Chapter 22 #2
The first brush of his mouth is soft, testing, like he’s giving me one last chance to pull away. I don’t. Instead, I fist my hand in his shirt and haul him closer, opening under the second press, letting him in.
The kiss is nothing like the others we’ve stolen—less anger, more heat. Less punishment, more…want. Deep and slow and devastating.
His hand leaves my hair, slides down to cup the back of my neck, thumb at my jaw, angling my head exactly where he wants it. His tongue sweeps against mine, and a sound I don’t recognize falls out of me, low and needy.
He answers it with a curse against my mouth, shifting, rolling us so I’m on my back and he’s half over me, braced on one forearm, careful not to crush.
“Tell me to stop,” he rasps.
I look up at him, lips swollen, heart hammering, every nerve ending lit.
“Fuck that,” I say.
Something dark and satisfied flashes across his face.
His hand drags down from my neck, over my collarbone, to the hem of my T-shirt. He hesitates there for half a heartbeat, eyes searching mine.
I nod, throat tight.
The touch when he lifts the shirt is almost reverent, callused fingers skimming my ribs as he pushes the cotton up, up, over my head. Cool air hits my skin, followed by the much better heat of his gaze.
“Jesus, Tally,” he mutters.
I want to hide. I want to preen. I settle for staring at the ceiling, trying to breathe.
His palm slides up my stomach, slow and sure, until it cups the weight of my breast through my bra. My back arches on instinct, the contact sending a bolt of pleasure straight down between my thighs.
“Okay?” he murmurs.
“Do you seriously have to ask?” I gasp.
His mouth curves, wicked and fond all at once, and then he’s bending his head, replacing his hand with his lips.
The first press of his mouth over the lace is almost too much, sensation sparking everywhere at once. When he finds the peak through the thin fabric and flicks his tongue, my hips jerk.
“Bran,” I breathe.
He hums, the vibration sending another shockwave through me. One hand works at the bra clasp, impatient; when it gives, he pushes the cups aside, baring me entirely to his gaze.
I want to make a joke about the lighting. About how this is absolutely not my most flattering angle. Nothing comes out but a broken little noise when he looks up at me through his lashes, eyes gone nearly black.
“So fucking beautiful,” he says, like it’s a fact, like he’s reciting a line from a report.
Then he ducks his head and puts his mouth on me properly.
Heat lances through me, sharp and sweet. His tongue is slow and deliberate, tracing circles, then sucking lightly, then harder when I gasp and clutch at his shoulders. His hand slides down, fingers spanning my hip, thumb stroking the soft skin there, grounding me.
He alternates, teasing one nipple with his mouth while his fingers roll the other, then switching, leaving nothing unloved. The pleasure is a rising tide, relentless and warm.
By the time his hand leaves my breast and drifts lower, I’m already arching into him, legs shifting restlessly.
He trails his knuckles along the waistband of my sleep shorts, eyes flicking up to meet mine again.
I nod, too breathless to speak.
He slides his hand under the elastic, fingers skimming over the front of my panties. Even that slight pressure makes me gasp, my thighs falling open to give him more room.
“Christ,” he mutters. “You’re already shaking.”
“Shut up and get to work, Kelly,” I manage.
His mouth curves against my breast, amused, and then his hand shifts, two fingers centering over me, rubbing slow, firm circles through the thin cotton. The friction is perfect, enough to make my hips move of their own accord, chasing the sensation.
“Bran,” I whisper. “Don’t tease.”
“That’s literally the point,” he says, but his fingers speed up, somehow finding exactly the rhythm my body wants.
The room narrows to touch and sound—the low rumble of his curses, my own breath stuttering, the soft slick slide of fabric against my skin. When he pushes my panties aside, presses the pad of his thumb against my clit, and slides one finger deep inside my pussy, I almost come right then.
He seems to realize it, because he pauses, his forehead dropping briefly to my chest as if he’s collecting himself.
“Tell me if you want me to stop,” he says.
“I will kill you,” I say clearly, “if you stop.”
He huffs out a laugh that sounds half wild, then pushes a second finger in alongside the first. “Jaysus, you’re so fecking tight,” he murmurs, his Irish more pronounced. “So fecking perfect.”
