Only For Him, page 38
“They care for you, Braelynn.” Aria doesn’t turn to face me as she stirs the meat sauce in the pan, but her voice is gentle. “I was there when the lawyer called, and he told us—” She shakes her head. With a few taps of the spatula on the edge of the pan, she puts it down and finally looks at me. “I care for you, too. So if you ever feel low again, will you tell me? I’m here for you. We’re all here for you.”
“Ever feel low?” I whisper the way she said it and feel my throat get tight. We both know what she’s talking about. The window incident.
“I don’t judge you,” she says firmly. “All of us have our issues.”
“I think…” I run my hand over my hair. Behind me, the water is starting to bubble. I can hear them popping at the surface. “I think I mostly just don’t want to talk about it.”
“That’s fine.” She reassures me with a quick smile. “We don’t have to talk about it. We can do whatever you need.”
Aria’s kind. She’s almost too kind, which makes me feel more conflicted. I don’t know if I can trust her. I don’t know if I can trust anyone. Guilt twists my stomach for even having the thought in the first place.
What the hell is wrong with me? With the water boiling, I shove it all down and grab the box of spaghetti.
The guilt doesn’t go away as I put the noodles into the boiling water and set a timer. Aria works on the sauce, stirring in spices, and we stand side-by-side in front of the stove.
Neither of us says much, and Aria seems fine with not talking. That makes me feel even guiltier. I don’t have any business not trusting her, I guess. She hasn’t done anything to make me think she’d try to hurt me on purpose.
Hell, I’m the one who messaged her.
I’m hungry and emotional. That’s all this is. I can’t be expected to think straight when today has gone the way it has and I’m starving.
Aria takes down plates before I can even ask where they are. She prepares the plates while all I do is watch. “Come on. Sit down and let’s figure it out.”
For a second, I think she’s talking about the whole situation, and that doesn’t seem like something we can solve over a plate of pasta. “Figure out what?”
She turns to look me in the eye as she answers, “When would be a good time to meet your mom and to introduce her to your new husband.”
DECLAN
That fucker didn’t let me out of there till 3:00 a.m. I sat in a room doing fuck all with nothing but my damn thoughts and an old-ass heater clicking on and off every twenty fucking minutes.
There are four bottles of whiskey on the bar cart and I choose the one closest. I don’t give a fuck which one I drink so long as it’ll stop my racing thoughts. I just want to sleep and have a moment of rest.
“You all right?” Carter’s voice startles me from behind.
“Nothing I haven’t been through before,” I answer him. He’s dressed in black silk pajama bottoms and looks like he rolled out of bed. “What are you doing up?”
“Waiting for you to get home. Did you check on Braelynn?” he asks me…which is out of the norm.
“Yeah, before coming out here.” She’s sleeping soundly, wearing the ring I bought her, although I keep those details to myself. “Why?”
“Paperwork isn’t filed yet?” he asks rather than answering my question.
“We’ll get it postdated and turned in tomorrow.”
“Good.”
“Why did you want to know if I’d checked on her?”
“I didn’t feel comfortable checking the cameras and Aria was asleep. Wanted to make sure she was all right.”
A tinge of something warm flows through my chest. It’s quickly extinguished though.
“Any thoughts from the interrogation?”
“Not so much an interrogation as it was a threat.”
Carter only grunts a laugh, tilting the whiskey bottles to read each label. “Someone had to know Mauer was poking around and they didn’t tell us.”
He pauses, his brow raising as he looks from the bottles back to me, “You sure?
Nodding I elaborate, “He has info going back almost a year. There’s no way at least one of the cops in our back pocket didn't know. The question is, why didn’t they tell us?”
“Someone else is paying them off?” he guesses, and his guess is as good as mine.
“Could be.”
“Let’s pay a visit to some friends tomorrow and see what we can find.” I nod and before I can pour a glass, he tells me, “We got a message from N about the rat too.”
“What did he say?” N is a big deal on the West Coast, friends of ours work for him and he’s someone we trust…well as much as we can trust anyone outside this house.
“It wasn’t just Scarlet. There’s at least one other woman but it’s someone in the bureau. One of their men got wind that they picked you up today because someone told them.” He pauses only a second before asking me, “Who knew?”
Adrenaline courses through my body, “Nate told the men at the bar he’d be with me.” I swallow down the pissed-off feeling. “So it could be anyone.” Frustration rings over me but the one thought that causes tension is that Braelynn could be lumped into that group. She could have told them and given them a heads up. I swallow the lump in my throat. “Obviously Braelynn knew but—”
“It wasn’t her,” Carter cuts me off with a hand on my shoulder.
“You checked her phone?” I question and shock is present in my tone but also hurt. He didn’t trust her, but then again, I already knew that didn’t I? Not only that, but my first thought was, when I’m back in the room, I need to check the monitoring device.
“Yeah…just to cover our bases. She didn’t send a single message or make a single call. It’s not her. It couldn’t have been. I believe her and I trust you on this. It’s not Braelynn but there is another rat.”
“You believe her now?” I ask him and he only nods. Relief floods through me as Carter pours two glasses of whiskey. The crystal tumblers clink as he picks them up.
