“I love you,” I sniffled. “So much.”
“‘I love you’ doesn’t even begin to cover how I feel about you, Dar,” he murmured. “You’re part of me. I honestly don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“I don’t know what I’d do without you either,” I admitted.
He took a deep breath. “Listen, you can tell me this isn’t a good idea, but what do you think about calling your mom on her cell phone? Before your dad sends out a search party, if he hasn’t already.”
I sighed. I knew he was right, but…but what if my dad had taken her cell phone and was keeping it with him just in case I called? Or what if my mom told him where I was once I told her?
Almost like he was reading my mind, Brendan spoke again before I could voice my fears.
“You can use my phone just to be safe,” he elaborated. “And don’t tell her where you are. Just tell her that you’re okay, but you don’t feel safe coming back home. Maybe ask her if she can meet you for coffee or something sometime in the next few days and bring you some more clothes? If you feel safe doing that.”
I nodded, but didn’t say anything.
“My cell’s plugged in on my nightstand. Go close the door and get changed, and then call her. Can I use your phone to call for the pizza?”
“Yeah,” I mumbled.
He brushed his lips against my forehead. “I’ll be in in just a few minutes.”
Taking a deep breath, I grabbed my cell phone out of my purse and handed it to him, then picked up the shirt he’d grabbed for me and went into his bedroom, closing the door behind me.
I couldn’t explain why, but even being a room away from him right now made my chest tighten and my breathing become more labored. I knew it wasn’t logical. He was literally right on the other side of the door. But his arms were the only place where I felt safe right now.
I quickly changed out of my clothes and threw Brendan’s shirt on, chuckling a little when I found that it went almost all the way to my knees. Then I unplugged his cell phone and crawled into bed. My fingers shook as I dialed my mom’s cell phone number, and bile churned in my stomach as I held the phone up to my ear and heard the ringing, anticipating the sound of my father’s voice coming through on the other end.
“Hello?” came my mom’s hoarse voice after three rings.
“Mom?” I whispered, my voice shaking.
“Hana,” she sighed. “Hi. Did you talk to Naomi?”
“Mom, it’s me,” I said, completely confused about why she thought it was Mrs. Rhee on the other end of the phone. Didn’t she know her own daughter’s voice?
I heard some shuffling and a door shutting, and then my mom spoke again.
“Darla,” she whispered. “Are you okay, sweetheart?”
Of course. She didn’t want my dad to hear her talking to me. Why hadn’t I realized that?
“I’m okay,” I sniffled. “I’m with a friend. But I’m not coming home. Not after what Dad did. I don’t feel safe there anymore.”
“I know,” she murmured. “I don’t want to know where you are. That way I don’t have to lie if he asks. But I want to see you. Can you meet me at the used bookstore after school on Tuesday? I have a doctor’s appointment, so I’ll be out of the house anyway.”
I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. On the one hand, she had stopped my dad from hurting me today. But on the other hand, the times when she took my side over his were few and far between. How did I know my dad wasn’t telling her to say that so they could get me somewhere public where they thought I wouldn’t cause a scene?
I debated it for a few seconds, but my need for more than just half a dozen articles of clothing won out over my fear. And I couldn’t explain why, but something just told me that I could trust her.
“Okay,” I told her. “Do you think you can bring me some more clothes? I didn’t have time to pack very much.”
“Of course,” she sniffled. “Is there anything else you need?”
A lump rose in my throat as I realized that my mom would have to lie to her husband about where she was going and what she was doing just so she could see her own daughter. And there was a chance that if he found out, he’d hurt her for keeping it from him.
This was so many levels of wrong, I didn’t even know where to begin.
“No, that’s it,” I choked out. “I’m so sorry, Mom.”
“Don’t you dare apologize, sweetheart. I’m just glad you had somewhere to go where you felt safe,” she whispered. Then I heard a door opening, and she raised her voice a little. “Okay. Thank you for trying, Hana. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I heard a click, and then the call disconnected. As I set the phone back on the nightstand, I let the tears I’d been holding back break free.
There was a soft knock on the door.
“Baby? You decent?” Brendan called quietly.
“Yeah,” I called back, my voice thick with tears.
The door opened, and he was at the bedside in three strides. He climbed onto the bed and pulled me into his arms, and just like that, the tightness in my chest went away.
“Did you talk to your mom?” he asked.
I nodded and sniffled. “She’s going to meet me at the used bookstore after school on Tuesday to bring me some clothes. She said she doesn’t want to know where I am, because then if he asks, she doesn’t have to lie.”
“That’s smart,” he sighed. “I wish she’d done more to protect you, but I know she loves you. She at least deserves to know you’re somewhere safe, even if she doesn’t know where. And now we’re going to try to put this out of our minds for the rest of the night. Okay?”
I nodded again as I curled closer to him.
He reached across me, grabbed the remote control, and handed it to me, then pulled me over to sit on his lap without my even having to ask. It was like he just knew that I couldn’t stand for there to be any distance between us right now.
“Pick something to watch on TV,” he told me. “The pizza will be here soon.”
