Page 61 of Her Ex-Husband's Brother

And let go of her hand. It feels like a little death.

“Thanks,” I mutter, staring at the ground. “I’m so sorry for how I was back there. Look, I totally get it if you don’t want to work with me anymore now that you’ve seen I can be…” I cast around uncomfortably for the right word and land on, “unstable.”

“Are you kidding?” Lennon exclaims. “None of that was your fault. Jake’s a bully. August. Look at me.”

I’m still shaking when Lennon takes my face between her hands.

“Don’t you see?” she says. “He did to you exactly what he’s been doing to me.”

I go completely still.

Wait,what?

“No one has ever believed me,” I say.

The words come out scraped raw because it’s true. No one believes me. The assume I’m manic, unstable, confused, or remembering it wrong.

But Lennon believes me because Jake taught her to doubt her own mind, too.

My brother made both of us feel crazy.

Maybe that’s why Lennon and I recognize each other so clearly.

We’re the only two people on earth who know the monster wears a reasonable face.

Which hits me, a second later, with absolute horror. She gets it so deep because she’s experienced it, too. Jake and Kathy—they’ve

I throw my arms around her.

“I’m so fucking sorry, Lennon,” I say. “I’m so sorry you ever had to go through that.”

She clings to me back, and then all of a sudden she lets out an explosive sob against my chest.

Okay, wow, I’m definitely fully back at home in my body now.

She’s warm against me, cheek pressed against my chest and I run my fingers through her soft, sweet-smelling hair.

My fingertips are calloused and rough, but she’s soft. So incredibly soft, it’s almost bewildering. Like she came from another planet and crash-landed in my life.

I want to hold her like this forever. Comfort her tears until they stop and then pull her into my bed to soothe and kiss and lick every part of her body until she feels the magic of healingpleasure flowing through every nerve-ending just like the first night, except deeper now, so much deeper now that we?—

I squeeze my eyes shut even as my hand is drawn like a magnet to rub her back in circles.

What the fuck am I thinking?

I’m a cursed bastard and drawing her closer is only pulling her deeper into my darkness.

Let her go now, before it gets any more difficult. For either of you. She doesn’t know the dark thing they twisted you into.

She still has a chance to get out.So let her fucking go.

With incredible effort, I wrench my arms back slowly from holding her. Even more devastating because I know she needs the comfort. And fuck, I want to be the one to provide it to her.

I’m uniquely positioned to understand the pain she’s in.

But it can’t be me.

She pulls back, and I hate the way she immediately wraps her arms across her chest, like she’s embarrassed to have been so open.