My Rose

24. Briggs

Chapter 24

Briggs

“Love is a kind of warfare.” ― Ovid

T he snow stopped falling that night as I read to Rose, and she fell asleep in my arms, listening to my voice once more. The moment her breathing turned into the soft rhythm I’d heard the night before, I started twirling her hair in my fingers, mesmerized by the hue. I’d seen thousands of brunettes, but none were anything close to the shade that rested in my palm.

Her long eyelashes fluttered and I held my breath, waiting for her breathing to turn rhythmic again, terrified I’d be caught staring at her like she was my entire world. I wasn’t in the position to fall in love and hadn’t considered being able to find what Dean suggested I find for myself. But staring down at her, entranced by her, that belief was beginning to unravel all too quickly. I knew I was obsessed—she hadn’t left my mind since we were children, and that guilty feeling I used to have whenever I thought about her only morphed into something more. Something I didn’t anticipate. Something Ovid’s poetry pointed to as the end-all, and not in a good way. Love was destructive—a form of chaotic warfare, spurring deceit and betrayal in its wake that would ruin you long before you had the time to realize what was happening.

Yet, it couldn’t be stopped.

It was happening.

I’d needed to know her every move, thinking it was just for her safety, but now, even if she was safe, I needed to know her whereabouts and everything else about her like I needed to breathe because I was obsessed, and now possibly in love, with Rose Fields.

My fingertips breezed over her soft skin, and my other hand instinctively shifted to meet her splayed one as it rested on my chest, twining our fingers like they had belonged together all this time, and I’d just been too blind to see it. I always thought she was beautiful, but now she seemed above that. She was more than anything I could put into words.

I’d been exposed all day long to her, and she hadn’t once asked about the vines along my arms or the reason behind the titan we both knew plenty about on my back. She wanted to know about me . Who I was beneath the surface. And I didn’t know how long I’d be able to go before she found out the truth of what I’d done. How ruined I’d made her life before it had a chance to begin. The fact that I had a fucking file on her inside of my dresser drawer and that I’d had her followed and tracked for years wasn’t going to go over well, either. But hiding a piece of Rose's past from her…it didn’t feel right anymore. I couldn’t find a justification to keep her in the dark when all she had done was light up every shadow I’d put in front of her. I knew it would take time, but one day, I’d let her know the truth.

“Briggs?” she whispered in a sleepy voice, and I blinked down at her, noting her eyes were still closed. “Keep reading, please. I love your voice.” My breathing stilled, my chest expanding in a way that damn near hurt. I tried to shift just enough to try to ease the pain, but it swelled more as her fingers tightened on my hand. “I just…really…love,” she stopped talking in her sleep as she nuzzled into me.

Part of me wanted to wake her up, to ask her what she loved, although I knew she was only talking about my voice. I mentally scorned myself as I unlatched my fingers from hers and picked the book back up. I flipped it open to where I’d left off and started reading as my fingers found their spot in her silken hair, hoping she would love me back one day. I’d make her mine in every sense of the word before long.

I continued reading for several more minutes before the weight of her head grew, and her breathing evened out. I let the book fall to my side and reached between us, seeking that sweet warmth between her thighs. She moaned lightly as I brought my fingers closer to her center, my breath stilling to keep her unconscious. The moment I cupped her pussy, I couldn’t help but smile. Rose had given me the ability to touch her when I wanted so long as she was mine, and this was when I wanted. I dipped a finger in, barely past her slit, her arousal untainted by her sleeping state, coating my fingers in her. Raising my finger to my lips, I sucked on the digit, my entire being shuddering at the way she tasted.

Like mine.

All mine.

Repositioning my hand over her cunt, I slid two fingers in, pressing on her clit softly with the tips, causing a moan to escape her parted lips. It took everything in me not to praise her while she slept so soundly against me. My face tightened in concentration as I pushed a finger inside her, letting my thumb pick up the ministrations of my two fingers from before.

