13. Rose
Chapter 13
Rose
“...She nourishes the poison in her veins and is consumed by a secret fire.” ― Virgil
H e kissed me.
Again.
And I was furious.
Again.
How could someone so hot be so infuriating and still look so good doing it? How could I still see the pure side of him—that heart of gold he displayed by simply listening to what I said and being there for me? How could I be driven so mad by the man sitting next to me while he drove a stupid, ridiculously expensive car that could be sold to house several families quite comfortably? And, above all, what the hell did he want with me ?
“I’m sorry, Rose.” He shifted gears to start driving away to wherever he was taking me. Honestly, I didn’t care where we went. I just wanted his mouth on mine again.
Briggs’ hand slid over my thigh, his fingers giving a light squeeze. Instead of tensing up like I did the few times August tried the same move, I relaxed into his hand. Possibly melted under it.
“Go on.”
He chuckled. “I wasn’t lying when I said I wasn’t good for you.” Here we go . His eyes locked on mine for a moment before refocusing back on the road. When his fingers moved higher up my thigh and squeezed once more, I stifled a moan that almost left my lips. Minnie was right. I was such a virgin, it wasn’t even funny. I guess saving yourself for the man of your dreams—or, rather, the man you thought was the man of your dreams—truly went nowhere in giving me the experience I suddenly desperately wished I had. Briggs was obviously not a virgin. I knew that right away when I saw how his ex acted at the party, and after the way he kissed me, the way his hands held me…
A shiver rolled down my spine just thinking about how hard he was beneath me .
“So what happened, then?”
“You did.” His hand slid along my thigh as his eyes found mine again before landing back on the road. “You happened.”
I laughed and shook my head. “Yeah, right. Is this the part where you drop me off somewhere close enough to my house to make yourself feel better?” His jaw tensed like he completely disagreed with what I just said.
“I'm serious, Rose.” His fingers tapped along the wheel. “And I would never just leave you somewhere for you to find your way back. You should know that by now.”
I let out a soft mmm . “But I don’t understand.”
Briggs’ tongue swiped over his bottom lip. “You don’t understand what you’re doing to me?” His thumb trembled as it grazed my jeans, and the air in the car suddenly became too hot. “Or you don’t understand why I’m not taking you home right away this time?”
I gulped. “Both.” Where are we going? “But I guess I’d prefer an answer to the second one.”
“I’m sorry, Rose,” he repeated, probably because he thought I was still angry. I guess I was, but my brain was melting under his touch. “I’ll answer your questions and apologize to you even more as soon as we get to where we’re going. If I need to do that on my knees, then I will.” Another gulp escaped me as his hand inched even higher, then stopped. Briggs' pinky was on the seam of my jeans, and I sucked in a breath as it moved to trace the thread.
“Are you going to tell me where it is you’re taking me?” My voice came out uneven, like my heartbeats were .
He smirked at me and jerked his chin toward my window. “We’re here.” He pulled into a spot in the grass, removing his hand to shift down and cut the engine.
“A park?” He nodded, then reached his hand back over to unbuckle my seat belt, sending tingles up into areas that were getting increasingly difficult to ignore. Especially around him. Really, only around him. He stepped around the car and opened the door for me, holding his hand out to help me out of the seat.
And then he dropped to his knees as I stood in front of him. My lips parted as I looked down at him. “Rose, I’m an idiot. I should have treated you better, and you were right. Will you forgive me?” His green eyes glimmered against the fading sun even as the clouds thickened above us, the wind picking up more now that we were away from the few buildings in town. The storm that was coming in mimicked the swirls in my stomach as I continued to hold his gaze with mine.
I couldn’t fight the smile that formed on my lips. “You didn’t need to get on your knees. I accept your apology.” Although him on his knees, groveling, was…hot.
He stood and dusted the dirt from his black jeans. “I know, but I felt like you needed something dramatic to make you see that I’m done playing games when it comes to you.” Come again?
“So you admit to being an asshole, then? Like truly, fully committed to acknowledging it?” He nodded and cupped my jaw, his callouses and cuts scraping soothingly across my skin.
“Yes. And I promise I’ll behave from now on.” His hand fell from my face as he reached down to take my hand in his. “Come on. To answer your second question from earlier—I want to show you where I go sometimes when I’m trying not to be an asshole.”
We walked for maybe three minutes down a trail that ended at a stream with a small waterfall to the right. It was beautiful, serene. Somewhere I would go if I’d known it existed. Now that I did, I didn’t want to leave. But the storm wouldn’t allow us to stay long. We’d be back in his car soon enough.
He let go of my hand and sat on a large boulder that faced the stream. As I approached, he reached out and tugged me by my waist into his lap. “Too forward?” His brows drew together as he looked at me.
I shook my head, then laced my fingers behind his neck. “No, it’s just surprising, I guess.”
“Is it? I thought the way I kissed you at that bonfire told you plenty.”
I quirked my lips to the side. “Yes, well, then you pushed me away when you…you felt something, didn’t you?”
His arms wrapped around my waist, and then his fingers started to trail up along my ribs, right over the spot he pulled back from before. “I didn’t mean it like that. I didn’t want you to think…fuck.” He pulled me in tighter. “I just wasn’t expecting it.” His tone shifted, turning darker. But we’d broken some massive barrier between us, and I didn’t want to be the one to turn it into a crater of hell again. If I was being honest with myself, I liked being here, with him. And I wanted to stay like this for as long as I could.
“I got these the night my parents died.” I pushed my hand over his, guiding him beneath my shirt until I stopped right above the marks. “They’re burn marks.” He nodded, then rested his chin on my shoulder.
