Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Honey
A little whisper in my brain said that maybe Bren would be at Sapph. That wasn’t why I’d gone, but then she’d been here.
She was here .
I hadn’t known if she would yell at me or ignore me or ask me to leave, but then I’d pleaded with her to have a night off from everything else and she’d agreed.
Now I got to sit next to her at this crowded, noisy bar and pretend that she was the only person in the world.
I loved the way her hair glowed under the neon lights. Her eyeliner was sharp and her lipstick dark. Her mouth looked like poison and I desperately wanted a taste.
We talked a little about the marketplace and about the people around us and our favorite drinks.
The alcohol flowed through my veins, warming me and making me a little braver.
“Come dance with me, Bren.” I couldn’t stop saying her name. It melted like chocolate on my tongue.
Hopping off the stool less than gracefully, I held my hand out to her. I’d had fantasies of this. Of moving our bodies together. Granted, most of my fantasies involved less clothing, but this was a start.
“Please, Bren?” I wasn’t above begging. Not at all.
Her mouth pressed into a line and then she rolled her eyes before throwing back the rest of her drink and setting the glass down on the bar with authority.
“Fine,” she said through clenched teeth, as if I was leading her to the guillotine instead of to the dance floor.
The space was packed, without much room to move without bumping into multiple other sweaty bodies. The music thumped through my chest, at odds with the pounding of my heart.
Bren faced me and for a moment, she didn’t seem to know what to do.
Taking the lead, I moved closer and started swinging my hips to the beat. I didn’t think I was the best dancer, but I could find a beat and roll with it.
For a moment, Bren was frozen. And then her eyes changed, and I felt a rush of two things: fear and desire.
Bren reached out and gripped my hips with both hands, pulling me until we were pressed together. Now I was the one freezing.
Bren’s breath was loud as her fingers flexed, as if wanting to hold me tighter.
I’d stopped dancing, but her hips moved, picking up the beat and carrying me along with her.
I’d never expected this when I’d come to Sapph tonight.
I’d never expected Bren to touch me like this, period. Only this morning she’d been ignoring me and then acting like we could never speak again.
Now she held onto me as if she never wanted to let go, moving with me as if we’d done this before.
If you asked me what song was playing, I couldn’t tell. The only thing I could see and hear and smell and feel was Bren.
Bren, Bren, Bren .
Taking a chance, I lifted my arms and rested them on her shoulders. Her hands squeezed me in response.
Yes .
I panted as we continued to sway to the beat, the space practically steaming between us. Her mouth parted and I wanted to bite her tongue. To taste her and consume her and devour her.
I’d never felt this way about anyone before. Ever. None of my previous crushes had even come close to touching this inferno Bren had ignited in my body.
The song changed to something with a driving beat and everything and everyone else around us melted away as Bren and I danced with each other.
I looked up and met Bren’s eyes that were a little blurry because of how close we were. If I veered even a little bit, our mouths would touch.
I wanted our mouths to touch.
Bren moved with determination and I was happy to let her hold me and set the tone, but I wanted our first kiss to be mine.
She wanted it. She wanted me. I knew that as well as I knew the pounding of my own heart.
It was easy, so easy, to use one of my hands that had wrapped around her shoulders to softly grip her chin to hold her face steady. I waited a second, so she would know what I was planning. So she could say no.
I knew she wouldn’t say no.
I inhaled a second before I pressed my lips to hers, drawing her into my lungs.
The kiss was explosive. Incinerating. You’d think a kiss would be a simple thing. Two sets of lips touching. Sometimes tongues were involved. Sometimes you had to figure things out and angle your heads so you could still breathe, and sometimes saliva was an issue or someone being too enthusiastic.
This kiss was none of those things. It wasn’t simple, and it wasn’t awkward or strange or uncomfortable.
It was the perfect kiss. As if all the stars had aligned to get my lips to touch hers. A cosmic kiss.
It certainly felt that way as stars exploded behind my eyes and her mouth engulfed mine, stealing my breath and making me ache for more.
We’d stopped dancing, giving ourselves over completely to this kiss.
It was soft at first, but that didn’t last as Bren opened her mouth and sucked on my bottom lip and traced my mouth with her tongue. I pushed back, using my tongue to demand entrance to her mouth, which she gave me and then I was melting in warm, delicious bliss.
Bren Hendrix knew how to kiss, that was for damn sure.
Everything had been going full speed ahead and then she started pulling back, gentling the kiss and drawing her tongue away.
“Wait,” she said against my lips as I chased her, trying to get back to where we’d been.
“No,” I moaned and that made her chuckle.
“Honey.” Her voice caressed my name, turning it into something completely new and different. “We shouldn’t.”
She moved back from me just enough, but it was like a cold blast of air hit my body.
My eyes went wide and I searched her face for an answer. Why was she stopping the most incredible kiss that had ever been kissed?
“Let’s take a minute and talk,” she said, removing her hands from my sides and touching my shoulder to lead me away from the dance floor.
“No,” I said again, and I could hear the whine in my voice. All I wanted was to go back to kissing her. I’d devote the rest of my life kissing her. Forever. Until my lips fell off.
Bren towed me away from the dance floor and to a corner near the bathroom that was just a little quieter than the rest of the bar.
“We need to talk,” she said.
