Chapter 12 #2
I freeze and stare into her wide, blue eyes. “What?”
“I ran into Honor outside the store before this all happened.”
Ice poured on me couldn’t have any greater effect than those words. “Oh?” I say, hoping it doesn’t come out as a croak like I think it does.
“She approached me. She made a few assumptions, then a few comments, and I may have made her a little… angry?”
She grimaces and shrugs her shoulders, and she looks absolutely adorable. I’d tell her so if I wasn’t terrified of what Honor said. “What?”
Laughing, she lets out a breath and leans to sit closer to my knees, her gaze focused on my chest. “She assumed we slept together Friday night. Said a few things that I think were her weird way of thinking she was bonding with me, which rubbed me the wrong way.”
“What did she say?”
She clears her throat. “Some insider information I haven’t acquired just yet.
But then she flipped it and started speaking badly about you.
It was a little… unexpected, I guess, how furious it made me.
Then I may have insinuated that I knew of her reputation and believed it to be true. She huffed and stormed away.”
Insider information? “She said somethin’ bad about me, and you got angry and said somethin’? But when the women inside were talkin’ about you, you left instead of standin’ up for yourself?”
“It’s hard to explain. It all ties back to the fact I’ve had years of being constantly told what was wrong with me. I usually just shut down, but it’s different when someone says something about a person I care about. Then I become defensive,” she says with a shrug, her eyes not meeting mine.
I’m someone she cares about? “You stood up for me?”
“What she said wasn’t right. And I really didn’t like it. It also rubs me the wrong way that she knows you in a way I don’t yet, and thinking about the two of you ever being intimate makes me a little… crazy. This has never happened to me before, so I think I kind of just lost it a little bit.”
Honor knows me intimately in a way Brynlee doesn’t know me yet. “What kind of insider information did she give you?”
Biting her bottom lip, she bows her head as a flush appears on her cheeks. Her finger plays with my T-shirt, and I strain against my jeans again. “She may have shared what you’re like in bed. How… generous you are. And that you’re well-endowed. She assumed I already knew.”
“How generous I am?”
“In bed. Specifically, with your tongue.”
She shifts on my lap, and I love how uncomfortable she looks. Just like I am. She wants me. She wants me, and she needs the same relief I do. “Is that right?”
“Oh,” Brynlee says, her eyes finally meeting mine, “just so you don’t take anything the wrong way, she called me your girlfriend.
I told her we haven’t put labels on things.
Not because I don’t want people to think we’re together, but we haven’t talked about what we are or aren’t or are going to be.
And I’m going to stop digging a hole now. ”
My heart thumps in my ears, and what Carter told me plays in my head. The first step to wife her up would be to make her my girlfriend, right? “Do you want to put a label on this?”
“Do you?”
She searches my eyes, and I’m not sure how to respond. Moving too fast could backfire, but I would give my left arm to make her mine. “I’m not opposed. Whenever you’re ready, I’m here. Waitin’.”
“Even though we’ve only known each other a couple of weeks and had one official date?”
“I haven’t stopped thinkin’ about you since the moment we met, and leavin’ last night was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done,” I admit.
“Really?” she whispers, leaning forward until our lips nearly touch. “How difficult?”
Closing my eyes, I can’t look at her as I confess what I swore I wouldn’t tell her. “I had to take matters into my own hands.”
“Why do you look embarrassed to say that?” I hear the smile in her voice, but I can’t open my eyes. I’m not technically finished with this confession.
“It was in the pickup. Before I made it home.”
Gasping, she shimmies in my lap. “Really?”
I open my eyes and plead with her. “Please don’t say anythin’ to anyone. It’s not somethin’ I planned to tell you, but I seem to say things I wouldn’t admit to anyone but you.”
She cups my face in her hands. “Rhett, anything shared between us stays between us. Promise,” she says. “I slept in your shirt last night.”
Relief fills me, and I smile. “Really?”
“I slept in only your shirt.”
The ache below my belt intensifies. “I wish I’d seen that. Imagined it, but I think the real thin’ would be better.”
“Me, too. Like you, I had to take matters into my own hands.”
Damn my nice guy personality. I shouldn’t have told her that she should follow her rule last night. “When you talk like that…”
I stop speaking the moment she climbs off my lap. “Wait here,” she says and disappears down the hallway. The same hallway I know leads to her bedroom.
I want to take my jeans off to help relieve the strain, but I decide to wait until she comes back. No matter how uncomfortable I am, I miss having her weight on me. Her thin frame sets me on fire, and I never want to be put out. It burns so good.