“No.”
He kissed her mouth. “Please?”
“No.”
Despite her refusal, Skye kissed him back, and that was all the invitation he needed. As he deepened the kiss, he leaned over her and slipped his hand under her camisole, drawing it up and over the cup of her bra, and letting his palm linger there. She arched into his touch, whimpering quietly into his mouth, and his cock strained painfully against his jeans. God damn, it had been too fucking long, andfuck. He fuckingloved her.
Her fingers speared into his hair, grabbing, pulling him closer while she wrapped her uninjured leg around the back of his calf.
“Fuck, baby girl,” he groaned, pressing his restrained erection against the center of her pussy, still separated from him by way too many barriers of fabric. “I love…” He briefly silenced himself to swap out the second half of that sentence. “…how you feel. I’ve missed how you feel.”
Skye missed his faux pas completely. She was kissing and nipping and sucking on his neck while frantically fumbling to blindly unbuckle his belt with her one good hand. He reached down to clasp his hand around her wrist, briefly pinning it next to her head so he could unbuckle his belt, but Skye suddenly jerked against his grasp.
“Get the fuck off of me.”
After a microsecond pause of worried shock, Brennan pushed up and shifted away from her. “Skye—”
“I’m not having sex with you again, Brennan.”
“I’m sorry, honey.” He wasn’t sure what specifically he was sorry for, but he was sorry all the same. He inched away from her and carefully assessed her suddenly pale features. “You don’t have to.”
“No, Idon’thave to,” she snapped. There was a little hitch in her breath that made him nervous. Worried. What exactly had happened her in foster care? “I’m never having sex with anyone again as long as I live. I’m never letting anyonetouch meever again.Youare not allowed to touch me, and neither isanyone else.”
Every word she hissed came out on a pinched breath as her nose turned pink, and her eyes welled up and spilled over. It was clear then. Whatever she insisted upon keeping from him was hell of a lot bigger than he was, and the real problem wasn’t that it would shock him, rather that it was something she wanted to erase from her memory.
Brennan lay flat on his back, hands at his sides and leaving a good six inches between them. “I promise I will not lay a hand on you ever again. You have my word, sweetheart. I’m going to take care of you while you’re here, and when you’re all better I’ll take you wherever you need to go.”
“I’m never going to be all better.” Skye breathed rapidly through more hitches for a few seconds before she shifted close to him, struggled to turn toward him, buried her face against his neck, and began to sob.
“Don’t touch me,” she wept, nose and mouth pressed to his skin. “Keep your hands off me. You willnevertouch me again.”
“I won’t ever lay another finger on you again. If that’s what you need from me, I swear on my life that I’ll do it.”
“You will never touch me again,” she wailed, almost a screech. “You will never touch me again.”
These words weren’t for him. That was clear, too. These words were for the monsters under her bed; the demons in her closet; the predators that made her their prey. The one or ones responsible for all the pain and torment in her life. The one or ones that made her afraid to stay here.
“You’ll never touch me again.”
She cried harder, and his neck and shoulder were wet with tears.
“You’ll never touch me again.”
She reached across to clutch his chest, clawing at the fabric of his shirt. Brennan’s throat tightened to the point he could barely breathe, and he gripped the sheet into his fists as he stared at the ceiling and fought the urge to wrap his arms around her.
“You’ll never touch me again.”
She cried so long that he lost track of time. The intensity of her clinging to him increased along with the intensity of her weeping, but he didn’t move.
He simply closed his eyes and silently loved her. More than his internal rage at whatever darkness lingered in her past. More than his desire to hold her even though she told him not to touch her. More than his need to keep her with him for longer than he knew she’d allow. More than his compulsion to save her.
More than he’d ever loved anyone or anything he’d encountered in his thirty-one years on earth.
He loved her and loved her and loved her, and she cried herself into exhaustion and sleep against his aching heart. She slept for the rest of the afternoon, and he followed suit.
When they woke up later, Brennan’s hands were still clutched tight around the sheet at his sides, and Skye was still wrapped around him, as if clinging to dear life and hope.
22
