Page 34 of Braving the Storm
But, no. Goddamn it. This is me being a caring and responsible person, for once in my life. I can’t in good conscience let this girl go to sleep tonight without knowing... without being certain.
Pushing against me with fists clenched, Briar’s body is stiff as I stand my ground. We’re back in that place again where we’re both much closer than we need to be, but I’m feeling all kinds of protective over this girl, and she won’t tell me the truth about shit from her past or how she’s feeling after her fall earlier.
So she’s just going to have to suck it up and deal with the way I do things.
“Turn your head for me, darlin’.” My thighs are wedged between her knees so I can remain close. There’s a moment when I weigh the consequences, when I hesitate for all of the length of time it takes her to suck in a sharp inhale. I’m caught up in a place whereshouldbecomes a weighted word.
Should I be touching this girl?
Should I be so worryingly attracted to her?
If anything, Ishouldbe thinking about stepping back or putting an appropriate distance between us, but then concerns about whether or not she has a bleeding brain take precedence.
“I’m going to check the place where you cracked your head, ok?”
Briar huffs out another soft noise, but obliges and turns her neck to the side, keeping her eyes low, focus dipped toward the floor.
“Tell me if there’s pain.” I swallow heavily and slide my fingertips gingerly up from the base of her hair. The soft strands are slightly curled around her nape from the steam of the shower earlier, and loose tendrils framing her face shift beneath my breath as I lean forward. Just like the day in the barn when I helped her off that damn horse, my mouth is so close to the shell of her ear it wouldn’t take anything to close those frighteningly small series of inches and make contact with her bare skin.
Oh, how simple it would be to eat up that whisper of distance and feel the shudder run through her beneath my lips.
What I really want to do is thread my fingers into her hair. To see the way her dark curls look wrapped in my fist, intertwined with the ink of my name across my knuckles. Holy shit, the image of that sends something streaking like a comet straight through my bloodstream.
Purely possessive, maddening thoughts about the fact this girl should be mine burst through my veins like the first explosive fraction of a second being released from a bucking chute into the arena.
Drawing in a steadying breath through my nose, I try to calm my racing pulse. This is something I gotta focus on and not lose my shit, or my mind, down a gutter of filthy goddamn fantasies.
If I’m ever going to earn this girl’s trust, this is one step in that direction.
“No pain, yet.” Briar’s voice is quiet. A whisper.
“How about now?” I murmur as my fingers glide up higher, tracing the slope of her nape up towards the base of her skull.
She shivers when the heel of my palm grazes her jaw. Tilting her head further to the side, Briar gives me greater access.
Goddamn. It’s the smallest gesture, but there’s so much submission in it, and a look of ease softens her face. It’s as if she’s soaking up every moment and actually enjoying this. Seeing that wash of relief is what makes me linger, to draw this moment out. Rather than being brisk or functional, when I should be entirely focused on the task at hand—the one where I’m checking her headfor a sign of swelling or excessive bruising—instead, I’m allowing her the sensation of touch that it’s obvious she’s gone without for far too long.
This is all it takes to have her melting in the palm of my hand? Christ. The shit that stirs up behind my ribs, squeezing hard inside my chest… there’s a feral beast wanting to leap out and devour the pretty little thing seated before me.
Her eyelashes rest over her cheeks, pouty little lips parted on a shaky exhale, and her pink tongue swipes over her bottom lip, leaving a glossy, wet line.
Studying her up close like this, my mind has descended to the most depraved of places. There’s surely a hell reserved for uncles who can’t keep their hands to themselves. Right now, I am tumbling head-first down the rabbit hole with no hope of emerging unscathed from this misadventure.
I’m essentially cupping my niece’s face, standing between her legs, and if this was any other circumstance with a woman in my kitchen positioned at my mercy like this long after dark, we’d be about twenty seconds away from fucking.
But this moment, right here, sucks the air from the tiny distance between us. Time gets hung on a hook, calling a truce, while allowing us to explore an intimate moment that we both realize shouldn’t be indulged.
My fingers walk their way higher. Tracing the spot where the top of her spine meets her skull. Then higher still. Coming to tentatively rest on the back of her head.
“There’s a bump there,” I state the goddamn obvious. My tongue feels heavy and awkward in my mouth as I gingerly draw the pad of my fingertip over the raised welt at the back of her head.
“It’s a little sore.” She admits.
“Worse than earlier?” I gently brush over it, not pressing hard, but wanting to check there’s not something more concerning going on.
Briar makes a humming noise. “No. About the same.”
In no universe do I need to be touching her still, to be lingeringin such an intimate way, but Briar leans ever so subtly against my palm, so I choose to leave my hand there.