“We’ll figure it out,” he says and passes me mine, “we always do,” he adds before clinking the glasses and downing his.
He sets his down on the counter as the amber liquid soothingly burns its way down my throat. “You tell the others?”
“Of course, they all know it wasn’t her,” he tells me, looking me right in the eye.
Some part of me wants to break down and stop fighting simply from knowing I’ve won that battle. It wasn’t my naive girl. But the other part of me feels nothing but rage. “It’s the same person who set her up to take the fall. I know it. I know it is.”
Carter pats my shoulder again, firm and indicating agreement.
“We’ll handle it tomorrow. Sleep well.”
I tell him good night and stare at the whiskey bottle a little too long, realizing her name is cleared. That my brothers believe her.
I didn’t realize how much I needed them to believe her until this moment. Emotions I’d rather not acknowledge swarm me as I make my way back to her, knowing all too well the war isn’t over.
When I open the door, the first thing I see is her beautiful form, the second is a stack of papers.
The marriage license lays unsigned, a pen laying across it on my nightstand. As I stare at it, Braelynn turns in bed, rustling the sheets.
Pushing her hair from her face, she peers up at me through thick lashes. Her naked body is covered by only a sheet from her waist up and the comforter hugs her hips. She’s tucked it between her legs and untangles herself from it.
“Declan?” she murmurs my name and I swear I’m getting used to her waking up to me hovering over her.
I close the door and tell her it’s all right and to go to bed.
She groans a sweet and sexy sound as she rolls and her breasts nearly show, but the sheet still covers them. Fuck, she’s so goddamn gorgeous. I’m hard instantly. I close my eyes and hold back a groan as I strip down.
“What time is it?” she asks and I let her know it’s nearly 4:00 a.m.
“We should sleep in tomorrow,” she says sleepily and then hugs my pillow, scooting close to my spot, as if she’s waiting for me to join her. I love it. I fucking love the little things she does like that.
It doesn’t change the guilt though. It only makes it grow in my chest.
I tell her, as I stand at the foot of the bed, “I’m sorry I got you into all this.” My voice is low and at first, I think she hasn’t heard me, but then she speaks.
“I had an idea of what I was getting into.”
“If you could go back,” I dare to ask her, “would you?” The bed groans as I climb in next to her.
“No. That’s the part I can’t get over,” she murmurs, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. The raw honesty is something I didn’t quite expect.
I chuckle, deep and low. “It’s not funny but—”
“No it’s not,” she comments back although apparently my smile is contagious because she wears one too. It brightens up her face.
Smiling into the crook of her neck, I wrap my arms around her and pull her in close. “I fucking love when I make you smile,” I murmur at the shell of her ear and then nip her lobe. She yelps a sweet little sound while tangling her legs with mine.
I’m naked, she’s naked, and this is all I want right now.
“Spread your legs for me,” I command her, kissing down her neck and she’s more than eager to agree. Opening for me and wrapping her legs around my hips. Before gripping my cock, I let my thumb rub her clit and her body shivers under me.
The sight of her teeth sinking into her lip as her neck arches makes me desperate to feel her cunt wrapped around me. In one quick thrust, I’m inside of her. I don’t give her time to adjust, I don’t stop when she gasps or when her nails dig into my back. I fuck her like she’s mine, all mine to do whatever I want with. I shove myself as far as I can inside of her, groaning into the crook of her neck as she screams out my name. Then I pound into her, over and over again, loving how she cries out each time in utter ecstasy.
She screams out my name. Mine.
“Come for me my little whore,” I command her and as if my words are her undoing, she obeys. It’s fucking heaven, feeling her come on my cock.
“Such a good girl,” I whisper and then ravage her. Relentlessly taking her and riding through her orgasm. By the time I’m done, she’s lost herself again and trembles beneath me, kissing me tenderly as I pulse inside of her.
I only get out of bed to clean up and return with a warm damp cloth to clean her up as well. She moans softly as I do and then bites down on her lip. “Settle down my little whore,” I reprimand her and she smiles wider, that deep blush darkening her tanned skin.
When I get back, the license stares back at me on the nightstand. I sign it without thinking of anything other than how I feel right now.
“I need you to sign this,” I tell her and put the paper on the pillow, the pen in her hand.
“Yes, husband,” she says as if she’s joking, but she signs it. A loopy B that’s curved and refined, signed with a shitty ball point pen on a pillow.
She hands me the pen and paper and tells me to get into bed. It’s late and I need to sleep.
Fuck, married for not even a minute and she already has me whipped.
“Yes, wife,” I respond, again somewhat comically, but my heart pounds in my chest with a feeling I’ve never known.
As I lay down and get comfortable, she cuddles next to me, her soft curvy body against mine, and kisses my chest. Then she tells me she loves me, and I believe her.
It occurs to me at this moment that I love her so deeply, I would light the world on fire if only she told me she wanted it to burn.
BRAELYNN
I thought the coffee shop would be the best place to meet my mom, a dainty place on the corner of a strip that’s very public, and I was right.
The sounds here are familiar and soothing. A barista steams milk for a latte, the coffee grinder whirrs, and a woman at the counter laughs.