It’s a steady, relentless rhythm, two fingers working me, his thumb circling, his mouth back on my breast. Every stroke winds me tighter. I clutch at his shoulders, his hair, the sheets, anything to keep myself anchored as my body climbs toward the edge.
The nightmare is gone. Henry is gone. There is only this: Bran Kelly between me and the dark, giving me back my own body one gasp at a time.
“Bran—I’m—” Words disintegrate. My thighs clamp around his wrist.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs against my skin. “Come on, Tally girl. Let go.”
The command does something inside me. I tip over the edge with a cry, everything going white-hot, muscles clenching around his hand. Pleasure pulses through me in waves, my back arching, fingers digging into his shoulders hard enough to bruise.
He keeps it going—just enough, just right—riding it out with me until the tremors start to ebb. Only then does he ease up, his touch gentling, finally slipping his hand away.
I sag back against the pillow, boneless and dizzy, heart racing, breath coming in ragged pulls.
For a few glorious seconds, there’s nothing but afterglow. No fear. No guilt. Just warmth and the heavy weight of him half on top of me, his hand still stroking my hip.
Then he goes rigid.
“Fuck,” he whispers.
My eyes blink open. “What?”
He pushes off me like I’ve burned him, swinging his legs over the side of the bed, shoulders tight. “This was a mistake.”
The words hit like a slap.
I push myself up on my elbows, gathering the sheet to my chest more out of instinct than modesty. “Wow,” I say, the aftershocks of pleasure souring in an instant. “You really know how to make a girl feel special, Kelly.”
“That’s not what I—” He scrubs a hand over his face, jaw clenched. “You’d just had a nightmare. You were shaking. I was supposed to be comforting you, not—”
“Not what?” I snap. “Not touching me the way I clearly wanted you to? Not giving me literally the only thing that’s made me forget Henry Thurston exists for more than thirty consecutive seconds?”
His head jerks toward me, eyes dark. “Don’t use me for that.”
My laugh comes out sharp and ugly. “Funny, I was about to say the same to you.”
He flinches.
“Because that’s what this is, right?” I plow on, anger and hurt tangling together in my chest. “You push and pull and say it’s a mistake and then you’re in my bed with your hand between my legs, and I’m the one taking advantage?”
“That’s not what I’m saying,” he grinds out. “I’m saying I’m your protection, not your—”
“My what?” I demand. “My stress relief? My consolation prize? My consolation anything?”
His hands clench into fists at his sides. For a second, I think he’s going to blow, yell something that will ruin everything. Instead, he takes a step back from the bed like he’s afraid of getting too close again.
“I crossed a line,” he says tightly. “Again. That’s on me. It can’t happen again.”
“You already said that once,” I say. My throat feels scraped raw. “How’d that work out for you?”
His gaze flicks to my bare chest, to the flush still high on my skin, then away like it physically hurts him to look.
“It won’t happen again,” he says. “I mean it this time.”
I swallow hard against the sting in my eyes. “You keep saying that like you’re in control,” I say quietly. “Newsflash, Bran: there are some things we can’t control.”
For a second, something like despair flashes across his face. Then he turns away.
“I’m going to check the perimeter,” he says, voice flat. “Make sure we’re secure.”
“At two in the morning?” I ask. “In the middle of nowhere?”
“That supposed to be a joke?” he bites out.
“No,” I say. “It’s supposed to be an admission that you’re running.”
He stops at the door, hand on the frame. His shoulders are a rigid line.
“This is me doing my job,” he says without looking back. “Get some sleep, Tallulah.”
The door clicks shut behind him.
I flop back onto the pillow, staring at the ceiling, heart still pounding for entirely different reasons than a few minutes ago.
Outside, I hear the faint creak of the front door, the whisper of cold air, then nothing. No footsteps. No movement.
He’s out there, somewhere in the dark, stewing in guilt and whatever the hell else lives under his muscles and tattoos.
I lie awake, waiting for the sound of the door again, for the weight of him returning to the cabin, to the couch, to anywhere near me.
I mean to stay awake.
My body has other ideas.
At some point, exhaustion drags me under, dreams flickering at the edges of my consciousness. They’re softer this time—no blood, no rivers. Just the echo of a rough voice saying I’ve got you and phantom hands that both comfort and burn.
When I surface hours later to thin gray light leaking around the curtains, the other side of the bed is still empty.
The cabin is quiet.
And Bran Kelly has not come back inside.