Page 126 of Braving the Storm
The kitchen still has a faint essence of new paint smell to it when you stand in this spot beside the basin. The countertops are no longer cracked, shitty surfaces. I replaced them with new polished wood that looks a million times better than it ever did before.
I even replaced the awful couch.
The bathroom has been on my list to work on next, but with the summer season approaching, and Beau arriving in town any day to look over things at his ranch, the amount of hours I’ve had to keep working on the cabin have been steadily diminishing.
Turning off the faucet, I cross back to the wooden table—which is now freshly sanded and oiled and looking equally as smartened up as the countertops—and set the flowers in the spot where she always used to put them.
Spring blooms have popped up and seem to form a cheerful carpet everywhere I look, yet, all it does is jab at my stomach each time I see their brightly colored faces, reminding me that it’s been weeks upon weeks since that day she left.
In all that time, I haven’t heard from her.
Reality is starting to settle in my gut, heavy and oppressive, that Briar may never come back.
We hadn’t made any promises to one another. For all I know, or can even hope, is that she’s ditched her shitty ex and maybe left the country. She deserves to live a life and have her freedom beyond living beneath my brother’s thumb, and sometimes when I lie in bed at night sending her messages, ones that she opens and reads straight away, but never replies to, is that maybe she’s wandering around art galleries in Paris, or driving herself on a scooter around Rome or some shit.
Then I tend to spiral off into dark thoughts about the array of pretty boys lined up to play tour guide with her, and that makes me seriously consider booking a ticket to LA just to try and find out where she might have gone.
I’ve never been tempted to go back to that fucking city, but for Briar, I’d jump on a direct flight in a heartbeat.
Dragging my hands through my hair, I wander aimlessly across the few feet to the kitchen and rest my ass against the counter. I’ve got a fuckload of work to do. I’ve got messages there from Beau to respond to. Then I need to drag my ass to go see Lucas Rhodes about the horses down on his ranch.
Except, instead of making a start on any of those things, my eyes catch on the couch. It’s a much more comfortable replacement for the piece of shit that used to sit in that spot, but all it does is remind me.
Seeing it brings back memories of her.
I’m stroking myself while she’s rubbing her sweet pussy against my thigh, grinding herself down while we’re slowly, leisurely making out.
The band of my cuff strapped to her wrist brushes against my collarbone as her fingers tug on my hair.
I tell her how beautiful she looks being the perfect little fucktoy for me to use, how she’s not allowed to come like that, but I want her right on edge.
The words sit right there on the edge of my consciousness, resting onthe cusp just like her climax is, that I want to confess how much I love her.
Instead, I suck on her tongue and growl. “Ride me, darlin’.”
Briar rewards me with a smile and a delicious moan, and it’s the most precious thing in the entire world. Sinking forward against my mouth at the same time as she slides down over my cock, my girl straddles my lap, and this is exactly how I want every fucking day to be for the rest of my life.
It’s tortuous how every corner of this cabin reminds me of what it was like to have her in my arms. I swear to god her scent is still imprinted in the wooden beams and fixtures because I’ll catch a hit ofherevery now and then, and it stops me dead in my tracks.
On those bitter, foul-tasting, low days, when I’ve contemplated throwing all caution to the wind and going after her, the only thing that has stopped me is knowing that if I did, it would fuck things up even more.
If she didn’t say goodbye other than with a two-word note, doesn’t reply to anything I send her, and doesn’t want to come back… then the message is pretty damn transparent she doesn’t want me to.
I’m not going to force anything, that girl deserves the right to make her own decisions, and while it goddamn makes my heart bleed to think that she might move on—I’m also painfully aware that she can do better than a guy like me.
Yet, I’m a creature with a sickness, one that remains in some tiny part hopeful because at least Briar read my messages.
She opened them.
That has to mean something… right?
“Storm?” The sharp crackle and static of the radio slices right through my maze of thoughts I’ve been lost in.
“Storm, are you there?” Layla’s voice fills the room.
It only takes a few paces, and I’m swiping up the handset to respond in all of a couple of seconds.
“Go ahead, Layla.”
