Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
brINLEY
“Come on, Dereck, we have to hurry.” Brinley grabbed his hand as he scurried out the school gates, their feet rushed as she led him down the street.
“How was school?” she finally asked.
“Fine,” he muttered.
“What did you get on your math test?”
He sent her a grin. “I only got five wrong.”
“Out of how many?”
“A hundred.”
“That’s a good job. A really good job.”
“Only because you helped me study.”
They’d spent two hours working on it yesterday afternoon.
They rounded the corner and rushed across the street, traveling the four blocks to get to their house.
The exterior was worn and the lawn overgrown.
She inhaled a steadying breath, knowing she’d have to do something about that.
She rummaged through her backpack and got out the key.
Turned it in the lock and let them inside.
“Take off your shoes,” she instructed Dereck as they both dumped their things onto the scroungy linoleum floor.
He didn’t listen, just ran through the house leaving a trail of mud.
Frustration ballooned in her chest, but she tried to remember he was just a kid. He didn’t think not to bang the cabinet doors or climb all over the furniture.
Besides, she had worse things to worry about.
She crept down the hall. The door was ajar by an inch. The same way as she left it this morning.
Her heart sank, and she had to steel herself before she finally pushed open the door.
Her mother’s eyes were closed, but they barely fluttered open to the sound of her. “There’s my girl.”
She spoke so quietly Brinley could barely hear it. The words croaked and uneven.
Brinley tiptoed up to her side, put the back of her hand on her forehead like her temperature was going to make any difference.
“How are you feeling?”
Her mother forced an ashen smile, her lips a cold, weathered gray. Her head that once had boasted the same brunette curls as Brinley’s was now bald, her body wilting away beneath a green striped bedspread.
“It’s not so bad today.”
Brinley knew it was a lie. It was always bad.
“Is there anything I can do?” Brinley would give anything to take it away.
Her mother reached for her hand and twined her spindly fingers with Brinley’s. “You do more than enough. I hate that this burden has fallen on you.”
Fighting the burn at the back of her eyes, Brinley ferociously shook her head. “It’s not a burden. I don’t want you to worry about anything. We have it under control.”
Her mom unwound her hand and softly touched her cheek with her fingertips. “You’re sixteen. You should be running free and wild, not looking after me and your brother.”
“I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else.”
Her mother’s smile was tweaked in sadness. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I tried so hard.”
Grief clotted Brinley’s throat, and she gathered her mother’s hand back up in hers, her words rushed, “Please don’t apologize. It’s fine. It’s going to be fine. I promise.”
“You’ll take good care of him?” Pain broke from her mother’s tongue.
Brinley wanted to drop to her knees at the side of her bed, throw herself over her and weep, but she forced herself to nod. “You know that I will. I promise.”
Her mother nodded, and a tear slid free. “My sweet girl. So beautiful. So selfless. I want you to promise me that you’ll take care of you, too. Use those math skills to their fullest.” For one flash of a second, her mother’s yellowed eyes twinkled. “Become a doctor or an astronaut.”
“I’m scared of blood and of flying.” Brinley stumbled over the tease.
“Okay, fine, an accountant.”
Brinley’s eyes squeezed tight for a beat. “I will, Mom.”
“I love you so much.”
“I love you more than you know,” Brinley choked.
“I think I need to rest,” her mother said, and Brinley nodded, touched her forehead again before she crept back out.
Her footsteps laden with the weight.
Dereck was in the kitchen, peering through the pantry door.
“I need to leave for work,” she told him. “I need you to make sure you have your homework done and your room cleaned before I get home.”
“What’s for dinner?” he asked.
She went to the fridge, cringed when she opened it up and there was an inch of milk at the bottom of the gallon. A couple of apples. Ham and cheese.
“You’re going to have to have a ham sandwich until I can get to the store after I get paid tomorrow.”
“I hate ham sandwiches,” Dereck groaned.
“I know, Dere, I know. I’ll figure out something better soon.”
She slung her arm around his shoulder and kissed his temple before she headed for the door, slipping into her shoes and grabbing her bag before she stepped out and locked the door behind her.
She took her phone from her pocket, stared at it, anger rising up so fierce inside her. But right then, she didn’t have time for pride.
So she tapped out the message.
Brinley
Dad, please call me back. We’re in a bad way. We need your help.
But he hadn’t cared before, so she should have known he wouldn’t care then.
