by Anne Jolin
“My mom.” He smiles fondly and it makes my heart swell. “She’s always worrying about me. She copes with the worry by cooking. When we give her grandchildren, she’ll ease up on the frozen dinners.”
I choke on the air in my throat and start to cough. For some reason, when he brought up children last night, it seemed like a faraway reality when, in fact, it seemed much sooner to him.
“You really are a caveman,” I scold.
Once he rounds the counter, he drags my stool towards him, stepping between my legs. “Once I’ve taken care of that piece of shit for good, I will have you barefoot and pregnant in this kitchen.”
I start to talk, but he pulls my bottom lip between his teeth and kisses me until my body and mind give in to his ridiculous, over-the-top statement.
When he finally breaks our kiss, I slap him on the chest. “You can’t keep shutting me up by kissing me, you ass.”
Ignoring my statement, he launches into a new conversation. “Speaking of my mother, I have something I want to ask you.”
Aw, fuck. My palms immediately start to sweat. Parents, other than my own, make me insanely nervous now, ever since the Kyle debacle. Something I haven’t told anyone. Ever. The green of my eyes begins to glaze over, and I reach out to hold on to the countertop.
Strong arms lift me off the stool, and I curl into his chest. After walking a few feet, he settles down onto a couch with me in his lap. I cling to him for a minute or two before the panic subsides and my vision clears.
“Tell me what happened,” is all he says, stroking my hair as I tuck my head into the crook of his neck.
Knowing that it will upset him and he finally seems to have calmed down, I shake my head. “I can’t.”
“Why the hell not?” he rumbles from underneath me.
I breathe in the scent of him and let it wash over me to give me strength. “I don’t want to make you angry.”
The tension coiled around me intensifies. “Fuck,” he growls, running one of his hands through his hair.
I don’t say anything else. I’m desperate to make sure I’m not the cause of any more of his pain. It’s hard enough for him to manage his demons without my shit piling on top of him.
“Beth,” he says softly. “Look at me.”
Lifting my head from its safe place on his shoulder, I stare into his eyes. It’s like looking right into the eye of a tornado—peaceful and terrifying.
“No matter how angry I get, I will never hurt you.”
“I know that,” I rush out defensively. That has nothing to do with my not wanting to tell him.
“Let me finish.”
I nod.
“Listen to me carefully. I won’t lie. If it’s bad, I will get angry, but it is not, nor never will it be, your fault when I do. The rage in me is now solely directed at those who’ve hurt you. I won’t let it happen again, but I need you to tell me what happened. Can you do that?”
“Yes,” I whisper, glancing down into my lap.
Adjusting my position, I lift so I’m straddling him and wrap my arms around his neck before laying my head on his shoulder. It’s designed to help us both. I draw strength from him and he draws comfort from me, which we will both need. He places his hands on me, one at the base of my neck and one just above my ass, and waits patiently for me to be ready.
“He came to see me once…” I start. “Kyle Senior. Kyle Nathaniel Davis the second.” I laugh, but it’s hollow and without humour. “It was a week after the attack. I was still almost always under constant supervision. The only time someone didn’t follow me inside the building was when I had a checkup at my doctor’s office.” I feel the anger starting to roll off his body, although he’s doing his best to contain it, so I tighten my hold around him. “Kai, my brother—he lives in Ontario, so you haven’t met him yet”—I smile briefly to myself—“drove me. He parked two stalls away from the front door to the building. I was safe. Or at least I should have been.”
I take a long, deep breath as I prepare for the final nail in the story’s proverbial coffin. “I was only a few feet from the office door when he yanked me by my hair into the storage room. He was vicious and disgusting, far worse than his son. He held me by the throat, placing his hands in the exact same spots as my bruising like a sick déjà vu or something. He spit venom in my face when he spoke…”
“You’re a lying fucking whore. You spread your legs for my son, begging him to marry you so you could get your hands on his money, and when he was done with you, you couldn’t take it. You’re a filthy slut,” he hisses, his eyes roaming over my body.
