Chapter 20
TWENTY
Bryson
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” she whispers back to me.
“Why are you whispering?”
“I don’t know,” she replies, her voice still hushed. “I’m scared if I’m too loud this might all go away.”
God, she makes me smile. Nothing and no one has ever made me smile, not like this. My cheeks hurt.
This is what true happiness must feel like. I can’t say I’ve ever really felt it.
“We can’t have that, can we?” I say, my voice lowered to match hers.
She shakes her head, nibbling on her lower lip.
She’s so beautiful, I want to take my time and cherish every inch of her, but I’m just a man when it comes down to it, and my patience is going to have a hell of a fight if it’s going to be as strong as my urges.
She reaches down and lifts the hem of her top, up and over her head. Looks like I’m not the only one who’s feeling impatient.
I watch as she drops it to the ground and then moves her fingers to the button of her skirt, slowly undoing it, her eyes not once leaving mine.
I hear it fall to the floor, and I so badly want to drop my gaze to her body, to really see her for the first time, but I can’t look away from her beautiful dark eyes.
She steps forward, closing the gap between us. The warmth of her body against mine sends shivers down my spine.
I lean in closer, eager to explore the unfamiliar angles and curves of her body.
I lower my hand to her centre and stroke my thumb across her most sensitive parts.
Her head falls back, and her eyes shut, a look of bliss on her face.
I lower her to the bed and finally let my eyes take their fill of her. She’s even more beautiful than I imagined she’d be.
I move onto the bed next to her, and she presses up towards my touch, inviting my fingertips to wander .
“ Bryson ,” she moans against my lips, breaking the stretching silence.
It’s just my name, but I know exactly what she means. She’s begging for more, for me, for all of it with that one word.
Anticipation thrums in the air between us, tangible and all consuming, as I pull her in for an even deeper kiss.
I press my lips gently to her jaw, kissing along her chin and down her throat. She swallows deeply under my touch.
I follow the column of her throat up her neck to her ear, kissing every inch of skin I come into contact with.
She tastes even better than I could have imagined. She’s so fucking sweet.
Nothing has ever been so perfect, nothing .
I crouch down and run my tongue from the base of her spine all the way up to the top of her neck.
She moans, a breathless, sensual moan and I’m completely fucked from that sound alone.
Her hand finds my hard length and grips it tight before releasing and skimming lightly over the sensitive areas.
Each touch ignites a new spark, sharper and more electric than the last, like it’s releasing some of the tension that has been simmering beneath the surface, waiting for this very moment, for years.
“Are you ready for me, baby? ”
“I was ready before you even touched me.” She moans. “I’ve been ready since the first time you ever kissed me.”
“Sounds like I’ve left you hanging for far too long.”
“You better make it right.”
I don’t know who the hell this fiery little woman is, but I like her a whole hell of a lot. Her hands are flat against my chest, her nails sinking into my skin, just deep enough to drive me wild.
“Yes, ma’am.”
I slide down her body until I’m between her legs. My arms wrap around her hips to hold her in place as my mouth makes contact with her clit.
She arches her back upwards, a cry of pleasure filling the room around us as I tease her with my tongue.
Her fingers find my head and tug my hair, pulling and yanking harder and harder as I bring her closer and closer to the brink.
Her hips start to wriggle, but I hold her tighter, not allowing her any reprieve from the orgasm I know is building inside her.
“Bryson!” she cries out, “fuck, Bry, I’m –”
I keep doing exactly what I’m doing – I take her all the way there until she’s shaking in my arms, her moans become even louder as she rides it all the way out until she’s practically shoving me away because she can’t take any more .
I gently let go and sit back, smiling at her as she breathes heavily.
“Oh my god.” She pants. “That was incredible.”
“We’re just getting started with what I owe you, baby,” I say with a wicked grin.
Before she can even reply, I’ve lined myself up and pushed deep inside her hot little body.
Fuck, she feels incredible.
She cries out in pleasure as I fill her, and within minutes, I can’t handle anymore.
