Chapter 32
Wyatt
We’re standing in one of the massage rooms. Not the one she massaged him in, but an empty room down the hall.
The light overhead is on, making the room brighter than intended, though the one dark gray wall absorbs some of the intensity.
Shelves of rolled towels, fake plants, and a clock hang to the right of the bed, while a cabinet sits near the head of it, adorned with a towel warmer and oils.
The last ten minutes have been chaos. A call to Nate, getting instructions not to touch anything—something I’d already determined.
Telling Bryn about the comments on my social media.
Nate again, calling to say that he and the fire investigator, plus a detective, would be here soon.
And finally telling Bryn my suspicions about the man she’d had her hands all over.
Hands that are violently shaking over her stomach.
I want nothing more than to envelop her in my arms and tell her it’s going to be okay. To pull her against my chest, to protect her and keep her safe. When a tear breaks free and slides down her cheek, I step forward, gently touching her shoulder.
“It’s going to be okay,” I reassure her, and her body reacts like she’s about to take a step toward me, but then jerks back, hesitating. I stay put, not taking the step that I badly want to take. “Nothing is going to happen to you.”
“And you?” she sniffs, reaching up to swipe at her cheek.
The question has my chest tightening because I know it’s genuine concern. I let it settle around us, refusing to answer quickly because I know it’ll sound like some kind of bullshit line I’m feeding her. It’s something I need to believe. Need her to see I believe.
My thumb moves back and forth over her shoulder, ruffling the fabric of her black t-shirt. “I’m going to be okay, too.”
Another tear streaks towards the ground, and she wipes it away with a hand that still vibrates. “Promise?”
“Would you miss all the handyman work I do if I wasn’t?” I tease, trying to lighten things.
“Wyatt, I’m serious.”
“I’m serious too.”
There might be a small part of me that’s desperate to make her laugh. To take some of the fear from her eyes and replace it with the light I know lives there. Selfishly. Because I need it. Thoughts are forming and tumbling around in my head faster than I can acknowledge and deal with them.
Panic over putting Bryn in this position.
Anger for letting that fucker go.
My father’s voice telling me I’m worthless. That I’m no good at this firefighting thing.
Knowing I’ve put her in potential danger makes me feel unworthy of everything. I shove it all down, though, because she needs more from me at this moment, and it’s the one thread that might make me feel like I stand a chance against it all.
There’s still a crease between her brow and a wrinkle along her forehead, but she isn’t shaking quite as hard the longer I have my hand on her shoulder.
“I came here to tell you about the arsonist, Bryn,” I explain, and she blinks a few times as if it’s only just occurred to her that me being here is out of the norm. “Because I don’t know if it’s a good idea for me to be around right now. I don’t want to put you or Ruby in harm’s way.”
Her head jerks back like she wasn’t expecting me to say that. “Wyatt, no. That’s—that’s—”
Every word has the reality dropping more for her, and she lets her head fall backward to stare up at the ceiling. I get it. I’ve been going through the same damn circle since this morning. Just to get here from 10-42 I took every turn and back road I could find to make sure I wasn’t being followed.
“You know what Gran always says?” Bringing her gaze to mine, she gives a huff of laughter that I’m not sure has any amusement. “A good scare keeps her young.”
Now I understand the laugh and echo it with my own. “Of course she does.”
“She’d tell you it was rubbish to stay away.”
I still my thumb, my eyes slowly moving between both of hers. “And you?”
Her throat works as she swallows, and because I know her well enough, I know she’s swallowing something she doesn’t want to admit out loud. It kicks my heart up a notch, makes me want to ask again, but I fear if I do, she’d be like a spooked horse and buck away.
When she finally answers, her voice is soft, barely above a whisper. “I think you promised to try and fix a fountain. And you’re a man of your word.”
A relieved breath billows out of me. If something happens to her or Ruby because of me, I’ll hate myself, but the idea of not being around her, not being able to talk to her or see her, would kill me.
If I couldn’t look into those eyes or see her gorgeous smile at least once every few days, I think it would crush me.
He wouldn’t stop staring at me.
