Scene 5 #3
“Hey,” he says with a softness that brings all my tears so close to the surface. It hurts to look at him as he straddles the branch and settles beside me, so I don’t.
And I don’t say anything, either. If he wants to bully his way up here, there’s no law that says I have to talk to him when he does. Childish, I know. But he completely upturned my world with only a few words.
“This doesn’t have to change things, Emma. I’m still me. I’m still the one who’s been here for you since you were a little baby.”
I clench my teeth at the pain in his voice. How dare he act hurt when he basically told me he’s never been my brother? Part of me still doesn’t believe it. But there’s only one way to find out.
It would be disgusting to kiss a brother, so that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
“Whoa…don’t fall.” He steadies me as I swing one leg over the branch to face him, but he never sees my next move coming.
Neither do I, really, because I don’t have a plan. All I know is I have to prove to both of us that he’s my brother. Whatever we both felt earlier wasn’t real. It can’t be. I grab a fistful of his shirt, yank him forward, and pinch my eyes closed as I awkwardly press my mouth to his.
And then I wait.
Any second now, vomit will creep up my throat and I’ll spew it onto his shirt because this is my brother and brothers are gross.
Any second now.
Really…any second.
But it never does.
And he doesn’t shove me away.
Instead, he leans in, parting his lips just the scantest bit. I sever the contact, suddenly feeling very miserable and out of sorts. Nothing is as it should be. “Why doesn’t it feel wrong?” I brokenly whisper. “It should, but it doesn’t.”
And now I’m the one feeling unnerved by his eyes, but not because of the coloring.
There’s something swirling around in the depths of their dark centers.
Something that makes my stomach flutter and my fingers turn both hot and cold.
Something that makes me feel both trapped and like I want to dive headlong into it.
“Because it’s not wrong.” Sullivan’s voice is lower, huskier as his hands come to rest on the tree behind me. “I never wanted to feel this way about you, but damn it if having you beneath me didn’t make me realize just how much I was fighting myself not to lay all the way down on you and do this.”
Then his lips are on mine again, but his kiss isn’t awkward at all.
It’s slow but insistent. He chases my mouth and steals my breaths as I fight to keep some hold on my sanity.
I’ve never had any strong drink, but surely this must be what it feels like…
this unbelievable pleasure that burns and overwhelms all the senses.
“Open your mouth,” Sullivan murmurs, nudging my lips with his.
I don’t know why, but I obey, and suddenly I’m overtaken by the heat and silky softness.
His hands don’t feel like this, not with the calluses on the fingertips.
He groans, the sound so low and deep that my nipples tighten. This is too much. He’s too much.
“I can’t breathe.” I whimper the words into his mouth as my vision turns spotty.
I truly can’t. He’s always only been Sully, my brother, but right now he’s Sullivan.
A man with shoulders that feel so broad and strong under my hands.
A man who cages me with his arms to keep me right where he wants me as he pulls all sorts of unfamiliar reactions from my body.
I don’t know this man, and I think I’m scared to learn him.
“Yes, you can.” Sullivan’s mouth leaves, but his forehead rests on mine. “With me now. Deep breath, then release.”
Pulse racing, I force my fingers to let go of his shirt and try to match my breaths to his. He’s still so close, and I can’t think.
When my lungs begin working on their own again, Sullivan lowers his hands to my heated cheeks. I avert my gaze. This is so embarrassing. How can I look at the brother who’s not a brother when we just had our mouths fused together? And why did I jump to kissing him to prove a point?
But the strong hand that turns my chin doesn’t let me hide. “There’s no undoing that kiss, Emma.”
“Kisses,” I absently correct, still in shock.
It was definitely more than one. And I know. There’s absolutely no way I can look at him and not immediately recall what he did to me. What we did to each other. The very idea of that should feel scandalously wrong, but it doesn’t. It only makes me want more.
“I’m scared.” The words slip out through swollen lips that still tingle from how thoroughly he claimed them. So many feelings tumble around inside me, and I don’t know what to do with them.
“Don’t be scared. I’m still your Sully.” He rubs a thumb over my mouth, his own lips faintly tipping up when I shiver at the sensation. “But I’m also not your brother. And after the way you melted in my arms and kissed me back, I don’t think you feel like my sister, either.”
He’s right, damn him. But I could really use a change of topic right now. I pull back a few inches and hug my arms to my chest. “You really were adopted?”
