36. Braxton
CHAPTER 36
Braxton
S he turns over in her sleep, and I see my teeth marks imprinted above her breast and on her throat. I trace my finger over them, and she doesn’t even stir. She continues to softly snore next to me.
I wonder if that was her admitting to me in the shower about the statues. Is she just fucking with me to cure my addiction to her? Because that’s what it’s turned into—an addiction. I can’t seem to stay away, even though I know I should.
Her mother came to see me the week after I met her at the art show. Everyone in the police station was happy to see her, flattered by the famous singer making a generous donation to the patrolman’s fund. But she wasn’t there for a social call or a photo op. She warned me that a relationship between myself and her daughter would never work.
That’s when it hit me that the women in these families don’t need to depend on their men. They’re powerful and influential in their own right, as Hope has always been.
I understood her mother’s message well and clear. Her donation was her subtly trying to pay me off to stay away from Hope. Instead of heeding her warning, I kindly showed her the door. That was the day before Kylie was murdered, and to say the timing couldn’t be more suspicious is an understatement.
It’s the wake-up call we both needed. We shouldn’t fit. Shouldn’t want each other. She’s slowly undoing everything I’ve pieced together in my life for stability and security. Hope Ivanov is no doubt my weakness and undoing.
So when I realized she was avoiding me, I tried to stay away. But I was still there. In the shadows. Watching her from afar, practically pining as I fought with my demons to keep my distance.
I rub a lock of her hair between my fingers.
Hope’s so reckless, especially with the statues beneath my bed, but equally, a careless part of me wants to protect her.
And that’s my biggest problem.
I always thought she listened to her family. That she was mostly a sweet, innocent girl. She’s always been intriguing to me. Someone like Hope Ivanov will never stop learning. She respects her family but is independent of them. She works hard, although she doesn’t like being publicly recognized for it. She doesn’t need her parents’ money, but she lets them spoil her. She’s the perfect daughter. The perfect facade for the creature that lurks beneath—the one she’s only willing to show me. And I stayed away for four years because I knew my curiosity would lead to nothing but destruction.
My eyes grow heavy as I stroke her cheek, my touch soothing us both after I broke her in various positions. And I never want to let this moment go. I don’t want to let her go. And I know she’s it for me. She has been from the moment she first approached me, hiding behind those glasses like they were a mask. She’d piqued my interest.
I let her slip through my fingers once, but I’m not so sure if I’m capable of doing it again. But I don’t know if I’m able to give up everything I’ve built in order to have her. That’s a lie; I know I am. But it doesn’t make it any easier to swallow when the truth of the matter is she wouldn’t do the same. Her loyalty will always be to her family. Something I’ve never quite understood. Loyalty to myself is the only thing that has kept me alive for this long.
I listen to her breathing, my fingers trailing down to her throat and lightly squeezing. It would be so easy to solve this problem. To put us both out of our misery. My hand continues drifting down to her chest, and I rest it between her breasts, feeling the low thud of her heart under my palm. She’s so vulnerable with me, and for the first time in a long time, I can feel myself falling into a deep sleep, content with the idea of not waking up because sleeping at her side offers that risk. But she’s also the only thing that’s been able to bring me to a level of relaxation that will allow me to get any rest.
I’m conflicted. Stay awake and alert or fall asleep by her side?
The choice is taken from me as I’m pulled into a deep slumber moments later.
* * *
Loud banging and my name being called startles me awake. I grab my gun on my nightstand, but it’s not there. At first, when I can’t feel her beside me, I think she’s gone. Then I see her sitting at the end of my bed, holding the gun and staring at it curiously.
“Someone’s at the door,” she says with a sly smile, not at all explaining why she’s holding my gun and watching me while I sleep. Some might consider it creepy, but I consider it endearing.
She’s still naked, and I’m tempted to claim her all over again, my cock twitching at the sight of her perfect tits with bite marks all over them.
“Braxton!” More banging. I know that voice. Fuck me. Her timing couldn’t be any worse. I spring out of bed and throw on a pair of loose sweats.
“Did you double book your fuck buddies?” Hope asks, and there’s a dangerous glint in her eye as she points the gun in the air and squeezes the trigger. “Oops,” she says innocently, and I can’t help but laugh. Jealous indeed.
I scoop her up in my arms, even though she tries to fight me, and throw her back onto the bed, then toss the sheet over her. “Do you think I have time to double book myself when you’re such a little psycho?” I kiss her lips.
She’s trying to hide a smile as she says, “Why? We’re not anything to each other.”
It’s a daring question. “If that’s what you want to think, then fine. Now, don’t let anyone else see your body, or I’ll be the one pulling the trigger.”
She aims the gun at my head. “You’re not scared of me aiming this at your head now that I’ve got what I wanted from you?” she taunts.
I smirk over my shoulder. “Not after seeing you at shooting practice. Not a care in the world.”
