April

Chapter 30 Loving Me #13

His gaze lingered on my neck for another long second before he stepped closer, drawn toward me with the kind of restraint that only made the attention feel more intense. I could feel the warmth of his breath near my skin now, the barely-there ghost of it along the sensitive place beneath my jaw.

He kissed me again, guiding me back toward the couch with careful patience. I sank into the cushions and he knelt in front of me, eye level.

His hands moved to the hem of my sweater. "This okay?"

I nodded.

He held my gaze a moment longer, as if searching for something unspoken in my expression, then carefully helped me out of it, leaving only my shirt underneath. He folded it aside before settling back, simply looking at me for a long moment.

"April," he said, voice lower than usual. "You are so beautiful. I don't think I've said that. I should have."

Warmth spread through me and I broke eye contact before I could stop myself.

"Hey," Bramwell murmured softly, tilting my face back toward him. "One day you’re going to hear these things without trying to run from them. Until then, I’ll repeat them as often as necessary."

His hand rested warm against my waist while his thumb moved once across my shirt, grounding me. His eyes stayed on mine with the same patient attention he always carried, like he'd wait as long as it took.

"One to ten," he asked softly, "how nervous are you right now?"

I swallowed. "Six."

His expression softened. "Okay. What would make it a five?"

I looked down at the space between us. "I think... I want you to take charge a little." Saying it aloud made something honest unravel inside me. Bramwell went still for a beat, then leaned in with that devastatingly gentle attention.

"Yeah?" he asked.

I nodded, and heat flooded my chest at how saying it aloud changed the room.

People always assumed things when they looked at me—tall, broad-shouldered, muscular from years of carrying the weight of myself.

Strangers treated me like someone who always belonged in control, as if softness could only exist in smaller bodies.

Somewhere along the way, people stopped imagining I might want gentleness too.

God, I did.

But how could I, when I don’t look like your typical princess?

Bramwell’s fingers tightened slightly at my waist while his gaze held mine with quiet intensity.

"And?"

I blinked, surprised that he had already guessed it wasn’t everything I wanted to say.

"Go on, love. It’s me. Whatever you want."

"I… praise."

A soft smile curved his mouth. "Well, that’s very easy. I'm absurdly attracted to you. Completely and hopelessly gone for you, April. And yet I've been surviving mostly on hand-holding and the occasional kiss like a man rationing water in the desert," he murmured softly.

Heat rushed instantly into my face. A faint smile touched his mouth, affectionate and suffering all at once.

"Not that I’m complaining," he added quickly. "I would take you curled against my chest on the couch over almost anything else in this world."

His thumb brushed lightly against my side.

"But God," he whispered, voice roughening slightly, "I need you to understand that I’m trying to behave while being incredibly obsessed with you because I have decided to follow your pace."

My breath came out uneven and he smiled faintly. His hands moved to my shoulders, giving me the full shape of his intention before acting. When I didn't pull back, he eased my shirt from one shoulder and pressed his mouth to the bare skin there.

"So pretty," he murmured.

Heat rose into my face. He reached out, tucked a strand of hair behind my cheek, and said, "You're a miracle to look at."

His fingertips traced down the side of my neck, following its line as if memorizing it. His fingers found the hem of my shirt and paused. "Can I?"

I nodded.

He lifted it slowly, inch by careful inch, his hands warm where they skimmed my ribs and stomach. Each new stretch of skin seemed to require his attention before he moved further, as if he had no interest in rushing.

His mouth pressed against my ribs. "God," he breathed. Higher, his lips brushed the underside of my sternum. "Do you have any idea how long I've been thinking about this?"

My instinct was to fold inward, the reflex to make myself smaller. Bramwell caught my wrists gently. "Don't," he said softly. "Please don't. I want to see you." His thumbs moved in slow circles against my pulse. "All of you. Let me."

His mouth followed the map his hands had drawn, softly at my shoulder, lingering in the warm hollow of my throat, resting along the gentle curve of my collarbone.

He brushed the shell of my ear, then the soft pad beneath it, each kiss slow and reverent, as if committing each point to memory.

A quick, featherlight press to the top of my upper lip made me inhale.

