Chapter 46
ROMAN
“The team played really well,” Brielle blurts out about a minute into our drive.
My lips twitch. “They did. Though I didn’t expect you to be watching the games.”
“I always do. Whenever I can.”
“Your brother played the best he has all season.”
“I think he’s . . . happier. At least, he was today. What did you do to convince him to come with you to the café?”
“I only told him where I was going. He decided to join me all on his own.”
“Maybe he thought Dad was going to be there,” she says, her voice drifting like she’s lost in thought. “I meant everything I said. Do you think he believes me?”
I glide my hand over the steering wheel before stealing a quick look at her.
“I think he’d be a fool not to. Cutting off family is not easy.
It’s like chopping off a limb that, to everyone but you, looks perfectly healthy.
But Wes saw the infection in it the same way you did, so he understands how hard that was to do. You’ll both be okay.”
“I know. I still wish I’d done it earlier,” she sighs.
When I look over this time, she’s patting her bare thighs and chewing her lip raw.
I wring the steering wheel to keep from pulling the car over and yanking her out of her seat, into my lap.
Her mid-thigh, flowy peach tennis skirt has a matching tank top that’s cut an inch above the criss-crossed elastic waistband, exposing even more of her pale skin.
The stretchy material hugs every curve and dip of her torso while cupping her chest, holding it high despite the lack of bra straps.
I swallow a groan and adjust myself in my seat when my cock strains behind my zipper.
The last thing I want to do is act like a fucking beast right now, but that’s exactly what I feel like.
A desperate, feral monster with a raging erection and a heart that won’t stop pounding hard and fast in my tight chest. Her perfume has soaked into every inch of my car, staining the seats and swallowing up the new car scent that used to be in its place.
I glare at the useless tree-shaped air freshener hanging from the rear-view mirror.
“If I know one thing about Wesley, it’s that he won’t take what you did for granted. Regardless of when you did it, you still made that choice. He knows how much you love him,” I force out, every syllable strained.
Brielle crosses her legs and digs her elbow into the centre console.
The heat from her arm soaks into mine, coaxing me closer.
I don’t hesitate to drop a hand from the steering wheel to her thigh.
Her very hot, very bare thigh. My fingers stretch and strain against her skin before I force them still, covering as much of her thigh as possible.
Her hand is soft when she covers mine with it and interlocks our fingers. “Thank you, Rome.”
“The moment we get to where we’re going, we’ll talk about everything.”
“We could start now. Or you could tell me where you’re taking me, because unless you moved, we’re not going to your place.”
“No, we’re not.”
“No we’re not going to your place, or not talking?” she pokes, shifting our hands a bit higher up her leg.
It’s innocent, but my mind is not.
“I shouldn’t have kept anything a secret from you, Brielle. That’s always been my biggest regret with you. It was unfair, and I understand how that made you feel uncomfortable. How it hurt you.”
She’s quiet for a moment, her grip loosening before growing tighter once again.
“What upset me the most wasn’t even that you kept it a secret.
It was that you’d already seen me in a way that I thought you hadn’t the first time we had sex.
All of my insecurities that I tried to hide while filming, I didn’t with you.
And I don’t know. That got in my head. It hurts me that when you realized who I was, you decided that you had to stay away.
I guess . . . I want to know if you were really that disgusted with me. ”
“No.” It blasts from me. Pain ricochets through my chest. “That’s not it at all.”
“Explain this to me, then. Please,” she murmurs.
I pull the car into an empty parking lot and park so suddenly that we lurch forward. There’s a weight crushing my chest further and further with every moment I go without looking her in the eye and explaining how she couldn’t be more wrong.
“Listen to me, baby,” I demand softly, unbuckling my seat belt.
It reels back into place behind me when I twist and gather both of her hands in mine.
“There has never been a single thing about you that has disgusted me. That’s not something that’s even mildly possible then or now or fifty years in the future.
