Page 49 of The Best Man Wins

“That’s good,” he murmurs in my ear. “Just like that.” His arm encircles me, holding me tightly against him, and then his other hand reaches up and touches my lips. I let them part, and I take them in my mouth, nipping the tips of his fingers. He curls them against the flat of my tongue, getting them wet, and then removes them, sliding them down my body, over the thatch of curly hair at my pelvis, and lower. I feel him then; his fingers maneuver my sex until he finds it, that sweet, hard little nub, swollen with pleasure. His slick fingers rub against it softly, coaxing me closer to the edge of release. I grip him—my fingers tight in his hair, on his shoulders—and I can’t help but whimper now, loudly, as my thighs shake and my hips undulate in time with the drum of his fingers.

“Give it to me,” he purrs. “Give me everything you have.”

My thighs clench around his hips suddenly, and I cry out as my orgasm seizes me. I grip his hair, and my body trembles and jerks as waves and waves of pleasure wash though me. I’m throbbing, twitching, squirming, lost in the lovely torment of this unending ecstasy. His hand is on my back—anchoring me—holding me tightly against him as I ride it out. Only once I’m satisfied do I feel him give up control—he releases with a shudder and a low moan, hot and pulsing inside of me.

I’m putty—a stringless puppet. My limbs don’t want to work, and I lean my full weight against him. Eventually, he caves too and relaxes onto his back, so I find myself lying on his chest.

We lie like this, entangled, for a quiet moment. I can hear the old barn creak; I can hear the crickets outside. Braxton’s breath ebbs and flows.

Bits of straw and clothes hiss and crunch underneath him as we shift—that painful moment where he slides out of me. I don’t want to leave him just yet, so I rest my head on his chest and my hand on his middle. He doesn’t push me away, so I take that as a sign that this is okay. I can hear his heart, though. It’s beating machine-gun fast.

“You were right about what you said, you know,” Braxton says, the first to break the silence. “I’m a tank.”

“You sure are,” I say, my fingers splayed out on his steel-hard stomach.

He laughs—but barely. The way his eyes wander the ceiling, I get the impression that now is not the time for jokes.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I ask earnestly and lift my chin to look at his face.

He goes quiet again. But I’ve come to learn that, from Braxton, that’s not a no.

“I’ve figured it out, you know,” I inform him as I trace a fingertip around his navel. “It’s not that you don’t trust Ray. It’s that you don’t trust anyone.”

“Aren’t you a regular Sherlock Holmes?”

“I resent that,” I huff. “I’m obviously a Nancy Drew.”

Braxton seems to be memorizing the ceiling. “My father owned the winery,” he finally comes out with, “before his rapid descent into alcoholism.” His tone is flat and unmoved, like smooth glass. I’ve heard people get more emotive about the wrong Starbucks order.

“That must have been hard,” I say.

“Sometimes.” He’s unaffected. Any pain there has long been scarred over and numbed. Eventually, he continues. “He was…well, the house was a war zone. No place for kids. So when I turned eighteen, I left and took Cora with me. It’s been just the two of us ever since.”

I swallow hard. Whether or not Braxton lets himself feel anything, I hurt for him. My big, bleeding heart goes out to him.

“I can tell how much you love her,” I murmur.

“I’m all she has,” he says.

You were all she had, I want to say, but I hold my tongue. I have a feeling bringing Ray up right now won’t bode well. Braxton is peeling off his armor, bit by bit, and I don’t want to give him reason to crawl back inside that shell of his.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” I tell him.

He drops into a deep silence before he says, “I used to hate it when people apologized for him.” He glances down at me, and there’s clarity to his eyes that I haven’t seen before. “When you say it? It feels real.”

I grin. “You like it.”

“I do.”

“You like me.”

“Yes.”

“That’s two things that you like today.” I tap his stomach and yawn again. “Baby steps.” I rest my palm on his bare chest. I like the warmth of his skin and the small coarse hairs here. He wraps an arm around me, and he cups my side. His thumb rubs over my hip bone, back and forth, back and forth. I feel safe here, cradled against him.

“Speaking of taking care of people,” Braxton prompts. “Can we talk about you?”

“What about me?” My whole body feels heavy, sunken into him. “I’m an open book.”

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