Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
“It’s going to be fine, right?” Hallie asked for the third time in the last few minutes. Brynn couldn’t see her, but she could hear Hallie pacing back and forth in her bedroom. It was where, coincidentally, Brynn had spent every single night for the last two weeks.
Brynn had been putting on her makeup in the adjoining bathroom, but she now put her mascara down. She poked her head through the doorway, and seeing the drawn look on Hallie’s face, she immediately walked over to the bed where Hallie had thrown her body down.
They were meeting Brynn’s parents, along with Reese and Sydney, for brunch. Brynn had tried her best, but she’d only been able to stave off her parents for so long. Which had amounted, in total, to a couple of weeks once she’d told them about Hallie.
Personally, Brynn was thrilled that Hallie was going to be meeting her parents.
Hallie was her favorite person, and she wanted her parents to meet the woman who made her so happy.
Plus, Reese and Sydney would be there to run interference in case her parents’ loving attention got a little too overbearing.
Unfortunately, Hallie wasn’t seeing it through quite the same lens, so Brynn had no other choice but to play a little dirty.
Which, not so secretly, she absolutely loved.
She crawled on top of Hallie and straddled her torso, pinning her to the bed.
It felt incredible to be touching her like this, even though they’d woken up wrapped in one another’s arms just a few hours ago.
“My parents are going to love you,” Brynn said before she placed a lingering kiss on Hallie’s cheek, nuzzling her nose against her soft skin for good measure. Maybe she took a quick inhale, too, but that was only because Hallie always smelled so good.
Brynn still hadn’t quite come down to Earth since everything with Hallie had hit a tipping point. She was excited to be taking this next step, but for someone with a family like Hallie’s, she understood that meeting someone’s parents was probably really nerve-racking.
“And Reese and Sydney will be there, so it’s not like all of the attention will be on me,” Hallie assured herself. Again, it was not the first time that these words had been said aloud today.
But Brynn would listen to Hallie talk and pontificate and worry and hype herself up for as long as it took until Hallie felt comfortable.
She would confirm her words and say as many of her own as Hallie needed to hear.
Even if it meant they were doing it right up until they walked into the casual brunch spot about twenty minutes away from the inn, where they were meeting everyone soon.
Smiling, because god, did Hallie look cute, Brynn said, “Fortunately for you, my parents are way too obsessed with me to ever let all the attention be on you.” She placed another kiss on Hallie’s face, this time on her other cheek.
This kiss seemed to calm Hallie a little more, and Brynn felt the body underneath her relax.
Which was great for Hallie but not so great for her since she was now very consciously aware of their positions and how easy it would be to pin Hallie’s arms down at her sides and start placing kisses across any exposed skin she could get her lips on.
Brynn sat up again, hoping to temper the ache that was already starting to build.
There was always a present want in Brynn’s life now, which she wasn’t even close to adjusting to yet. Everything about Hallie turned her on. She hadn’t even known that it was possible to be aroused by some of the things that got her going.
Hallie’s lip gloss? Kryptonite.
Hallie’s socks, the thick ones that were always pulled up higher on one ankle than the other? Might as well be lingerie in Brynn’s mind.
Hallie’s high ponytail, when it would skew a little bit to the side after a long day? It was probably safer for Brynn to be locked in a separate room when Hallie walked in the door looking like that.
It was all just… Hallie. And Brynn loved everything about Hallie, which meant that she was constantly finding new little quirks that got her excited beyond belief.
And when she wasn’t turned on or out of her mind with want, she was just… so incredibly soft.
She sighed as Hallie’s arms came to wrap around her hips, holding her lightly.
And when she looked down into Hallie’s hazel eyes, still filled with a glint of apprehension, she wished more than anything that she could make her see what she saw when she looked at her.
Feel the way that she felt whenever they were close.
“If you don’t want to do this, we can wait,” Brynn assured her. Because their relationship, even if it didn’t feel like it, was still new. And she would never push Hallie into something that she wasn’t comfortable with.
Hallie sighed. “I know that I’m being a baby. I just really want them to like me. Is that crazy?”
Brynn ran her fingertips along Hallie’s jaw, marveling at how perfect she felt. “They will like you, babe. I promise you that. They will see how you treat me and how you look at me. That’s really all that matters to them. That you’re good to me and that I’m happy.”
