Page 37 of Little Bird
Or when she wakes up in the middle of the night and finds her stepfather in her bed.
But she’s not leaving. Instead, she’s in my kitchen baking cookies and making hot chocolate, with a smear of chocolate on her cheek and her eyes bright with something I can’t identify. Wearing skimpy shorts and a shirt that rides up when she reaches for something, and fresh out of a bed that was kept warm by my heat.
And it’s all too much. Beyond too much. A wave of emotions crashes over me at the feeling of belonging right here with her, the house finally feeling like a home again, and a woman here who is actually choosing us. She ran here when she was in trouble. And she isn’t leaving the first time something goes wrong.
I can’t explain why it matters. I’m not even sure I know why it matters. But it does, and I move toward her without thinking. I need to have my hands on her again. Feel her warmth under my skin, the solid form of her against my body.
I desperately, mindlessly need this to be real.
I stop in front of her and take her in, my blood too close to the surface and my stomach roiling with something that feels dangerous. She looks up at me, mouth hanging open, and it occurs to me that I must look absolutely insane. I’m just out of bed and down here asking her questions that make no sense, my hair no doubt messy and my eyes fever bright.
But I can’t stop myself.
I reach out and clean the chocolate from her cheek, my fingers gentle on her skin, and she gasps slightly.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“You had chocolate,” I answer.
I bring my finger up to my mouth and lick it, the taste of the chocolate sweet on my tongue, and the air around us goes suddenly so thick with tension that I can hardly breathe. My chest tightens with anticipation, my cock so hard I want to drop to my knees and cry. And all I can think of is that I want to kiss this girl.
I need to kiss this girl.
I need to taste her and convince myself this isn’t just a dream.
I take another step forward, my eyes on her, and she doesn’t retreat. Instead, when I put a palm up to her cheek, she leans into me like a cat looking for attention, her eyes on mine and her lips parted. She arches her back until her tits are pressed against me, and it’s all I can do not to grab her up, shove her onto the counter, and take her. Hard and rough and fast... or soft and gentle and deep. I don’t know.
It doesn’t matter.
I lean toward her, not daring to breathe or think about what I’m doing, and run my lips across hers. Her mouth parts on a sigh, and I know—I know—that I can have her if I want her. She’s open and ready for me. She knows I was in her bed with her, and she’s not rejecting me.
She’s not leaving.
But if I do this, if I take advantage of her, she might.
And I’m not sure I’ll survive it if she does. Not again.
I pull myself back, forcing my brain to start thinking again, and stare down at her. “Go back to bed, Taryn,” I say, my voice harsher than I intend. “Bad things happen to little girls like you in the middle of the night.”
I turn and leave before I can rethink my words or take them back. I pound up the stairs and into my room, where I slam the door and lock it behind me.
And then I go to the bathroom, my jeans already unbuttoned and my cock already in my hand as I desperately try to forget the tears shimmering in her eyes when I pushed her away. The hurt I know I’m causing her.
Because she’ll leave, eventually, and go back to her life.
While I’ll be stuck here with nothing but memories and ghosts.
Taryn
I watch Gunner leave, caught between heartbreak and confusion. What the fuck is going on here? First I catch the guy actually sleeping in my bed, with me in his arms, and then when I escape to the kitchen and try to think, he comes down here, asks me a number of insane questions, and then kisses me?
And then leaves the moment he realizes, oh, I don’t know, that it’s insane to come down here and kiss me?
I ignore the fact that I kissed him back and that my soul was flying somewhere miles above us when I did it. Ignore the feeling I had of finally, finally finding my way home and falling into something so good, so big, that I wasn’t sure I would ever find my way out. I didn’t come here for anything more than safety, but things have been complicated between Gunner and me since he picked me up, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel the tension between us every time we’re in the same room.
That kiss has been building since I arrived. And now that it’s happened, I’m not sure what to do with myself. I’m not sure what I even want.
But I do know that I am once again watching as he walks away from me, the sense of abandonment so strong that my heart is cracking in two with it. And this time he knows he hurt me. I know he saw the tears in my eyes when he pushed me back, confusion at his actions written all over my face. He knows exactly what he’s doing, and he’s doing it anyhow.
