Page 41 of Splintered Security
“Don’t you dare try to hush me when I’m telling the truth.”
Now she finds her voice? Of all fucking times, when I could bring the walls of this house down with my fists? Now she wants to hold her own and argue. I’d laugh if I didn’t think I’d sound like a maniac.
I rest back onto the cushions of the sofa, keeping her close, forcing my muscles to relax while my brain screams at what I heard.
“Give me a minute, Sunshine.”
I need it. I need more than a minute. I need whatever it takes for the Hulk to revert to Bruce Banner, or Mr. Hyde to return to being Dr. Jekyll.
“Ren?”
“Give me a minute.”
A hand strokes my jaw from chin to below my ear, cupping my cheek and turning my face toward her. “It’s been forty-five.”
“Since when?”
“Since the last time you asked for a minute. Your breathing has calmed, but your body is incredibly tense. I need you to relax, even if it’s just a little. If not for you, then for me. Your arms are really tight.”
I immediately release them.
“That’s not at all what I asked.” She practically tssks me.
I stretch out my arms, feeling the tension of keeping them flexed in one position for so long.
I twist my legs up onto the sofa and stretch out, my muscles straining in protest as I take her with me. “I don’t trust myself right now.”
I’m not lying. But I know I won’t hurt her and I’ll sure as fuck never let another person hurt her again either. Keeping her close means I won’t lose my mind, go apeshit, and make a liar of myself.
She rolls to her side between the back of the sofa and me, tucking in and stretching her arm across my stomach. She’sgone from zero to sixty as far as touching me. I can’t say I don’t love it.
Days ago, she wouldn’t call me on my shit. She was shy, hesitant, and scared. Now, she’s laughing and smiling, although not at this exact moment. She’s comfortable naked and tells me what she wants me to do to her body. She touches me and initiates.
Her ring catches the light as she rubs my chest. How in the world did Anni Garver, my best friend’s little sister, become the sultry woman in my arms? What a crazy few days.
“Well, I do.”
“You do what? I kind of got lost in my own head and don’t know what we’re talking about.”
“I trust you right now. And I need you to give me the same.”
I exhale all the air in my lungs and draw in another breath.
“I can do that. I can’t think about what he said to you or how he spoke to you without wanting to peel the skin from his body and make him watch as I do. I’ll never get over what he said to you, what he’s done to you.”
“You will. Remember the happy scales? I want you to have the same.”
I use the hand not tucked under her body to draw her hand to my mouth. I kiss her palm and then the knuckle above her rings before placing her hand on my chest and covering it with mine.
I hold my wife until her body goes heavy in my arms and her breathing is audible. I could get used to her in my life, in my arms, in my heart.
18
distracting and erotic
Anni
“Baby, wake up.” A warm palm rubs me from wrist to biceps as the voice calls me from sleep.