Sullivan’s hand drops away as he stares off into the distance, and I’m grateful for the small reprieve.
“Yep. And believe me, Ma and Pa are my real parents as far as I’m concerned.
Ever since I was five or so. I guess that’s how old I was because I don’t really know my true birthday.
But there’s something inside me that just has to find out for myself why…
” A muscle twitches in his jaw as his words trail off.
When his eyes meet mine again, I’m taken aback at the turmoil I see in them.
“Bad things happened to me before they found me. Things that keep me up at night sometimes. And if I have any chance to maybe find out why my first parents gave me up or sold me or whatever they did, I’ve got to take it.
That means leaving Hope’s Stand and setting off on my own. ”
“So that’s why you have nightmares?” I ask in a small voice. “Because you were hurt?”
“Yeah,” he rasps. “That’s why.”
My mind races trying to make sense of everything he’s saying. Why would he sleep on the floor instead of his bed? It’s not like the bed is uncomfortable. The only reason that someone would avoid a bed is if…
No.
Please, not that.
“Oh, Sully.” Sharp agony pierces my chest because all I see is Sullivan as he is now, tall and broad and strong with a quiet smile. But he was once a little boy with loose blond curls and his mismatched eyes. Eyes that maybe didn’t hold the pain they do now.
And it’s for the small boy he was that my tears fall.
“Don’t cry, Emma. Not for me.” Sully pulls me to his chest and kisses my hair as I make a mess of his shirt. It’s a hug like the thousands we’ve shared before, but at the same time, it’s not. “It was a long time ago.”
“But you were so young and innocent, and it must have been truly horrendous if you still have nightmares about it.” And I’ve been so mean to him.
So very cruel. “I’m sorry I told you to stay in your stupid woods.
I didn’t mean it.” Hopefully he can make sense of what I’m saying through my halting sobs.
“Shush now,” he soothes. “There’s nothing to say sorry for. I know you didn’t mean it. I should’ve thought better on how to tell you instead of blurting it out like that.”
“Don’t leave,” I beg, grabbing his hand.
“I’m not going anywhere.” Another tender forehead kiss that I shouldn’t crave feeling more of. “Just staying right here in this tree with you.”
“No, I mean don’t leave Hope’s Stand yet.” Don’t leave me.
A strange light comes into his eyes. “You know…” Sullivan clears his throat. “You could, uh, you could come with me. If you want.”
I suck in a shaky breath as my tears stall.
Go with him? “That would mean leaving everyone at home.” Momma, Papa, and Cecily.
Grandma and Grandpa. Uncle Jed, Aunt Dove, and my cousin Ransom.
But would that really be better than the other option of forever missing Sullivan?
For what it’s worth, I’ve always loved spending time with him when he was my brother.
Even with the kiss, would things have to change that much?
The knot in his throat bobs. “It wouldn’t be forever. And we could still come back to visit.”
A cardinal pair lands on one of the oak branches, and I watch them for a moment. The male is so attentive to the female, stopping every so often to offer her a bit of seed. If I go with Sully, I’ll be dependent on him for food and shelter. Just like this female bird is with her mate.
Mate.
What does that mean for me and Sullivan?
I bite my bottom lip that’s still puffier than usual. “If I did go, what would it be as? Like, who would I be to you?” I don’t even know how we’d get there and if I’d have my own bed or—oh God, why does this make my insides so quivery—if I’d sleep in his.
“That’s something I need to see your eyes for before I tell you.”
I almost roll them, because that’s such a Sully thing to say. How can he be so familiar and such a stranger at the same time?
But when I give him my attention, I get flustered all over again. Because the Sully staring back at me is the new Sully. The one with a peculiar look in his eyes. He studies my every reaction, marking the hitch in my breath, the audible gulp of my swallow, and the band of red that singes my cheeks.
“Well?” I ask with a nonchalance that’s not at all there. “I’m looking.”
“That you are,” he says mildly. One arm, then the other, lands on either side of my head again. And then he leans forward. Oh God! My breathing quickens.
He’s going to kiss me. I can’t take this. I can’t.
But my lashes drift closed and my fingers find an anchor in his shirt as I nervously wait for him to lower his head again…for a kiss that never comes. When my eyes flutter open, Sullivan’s dance in amusement.
“I think we both know the answer now. Don’t you?”
I gasp in outrage. “You made me think you were going to—”
“Oh, I am,” he interrupts with a quirky grin before he covers my mouth with his and thoroughly disrupts my senses once more.