Chapter Twenty-Six
Brady
“I’ll be right back.”
Angela disappears into the bathroom. “Ow, goddammit,” I hear her hiss when it hurts to pee. Jesus Christ. I slap my hand against my forehead. I seriously have never been so annoyed with and so crazy about someone in my entire life.
I’ve just gotten good and schooled on Angie Pines’s trust and intimacy issues. They’re no joke. She isn’t a cold-hearted bitch or anything. She’s just… I don’t know what to call it. Independent? Closed off? Emotionally out to lunch?
Whatever she is, she’s Angie. The wrong girl in so many ways, the right girl in so many more. And the hell if I haven’t totally fallen for her.
“You okay?” I ask when she finally comes out and crawls back under the covers with me.
“I’m fine. You seem like maybe you’re still mad, though.”
“I’m not mad, Ange.”
“What are you, then?”
I shrug. I’m still a little stunned by the whole thing. I wanted to blow her mind. I know her body better than I’ve ever known anyone else’s. It was supposed to have been perfect.
“I wanted that to be really good for you,” I say.
“It was everything I wanted, Brady,” she says softly.
“No lies, Ange.”
“I’m not lying.” She props herself up on my chest and looks at me. “We need to modify our deal again. When we’re telling the truth, we have to believe each other. Okay?”
I brush my knuckles across her cheekbone. “Yeah,” I say. “Okay.”
She turns on the lamp next to the bed. I cover my eyes with my arm.
“Hey,” she says, her hand on my face.
I move my arm away and open my eyes. It takes them a few seconds to adjust to the dim light, but when they do, when I see Angie looking down at me, words and breath leave me.
“They’re brown,” she says shyly.
“You like the blue better, huh?” she says when I don’t say anything. “I can put the contacts back—”
“Don’t.” I hold her by the shoulders, not letting her go anywhere. Her eyes are the most beautiful color I’ve ever seen, brown with gold in the center.
“They’re beautiful. They’re incredible. They’re—” I swallow. “Angela, this is the color they are when I dream about you.”
“It is?” she whispers.
“Swear to God,” I whisper back, unable to take my eyes from hers.
When hers fill up with tears again, I don’t try to stop them.
I just watch as they spill over, mesmerized by the brown and the gold, by the truth, the reality of her.
I brush some tears away with my thumbs, I kiss away some others, but mostly I just watch, until she buries her face in my neck and silently cries.
“Why are you sad?” I ask, stroking her hair. “Everything’s okay.” Everything is a complete goddamn disaster, but I’m not going to let her know that.
“I’m happy, believe it or not,” she says, her voice muffled against my skin. “I’m relieved. I wanted you to know.” She sniffles. “My hair’s brown, too.”
“I know.”
“Please tell me you know that because you’ve seen my roots.”
“I told you, Angela. There is nothing you can tell me about yourself that would make me run from you,” I say. “Nothing.”
“You should, though. If you knew who I am and where I come from, you would be running.”
“I know enough. And it’s not gonna happen.”
She sighs and rests her head on my shoulder. “You told me you didn’t know anything about me,” she says. “Were you lying?”
“I’ve never lied to you.”
“But you know some stuff.”
“I didn’t know the important stuff. I didn’t know who you were for real, under the hair and the eyes and the bullshit. But ever since I laid eyes on you, I’ve wanted to know. That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“Are you FBI?”
“No.” I roll on top of her and grab her chin. “And stop asking questions. I’m telling you right now, you don’t want to know the answers.” I kiss her.
“DEA?”
“Shut up, Angela,” I warn. “And no. I’m not a fed, so don’t even think about going through the entire alphabet soup.” This is going to take more than kissing. I have no desire to hurt her again, but I’m at a loss. This is not ending today. We’re just getting started.
“I owe you big time,” I say. “Are you too sore to go again?” I slide a couple of fingers inside her, and she winces, but then she groans and clenches around me, soaking wet.
“I—I don’t know—”
“You’re fine,” I cut her off, quickly grabbing another condom. “We’ll go slow.”
“Um…okay…”
It’s a desperate act of distraction, but I do slow down, and I’m way more careful than I was the last time.
“Am I hurting you? No lies.” She’s biting that lip again.
“First promise me you won’t stop,” she says. “Because it feels good, too.”
“I promise. Hold on.” I flip us around so she’s on top of me. It will be easier for her this way. She can control everything—how hard, how fast, how deep. And apparently, she’s totally on board with that.
“Oh my God, Brady,” she gasps, grinding against my body. “That’s fucking incredible.”
“You’re fucking incredible.”
Her hair falls down around us, a curtain of lavender waves and coconut scent that makes me feel like I’m in another world.
Her heat and softness, her curves and warm citrus girl smell are all around me, right where I’ve always wanted them, ever since I first sat with her at Finnegan’s.
Before that, even—sitting behind her in class, watching her long fingers type, staring at her profile, listening to her make the Socratic method her bitch. That girl is in my bed right now.
And I love her.
The realization almost makes me simultaneously have a heart attack and come, neither of which would be ideal at this moment. A well-timed groan from Angie snaps me out of it.
“Brady,” she whimpers.
“Is it hurting?”
“Yes. No. Oh my God, I think I’m going to come.”
“You’re definitely going to come, princess. I’ll make sure of it.”
I grasp her hips to help her, and she clutches my shoulders. Her face is so beautiful—flushed and intense as the pleasure builds up in her. Her eyes are closed, her lips parted. I realize I’ve never watched her come.
“Open your eyes,” I say, grasping her chin. She does, and I watch them as she comes, see the gold expand as her pupils contract in the light, brush my thumb across her lower lashes and then down to the lip she nearly bit clean through when I shoved my dick into her like an idiot.
I finally let myself go, gripping her hair, kissing her lips, groaning into her mouth. After a minute or two of just lying there wrapped up in Angie, slowly stroking her hair from crown to ends, I turn us onto our sides and cradle her soft, beautiful body against mine.
“Can we do that again?” she asks, her breath soft and warm on my neck.
I smile. “We can do that all night if you want.”
“We’ll both be zombies tomorrow,” she says. “Everyone will look at us and know.”
“Everyone will look at us and know because I won’t be able to keep my eyes or hands off you. Baker will call on me and I’ll be like, ‘Sorry, Professor, I was staring at Ms. Pines, and I can’t think of anything but the smell of her skin, so I’ll have to pass today.’”
She laughs and presses herself closer to me. I anchor a leg around hers.
Well, my distraction technique is certainly working, and I’ve begun to redeem myself in the sex department. Now that all is about as right with the world as it can be, given the circumstances, I start to fall asleep.
“Angelina Pini.”
I blink awake at the sound of her whisper. “Ange?”
“My real name is Angelina Pini.”