Kaimi had become my sister. Not the same as Dara, but in some ways, better, because the sister I’d chosen had also chosen me. Kaimi had believed me from the first time I’d told her my story. She’d accepted it the way I’d wanted Dara to.
But something had changed.
With Ambrose involved with my case, it made sense that Dara could’ve tracked me down, but it didn’t explain the why. And with this many years having passed, I needed to know the why. If there was any hope of us moving past what’d torn us apart, I needed to know what had finally convinced Dara of the truth.
I sent a short reply.
I’ll meet you at the Cotton Exchange tomorrow, Wednesday.
I couldn’t bring myself to say anything more. I’d already risked my heart by opening up to Bradyn. I was going to be a lot more cautious when it came to my sister. I’d wait until I spoke to her before making any decisions about whether or not I wanted her in my life. At the very least, I could get the closure with her I’d never gotten with our mother.
Thirty-Four
Bradyn
I knew something was off the moment I woke up, but it took me a minute longer to figure out what it was.
I was alone in my bed.
Granted, that wasn’t an entirely uncommon occurrence, but Nyx had been here when I’d fallen asleep. Or, more accurately, passed out.
Great sex was weird in that, sometimes, it made you feel energized, and sometimes, you completely lost consciousness. Last night, it had been the latter. We’d tumbled into bed, had sex again, and then it was lights out.
Judging by how much I needed to pee, I hadn’t gotten up at all, and my stiff muscles said I’d barely even moved. If I’d been alone last night, I doubted I would’ve gotten any sleep at all. Honestly, I doubted if any other woman would’ve been able to make me forget as completely as Nyx did.
After the incident with Antoinette and my father, I’d become…cautious. Not exactly jaded, but I definitely didn’t trust as quickly as I once had. This thing with Nyx, though, it’d taken me by surprise. Being with her felt natural in a way nothing else ever had. Not easy, exactly, because relationships were work. The ones worth having anyway. But it didn’t feel forced with her.
The closest comparison I could think of was how some people talked about their talents or careers. Like the first time a true musician picked up the instrument they were meant to play. Or how an athlete might feel when they picked up a ball or racket or club.
I loved making films, and I considered it an important field. I didn’t really want to do anything else. But it still hadn’t been that sort of click where everything suddenly made sense.
Being with Nyx had.
I couldn’t think of any other way to describe it. And even if I wasn’t ready to actually call it love, I knew that was the direction we were going. If nothing else got in our way, we’d be there sooner rather than later, and the thought didn’t scare me at all.
When I came out of the bathroom, I was surprised to find the kitchen empty too. I’d assumed that she’d woken up and decided to make breakfast, even if it was just for herself. It was the middle of the week, and we both had work to do. My first lesson wasn’t until one o’clock, though, so I had a little time to kill.
My stomach growled, reminding me that
I hadn’t eaten dinner yesterday. Add in the stress I’d been under, and how many calories I’d burned with Nyx last night, it was no wonder I felt like making a huge ham and cheese omelet.
Once I finished that, I’d head to the house and see if my dad had made any decisions. It wasn’t even yet twenty-four hours since we’d given him the ultimatum, but a stop by could make him realize that Nyx and I weren’t going to just back away.
My plan for the morning set, I headed to the fridge to get what I needed for breakfast. There, on the door, was a note. I hadn’t really expected Nyx to leave one, but I was glad she had. It meant she’d been thinking of me, and I was just insecure enough to need that reassurance. I had all the confidence in the world when it came to the physical stuff, but the emotional…I wasn’t so sure.
The note was brief, but the fact that it was there was what mattered.
Bradyn, I feel like a bit of an ass for leaving while you’re still sleeping, but I have something to take care of, and it’s on a bit of a timetable. I’ll see you later. - N
I was curious about whether or not the errand had to do with Nyx’s case, but it was a mild curiosity. Her case and my film shared a lot, but that didn’t mean they shared everything. There would be things she needed to find that had nothing to do with me or my family, and I wouldn’t ask her to share them just because we’d collaborated in other areas.
It was strange how quiet it was. Nyx wasn’t exactly talkative, but there was something to be said for the simple presence of another person. I’d never noticed it before, but I had a feeling that no matter how things went with Nyx, I’d never look at being alone the same way again.
I shook my head and settled in to eat my eggs. No more deep thoughts over breakfast. Stick with the plan. Eat. Go see my father. Hope I felt less like punching him than I had when I’d left yesterday.
That was doubtful, but I was trying to be optimistic.