I startled awake, though not in a full panic the way I normally did.
I guess maybe it was the heavy heat that saturated me through that kept it contained.
Like I was wearing a ten-thousand-pound security blanket.
A blaze of warmth that filled the cold, dead places inside me as I blinked my eyes open to the bare, fluttery light that cast the room in glittering motes as morning climbed to the sky and streaked through the thin drapes.
I had the urge to snuggle deeper into that comfort, only I froze when it became very apparent the blanket I was wearing was a breathing, living thing.
Deep, long breaths panted into the nape of my neck. A tattooed arm draped around my waist. A strong, foreboding body plastered to my backside.
My heart rate increased. Sped and raced and thudded at my chest. Right where he had one of those malicious hands spread over the spot, as if maybe even in his sleep, he was trying to hold it in.
But I knew better than to think Silas was doing any of this out of care. I needed to remember his secure arm was a shackle.
Holding me in place and keeping me prisoner to his will.
With that in mind, I tried to slip from under his grasp, only his arm tightened as gruff, sleep-weary words whispered from his lips.
“I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”
Surprise locked me in place, his tone rippling over me like a raspy caress. The confusion and need he evoked in me zapped like a downed powerline across my flesh.
He pressed himself closer, and a tiny gasp catapulted out of me when I felt his cock pressing to the cleft of my ass.
The thinnest amount of fabric separated us. It didn’t come close to being enough to conceal the granite, desperate length of him.
I should be terrified.
Freak out.
Break out of his hold.
Fight him.
Fight this.
Fight the sensation that swamped me like murky, muddy bog.
What did I do instead? I sank back into the comfort I shouldn’t feel, no consideration as to what it would cost.
Into the steady pound of Silas’s heart that somehow slowed the mania that toiled in my spirit.
I shouldn’t find respite in him.
He was the enemy. A liar. A bad man.
I knew it as well as I recognized my own reflection, which even that seemed to be becoming warped right then.
Because he pulled me closer and nuzzled his nose into the side of my neck, both arms cinching tighter around me as he moaned a disoriented sound.
Deep and gruff and decadent.
The fear I expected was there, but it was fuzzy and distorted. Mangled and contorted by the buzz of need that licked just beneath the surface of my skin.
Because I wanted this.
“Wildfire, burning me alive,” he mumbled close to incoherently, though I heard it clear.
Felt it singe through me the same as the hand that was splaying wider across my belly. The other still holding onto my heart like he could be the one to keep it from splintering apart.
Mend it when I was pretty sure he was going to be the one responsible for the complete decimation I could feel crawling up from the horizons of hell.
The meager bandages I’d placed on our lives getting ready to be ripped away by whatever Dereck had done.
I was only allowing myself to be lulled into a false sense of security. Hypnotized by a guy who screamed duplicity.
Maybe he was right. Maybe I was totally looking for trouble.
Because a stupid moan got free when he rubbed his cock against my bottom. Desire boiling up through the vat of self-preservation that had served to keep me whole for all these years. Oozing through the cracks to seep into my bloodstream.
A shiver of terror and need ripped up my spine. Each sensation was so at odds that I all out shook, and my hand grasped onto the sheet like it could serve as an anchor.
It was clear which of the battling emotions won out since I pushed my ass harder against his rigid thickness.
I shouldn’t like it.
Shouldn’t like the thrill I felt when the low growl rumbled up his throat before it curled into the dense, disordered air.
Arms cinching even tighter, he began to rock against me, and our breaths became short and shallow as lust billowed in the atmosphere.
Inciting a storm. A war that magnified every thought.
My questions and my uncertainty and the stupid, reckless need he somehow managed to arouse in me.
My center throbbed, and crap, I thought I might be done for.
“What do you think you’re doing to me, Little Wildfire?” He was fully awake by then. There was no mistaking it.
The severity that rocketed.
Zaps of lightning sheared through the room as the rasping, rugged words cut from his mouth.
“Was this the plan the whole time? Send in this siren to distract me? Seduce me? Sing me your intoxicating song so I’d be caught unaware?”
A puff of incredulous laughter shot from my tongue. The sound mixed with the desire that coated every surface of his room. “You’re the one playing games, Silas Mercer. You’re the one who insisted on me sleeping in your bed.”
I didn’t know what in the world I thought I was doing, but I rolled my hips, rubbing myself against him, notching the hunger just a smidgeon higher.