the sides of my panties, dragging them down so slowly I thought I might scream. I lifted my legs as if to hurry him along, but I should’ve known that Brody wouldn’t bend to my silent demands.
“I’m taking my time. Looking my fill so I can commit this to memory. I’d paint your face just like this. Need coloring your cheeks. But I don’t want to share this view with anyone.” With one final flick of his wrist, he tossed the last bit of lace to the floor.
He pulled open the drawer in his nightstand and pulled out a small packet. I watched in fascination as he rolled the condom over himself, my stomach hollowing. Brody trailed his hands up my thighs, a finger dipping into my core. Teasing, testing. His eyes grew hotter, and my breath caught in my throat.
“I want to feel you.” The words didn’t even sound as if they belonged to me. They were from some stranger inhabiting my body. But I didn’t care one bit.
His tip bumped against my entrance. “You’re sure?”
“Please.”
He entered me in one slow stroke. My breath caught, my lungs stilling. The stretch, the fullness, the slightest bite of pain. Brody’s hand cupped my cheek. “Too much?”
“Perfect.” And it was. Everything about the feeling was what I needed to reinforce that I was alive.
As Brody slowly began moving, gliding in and out, every sensation melted, transforming into warmth and want. My legs hooked around his hips as my hands found his shoulders, his neck. Every movement I made begged for more, deeper. I wanted to feel him everywhere.
With one angle of Brody’s hips, he gave me just that. The hum that our bodies created together radiated to every muscle and synapse. I wasn’t sure I could take much more. I’d never felt this much all at once. And with a brush of his roughened thumb across my clit, I found I couldn’t.
All that sensation collapsed in on itself and then exploded out again, a shower of sparks from my very center cascading across the rest of me. Light danced across my darkened vision. And no part of me doubted that I was here. Breathing. Alive.
27
Brody
My fingers trailed up and down the bumps and ridges of Shay’s spine. I wanted to commit every piece of this moment to memory. Burn it into my brain so I’d never forget. I’d never felt Shay so relaxed, so at peace. But each second that passed, a little more tension snuck back into her muscles. As if her body were trained to revolt against any kind of true closeness. Walls that had been in place for so long took time to break down fully.
I brushed her hair away from her back, trailing my fingers down her spine again. “Want to tell me what’s going on in that head of yours?”
She didn’t pull away when I asked, and that was a victory of sorts. Instead, she seemed to burrow deeper against my chest. “How do you always know when something’s messing with my head?”
“Right now, I feel it. The slow tightening of your muscles. You were practically boneless thirty minutes ago.”
She laughed. “And I think you know why that is.”
I pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “So, tell me what’s changed.”
Shay let out a slow breath. “A million worries invading my brain.”
I moved my hands to her head, massaging her scalp as if I could clear away those worries with my fingers. “Tell me about them. Sometimes, if you give them voice, they lose their power.”
“I wish it was that easy.”
“Try.” I squeezed the back of her neck. “Tell me the biggest one right now. Go.”
“That he’ll hurt you.”
The words seemed to tumble out of Shay’s mouth before she could stop them. I froze. “That who will hurt me? Michael?”
She nodded slowly against my chest. “He’s done it before. Every time I got close to someone growing up, something bad would happen. A lot of times no one could prove it was him, but I always knew.”
“What do you mean something bad?”
Her fingers started tracing swirls on my pec. “When I was in fourth grade, and he was in third, a new girl moved to town. Jill. She and I really hit it off. We’d hang out at the playground every day after school. Michael would come with us most of the time. One day, I’d gone to get snacks from my mom, who always sat on one of the benches to read while we