Page 23 of Slow Burn
Clearly, I had not been playing it cool. Hunter only offered me up as her chauffeur because he saw what she was doing to me. I didn't care because I got to spend three of the best days of my life with her. Before it came crashing down.
“Shut up. Fleetwood Mac? I pegged you for a Britney Spears type, Gold.” I’d quickly learned how much fun it was to tease her. How fucking cute she got when she was flushed. How hot when she teased back.
“Britney is queen. However,” Her laughter filled my chest as she cranked the radio, “Fleetwood Mac are musicians. The lyrics, the layers of emotion in their music.” Her head tipped back as the music flooded the car; she was beautiful and her walls had fallen after the first few hundred miles.
Brynn was free and open, laughing and singing beside me. We talked about music, movies, the places we had gone and those we'd yet to see. By the first stop for gas, I was completely smitten. If I hadn't been already after dancing with her in that perfectly romantic barn and seeing those green eyes burn.
“Why Chicago? How did you end up there?” Brynn had asked while watching me fill the tank, sharing her nachos with me between questions.
“It was about as different as I could get from Utah. Bright, alive. I had just finished training and saw an ad for Ladder 71. I had nothing tying me there anymore. Felt like a fresh start might be what I needed.” As I watched, Brynn changed; those bright eyes darkened, her the smile slid from her face and for a few seconds, that wall was firmly back in place.
Then, I touched her. With my free hand, I gently brought her chin up, making her look at me. Just like that, as if I had centered her somehow, Brynn was back. I wanted to know where she had gone, what had taken her from me, but first, I vowed to keep her there with me.
For seventy-six hours, I did. Brynn riding beside me, picking the music, the questions, the way we learned about one another, made it so easy to let it happen. To let it become what neither of us were ready for, but both wanted so badly we didn't answer the important questions.
“Why Boston.” At the time, I was just calculating how far it was from Chicago. How far between what we were building then and what we could maintain later.
“Ever been to Boston,” Brynn fired back, snuggled close to my side in the bench seat of Hunters beat up old Dodge, “The history in the stone and brick in that city is just...it blows me away. The curves and lines and the design. We visited when I was just a kid and I knew I wanted to build things that looked like that. That made people feel like that.” I thought it was beautiful, that she was beautiful. So, I told her so.
“You are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.” I spoke it softly against her ear as I held her close on the hood of the car.
We were hours away from Chicago and neither of us wanted the trip to be over. I didn't want to let her go. Brynn had brought me back to life. How could I pretend otherwise once we got to Chicago and the rest of the world, our friends and my ex-wife included, intruded on what we found?
Instead of allowing myself to consider it, I did my best to hold onto it. We stopped in an empty field, for no reason at all. Laying a blanket out on the hood of Hunter's car, we watched the stars. I held her. Kissed her. Touched her. Before I could spend the fifty-five seconds I should have, we were grasping tight onto whatever this crazy, hot, special thing we had found with one another.
We spent days opening up to one another. Piece by piece. Brick by brick. Under the stars, in the back seat of Hunter's car—like fumbling teenagers—we ripped open what was left.
“I don't want it to end, baby. Not after tonight. Not tomorrow once we get to Chicago. Or when you go back to Boston.” My words tore out of me as I'd ripped her t-shirt and shorts off, hands shaking, breath gasping out of me.
“Who says it has to?” Brynn whispered back in the darkness, her hands fumbling with my own jeans and shirt.
“I won't let it. I won't. I promise, baby.” My mouth took hers as I pinned her to the cool leather seats.
Burning white heat coiled through me as her fingertips traced my skin. Just the tips, slowly, over the curve of my shoulders, the lines of my neck, down my front. Watching me with those burning green eyes, Brynn wrapped her hands around me and guided me between her legs.
“Be sure, baby. You let me take you now, that's not a promise I just made. That's a warning. I won't let it end.” Brynn just moaned and bucked beneath me, closing her limbs around me.
With a thrust of both our bodies, I was inside her. On the side of the road in the darkness, I made love to Brynn all night. Over and over any way she would let me. As the sun came up, I had her sprawled wide open on the hood again, my head between her thighs, feasting on her sweetness.
I was drunk on her. Positively wasted on Brynn. We might as well have been the newlyweds, we rode into Chicago so fucking happy. I got her to my place, passing right by Lola's condo where she'd planned to stay.
“No need for that, now. You're moving.” Brynn never argued, snuggling into me as we headed for my place.
Once there, we barely got through the door before I was tearing at her clothes again. I needed her so desperately, to feel her soft skin against mine, have her sweet taste on my lips again. Maybe too desperately because I had her beneath me on the couch, shoving at her leggings before I noticed we were not alone.
“Welcome home, husband.” Ice in my veins, that voice.
It was the look on Brynn's face though, as I watched her brick herself back up, that broke me. I hadn't taken fifty-five fucking seconds to explain Isabel or how done with her I was. Maybe I didn't know I was done with her, then. Once I found Brynn, though, I sure as shit was done.
“Kind of broke my heart, Levi.” My own heart ached in my chest as she admitted this now.
“If I broke yours, I fucking shattered mine, baby. I didn't tell you with the intent ofnottelling you. I always knew that talk was coming. Brynn, I was so fucking ruined after her. Not because she broke my heart, I told you I don't believe what we had was love. It just paraded like it. I didn't want to be alone. I was so fucking tired of being alone.” Brynn softens, her limbs tugging me close to her.
“Me too, baby. Me too.” It’s the first time she's called me this in four months.
Just a word. Just a cute, silly word. Except when Brynn is saying it to me, it sounds like a helluva lot more. Like it is just hers and it’s just for me and fuck, that does something to me. I knew it before she said it, knew it four months ago, but now I know for sure.
Brynn fucking owns me; I am hers just waiting for her to claim.