After we’d finished an entire pizza and watched a few reruns of Seinfeld, Brendan sighed and turned the TV off, then looked at me with an expression that was almost…guilty? Was that right?
“Look, Dar, I have to tell you something, and you’re probably not going to like it,” he sighed.
“What is it?” I wondered, picking my head up off his chest and sitting up so I could look at him.
“I know what your dad saw that made him so upset.” His voice broke a little and he swallowed hard before continuing. “The foreman at the job Alex and I are working on right now…when we were leaving the site today, we found him on the side of the building. He was…with…a girl in an alley next to the house we’re working on. And I swear, that girl looked like she could be your twin. I had to call my uncle about it because he was doing that on company time, and apparently my uncle’s going to fire him on Monday and personally oversee the rest of the job. I’m so sorry, baby. My boss…he’s responsible for your dad…”
A lone tear trailed down his cheek, and he took a deep breath as he wiped it away.
My heart broke. I knew that all he wanted in this whole world was to protect me, but the reality was, he couldn’t be there every second of every day. He couldn’t have any way of knowing what would or wouldn’t set my father off, because I didn’t even know most of the time. And he definitely wasn’t responsible for anyone else’s actions but his own.
I climbed onto his lap, straddling his legs, and put my hands on his face to make sure he was looking at me. “Babe, it’s not your fault. You’re not responsible for anyone else’s decisions.”
“I could have…I could have gone out there sooner. If I had, maybe I could have stopped him before your dad saw. Maybe I could have prevented all of this.”
“Maybe. Or maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference.”
“I’m supposed to protect you,” he insisted, swallowing hard again. “It’s my job. And today, your dad almost…and I might
have been able to do something to stop it.”
“You can’t protect me from everything, Brendan. And that’s not what your job is. Your job is to make me feel safe. And you do. Always. When I’m with you, when you have your arms around me, that’s the only time I ever feel completely safe.”
I wiped the few tears that had leaked out of his eyes off his cheeks, just like he’d done for me countless times, and brought my lips to his, pouring everything I felt for him into this kiss. I slipped my tongue out and traced the curve of his bottom lip, and he let out a sigh as he parted his lips and granted me entrance. As his tongue started to gently massage mine, he moved his hands to my hips, and one of them slipped under the shirt I was wearing.
He’d held my hips like this while we were kissing a thousand times, but feeling his rough, calloused hands against my skin lit a fire inside me like I’d never felt before. I couldn’t explain it, but it was so different from anything else I’d ever felt with him. Somehow, this simple, innocent touch felt like everything I’d been missing in my life.
My hands found their way to the hem of his shirt, and I slipped them under the fabric, tentatively exploring the hard ridges of his abs. He stopped kissing me and sucked in a sharp breath, but he didn’t stop me. Instead, his eyes met mine as he slid his other hand under my shirt and trailed his fingers over my stomach. I gasped, unprepared for the tingling sensation I felt to reverberate through my whole body.
“Is this…is this okay?” he asked timidly.
I nodded.
He leaned forward and whispered a kiss over my lips as he slipped his hands around to my back and trailed them all the way up to caress my shoulders. I slid mine upward, and I could feel his chest rising and falling with each rapid breath as his heart beat at a million miles a minute. My mouth found his again, and I felt the quiet moan he emitted all the way down to my soul.
One of his hands came around to my front again and tentatively cupped my breast, like he was testing its weight, before gently kneading. I whimpered softly and deepened the kiss, and the hand that was still on my shoulder tightened its grip while he ran his thumb lightly over my nipple, making me gasp at the spark of electricity that ran through me.
I felt what this was doing to him as his hard length pressed against the softest part of me. And the absolute rightness of the way this felt, of how natural it was to be connecting with him in this way, washed over me like a tidal wave. This was how it was supposed to be. This was the way God intended for human beings to love and be loved. Brendan was the only one I was ever supposed to elicit this kind of a physical response from.
I started to slide his shirt up his sides, letting my fingers brush against his skin as I did. I felt him shudder a little, and he took a shaky breath as he broke the kiss and did the rest of the work for me, tossing the garment onto the floor.
The weird realization hit me that in the entire time I’d been dating Brendan, I’d never seen him shirtless before. Not even on a hot summer day or while we were lounging around on the couch here in this apartment. I took a few seconds to appreciate the toned muscles that didn’t quite form a six-pack, but showed the manual labor that he did every day at his job.
“Can I take this off, baby?” he asked, so quietly it was almost a whisper, as he moved his hands away from my chest and shoulder and toyed with the hem of my shirt.
I nodded, and his lips found mine again. His fingers trembled as he pushed my shirt up, and the same tingling feeling from before returned as a flurry of butterflies invaded my stomach.
His hands came to a stop under my arms, and I reluctantly broke the kiss as I lifted them and let him take my shirt the rest of the way off, leaving me in nothing but my panties. I saw his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed hard, raking his eyes over me with so much adoration in them that it made me choke up a little.
“You’re so beautiful, Dar,” he whispered, finally letting his eyes meet mine. “Tell me when you want me to stop.”