Grabbing my breast through my T-shirt, he makes me yelp. The sound must piss him off or scare him because he punches me in the gut. I fight against the tears pooling in my eyes, silently begging him to stop.
“Stay away from my son, you gold-digging cunt. If you come near him again, it will be the last thing you ever do.”
With that, he drops his hand from my throat and exits the storage room.
I don’t even realize I’ve been crying into Brax’s suit jacket as I’ve been recounting the story, but when I come to, I feel the way he’s shaking underneath me. The fury pulsing from him is making me feel sick.
“Beth,” he says with an eerie calm. “I need you to climb off my lap, okay, babe?”
“No,” I beg him. “Please.”
He kisses my hair and slowly starts to stand. I try to cling to him, but he easily pulls me off, setting me down on the sofa. There’s thunder brewing in the air that surrounds him, I watch as he stalks towards the large rock fireplace, where he presses both palms against the mantel and starts to breathe. His shoulders are violently convulsing under his suit jacket, and just as I begin to scramble off the couch, he launches his fist into the rock face.
He doesn’t say a word, just returns to trying to slow his breathing. Whatever the outburst was, though, it’s not enough, because he swiftly sends everything on the mantel crashing down onto the floor. It seems to have only enraged him further, because within seconds, he’s flipped over a small glass table, it too shattering onto the hardwood.
“Brax…” I whisper softly, climbing off the couch as he collapses onto the floor, his head between his knees.
He doesn’t answer me, so I take the opportunity to approach him. Cautious and slow, I kneel in front of his heaving body and cradle his head in my hands. I don’t need to say anything. He soaks up my touch like he’s been starved of it.
When he looks up, my heart breaks in two. The wild in his eyes is back and they are bloodshot.
“I will kill them all,” he promises before pulling me to him.
And I believe it.
It is the sound of the timer on the oven that finally pulls us off the floor. He won’t allow me to bandage his hand, instead he rinses it under the sink and seals the cuts with black tape. We eat quietly at the kitchen table, neither of us feeling the need to speak. He spends close to the next hour beating himself up. It’s obvious and painful to watch.
“Why don’t you go shower?” I suggest. “I’ll clean up from dinner and then we can watch a movie or something?”
He hesitates but eventually gives in. Then he kisses me lightly on the lips before ascending to his bedroom.
Once I’ve located a broom, I spend the next half hour cleaning up the wreckage from my honesty in the living room. The small table was unsalvageable. Same with most of the items from the mantel. I keep what I can and throw out the rest. Some part of me feels like it will be easier for him to move on if he doesn’t have to look at what happened all night.
After grabbing my overnight bag from the mudroom, I slip into yoga pants and Brax’s university hoodie from this morning and then settle onto the couch.
“I like seeing you in my clothes.”
Looking over the back of the couch, I see him leaning against the doorframe. He’s shirtless, his hair is wet and he’s wearing nothing but a pair of pajama pants. The cover-up washed off in the shower, making his black ey
e visible again. I dramatically pat the spot beside me on the sofa. For some reason, it feels important that he comes to me and not vice versa. I know I didn’t hurt him intentionally, but the gut-wrenching feeling inside me doesn’t seem to care.
Upon sitting down beside me, he pulls my legs over his lap and rests his head on the back of the couch. I eye him for a while, waiting to see if he’ll say anything else. When he doesn’t, I turn back to the TV show. We watch in comfortable silence for a while until he finally speaks.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers.
Searching his face with my eyes, I sigh. “I don’t need you to be sorry. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I’m not normal,” he cracks out, dropping his head.
