Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100859 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100859 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
We sit in silence for a few moments, the both of us looking around and taking it all in. It feels like our past and present have melded, but the future is more unknown than ever.
“What did you want to talk to me about?” I ask him after a couple of minutes pass by. Somewhere in the depths of the barn below, I hear a flutter of wings.
He doesn’t say anything to that. I know he’s heard me, so I just let him wait and decide.
Finally, he says, “I’ve done a bad thing.”
His voice is so low and strained I can barely hear it, but that doesn’t stop my pulse from quickening.
“What do you mean?” I ask. Even with the moonlight, his face remains shadowy and hard to read.
“I can’t explain,” he says.
“You can’t, or you don’t want to?”
Silence.
“You can tell me anything, you know that, Brom,” I tell him. I want to reach out for his hand, but I’m afraid to. Not until I know what the bad thing is. “Did you kill someone?” I whisper.
He gives me a sharp look, his thick brows arching. “No,” he says defensively. “Why was that your first thought?”
To be honest, I don’t know. I’ve never thought of Brom as someone murderous or cruel, but he is quick-tempered and hotheaded, prone to impulses and flights of fancy, and I suppose if he accidentally killed someone because he overreacted or couldn’t get a handle on his emotions, I wouldn’t be too shocked.
“I’ve just never seen you so upset,” I admit.
He swallows, the sound audible in the barn. “I didn’t kill anyone.”
“Then what did you do?” I inch close to him, the hay sticking to my gown as I move. “Tell me, Brom.”
“I…” he begins, his voice hoarse. He stares at his splayed hands for a moment, then looks at me, and now I can read him. Now I see the change that’s come over his face.
He’s tormented and torn, and inside of all that, there’s desire. Red-hot, potent desire that I’ve never seen him wear before, never seen on anyone in my sheltered little life.
It makes my breath hitch in my throat, excitement flutter in my chest.
“I don’t know how to deal with my feelings for you,” he finally says.
Oh. Oh!
“Feelings?” I repeat, so scared to let that flutter in my chest turn into full-blown wings and fly away toward hope. Even though I have tried to ignore the changes between us and I’ve pretended that I still see him as just a friend, it turns out I’ve secretly hoped that one day we could be more, become what we were always promised to each other.
I don’t know what else to say, and it doesn’t matter.
Because Brom leans over and grabs my face in his hands, and he kisses me.
He’s kissed me before, a shy peck on the lips when we were young and sitting under Hollow Creek Bridge, but this is completely different. This is warm and soft and strong all at once, the press of his lips, the wetness of his tongue. It shocks me, lightning that jolts down my spine, this sudden intimacy and intrusion. I don’t know what to do—I don’t know how to kiss him back, but it doesn’t seem to matter.
He’s taken the lead, and I’m following.
His kiss deepens, coaxing me, and he slides his tongue against mine, showing me what he wants. I oblige, already feeling like I’m being swept away, taken to places I’ve never been before, and drowning in him. I kiss him the best I can until I feel my entire body grow warm and tense, like I’m hungry for the first time.
But there’s no hiding his hunger for me.
He moves so that I’m falling back into the hay and his body is on top of mine and it’s all such a blur. His mouth goes to my neck, kissing and licking and sucking along my skin, the weight of him taking my breath away. I don’t know where this is going, but even though it scares me, I’m willing to go along because this is our destiny, isn’t it? The two of us together, married, until death do us part—that’s what we were always supposed to be. The act of our bodies coming together is inevitable.
We don’t talk as this is happening, as his hands go to my dressing gown and touch my breasts until they ache, as another hand slips up between my legs. I’m nervous, and I know I could say no, but this is Brom, and I trust him more than anything. Even though I’m worried I won’t be good enough for him, even though I’m afraid of how much it will hurt, I want him.
I want him.
And all I’ve wanted is for him to want me.
He fumbles for his pants, undoing them, and then I feel him on my thigh, and I’m shocked at how warm he is, how he’s both solid and soft against my skin. My cheeks flush at the intimacy of it all, at this new side of him, my body heating up from the inside.