Page 73 of Dove
A smirk of satisfaction curled onto my face.Good.
We may have been circling each other since he’d been back, but he didn’t know me—not like he used to.
I stomped my way past him to the barn door, throbbing with each step I took. It was just another night with me, myself, and I. Sure, I was used to it by now, but it was growing old.
“Dove!”
I heard his long strides scuffle through the dirt and hay mixed on the floor.
“Dove,stop!”
His hand gripped mine and the force of his tug spun me around.
My hands splayed across his broad chest, my nipples aching as they pressed along his hard body as he stepped in closer.
“Would you justtalkto me,” he ground out. “Jesus, you’re being a brat.”
His exasperated tone just stroked my ire, as if I was being some intolerable, insolent child. Like this was merely a tantrum.
“I don’t know why you’re?—”
“Because of you!” I screamed, shoving him away as all the emotions I’d made an attempt to contain exploded out of me wildly. “You left, Josh. You left and younever came back!Not one letter, not one text,not one call. It could have been anything,fuck, a carrier pigeon for all I cared, because all I wanted to know was if you were okay. To have just one little reminder that you still cared about me. Because I missed you, despite it all. Then when Mom and Gareth—” My voice cracked. I couldn’tsayit. It was too fresh. “Youdidn’t answer.”
My vision blurred, tears prickling at my eyes.
“I was terrified I’d be left all alone,” I confessed in a whisper.
Josh swayed forward, reaching for me, but my hands pounded weakly at his chest, hardly noticing the hot tears that tracked down my face.
“You promised, remember?” I fisted his shirt. “You promised you wouldn’t leave me all alone. But youdid.”
I sniffled, glaring up at him with watery eyes. “So no, I don’t want you doing anything for me.Especiallythis. You don’t get the right, not when?—”
A sob I couldn’t hold back escaped.
Josh made a soothing noise in his throat, pulling me into him. He wrapped his arms around my shoulders, a hand coming up to cradle the back of my head as I cried into the collar of his shirt.
“I know,” he murmured into my hair as I wept. “I know, Dove.I’m sorry.”
Despite the sincerity of his words, my tears didn’t stop coming. I hiccupped through them, soaking the front of his shirt as I let myself cry,really cry, for the first time since that fateful call. Maybe even before.
To protect myself, I’d bound myself up so tightly from the outside world. It was one of the reasons why I’d been so cold when Josh arrived. It was why I didn’t let anyone in—because I was afraid I’d end up losing them.
Like I always did.
“I’m sorry I left,” he breathed against my temple before placing a feather-light kiss across it. “I promise I had no choice. As more time passed, I worried reaching out would just make things harder for you.”
I pulled back to look at him with what I assumed was a mess of red eyes and smudged mascara.
“Harder for me?”
His thumbs wiped under my eyes as he made a strangled sound in the back of his throat. Large hands cradled my face. “I’m yourstepbrother, Dove. Even if we never really call each other that… we grew up together. I’m meant to protect you, not—” He shook his head. “I can’t—wecan’t.”
I shut him up with a punch on the arm so hard my hand ached.
He didn’t even flinch, damn him.
“What the hell was that for?” His hands dropped from my face, one of them curling around the spot I’d just hit.
