by Zoe Dawson
I was totally crazy about him. It might have been infatuation before, but now I was beginning to know him, and it was building something which kind of scared me a little, because he was working his way closer.
We made love in an out-of-control, over-the-edge way, sending me to multiple orgasmville, a totally great place to visit and live. Rapture—utter, unequivocal rapture—and nothing had ever felt more right, more safe, or more freeing, certainly nothing I’d ever done with other guys whose names I’d now forgotten. Couldn’t remember a one of them.
After a long, silent moment, when I was about to prod him again because I was not giving up, he brought his hand up to smooth his thumb along my jaw. I rubbed my palm over his heart, looking down at the scar again, getting a sick feeling in my stomach.
“Are you sure you want to know?” he asked.
I met his gaze. “Why, because it’s ugly and unpleasant?”
“It’s a glimpse into my world, River. And, yes the view’s ugly.”
My answer came quickly, “Yes. Tell me.” I needed to know something about him besides the little I’d learned till now. The good as well as the bad. I knew more about Duel and his relationship with Amy than I did about Brax.
“I was taking a short cut through the bayou on my way home from school. I was thinking too hard about something and wasn’t my usual vigilant self,” he began. “I heard the taunts after I was too far from either home or the school to get to safety. Back then, I was screwed when I didn’t have my brothers for backup. Three of them were behind me and three more were waiting for me just ahead. Flanked me, and it was my fault, because I should have been paying attention. They closed in, and all I could do was what I normally did. Fight like a sumbitch. One of them had a knife, and he stuck it there. One of them insisted they had gone too far. He wasn’t too keen about sticking around once I was down and they were kicking me. Then this madman came out of the bayou and scared the shit out of them. They all ran like the swamp monster was after them.”
I swallowed uncomfortably, unable to hide my reaction.
“Do you want me to stop?” he asked gently.
“No. I asked because I wanted to know.” I ran my fingers over the scar again. I was drowning. Over my head and drowning in compassion and tenderness for what he had to endure, along with a healthy dose of rage over how he’d been treated.
Maybe I was fooling myself, and nothing about the two of us together made sense. Maybe I was just so pitifully desperate I’d mistaken the realization of my most perfect fantasy for something more.
But as often as I’d fantasized about making love with Braxton, it had always seemed like an impossibility.
“It was deep enough for stitches, hurt like a sumbitch, and…” he looked away.
“Oh, Brax.”
I cupped his face, and he looked back at me, his eyes dark and serious. “You’ll never guess who saved me.”
I searched his eyes, looking for clues.
“Your brother Chase. He came out of the bayou yelling and screaming. He took me to the hospital in his truck. He was so pissed, and told me I didn’t deserve it. The bad news is, he’s never going to let me live it down that he saved my bacon.”
“Which is why you make a point to buy his seafood?” I was so thankful and so grateful he’d come to Braxton’s aid back then. The thought of Brax not…here, walking around, was something I couldn’t handle.
“Yeah, that, and it’s high-quality stuff,” he smiled and shrugged.
“How did he look?” I loved being this close to Brax while he talked. I could feel the rumble of his voice through my hand on his chest.
“I hadn’t seen him since he’d disappeared, but he looked okay. Just scruffy.” He nodded, his grin flashing again, his hair all mussed from sleep and rolling around in bed with me.
I got a twisted, ugly feeling in my chest. “Was one of the guys who attacked you my brother, Jake?”
“I don’t know. It was dark.” His smile faded, and he pushed himself to a sitting position. I was pretty sure he was not telling me the truth.
“Brax.”
“It was dark, River. There were a lot of them, and all I saw were fists and feet. I got kicked in the head and saw stars.” Sitting on the edge of the bed, he rubbed his hands over his face and pushed back his hair.
I reached for the shirt I’d been wearing, and he snatched it away. “I have clean shirts,” he murmured.
“This one smells like you,” I responded before I realized what I was saying, and to cover my feelings I pulled hard on the garment until he came with it, back on top of me. The look in his eyes made my heart stutter. Moved, turned on, twisted around my finger. That’s what he looked like, his eyes, for a quick moment, vulnerable.
I cupped his face and said, “I’m sorry for everything you have ever gone through because of me.”
He closed his eyes briefly. “None of it was your fault, sugar.”
He pulled away and I slipped his shirt on, breathing in the still-lingering scent of him. He rose and headed for the bathroom. Aubree and Verity had each told me on separate occasions there was nothing like seeing Booker or Boone naked. They described them as being spectacularly, eye-poppingly gorgeous.
Now I knew what they were talking about.
I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He was tall, his muscles thick and hard. His broad shoulders tapered down to an amazing back, and he had the kind of grace dancers and boxers possessed. It was all I could do to keep my hands off him.
“You getting a good look?” he repeated my earlier question, and I laughed.
“Definitely a stellar ass, Braxton.”
He laughed and leaned his gorgeous body against the doorframe, folding his arms over his wide chest, as confident and comfortable in his skin as he was in his clothes.
He tilted his head in a move I was beginning to identify as precursor to a teasing remark. “You know, I think I’m going to need your help.”