The last thing on my mind when I saw you in the studio that day wasn’t disgust. It was guilt.
I felt guilty because not only were you Wesley’s sister, Evie’s client, and fifteen years younger than me .
. . but I’d been enamoured with you long before I saw you in the studio.
You are an angel, Brielle. And even when I was nothing more than a subscriber on some cam site, I knew that.
“It was wrong for me to look at you and want to pull you into my arms and haul you out like a caveman the way I ached to because you weren’t mine then.
You weren’t mine, and I thought you never could be.
The last thing on my mind was disgust for what you did or who you were.
It was fear and this soul-crushing guilt that I thought was going to kill me that kept me away.
If you want to keep uploading, then I’ll support you in that.
You will never, ever be made to feel ashamed of anything you do with me. I only want you to be happy.”
Tears glisten in her green eyes, and I lurch forward, no longer bothering to hold myself back.
She folds into my arms instantly, her face finding the curve of my neck while I press my cheek to her temple.
Inhaling, I smooth a hand down the back of her head, needing to keep touching her in any way I can.
It’s been days since I’ve had her like this, and I never, ever want to go that long again. I don’t care what I have to do to make that happen. I’ll do anything.
“I love you, Brielle. Every single inch of you, inside and out. And that’s never going to change,” I vow. My lips kiss her hair. “Let me prove it to you.”
She nods into my throat, a heavy breath fanning across my skin.
“I already decided that I was going to let you. I just needed to hear everything. And I don’t want to be Crushedvelvet anymore.
Not because I feel ashamed, but because I don’t enjoy it anymore.
The only person I want to see me like that is you. Only you.”
“There’s more I need to tell you. I don’t want to hold back a fucking thing from you anymore.”
“I’m listening,” she whispers, slowly pushing back.
Her eyes are still wet, but they’re glimmering brightly now. I card my fingers through her hair and guide it over her shoulders. She quirks a half smile.
“It’s not going to be a fun conversation,” I warn, letting my gaze wander over her face, taking in every freckle and imperfection that she no longer tries to hide from me.
“I don’t need fun right now, Rome. The heavy is just fine with me.”
My laugh is half-relieved, half-nervous. “You say that now.”
“No, I say that now, and I’ll mean it tomorrow and every day after that. I’m not afraid of your past, Roman. It’s a part of you that I want access to so that I can understand you better.”
“You already understand me better than anyone ever has,” I admit.
Her smile returns at that. “I know. But I still want to hear what you have to say.”
“Tell me you love me first.”
Soft, delicate fingers curl around my jaw before her lips find mine, hovering there. “I love you, Roman Shore. So much that these last few days felt like they would never pass.”
Leaning into her touch, I free the words I’ve held trapped for too long.
“Five years ago, my parents convinced me and Lena to come spend a weekend at their lake house. They’d had it for a while, but I hadn’t gone out to see it because of work and just an overall lack of wanting to go.
It was still so soon after I’d joined the Havoc, and there were too many people in the organization who didn’t think I had what it took to make the team work.
If it weren’t for Evie coming, I probably would have turned them down again, but they knew I always had a soft spot for her.
“The first two days were fine. I was never close with my parents due to a plethora of reasons I don’t want to get into now or ever, maybe.
My father and I stopped talking for similar reasons as your brother and father, and it was only a matter of time before the same happened with my mom.
Lena, though, she was my mother’s best friend.
I couldn’t figure out why they were so close, but then again, I didn’t put that much thought into it. ”
I wet my lips and attempt to get my mouth to stop being so dry. Brielle’s stroking my neck and jaw now, her movements calm and soft.
“They had a boat docked at the lake, and after being guilted into it for the third day in a row, I agreed to go out with everyone. Evie was only sixteen at the time and had convinced my parents to buy all of these tubes and even a pair of Jet Skis to use while we were there. She was so fucking happy that morning. Her music blared from the speakers for hours, and I swore that I’d never seen her eyes so bright and free.
