20. Bran
Chapter 20
Bran
M y fingers feather up and down Paige’s side as she lays naked in bed beside me.
“I think this is my favorite.”
Her brows crease as she lies relaxed on the pillow next to me, her hair sprawled out behind her. “What’s your favorite?”
“This time of night. The moments after we both have come so hard we can barely move so we simply lay here together talking. Laughing. I feel like it’s that special time when I get to learn things about you nobody else knows. Or talk about things nobody else gets to hear. It’s just us. And that’s my favorite.”
Though her smile shows her fatigue, I know she’s happy, blissfully satisfied and content.
“It’s my favorite too.”
“Don’t get me wrong, Pidge, burying my cock inside you is one of my favorite things too.” I slide my hand down her body and pull her against me, entwining our legs because I simply love being this close to her. “Your body is a fucking wonderland and I don’t ever want to leave once I’m there. But post-sex pillow talk with you is…”
“Funny?” she offers. “Serendipitous?”
“I was going to say intimate. Cherished.”
She smiles again. “I like those words too.” She watches me for several long minutes, her eyes never leaving mine, and I know she’s thinking hard about something.
“Say it.”
“Say what?”
I smile back at her. “Whatever it is that’s on your mind. I can tell you’re thinking something.”
She inhales a long lazy breath, her brows creasing just a bit and then she asks, “Will you tell me more about your sister?”
Her question takes me by surprise. “Uh, what do you want to know?”
“Everything,” she answers softly. She smooths her hand down my chest, coming to a halt just above my heart. “She’s so much a part of you, and you’ve mentioned her a couple times, but you don’t talk about her often. If it’s uncomfortable for you, that’s understandable. I just…” Her gaze trails from her hand on my chest, to my adoring eyes. “To know you is to love you. And so, I want to know everything you’re willing to share.”
To know me is to love me.
Does this mean she loves me?
She wants to love me?
I give her a vulnerable smile and tell her, “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
“Okay, umm, how about describe your sister in three words.”
“Wow, just three words?” I chuckle. “Okay.” I turn over slightly so I’m on my back. Paige snuggles up next to me, half her body covering mine as I trail my hand up and down her bare back. “Umm, how about charismatic, smart, and compassionate.”
Paige smiles. “Why?”
“She was just so fucking likable, you know? She was class president. Had more friends than she knew what to do with and kept a pretty wide circle. There was nobody she wouldn’t hang out with. Nobody she was ever mean to. She was always singing. She’d have dance parties in the kitchen with Mom on Saturday mornings.” I’m quiet for a moment before I add, “Sometimes I think back to those mornings when I would come downstairs half awake and they’d be dancing and they would invite me to dance with them and I never did. I was just the cranky teen who wanted his orange juice. Now I wish I would’ve joined in just once, you know?”
Paige kisses my chest. “I understand completely. I’m sure she doesn’t hold it against you.”
“She always wanted to drive when we rode somewhere together but I rarely let her. I always teased her that I was the better driver and then…” and then I killed her.
Not wanting me to delve into a depressive state, Paige grabs my hand and squeezes, lifting her head and resting her chin on my chest. “Tell me something happy. A happy memory.”
“Heather is the reason I have Winston.”
Her interest piques at the mention of her favorite wooly friend. “She is?”
“Mhmm.” I scoff out a laugh. “Actually, she’s the reason I have all the four-legged little assholes out in the barn.”
Paige laughs. “Oh my gosh, this has got to be good. Tell me all about it.”
“Winston belonged to Heather. He was her 4-H champion goat in the fall of our senior year of high school.”
“No way!” Paige beams. “A champion goat. How amazing that is!”
“Yeah. She took care of him morning, noon, and night.”
“So, she didn’t sell him at the livestock auction?”
I shake my head with a chuckle and an eye roll. “No chance in hell was she parting with her Grand Champion wool bag. Plus, she used his wool when it was shearing time. She’d spin it into yarn.”
“No kidding?” Paige gasps.
“Nope. She got rather good at it.”
“Like, on a real spinning wheel? That kind of thing?”
“Yep. I even did it a few times after she died. I wanted to use up the bag of wool she had sheared so it wouldn’t go to waste. But eventually the spinning wheel I was using broke and I was angry and depressed and I just…you know, let it go.”
“That’s really quite amazing that she did all that. And so, she only ever had Winston? Or did she have the others as well? They don’t look as old as Winston does.”
“Yeah, that’s because they’re not. Those assholes are all my fault but in my mind they’re Heather’s by proxy.”
Paige laughs. “Oh no.”