“Oh? How?” I could feel myself smiling broadly at the cute look on his face.
“With my sore ribs, twisting and turning to wash my back and my…stellar…ass will hurt,” he said with a little-boy pout.
“Ah, poor sugar baby,” I said as I got out of bed and he slipped off the doorframe, backing into the bathroom.
“Yeah, poor me,” he said, and I thought he should come with a label. Warning: This is a rule-breaker, and it’s your rules he’s gonna make you totally forget.
“I could help you with it.”
“Could you? It wouldn’t be an imposition or anything?” he drawled.
“Oh, yes, a complete imposition,” I said, affecting a put-upon expression, brushing the back of my hand across my brow like a damsel in distress. “But I’ll endure it for you.”
He chuckled. “Martyr?” He tilted his head, dropped his chin, and canted his gaze to mine as I came into the bathroom, and for about the millionth time I was riveted by the blue of his eyes. They were thick-lashed, deep-set, and breath-stealing when he was in a teasing mood…and when he was turned on.
Both were irresistible. Separately, they were manageable, but together they annihilated my good sense.
“I know, but it’s okay. You took me to multi-orgasmville, and I got to not only see your ass, but touch it and you.”
He laughed, his arm snaking out and dragging me close, smoothing my hair back off my face.
#
Braxton
Multi-orgasmville. Damn, I liked the way she talked to me, with no self-consciousness at all. It was sexy. There was something else new to me, too. How easy it was for her to make me laugh. I was a moody bastard most of the time. I joked around with my brothers, and they made me laugh like a complete fool, but it was different. She made me feel…lighter. “You are a sassy sugar.”
“Don’t you forget it.”
There wasn’t anything I wanted to forget about these two days of getting all over River and having her all over me. If I wasn’t careful, I might say something stupid.
“Well, at least I’m good for something,” I quipped.
“Ah, I’d say you were fantastic at it. The more I get to know you, the more I want to know.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off her and felt dizzy, like I was falling again.
“Brax,” her brow furrowed. “What is it?”
Had I been telegraphing my thoughts?
“I’m so lost,” I said before I could stop the words.
She leaned forward and put her mouth close to my ear, as if we were sharing a wonderful secret.
“Let’s get lost together, then,” she whispered, like it was a sweet nothing, and her comment jacked me up and scared the hell out of me at the same time. Even with the fear blasting through me, I didn’t have any urge to run. I wanted to get lost. I held my breath, but it ended up not being such a great idea. Cutting oxygen to my brain would only make me say something else supremely stupid. So I took a breath.
And she filled my senses with her rich scent. The smell of her skin went to my head. I breathed. I couldn’t believe I had actually given in. Touched her, kissed her, climbed up to her room and sank into her like a dream.
I kept expecting to wake up. But she felt more real than anything I’d ever felt before, her breath against my skin like she was breathing life into me.
I dropped on her like a stone. One minute I was standing there plastered against her, so close one of us would need to change names. The next I was where I had to be to express all the shit rumbling around in me ever since we started this crazy dance at the beginning of the summer.
Her lips responded to me like a live wire, and I was rewarded with the little golden gasp. She wasn’t merely kissing me with her mouth. She kissed me with her whole being. I could feel it in her heartbeat, in the silent thrum of energy when she unexpectedly went still against me. Her shallow breath matched mine. After connecting to her so intensely less than thirty minutes ago, I would have said I couldn’t get it up if I wanted to.
Apparently my dick didn’t listen.
I took her into me and teased her, rubbing my lips over hers, so, so gently, yet it impacted me as if I was kissing her as hard as I could.
“River…sugar darlin’, sugar, ah sugar…”
Her lips parted on a ragged sigh I felt all the way to my groin, a sigh of surrender. I took more, sliding my tongue into satiny wet heat, into the sensual seduction of her mouth—into serious trouble.
She kissed and sucked my lower lip and everything in me tightened. Then she traveled down my neck to my throat, to my chest. I was so lost in the sensation of her mouth, so gone, I didn’t realize her intention until her mouth slipped over my dick.
I jerked back, but I was too close to the tub. I lost my balance and my backside hit hard porcelain, my ribs protesting with a sharp jab of agony that took my breath away. I cried out and curled into the pain.
“Oh, God. Brax!”
I couldn’t speak, a replay of when I couldn’t say a word because she’d kneed my groin. I wheezed in air and tried to power past the piercing torture, feeling nauseous.
She knelt down and ran her hands over my hair, touched my shoulder. “Brax,” she sounded distressed, so I pulled it together for her. Shut out the pain and uncurled enough to give her a reassuring look, my hand soothing over her forearm.
Now the pain was receding, I felt like an idiot. What the hell was my problem?
She pulled me up while I tried to help using my uninjured side to get to the edge of the tub. I sat there for a moment. Just breathing. I figured I could easily play this off and reached over and turned on the water to heat it.
She looked worried and…shit…upset. River was no dummy. She knew something was wrong.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, forcing a laugh. “You caught me off guard, is all.”