As I fall over the edge, finally allowing myself to let go, I know I can, and will, do this forever if she’ll let me.
Two weeks later
We’re lying in bed, both of us naked with our limbs tangled together, how we seem to find ourselves at every opportunity these days.
She’s got a little bruise on her thigh from where she walked into the corner of a table two days ago. I know there’s nothing evil about the small purple circle, but I don’t like seeing it there regardless. I’d never see another imperfection on her flesh again if I could help it .
I brush my fingers over it and think back to when I saw her in the supermarket that day, with her terribly covered bruises. Anyone else might not have noticed, but when it comes to her, I’ve always noticed everything.
I noticed the days she held her head higher in the hallways at school, and the days she slinked around the edges, looking at her feet. I noticed when she was reading a book she was fully engrossed in, and when she was in a bad mood. I definitely noticed the difference when her cousin started at Westlake. Sophia’s confidence grew, and she smiled and laughed more. She looked like she’d finally found her place.
That’s how she looks now, because she’s found her place with me.
I don’t miss a thing when it comes to the woman in my arms. There was never any chance of some poorly applied makeup disguising that from me.
I saw her then, and I see her now. I think it’s time she sees all of me too.
“Do you know how I knew he was hitting you, Soph?”
The patterns she’s drawing with her fingertip on my back stop for half a second before picking up where she left off.
“No. I’ve always wondered that. You knew it was him right away…”
I take a deep breath. I’ve never told this to anyone before. But she’s not just anyone. She’s my person. She’s the one I can trust with everything and anything. I know that, and it gives me the confidence to finally talk.
I know I was the weird dude in high school who barely spoke, but truthfully, I kept my mouth shut so that I didn’t accidently let any secrets out.
Now it’s time to let them out.
“Because the marks he left were the same as the ones my dad used to leave on me. The look in your eyes… it was the same one I saw in the mirror when I was younger.”
She gasps. “Your dad hit you?”
The pain in her voice when she says the word ‘dad’ is obvious, because to her, a father would never do anything like that to their child. Her father is a good man. Even Josh, despite his many flaws, would probably never lay a finger on his daughter.
I nod. “It happened eleven times.”
She claps a hand over her mouth, and tears immediately pool in the inner corners of her dark eyes.
“He hit you,” she whispers in disbelief.
He did more than hit me. The last time – the time that nearly ended it all – he beat me to within an inch of my life. I think the only reason that he didn’t follow through was self-preservation. It’s harder to cover up murder than assault.
I don’t remember much, but I know there was a lot of blood. I remember the bruises. I remember the weeks of pain from the broken ribs. I couldn’t run for three months.
My mother didn’t even take me to the hospital herself. She sent me with their driver. That’s how much she cared. She probably stayed back to console my father. I don’t know what they told the emergency room staff, or who they bribed, but no one asked me any questions about how I got hurt. No one called the police, but the nurses did look at me with sympathy in their eyes.
When I got out, I lied and told everyone at school that I got into an accident on my cousin’s scooter and got all smashed up.
I think the only person who questioned the lies was my English teacher, Miss Denver. She knew the truth. I know she did. I also know she was the one who had the police officer sent around to the house to do a wellness check a week later. Although when you’ve got as much money and power as my father, it was virtually pointless. He wasn’t going to get arrested by the nephew of his business partner, but I’ve always been grateful to her for caring – for seeing what no one else did, or what no one else wanted to see. And then for having the balls to try and do something about it.
I’ve always believed that maybe Miss Denver did do something more, or told someone else who took her seriously, because from that day on, my sperm donor never touched me again. Instead, he just looked through me like I didn’t exist.
He didn’t care what I spent on his credit cards, he didn’t care if I stayed out late or not. It was like his son had died that day at the mercy of his hands, and he just simply got on with his life.
It didn’t matter what I did. He didn’t even seem to notice when I bought myself a brand-new car on his dime. I guess it was just a drop in the bucket for the man who doesn’t care about anything as much as he cares about making money.