Her hips swayed, seeking the sweet friction gifted by my hand. “You’re so wet for me again, baby girl,” I whispered against the crown of her head. “Soon, I’ll take you here with my cock like I did your pretty little mouth.” I angled my fingers up to stroke her g-spot, and she curled into me more. My lips hovered above hers, my gaze fixed on her thick eyelashes and subtle curves of her cheeks, the soft line of hair past her temples. There wasn’t a thing about Rose that didn’t utterly fascinate me—captivate me in ways nothing and no one else ever could. “Even asleep, your body knows who owns it. Who will always”—I reached inside her as much as I could, scissoring my fingers open while I pictured my dick swelling inside her—“own it from this day on.” My nose grazed her hair, taking in the citrus and coconut combination. “Fuck, you even smell like mine. And now that I have you, I’m never letting you go again.”

Before long, she was writhing in her sleep, her panting breaths coming in short bursts while her pussy clenched around my fingers. Then, all at once, her legs spasmed, her walls releasing her orgasm that I stroked her through until she had nothing left to give.

I pulled my fingers from her, sucking on one and then taking the other with long glides of my tongue. She stirred against me, resettling on my arm like nothing could wake her from the heavy sleep I’d caused her to fall into. It wasn’t long before I joined her, falling asleep to the sounds of her heart beating between us.

Light poured in through the windows I typically kept closed off with heavy curtains, and as my other eye opened, my breath lodged in my throat.

“Briggs.” My father inclined his head, and I fought the urge to tighten my hold on Rose, who was still sleeping in the same position she’d been in throughout the night. My brows furrowed as I searched through the window from where I stayed on the bed.

I faked a yawn. “Father. Didn’t expect you back so soon.”

“I had the chopper bring me straight from the airport late last night. The roads are clear now, however.” His voice almost sounded parental. Like this was a casual thing we did—him, updating me on the how or why while he stood in the bedroom I thought was the only mildly safe place in the house.

I’d been wrong.

Nowhere was safe in this house.

Rose’s hand moved across my chest, and when she muttered my name, I glared out the window. My father’s grin was more a sneer as he fixated on the sleeping woman in my arms like he hadn’t noticed her before.

“And who is this lovely girl?” he drawled, his voice a malicious purr that shook me to my core. My insides stiffened while the exterior part of my being knew his games and knew how to play them. I wanted to carry her down to my car and take her far away from here, but it was too late for that. Any added attention would be our end.

“No one.” Those words, saying she was no one, felt completely wrong. Rose’s warm breath rolled across my chest in the same patterns it had throughout the night—she was still asleep. The hair I was so enthralled by was partially shielding her face, and thankfully, I’d covered us both in a blanket that shielded her from the waist down because, no, she was still not wearing pants. As far as my father could tell, she truly was no one.

“No one?” my father questioned as he looked at the book beside me, then at Rose, his gaze lingering too long where my shirt she was wearing puckered, exposing the side of her breast. He grinned, his eyes flaring at the sight. “I see. She looks familiar. Is she from the club?”

“Yep.” My fist curled along my side. I’d been so fucking dumb bringing her inside, thinking I could sneak her in and out. And then what? Would I have kept doing that for as long as this—whatever it was—lasted? My girlfriend ? “She means nothing to me. She got stuck here in the storm, so I let her stay in here. That’s all.”

A fucking joke. I was a. Fucking. Joke.

My father’s focus fell on my bookshelves. “So, that’s why you didn’t fuck the blonde one the other night. When you disobeyed me.” Rose’s fingers moved ever so slowly over the bruise on my side, and I held my breath, hoping she’d stay asleep. “I can have her working tonight instead. We have another meeting, and I need you more present than you were last time. What’s her name?”

“I don’t know her name,” I said, right at the same time Rose turned her head toward my father, her hair still covering the side of her face as she glowered back at him and answered, “My name is Rose.”

Fuck .

The visual of me reaching for my gun concealed in my nightstand was starting to seem very appealing to make a reality. No more meetings, no more demands . I could just kill him and be done with it all. Rose would be safe. We could be together. Maybe if I’d told her the truth, she wouldn’t be so willing to fight whenever I tried to avoid telling people who she was.

