Page 35 of Brash for It
“Yeah,” I encourage, against her mouth, against the pulse in her throat.My fingers working inside her like I’m playing her body as an instrument.Hum for me.“There you go.”
She comes sharp and sudden, not a drawn-out opera, more like a clean break.The kind the body makes when it remembers it’s not a problem.She clamps on my fingers and I ride it with her, steady, steady, steady, and then ease her out of the haze of ecstasy slowly, gently.
It would be the simplest thing in the world to keep going.To strip the distance the rest of the way and call what follows inevitable.I could tell myself I earned it.That she kissed me first.That every sign points right.I’m not a man who takes the easy version of important things.
I ease my hand free, slide her shirt back down, and kiss her once more, soft, like a period instead of an open-ended moment.
She blinks up at me, pupils blown, lips swollen, hair wrecked in ways that make me hungry and something else I don’t like naming.“Kellum,” she breathes, a question hooked to my name.Desire still there burning hot.
I shake my head once and put my forehead to hers holding myself back and silently begging her not to ask for more so I don’t snap and take her the way I want to.“You’re on the rebound, Kristen.”
Her brows pull in frustrated with me.“I— I know what I want.”
“I know what you just found in freedom and in yourself,” I state, not unkind.“It’s good, darlin’.Keep it.”She whimpers and her face saddens.I continue, “Listen, when we have sex, it’s not gonna be because your head’s messy, my head’s a mess, and we’re the nearest thing to each other.It’s gonna be because you’re fully mine—mind, body, soul.Because you pick it in the daylight and don’t stutter when you said it.”
The words feel crazy in my mouth.Old-fashioned and too big, too honest.They’re the only ones that feel right, though.And something about her, I want to get it right.
Something happens in her face I don’t expect.Not anger.Not embarrassment.It’s like a relief so sharp it aches.Her eyes shine, not with tears—a different light.She exhales, long and shaky, and laughs once, small and broken open.“Who are you?”
“Complicated,” I state.“Hungry.”I continue.“Stupid.Not stupid.”
She presses her palm to my cheek.Her thumb skims the line of my jaw where the scruff of my beard’s gone soft at the end of the day.“Okay.”
“Okay,” I echo, and inside I mean I heard youand hold me to that and I promise I’ll hold myself harder.
We don’t move for a minute.The room breathes around us.The fridge hums its dumb song.A car goes by outside and doesn’t slow.Her heartbeat settles against my chest.Home.
“Come on,” I say, after a while, because not moving turns into thinking and thinking is the enemy in nights like this.“Bed.”
She goes with me without questions and without worry.In the doorway, she tugs on my shirt like she wants to say something and doesn’t know how.I solve it by switching off the lamp and letting the room go soft.In the dark, honesty comes easier.
We climb in bed.I don’t make a show of distance.I don’t crowd her either.When she turns onto her side and inches toward me until our knees kiss, I do what I do and hook my arm and draw her across me in the practiced way we’re starting to have.Her sigh is a surrender I respect.
“You’re gonna be trouble,” she mutters into my chest.
“Already am.”
“Not like that.”She taps my sternum with one finger.“In here.”
I snort, humorless and true.“Get in line.”
She goes very quiet, then: “I don’t feel scared.”
“Maybe you should reconsider that.”
“I think you’re worth it.”Her hand rests over my heart like it’s a thing she might take if I offered and one I’d have to wrestle back.“Good night, Kellum.”
“Night, Kristen.”
I stroke her hair, slow and thoughtless, our way.She falls asleep faster than she should after a ride, a kissing, and a confession.I lie awake a while longer because men like me check the perimeter before we rest.Door locked.Phone on the nightstand.Knife where I always leave it.Gun nearby.Woman breathing steady on my chest like she decided this is a thing she gets to have—rest, safety, a person that doesn’t demand payment for every soft sound she makes.
Eventually even my head gives up.Sleep takes me.Outside, the moths keep throwing themselves at the porch light, stupid as fuck.Inside, a one of a kind beauty blooms between us, patient and sure it can wait.This is something that can withstand the test of time.
Ten
Kristen
Sixty four daysin a row of waking up in the same bed.Sixty four days of Kellum’s steady presence, of mornings that smell like coffee and evenings that end with his arm thrown heavy across me like it belongs there.Sixty four days of not hearing Brian’s voice or seeing his face, except in the shadowed corners of my dreams where he still likes to remind me how disposable I am.