She’s got tears running down her face by the time I finish telling her all the details.
“Why didn’t you leave? You could have taken some money and ran.” Her voice is a hoarse whisper. “Sounds like you could have taken his credit card and he wouldn’t have cared.”
I shake my head. It’s not like I didn’t want to. I used to dream about taking off with as much of his fortune as I could stuff in a suitcase and disappearing in the middle of the night with it, but I knew I couldn’t take my little sister with me, I was just a kid myself. And even if I could have managed it, she never would have gone with me willingly. Her life was perfect. She wasn’t about to give that up because I told her that our father was a monster.
I screwed myself over in that respect. I made her life so safe that she only ever saw the good in the man who fathered us. She didn’t see the blind rage, she didn’t feel the weight of his fists, she didn’t feel his hatred. She was blissfully oblivious. She spent her years missing the father who bought her nice things when he was away for work and twirling around in pretty dresses for him while he took calls from the office and pretended to give a fuck. She never would have believed me if I told her the truth, and that would have hurt more than any of the blows he delivered.
“I had to stay to protect her.”
She doesn’t understand to begin with, but I watch as recognition dawns on her face.
“Carley.” She squeezes my hand.
I nod again.
“He didn’t –”
“He never touched her,” I cut her off. “She never even heard him raise his voice. I made sure of it. She only ever saw the good or the absent in that piece of shit.”
Her expression softens. “I don’t think you can truly understand how incredible that is, Bry.”
I shrug. Sometimes I wonder if I made the right choice. Maybe I should have been honest with her all these years and let her form her own opinion, but it’s too late for what ifs. We’re both adults now, and Carley is leaving for France anyway.
Maybe I’ll finally be able to breathe easy once her plane takes off. I can only hope she’ll never return to live under our parents’ roof again.
“Anyway, that’s why I stuck around. I wanted to get the hell out of here with the other guys. I probably wanted to leave this place more than anyone, but I needed to be close by until Carley was out of that house.”
My father is barely home these days anyway, he’s away for ‘work’ about two hundred days of the year. Not that he was around a heck of a lot more when we were younger, only difference now is that he doesn’t take my mother with him.
I assume it’s probably because his not-so-secret girlfriend wouldn’t like that. No one needs the buzz kill of the wife that can’t take a hint hanging around. That’d kill all the infidelity romance.
They should just get a divorce, but I doubt they ever will. Dad wouldn’t want to give up half of everything to Mum, and Mum is too delusional to realise she’s surplus to requirements. It’s all pretty pathetic. The woman is in denial and at this point, after two glasses of wine, she could probably make herself believe just about anything.
“As much as I hope she never finds out why you had to do that, I kind of hope she does, too, because it’s incredible. You’re such a good big brother and I really hope she appreciates that.”
I think I will wind up telling Carley one day. If she has kids, then I’ll have to. There’s no way any niece or nephew of mine is going to be left alone with that prick. I’d break my silence to ensure it.
“I was just doing what I had to do to keep her safe.”
“You did the same thing for me and Aria. You’re selfless, Bryson. You’re always doing what’s best for everyone else, even when it’s at the expense of what might be best for you. And as much as I love you for that, I want you to let me take care of you too.”
“You love me?”
She blushes scarlet, but just when I’m expecting her to trip over her words or say something to try and downplay it, she replies with nothing but total confidence and sincerity. “Of course I love you.”
All the bullshit in my life, all the time I’ve spent without her when all I really wanted was her by my side, it was all worth it for it to lead us here, to this moment where the girl I love the most, loves me back.
She knows the deepest parts of me now, all my broken pieces, and somehow, she loves me still.
“I’ve loved you since I was fourteen years old,” I reply. “I might not have known how much longer my life was going to be at times, but I knew I would always love you for the rest of it.”
A single tear falls down her cheek. “You’ve got a lot more life yet, Bryson, and I’m going to make sure you live all the rest of it with me.”