“When I moved here I felt bad leaving Winston out in the barn all alone so I bought two other goats. And then I thought they needed friends too and I didn’t have anything to spend my money on but me, so I bought Winston a whole fucking family.”
“Oh Bran,” Paige laughs. “Your kindness knows no bounds. Look at you caring more for Heather’s goat than you did about anything else.”
“He’s all I had left of her. And I knew she wouldn’t want us to get rid of him so I vowed to keep him until his last day no matter what.”
“Your parents didn’t want him?”
I scoff. “My parents didn’t want me .”
Paige sits up, her brows furrowed. “What?”
I reach up and push her soft hair away from her face, basking in the beauty of my naked pigeon. “They blame me for Heather’s death.”
“But…that’s…” She cocks her head. “What the absolute fuck? It wasn’t your fault! It was an accident!”
“Wasn’t even my tire.”
“Wait. WHAT?”
“Yeah. The tire flew off the truck in the other lane. Rolled back and caught the underside of my truck and rolled us. We flew through the air. I had no control at that point. There was nothing I could do.”
“Were you wearing seatbelts?”
“I thought we were. I wrestled with that thought because when we stopped rolling, I was still strapped in, but Heather…she wasn’t. Then I remembered just before that she had dropped her phone. She must’ve unbuckled to lean down and grab it and that’s when…well, you know.”
Visions of that night crash back through my mind and Paige can see the hurt on my face. Paige lifts her leg and straddles my waist, her hands holding my face with nothing but love in the way she looks at me.
“You know that accident wasn’t your fault, right? Please for the love of God, tell me you know it wasn’t your fault. You’re right. There was nothing you could’ve done. Good driver or bad driver, you couldn’t have predicted it and you couldn’t have stopped it from happening.” Her eyes begin to glisten and I can see that she feels even a hint of the heartbreak I’ve dealt with for years.
Fuck, I love this girl.
I love this girl so damn much.
She’s naked and on top of me, her breasts hanging softly in front of her. I could reach out and touch her and show her how much she turns me the fuck on at any given moment, but right now this raw and intimate moment between us is anything but sexual. She’s showering me with her love. Her sincere compassion. Her undying devotion. I see it in her eyes. I hear it in her voice. I feel it from her soul.
“I know,” I tell her as a tear slips down my cheek. She’s quick to dry it with the slip of her thumb. “It’s not always easy and I have to remind myself every fucking day, but I know. This wasn’t my fault.”
“I’m so sorry, Bran.” Paige shakes her head sympathetically. “I’m so fucking sorry for what you’ve gone through.”
“I miss her, Pidge. I miss her so damn much. Some days I miss her so bad it fucking hurts.”
Tears spring to her eyes now as she tries to smile down at me.
Christ she looks like an angel.
“I know you do. And that’s perfectly okay.”
I give myself a moment of grace to allow my tears to fall and then take a steadying breath. “Do you think you might be willing to do something with me someday soon?”
“Anything. Name it.”
“I haven’t been to Heather’s grave since I moved here.”
“You want me to go with you?” she asks, knowing exactly what I need.
I nod silently while she dries my tears.
“I would be honored to go with you, Bran. I’m here for you. Whatever you need. However you need it.”
I bring my hand to her face, feathering my fingers over her eyes, her nose, her lips, her chin. “I’m not sure what I ever did to deserve an angel like you in my life, Pidge.” I slide my hands down her neck, her shoulders, and then to her chest. “You breathe new life into me whenever you’re near me and that is not something I will ever take for granted again.”
“Bran,” she coos, her eyes full of love and adoration.
“I want to touch you, Pidge. I need to feel your soft skin against mine.” I cup her supple breasts in my hands, my thumbs brushing against her nipples. Her lips fall open at my touch, her eyes closing as she relishes the sensation my fingers provide.
“Your touch is what I live for, Bran,” she whispers. “You make me feel so alive. So loved. So cherished. With just the touch of your hands or the brush of your lips against mine, it’s like you can literally lift my soul right out of my body every single time.”
My cock hardening beneath her, I wrap my arm around her and turn us until she’s on her back and I’m hovering over her. Staring down at my angel, the woman I’m madly in love with, I say the only thing I’m thinking.
“I need you, Paige. Please.”
Christ, I’ve never begged a woman to let me fuck her before, but this overwhelming need to connect my body to hers, to share my soul with her, twists inside me like a vise and I suddenly need her so badly I can’t think straight.
I can’t breathe.
She opens her legs, allowing me to lay between them, and cups my face in her hands, running a few fingers through my hair. “I’m right here, Bran. Touch me. Taste me. Take me. Use me. Whatever you need. I’m right here and I love you.”
All the breath leaves my body when she says those three words.
She loves me.