Breathless_ Steel Brothers Saga - HELEN HARDT Page 0,17

get you anything? Water? A drink?”

She shook her head. “Just sit with me for a little while, okay?”

“Of course.”

She snuggled into me, and without thinking, I placed my arm around her shoulders. She felt so good in my arms, as if everything were right with the world.

Too bad everything was not right with the world.

But damn, with this beautiful woman in my arms, I could pretend it was, if only for tonight.

Funny. I was horny as hell for Marj, but the thought of fucking her wasn’t in my mind at the moment. I wanted to hold her, comfort her, let her lean on me. I wanted to be a rock for her.

Which was fucked up, really, because I was in no condition to be a rock for anyone. I couldn’t even be a rock for my own son and mother. They deserved better.

Marjorie Steel deserved better.

My legs itched. I should leave. I was the last thing she needed.

Yet she’d called me. She’d wanted me. She hadn’t called her brothers.

I kissed the top of her head once more.

Man, I was a goner.

Why had I tried to ease my ache for her with someone else? I could have fucked Heidi into oblivion, and I wouldn’t want Marjorie any less. I’d wanted her since I’d seen how amazing she was with Henry. Yeah, she’d looked like a supermodel in Jamaica, her long, lean body clad in a hot-pink bikini. I couldn’t deny she was beautiful or that I was physically attracted to her.

But I was physically attracted to a lot of women.

Marjorie Steel was different.

Marjorie Steel was better.

Marjorie Steel deserved the best.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t me.

But she needed me now, so I’d be here for her. I’d hold her as long as she wanted me to. Then I’d leave.

Chapter Eleven

Marjorie

Snuggled into the crook of Bryce’s muscular arm, I inhaled deeply. He smelled like man. Pure strong man. Woodsy and musky and everything I wanted. Everything I needed.

He’d walked out on me previously, and that still stung, but he’d come tonight when I called. I wouldn’t throw myself at him again. I’d wait this time. I’d wait for him to come to me. Even though everything in me was screaming at me to kiss him, to touch him all over, I’d wait.

At the moment, I was content to simply be in his arms.

To simply be with him.

I let my eyes flutter closed, inhaling once more. Again, he kissed the top of my head, as a father might kiss a daughter.

It was sweet. It was comforting.

I’d take what I could get.

I smiled against his chest when he took my hand in his, first entwining our fingers together and then rubbing my palm with his thumb. The massage felt good. Bryce had such strong hands. Beautiful hands—tan, perfectly square nails, long thick fingers.

Yeah. Long thick fingers…

I squirmed a little.

Nope. I was determined. If a move was to be made, he would make it. I would not throw myself at him again. That wasn’t me, had never been me. I wasn’t the forward type.

But I would look into his beautiful blue eyes. I needed to, needed to see what was reflected back in them.

I pulled away slightly and raised my head. He gazed down at me with those amazing eyes. Blue eyes had always attracted me. They were so much more vibrant and sparkling than my own boring brown ones. Green were also nice, but blue… When I was younger, I’d gotten some blue contact lenses to change my eye color, but I couldn’t stand how it felt to wear them, so I’d reluctantly accepted my brown eyes. My whole family had them, after all, and my brothers were considered the best-looking men in Snow Creek.

I didn’t agree, though. As much as I loved my brothers, their looks didn’t hold a candle to Bryce Simpson’s blond beauty.

His dark-blue eyes, like sapphires. His perfectly sculpted nose that still had a light spray of freckles over it. His high aristocratic cheekbones, his golden stubble. And those full, firm lips, even redder than I—

I jerked.

Bryce’s lips were a gorgeous dark pink, but tonight… I rubbed his bottom lip and then looked at my thumb.

Red.

Red lipstick.

“Marjorie…”

“I’m pretty sure you’re not a cross-dresser, Bryce.”

“Of course not.”

“Then exactly what did I interrupt tonight?”

Not that he owed me any explanation. Just because we shared a kiss to end all kisses twenty-four hours ago. I gulped down the uneasiness in my throat. I had no hold on Bryce Simpson. No hold at all. Yet I felt