“You don’t need to talk about it if you don’t want to,” he whispered, sending shivers down my back and thighs. Could I even picture August being this gentle with me? Did he ever ask about the fire or let me talk about any of it? The answer to both of those things, after desperately scanning my memories, was no. He’d never taken the time to get to know me, and if he had, he’d stop calling me by all the stupid nicknames he could come up with.
“Rose, are you okay?” Briggs’ thumb rubbed my fingers under my shirt. I nodded, then because I’d forgotten about his hands and how he got injured in trying to protect me, I lunged for his other hand and lifted it to inspect it.
He laughed, and I felt the vibrations through my shoulder. “You did good. No infection.” The stitches had been removed and his skin was healing, but it was going to be a while before a white scar would settle in its place. That same hand brushed my hair back over my other shoulder just as a roll of thunder erupted above.
“I still have nightmares about the fire,” I blurted. His hand stilled in my hair. “I was trapped in it. My parents told me to run, to get out. And I hid in the stupid grandfather clock. That’s where…that’s where the paramedics and firemen found me. But getting to the clock…I ran through fire to get to it and burned my side.”
Briggs kissed the top of my shoulder. “You ran through fire?” I nodded, the thought almost making me want to laugh. But the thought of my parents, of how I lived and they didn’t, ended that feeling as quickly as it came. “You’re a fighter, you know. It’s one of the things I like about you.” His fingers caressed the scar. It was possibly the first time I wasn’t self-conscious of the injury that I’d never fully heal from. He made it seem beautiful. Like it was a badge I should wear with pride.
I’m a fighter.
But I couldn’t stop my thoughts from escaping my mouth. Like usual. “You like me?” Fuck, I sound like I’m in high school. Having no experience with men was becoming all too evident.
His chuckle confirmed that. “Of course. Why else would I be touching you like this? Showing you exactly the answer to your first question.” The question of me not understanding what I did to him. The warmth of his hand left my torso as he slid out from under my shirt and tucked his knuckles under my chin. His green eyes hovered on my lips. “I’ve been thinking about kissing you again ever since that night, you know.”
“You…have?” I swallowed the dryness in my throat. It did nothing to help.
Briggs nodded, his tongue wetting his lips. “I have.” His thumb stroked my jawline and I let my head fall into his hand, my eyes fluttering closed at his touch.
“Are you going to just stare at my lips, or are you going to kiss me again?” I whispered.
“Gazing is not enough.” Briggs placed the pad of his thumb on my bottom lip, his pupils growing until there was little emerald left that wasn’t consumed by darkness. “What are you doing to me, Rose?” His question sounded like a plea, and then his lips were on mine, but this time, it was sweet. Soft, like he was trying to make the moment last as long as he possibly could. An intimacy I’d never witnessed first-hand, and it made me jolt back an inch from his face right as his tongue tried to slide into my mouth.
“Did I hurt you?” He inspected my face like he did in the woods. Neither of those times had he been the cause of my shock. Because that’s what it was. I was shocked that he could be this way with me.
“No. You’ve never hurt me. Not like that, at least.”
His forehead creased. “I won’t ever hurt you again, Rose. I promise. Do I need to get back down on my knees?” He shifted and started to lift me from his lap.
“No!” I slapped his hands away and clasped my hands tightly behind his neck. “You don’t need to do that again.”
He laughed, warming me all over again from the inside. “What if I want to?”
That sentence, that singular remark, circled my brain as he drove me home. I didn’t miss the similarities between when I begged him to kiss me the first time and when he said he’d get on his knees again for me. What if I want to?
His hands hadn’t left my body since we sat together by the water. On the way back to the car, he held my hand, and now that we were in the car, his hand was back on my thigh. I sighed and pulled my gaze from the window, where the rain that wasn’t quite snow was beginning to bead and roll down faster. “So what are we doing, Briggs?”
“Well, I’m taking you home, and then I’ll drive back to my house. You’ll probably go take a shower—hmm, no, you probably prefer baths during storms, and I’ll shower in oranges like I usually do—”
“Briggs, really?” I rolled my eyes at his response and squeezed his hand that wrapped around my thigh as he laughed. It wasn’t the injured one, and I had to bite my tongue from telling him to use his other hand to drive. Not that he’d listen. He seemed way too content to be holding onto some part of me still.
“Okay. How about this version? I’ll drop you off, and then tomorrow, I’m picking you back up at six.”
“Where are we going?”
I felt the heat of his eyes moving from my legs up to my lips through the corner of his eye. “I’ll surprise you.”
I didn’t like surprises. But something told me I’d love whatever he decided to do. “Formal, or…”
“Wear that red dress from the party.” His response came so fast that my lips popped open. Just knowing he paid that much attention to me, that he remembered my clothing—I had to stop my thighs from clenching together at the thought. I’d gone my entire life without sex, and now, all I could do was picture him ripping off that red dress he ordered I wear.
“Okay,” I finally breathed out.
My finger covered the sliver of a smile on my lips, and he groaned. The car pulled to the side of the road and stopped, and his fingers were under my chin in seconds. His thumb slid along my bottom lip, edging it down.
But his lips went flat—he wasn’t satisfied. Not until he claimed my mouth with his again, then took my bottom lip between his teeth. He pulled, his teeth raking hard and slow until my lip snapped back. My mouth parted in shock, but he just smirked back at me. “ That’s better. I told you before, and I guess I didn’t drive it home. Your. Teeth. Are. Perfect. Don’t you dare try to hide them from me again.”
I turned molten, liquid lava coursing through my veins in the most delicious way as his mouth came to mine again, repeating the same process of biting my lip and snapping it back. “Understood?” he asked as he pulled back and eased the car back onto the road.
“Mhm.” I rolled my lips in, trying to ease the swelling and the dumb smile that was getting harder to hide around him. A full smile. I’d never wanted to jump a man as much as I did now.
And that man was Briggs Andrews.