"You're beautiful," he breathed against the inside of my wrist. "So beautiful," he murmured near my jaw, then against my temple. "Genuinely, completely, utterly beautiful."

A sound escaped me, part breath, part laugh, part something unnameable. Bramwell pulled back just enough to see my face. His look then was the most unguarded thing I'd ever seen. He moved to the button of my jeans but paused. "Still okay?"

I nodded. "Tell me if anything feels wrong," he added. "Even a little."

He unfastened the button slowly, his eyes flicking to my face then back down. When he pushed the denim over my hips, he leaned forward and kissed the inside of my knee so gently my whole body tensed.

"Too much?" he asked.

"No," I whispered.

He soothed my calves with his hands as he helped me free the rest of the fabric, speaking quietly between kisses in a voice low and grounding enough to steady the panic that tried to rise.

"I could spend hours touching you and still find something new to worship," he murmured, mouth lingering at the inside of my thigh.

Emotion tightened in my throat. Bramwell shifted closer until he was between my knees, forehead resting briefly against my stomach before he looked up.

"I may be the one on my knees," he said quietly, fingertips curling against my thighs, "but you are the one who leaves me feeling reverent, April.

I don't think you understand what standing near you feels like," he admitted.

"What your beauty does to me." His thumb stroked slowly against my skin.

"You affect me in ways I don't know how to explain yet. "

The words nearly undid me. Nobody had ever spoken of me or my body as something worthy of gentleness. He leaned close enough for me to feel his breath.

"One to ten now?" he asked.

"Four," I said.

"That's my girl," Bramwell murmured with quiet satisfaction.

His hands settled at my waist and hip, warm and steady, and then he lifted me in an effortless motion.

A surprised sound slipped out of me as I found myself suspended, knees hooked around his hips, legs clasped tight despite my height and weight.

My hands braced on his broad shoulders while his face softened into slow, unhurried satisfaction, as if every inch of this fit was exactly as it should be.

"Hi," he said.

I stared. He waited, thumbs tracing warm circles at my hips.

"I'm not light," I said.

"No. I know. I've watched you haul trail markers up a ridge by yourself. Carry equipment on fire lines like it was nothing." His voice softened.

I snorted. "Bramwell."

He lifted his gaze with steady confidence.

"You are exactly what I want, April. All of you. Every pound of muscle you've earned. I wouldn't change a single thing about you if I could."

Something loosened in my chest. He drew me down until my thighs pressed against his ribs and kissed me.

He started soft, then the kiss shifted, restraint set aside, mouth hungrier, claiming.

His hand tightened in my hair; his other arm pulled me flush against him so there was no space left between us.

The press of him through clothing, the length of his chest and the firmness of his hips made the air between us hum.

I made a sound into his mouth. He answered, deeper. When he finally broke the kiss his breathing was uneven and his eyes were darker.

"You own me, April," he said.

I met his gaze and he kissed me again, deeper this time, as if something in him had finally given way. The press of his body made thought scatter, and I drew in a shaky breath as courage gathered slowly in my chest, just enough for me to try and say what I actually wanted in that moment.

"I want to see you now, Brams," I breathed.

A slow grin crossed his face. "Well," he murmured, "how am I supposed to resist you when you look at me like that?"

He peeled off his shirt. A silver hoop at the ridge of his nipple stole my breath; he caught my gasp and looked up at me with a slow, knowing smile, something wicked and unapologetic flickering in his eyes.

"And that's not the only place I have a piercing, Miss April," he teased as he unbuttoned his trousers.

He undressed with easy confidence, broad shoulders, bands of muscle flowing into a powerful torso. Up close, he was enormous and gentle at once, a steady, warm weight that tilted the room. When he was bare, I rose a little to drink him in; he met my eyes and smiled, soft and satisfied.

"You are very... handsome," I said.

He laughed softly. "Not half as much as you, Miss April, but you know the best part?"

I shook my head.

"It is all yours," he said and then kissed me with a fervor that left no doubt.

"Still okay?" he asked against my mouth.

I nodded.

Without warning he lifted my legs and draped them over his shoulders, breath hot against my skin.

