17. Brady
CHAPTER 17
Brady
S he steps toward me, and my body suddenly becomes alive. “When I saw you, I knew I would be okay.” I can see her eyes in the dimmed room; the light over the stove is the only light on. “I knew that you would take care of me.” She swallows, and I see her hands shaking as she takes a step toward me. “I…” She trails off. “I…” I close my eyes for a second to push down the rage I feel thinking about the scene I walked into. Seeing his hands on her, hearing her cry out in pain and fear. It’s a sound I don’t think I’ll ever forget in my whole life. It’s a sound even five shots of whiskey couldn’t cancel out. “I feel safe with you.” It’s the last thing she says, and her mouth comes to mine. Finally , is all I can think when I wrap my arms around her as her mouth opens for my tongue.
Pulling her flush to me, I relax with her in my arms. The kiss starts out slow, each of us taking our time. I waited too long for this kiss. My hand moves up her side to her hair. I bury it in it, and as soon as I fist her hair, she groans into my mouth, pushing her tits into my chest. The kiss that started out slow is now going into overdrive. Our tongues fight with each other. One of her hands on my chest grips my T-shirt in her palm while the other moves up to go into my hair. I wrap my arm around her waist, picking her up, and place her ass on the counter. Her legs open for me to stand between them.
“Harmony,” I whisper when our lips finally separate, but it’s for a split second. Her hands grip my T-shirt, pulling me back to her. “Fuck,” I swear before I turn my head to the side and kiss her. I could spend the night just kissing her, and I’d be okay. My cock is hard and wants to sink into her so badly. I let go of her lips to trail kisses down her neck, sucking in. Her hands grip my sides as I slide my tongue back up her neck to her jaw. As I devour her mouth, she wraps her legs around my hips, pulling me closer to her. If she were naked, I’d slide into her and it would be heaven. The thought alone makes me want to lay her on the counter and feast on her.
“If we don’t stop this,” I finally say, “it’s going to go somewhere I don’t think you’re ready for.” My eyes stare into hers as her chest rises and falls. The kiss has made her breathless. “We’re especially not going to be doing this on my counter for the first time.” I see her eyes go big, and her cheeks get a touch pinker. She looks down shyly, and I put my hand under her chin, raising it up for her to look at me.
“Brady,” she says, “it’s been a while.”
“Yeah, baby?” I don’t know why this pleases me, but it does.
“And he was my first.” Her grip on my T-shirt tightens. “And, well, it wasn’t often.”
“We’ll go slow, baby,” I assure her, “but make no mistake about it”—my head bends to kiss her lips—“I’m getting in there.”
“Mom!” We both hear Wyatt screaming her name at the same time. My body goes still as I rush away from her and run up the stairs toward him, taking the stairs three at a time. “Mom,” he calls again, and when I walk into the room, I see him in the middle of the bed with tears running down his face. He takes one look at me and asks me, “Mom?”
“I’m right here,” Harmony confirms from behind me, walking around me to go to him. I watch her get on the bed with him and take him in her arms as he sobs, gripping the back of her shirt. “I’m right here.” She puts her cheek on the top of his head as she rubs his back.
“I’ll get him some water,” I offer. When she looks at me, her own tears run down her face. She doesn’t answer me. All she does is nod.
I walk back down to the kitchen and grab two bottles of water before making my way back upstairs. “Are we staying here now?” he asks her, and I can hear the fear in his voice. Again, for the second time tonight, I have to lock down the need to go and find Winston Cartwright and beat the ever-loving shit out of him. My head hangs for a second when I hear him ask in the softest voice I’ve ever heard, “Is he going to get you?”
I walk into the room. “No.” I don’t know why I answer him instead of letting Harmony answer. “He’s not going to get her, and he’s not going to get you.” I hand him a water bottle, and he reaches out for it but puts it beside him. “He won’t bother you guys here.” He stares at me. “I promise you, Wyatt, he will not get close to you guys.” I made him a promise, wondering how many broken promises were made to him by his father.
“Okay.” He nods at me and then falls back with his head on the pillow.
“I’m going to wait until he falls asleep again,” Harmony whispers to me, and I just nod, walking out of the room and heading back down to the kitchen.
I’m putting the whiskey back into the cabinet on top of the fridge when I hear her soft footsteps coming into the kitchen.
“Is he down?” I ask, and she nods.
“For now, at least.” She stands in the middle of the kitchen. “It’s never been this bad,” she says. “Like, we’ve argued for sure, and as much as I tried to keep my voice down, Winston didn’t care. I tried to shield him.”
“You’ll have to stop talking,” I tell her, my teeth clenched.
“No,” she snaps at me, “you put yourself in this, so you get it all.”
“Harmony.” I put my fists on the counter in front of me with her standing on the other side of the island.
“We used to fight often, obviously, when he would come home drunk and shit, and smelling like…” She stops. “Well, you get the picture.”