Hallie exhaled again. “I try to be good to you.”
“I don’t think it’s possible for anyone to treat me better,” Brynn said seriously. “You make me feel loved and seen and cared for like no one else I’ve ever met.”
“You deserve the world,” Hallie agreed, her fingers roaming around to Brynn’s back and starting to inch beneath her shirt.
Brynn tried not to get lost in how good the touch felt. They really needed to leave in the next few minutes or they’d be late. And even if she didn’t actually care, she knew that Hallie would. “Are you trying to use sex to distract me?” she pushed out when Hallie’s nails scraped down her spine.
There it was, the mischievous smile that Brynn loved to see. Hallie’s eyes glinted playfully. “Is it working?”
Brynn bit her lip before adjusting her hips and shifting a few inches down Hallie’s body. She exhaled at the same time that she slid over, one of her legs now in between Hallie’s thighs. She pushed upward, grinding into Hallie’s center.
God, she loved everything about it. The friction and the moan Hallie let out and the blush that immediately snaked up her neck, her chest starting to rise and fall faster and faster.
“It always works,” Brynn finally responded, dropping down onto her forearms.
Their faces were inches apart when Hallie seemed to come to her senses. “I don’t want to be late.”
“I thought you didn’t want to go?” Brynn teased. And god, she could stop herself if she needed to, but the idea of not getting to touch Hallie right now was hard to accept. Even if they’d had sex last night. And then this morning, before Hallie’d handled the checkouts.
It was never enough. Brynn was the definition of a wanton woman these days, which she’d only understood in the theoretical before Hallie.
Hallie groaned, but her hands didn’t still on Brynn’s back. “I want to meet the people who made you.”
Brynn couldn’t be sure what did it. The tone in Hallie’s voice or the press of her fingers against Brynn’s spine or the way Hallie was looking at her with wonderment and love.
She needed. To feel Hallie. To make her come undone. To, even for just a few seconds, make Hallie forget about everything except the two of them.
Her hands were on Hallie’s pants button before she realized what she was doing. She was greeted with Hallie’s arched eyebrow as she breathlessly said, “Brynn? We don’t have—”
They would find the time. Hell, she would figure out a way to time-travel so that they could make sure they weren’t late. That was the thought propelling her as she found Hallie’s lips in an unyielding kiss, her hand snaking into Hallie’s pants.
Heat flared through her as she dipped into Hallie’s core, engulfed in a warmth that made everything in her body scream yes. “God, Hallie. You’re already so wet.”
“I’m never too stressed to be turned on by you,” Hallie gritted out, Brynn’s fingertips quickly finding her clit.
At this rate, with the sounds Hallie was making as Brynn picked up the intensity, rubbing her clit as she used her thigh for leverage, there was a good chance they wouldn’t even be late.
They’d done slow and loving. Quick and dirty.
Pressed up against doors. Bent over the kitchen counter.
On the sofa far too many times to count already, when a night of watching TV would take on a life of its own.
Once, a week ago, they’d even had sex in the office right off the check-in desk, where Brynn had had just enough room to drop down on her knees in front of Hallie, who’d been sitting behind the desk when Brynn had walked in.
Why had Brynn walked into the room that day? She honestly couldn’t tell you. All she could remember was that Hallie had looked up and given her this lopsided smile that had made Brynn’s heart pitter-patter. The wanting had followed quickly after.
She loved their sex life. Was obsessed with it, even. But she was just as obsessed with the soft, tender moments in their relationship. Being around Hallie was like living in a feelings wheel that only had all the best emotions, and she rapid-cycled through them whenever they were together.
And since they spent most of their time together, Brynn hadn’t yet come off this ride.
But all their time together also meant that she knew things, like how responsive Hallie was to having her clit touched.
Or the way that she made the absolute best sounds when she was close.
And that, more than anything, when they had sex, she loved to feel the press of Brynn’s body, anchoring her in place.
Speaking of which…
She felt Hallie stiffen, Brynn finding her mouth to capture her moan in another kiss. She slid her tongue into Hallie’s mouth, following the same rhythm that her fingers were making.
When Hallie came seconds later, her whole body snapped, her back arching off the bed to press them closer together.