his arm under her head, her leg thrown over his unwounded thigh. And even though his fingers were going numb, he couldn’t make himself move. Lying with Maddy was the closest thing to nirvana he’d ever known.
“Hmm,” she murmured. “I guess I’ve never thought about it before.” She absently played with his nipple. Every time she feathered her fingers across the hardened tip, blood surged to his cock.
He glanced at his watch.
Damn. Just two more hours.
Long enough for him to make love to her two, maybe three more times.
But two or three more times wasn’t going to be enough. Just as he’d feared, a thousand times wasn’t going to be enough.
“But I guess it probably has somethin’ to do with me bein’ the only girl in the family,” she mused. “And the youngest to boot. Watchin’ movies was the only way I could get my brothers to hang out with me. I didn’t hunt or play football, but I could do a pretty mean Footloose dance. I’ve got the moves,” she assured him, pinching his nipple and making his toes curl.
“Don’t I know it.” He slapped her ass.
She squealed, her eyes threatening murder. He smacked a kiss on her mouth and soothed the sting of his hand with a gentle caress. Soft. She was so unspeakably soft. He couldn’t get over it. Couldn’t stop touching her. Couldn’t stop wanting her.
Twisting her lips, she tucked her head beneath his chin and lifted her thigh higher. It brushed the base of his semi-hard shaft. Of course, his erection withered a bit when she asked, “So why did you become a movie buff?”
He could have evaded the question, he supposed, kept the tone light and flirty. But he didn’t. “Desperation,” he told her.
She pushed up on one elbow to stare at him. Her eyes were soft and warm, like summer storm clouds swirling in a hot sky. “What does that mean?”
“It means I started sneaking into my local movie theater ’cause it was a warm place to sleep in the winter and a cool place to sleep in the summer. After my parents died, and after I ran away from my third foster home because the middle-aged, chain-smoking woman there kept trying to come into my bedroom at night, I took to the streets.”
“Good Lord, Bran.” She searched his face.
“It wasn’t as bad as you think,” he assured her. “I couch-surfed in the homes of friends. I worked odd jobs and spent time in the library studying for my GED. Sleeping at the movie theater was always a last resort. And I found I actually liked watching all those movies. At night, after closing, I’d go into the storage room and shuffle through the old reels. I think I watched every one they had from Doctor Zhivago to The Matrix.”
She smoothed the hair back from his forehead. He closed his eyes and leaned into her hand, loving the feel of her. Loving her.
When he opened his eyes, it was to find a question burning in hers. He knew what it was before she asked it.
“Murder-suicide,” he told her and watched her throat work over a hard swallow. They were just two words. Alone they were awful. Put together they were reprehensible. “After a month in the shelter, Dad convinced Mom to come and talk things over.”
And why did you go, Mom? Why? It was a question he continued to ask himself even though he already knew the agonizing answer. She’d gone because she couldn’t stay away. As sick as it was, as perverse as it was, she’d loved his father. Loved all of him. The good, the bad, and the ugly.
But she hadn’t known just how bad and ugly Dad could be.
Bran had known. Even then, he’d known because the same badness, the same ugliness lived in him.
“Remember that shotgun I told you I borrowed from Joey Santorini’s father?” He watched Maddy nod jerkily. “Well, my father used one barrel on my mother and the other on himself. And you wanna know the crazy thing?”
She swallowed, a lone tear sliding down her delicate cheek.
“She was happy. Before she hopped on the bus, she was wearing her Little House on the Prairie smile.”
Maddy blinked, not understanding. And as he explained, the memory of that day, the last time he ever saw his mother, washed over him…
“Don’t go, Mom,” he pleaded, grabbing her hand.
Spring had arrived early, and even though the leaves hadn’t bloomed on the trees, the sun was warm and bright. It reflected