"Okay?" he asked.

"Yes."

My answer came out of me in a rush as his hands and mouth moved in perfect, hungry coordination. Fingers curled at my hips, pulling me closer while his mouth found the spot beneath my ear and sucked, hard and deliberate; heat bloomed there and spread low and bright through me.

Every touch was both caring and insistent, his palms stroked and claimed, his tongue and lips alternated, and the pressure of him beneath me kept time with the rapid rhythm building in my body.

I lost the edges of myself: breath quick, knees weak, head spinning until it felt like I might tilt right off him.

A few minutes later he shifted, drawing me down so I straddled him. My hand trailed down his chest, returning to his hip, and when my fingers brushed lower I felt the small, cool glint of metal.

He’d been right—three small, neat piercings, private and unexpected, and the first brush against them sent a bright, electric bolt through me. It was a precise, delicious sting, a new texture that shifted everything: a tiny, cool punctuation against the heat of him that made the rest of me hum.

Pleasure unfurled outward from that pinpoint, something equal parts sharp and deep, so that breath hitched and time thinned until every sound and touch felt magnified.

The new angle drove him deeper, and every movement became sharper and fuller.

He matched me, slow then faster, each thrust pushing straight into the center of everything I was feeling.

Skin met skin in a fevered, wet drag; the room collapsed to the heat of our bodies, to the slick sound of rhythm and the jagged music of our breathing.

Time narrowed to the hit and release of each motion until the world reduced to the two of us, hard and urgent and utterly present.

"Brams," I whispered.

He steadied my face between his hands. "Tell me what you need," he murmured. "Anything."

I curled my fingers around his jaw and kissed him with everything I had, hungry and fierce, the world shrinking to the rhythm of his breath.

"You. Just you, harder," I breathed into him.

He answered with a fierce, possessive kiss, then trailed lower, warm and insistent at the hollow of my throat.

Each touch rolled and slammed like a rising tide, a relentless pressure yanking me toward the brink.

My breath stuttered; every contact wound the coil tighter until my body felt like it would snap from the strain.

"Brams—I'm—" I gasped, words tearing out of me.

"Almost—" he growled, voice raw and urgent. "Hold me, Babe." He gripped me hard, collapsing us together with a fierce steadiness, and for a suspended, furious beat we rode that razor edge as everything blurred into heat and sound.

When we came down from it, spent and trembling, he folded me into his chest. My breath came ragged; his was steadier, anchoring.

Beneath the exhaustion a slow, blooming reliefsettled over me, and it felt like the loosening of a held breath.

. Years of shame cracked open, years of feeling too much and not enough, too tall, too strong, too blunt for the softness the world expected.

I had learned to believe beauty belonged to smaller and gentler women who accepted desire without embarrassment.

And yet here he was, looking at me as if he'd been starving, as if touching me had been worship. His hair was mussed, his face flushed, his body still trembling. The sated, adoring, and exquisitely undone look in his eyes nearly undid me.

I think I am beautiful, the realization landing like something solid inside me; tears rose before I could hold them back.

"Thank you," I whispered. Bramwell's face softened, unbearably tender but never pitying. He brushed his thumb beneath my eye and bent to kiss each tear away with quiet care.

"It was my pleasure, love," he murmured, the faintest smile in his voice.

He pulled me closer, one hand warm across my back, the other threading through my hair, and kept looking at me like I were a miracle he couldn't believe he'd found.

Lying there in his arms, I let myselfrelaxin a way I hadn't dared before: relief braided with joy and trust threading through something I thought would always be sore and guarded.

For the first time in years, I did not feel like a woman trying desperately to earn softness.

I simply felt soft. Held. Wanted without condition.

It felt like standing at the edge of a new life and realizing I had already crossed into it without noticing. Like some older version of me had quietly fallen away somewhere in the dark between his hands and mine and what remained felt new.

I had a feeling I’d been cracked open under enough pressure to become something rarer instead of ruined. A diamond, maybe, formed slowly from everything that tried to break me.

Then I laughed softly against Bramwell's chest when I realized I was comparing emotional healing to geological pressure in my head.

Oh boy. This man has permanently altered my internal monologue.