I pull my legs off his lap and sit up on my knees beside him, grabbing his chin with my hand. “This”—I wave my hand around in the space between us—“doesn’t need to happen. The pity party, the blame game, whatever the hell this is—stop it. You knew what would happen when I told you but made me tell you anyway so you could understand me. You knew my confession would rip you apart from the inside out, but you did it anyway. For me. So I don’t care that you broke some glass. I don’t care that you likely broke one of your knuckles on the goddamn fireplace, Braxton. I know you’re terrified of the demons inside you, but I’m not. I love all the dark, ugly corners of your soul that you’re afraid to let anyone see. I love them because they are a part of you, and without them, I’d have never met you. Don’t you see? All the things that would normally drive people apart are what thrust us together. So let it go. I have. And let’s fucking cuddle, okay?”
“Okay,” he says, fighting back a smile.
Pursing my lips, I drop my hand from his face. “What’s with the grin?”
“You said you loved me.”
Holy fucking shit. I did. I said I loved him out loud. I start to back away from him on the couch when he shakes his head, grabbing me by the wrist. “Uhm… I…”
“Too late now, babe. No take-backs.” He grins, pulling me flush against his chest as he lays us down on the sofa. “I’ll take your ‘I love you’ and raise you…” he trails off.
I eye him suspiciously, embarrassment covering my cheeks in a pink hue. “Well, go on. Raise me what?” I sass.
He chuckles. “Who’s the bossy asshole now?”
I gape at him. “You did not just call me an asshole after I said I loved you.”
The humour vacates his face entirely. “Say it again.”
“What? That you’re an asshole?” I quip.
“Tell me you love me.”
Well, fuck. I guess pretending I didn’t say it isn’t going to work. “Braxton Bennett, I love you more than the first sip of coffee in the morning or the smell after it rains. I love you more than I love the smell of puppies. I love you more than I’ve loved anything in my entire life. I am yours.”
I’ve barely finished when his lips devour mine. It’s the kind of kiss he gives me sometimes when I feel like he’s actually kissing my soul.
Pulling away, he rests his forehead on mine. “I love you too, Beth. But more than that, I need you. I crave you. I think about you constantly. You’re in every breath I take, every second that passes, and every beat of my heart. Loving you until the day I die will forever be my greatest accomplishment.”
The tears started falling sometime during his speech, and now, they won’t stop. Smiling at him, I laugh through my crying. “We are entirely too absurd.”
“Why is that, babe?”
I shake my head. Of course he wouldn’t think it’s odd. “We met a month ago, but until this week, I’d never spoken to you. We barely know each other.”
“Anyone who thinks time plays a part in falling in love with someone is an idiot. You either love someone or you don’t. You know it right away, just like you know when you’re tired or hungry. It’s instinct. It’s immediate, and it’s real. That’s what I feel for you—basic, pure love—and I knew it the moment I saw you. I love you.”
Rationality has officially fled the building, and it’s been replaced solely by the needs of the heart.
I am in love.
We are in love.
This is it.
We lie like that for some time—how long exactly, I’m not sure. Sometime during Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, I fall asleep curled on top of his bare chest. Which, I might add, is surprisingly comfortable considering it is, in fact, hard as a rock.
When I wake a few hours later, I feel cold. Opening my eyes, I realize I’m now on the couch alone, covered in a throw blanket, and Brax is nowhere in sight. Standing up, I listen for him but hear nothing except the quiet hum of the TV. I vaguely notice that it’s a CSI rerun as I wrap the blanket around my shoulders, walking out of the living room.
The house is huge. Not in an I’m-being-dramatic or trying-to-blow-smoke-up-his-ass-with-a-compliment huge. I’m talking actually bloody massive. I’ve also only been in the garage, kitchen, mudroom, living room, and master suite. And Brax led me to them all. I have no idea where to start looking for him, so I decide on process of elimination. I doubt he’d go upstairs without me, so he’s likely downstairs somewhere.
Padding softly across the hall, I step down two stairs into what looks like a large sitting room. It’s one of those perfect rooms. The kind with big windows where you know exactly what corner you’d use for a Christmas tree. It’s empty, however, so I continue my search. During which I come across a dining room, a library, and two bathrooms. Finally, I see a light shining from underneath a door at the end of the hall.