I close my eyes. “That is another reason I had to leave him. He was getting old enough, and if I stayed, he might think that’s normal, and it’s not.” She stops. “We have to talk about us staying here.”
“There is nothing to talk about,” I finally say, and she looks like she’s about to argue with me.
“We have a protection order now,” she repeats what the deputy told her.
“Yeah, and we all know that Winston follows all the rules,” I counter back at her.
“He’ll get in trouble if he comes back.”
“The sheriff is in the Cartwrights’ pocket,” I inform her of something she should know, “so we both know that he won’t care. So unless you get a judgment, you aren’t staying in that house.” I point at the window that shows her house to the side.
“But—” she tries to come back with an argument.
“I have four bedrooms.” I tap my finger on the counter. “Two of them have never been used. You talk to Ryleigh tomorrow morning, then she can tell you that you can’t go back there.”
“And if she tells me I can?” she asks, and I just smirk. “Exactly, so regardless of what she says, you aren’t going to let me go back there.”
“You would be right about that,” I confirm.
“I have to go over to my house and get things,” she mentions, looking out at the house, and all I can do is shake my head.
“No.”
“Brady, I need things.” She closes her eyes.
“Whatever you need, I have here,” I tell her.
“I need my baking stuff.” Her voice is quiet.
“Baby, you aren’t going to be baking.” All she does is shake her head.
“It’s a side job I have and I need my things.” She turns. “I’m going to go and get the stuff and bring it here.”
She takes one step out of the kitchen. “You take one more step,” I almost bark but she stops walking, “and I’ll turn you over my knee and make your ass red.” She halts and I make my way over to her, stopping with my front to her back. “Make a list.”
“But what if he’s out there?” She doesn’t turn to look at me.
“Even more reason that you aren’t going out there. You are going to make a list, then I’ll go get it and come back,” I tell her as she looks over her shoulder at me. My hand goes to her side while my mouth comes down to kiss her lips. “List.”
“Okay, Brady,” she concedes softly, “I need a pen and paper.”
“Where is your phone?” I ask, and she pulls it out from her back pocket. “FaceTime me, and it will go faster.”
“Okay.” She presses a couple of buttons, and the phone rings from my own pocket.
“Lock the door,” I remind her, pulling open the door, and her hand grips my wrist before I walk out.
“Be careful.” Her face and voice are both filled with worry.
“I will,” I assure her, kissing her before walking down the steps and heading toward her house, turning when I don’t hear the sound of the door clicking. “Did I not tell you to go inside the house?”
“Brady, we would hear him coming,” she tells me, and I stop walking, turning to look at her.
“The faster you get your ass in the house, the faster I can get myself in your house,” I hiss at her, and she scoffs, turning and going back in my house and closing the door.
“What about the back door? Can I go out there?” she asks, and I see her standing at the back door, but it’s still closed.
“As long as it’s closed,” I tell her, walking to her house and up the steps. I open the door and walk into the house.
“Okay, go to the kitchen,” she instructs me and I walk in, grabbing all the pans she wants. I realize then that she might have a couple of pots and pans, but she has like fifty different sizes of baking pans.
“Baby, you are going to need all of these?” I ask.
“I have to make twenty. It’s Sunday tomorrow,” she states, and I swear I have no idea who the hell she’s baking for.
“Okay, what else?” I ask, putting all the pans together on the counter before she tells me where to find a box.
It’s about twenty minutes later, and I have to make two trips to carry all of the things to my house. She puts away all the refrigerated stuff before she turns and looks at me. “I’m going to have to be up in a couple of hours,” she says. “I’m thinking I should just pull an all-nighter.”
“No.” I shake my head. “You are going to come upstairs with me right now and get in the shower.”
“Brady.” Her voice is breathless.
“In the shower by yourself,” I rephrase, “and then you will sleep, even if it’s for a couple of hours. Get your mind to stop working.”
“I don’t know…” She trails off, and I grab her hand in mine, and we walk out of the kitchen and up the steps. I let her hand go when we get to the top of the stairs, knowing she’ll go check on Wyatt. She peeks in quickly. “He’s sleeping,” she whispers. “Where is the bathroom?” I don’t answer her. Instead, I again take her hand and walk down the hallway to my bedroom. The wooden four-poster king-sized bed is unmade from the morning. I walk to the side, where I pull open a drawer in the matching wooden credenza. After I grab a T-shirt, I hand it to her. “It’s through there.” I point toward the door in the corner. “I’m not even going to try to go in with you,” I explain, and she nods. “Only because all you have to do is look at me, and I’ll forget all the things I said I wouldn’t do and get in that shower with you.”
“Okay, Brady.” She gets on her tippy-toes and kisses my neck in the same spot I kissed her the last time. “I won’t be long.” She turns and walks to the door, closing it behind her.
I take a second to look at the ceiling and close my eyes. “This is going to be a long-ass night.”