My father barely glanced at her as he walked toward the door, removing his cufflinks. “Make sure you do whatever is needed tonight. I’d hate to have a repeat of what happened to Briggs a few days ago, much less allow my son to waste his time on a young little bitch like yourself. ”

“Excuse me?” Rose’s anger fueled the visual I’d concocted. I glanced at the nightstand, ready to defend her.

“Feisty.” His green eyes, the same as mine, cut over to my injury, his face hardening with the hint of a smile at the edge of his mouth. “Our clients expect more from my son and heir. You’ve deeply disappointed me, and I won’t stand for it to happen again.” His footsteps didn’t move fast enough as he left, unlike Rose’s heart as it beat wildly against my side.

At the sounds of his footsteps fading down the hall, she shot up in bed and stared down at me, a mix of confusion and anger—no, mostly anger—filling her features. “Did he just—what the fuck was that, Briggs?” Her hand raked through her hair. “What the hell kind of meetings do you go to?!” she whisper-shouted right before she pushed her small hands into my side to get me away from her.

“Stop it, babe.” I grabbed for her wrist, aiming to pull her back to me, to calm her down, but what was I going to say that would make any of what he just said any better? My life had more secrets than she’d be able to handle in one morning. “Please, let me—”

“I don’t know how you can explain that to me. You fuck strippers?” My jaw worked. I wasn’t sure what angle she’d find, but the one she did was the correct one. At least, before her, that had been mostly accurate.

“No.”

“At business meetings?!”

“No, Rose. You need to listen—” She started to punch me along my uninjured side, more like slapping as a tear rolled down her cheek. I reached for her arms and spun us, pinning her to the bed by her wrists. “Rose, stop. You’re acting crazy right now.”

That did it. Her angry face contorted into pure rage, and if she wasn’t so mad at me about things she had every right to be angry over, I’d lean down and kiss her.

“ I’m acting crazy? You said I meant nothing to you. You tried to pass me off as a—basically, a whore. Because strippers don’t fuck for money, I would know. Jasmine was one and she never—” Her gaze drifted to the side. “Oh my god. That’s how she met Dean, isn’t it? She worked at Van—”

“VanLuxe.” I cursed under my breath. I tried protesting the meetings before, and one particular time I was too fucked up to get out of bed and go—black and blue all along my sides with two ribs broken. That was around the time Jasmine came into Dean’s life, and although I didn’t ask where they met, it all seemed to click at the same time it did for Rose.

She fought against my hands, but I pushed her wrists deeper into the mattress. “You don’t understand, Rose.”

“Maybe I don’t want to anymore.” Another tear escaped, and my chest cracked as I watched it bead and roll down her temple. She jerked her face to the side to wipe away what I’d caused with my shirt, unable to look at me. “Just let me go, Briggs. I can’t do this.” Her eyes pinched shut as my fingers grew numb.

I rubbed her wrists with my thumbs, my voice shaking. “Can’t or won’t?”

“Both. Please, let me go. ”

“Rose, I—” I stared down at her, wanting to keep her there with me more than anything as words froze on my tongue. Wanting to tell her so much that I…just couldn’t. My father spent years grooming me to be callous and hollow—to numb my body with women and drugs and money and power, and it had worked. Until her. Rose was getting underneath the cracks I laid bare on the surface and was quickly chiseling the real me out of the hardened shell of the man I was. And looking at her as she neared the edge of a meltdown, those hardened pieces of myself were falling faster than I could keep up with.

“Get off me. I’ll call a ride—”

“No.” I shook my head, cutting off her protest. “No, I’ll take you.”

Her head snapped back to me. “No,” she seethed. “I don’t want to be near you right now. I just want to go home so I don’t have to think about you anymore.”

There was no escape for me when it came to her, but she had one from me. I released her and started pacing beside the bed while she slowly reached for her phone and made a call. The entire phone call, she refused to meet my eyes, refused to face me as she got up and found the clean clothes Rhonda had left for her.

She walked into the bathroom and shut the door, the sound like a signal to the end of everything I never should have let happen. My fingers splayed across my chest as I sat on the edge of the bed, the pain unbearable as I thought about how much I’d completely fucked up everything by thinking I could ever be worthwhile to anyone. That I could be something or someone for her like she so quickly became for me.