Page 105 of Veil of Lies

I was so busy concentrating on pouring the water into a mug that I didn’t notice him behind me. When he lightly touched my arm, I nearly jumped out of my skin.

Boiling water splashed onto the counter, a few drops landing on my wrist.

I yelped in surprise. Fuck that hurt.

“Shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” He turned the faucet on. “Here, run cold water over the burn. It should take the heat out of it.”

He moved my wrist under the stream of cold water, and I exhaled slowly. He was right, it helped.

I expected him to back off, like he usually did, but to my surprise he stayed close, his fingers lightly resting on my arm.

At every point of contact, my skin burned, only this was a different kind of pain. The sort of pain that flooded my body with endorphins and demanded relief of a very specific kind.

Cold water would likely help, but it wouldn’t cure the underlying problem.

“How does it feel now?”

I was confused. Hot? Aching? Desperate for a fuck? But he wasn’t talking about my pussy. “It’s fine,” I managed to grit out. Meanwhile, my chamomile tea was going cold, which was unfortunate given I needed to calm the fuck down.

“Stella, I…” his voice trailed off, but his fingers continued caressing the soft skin of my inner wrist. I hadn’t realized until now that the area was a major erogenous zone.

Who’d have thought it?

Just a few soft strokes and I was about ready to explode. It was just as well the lights were still off, with only the moon providing illumination. I had a feeling my cheeks were bright red.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

“What?” I snapped. This whole hot-cold thing he had going on was driving me nuts. It wasn’t fair to blame me for the sins of my father.

I was done feeling guilty for what Dad had allegedly done. Yes, I was desperately sad Brax’s father took his own life, but it wasn’t my fault.

“I wanted to say I’m sorry, for being an ass, for pushing you away, for…everything.”

I closed the faucet off and turned around to face him, tilting my head upward because of the height difference. He dropped my wrist but instead of stepping back, he cupped my jaw instead.

“When I got the phone call from Harley, telling me that you’d been shot, I was so scared, Stella. I thought I’d lost you.” His voice cracked. “Then when I saw you lying in that hospital bed, unconscious, you looked so helpless. I was going to leave, I knew Harley and Quinn would take care of you, but you woke up. You saw me, and I realized something, I realized I couldn’t leave you.”

He tugged me closer. My breasts pressed against the hard planes of his chest. Where he was solid, I was soft. Yin and Yang.

“Brax…” I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say, but he didn’t give me a chance to say anything. Instead, he kissed me.

Unlike the previous two times, this kiss was soft, tentative even, as if he was waiting for me to shove him away. I pressed into him more firmly, pushing past his lips with my tongue, taking control.

He groaned softly as his fingers threaded through my hair, cupping my head.

“Are you sure about this?” I asked when we broke apart, both of us breathless.

“No, but I can’t keep you at a distance any longer. Whatever your father did, it isn’t your fault.”

“No, it’s not, but your mother doesn’t agree, does she?”

He sighed. “With my mother…it’s complicated. I think she blames herself most of all, for always pushing him to earn more, spend more, and for not noticing he was unraveling when he discovered all the money was gone.”

“She’s going to be furious if she knows we are together,” I pointed out. “She’ll feel betrayed.”

I could sense the frustration emanating from him. “I can’t make decisions based on my mother’s flawed sense of right and wrong. I’m not a kid anymore. I want you, you’re not to blame for what happened. Dad chose to do what he did. I don’t agree with it, but I have accepted it. He was in a bad place; he wasn’t thinking clearly when he decided to end his life.”

He exhaled softly, releasing some of the tension. “I’ve thought about this a lot. I loved my dad, but in many ways he was weak. He should have stood up to my mother, and my grandmother. Both of them pushed and pushed and he just took it. I will not be that man. It’s time I stepped away from my family and carved my own path.”

---