From the moment she stepped onto the boat, she’d forgotten about her piece-of-shit father, who, by some miracle, Lena had left home for the weekend.
Then, Evie got Lena on a tube with her. My sister had been drinking, like everyone but my father was, and refused to wear her life jacket.
I think she wanted to get back at me for making a big deal out of her boyfriend not coming, and since I’d been the one to tell her to put it on in the first place, she took the first opportunity she could.
“I sat on the back seat of the boat while my dad drove it across the lake, just watching the two of them and making sure that if and when they flew off, I’d be the first to know.
Evie was laughing so loud that I could hear it clearly over the engine, the music, and the waves crashing.
Fuck, even Lena was laughing alongside her.
I finished my beer and looked away to set my can aside because, for once, everyone was just so happy, and I didn’t have to worry. ”
My throat closes up. There’s a burn in my lungs, growing more furious with every too-quick breath I try to take.
“Roman. Hey, I’m here,” Brielle says, both hands on my face now. I blink, trying to clear the fog from my vision. “I’m right here. You’re not alone.”
“They both went under,” I croak, reaching up and gripping both her wrists.
“I looked away, and they both went under, and suddenly, Evie was stuck beneath the tube. She’d been the one to wear a life jacket, and she was a great swimmer.
Better than me or Lena. But it took her too long to come back up again.
I jumped into the water, and I should have gone to Lena.
My mom was the only one who saw how high they flew through the air before they fell again, and I heard her screaming at me that she thought Evie had hurt herself.
I went for her first, because she was just a kid.
And she was Evie, and if she drowned—I made the choice to search for her first. So I heaved the tube away and found her, because she had been wearing a life jacket.
She’d come up out of the water, and while I knew her arm was broken, she didn’t need to swim to keep herself above it.
“She was crying and screaming at me to find her mom because she hadn’t come up.
Lena hadn’t popped her head out of the water because she wouldn’t put on a fucking life jacket just to spite me.
I don’t know when my dad got into the water, but suddenly, he was taking Evie and telling me to find my sister because even if he had been able to do it himself, he could barely pull Evie to the boat, let alone a grown woman.
So, I kept looking. And looking, and fucking looking until there were all of these other people in the water with me and I was being hauled onto a different boat with my skin so cold it was blue. ”
Brielle’s holding me now. I don’t know when she pulled me into her body or wrapped her arms around me, but she’s squeezing my sides and rubbing my back.
It’s so warm, so safe. Like this tiny woman dressed in all pink is the best form of protection I’ve ever had.
I squeeze my eyes shut and press my lips to her shoulder.
“They found her hours later. She’d . . . she’d hit her head on the water when they fell and lost consciousness. I didn’t look for her fast enough. It takes six to ten minutes to die from drowning. If I’d looked for her first, I’d have found her before she’d sunk so far.”
“Evie needed you,” Brielle states, sounding so sure it makes my chest ache worse. Like I’m the one drowning. “You know this wasn’t your fault. Tell me you know that.”
“I know it now. I’ve had five years to hate myself for what happened and to realize that it was out of my hands. There were too many variables that day . . . too many things to go wrong.”
“Thank you for telling me,” she murmurs, kissing the tip of my nose. The soft press of her lips drifts to my right cheek, then my left, and finally, my mouth.
I kiss her back deeply, as if her lips will somehow seal back up the cracked pieces of me I’ve just shown her. She buries her fingers in my hair and pulls me deeper into her embrace, our bodies finding each other in the small confines of the car.
There’s no hiding the wet streaks that slide down my cheeks when the tears reach her mouth. She tastes them and tightens her hold, accepting my pain and heartbreak and making room for it inside her. I fist her shirt and haul her over the console until I finally have her body on mine.
We don’t stop kissing.
Not when the windows start to fog or when my lips start to burn from use. She holds me for what feels like hours, and I cling to her for just as long. Because I’m not alone, and I won’t ever be again.