Page 46 of My Rose

I groaned again. “Rose, don’t play games with me. Not about us.”

“I thought you liked games.” Her smile grew wicked.

My finger dipped beneath her chin. “I absolutely do not enjoy the games you are thinking about.”

Rose shrugged a shoulder. “Maybe you don’t know the games I’m thinking about.” She bit down on her lip, and my cock jumped in my sweatpants. She wriggled further up, her face becoming level with mine. I slid my fingers through her dark hair until my hand cupped the back of her head in my palm.

Her lips brushed my jawline as she whispered my name, a deep growl coming from my chest as she moved her hand down toward my waistband. She was so soft, every curve of her body against mine—so fucking perfect. I wanted her to be mine in all forms of the word, but something that had been absent from her file was what Jim stated through the phone in the words of August Coleman. He had gone to her house topop her cherry. The most vulgar terminology for what he’d intended to do tomy Rose.

If anyone was going to touch her, to put their cock in her, it was going to be me. I’d fill her so full, she’d never want for another man. I’d be her first and her last, and I’d mark every single inch of her body, claiming her piece by piece until she knew she was only mine, too. As much as I wanted to pump her so fucking full of my cum that it would be dripping down her shaking thighs for days on end, I couldn’t bring myself to do it—to take her on a day August planned for her to lose her virginity to him.

Rose seemed to notice my inner turmoil. “If you weren’t in pain, with that—” Her fingers skirted away from my sweatpants, splaying just above my ribs.

I pressed my head back against the headboard and stared up at the ceiling before rolling my head to the side to look at her again. “Rose, I would love nothing more than to take you up against every surface known to man. And make no mistake, I will do that. Very soon. But that isn’t going to start today.” I shifted on the bed to show her I could move—I wasn’t that fragile. Not even the injury on my side would hinder the things I’d do to her—the ways I’d claim her. And there were plenty of ways I’d been imagining doing exactly that over the last couple of weeks. Possibly even longer than that.

Her fingers tapped lightly along the bruise, and her adorable face scrunched up. “Did Jasmine tell you?” Her mind seemed to go elsewhere—to find other excuses for why I refused to strip her bare and pound into her right then and there.

It startled me from my thoughts. “What?”

“Did she tell you I was a virgin, or did you hear it from someone else? Maybe at the party”—Her nose crinkled—“August’s friends said something, didn’t they? I can tell by the way you’re looking at me right now. It’s like you pity me.” She acted like it was something that was casually spoken about, and she’d been privy to those discussions. The way her brain went straight to August’s friends being the culprits behind me knowing about the status of her body brought me right back to that parking lot. I should’ve bashed all of their heads in while I had the chance. Or possibly before then, at August’s housewhen he acted as if she were a common prize he could so easily take if only he wanted to.

I should have drowned the fucker at his party the second he opened his disgusting mouth.

I leaned into her and kissed her forehead, then pulled her gaze up higher, gripping her jaw, making sure she’d hear every word and see the look on my face when I told her. “I don’t pity you, Rose. The look you’re seeing is me trying to tell my dick to chill the hell out. Trust me, I want you, babe. I want you so bad it fucking hurts. But I refuse to do all the depraved things I want to do to you here, in this house, tonight.” I reached over to tuck her hair behind her ear, not missing the pout she was giving me. My girl wanted me, and while I wouldn’t fuck her tonight or in this hellhole, there were plenty of other things I had on my mind that I’d be able to live with doing to her. “You deserve better for your first time.”

She glanced down at the noticeable bulge in my pants, and I moved my hand to push it down, not that it stayed. She smirked back up at me, taking my word for everything it was at that moment—the truth.

“So, it was Jasmine who told you then?” I just nodded, knowing the alternative was telling her about August and the way I beat him bloody minutes before meeting her here. A white lie now was no different than not telling her about the way I’d been following her for years. The way I knew more about her than I should, and the way our history together dated back more than just that one high school class.

As much as I believed I knew everything about her, I was discovering quite the opposite was true. For instance, on Thanksgiving night, she’d snuck out of her house and walked down the road, in the snow, carrying leftovers for a neighbor who I later found out was a squatter. I went back the next day and offered the neighbor a job at one of our firms just out of town, gave them a paid-for bus pass to get there and back, and once I left, I called the bank and bought the property. That neighbor was about to receive a truckload of furniture and a team of contractors that were going to put the place back together for her—fix the roof, the broken doors, all of it. Once I realized Rose had been taking care of her poor neighbor for almost a year—feeding and clothing her when she’d fallen on hard times after her abusive ex-husband left her there to rot—I knew I had to step in.

That burden didn’t need to fall on Rose’s shoulders. And I made sure it wouldn’t anymore.

“Briggs, did you hear me?”

“Hmm?” My fingers were playing with the ends of her hair against my pillow. All that was left to see was her hair wrapped around my fist like I’d envisioned earlier, but that would have to wait.

“You don’t have a TV in here, so can you read to me?”

“You want me to read to you?” It was dark out, and her body was starting to curl in on the mattress against me even more. She yawned, and her cheeks pinked over in sleepiness. It was too fucking cute.

“Yeah, read to me. Please.”

I leaned over and placed a soft kiss on the top of her head, and she squirmed against my chest. “Anything for you, Rose.”

Chapter 19

Rose

“All right, boy, skewer me. I’ve dropped my defenses, I’m an easy victim. Why, by now your arrows practically know their own way to the target and feel less at home in their quiver than in me.” ? Ovid

Warmth curled around my shoulder and lay under my cheek, the steady beat under my ear soothing.

“Good morning,babe.” Briggs’ voice was sleepy, but it warmed me all the same as his body stayed pressed to mine.

“What happened to sleeping on the floor?” Not that I wanted to see him on the floor. Especially not with his bruise.

His fingers traced the curve of my shoulder, his tender touch conflicting with the rough texture of his hands. “You didn’t want me on the floor, Rose.”

---