17. Jenson
Jenson
S he’s quiet beside me as I pull down one of the nicer city streets, a row of staccato townhouses stretching out before us. “You can drop me here.”
I hesitate, but pull in, turning off the engine. We both sit there for a moment, lost in thought. Although my thoughts are lost in her.
She said yes.
“You can still change your mind, you know. At any time.”
I can feel Briar’s eyes on the side of my face, although I keep them on the back of the car in front of us. But it sounds as if she might be smiling. “I’m not going to change my mind.”
There’s a lot still to discuss. The doctor, the forms, her preferences. Selecting what she wants, from the menu of options clutched tightly in her hands. “Call me – any of us – if you have any questions, no matter how small. I’ll send you Emily’s details to make an appointment.”
It doesn’t feel like enough. Not when the next time I see her, she might be underneath me, those golden, soft-looking thighs she showed me open to our touch. “Any questions at all. I mean it.”
“I have one question.” Her voice is as soft as the silk she’s dressed in when I turn to her. “Why do you want to do this?”
My hands tighten where they grip the steering wheel, my words pushed out through sheer force of will. “Does that matter?”
It’s a reasonable question. One that I don’t want to answer.
She studies my face. “Yes. It matters to me. Is it – is it because you don’t like to be touched?”
My head jerks back. “What?”
How the hell does she—
“You shift your body to avoid it.” Her green eyes see too damn much. “It’s small, but I noticed in your office, when I tried to move past you. It was more than politeness. Wasn’t it?”
Shit. My mouth dries up. “Yes. I don’t… respond well to it.”
“But you can touch others.” Her voice is quiet, thoughtful. “It’s the action of people touching you that makes you uncomfortable.”
Fucking hell, she’s perceptive.
“It must be difficult to be with someone and not have them reach for you.” There’s something careful in her voice, and I don’t particularly like it, my body prickling. As if she’s analysing me. Seeing the gaps, the ragged holes in my psyche.
“If you’re looking for a sob story, you won’t find it here.” I’m not going into our history. Not that it’s only mine to share. “You’re correct. I find it difficult to receive touch – and this arrangement will remove that option.”
She can’t touch me, reach for me, if she’s unconscious. Even the thought has something coiled tight inside loosening. “You’ll need to ask River and Kai for their reasons. They’re not mine to give.”
“Of course.” She sounds subdued. “Thank you for telling me.”
My brow lifts. “I’m not sure I told you anything. You seem to see quite a bit, however.”
Her cheeks flush. “I spent a lot of time watching people when I was younger from my window. I used to enjoy trying to work out the type of person they were. Their story. I’m sorry if I’ve brought something up that you don’t like talking about.”
“And you?” I cut that discussion off, not wanting her to look any fucking deeper than she already has. “What’s your reason?”
I study her face in the darkness. The way her eyes drop to her lap, studying her hands.
“When you have never had a choice,” she says finally, “being offered one is a gift. An opportunity I don’t intend to waste, before—,”
“Before?”
“Before they put me in a box I can’t get out of. Before I stop looking for those choices at all.”
Something thuds inside my chest at those whispered words. “Briar—,”
“I have to go.” She’s already opening the car door, slipping out of the jacket I handed her to wear as we left the club. Her face appears in the doorway. I drink in her flushed complexion, the way she tucks a piece of hair back behind her ear. “Bye, Jenson.”
And then she’s gone, the door closing carefully behind her before I can respond. I wait as she walks away, her arms wrapped tightly around her body as she makes her way to a dark house halfway down the street and heading up the steps. She lingers in the doorway for a minute before slipping her key into the lock and vanishing.
My head thuds back against the seat.
Now to tell the others.
***
I swing past Mystic to collect Kai before heading back to Ravenhall, the night making way for early dawn. Dove waves at me cheerily from the doorway as he shrugs past her, a holdall over his shoulder and a new set of bruises covering his face to add to the collection he already has. The cut above his eye looks like it’s reopened, and he doesn’t look at me as he slides into the seat Briar recently vacated. His arms slash in a cross, just once.
Don’t.
Lips pressing together, I pull away from the curb. We make the trip back in silence. Kai’s eyes are closed as if he’s feigning sleep, but his breathing is a little too harsh to get away with it.
“I need to speak to you in the kitchen. River too.” Yanking the keys out of the engine, I step out. He follows my lead, stalking ahead and pushing the front door open, River leaving it unlocked. He’s already in the kitchen, awake and showered, flicking through his phone as he points to the coffee machine. “Just made it.”
Kai heads for the fridge instead, pulling open a beer as I pour a coffee. “She said yes.”
The movement around me ceases. With my back to them, I can’t see either of their faces until I turn around.
They both stare at me, slack-jawed. Kai recovers first, the frustration from earlier replaced with something else. You spoke to her?
“She turned up at the club tonight.”
Looking fucking edible.
“What?” River’s head tips back. “Why?”
“Curiosity, I think.” My lips tilt up. “I took her to the office, and we talked through some of the details. She has a copy of the full agreement to go through. But… she wants to do it.”
“Shit.” River runs a hand over his face, still disbelieving. “I really thought we weren’t going to hear from her again.”
Which reminds me. I slide the envelope from my jacket and toss it to him. “She wanted you to have this. Said it’s your change. She was very insistent that she didn’t want anything more.”
He flicks through it, brows drawing down. “I meant to speak to her. It was to cover the rest of the clothes too.”
My thoughts shift to the shabby-looking building she’s based in, and the discussion I had over the phone on my way back from the graveyard. “We’ll need to be mindful of how we approach her building. Briar was very clear that she wants this to feel equal. If she feels that we’re throwing money at her, it tips the scales to us.”
River presses his lips together as Kai glances at him. We all know that he’s the one with a tendency to go over the top.
I study him before crossing my arms. “What have you bought her?”
Sighing, he tosses the envelope down. “A tablet. Her phone is practically a brick. She wants to advertise, and she’ll need one.”
“Hold onto it. At least for now.” Leaning against the counter, I take another sip, feeling tiredness start to pull. It’s been days since I slept more than a few broken hours.
Did anything happen? Kai is watching me closely, a small furrow between his eyes.
I meet his gaze. “I didn’t touch her.”
That’s not what I asked.
Sneaky fucker. I press my lips together. The image of Briar, shy and nervous as she stood there and lifted her dress for me to show me her underwear, soaked through with need… I straighten. “I’m heading up.”
Kai looks sceptical, but he doesn’t say anything else. I move past them, heading up to my own room. I’m already yanking off my clothes before my door even closes, stalking past my bed and into the bathroom.
Stepping into the shower, I slam one hand against the wall, the other finding my rock-solid cock and pumping it in hard strokes.
Flushed cheeks and parted lips. That growing, incriminating patch of arousal, spreading as I watched her.
“Fuck,” I hiss. My cock feels like steel, hot and heavy as the images continue. Change.
Briar, on her knees, staring up at me. My hand in her hair, tugging her forward as I lift the head of my cock to those plump lips, rubbing myself over her. Marking her, her breathing growing heavier, her eyes lidded with desire.
Her hands, reaching for my cock. Warm, soft fingers wrapping around me as her lips seal around my length.
Touching me.
My bellow fills the room as I almost stagger from the strength of my release. It spurts out, hitting the wall of the shower in never-ending pulses until I sag forward, pressing my forehead into my arm.
Shit.