I sit in a booth in the back corner of the café area, my hands around a mug of hot cocoa. I decide against coffee because I don’t think the caffeine will do a thing to help my nervousness. My mom’s mug, also filled with hot chocolate, waits across from me.
Nate glances at me from the other end of the shop and raises his eyebrows. He’s not the only one guarding me today. There are a few other men here. Declan’s people. They try their best to blend in, but I know the look of them too well. They don’t get lost in thought or spend too long looking at the laptops and phones they carry for cover. They’re always checking to make sure I’m okay. Declan may not be here at my wishes, but with how many men he sent to stalk my every move he might as well have been.
I give Nate a thumbs-up, somewhat sarcastically, though my heart races. I don’t know how this is going to go. I can already hear her telling me she’s been worried sick and how disappointed she is in me for not responding to her and for making her worry.
Wait till she hears the rest.
Just as I’m swallowing down that thought, my mother sweeps in through the door of the coffee shop, pushing sunglasses onto the top of her head and patting at her hair. Her gaze runs the length of the room until she finds me, and the look of relief on her face brings me absolute shame immediately. With a loosely hanging floral sweater that nearly gets caught on a chair, she rushes through the maze of tables with her purse held tight to her side.
She barrels straight past the empty seat with the hot chocolate and leans down over me. “My baby girl,” she whispers and her voice cracks. I stand up into the hug, keeping my left hand behind her back. Mom squeezes me tight, then tighter, shaking slightly.
It all adds to the guilt, but still, I hold her back just as tightly.
“Mama. Hi.”
“Braelynn.” Her voice is low and stressed. She pushes me back to get a good look at me, her hands gripping my shoulders, then lets out a breath. “Braelynn, where—”
“Here, sit down. I got you some cocoa.”
“Cocoa? Thank you, but—” My mom lets me guide her into the seat across from me. She hooks her purse onto the chair and blinks down at the cocoa like she’s never heard of it before. I take my seat and slide my hand under the table. Mom’s eyes snap back to mine. “Where have you been? Ignoring all my calls and messages. Braelynn, you worried me sick, neña.”
“I’m okay,” I tell her simply and she leans across from me, silently looking over my expression.
She puts one hand on the table. “Where have you been? I thought I lost you. You don’t have children, so you can’t understand what that’s like.” I take a deep breath and try my best to keep my expression calm. I don’t want to smile too widely and I don’t want to cry just from being here with her finally, because that would worry her more. So I focus on holding myself together.
“This isn’t like you. I’ve been up nights. I can hardly sleep. I worry about you, and I thought—”
“Mom, I have to tell you something.”
Her questions stop and her eyes search mine. My mother waves me on, impatient. “Tell me, then. Explain this.”
“Do you want to drink some cocoa first?”
She shakes her head, bewildered. “I can’t. Tell me what you need to say.”
“I’ve been lying to you.”
Her brow furrows. She looks like she doesn’t know whether to be angry or relieved or suspicious. “Lying about what?” she asks, her hands finally wrapping around that mug. Her eyes flash with worry and I wish I could skip over this part and just hug her again.
“I went away with a man.” I start and my voice chokes up.
Mama startles backward, her hand going to her chest. Questions flicker through her eyes. She must be choosing between a hundred of them. Guilt weighs me down, pushing me back into the chair, when she asks, “Did he hurt you?”
“No,” I whisper and the memories in my head betray the calm I wish to portray. There’s a long silence. She clearly doesn’t believe me so I distract her. “He made me fall in love with him, though.”
My mom sags forward, looking at me with pure skepticism in her eyes. “Mi neña.” A smile falters on her face. She’s trying to make light of this, and I don’t think she can. “So a man kept you from me?”
“Mama, I need you to listen to me.”
“Neña, I’m worried for you. You lied about where you work. Now you lied about this man. That bar isn’t safe. You have to know what you’re getting yourself into and now look. This man can’t be—”
She keeps talking, not even pausing to take a breath. Regrets pile up on one another as tears brim in her eyes.
I regret telling her I was a waitress, but what else was I supposed to say? I had to tell her something to avoid this situation. Except I didn’t avoid it in the end. I’m still sitting here in the coffee shop while my mom’s cheeks redden and her voice rises a little more with every sentence.
I just need to get this out. I need her to know so we can move on from here. All the rest—the waitressing job, even being out of contact for so long that it kept her up at night—is already done. She won’t ever get an explanation if she won’t let me say the words. I spent hours wishing I could tell her everything.
That’s what love makes people do, I think. It makes them worry and say far too much and forget that a conversation is supposed to be a two-way street.
“Mama!” I slap my hand down on the table. One of the coffee shop waiters stops mid-step on his way to us and turns around. He was probably going to ask us if we wanted to order anything to eat, but that would be a waste of time, because neither of us has taken a single sip of our cocoa and I imagine, like me, there isn’t an appetite in sight.
Her eyes drop from my face to the ring on my finger. The diamond glitters in the café light. The wedding band sits snug against the engagement ring. Both pieces in the set have been polished until they shine, and she can’t miss them. I silently tell myself off for choosing my left hand to hit the table with, but…now it’s done.
