Page 72 of A Brother At My Back

“I’m happiest when I’m with you,” I said, and it was true. It was just hard to find any bit of light right now.

“I see that too,” he said.

I sniffed and he pulled me close and simply held me for a time.

“Will you read to me before bed?” I asked.

“I’ll do whatever you want.”

“You sure about that?” I asked and I meant it to sound teasing, but I don’t know that it came out that way. He went to his knees, carefully, hands slipping up the hem of his tee to rest along the top of my thighs, just under my ass.

“What are you doing?”

“Well, I figure if I were going to get you to look at me, I needed to come down here.”

I blinked and frowned slightly. “I don’t understand.”

“The floor, Girl. You’re always looking at the floor.”

“I am?”

“Yeah.”

“I hadn’t realized,” I said and he got back to his feet. He smiled faintly, his fingertips traveling around my legs and up my hips, dragging the tee with it as he stood. I raised my arms and let him drag the soft material over my head. He dropped it, lying beside the towels on the bench.

I was suddenly fascinated, completely mesmerized by his movements as he slipped out of his shorts and went into the shower, turning it on, getting the water warm before reaching out to me. I went to him and he drew me under the spray, tipping my head back and letting my hair soak, the water from the shower-head sluicing it back from my face.

“You’re an extraordinary woman,” he whispered and I stepped closer to him and pressed my lips to his. I loved that he said these things to me, out of the blue, but at the same time, for reasons I couldn’t understand, they embarrassed me and so I kissed him to silence him and his compliments. The only way I knew how to tell him I loved them, but also, that I was uncomfortable hearing them.

He washed me. Carefully, mindful that I might be, and actually was, sore. Of course, it was that delicious kind of soreness that only a really good fuck could provide.

“Just lean against me,” he murmured as he washed my hair and I did. Holding him around his waist carefully.

I felt so disconnected from everything. Wrung out and exhausted, but not tired. It was confusing. I couldn’t really hold onto a single thought in my head and I didn’t know what was wrong with me. So I let him take care of me. I let him do everything and stood in my zombie-like state and fell ever more hopelessly in love with him, which was terrifying to me now.

I mean, what if Silas found out? He would hurt Nik, possibly even kill him, just to hurt me.

I found myself fetched up hard against his chest and trembling, my lips pressed to his shoulder as he held me and soothed me. I hated this. I hated what I’d become, this trembling, anxiety-riddled thing.

Things blurred and the next I knew he was drying me off, but I couldn’t remember him turning off the shower. Then we were cuddled in his bed, but I don’t remember walking back across the hall.

“You’re exhausted,” he said. “Just sleep,” but I couldn’t, not really.

He read to me and I don’t know what it was he read from one of his many books off one of his many shelves, but that didn’t matter so much. What mattered was I was safe, I felt loved, and I was carefully cradled against his chest as his rich, melodic, accented voice lulled me word by word, minute by minute until I saw, felt, and heard nothing, claimed by sleep.

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