Page 47 of A Brother At My Back

17

Tiff...

“I really hate guns,” I said, and looked at him from across my kitchen counter. He was standing in my small studio, hanging his jacket on the back of one of my two chairs at my little table and he nodded.

“I know,” he said.

“There’s a reason for it, but I don’t know if I want to tell you.”

“Why not?”

“Because it will just make you mad, and there isn’t anything you can do about it. There’s nothing anyone can do.”

He nodded and pulled the chair out and sat down in it, leaning back and watching me carefully, waiting me out. I moved around my kitchen, setting water on to boil and bringing down two large mugs.

“Try me, eh?” he said finally and I nodded, pulling down two packs of cocoa from another cupboard. I needed the chocolate fix.

I told him the reason why. That one of my foster dads had used to threaten us with one. Put it in our mouth, threatened to pull the trigger. Sometimes he had pulled the trigger, but it was always empty. Still, the mind games… there were more than a few times that I wished it weren’t, just so I didn’t have to deal with the fear and the terror anymore when he got to drinking.

Nik sat real still, knee bouncing with agitation. It felt good to tell someone else other than Delia about these things. Felt even better that he was mad about them on my behalf, but at the same time? I didn’t like talking about it because I didn’t like how upset he got. How angry he looked… dark eyes stormy as his expression drew down in a tempestuous scowl. He very nearly hummed with a barely-contained violence but then he would look at me and if I displayed any sort of apprehension, it would melt away, all that anger would drain as if through the floor and would simply be gone as fast as it’d come on.

“You’re right, it makes me angry. You’re also right that it’s not worth going back and shoving that gun up his ass. But I’d very much like to.”

I moved around the kitchen counter and he straightened in his seat, putting his hands on top of his denim-clad thighs and looking up at me as I drew near. I straddled his lap and sank down onto it, my arms twining around his neck on the shoulders of his open red and black flannel, the white waffle pattern thermal stretching tantalizingly over his chest.

“I know,” I said, voice huskier than a moment before with a deep emotion. “That’s one of the things I love about you. You listen, you want to do something, but you’re practical. You don’t do anything without a deliberateness… it’s kind of hot actually.”

He smiled up at me, his hands which had found my hips, drifting up to cup my face and finish bringing me down to him for a kiss. “Yeah?” he asked, right before our lips touched and then it was just the warmth of his mouth against mine.

I felt my muscles lose some of the tension they’d been holding and it felt good to relax. I had such a hard time doing it lately, but with Nik, it was easier somehow. I dipped my head and kissed him, fingertips ghosting along his jaw even as his hands gripped me tighter around my back. I scooted closer, even though it really involved being plastered up against him for all I was worth and his tongue teased at the seam of my lips, requesting I deepen it.

I love how he asked, not always with words, but asked none the less. I parted my lips and met his tongue with mine, sighing out in satisfaction.

He pulled back slightly and rested his forehead against mine, eyes closed, but I watched him and I could see there was something he wanted to ask but it had that weight, that feel to it inside my head that it wasn’t necessarily something I was going to like.

“What is it?” I whispered and he looked up at me.

He swallowed hard and he said, “I want to ask you…”

Apprehension filled me and I felt myself go really still on his lap. I didn’t like the insecurity I heard in his voice but at the same time, whatever he wanted to ask, it sounded like it had the potential to hurt. I steeled myself and said, “Go on. Ask.”

“Is there something that you could give me?” he asked. “Something that you don’t give the men at the club. Something that you hold back from them but not me?”

He swallowed hard and I felt the tension that had suddenly overwhelmed me loosen to the point that I nearly went liquid with relief.

“I already do,” I said shyly and I kissed him. His breath caught and he kissed me back, arms tightening around me like he was afraid I was going to go, like he was going to lose me for asking, but this? This, surprisingly, is something I understood. He needed to know he was special to me, but I didn’t know if there was any way possible I could tell him or even show him just how special he was.

“I kiss you,” I whispered against his mouth. “I don’t kiss anyone else.”

“Yeah?” he asked, voice strained.

“Yeah,” I murmured softly. “Pretty Woman Art of Hooking Handbook, kissing someone is special. Kissing is intimate. You hold that back for yourself and your partner.”

He leaned back and looked at me, a frown on his face and blurted out, “There’s an actual handbook for prostitutes?”

I threw back my head and laughed, high and clear; it was so absurd and took me totally off guard. I looked back down and captured his face in my hands, kissing him fiercely. Happy. I was happy and this was too much.

“No!” I declared. “Pretty Woman! You know, Julia Roberts? Richard Gere? The movie?”

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