My chest tightened.
“Be clear, Brinley, I’m not worth any of that. There’s nothing left inside me that makes me worthy of whatever you think you’re feeling. Nothing decent or good. I ruin everyone that gets close.”
Something flared in her gaze that made me certain she was going to argue with me, so I ducked down, lips hitting the soft flesh at the top of her right thigh.
A feverish exhalation puffed out of her, and she murmured, “Yes.”
A clear invitation.
I slowly kissed over the delicious skin that could compete with the taste of Meems’s apple pie, though I’d never dare tell my grandmother.
This woman nothing but a perfect fantasy.
A perfect, torturous dream.
My cock screamed at my zipper.
I beat the lust back and forced myself to focus on what this was all about.
“Tell me where he hurt you, baby, and I’ll mark myself right over the top of it. Mark myself so deep that I’ll be the only thing you can feel. The only thing you can remember.”
I mumbled it as I kept kissing over the golden flesh of her legs.
Fingers wound in my hair, and Brinley arched higher as she yanked at the locks. “Everywhere.”
It was pain.
A plea.
Desperation.
Hunger battled with the rage that thrashed at my insides. Both were so stark, I didn’t know which was most critical.
Doubted she could never truly forget, but fuck, I was going to try.
A balm for the scars that had never fully healed.
Show her she no longer had to be a prisoner.
She was fucking free.
Free in me.
Those fingers curled tighter in my hair, right on time as I kissed higher.
I barely recognized my own voice as I spread her knees and murmured my lips up the inside of her thigh. “I’m going to make you feel so good, Brinley. Write myself all over you. Sink so deep that you’re going to forget what it was like before I met you.”
Claim you.
Put a property patch on her back so the whole fucking world would know who she belonged to.
I knew a whole hell of a lot better than that. Knew what it would cause.
Not to mention I was tangling with the club’s collateral.
But right then I couldn’t seem to convince myself otherwise.
Brinley let go of this desirous whimper as I edged higher, a gush of her words slipping off her tongue. “Give me everything you can.”
