Chapter 49 Braedyn
brAEDYN
Admitting I needed Dex should’ve terrified me. After everything I’d lost and all those who had chosen to walk away from me, the last thing I should’ve been doing was leaning. But here I was.
Because Dex was the only thing I needed in that moment. He was the opposite of coldness and pain. He was life and breath and heat.
My hand snaked out to stroke him. The feel of him in my palm, his response, made me feel powerful. And that helped, too.
Dex’s eyes slowly closed, and a groan left his lips. “Hellion.”
I studied him then, taking in how his head tipped back, exposing his throat. Those broad shoulders strung tight, the ink rippling over his chest. Then his head lifted as he straightened, and hazel eyes locked on mine.
Dex’s hands slid along my jaw, his mouth meeting mine.
The kiss was more than any before it. It wasn’t the desperate need of the first moments we’d shared.
It wasn’t my demand to break through his defenses in Wylder’s office.
This one gave voice to words neither of us had been brave enough to speak aloud—but something I knew we both felt.
Stretching onto my tiptoes, I met Dex there, in the unspoken truths between us. I leaned into him, trusting he would catch me, but still not ready to speak the words.
Dex slid his hands lower, fingers gliding over my skin through the water. One stopped where my jaw met my neck, at that pulse point he favored.
“Why?” I whispered into the echoey shower.
Confusion twisted his features.
“Why do you always put your hand right there?” I asked.
Dex’s thumb stroked my pulse point. “Your body will tell me things you’re not ready to.”
My heart took a tripping tumble.
His mouth curved. “It whispers your secrets to my fingertips.”
And it did. It told him everything.
While that one hand stayed right at the spot that gave me away, the other traveled down. Lower and lower. Fingers ghosted over my center, and my eyes fluttered closed.
“Don’t steal that beauty from me,” Dex rasped. “Those Midas eyes. All gold fire.”
My eyes flew open again, eager to give him what he wanted.
Dex stroked and teased. “Tell me how you feel.”
My breaths came quicker. “Like I’m coming back to life.”
Two fingers slid inside, swirling. “Good. Getting warmer?”
“Yes,” I breathed.
“You want more?”
My hands moved to his shoulders, gripping them hard. “You. I want you.”
Those dark-hazel eyes flashed brighter for the barest second, and then his fingers were gone from my body and neck, and he was lifting me, bracing me against the cool shower tile. But I didn’t feel the cold.
Dex held me with one arm as he slid inside me, and it was everything I needed. The stretch, the heat. Him.
I arched into him, bracing my back harder against the wall as his hand found my throat again. I knew what he would feel there: my heart racing, my pulse fluttering like butterfly wings.
Dex took me in a tempo we’d never shared before, slowing as if he were memorizing everything about me from the inside out. As his thumb stroked my pulse point, it was almost too much for me to bear. The tenderness. The heat. The certainty.
“Tell me what you need, Brae. Faster? Deeper?”
“This,” I croaked. “Just like this.”
Each stroke drove inside me as everything about Dex imprinted itself on my bones. Not just this physical connection, but so much more.
My walls tightened around him, and tears gathered in my eyes. “Dex,” I breathed.
“I’m with you. You aren’t alone. You never will be.”
He picked up his pace, finding it with me, that place where we took each other further. To the edge before spilling over into what was only ours.
“With me,” Dex gasped. “With me.”
I searched for it, finding it in Dex’s eyes, in the feel of him moving inside me.
It was a type of shattering I’d never experienced before.
It started slow, growing and quickening until it turned into a wild fury.
Light danced across my vision, but I held on to Dex—his body and his eyes—because I didn’t want to lose him either.
The sound that came from Dex’s throat was almost animalistic but so damn raw and real as he emptied himself into me and I took all he had to give. And as we rode out every wave together, no coldness remained in me. Because I wasn’t alone. I had him.
Dex slowly slid from me, lowering me to the floor and bringing me under the spray. His hand found my neck again. “Want to feel you when I say this.”
My heart hammered against my rib cage, fear and hope swirling in equal measure.
“You might not be ready. And that’s okay.
But I love you, Brae. I love your fierce hellion ways.
I love your tender heart. I love how you make me feel more understood than anyone ever has.
And more accepted. You said I gave you a home, but it’s you.
Because I’ve never felt okay in my own skin, so scared of what I could be—”
“Dex,” I croaked.
“But you made me unafraid. For the first time in forever. You made me okay with who I am.”
“Because it’s beautiful,” I whispered.
His thumb traced that pulse point. “You’re beautiful. Not just your body but the way you live. The way you inspire others to live. And I love the wild boy you’ve raised to be such an amazing human.”
My voice hitched. “He loves you.”
His mouth curved. “I know he does.”
I stared up at Dex, not moving, not even breathing. “I love you.” The words were barely audible. Just above a whisper.
They hurt. They cost me. As love always should. Because I knew it meant that if anything happened to him, I’d carry those scars with me forever. But I wasn’t going to run from this. Wouldn’t hide. Because a life without Dex would be like living in the dark. And I wanted the sunrise.
Dex froze. “Say it again.”
“I love you.” Just a little louder.
Unshed tears glistened in his eyes. “I feel it. I feel it everywhere.”
Then he kissed me, the same as before, but it meant more now because we’d spoken the words aloud and let our bodies give them a voice.
When he finally pulled back, he stroked a hand over my jaw. “Let me take care of my girl.”
And he did.
Dex rinsed my body, keeping me under the spray as he dipped out to grab towels. He quickly dried himself and wrapped the terry cloth around his waist before moving to me. Shutting off the water, he guided me out and softly dried every inch of my body.
“I’m okay,” I assured him.
He looked up from where he knelt at my feet. “Taking care of my girl. Because it’s a fucking privilege. Don’t steal that from me.”
My mouth curved. “All right, then.”
Dex wrapped me in the massive, fluffy robe I kept for the days I did leave-in hair treatments and painted my toes, then pulled out the stool from the corner and sat me on it.
He fumbled around the bathroom looking for items, but I didn’t ask what.
There were no nerves about him looking through my things. There was only peace.
He finally pulled out a hair dryer, brush, and leave-in conditioner. Assembling the items, he gently tugged my hair down from its bun and smoothed the strands. He lifted the bottle from the counter and held it up. “Dime size, nickel, or quarter?”
My smile pulled wider. “Nickel.”
Dex squeezed the exact right amount into his palm, then coated my hair, running his fingers through my strands and slowly detangling them. All of it felt like putting actions to his earlier words. It felt like love.
As the hair dryer flipped on and Dex meticulously dried every strand, that love buried itself deep. He reached for his glasses, studying my mane to make sure he hadn’t missed any spots, then met my eyes in the mirror. “How’d I do?”
“I love you.” It was the only thing I could say. The only thing I felt. No coldness, no pain, no fear. He’d burned them out. It didn’t mean they wouldn’t return or that I wouldn’t have to face them, but I wouldn’t be doing it alone.
Dex tipped my head back, his hand sliding down my throat. “Say it again so I can feel it.”
“I love you.”
“That’s my fucking girl.”