She grumbles something as I walk to the door to more banging and shouting. My smile quickly drops as I mentally prepare myself to see the woman I despise most in this world.
“Mother,” I greet, my voice toneless.
Her hair looks like it needs to be brushed, and she’s wearing old clothes that are half torn and two sizes too big for her. Her pupils are dilated, and she’s skittish as she stumbles back when I appear at the door. She licks her lips, looking confused as to why she’s here.
I don’t even know how she found my address, but that’s the least of my problems now that she’s on my doorstep. She never saw me when I checked up on her, and I’ve been ignoring her calls for the last six weeks, so she must be desperate to have personally tracked me down.
I never wanted her showing up at my door, especially the way she is right now. She was hardly a mother to me when I was a child, and she’s less than a stranger to me now.
“What, you don’t want to invite your mother inside? It’s cold out here.” She hugs herself, and I notice she’s only wearing a thin sweater. The temperature has dropped significantly in the last few days, and we’re no doubt due for snow soon.
“You’re good where you are,” I growl. She doesn’t have the right to barge into my life or encroach on all I’ve built. She tries to peek over my shoulder, but I block her view.
And she certainly doesn’t get to look at my woman. My mother is the type of person who would try to use Hope in some way once she found out about her family’s wealth. My mother only ever takes, and I certainly won’t have her associated with something that I’ve found for myself. Something to call my own, even if Hope won’t have me. My mother doesn’t get to contaminate this any more than I already have.
“What do you need?” I grit, partially closing the door behind me.
“Can’t a mother see her son?” she hisses. Actually, hisses like a cat. Fuck me. Only God knows what she’s on right now.
“That depends if the mother actually wants to see her son or if she’s only here for money or help getting out of trouble.”
She throws her hands in the air. “Always thinking the worst of me you are. It’s neither.”
I stare at her, and she fidgets uncomfortably. Because it’s always something with her, it reminds me of why I envy a family like Hope’s. How undeniably they have each other’s backs, whereas mine would tear me down in a heartbeat if they knew they could get even one cent from doing so.
My mother is many things, a coward, mostly. She and her boyfriends would beat me until I got big enough to defend myself. I never hit her, but when I was thirteen, I fought with her to get her to drop the belt she’d been whipping me with, and she landed on her ass. It had crossed my mind to hit her back. To inflict the same pain that she had on me for all of those years. But I refused to stoop so low. At that moment, I saw her for what she was—a broken, cowardly woman.
I didn’t want to be in that life anymore. I didn’t want to turn into her.
Hope was the first woman I met who showed me what true power is in a woman. As quiet as she might be, her presence always called to me with confidence and a lethal edge.
“I need something else,” she finally blurts.
“What?”
“They arrested Teddy!” she cries out, and crocodile tears spill from her eyes as she tries to explain how he’s the victim in the situation. Teddy is her on-again, off-again man who likes to beat her and fuel her addictions. I tried to get her to leave him many times. Even paid for her to go to rehab twice. But I concluded that it’s better to cut some things off. If it’s poison, it’ll eventually infect everything. But I haven’t been able to completely cut her off. Yet .
“Good. I hope he goes to jail.” I smile because I absolutely hate the fucking guy. I’d even considered killing him myself but decided against getting further involved in her life. I can’t control my mother or change her path. But this hatred I harbor for her still festers.
Her mouth opens in shock. I don’t know what she expected from me. I hate that man. The man she claims to love more than her “useless” son. I’ve heard it all. How disgusting I am to her. How I’m less compared to the scum she lets beat her daily. And she holds the resolve that that’s the absolute truth.
I feel the anger rise in me again, sparking to life that small part of me that was a fourteen-year-old boy thrown onto the streets because he wanted something better for his family. I bury that back down, though, because it has no place here. Not in this life of mine.
“Have a good day, Mother. And don’t ever fucking come back here again, begging me to help that man.” I go to shut the door, but she throws herself against it.
“Come on, Braxton. One call from you, and it can all go away,” she says desperately. “You have that kind of power, don’t you?”
“No,” I tell her again. Because she only contacts me when she finds it convenient to have a cop in the family.
“Now, leave before I have you arrested.” I push her back, and this time, when I go to shut the door, she’s too stunned to stop me.
I take a deep breath and look through the peephole to see her still standing there.
My teeth grind. I feel a part of me has been exposed as I focus on the only other presence in the room. Someone who I didn’t want to see this side of me, completely in denial about my roots. Hope and I come from different worlds entirely, and though she certainly isn’t here for my money, it’s the understanding in her gaze that rocks me when I turn back to her. She looks… sympathetic, and it pokes at something ugly inside me.
I don’t want her to see my past. I don’t want her to see me as weak.
What a hypocrite I am, wanting to see all of her but hiding this shame within me.
“I should leave,” Hope says, flicking off the sheets and going to grab her clothes. I step into her path. Her breath is shaky, and she still holds the gun as she stares up at me through her glasses.
She isn’t allowed to go anywhere.