I was lying through my teeth. Pretty sure she knew it.
“You can talk to me about anything, Brax,” she said.
I groaned almost silently, my heart flipping over in my chest. Not about this. Because I didn’t know what was wrong. I didn’t know why I kept acting like an idiot whenever she…Oh man, I couldn’t even say it, couldn’t even think it. Fuck. And, to my utter mortification, I blushed like a virgin. Felt the blood suffuse my face as it heated. Mortified I was having this sexual issue when I’d had women every which way ever since I realized where to put my dick and how good it felt.
I stood and turned away, stepping in the tub and pulling the curtain closed, shutting her out so I had privacy to compose myself.
“Brax?”
I let out a short breath. “It’s all good,” I said, sounding as reassuring as I could manage, but my mind went around in circles wondering why I was so fucked up about this.
“Do you want me to wash your back?”
“In a second,” I said buying time. “Washing my hair.”
I grabbed shampoo and slathered it on…and got soap in my eye. I swore under my breath and shoved my face into the spray while my eye stung like a bitch. I scrubbed my head and then rinsed the soap out. “I thought I could take you up into the attic after I finish.”
“That sounds good,” she said, sounding preoccupied, like she was thinking too much. I didn’t want her to feel rejected. I could have sworn all of me wanted what she was offering, but then why the uncontrollable reaction whenever she tried to…there was the mental block of the very word I had so crudely used to ask many a girl to do.
I didn’t think I could discuss this until I figured it out, especially not with her. Sexual problems were taboo for guys, but this was River Pearl, and I wanted to share everything with her, all of my body, anything she wanted to do and found pleasurable. The thought of her doing the thing I couldn’t even say…made my knees weak.
Sure the blush had receded, I pulled the curtain open to find her standing there looking far too pensive.
I handed her the scrubbie and turned, leaning my hands against the wall. For a minute the cool air flowed over my back, and I almost turned around to find out why she wasn’t scrubbing. But then I felt her set the abrasive nylon against my skin and scrub in a circular motion until she’d covered everything from my shoulders to my lower back. She was careful to keep away from my butt. “Feels good,” I muttered. “Good to have your hands on me.”
Damn, I was overcompensating, and if she had felt bad before, I might make her feel weirder about the whole thing. Girls took things too much to heart and, even though River was one of the most confident women I knew, I had seen her bolt from my house in tears, something I never wanted to see again.
“Rinse,” she said. I turned into the spray, pulling the curtain partially closed. She leaned against the side of the shower.
“I’m thinking I’m going to hire someone to install a shower in here exactly like yours.”
She looked up and smiled indulgently. “Ha, I knew you’d fallen in love at first sight.”
“I’m not going to lie. Your shower is pretty sweet.” She had a look that said she knew I was “making conversation” to avoid what we should be talking about.
I finished up by running the scrubbie over the rest of me. I liked having her watch me, her eyes following the progress of my hand.
I rinsed off one last time and turned off the water. “Could you hand me a towel?” She leaned over and snagged the terry and tossed it to me as I pushed the curtain back.
“Brax…” she said.
I stepped out and dried off, careful around both bruises.
“Man, I’m getting hungry. Are you?”
“Brax,” she said again, a little more forcefully.
She took the towel out of my hand and wiped my back. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I shrugged, desperately hoping she would drop it.
I walked into my bedroom and opened a drawer. She followed me and sat on the bed. I slipped on underwear and pulled out a clean pair of jeans. Pulling them on, I zipped and buckled. Reaching for a T-shirt, I shrugged into it.
“Is t
hat a message for me?”
Confused, I stared at her.
She gestured at my shirt and I looked down. It figured. I had grabbed the one with Emotionally Unavailable stitched across the front. She narrowed her eyes.
Maybe I was bankrupt in that department. After keeping everything shut down for so long, it was hard for me to spill my guts. Was it because on some level I didn’t trust her? I didn’t know. I simply couldn’t talk about something when I wasn’t sure what was causing the problem. I wasn’t a big talker about my feelings anyway. “It wasn’t deliberate, River.”
“If you say so.”
Okay, she was peeved. I ripped the shirt off and pulled on a different one.
“C’mon,” I snapped, getting pissed myself. Not at her. It wasn’t her issue. It was mine.
I pulled down the stairs to the attic and climbed up. Mine was as neat as my ma’s, because she was the one who organized it.
I walked over to a bookcase. “Here’s the stuff from Duel.”
She brushed past me, and I stood there, at a complete loss as to how to smooth this over. I would have to figure it out soon. Then I could talk to her about it.
She rummaged around in the boxes, but I could tell she wasn’t into it. Then she stopped and said, “Wow. These are newspaper clippings about the whole thing. This is amazing.” She took the cover off.
“Would you mind reading them later? I should get to Outlaws.”
She nodded and set the lid back on.
“I think there are even some journals where he wrote about his experiences in the war. Maybe more about Amy. I haven’t read any of them,” I said.
“I think it’s a real possibility he was innocent.”
“He might have loved his wife, but he was a killer.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Why, because he had those entries in his ledger? He could have planted those.”