“I don’t,” I said without even thinking.
Those words, words that went against a lifetime of church teachings, surprised me for a split second. And it surprised me even more that I meant them, more than I’d ever meant anything else in my whole life.
Brendan was my solace. My security. My safety. My home. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that I was going to spend the rest of my life with him. And what I wanted – what I needed – tonight was to be close to him. In every possible way. Physically. Emotionally. Spiritually.
His eyes widened. “Baby…you’ve…you’ve been through so much tonight.”
Instead of responding right away, I kissed him. I knew why he was hesitant, and I knew that my wanting this right now didn’t make any sense, but it didn’t have to. Right?
“I know it doesn’t make sense,” I told him. “And I know what I’ve been saying for the last three years. But all I want in the world right now is to be close to you. Not because I’m trying to forget, but because…because I need one good thing to come out of all of this bad. Because I’ve never felt safer or more loved than I do when I’m with you, and I need that tonight.”
“Are you sure?”
I smiled. “I’m sure.”
“Promise you’ll tell me if you change your mind?”
“I’m not going to change my mind,” I insisted. “You told me once that love and intimacy is something that should be given freely, and that it was my choice when I gave it to you. But the truth is, I already made that choice a long time ago. You have owned every single part of me for as long as I can remember. I’m just giving you what’s always been yours.”
That earned me a kiss, and he pulled me flush against him. The new sensation of his bare skin against mine as our lips and tongues moved in perfect sync made a shiver run up my spine, and I moaned into his mouth. His arms tightened around me, and I rocked over the stiffness I felt pressing between my legs. That made him groan as he pulled away from the kiss just enough to look at me again.
“I have no idea what I’m doing,” he mumbled.
Oh, my God. Why was that so sweet and adorable?
“I don’t either,” I reminded him.
“I don’t want to hurt you. If I do something wrong—”
“There’s no right or wrong, Brendan. We’re both new at this, but we can learn together.”
I brought my lips back to his, and he held me tight as he started to roll over just enough to deposit me on the bed. His hand came back up to caress my breast, this time kneading a little harder, and I couldn’t help the moan that rose in my throat when he rolled my nipple between his thumb and forefinger. When his mouth left mine and started trailing soft kisses along my jaw and down to my neck, I whimpered at the loss of the connection, but it felt so good that I couldn’t bring myself to stop him.
His lips continued their path south along my collarbone, down to my shoulder and chest. As they reached the tops of my breasts, I sucked in a breath, just anticipating what it would feel like to have his mouth on the pebbled peaks. The moment he brushed a whisper of a kiss over one of them, I exhaled in pure ecstasy, needing so much more. It seemed like he got the clue, because he pulled it into his mouth, sucking softly and flicking his tongue over it.
“Ohmygod,” I breathed.
“Is this okay?” he asked timidly, his warm breath washing over my skin, a weak echo of what he’d just done.
“Don’t stop,” I begged. “That feels so good.”
Apparently that was all the instruction he needed, because he kissed his way over to the other breast and paid the other nipple similar attention. The tingling in my core that I’d become so accustomed to for the last few years began, stronger than ever before. I felt moisture start to build up, and I squirmed a little, squeezing my legs together to try to relieve the pressure.
“You okay, baby?” Brendan whispered, coming back up to kiss me.
I nodded. I needed…I didn’t even know what I needed. Relief. To somehow ease the aching need he was creating.
“What do you need?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “You. I just need you.”
“I’m yours,” he murmured, then gave me a kiss so deep and passionate that I saw stars.
His hand traveled down my stomach, toying with the hem of my panties, and my breath caught.
Yes. This was what I needed.
“Can I touch you, Dar?”
“Please,” I whimpered.
He slipped his fingers beneath the fabric, but I quickly lifted my hips and tugged the offending garment down, needing it gone. He took the cue and helped me pull them the rest of the way off, then let his eyes rake over me. The same love and adoration I always saw when he looked at me was there in spades, but now it was accompanied by hunger. Desire. Maybe even the same need I felt right now.
“You’re perfection,” he said quietly, his voice trembling a little.
I sat up halfway, pulling him into another kiss, and he groaned into my mouth. As we did the one thing we knew exactly how to do, letting our connected lips and tongues do the talking for us, I let my hand travel down his side until I got to the waistband of his sweatpants. A flurry of butterflies invaded my stomach as I swallowed my fear and pushed it down just a little, letting my hand rest on his bare hip. He broke the kiss to suck in a breath.
“Is this okay?” I asked timidly.
“More than okay,” he told me. “You never have to ask if you can touch me, baby.”
“You don’t either,” I whispered.
Taking a deep breath for courage, I pushed his pants and boxers down over his butt, and he did the rest of the work for me, shedding them and kicking them somewhere in the vicinity of the foot of the bed. I went for another kiss, and he pulled me close, hitching my leg over his hip and then moving his hand to my backside, giving it a gentle squeeze. I could feel his manhood pressing against my stomach, and instead of scaring or intimidating me, it just made me want him more.
My Vows Are Sealed (Sealed With a Kiss) Page 24
