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Then she’d started vomiting words she hadn’t wanted to utter but was helpless not to, and it was so adorable, I found myself laughing. In that moment, with her beautiful face flushing with the most adorable shade of pink and her dropping her head into her hands, I knew.
She was mine.
Then Mia had dropped the biggest, most painful bomb in my lap. The helpless feeling I got when she said Nevaeh wasn’t even sixteen yet was worse than when I lost my leg. I felt sick to my soul, because I’d instantly wanted her and knew I couldn’t have her.
Then I’d met her in person, and I fought my feelings tooth and nail. I ached for days after, wanting her. Just to hold her, touch my fingers to her baby-soft cheek, brush my lips over her plump lips, and inhale the scent of her skin. I knew if I saw her again—fuck, if I just heard her voice again—I would be lost completely. It was why I’d practically begged Mia to talk her cousin out of attending school with us. I needed distance, as much as humanly possible, to keep my sanity, to protect her from all the thoughts I had rioting through my head on a marathon loop of all the things I wanted to do to and with her.
And then I found out about what happened after I left her in New York, and I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t know exactly what had gone down—not until she told me months later—but I knew something had upset her. Someone scared her, took something from her they had no business taking, and I wanted to break his fucking neck.
I couldn’t stay away after that. Couldn’t get past wanting to protect her from everything life could throw at her, my sweet little kitten who never should have to know the dangers of the outside world. As long as I could be beside her, I would find the strength to hold my feelings in check.
Just until her eighteenth birthday.
As I walked up the stairs to her bedroom, I felt my heart jackhammering in my chest. I was moments away from seeing her, and now I didn’t have to hold back. I could hold her, touch her, kiss and taste her all I wanted. I had two years of wanting, aching, and craving her to catch up on, and I was going to get my fill.
Stopping outside her bedroom door, I inhaled deeply and slowly let it out as I lifted my hand and knocked.
“Just a sec,” she called out, and I braced myself by putting my hands on either side of the doorframe.
Closing my eyes, I waited, blocking out the sounds of the party from below so I could savor every moment of seeing her. I heard the doorknob turn and felt the air shift as it swung inward. Her soft gasp had my eyes snapping open, and I took in all of her slowly.
Her feet were bare, as were her legs. I lifted my gaze hungrily, pausing at the hem of her dress that started mid-thigh. Up and up I went, past the flare of her hips, over her flat stomach and her perfect tits. Her hair fell over her left shoulder as she stood there with her hands lifted to fasten an earring in her right ear. There was no makeup to enhance her angel-like beauty, and even though she wasn’t wearing her glasses, her blue-gray eyes still had that animated kitten quality to them as she blinked at me in utter surprise.
“Braxton,” she whispered, her chest heaving as she met my hungry gaze.
“You’re so goddamn beautiful, baby,” I rasped, my voice full of the need that had been gnawing at me for years.
Nevaeh instinctively took a step back, and then another, until I was inside her bedroom and was able to close the door. Then I grabbed her hips, my fingers biting desperately into her flesh through the material of her dress as I swung her around and pressed her against the door.
“Brax,” she moaned, her back arching, pressing her chest into mine as I lowered my head slowly until my breath was bathing her plump lips. “Please.”
“Tell me what you want, Kitten,” I commanded, brushing my nose over hers. “I need to hear you say it.”
“Kiss me,” she begged. “Please, just one kiss. P-please.”
Her voice broke on the last plea, and I couldn’t have held back another second even if our lives depended on it. Cupping the back of her skull in one hand, I tilted her head so I could take as much of her mouth as I wanted while my lips sealed to hers. Her fingers twisted in my black button-up, pulling me impossibly closer as she sighed into my mouth.
I swallowed it, then thrust my tongue deep, tasting every inch of her sweetness. I felt more than heard her moan and pressed her harder against the door.
When I lifted my head an indeterminate period later, we were both gasping for breath, and her mouth looked as though I’d ravished it. Panting heavily, she rubbed her thighs together unconsciously, and it took every ounce of self-control I had left not to carry her to her bed and spread her open for me so I could taste her pussy and relieve the ache she felt that was making her squirm against me.
Instead, I cupped her chin and angled her head so she was forced to meet my gaze. “Happy birthday, Kitten.”
Chapter 10
Nevaeh
I could still feel his lips imprinted on mine. Every time I licked my lips, I tasted him, no matter what I drank or ate.
After that amazing, bone-melting kiss—the first kiss I should have had and not the one Dax had forced on me years before—he’d helped me zip up my dress then taken my hand. Kissing my knuckles, he’d opened the door he’d just had me pressed up against and walked me downstairs.
My legs had still been shaky, so I was glad to have him to guide me because I knew I never would have made it down on my own. My family and loved ones surrounded us the instant we reached the first floor, and he stayed beside me over the next two hours. Putting drink after drink in my hand, feeding me from the plate Mom pushed into his hands at one point, loaded with all my favorite finger foods.
I heard every word people said to me, but then I would look into Braxton’s hungry eyes, and I would forget what we were talking about. Sly grins were tossed our way, but I didn’t see a single one of them. My focus was drawn over and over again to the man at my side, and I couldn’t bring myself to care that everyone in my parents’ house was there to wish me a happy birthday.
All I wanted was to be alone with Brax. I wished we were back in Virginia, just the two of us alone in the house, and that he would do more than just kiss me breathless. I wanted to know what the rest of him tasted like, not just his delicious mouth.
And then Daddy put his arm around my shoulders, and I was pulled back into reality. I’d seen him walking around talking to all our guests, laughing and joking with everyone, and every time, a feeling of the most acute sadness would make me feel like I was drowning in unshed tears. Every time, Braxton would see them and rub his thumb over my bottom lip, whisper, “Kitten,” and make me forget about the pain wanting to consume me.