Turning the handle cautiously, I open the door to find a shirtless Brax sitting in the middle of a home office, barking orders at someone on the phone in a hushed tone. He hasn’t noticed me yet, so I take advantage of the time to look at him. Only he could look so powerful in pajama pants with damp hair and bare feet. I make note that I still have yet to trace every line of his brilliant tattoos as I drag my eyes over his arms and down his chest.
“You look hungry, babe.”
Snapping my head up, I make contact with his brilliant, grey eyes. He’s pulled the receiver away from his ear, resting it on his shoulder so the person on the other end can’t hear what he’s saying. He smirks when I don’t answer, and I quickly wipe my chin to make sure I’m not drooling.
“It’s work. I won’t be much longer. I can meet you back in the TV room?” he suggests, and I nod, turning on my heel to exit the room.
I’ve almost fully closed the door behind me when a promise I made to myself earlier rings through my head. Suddenly feeling very hungry indeed, I push the heavy door open again, walking a few feet into the room before stopping. Brax raises an eyebrow at me, looking awfully concerned. I smile and shake my head. Then I yank his sweater over my head and toss it onto the leather chair in the corner.
His throat moves as I take one more step. There goes my shirt. Turning around, I slowly shimmy my yoga pants down before dramatically bending over to take them off, giving him the perfect view of my ass.
Standing up, I look over my shoulder to see that his eyes have darkened and he’s now answering the person on the other line with one word or a grunt. Still keeping eye contact with him despite the fact that my back is turned, I undo the clasp on my bra, letting it fall forward onto the ground. I’m almost certain I hear him say, “Fuck,” when I repeat the process of bending over to take off my panties.
I’m completely naked now, but he can’t see the front of my body and it has to be killing him. When I finally spin around to face him, I’m the one who gasps. He’s rolled his chair away from the desk and is stroking himself through his pants.
I pad slowly over to him, pinching and rolling my nipples as I move. I can feel the wetness running down my thighs just from watching him touch himself.
Dropping to my knees in front of him, I hook the sides of his pajama pants with my fingers. He lifts his hips, allowing me to pull them down, and my mouth waters when his hard length springs free. Wrapping
my hand around the base of his shaft, I lean forward and lick the pearl of pre-come off his head. Seeing his hand grip the armrest of the chair only spurs me on. Teasing him, I twirl my tongue over the swollen tip before licking my way down to his balls.
“Goddammit,” he groans, quickly getting angry at the person on the other end. “No, not you, Charles. Yes. Set the meeting for Mon…” His voice drops out when I suck him into my mouth.
I feel him hit the back of my throat each time I swallow him deeply. The hand that was gripping the armrest now tangles into my hair, pulling it away from my face so he can see me. Looking up at him under my lashes, I see his hooded eyes and feel his ragged breaths.
I did this to him and I fucking love it.
Once he barks a goodbye into the receiver, I hear the phone drop somewhere onto the floor.
“Fuck. Beth. I’m going to come,” he warns, tugging my hair slightly.
I take him deeper, pumping his shaft with my hand in sync with my mouth until I hear him shout and his release fills my mouth. After swallowing every last drop of him, I lean back on my heels and lick my lips.
“I was hungry,” I tease.
Pulling me up to straddle his naked lap, he groans when my pussy slides over his still-hard cock. “Jesus, you’re fucking perfect,” he growls into my neck. I whimper, trying to move my hips over him. He sucks in a breath of air before tugging my head back by my hair so he can look me in the eyes. “As much I would love to buried to the hilt inside you, my rule from this morning hasn’t changed.”
I moan, moving my hips again. “But—” I try to argue, but he cuts me off.
“I know wet you are, Beth. I can feel your pussy dripping all over my lap. And I’m going to taste you,” he rumbles. “But I am not going to fuck you. Not tonight.”
I did this to myself by caging him in here, but now, I’m the one begging for his touch. He waits until I nod before swatting my ass playfully.
“Good girl. Walk over to the leather chair and kneel on it.”
