Page 81 of When the Storm Breaks
I squeezed my eyes shut, thrusting in and out of her, my balls tightening and the base of my spine tingling. Her short nails dug into my shoulders and I wouldn’t be surprised if she drew blood. My eyes opened and she threw back her head, exposing the column of her neck as she met me thrust for thrust. There was zero finesse in this, and no rhythm to speak of. She was pulling, and I was pushing, our breathing ragged as I pounded into her, needing more and more and more. Of fucking everything.
“Oh my God. Brody!” She screamed, her voice echoing off the tiles. I didn’t let up, I kept the punishing pace until her legs clamped tighter around me and her head fell to my shoulder, her body trembling with the release. Seconds later, I came so hard my legs felt like they might give out. I flattened my palm on the tiles behind her to steady myself and catch my breath. For a few seconds neither of us moved. My face was buried in the crook of her neck and she was still holding on so tightly like she was afraid that if she loosened her hold, I’d disappear.
“Don’t leave me,” she whispered, and I didn’t know if she was talking about right this moment or four days from now.
I lifted my head and pushed the wet hair off her face, my thumb stroking her cheekbone, my dick still inside her. “I’m not going anywhere, Shiloh.”
She was the one who would be doing the leaving, not me.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Shiloh
Dressedin Brody’s T-shirt and sweatpants, I crawled into bed next to him. He was wearing boxer briefs and lying on top of the covers, his back leaning against the headboard. It was strange that this was the first time I’d ever been in his bedroom, sleeping in his bed. His room was simply furnished with a tall oak dresser, two bedside tables that looked as if they’d been carved from a single piece of wood and off-white painted walls like the rest of the house. Everything was neat and tidy, no clothes strewn on the floor or dirty piles heaped in the corners of the room like Dean had always done.
The air smelled fresh and clean, like his cedar soap and the outdoors. Cream linen blinds covered the windows, open to let the fresh air in.
His bedding was forest green and a few framed black and white horse photos hung on the opposite wall. Horses were his first love, so I guess it was fitting that he kept photos of them in his bedroom.
He slid his arm around my shoulders, and I leaned into him, resting my hand on his heart, one of my legs draped across his lap. He wrapped his hand around my leg, just above my knee and asked me how I was feeling.
“I’m okay. Just a little stiff and shaken up.”
“You’ll be sore for a day or two.” His thumb made lazy circles on my skin and I thought those hands of his held magic in them. They were made for healing, not for breaking things.
“I owe you and Ridge so much.”
“You don’t owe us a damn thing.” But I did. They’d both stood up to take the blame for something I’d done. “You wanna tell me what’s going on with you, Shy?”
Earlier, I’d made the decision that I wanted to tell him everything. “You remember when you asked me why I was here, and I told you I had my reasons, but they were personal?”
“I remember.”
He waited for me to go on, his thumb still making lazy circles, his arm still wrapped around me. Not pushing me to hurry up and tell him what the hell was going on in my head. He’d come to find me tonight, no questions asked, and in some ways, he was part of the reason I’d broken down and cried so hard. Because real men, good men, showed up and tried to fix what was broken. They didn’t call you an idiot for driving through a thunderstorm. Didn’t try to make you feel shittier than you already did for wrecking a truck and killing that poor doe who had been unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Real men carried your burdens along with their own, and I thought Brody’s shoulders were broad enough to carry the weight of the world.
I took a deep breath in preparation to tell my story. Brody’s arm tightened around me as if he alone could hold me together and keep me from losing it again. I wouldn’t lose it though. I’d cried all my tears and it was time to let it go. “When I was eighteen, I got pregnant. But I didn’t even realize it until I was four months gone and had just graduated high school.” When I’d walked onto the stage to accept my diploma, Landry, Dean and Gus had cheered louder than anyone else in that audience. It had been a good day. One of my best memories.
“The guys and I had been making plans to hit the road as soon as I graduated. Dean bought ... or stole... I don’t even know which… but he got this old van, big enough to fit all of us and all our equipment. The guys had been working on that thing for months. We all wanted to get away, especially Dean. His family was... still is... total shit. If his dad wasn’t beating the shit out of him, his older brothers were. Anyway, I found out I was pregnant and that put a wrench in our plans... we were barely scraping by as it was…” I took a deep breath and let it out. Brody was massaging my upper arm with his hand and stayed quiet.
“Dean drove me to a clinic but when we got inside, I just couldn’t do it. He said he’d take care of it. He said he’d find the money somehow and we wouldn’t have to give up the baby or our dreams. I believed him because he can be very convincing, especially when he’s telling you what you want to hear. Unfortunately, Dean’s idea of taking care of things was to set up a chop shop in a garage he rented. A few months later, he got busted and ended up in jail. I had the baby at home. We couldn’t afford to go to a hospital so this elderly woman... one of Maw Maw’s friends... delivered the baby. And it was love at first sight.”
I shifted my position so I could see Brody’s face. He tipped his chin down and his eyes met mine. “Hayley,” he said. Not a question. A statement.
I nodded. “Yeah. Hayley was mine. But now she’s not.”
“You gave her up for adoption?”
I would have loved to lie and say yes. But I couldn’t lie to him. Not when I’d set out to be open and honest and tell the whole truth. “No. I wanted to keep her but my brother... he said I had to give her up, that we couldn’t take care of a baby. That I wasn’t ready to be a fit mother. We had no money. Dean was in prison. And I knew he was right. I knew he was doing what was best for everyone. But it was so hard to do. He drove me to the hospital and walked me in and I handed my baby over to a nurse, and I said ... I said I was exercising the Safe Baby Haven law. I had to answer some questions... I don’t even remember. But I didn’t even have to give my name.”
“And when I walked out of that hospital without my baby girl, I felt so empty. Like I’d lost a big piece of myself and I’d never get it back. Never be able to fill that hole in my heart.” I rubbed my thumb over the rosary tattoo on my ring finger. “The strangest thing happened. This old woman chased after me in the parking lot and when I turned to look at her, she smiled and pressed a rosary into my hands. And she said, “The good Lord hears your prayers and always listens. Sometimes you don’t get the answers you want, but the good Lord knows us better than we know ourselves, so we always get the answers we need.” And I’ve never forgotten her words on what had to be one of the worst days of my life. But I still feel like a horrible person for what I did. I turned over my own baby like she was ... an item of clothing that didn’t fit quite right.”
I stopped talking and we were silent for a few seconds. Now that I’d told the story, I couldn’t even look at Brody’s face. What must he think of me?
“Listen to me... you were only eighteen and you weren’t ready to be a mother. There’s no shame in that. You did the best thing you could at the time. The best thing for her and the best thing for you.”
“That’s what I keep trying to tell myself. She’s happy. And that’s all that really matters so I need to leave her alone and stay out of her life. That’s the best thing I can do for her.”
“Is it though? And what about your feelings? You think they don’t matter?”