No, we needed to be making out. I opened my mouth to tell her that, but she spoke first.
“I didn’t mean to kiss you.”
“Then why did you?” I asked. There she went again. She was going to diminish everything and put up a wall between us.
“I…” she didn’t finish.
“You wanted to kiss me. You wanted to dance with me. You want me, Bren, and you can deny it, but let’s look at the fact that you went with me to the dance floor, you kissed me back. I’m listening to your actions, not your words. And your actions are speaking pretty clearly.”
I had no idea where those words had come from, but they were true, and I wasn’t going to let her get out of this easily. She could lie to herself all she wanted, but she wasn’t going to lie to my face.
“Jesus, Honey.” She closed her eyes and rubbed a spot right between her eyebrows as if she was trying to stave off a headache.
“Tell me I’m wrong. Go ahead.” There was that anger again. It had flared up even worse than before. Probably because I was so damn horny. The kissing and the dancing with her had ignited my lust and it was burning through my veins. I’d have to take care of myself when I got home, because this need wasn’t going away anytime soon. Bren had set me on fire.
“It’s not that simple,” she said.
“You keep trying to make things complicated, but this isn’t complicated.” I grabbed her hand and entwined our fingers, holding them up in front of her face. I kissed the back of her hand, adding a little bit of tongue. She tried to stay unaffected, but she let out a little sound that was almost a whimper.
“Not complicated,” I said. “So what now? I know you want me, physically and mentally, and I want you back.” What the hell was I saying? I shouldn’t be telling her this! But if Bren was going to try and reject me, I was going to make sure she knew everything first so I left without any regrets.
It was terrifying, but she had to know. She needed to hear everything.
“I’ve wanted you, Bren and Bibliofile, for months. I’ve been falling for both of you. I want you, Bren Hendrix. All of you.”
There. That was it. The words I’d imagined saying so many times but swore that I never would, so I didn’t scare her. But fuck it. If she couldn’t handle how I felt, then she couldn’t handle me.
If she couldn’t handle me, she didn’t deserve me. As much as that would devastate me, being with someone who wasn’t all-in with me would be worse.
I’d always been the one to feel more, to love more, to give more.
I wasn’t doing it again. Not with her. Not even for her. It would just drain me and diminish me. Again. And I’d just end up with a broken heart anyway.
“God, Honey .” Bren exhaled and then pressed her forehead to mine, her entire body trembling. I reached out to wrap my arms around her. I didn’t even know what I was doing, but I needed to touch her. To hold her.
“You are unlike anyone I’ve ever met,” she said.
“Is that a compliment?”
She let out a breathy laugh. “It’s definitely a compliment. Fuck.”
Bren lifted her head and stared into my eyes. I let myself get lost in the dark swirls of her irises.
“Talk to me,” I demanded.
Bren shook her head slowly. “I can’t.”
“Yes you can. You just don’t want to because you’re scared. But ignoring me isn’t going to make me go away. Even if we never say another word to each other, you’re going to see me at the marketplace. I’m not going to avoid you.”
She might hurt me, but she couldn’t break me. I wouldn’t let her.
Bren cursed under her breath, her body still shaking.
“I don’t know how to do this,” she said, so low that I almost couldn’t hear her.
“It’s okay. I don’t really know how to do this right either. Every other relationship I’ve had has been a disaster. I haven’t told you about them, but I will.” I’d show her everything: the good parts and the bad. She’d already seen a lot of my bad as Bibliofile.
“Relationship,” she said. “Is that what this is?”
I laughed.
“Yes, Bren. I’d like to have a relationship with you. Whatever that looks like.”
She let out a shaky breath.
“You’ll have to be patient with me. You know I’m not good with people.”
Oh my god. This was happening.
“That’s okay,” I said, stroking her cheek. “You’re good with me. Most of the time.”
We both laughed and Bren pulled me into her arms. Everything fell into place and I sighed as I held her.
I couldn’t believe I was hugging Bibliofile. The woman I’d imagined a hundred different times.
I never could have predicted Bren. She blew all of my fantasies away. My mind could never have conjured her up if I’d been given a million years.
Reality was so much better than I predicted.
“Bren.” I had to keep saying her name.
“Honey Bea,” she said, and I almost let out a little squeal of delight.
“I like it when you call me that.” She started swaying a little, not dancing to any beat in particular.
“I like saying it,” she admitted, speaking into my ear.
“Say it again.”
“Honey Bea.”
“Mmmm,” I said, and she held me tighter.
“I like that sound you make.”
“I can make all kinds of sounds.”
She let out a groan and leaned back to gaze down at me.
“You’re dangerous.”
I smiled. “You’ve told me that before.”
Her mouth tipped up on one side in something that was like a smirk. “Well, it’s true. You’re dangerous to me .”
“Aw, Bren. I’ll be nice.”
Her smile got darker. “Hopefully not too nice.”
There was an edge to Bren that scared me and turned me on at the same time and brought out a little bit of darkness that I’d always pushed aside in myself.
“You’ll just have to wait and see.”
We’d figure this out together.
“Do you… Would you come somewhere with me?” she asked, and she sounded both shy and hopeful. So damn cute.
“I’d go anywhere with you,” I said.
Bren slid one of her hands into mine. “Dangerous.”