That’s what she told Celeste and me. I was so zeroed in on him touching her, then about 10-42, that I didn’t stop to consider how his gawking might make her feel.
I have to work hard to control the rage that builds inside of me, the one that wants to come out and hunt that asshole down, kill him for making her feel unsafe. Kill him for a bunch of reasons.
It’s not what she needs.
“May I look at all of you?” I whisper.
The pulse in her throat kicks up, and she hesitates before nodding once.
Deliberately, I give her shoulder a light squeeze then move my hand down her upper arm and take a step back.
Before she’s out of reach, I grab hold of her hand like I’m about to put her into a spin.
Except I just hold it, her delicate fingers feeling smaller in my palm than ever before.
“You’re sure you’re okay if I look at you?” I ask once more.
“Yes. Please, Wyatt.”
The truth is in her eyes. The vulnerability radiates from them. No longer is there a crease in her forehead, or a furrow in her brow. Everything is smooth as she takes a small step back.
My eyes slowly descend over her. The curve of her nose, the bow of her lips, the line of her jaw. I take in the flush of her cheeks, and the pulse humming in her throat.
Her black t-shirt reminds me of the massage at the fire station, and I find myself smiling. How far we’ve come since the day I woke up thinking about the girl I’d lost, only to find her again.
My gaze travels over her breasts and down to her stomach, lingering there. I watched her press a hand there weeks ago, and all I could think about was how stunning she would look with a swollen abdomen. With our baby inside of her.
Kneeling down, my thumb runs over the back of her fingers. Gently, I ask, “Where did he touch you?”
Bryn runs her free hand over her thigh. I nod, putting a little pressure on her hand in mine, and she steps forward, forcing me to tilt my head back to look at her. She studies me intently, her neck bent to watch every move.
“May I?” I ask permission.
Her voice is barely a breath. “Yes.”
Leaning forward, I touch my lips to her thigh. She gasps softly above me, but I stay there, pressing my face to her leg, my nose nuzzling against it. Making sure that the last thing she remembers feeling against this part of her is me. No one else.
It’s not to claim her. Not to make her think she’s mine. It’s only so she’ll have something to think about after he violated her. Something that was given because she wanted it done, not something taken from her.
“Wyatt?”
When I lift my head, a tear falls from above, landing directly on my lips. Sweeping my tongue across them, I taste the saltiness of her tear, giving her hand a gentle squeeze. “Yeah, baby?”
She sucks in a breath at the use of the word, the warm connotation to it, and I watch as her shoulders drop a fraction. It makes me wonder how much that’s happened since I started my perusal of her. A slow relaxation from the fight or flight state she was in.
“Will you… I have no right to ask, I know, but…”
Another tear splashes against the corner of my mouth, and I bring her hand to my lips to kiss the back of it, understanding. “Show me.”
She turns, our hands breaking contact, and touches the spots on her backside where he touched her. The crease where her ass meets her thigh. And then from the top of her ass to the bottom on the other cheek.
I start with the first side, pressing my face into the space, my lips to the area she indicated.
Bryn blows out a breath, reaching around to push her fingers into my curls.
Nuzzling against her thigh, then her ass cheek, I move across to the other side, doing the same there.
After pressing a line of kisses where he touched her, I ask her to turn using a gentle nudge of my hand to her hip like we’re on the dance floor.
Gazing up at her from my position, I give her an unhurried smile. “You’re beautiful.”
She calls herself hopeless, but she is my hope.
My hope for the life I can envision clearly in my mind. My hope for every dream of a life I’ve had. Maybe it was never firefighting that drew me here. Maybe it was her all this time.
I’d wait an entire lifetime for her to be ready.
Bryn leans over, taking my face in both her hands, and angles it enough to touch her lips to the corner of my mouth. Right where her tear fell.
“Thank you,” she whispers, lingering there.
My hand skims over her side as I start to stand, my other sliding around her shoulders to pull her into me, her arms going around my midsection.
When I breathe her in, the smell of raspberries floats through my senses, and I’m hit with a sense of home.
The raspberry bushes my mom keeps on the ranch. I never put it together until now.
“Always,” I murmur.