Page 18 of My Rose

Chapter 8

Briggs

“I am dragged along by a strange new force. Desire and reason are pulling in different directions. I see the right way and approve it, but follow the wrong.” ? Ovid

One tight red dress, matching red lips, and sneakers that contrasted so heavily with Clarissa’s shoe choice were enough to make my brain go numb. I wouldn’t let that happen again.I couldn’t. She would never be safe if she got close to me, and I could tell by the way she was looking at me that she wanted to get close.

Dean’s words rippled to the surface of my thoughts—get your head right. Find a girl. We all need to be loved.So, that was the mindset I had when I agreed to take shots with her. When I gave her my jacket the first time, she was simply cold, but the second time felt like putting my stamp on her. A stamp I wasn’t ready to put down, but did anyway, even after trying to push her away.

The second Clarissa came stumbling down those steps and asked who Rose was, I knew I’d fucked up. Bad. I’d taint the girl faster than she could blink away the tears I’d inevitably cause her, adding to the ones I already had. Her name was more than a simple moniker—she was the perfect rose, and I was the thousands of thorns stuck beneath the petals.

I slept like shit, unable to settle my racing mind. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw red. But it wasn’t blood this time. It was a lighter shade, and it paired extremely fucking well with a rounded ass that the edge of my jacket hung belowjust right.

The next morning, after tossing and turning all night, I fired my PI’s. Every detail was wrong in her file. Nowhere in there did it say she refrained from smiling and showing her teeth, or that she couldn’t play pool. It didn’t say she chose to wear Vans with every outfit and often forgot to dress appropriately for the weather. The file had nothing on the way she was so ready to use the voice I knew she lost all those years ago, just to tell me off like the little viper I didn’t know she was. It was all wrong.

I was already doing a better job at knowing who she was and making sure she was okay than the entire team of inattentive morons I’d hired. They’d hadyearsto add those things to her file,yearsto update me with any changes. And now the things I believed I knew about her were all being questioned.

I rubbed at my throbbing head, knowing I needed to get out of it again. Yet, every time I thought of Rose, my body grew tight and my cock unbelievably hard. The thought of what that mouth could do beyond the viciousness I didn’t expect to hear was part of the reason I had zero fucking sleep the night before. That pesky, gnawing guilt that consumed me when I used to think about her was quickly becoming replaced by a desire I’d never be able to sate.

Plunging myself into the coldest shower I could didn’t quell the flame coursing through me. I did my best to push my thoughts, and my hands, away from my other head, finished my shower, and left the estate.

There was only one person I wanted to talk to. One person I could turn to who wouldn’t judge me for the things I imagined doing to Rose Fields—the woman I was supposed to stay far-the-fuck-away from but wasn’t sure I could anymore.

I parked at the far side of the graveyard on the edge of town, hoping the walk over to where my twin brother rested would help easewhatever was coming over me. He could still lend an ear when I needed it, but I’d never be able to hear what his thoughts were again.

Our father tried to define our differences as much as he could while growing up, but those differences never stood a chance against our bond. We shared everything—a womb, our deepest fears, all our hopes and dreams. How much none of it mattered we hadn’t fully grasped in our youth. The day my twin died, a piece of my soul was ripped from my body. At times, I wished it was me who was six feet under. But I was terrified of flying, and Beckett was not. I couldn’t change what happened that day, no matter how badly I wanted to.

It was foggy out, tombstones only becoming visible once they were a few feet from where I was walking, but I’d be able to find Beck’s plot even if I was blindfolded. When I reached the site, I slid down to the grass, leaning against the enormous stone that read, ‘Beloved Son and Brother,’ feeling the weight of the world crash on top of my shoulders. I don’t know how much time I spent sitting there, telling my brother about a woman I had no business fantasizing about. Soon, the sun started to peek through the fog, making it dissipate. The rays swept over the top of a hill where another grave I knew well in the distance lay. A woman with flowing, dark brown hair stood at the top, wearing a distinctively familiar black leather jacket.

I should have walked back to my car, but the grave she was at was one I also visited every time I went to Beck’s. And just like they had at the party, my feet worked to follow my desires instead of my brain, all to bring me closer to her. Her parents would roll over and curse in their graves if they knew whose jacket she was wearing, and whowas now standing right above them, and for once, I was happy the dead couldn’t speak.

“Hey,” I said as I stopped walking, giving her plenty of room to ignore me, as she should.

Rose wrapped her arms around herself, rubbing along the sleeves, and then froze with her fingertips biting into the fabric. “Are you following me now?” My actions hit home from the night before, but it was making my body tense up more than I’d like it to. If only she knew I had taken it upon myself to be her personal bodyguard and should have been following her this morning to this very spot, yet it was purely a coincidence that we were here at the same time. If only she knew I fired the staff Idid havetailing her for years. I had always been following her, in my own way.

I pointed down the hill towards the grave I’d just walked from. “Here for my brother. You?” Selective truths it was, then.

Her blue, puffy eyes moved between the spot I’d pointed to and then back over to me. “Oh.” She took in her bottom trembling lip, which lately had been driving me utterly fucking wild for no reason. But this time it made my stomach churn uncomfortably. I took a step closer when she pulled her gaze away from me and fixated on the two tombstones in front of us. “These are…were, my parents.” She sniffed, holding back what must’ve been a barge of tears.

As if my dead brother possessed my body, my hand reached out to squeeze her shoulder. At least I told myself that’s what was happening, because I thought I’d made up my mind—Rose needed to stay away from me. Far, far away. I pulled my hand back and shoved both hands into my back pockets.

But it was too late. She turned and rushed into me, wrapping her leather-clad arms through the space between my arms and waist, flattening her palms against my back. She pressed her cheek to my chest, and I knew she could hear my deceiving heart thundering beneath my ribs.

I didn’t know how to comfort people, especially when I was trying so hard to push them away and failing miserably at doing so.Fuck.My hands slid up her back, one making its way to the space between her naturally wavy hair and neck. If she knew what these hands had done before, she wouldn’t be within a mile of them, let alone allowing them on her body.

She pulled back, her chin raised just above my chest as she staredup at me with furrowed brows, probably remembering my words from the night before.

I can’t be your friend, Rose. I’m no good.

I pulled my hands away and tucked them back into my pockets where they never should have left, but she didn’t release me. So I did the only thing I could think of that would snap her out of it, because it—this—wasn’t going to happen. Whatever she needed me to be, I wasn’t it. I couldn’t beit.

“Margot and John?” I tried to draw her attention back to the graves, back to her parents. But it was another solid minute of her just staring up at me, her body pressed against mine too comfortably.

I swallowed and inclined my head towards the stones. “What happened?” It wasn’t something people wanted to answer when standing on top of their deceased loved ones. And the fact that I already knew exactly what happened to them was another proverbial slap to the friendship she kept trying to form between us. Not that she knew that part.

She finally dropped her hands and turned back toward the stones and the loss of her warmth sent a coldness I’d never experienced before down my back. “A fire,” was all she said.

I glanced around the graveyard. “Where’s August? He doesn’t support his friend out here?” The scarce times he was spotted out with her didn’t line up with the intensity of the friendship she believed they had. It made me sick.

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